Linear, linear, linear

[TheDecay]

I was a tank main during ARR and had to drag all of y'all through those non-linear dungeons. Yes, we always took the "proper" path. But with more nuance, mechanics, enemy variety, challenges, and puzzles(!) in each dungeon, everything felt more fun. It was actually fun doing your daily roulettes. Nowadays it's a chore.

Wanderer's Palace is a prime example of good non-linear dungeon design for FF14. In the room where multiple large Tonberries are chasing you, you could take multiple paths to get to your destination. And at the same time you want to avoid those large Tonberries. It meant that depending on your team's DPS and ability, there could be an organically different route to take each time (such as needing to double back and hide for a while if your team is really slow). Of course, this can only be experienced back in ARR and HW when these actually posed any threat whatsoever. Doing Wanderer's Palace now would not give people a good idea of what it was like back in the day, though I expect the same WoWfugee contrarians to pipe up and disagree despite never having done these dungeons when they were relevant, because they did it in a roulette in 2023 and disregarded all the mechanics and survived once.

[Mikey_R]

Wanderer's Palace is a prime example of good non-linear dungeon design for FF14. In the room where multiple large Tonberries are chasing you, you could take multiple paths to get to your destination.

No you could not. The Tonberries with the oil are in specific places and the levers you need the oil for are also in set places, this creates an optimal path through the area.

Go in, hit the first one right infront of you, go right, up the slope, left into the middle room, pull the mobs through and to the right (hope someone remembers to pull the lever in the middle). The big Tonberry doesn't follow you in this area, as long as people don't stand on the main path. You can choose to pull the Tonberries from below as well, Provoke reaches after all. From there, you go down the left staircase, go right, flip the switch, tank runs up and aggros everything, someone flips the switch at the end in the corner, everyone runs back and hope people know about locking out mobs from the boss room so you don't have to deal with them.

That was the strat from the first months of the game's release. Trust me, I done it plenty of times as a tank, 10 times a week to cap tomes believe it or not as this was before roulettes and the cap was still 300.

That room alone proves that people will optimise something completely, that was done within a month. It is a complete illusion of choice.

Other cases are Toto Rak. There is technically split paths, in that dungeon, however, there is one optimal route through, which everyone does. Sunkern Temple? You used to solve the puzzle, but then the community decided that it wasn't worth solving, despite the puzzle being the same every time. 2 mob packs to solve the puzzle or, just 1 if you fail which also doesn't require you to deviate from the direct route.

However, this all comes back to what do people actually want in an optional area in a dungeon to make it worth it for everyone in the group? In a random party, not everyone is necessarily going to want to go to the side path to get an item that potentially has a large Gil selling potential (which wouldn't hold it's value), unique minion/mount? Doesn't matter if someone already has it, which then turns it into a Gil item, assuming it isn't a unique item. Some sort of gear reward? Not everyone is going to care and they aren't going to make them equal to raid or tome gear. Even tomes isn't going to necessarily be something everyone wants. Point being, there is no universal reward that will entice everyone into that area, every time.

A potential solution, if you really want split routes, is to give the dungeon split routes, but the game forces you one way or another randomly. This could cause different bosses, or the same boss with different mechanics. Since dungeons now have a narrative inside them, the last boss has to be the same, but again, you can change things dependant on the route you had to take. Is the dungeon still linear? Yes, but at least it isn't the same every time. Not that I personally really care.