Karlina wrote:
Hyrist wrote:
Also, branching dungeons. Ones that you can only explore a portion of during a single visit, so that you become invested in exploring these paths and choices within the dungeon itself, rather than be guided through a one path dungeon.
That's a neat idea but would probably just end up with people quickly finding the most efficient path and only doing that, to the exclusion of all else. Maybe if it was semi-random? Sometimes the left path is open and sometimes the right one is? You'd still get a potentially different experience in the same dungeon without people calling you a noob for wanting to go THAT way.
GW2 did dungeon branching, but it basically meant after a certain point (usually a selection at the start), the other parts get blocked off. As a result, speedrunning the most efficient path became the norm for tokens, which translated to gear.
Dungeons being entirely randomly generated is probably the wiser thing to approach. The concept DOES exist in gaming, be it Lufia's Ancient Cave, a staple to ARPGs like Diablo, or even within MMOs like XI's Nyzul. Mechanically, all it really was was map chunks serving as puzzle pieces, each connected with a start point and and an end in mind. Depending on how the puzzle game together, sometimes there'd be more than one path, but there'd also be dead ends. In a more ideal situation, full clears should be preferred over just zipping to a boss or whatever, but this tends to require "trash mobs" mattering, which I'd argue isn't the case in XIV dungeons unless they're linked to opening a door or something.
Anyway, specific dungeons should get their own tile set. An icy cavern would, expectantly, have a bunch of icy cave-type pieces. As a result, you wouldn't see some fiery magma chunk of the map unless there was a good reason for that to be there. These areas would also be populated with an expected set of mobs. In a crypt? Yeah, should probably expect ghosts, skeletons, spiders, and other sorts of creepy crawlies. Then again, bosses don't always need to follow these rules, especially if they represent a sentient species like an NPC humanoid. Entering some kind of screwy nightmare world? Throw out the rules, enjoy everything mix-and-matched.
For me, I'd be more about running dungeons in MMOs if this was the norm, but I'm still loathe of the waiting that's often associated with getting a sensible group together. So, as with my last post and difficulty scaling in mind, solo dungeons should be a thing for those who desire it, too. Or any other party configuration between 1-8 in XIV's case. Not fitting into the Light/Full dynamic can risk people feeling left out, which also tied into stuff like Coil's lockout being a nuisance if you 9 people in your FC, but only 8 could be included.