Linear, linear, linear

[Ayer2015]

Dang it, this why all my friends invite me for hikes. I thought they just enjoyed my company, but no just for bear fodder.

Ok, that made me laugh.

[Shinkuno]

Actually, try going back and reading old WoW dev interviews. Players preferring only the most optimal path through a dungeon is exactly why they stopped creating the Sunken Temples, Maraudons and Blackrock Depths.

It was indeed the fault of the player base. Development teams get a lot of pressure to cut costs and when only 2% of players are engaging with content on a regular basis, guess what's going to get cut first. It's the stuff that the majority of players are ignoring.

You did know that WoW almost lost raiding altogether toward the end of The Burning Crusade, didn't you? Executive management didn't like that only 2% of the player base was completing the raids. They felt it was a waste of money that should be spent on content a larger part of the player base would do and were pressuring the development team to redirect the manpower to other content development. That's why the diversity of raid difficulties was added in Wrath and expanded on even more during later expansions. It was to get more players into raiding so the developers wouldn't be forced to cut it from the game. It almost backfired when they tried to move raiding back to more difficult in Cataclysm from the casual friendly style they had adopted for Wrath. And so the casual raid modes became a staple of the game.

And yet we got Brackenhide, Nokhud Offensive, Academy, Neltharus and thats just Dragonflight alone. Shadowlands had the Market for example and BFA had Waycrest Manor. People minmax Raidtrash skips yet you dont see Blizzard going the stupid "teleport to boss in a circle" Route that Square went with.

I dont even know what difficulty settings has to do with this so go on i guess. You are free to continue to excuse the lazyness of the reskin corridor simulator.

Except they've already done that, and we've responded in the same way. Extra gear in Haukke Manor from using additional keys to open more rooms. Upgraded drops in the second part of Cutter's Cry from killing all the mobs in a room before opening the chests. None of it mattered. (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.) Simply put, it's likely impossible to find something "suitably" rewarding that the playerbase in general will spend that extra time. It's not SE's fault. At all.

But it used to matter, kinda. People did farm those extra drops. Ofcourse noone does it for old content anymore cause its obsolete. And just having those optional paths makes the world feel more organic. Feels like most people here dont want to play an actual MMO. Sad

[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.

[Stormpeaks]

And yet we got Brackenhide, Nokhud Offensive, Academy, Neltharus and thats just Dragonflight alone. Shadowlands had the Market for example and BFA had Waycrest Manor. People minmax Raidtrash skips yet you dont see Blizzard going the stupid "teleport to boss in a circle" Route that Square went with.

I dont even know what difficulty settings has to do with this so go on i guess. You are free to continue to excuse the lazyness of the reskin corridor simulator.




But it used to matter, kinda. People did farm those extra drops. Ofcourse noone does it for old content anymore cause its obsolete. And just having those optional paths makes the world feel more organic. Feels like most people here dont want to play an actual MMO. Sad

Dont you want to get level 40 gear as a max level character ? Obviously its your fault and the other players fault that they make it linear, you should go out of your way and get that level 40 gear !

/s

Striker44 being Striker44

[Shurrikhan]

This is, frankly, entirely an "us" issue (as in the players). They used to create dungeons with multiple paths, optional side areas, etc.. What did we the playerbase do? Find which path was "optimal" for the fastest clear, and completely ignore anything that was optional.

This is... a bit disingenuous.

We haven't seen anything approaching dungeons with truly multiple paths since 1.x. We had optional side paths, but they were typically dull corridors you'd have to then backtrack right back through and doing them provided less rewards per minute than just skipping them.

In a group of randomly matched players with varying available time and assumption of how long the run should take, there's already going to be a skew towards fastest runs, yes, but it was predominantly just because the rewards were just clearly not worth the time* required and felt like low-effort tack-ons (outside of Sastasha and maybe the one lower chest in Darkhold) that people skipped them even when those dungeons were relevant.

Add to that the sidepaths rewards' completely failing to scale in any way for roulette-runners who no longer need the gear, and, yeah, there was a fundamental issue with the design of side-paths. It wasn't just an "us" issue, or even primarily one.

[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.

[Rolder50]

Actually, try going back and reading old WoW dev interviews. Players preferring only the most optimal path through a dungeon is exactly why they stopped creating the Sunken Temples, Maraudons and Blackrock Depths.

It was indeed the fault of the player base. Development teams get a lot of pressure to cut costs and when only 2% of players are engaging with content on a regular basis, guess what's going to get cut first. It's the stuff that the majority of players are ignoring.

But they did not turn all dungeons into one path linear corridors. Most if not all dungeons from the latest expansion have multiple possible routes and paths, with plenty of mobs you don't need to pull but can if you want. And many have items you can interact with to make the dungeon faster, or unique group buffs if you have certain professions in the group, and so on.

Far more interesting then pull to wall -> aoe -> pull to wall -> aoe.

[MsMisato]

Probably because every "alternate" path would usually be a dead end with a dinky ahh potion or straigjt up vendor trash for a reward.

No extra bosses, no hidden objectives that gives extra rewards when fulfilled (gil, minions, orchestrion rolls, glamours, something), is it any wonder players started taking the path of least resistance? If anyone is to blame, it's SE being SE and throwing the baby out with the bath water instead of finding a way to feasibly accomodate both players that are willing to explore the dungeon they're in, and the ones trying to set an any% world record speedrun in Sastasha.

yea its the one thing i missed with FFXI. SHit was grindy as hell but you had the off chance to come across a NM in the equilavent of dungeons and maybe a super small chance are some super rare loot.

[Shinkuno]

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.

You completly missed the topic but at least you got your hourly "dae wow bad?" quota. Not only is what you described not an optional path and more akin to a exploit, in addition to that M+ is a speedrun mode, dont go into a speedrun mode if you want to sniff at every flower on the way. People will use anything, intended or not, as long as it isnt banworthy to finish those faster.

2021 Joindate, bad take - must be a WoWfugee.