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[SantaC]

Especially jrpgs i guess. Some past jrpgs atleast tried to be creative with puzzles and secrets. These days, it is just like, here is a map, follow this way until you reach the end, then take the exits that leads to the boss. I call them "hallway" dungeons.

Some of the best dungeon design in the past is the orginal Golden Sun games for GBA, Older Tales of games, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, Lufia II and even cloister of trials in Final Fantasy X.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

I'd largely have to agree. I like the grind of combing every corner of a complicated dungeon and having the discomfort of having to choose between different paths, and I like the stress of trying to reach the next save point while tacking a particularly hairy labyrinth. It's that gentle stress that makes dungeons fun. I wouldn't say it's totally disappeared from modern games, but dungeon crawling has definitely gotten streamlined in favor of either straightforward corridors, or just a giant open map with no rhythm to the proceedings.

 

[Liopleurodon]

Probably because most players themveselves just don't want to deal with dungeons too much / for too long, and just want to continue with story.

 

[PeteBull]

Especially jrpgs i guess. Some past jrpgs atleast tried to be creative with puzzles and secrets. These days, it is just like, here is a map, follow this way until you reach the end, then take the exits that leads to the boss. I call them "hallway" dungeons.

Some of the best dungeon design in the past is the orginal Golden Sun games for GBA, Older Tales of games, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, Lufia II and even cloister of trials in Final Fantasy X.

FF16 suffered from that shit big time among other things, hoping for ff17 we get some proper talent from square, they gotta be out there.

 

[Nankatsu]

Excellent observation, I'm right there with you on this one.

Last games I did with dungeons were Yakuza: Infinite Wealth and Metaphor. Both were horrible in that sense.

Yakuza gets a pass because that game is a lot more than dungeons, but Metaphor, oh man, complete shit.

 

[cireza]

JRPGs have taken a very sad turn (probably explains why they are all real-time now).

They have become a tedious list of things to do, which dilutes any qualities they might have into a boring experience. And people are happy with this, so complaining is pointless. I feel like these games are made for idiots that can't think for themselves and just want to waste an infinite amount of free time they have doing the next thing on a list of stuff to do.

Among recent releases, I enjoyed Brigandine and Star Ocean 2R the most. Two games with an old school game-design, that respect your time and intelligence.

 

[Toots]

Why is everyone so lazy with everything these days ?

I know my excuse is self medication, what's yours OP ?

 

[MagiusNecros]

Some of the best dungeon design in the past is the orginal Golden Sun games for GBA, Older Tales of games, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, Lufia II and even cloister of trials in Final Fantasy X.

Time, effort, creativity, worldbuilding, locations and locales with their own story to discover and is something you'll remember.

Or you can just make hallways with 3 switchs and reuse tilesets which leads to a uninteresting game world and ultimately you won't remember anything about it.

 

[Notorious_Roy]

I recently played through Lufia II and that game is so good. Loved the dungeons, I really had to think about solutions to progress. I think FFXIII was the first big jrpg that made dungeons so unbelievable straightforward.
Currently playing Trails 1st Chapter and that one does not really have puzzles in the dungeons, but they do branch into different paths with loot to discover. This would be my middle solutions, not as good as puzzle dungeons, but better than corridor dungeons.

 

[Cao Cao]

Don't forget the endless amount of blabla with pointless bloated dialogue.

 

[icecold1983]

It's more likely to be incompetence.

 

[Myths]

A design decision that wants to prioritize streamlining for action cinematic as well as the casual gamer who doesn't have time or the know how to figure things out.
Many 90s/00s RPGs had plenty of puzzles, secrets, mystique, and verticality to the dungeons/levels, but it seems modern game design has largely discarded the danger or mystery associated with risk and reward.

 

[Exentryk]

I actually prefer quick and simple dungeons, because otherwise it's a miserable experience trying to solve a dungeon while constant random encounters or boring battles annoying you. Best option is to give some encounter control option to the player and then I'm all for puzzles or whatever.

 

[KungFucius]

Probably because most players themveselves just don't want to deal with dungeons too much / for too long, and just want to continue with story.

I wonder if this is true. In many games I get pissed off when having to deal with more story. I used to consider story a major draw but for some reason I no longer do. I suspect it is that the delivery of story is repetitive and the quality is just not there.

 

[Hyet]

The ammount of work is not even close.
This has been happening for ages now. Every dungeon has 2 given routes at any time and one is the right one and the other one is a dead end with loot.

If you like tons of dungeons with puzzles try Tales of Destiny Director's cut on PS2. There are also some "2 lanes dungeons" in it too. Same with Tales of Rebirth.

 

[Griffon]

That's because after the SNES era, Japanese RPG designers somehow convinced themselves that their games should be over 50 hours minimum (whereas it really wasn't the case for the best of em).
Naturally quality progressively plummeted from there, as they prioritize quantity more and more.

 

[BlackTron]

I actually prefer quick and simple dungeons, because otherwise it's a miserable experience trying to solve a dungeon while constant random encounters or boring battles annoying you. Best option is to give some encounter control option to the player and then I'm all for puzzles or whatever.

I don't like the sheer sense of helplessness triggering a random battle every few steps in a massive maze-like dungeon. Anything beyond the level of say, the Caves in Pokemon R/B/Y and I'm not playing it no thanks lol.

Perfect blend would be a branching interesting dungeon, with on-screen enemies that trigger battles. Without being at the mercy of a dice roll every damn step you can actually explore a well made dungeon without wishing it would end sooner.

 

[Boss Mog]

I agree with you OP, dungeon design in JRPGs have regressed to SNES levels and even that is being generous as a lot of SNES games had better dungeons than modern JRPGs. One of the worst offenders was Metaphor which is vastly overrated.

One of the reasons Expedition 33 was so good was the fact that the "dungeons" didn't feel SNES-like in design, they felt like what modern JRPGs should aim for with a lot of hidden stuff in each area. The fact that there were no maps also created deeper immersion where you had to actually pay attention to where you were going.

 

[Filben]

Man, Lufia 2 was great! No random encounters except on the world map. You could move pretty tactical in dungeons to avoid fights. There were items to use for solving puzzles. There was exploration and it wasn't a pure dungeon crawler, too.

Any modern games like Lufia 2 these days?

 

[Majukun]

Blame final fantasy 13 for that.
You will never escape the hallway.

 

[Svalr93]

In singleplayer games it's quite different since you can go at your own pace.
But in MMO's at least I remember Yoshi P talking about this and the reason why is because people meta them into death anyway and every dungeon turns into a hallway so they may as well design them that way from the start it's easier to plan and do anyway.
And honestly after playing other MMO's again a while back I agree with him, dungeons in other MMO's are a total nightmare and a zerg fest where people just try and run past and skip as much as possible bosses also have like no mechanics at all and die literally in seconds before they get to do anything ( talking about normal dungeons ).
It feels like you're just running 80% of the dungeon and fighting 20% at most maybe even less, in SWTOR people will even glitch through walls and shit but that's the mentality people have they just want to go fast and be done with it asap.
Which a little bit begs the question why they even play the game when they don't seem to enjoy it lol...
GW2 comes to mind too had a really bad time going back and trying dungeons again there and I know all of these dungeons and flashpoints very well it's not like it's me getting lost or not knowing the routes.
Still kinda blew my mind especially in SWTOR when I played it more actively I still remember having to CC and pulling one pack at a time and it was quite dangerous, now you just mega sprint through the whole thing and nothing is a threat.

There's also the issue of toxicity and people getting lost or angry because someone is new and doesn't do the perfect meta route this is a big issue too that is just non-existent in FFXIV.
I mean some people even get lost in Deadmines in WoW Classic, most dungeons in WoW really used to be hallways too and many still are and people still find a way to get lost because there's like a short dead end here and there that breaks off the path.
They literally serve no purpose at all other than people getting lost, and if you put bosses there people will just want to skip anyway unless you make them mandatory.

Blackrock Depths in Classic WoW is a quite famous but it's also meta'd to death even back in the day it still was and it's effectively just a hallway that has an illusion of being open.
That's just always going to happen because of how people engage with them.

In MMO's it's a bit different tho since you run them on repeat.
But it's still a common complaint but I also think it legitimately is a '' you think that you do but you don't '' situation, the whole reason it changed to begin with was because people complained when they were more open.
And I think playing MMO's with more open dungeons is just frustrating more than it is fun.

I think it's the same as large scale open world content it sounds good in concept but in practice it's a miserable experience ( in that case a laggy unplayable nightmare, zero difficult mechanics because you can't have them with so many random players, and your personal impact feels like zero in the great zerg ).
Again tho in singleplayer games it's a different thing, but in MMO's I kinda get it and I think people are kinda coping by remembering the old days where everything was new to everyone but it's not the times we live in anymore.

 

[Gaiff]

Probably because most players themveselves just don't want to deal with dungeons too much / for too long, and just want to continue with story.

>Story
>JRPG

 

[Svalr93]

>Story
>JRPG

Not enough sad dads for you lmao?

 

[PauloRoberto]

Especially jrpgs i guess. Some past jrpgs atleast tried to be creative with puzzles and secrets. These days, it is just like, here is a map, follow this way until you reach the end, then take the exits that leads to the boss. I call them "hallway" dungeons.

Hallway dungeons is exactly how i would describe FF XIII and, to be honest, FF VII Remake (or even the first Midgar part of the original FF VII).

The problem is not a hallway it self, in these cases... the problem is how the story justifies its existence. A hallway can be totaly forgiven in a JRPG with cool gameplay, cool storry, cool world and/or cool casting. FF VII is remembered till today because it nails all aspects... IMHO, FF XIII gloriously fails in every one...

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Because they are bad. Making good dungeon design requires intelligence and creativity. Most studios don't have much of that. You can tell what studio has smart people only by the worldbuilding of their games.

Having finished MIO recently, my god, THAT is genius world design. Highly intelligent people made that game.

 

[mopspear]

My theory is that there is too much effort put into what JRPGs "ought" to have based on long-time traditions, some of which were created due to technical limitations (that no longer exist!)

A balancing act needs to be done between removing ideas that are unnecessary/non-beneficial and not over-streamlining the design. I've seen so many "unnecessary" things removed from games over the years that I'm afraid to even suggest this.

Spoiler: Fake Greentext

>dev says they removed unnecessary elements
>play game
>they were necessary

Please don't ever type like this unless you are in the goblin holding pen we call 4chan. This is a bit. I even made the text green. I think that makes it okay. c-check my d-dubs...

 

[ReyBrujo]

It's more likely to be incompetence.

Maybe, maybe players are lazy and don't want to spend too much time with puzzles.

 

[Hyet]

Puzzles are hard to make, and if they are enviromental they require a lot of testing as well. They mostly dissapeared during the PS360 era when japanese devs struggled to keep up with development so they were one of the first things to get cut.

There is also the issue of originality. A puzzle worth making is hard to find when many games have developed a ton of them over the years. You can push ice blocks or snow balls in your ice dungeon but is it going to add that much to the game when there are other 10 games that already did that well...? dunno...

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Maybe, maybe players are lazy and don't want to spend too much time with puzzles.

Never blame customers. The Metroidavania genre is booming thanks to games full of secrets and with a map that is a huge puzzle to figure out. People appreciate a creative challenge if well done. The recent Metroid 4 is an example of what people don't want.