new dungeons vs old dungeons

[Cyglaive]

I agree. Going forward I hope they'd consider making dungeons have side rooms and maybe even optional bosses. As a tank main, running in a straight line until you can't go any further, waiting for the mobs to die(rinse and repeat)started to get really boring early on in Heavensward. I'm hopping they start to add variety and cool offshoots or things to explore or interact with.

I understand that offshoots need to be rewarding by providing optional loot, currency, or some other reward meaningful enough for players to care about doing them. Otherwise it'll just be a race to the end regardless of how many optional things there are to explore. It's a balancing act, but going into the game's second expansion players are eventually going to get tired of the same dungeon design and demand something different, even just slightly, so that things stay fresh. In terms of optional bosses, the FF series is the king at providing them, so this shouldn't really be against their design philosophy.

[Cidel]

there has to be something worth in the optional rooms.

This is the main hurdle. If there's only a chest that is in all likeliness is going to give glamour prisms or some inventory space -1 potion, the vast majority won't care; and so far that's all they've been willing to stick in most chests. Yeah, sometimes there's an accessory, but again, most players don't seem to need them and probably entered with a higher ilvl anyway.

If the devs stick some things in chests that the playerbase really wanted, like I dunno, the whole reason they're probably there, (tomestones), dungeon vouchers for some random item like PotD's or straight-up materia, then maybe then side corridors and optional areas would see frequent activity.

Back in 1.2x, the dungeons dropped several chests after the boss pending what prerequisites your group achieved. If I remember correctly, one chest only appeared if you opened every side-chest in the dungeon. There's an idea right there.

[Chiramu]

Its prob because most people turn out just wantting to speed run all dungeons

You can speed run all dungeons with huge open dungeons, the only difference is open dungeons don't feel linear. I would prefer if the new dungeons will not follow the standard formula and that they made them different; little rooms off the path is not making them bigger.
The dev team have looked at WoW, I hope they will take some inspiration and make some big open dungeons like you can find in WoW. Yeah, WoW has it's linear dungeons too, but they have the open ones too. ATM FFXIV only has linear maps, bosses in specific order and no loot upgrades for your main class.

[Gumbercules]

ppl want out of them as soon as possible so its hard to justify the extra "rooms" look at how tam tara was during alpha and people were mad it was a dungeon that took 30 ish mins XD (and was mildly challenging)

Open dungeons in wow tend to still result in "linear" progression and are also more prone to toxic behavior though, I used to like zul farrak and its event like design though, but i can't even tell you how much of that is just nostalgia. During legion there is that one dungeon that has the water boss at end and you have to run around an open area to get to the bosses, but that one I see alot of rage quitting when there are new people involved. (or I should say used to see, havent played legion in like 5 months now)

[Okamimaru]

I've been running the 50 and under dungeons solo lately, not for loots but just to wander around and look at all the details they put into the dungeons... compared to the ARR dungeons places like Antitower feel like they kinda just decided that because people just speed run things that dungeon design matters less...

[RokkuEkkusu]

I think the question is this:

Are the rewards from the chests in optional rooms worth it?

If not, might as well keep things simple and keep the dungeon design the way it is in Heavensward to appease the majority who like to speed run the dungeons and get them cleared as soon as possible.

[Maero]

Dungeons certainly do not feel like they used to, while they of course increase in scale i would love more exploring, but alas the community has it so that we do not
Hidden rooms with optional bosses would be great

[Tint]

ppl want out of them as soon as possible [...]

me too, because they are too easy, boring, way to linear and there is nothing exciting to loot.

but i guess the normal dungeons will stay like they are. however, i really hope they will improve the deep dungeons. especially keep the speedrunners out of them by removing the exp or tie the exp gain to a full clear bonus.

[Catboi]

Tam Tara Deepcroft and Toto Rak.. never again. Unless I get tomes.

[Dameron]

The problem with non-linear dungeons is the fact that sooner or later, the players themselves will figure out an optimal route and will no longer deviate from that route.

Non-linear dungeons sound like a good idea on paper. More exploration, rewards for your exploration, being able to take in the dungeon's unique aesthetics, all that good stuff. However, the big problem is that in MMO's people will have to grind the same places for extended periods of time. Like a few others have said before me, you might enjoy exploring the dungeon the first two or three times, but after twenty runs you just want to get the dungeon over with to get your rewards.

So why should SE bother with making non-linear dungeons if the majority of players don't want to explore them? It would seem like a much better idea to just keep the dungeons linear, and make aesthetic stuff to explore in the overworld so people can explore them at their own leisure.