new dungeons vs old dungeons

[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.

[Gemina]

it kinda feels like they had an idea of making dungeons with all kinds of extra offshoot rooms on the sides to hide treasures or just mobs and then they sorta abandoned the idea and made the dungeons very linear all of a sudden... when you look at some of the early dungeon like sastasha nm and copperbell mines nm they are way more interesting than some of the later linear dungeons like antitower, hullbreaker hm ect.. anybody else feel like SE kinda just gave up on dungeon design?

After running my first level 60 dungeon the day before the server move, I am going to have to fully disagree, sir. I still need to run a lot more lv60 dungeons though to compare them to some of my favorite 2.x dungeons.

[khruler]

it is true the dungeons are basically a line now i'd like to see basically enemies from trash doing more things except being vanilla trash idk about added off shoot paths as most players just want to rush but maybe forks going different ways with different enemies but leading to the same outcome or perhaps different outcomes with mid boss being different or you choose your boss order to me overall i adore arr early design decisions and love the early dungeons there after 2.3 ish you fell into that sense of copy paste motif that's been around since then

[BigolBrute]

If the dungeon layout was random each time (with a few pieces of the dungeon always in certain places as needed), like say the Diablo series, then that might work. I'm not sure if that is feasible for an MMO, but it would be cool if it was. Or at least one dungeon like that designed specially that way.