Linear, linear, linear

[TheMightyMollusk]

Sadly, the moment they removed EXP from trash was the final nail in the coffin of ever making dungeons at least a little non-linear.

People were skipping optional mobs and rushing straight for the boss long before they took EXP off trash mobs. The roulette EXP was always worth far more than you'd get from clearing all of the trash anyway.

[Kaurhz]

If they weren't 'linear' before, and turned linear, then that is only because the design decision surrounding the dungeons is a result of how people were playing them. Skipping everything optional and that wasn't in the direct path between the spawn and the first boss, or from boss to boss for that matter.

It's well and good to want less linearity in dungeons, but this is largely just a platitude. The nature and purpose of doing dungeons pretty much erase any incentive to... Not be linear. Unless dungeons can properly incentivize this then it's difficult.

What will it give? Better gear than what you may traditionally get in the dungeon? Rare rewards one can sell for Gil? They've tried this and people couldn't even be bothered to kill 3 extra enemies in Haukke Manor, despite the fact that the room they were blocking offered Fine Varnish, which at the time if it dropped would offer effectively 50-80K Gil.

[TheDecay]

Same I find it sad there everything has to be so one side or the other there is no reasoning or ability to comprehend things don’t always fit that way. Anyone saying 16 is too linear clearly hasn’t played other FFs. 10 was linear maps as well with only one big map towards the end, it’s more the illusion of it being grander which I think 16 achieves for what I’ve played. 13 made everything feel claustrophobic even though it’s about as linear as 10. End of the day people are never happy you could literally give them concrete evidence of them being just as linear as each other yet people won’t believe you cause it doesn’t fit their narrative.

The only thing I will agree on is the lack of secrets or hidden areas like on say the pixel era. Granted that could change but for now I agree. End of the day they made the game they wanted to make and I’ve enjoyed it a lot. Can’t wait to keep playing it in all honesty.

10, 13, and 16 are ALL docked points because of their linearity. The difference is that as we advance to 2023, people are less tolerating of outright 13-style linearity when games like GoW disguise their linearity far, far better than 16, with far more intricate sidequests than 16, better combat and more player choice for combat than 16, and hell GoW has more RPG elements than 16 which is just sae.

[TheDecay]

Youre probably trying to help me not get mad but I hate absolute extremism from the fanbase

People can see your post history you know?

You are like maybe second to Vel.

[TheDecay]

Linear isn't as much of a problem as Formulaic.

I don't hate linear dungeons, I hate the fact dungeons in this game are 2 pulls, wall, boss, repeated 3 times, and have been for nearly 10 years.

And sadly FF16 dungeons feel like Expert roulettes too

[Allegor]

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.

Holminster Switch is still the most egregious example. It is literally an open field/grasslands but the actual dungeon is one very long and rather narrow corridor until right before the last boss.

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!"

While that's also true, if we're being objective, dungeons in WoW are a genuine form of endgame content where the unconventional layouts are part of the challenge, whereas in XIV they're a "once for story and never again" deal so it kinda makes sense (still doesn't justify it tho) why there's not much thought put into them outside aesthetics.

[Rolder50]

Blizzard has even announced that they are going to allow trading between servers within the same Realm which only serves to benefit Goldsellers and market manipulators. Many servers are about to have their economies destroyed by this change coming in the next patch.

You crazy? Cross server markets will SAVE a whole ton of servers. There are tons of servers that have zero economy to speak and now they will actually be able to get things crafted in a reasonable time frame.

I'd also like to point out that FF14 has cross server markets as well it's just a bit unwieldy because you have to world travel.

[Striker44]

Literally anything that has at least faintly greater reward-efficiency to the average dungeon-runner than not doing them. So far, we've seen them only been a penalty to rate of reward.

Actually, this is exactly what they used to offer - greater reward-efficiency. Aside from the gear upgrades, someone else pointed out killing one pack of mobs for an item that fetched a very good price on the MB, yet what did we do? Skip it.

What's extremely telling is that nobody making this claim of "offer something better" is yet to actually offer even a single idea of what that could be, just vague comments like the one quoted here suggesting only they realize it's not actually feasible.

That... is a multi-path dungeon. If you can go 1234, 2314, 3214, etc.... that's... already multiple paths available.

Wait, so your idea of "non-linear" is to fight the same exact mobs in the same exact order within each "wing", just...you get to choose the order of the wings? In that case, FFXIV already does that with every single raid tier, which once you've cleared them once come in groups of 4 that you can complete for an extra tome reward in any order...

[TheDecay]

Wait, so your idea of "non-linear" is to fight the same exact mobs in the same exact order within each "wing", just...you get to choose the order of the wings? In that case, FFXIV already does that with every single raid tier, which once you've cleared them once come in groups of 4 that you can complete for an extra tome reward in any order...

You even play the game? If you do the third floor before doing the second you forfeit loot from the second floor.

[Shurrikhan]

Actually, this is exactly what they used to offer - greater reward-efficiency. Aside from the gear upgrades, someone else pointed out killing one pack of mobs for an item that fetched a very good price on the MB, yet what did we do? Skip it.

It fetched a good price on the MB, for the one person who looted it, for about two weeks after ARR's release.

What's extremely telling is that nobody making this claim of "offer something better"

They have, though: better rewards (i.e., ones that are actually rewarding to more than just those with gear worse than what the dungeon offers) on those side-paths, and for those side-paths to be at least roughly as interesting as the main path and not require the party to simply double back to the main path anyways. I.e., don't utterly half-ass them if they're going to be put in. Not that difficult a concept.

We've also seen even simpler ideas like "forks" or "larger sub-zones/rooms" (where, yes, one route may end up preferred over the others, but at least the dungeon is thereby aesthetically more varied all without needing to cause any backtracking or even conflict between speed-of-run (favors quicker queues/non-DPS) and reward-per-run (favors slower queues/DPS).

And then there's the simple matter of more apparent variation --just along that route-- to alter the "Just hold W; wall-to-wall" pace of the dungeon and thereby make it feel less linear, be that the likes of the occasional defense segment, scattered mini-objectives, or whatever else.

Wait, so your idea of "non-linear" is to fight the same exact mobs in the same exact order within each "wing", just...you get to choose the order of the wings?

It's a WoW dungeon... A large portion of the mobs will be skippable (yes, even without crowd control / Shroud / passing through the Nightmare Realm), and many of the rooms themselves offer multiple pull choices by which to pass through them. That's true even in their more "linear" ones.

And, no, that's not all I mean. Take the first example above. The only set requirements are that you have to kill the first 3 bosses, in any order, to end the protections around Nokhudon Hold. (In any order) claim the ballistae in order to ground Granath, break the storm totems to end the hurricane around the Raging Tempest, kill the necromancers to break the ritual attempting to bind the fallen heroes.

Apart from that final boss, the order of bosses and the mob pulls around each are entirely up to you, along with which spare mobs to pull to meet the %clear requirements.

In that case, FFXIV already does that with every single raid tier, which once you've cleared them once come in groups of 4 that you can complete for an extra tome reward in any order...

Is this a weird "I don't want loot and/or I don't mind screwing my party over" flex, or are you just not familiar with how Savage works?