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

[Andrien]

Having played ffxi at north american launch, there really wasnt much to see or remember. there was even less to see before rise of the zilart expansion. going all nostalgic over ffxi is a mistake in this sense, because it took months and years to get better.

That shouldn't be an excuse to make the same mistake twice though.

[Gramul]

What can I say but, I agree.

And to expand on the idea of connecting dungeons to the rest of the game. Separating dungeons into instances separates them from the game world. They become an isolated mechanical entity, rather than organically meshing into the setting. A sort of prosthetic stage, made to supplement the world as an attraction and it makes the environment feel fake, for a lack of a better term.
A sort of preliminary gauntlet like the wilderness zones of XI would be an excellent way to bypass the disconnected feeling.

It smelled liked bum pee on a hot day, was full of blatent racism and bigotry,and resided in one of the bleakest zones in the game, what the hell isn't fun about all that?! It was like the American South without all that pesky Spanish Moss

What have you against Spanish Moss?

[DarthTaru]

I love this thread because it really nails a huge aspect of what's missing.

Imagine if Cutter's Cry was not a crappy 8 man ezmode instance with .05% drop rates on bodies. Imagine instead that Cutter's Cry was 8 times the size and open world. Imagine if things like the Explorer's Choker didn't drop from a stupid chest but instead from an NM that popped somewhere half way through the dungeon every 4 or so hours. Imagine if there were coffer keys. Imagine if Chimera was instead an HNM at the end of this dungeon, far more difficult than the Chimera that now wraps up the instance, that popped twice a day but had a much better drop rate. Imagine if you were running through all of this while at the same time seeing others doing the same.

Now that would be far more entertaining than this 18 minute tedious dungeon everyone is sick of.
I can't believe i'm saying this, after once being laughed at by a Galka troll because my Taru buddy and I couldn't open the doors by ourselves (you needed 3 Tarus lol), but I miss the Quicksand caves....

[Denmo]

Sense of discovery is severely lacking in this game, but it's something that's hopefully being addressed in 2.0.

Don't forget, XI had its share of instanced content. But you had to earn the right to do even them (beastmen seals), and they had guaranteed rewards (though not always good).

I'm all for raids, but I think there should be an even amount of instanced raid/open world content. Build me a world first, then populate it with raids.

What we're seeing right now is the only thing SE can do while they build the new worlds. We're playing in a game that will get scrapped by the end of the year apart from the instanced content. They can only give us a very small taste of what to expect from 2.0.

[Zyph]

Sense of discovery is severely lacking in this game, but it's something that's hopefully being addressed in 2.0.

Don't forget, XI had its share of instanced content. But you had to earn the right to do even them (beastmen seals), and they had guaranteed rewards (though not always good).

I'm all for raids, but I think there should be an even amount of instanced raid/open world content. Build me a world first, then populate it with raids.

What we're seeing right now is the only thing SE can do while they build the new worlds. We're playing in a game that will get scrapped by the end of the year apart from the instanced content. They can only give us a very small taste of what to expect from 2.0.

I'm hoping that with the zone redesign that the open world becomes much more interesting, with unique zone music for each area, new sights to see, etc.

Also no unnecessary parts of the zone. Look at this map:


Why would anyone want to go to these areas on their own? There's no reason to except for maybe like a quest or two.

[Hachi-Roku]

I'm hoping that with the zone redesign that the open world becomes much more interesting, with unique zone music for each area, new sights to see, etc.

Also no unnecessary parts of the zone. Look at this map:


Why would anyone want to go to these areas on their own? There's no reason to except for maybe like a quest or two.

Shows how little you know about the area. One of those is a great farming spot.

[Hachi-Roku]

My point is that the extra space there isn't needless. That some areas, while unneccssary for a quest, can have purpose in other ways.

I can concede the argument that since there aren't stark atmospheric changes between camps within the same zones, that areas can feel same-y, and that if you try and describe them all you end up with a shorter list than you expected. A lot of regions in the real world look very much the same, and you'd have to travel a fair bit to see variance. I accept that XIV's geography, aside from bottleneck roads (technical limitation) and the Black Shroud (miserable), is going to look largely the same because the smaller 'sub areas' that would normally take up something like two or three maps in XI are simply merged into one larger near-seamless one.

[Teakwood]

If Cutter's Cry were open world, you'd need a claimbot to get any of the good stuff from it, just like FFXI HNM and even sometimes NM hunting became the Game of Who Has the Better Claimbot.

Compelling gameplay! Exciting choices! Modern design!

Also, Twelve take the upper-right little wodge of Western Thanalan; I constantly have to aggro dodge Amal'jaa on Miner there. ;~;

[Preypacer]

-Awesome Post That Hopefully Describes SE's Design Approach for 2.0's Zones

If I could give 10 Likes to your post, I would. Spectacular piece of writing.

This is something I've found myself talking about to people as well, explaining what it is/was about FFXI's world design that made it feel so much more believable and "real" than most any other MMO out there I've played. Among other reasons (a sense of history, each with its own "personality", etc), the way they're designed to provide content across several level ranges, and how the mob levels (and other design elements - such as 3 Mage gate in the Ruins) keep parts of the map off-limits are key to what made XI's world so outstanding. Some area that was just beyond reach "for now"; a reason to return to it later.

It's awesome reading similar things to what I've said many times being spoken by someone else. It's also heartening to know that I now know of at least one other person who pays that much attention to such things as the nuances of world design while playing something lol.

I'm also an aspiring game designer and am, in fact, in the pre-production and prototyping stage of working on a game project. SE's approach to world design in FFXI is the cornerstone of how I'm approaching it in my own project. It plays into a sort of "pet theory" of mine on world design in games in general, but MMOs in particular.

Basically, I find MMOs fall into one of two general categories, one being "world-centric design" and the other being "game-centric design". There are many examples and illustrations I could give between the two, but in a nutshell, with game-centric design, the world exists "for you", while in world-centric design, the world exists "despite you". FFXI (and other MMOs like Lineage 2 (pre GoD) and Asheron's Call 2 (RIP)) were very much world-centric designs. Other MMOs like WoW, TERA and such are much more game-centric in their designs.

To give a simple illustrative example, consider the OP's description of the Ruins in Sarutabaruta, about how you go farther and farther in and find that the mob levels keep increasing, but that there's also ever-more to discover in there - going as far as Toraimorai Canal and Full Moon Fountain when you get to the core. That's an example of a world-design where the world exists despite you, as the player. That dungeon isn't there merely as a leveling mechanism, or the focus of a series of quests from a specific quest hub. It exists because it's a part of Vana'diel, with a history, an identity and an ecology all its own. It's there because it's there, and that aspect of it helps to give the world much more believability and authenticity, in my opinion. You'll have reasons to go in there at level 10, and you'll have reasons to go in there at level 70+. It never becomes obsolete. You never "out-level" it. The same can be said of many other areas across Vana'diel.

Now let's look at the other side, game-centric design. Let's take WoW as an example. You start off in, say, Teldrassil as a Night Elf. You start off in a smallish quest-hub area. Everything in that little closed-off corner of the map exists "for you". Every mob, nook, cranny and cave has a quest associated with it. And when you've exhausted all the quests? You're pushed on down the road to the next quest hub. You will never need to go back to that starting area. There's nothing more there for you. There are no higher level, tougher enemies lying in wait in some corner of the map, or a dungeon that you couldn't get to because your level was too low. Other than for personal reasons, or perhaps an "exploration achievement", it's obsolete.

So now you're in this new little quest hub, where everything in the surrounding area, once again, exists "for you". Every mob, nook, cranny and cave is tied in to some quest you're going to receive from a NPC in that hub. And once you're done? You're moved on down the road to the next quest hub, and this one becomes obsolete.

And so on, and so on and so on, right on up the line.

Progress in WoW and its ilk seldom has a rearview mirror, nor does it have a reverse gear. You are pushed ever forward, leaving in your wake a growing series of out-leveled and obsolesced content - entire zones worth. The world holds no fascination or meaning because you're continuously pushed right through it. Locations hold no magic or memory because they're merely quest hubs, one of dozens you'll be guided through on the way to level cap. Every area and its associated quest hub is contrived and designed "for you", with the sole purpose of "helping you level up". Rather than adventuring through a persisting world of which you're a part, you're just a tourist passing through.

That's an example of game-centric design and it's the complete opposite of the approach SE took with FFXI.

So, I'm with ya, OP, on this. I hope SE brought some of that world-design magic to 2.0 that they had in XI.

[Nabiri]

(Long post - #35)

(I know I'm a bit late to this thread, but I've been sick for a week and a half and I just bookmarked it till I could get around to posting. lol)

Amazing post.. I couldn't find a way to put into words what exactly the zones in XIV are lacking that XI had so much of. So thank you for that! You explained exactly how I feel!

As much as I loved Aion I felt it also lacked something.. The zones were so pretty but it was just another game that pushed you through the areas with quests and then you out-leveled them and never had a reason to see those places again. It was kind of sad.

I loved how FFXI's areas remained relevant.. Always a reason to go back, higher level things to do, more places to explore, access to a new hidden place. I was always in a different place. Never stuck in the same 5 zones all the time.. I was always traveling all over the world.

I fear that FFXIV is taking the same direction as every other MMO out there though. :\ And that an amazing world like Vana'diel will never exist again. I pray to the Twelve I'm wrong. :x