Linear, linear, linear

[Oizen]

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

[Catwho]

Are you sure that's a good thing? FF14 is an MMO. A single player game's open world elements should be far more organic and open than that of an MMO, which has constraints due to technology and the need for multiplayer.

Open worlds are only fun if there's a sandbox element to them, and XVI does not have that. The reason TotK has been a blast has been because the open world does have those necessary tools for just derping around. They made a deliberately conscious decision with XVI to not have that, in favor of Serious Narrative.

[NekoMataMata]

Wouldn't really matter what they put there. Sooner or later, people would just ignore it to get the content over with. Dungeon gear isn't incentive enough, because it doesn't last long enough to be worth the effort; minions, mounts, and other collectibles are one-and-done, so nobody cares to keep going for them again and again (and if they're tradeable, they'd either be some low RNG chance of dropping, or guaranteed drops that won't hold value for long, so it still wouldn't be worth it); experience, gil, tomes, and materia are easily acquired from so many other sources that it'd be pointless; and, as criterion dungeons show, just having more interesting fights isn't enough for people to care if the rewards aren't worthwhile.

It's really just an inherent flaw in daily repeatable content. Eventually, people just want to get it done fast, optional stuff be damned.

That sounds like the solution to me actually. Maybe instead of stuff that's one and done, either give the dungeon random elements on each entry to force people to have to figure things out every time or... add buffs to the optional paths.

The second one could be interesting. Imagine if optional paths in dungeons could give you buffs that could speed up the dungeon somehow. It would actually be worth it and you'd have a decision to make each dungeon. Do you just go through it in the most straight forward braindead way or do you try your best to clear as fast as possible.

[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.

[Shinkuno]

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. Case in point - every single ARR dungeon I played, the only way I ever got the map completion achievements for them (which involves exploring all of those side paths) was to queue as the tank and insist on going to them. This isn't about SE. This is what we did as players when they created non-linear content. I'm not surprised at all that SE simply started designing the content the way we insisted on playing it anyway.

Hell no, just because players like to minmax you dont start design are boring game. WoW players are one of the most min-maxing crowed amongst MMO players at least and Blizzard didnt stop designing open dungeons just because some players map out the fastest path. Stop excusing their lazy design with "but its the players fault!"

[Jojoya]

Hell no, just because players like to minmax you dont start design are boring game. WoW players are one of the most min-maxing crowed amongst MMO players at least and Blizzard didnt stop designing open dungeons just because some players map out the fastest path. Stop excusing their lazy design with "but its the players fault!"

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.

[Striker44]

But then you could say that it's SE's fault for not putting anything interesting in the optional paths that motivates people to deviate.

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.