Linear, linear, linear

[Renalt]

Oh I absolutely WOULD!

[WeissTuna]

It's a single player game meant to tell a story. I don't mind it being linear vs our mmorpg tbh. Some side quests are interesting, while others are lacking. I've already counted dozens of comparisons to XIV in how your character turns in quests, some of the sound effects, the story structure and layout in just my 13 hours of play. It's starting to get really funny.

[Oizen]

SE games being hallway simulators has been an ongoing joke since 13.

[SilversLyu]

Weak bait, if you go to the other extreme you can also see open worlds which are super empty. Overall it is not even as problematic as it is made out to be.

[Reap00]

It looks increasingly clear, with the release of FF16 and the current design trend of FF14, that CBU3 is only capable of creating linear corridors.

Maybe they need to hire some interns from Bethesda.

Hell no. Keep Bugthesdas hands far away. Oh and 16 is absolutely amazing. You keep spending your life focusing on the negatives in your head though if it makes you happy kiddo.

[Ransu]

Linear designs don't really bother me.

[Jojoya]

Not being a franchise fan so I've never played a FF title other this XIV, how does XVI compare to the previous games when it comes to main story and zone design?

If it's more or less the same as what franchise fans expect in those aspects (I know that the real time combat is a break away from the usual turn based combat), then I don't see why you're complaining.

Also, not every game needs to be a massive open world sandbox to explore on top of the story focused content. Sure, I loved most of the single player Elder Scrolls titles when it comes to being able to explore the world (Daggerfall was annoying) but that doesn't mean I want every RPG I play to be like them.

The important question is whether players are enjoying a game for what it is rather than nitpick over what it isn't.

[Kolaina]

(Heck, in that second part of Cutter's Cry, groups used to kill one pack and move on...now we don't even bother doing that and just run straight to the portals to the next rooms.)

A big reason for the skipping of mobs is because they don’t reward exp. Best to run to the boss as the trash does nothing other than add a couple hundred Gil to your pocket.

It’s the same as when tanks used to do sac pulls in amdapor and wanderers in ARR. the trash gave zero reward. No Gil. No exp as you were max level.

[Shurrikhan]

To be clear, I do think the XIV's "Dungeons" are too far gone into being synonymous with Hallway Sprint Simulator to make it worth bringing sidepaths back into them in any meaningful way (and care far more about seeing interesting environmental mechanics than multi-pathing or exploreables for their own sake), but I would love to see dungeon assets reused into a new content type that would be far more open to exploration -- call them, idk, "Delves" or whatnot.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

Linear isn't always bad. If it isn't Linear then players will always find Shortcuts and then become toxic towards players that don't know said shortcuts.

Take WoW, for example. There's a shortcut in the Blue dragonflight dungeon that results in skipping almost half of it. It requires jumping off and landing in a specific area. No way will players know that this exists unless they look it up or are shown by another player. Course, with the WoW playerbase, that doesn't happen. Players run ahead to the skip then yell and berate the players that don't know about it and are "wasting" their M+ key.