My thoughts on proper dungeon structure.

[Jinko]

dont like what your playing , play something else lol. simple. or just troll the forums lol.............

Like you ya mean ?

[Soukyuu]

I like the above suggestion about making dungeons randomly generated although im not sure how you can fit a cave that changes shape every time you enter into the lore lol.

Well, I think we will have Garlean/Allag related dungeons in 2.0, but you can have sliding walls even without the machinery. A magical labyrinth re-configuring itself to protect what's hidden inside of it could be fun.

[Enfarious]

Hmmm non-linear = nyzul isle + toto rak(modified to have diff items drop from diff bosses);

Tokens/points are a decent idea and have been used in many a game for EG stuff, having upgradable items (you know the kind) which require drops from the dungeon they're purchased from can balance the whole anyone/everyone will get this item, but only a few will have it upgraded in a shortish time.

Killing speed runs aside from removing the reward the reentry times have to be adjusted, there's no point in clearing a dungeon in 10 mins if you have to wait 6 hours from the last time of entry to reenter. Cookie Cutter parties become more a choice in how easy you want it to be than what drops you will get. Of course drop rates and token/coin/point rewards need to be adjusted to make it not take, assuming 0.25% drop rate, 400 runs @no more than 4/day = 4 months for 1 piece of gear to drop.

Bosses and every other mob in the dungeon need to "cater" to a particular job/class magic immune mobs, bosses that shift absorbtion type/immunities, and things of that nature would also go a long way to breaking up Cookie cutter parties.

Well back to work I go. ; ;

[Elexia]

There is something to be said about the poorly designed boss mechanics which favour certain classes and cookie cutter strategies, SE have never been good at balancing bosses and content even in FF11 they fell short of other MMO's out there..

I've YET to play an MMO with a balanced dungeon or boss, ESPECIALLY from western MMO designers. By the way, Nyzul, Salvage and Einherjar were the most balanced of XI's dungeons and boss encounters.

[Velhart]

I've YET to play an MMO with a balanced dungeon or boss, ESPECIALLY from western MMO designers. By the way, Nyzul, Salvage and Einherjar were the most balanced of XI's dungeons and boss encounters.

There is no such thing as true balance, but bad enough to the point that other jobs are just a inconvenience to have is not good at all.

[viion]

I've YET to play an MMO with a balanced dungeon or boss, ESPECIALLY from western MMO designers. By the way, Nyzul, Salvage and Einherjar were the most balanced of XI's dungeons and boss encounters.

When Gw2 is released, you can play that and be happy that its western and balanced XD

[Fionlagh]

I really think the DEVs had to rush content out, were all familiar with this games release and all the subsequent changes after.
thinking of it in that context , i think they've done a nice job and we shouldnt think that this is their best shot.
however, they cant and even if they could, wouldnt say as much.

Having said that , i agree with the OP, for Ver 2.0 i really expect a different direction for dungeon/instanced content
firstly... to hell with speed runs, i guess if enough players want them, keep them in some form, but not to decide rewards. just my opinion
secondly, liike Velhart and many others have mentioned, gives us a fleshed out story , go all freakin out haha


as a side note to the above: randomness is a dimension that should be added, think Radiant Story from Skyrim and dynamic events Guild Wars.
Exploration/Adventure, i dont mind getting lost in a dungeon, mazes , traps, deadly enviroments , puzzles, hidden doors, hidden bosses.
another side note: traps, hidden doors, things like that give you an opportunity to design a clever/cunning THF archetype

i think part of the problem is the carrot at the end of the stick design that some players in our community encourage, lets show the DEVs thats not what we want

id thought id add, to be clear : give us an adventure , a journey that exceeds the reward at the end

[Duelle]

I don't mind the linear kill mini boss > kill main boss structure, I like having an objective.

There is something to be said about the poorly designed boss mechanics which favour certain classes and cookie cutter strategies, SE have never been good at balancing bosses and content even in FF11 they fell short of other MMO's out there.

People always claim that the only reason WoW is successful is because its easy mode etc, but anyone who has played end game content (especially hard mode stuff) know the fights are very well tuned and require a wide range of classes and can be killed with more than just one strategy.

SE have a lot of work ahead of them to make dungeons more interesting, and for god sakes please get away from the old school grind grind grind with <1% drop rates, nobody except masochists like that any more.

This. Though the thing about set ups in WoW was because the classes were split into their appropriate roles and then were balanced to perform at around the same level. That was a huge plus because you didn't have to worry about class or spec of the people attending the raid so long as your roles were covered. Some of the people in this forum are so stuck on the FFXI mentality of niches and "uniqueness" that it's going to take a lot of work to get them to accept that niche gameplay sucks and on a certain level prevents people from playing what they want.

Regarding dungeons:

I'm of the mind that dungeons should have mini-objectives if they make sense. More than just killing bosses to unlock an area.

Vanilla WoW's Temple of Uldaman had an optional boss that could be accessed after building the WoW equivalent of Raider of the Lost Ark's Staff of Rah (head piece and stick) by killing a boss that dropped the stick and then finding the headpiece somewhere in the dungeon.

Likewise, Dire Maul used to have a caveat in its design, as the reward from the last boss was better with the less bosses you killed. This in effect required you to be sneaky and creative when it came to getting around the dungeon.

Blackrock Depths also was creatively made to ressemble a city, with multiple paths and two very different objectives located on opposite ends of the city.

The first example could definitely work in XIV. Bonus bosses or extra treasure if certain objectives are completed. The last two are more iffy, because just as they were complex and vast, Dire Maul and BRD also required a good hour+ to complete (even more when it came to Dire Maul). I don't think most adults have that kind of time anymore.

I agree with the OP that speedruns are not exactly a good idea at this point in time. Maybe if we hit that point where the jobs and classes are performing equally at their chosen roles it could be reconsidered. A point in time where it's not about what classes/jobs you bring, but how well the players in the group know their roles, know the dungeon and so on.

I'd also like to mention my love for Ulduar's hard mode triggers, which is something the devs should consider when implementing bosses. Stuff like killing XT's heart, kill order for Iron Council or even pushing the Big Red Button (I'm not kidding. Pushing the Big Red Button sets the boss' room on a self-destruct sequence that causes fires and lots of AoE to the raid on top of dealing with the boss and gives you 10 minutes to finish the whole thing or die horribly).

[Rhianu]

I just don't want dungeons to feel like monotonous cut & paste environments where everything looks the same. Put some imagination into the layout, SE, and stop making every single passage and corridor look exactly like every other passage and corridor! Get artistic here and put some variety into the dungeon environments!

[viion]

I just don't want dungeons to feel like monotonous cut & paste environments where everything looks the same. Put some imagination into the layout, SE, and stop making every single passage and corridor look exactly like every other passage and corridor! Get artistic here and put some variety into the dungeon environments!

they likely will, if you saw concept of 2.0 dungeon.

The issue with current ones is, all the dungeons have been in since day 1, since beta, so they fall under the failure of the last team. All Yoshi did was put in mobs and make a sequence of events, nothing more. XD