Non instanced dungeons. An under-looked game design method in XI

[Alfortis]

Hello everyone, I don't post very much nor play very much. The furthest i've reached was 38 on a deleted character and just decided to wait until 2.0 gets released along with throwing some cash at SE for support. Any-who, here is my suggestion to the game designers.

As an aspiring game designer, I tend to notice different design methods in games. Something I notice in XI that I didn't see that much in 14 or any other MMO is the way they do dungeons or even outside zones. What we all remember in XI is the environments and going on journeys with our friends (mostly). This is something that I can never remember in WoW, TERA, or other MMOs (not that they are not good MMOs, they are fantastic, but they just lacked what XI had when it came to remembering zones). Now, something that we all seemed to enjoy was done in XI, but we do not really ask how it was done and why we enjoy it. Usually we just give simple answers, which is fine since the players are not suppose to notice this.

What XI's dungeons or some outside zones had that other MMOs did not have was replay or backtracking value. If you notice in XI, nearly all the dungeons that were adjacent to outside zones had an opening area. This area usually had weak monsters in it where the player can feel comfortable to walk around in. But as time went by in the dungeon, we realize that there is something much bigger in the dungeon, something that we cannot understand yet and maybe even bigger than us. Its kinda scary but also mysterious.

Lets look at the inner horutotu ruins as an example. When we first went in there, we were kinda anxious and just fought everything in sight, but as time went by, we keept going in further and notice that some monsters were way too high for our level. We decided to come back some other time at a higher level and travel further, but little did we expect to find a rich environment with hidden walls and magic gates or even a giant notorious monster way out of our league.

Just about every zone or non instanced dungeon had this in XI. We wanted to keep pushing further and further to find out what that unknown is ahead of us. Eventually, we grow accustomed to that area we enjoy and figure out every corner of the area. Even some of us helped random people to let them enjoy what we did. This is why some players tend to call the area home, this environment that they visit often is now apart of their life. Of all the games ive played, the FFXI players seem to remember the majority of the zones. This isnt because it got repetitive (even though grinding did), its because we drew ourselves in the environment and got comfortable with it. We explored areas we shouldn't have at a low level or even figured out secrets that other players had no idea of. This is something that I did not experience in other MMOs.

Lets use TERA as an example. Now I love the game due to its fresh combat system and I plan to play it for a very long time. But, it does not have that world feel that XI has. The reason behind this is because we run around doing quest that sends us to the next area. We love the pretty graphics and the grand world it has to offer, but it all ends too quickly. In FFXI, we ended up visiting all the areas in the world more than 3 times at a different levels far apart from each other. By the time we are 75, most of us should know the basic areas without ever having to look at a map.

The reason why I decided to post this is because I hope the FFXIV designers are going to use this method on the 2.0 patch and I hope they read it even though its unlikely. Here is my pros and cons of this method.

Pros:
Environments with a deep meaning behind them.
Players feeling comfortable with the area and it being a part of their life
Less development hassle since the deeper zones are still the same theme
Quality zones over Quantity zones

Cons:
Some players may find the zones to be repetitive
If done wrong like the yuhtunga temple (sorry if i got it wrong) the players will abandon the idea of visiting the area unless they need to
Some players hate the idea of backtracking (usually in single player games)

Final word:
I understand that they are revamping the area in 2.0, but that doesn't mean that everything will be fixed. There must be a design philosophy behind it or else it might fall. Take a look at todays gaming, there are tons of clones everywhere, but they usually do bad upon release. This isnt because the devs suck, its because every game designer has a different philosophy or style of making games and trying to copy someone style is much harder than it sounds. I have full confidence that Square Enix will pull this through, I just figured I give my thoughts into this.

TLDR; Quality zones over Quantity. Final Fantasy XI's non instanced dungeons design were what made us love the games environment so much and I recommend using that same design in XIV.