Unpopular Opinion: Dungeon design has been bad for a long time

[Adventica6]

Because FFXIV is formulaic, wow is not. Wow has patrol mobs, mobs that need to be cc'd, actual thought needs to be put in when doing dungeons there, here we pull from wall to wall, aoe mobs down with no thought process then proceed to the boss.

When a game literally has 1 hallway, 1 open area to aoe the mobs down followed by a boss you have no choice but to feel bored because there is zero deviation from the formulaic design and it's been like that for 9 years.

[Edax]

When a game literally has 1 hallway, 1 open area to aoe the mobs down followed by a boss you have no choice but to feel bored because there is zero deviation from the formulaic design and it's been like that for 9 years.

They could put tap-dancing dolphins, singing dogs, elephants, penguins, pole dancers, clowns, skyrockets, dancing bears, explosives and fire engines in a dungeon just to be different. But that wouldn't somehow make it fun, it would just be different. Dungeons are a part of the grind and the formula serves the grinding process.

[Mikhaill]

We have learned this community can't do anything but faceroll keyboards on controllers and will cry if they have to do otherwise some
levels of thinking in normal dungeon. I wish hard dungeons were actually, just that...hard.
Or hell something different.
Pharos, Wanderer's Palace, and the still complained about Aurum Vale is why we can't have nice things.
Aurum is the perfect example.
If it ain't tank and spank in full speed ahead in one linear motion then you can forget it.

[Shurrikhan]

They could put tap-dancing dolphins, singing dogs, elephants, penguins, pole dancers, clowns, skyrockets, dancing bears, explosives and fire engines in a dungeon just to be different. But that wouldn't somehow make it fun, it would just be different. Dungeons are a part of the grind and the formula serves the grinding process.

That would depend on how they use the tap-dancing dolphins, singing dogs, elephants, penguins, pole dancers, clowns, skyrockets, dancing bears, explosives and fire engines. Some dungeons have managed, at least in some significant part, to feel a bit distinct, and have been better for it.

[Hammerhorn]

This thread is spot on me they need something random to happen like a treasure goblin drop out or something.

[Avraym]

I'd like dungeons a hell of a lot more if they made more (Hard) Mode ones, that were, you know, actually hard.

Or at least add more RNG/Strategy to what we have now.

[NessaWyvern]

They had patrols in ARR, when Wanderers Palace came out, that Tonberry was lethal, and it was a lot of fun. I am seeing a reoccurring theme here though, with all the different dungeons being in ARR, and then boring, straightforward ones in the later expansions.

[HWalsh]

The problem with offering options is that people will go straight for the path of least resistance. Unless there's some kind of incredible reward for it, but then people who already have it won't want to bother doing it again, so anyone who's late to the party is screwed.

There is a solution to this -

Add in a new dungeon type (you just need one) that is needed only once in the MSQ.

Dynamic Dungeons -

You create a stone fortress - You create 25 generic rooms - then 25 types of hallways - With 10 or so boss chambers.

Populate these with special bosses (or even Primals)

Give the rooms different mechanics as part of their design.

Each boss room terminates in a zone as you go deeper into the dungeon.

Each floor is procedurally generated.

You don't know the right path, or what rooms you'll encounter, you can have patrols and such here. Adjust the enemies to the group level for challenge.

Go nuts.

It would only need to be created once and could provide a bunch of replay value. As each expansion or update comes out tack on a new room or new boss or new couple of hallways.

Not complicated, well within the technological limitations of the current engine, and provides a varied game play element.

Remember:
Procedural generation of dungeons like this was first created by Richard Garriot in the PC game Akalabeth back in 1979. So if we could do it in '79 I'm sure we could do it in 2019 without too much fuss.

[NessaWyvern]

^Runescape's dungeoneering was like this, and it was really fun, I spent so many hours in there

[Jaelommiss]

I would love for pulling and CC'ing mobs to come back. I bolded something that I actually miss from when I played vanilla WoW when I didn't have the time for a 2+ hours for a XI group grind session. I remember Wailing Caverns and a few other dungeons precisely because mobs did stuff like that. In Wailing Caverns, there were certain Raptor type enemies that once they got low enough on health they would shriek and any other Raptor mobs nearby would then link to them. Then there were the alarm bots in Gnomeregan... any one who played Vanilla WoW can tell you about wipe stories from those alarm bots... evil, evil little things. Fun times... couldn't just run in agro everything and aoe burn it down, had to actually plan and coordinate a little bit.

Gnomeregan was such a mess and I loved it. I'd really like to see more dungeons designed like Mana Tombs. It's linear, but the corridors are wide enough that you can sneak past some trash if you hug the walls and time patrols just right. Linear map, but multiple possible paths depending on patrol location when you reach certain points. You needed CC (at least, my parties did because I was terrible back then) to handle enemy spellcasters and healers. Accidentally picking up pats while fighting could cause wipes. Plenty of corners to LoS pull ranged enemies. A coordinated team using CC effectively could take down enemies one by one like a special forces squad without needing to slow down at all. Most classic and BC dungeons were like this.

It really felt like early WoW dungeons were designed as locations, then populated afterwards. In FFXIV it feels like they design a set of enemies and mechanics, then paint a dungeon around that.