Quote Originally Posted by Lambdafish View Post
The real waste of effort is making bland cookie cutter corridors that players do not enjoy playing.

Also, what time frame are you using? any time after the initial 3-4 months that the content is out is when the content is outdated (thus speedrunnable). I remember wanderers palace being interesting and unique long after the initial 3 months.
Wanderer's Palace had rewards on side paths (relic weapon component mats) and invulnerable mobs that could one shot almost everyone.

Save for the Tonberry Stalkers, Wanderer's Palace is close to one of the worst examples of what you are talking about.

As for Haukke manor, it isn't the picking up of the keys that is interesting, rather the dungeons level design; the dungeon feels like a sprawling house, not a corridor, regardless of whether you speedrun it or not.
Haukke Manor is a chain of corridors. The only reason it doesn't feels like that to some is due to the the short cuts that open up and the back tracking through the areas you already passed through to get to the next. Players actually complained about the back tracking until using /return to get back to the start became widespread knowledge.