What Dungeon Style do you Prefer for Future Zelda's?

[DarkestLink]

Non-linearity =/= Open World. And even then, LoZ and ALBW were linear games, just not as linear as something like MM or TP.

Why won't Aonuma make an Open World game with dungeons? Creating dungeons cost a lot of resources, so does creating a massive world. They didn't just remove dungeons on a whim. They made it clear that they had to remove dungeons and dial down on puzzle content because the world took too much of their time and dedication.

And why not a non-linear game with dungeons? They can and have recently with ALBW. It wasn't received too well because making the game less linear made the developers job needlessly harder.

Trying to make a Zelda game a non-linear environment is, to me, like trying to grow sunflowers underwater. With a dome and some other equipment, it's theoretically possible, but much harder. And in the end, it doesn't gain any benefit from being underwater. Likewise, Zelda is a series that naturally thrives off of linearity. It's always been linear to some extent and has naturally gotten more linear early on in its life, becoming fully linear by its fourth title.

 

[Zero_Origin]

Why won't Aonuma make an Open World game with dungeons? Creating dungeons cost a lot of resources, so does creating a massive world. They didn't just remove dungeons on a whim. They made it clear that they had to remove dungeons and dial down on puzzle content because the world took too much of their time and dedication.

I think the other factors involved here that ate up development time include:

-This was the first HD Zelda in terms of graphics (they had to practice on WW HD first)
-Their first take at using a realistic physics engine (one of the reasons for the game being delayed)
-It was their first time creating a 3-D open world game (they brought in some employees from Monolith with open world experience to assist in development)

Now that they have this experience, and a brand new engine under their belt (which they could slightly update/optimize on the Switch) I'm sure that the dev team could create a similar sized world as BotW in much less time. That said, I agree that it would still be a good idea to reduce the over-world size so that less shrines would be required, which in turn would allow for more of the puzzle solving design to be allocated to make more/larger dungeons.

Trying to make a Zelda game a non-linear environment is, to me, like trying to grow sunflowers underwater. With a dome and some other equipment, it's theoretically possible, but much harder. And in the end, it doesn't gain any benefit from being underwater. Likewise, Zelda is a series that naturally thrives off of linearity. It's always been linear to some extent and has naturally gotten more linear early on in its life, becoming fully linear by its fourth title.

This is a tough issue because not everyone in the gaming/Zelda community wants the exact same thing from the games. No matter what Nintendo does, some fans will be happy and others will be annoyed. This is pretty much the Zelda cycle of the community asking for something, getting it, and then having some backlash after the fact from other parts of the fanbase. In this case, a lot of the community felt like the conventions of zelda were getting stale, while some people still think "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

One solution to this problem is to have a non-linear overworld with linear dungeons, but I don't want to get into that too much because there is already another thread dedicated to that topic. All that I'll ask right now is whether this is a solution that you would be happy with, or would you prefer a return to complete linearty?

 

[Darthnut]

Go the typical RPG route: Scatter the world with a myriad of medium-to-large dungeons that are uniquely designed but largely generic in terms of aesthetics and, focus more on combat, exploration, and loot than puzzles. Some of these dungeons tie into the main story, others side quests or even faction quests (if factions are to exist in the next Zelda game), while some are just there to explore.



Some ideas for these generic dungeons:


Forest cavern with low level enemies and loot that can be explored early on, along with lightning based enemies and items at the harder end of this dungeon type.

Ancient Hyrulean tomb with a large focus on undead enemies and possibly dark magic based items.

Abandoned religious temple that could serve as an alternative tomb, only with light magic based items instead of dark.

Fortress with hard enemies and lots of good loot overall.

Lava mine with fire-based enemies and metal to harvest, as well as fire based magic items.

Ice cavern in the far northern areas of the overworld with ice-based enemies and ice magic based items.


Generic means multiples of these dungeons will be present, but each one will have a unique design so it's not stale.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Yeah, item gating is what I was concerned about. Initially I thought a return to item usage would almost guarantee this problem in an open world as opposed to a linear one. ALBW solved this problem in a certain respect, but I feel like it created another problem in doing so, in that it suffered from having to build the puzzles of each dungeon around one item to the exclusion of any others. However, after thinking about the situation some more I realized it wasn't as big a deal as I expected. The next game could solve the issue by essentially dividing the puzzle solving tools (whether they are classic items, or rune like abilities) into two camps:

- all purpose ones you'll use throughout the game and acquire during the tutorial like in BotW
- followed up by dungeon specific ones that are hardly/if ever used in the over-world

At any rate, some people may not like the idea of having some items that are used only in one dungeon and then become irrelevant (TP caught a lot of slack from the gaming community for this), but it's still the lesser of two evils compared to excessive item gating.

So with that out of the way, the real problem isn't whether linear dungeons could work with an open world format - for the most part they could - it's more a matter of how likely is it to actually happen. Given Aonuma's stance in previous interviews of wanting to get rid of using items as glorified keys, I'm not holding my breath that the traditional "lock and key" style dungeons will be returning with the next installment. This style was one of the zelda conventions that was becoming too formulaic in the eyes of much of the gaming community, thus Aonuma deciding to axe it in BotW.

Which is mainly aunoma's problem, and the problem of newer modern players mentality in struggling to envision an open world zelda with proper dungeons. It baffles me how so many people can't concieve of them being inclusive.

And to those people who think it can't be done I say again, look at many of TLoZ's items. They do not become irrelevant once obtained. I could see perphaps one or two items being required to go here or there. But making them practical while exploring at least most of the map unhindered is not, nor has it ever been the impossible task some people make it out to be.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Non-linearity =/= Open World. And even then, LoZ and ALBW were linear games, just not as linear as something like MM or TP.

Why won't Aonuma make an Open World game with dungeons? Creating dungeons cost a lot of resources, so does creating a massive world. They didn't just remove dungeons on a whim. They made it clear that they had to remove dungeons and dial down on puzzle content because the world took too much of their time and dedication.

And why not a non-linear game with dungeons? They can and have recently with ALBW. It wasn't received too well because making the game less linear made the developers job needlessly harder.

Trying to make a Zelda game a non-linear environment is, to me, like trying to grow sunflowers underwater. With a dome and some other equipment, it's theoretically possible, but much harder. And in the end, it doesn't gain any benefit from being underwater. Likewise, Zelda is a series that naturally thrives off of linearity. It's always been linear to some extent and has naturally gotten more linear early on in its life, becoming fully linear by its fourth title.

The dungeon order was linear up to a point. TLoZ's Overworld was not. Barring 2 spots which requires the raft, you can go wherever you please.

And I'm quite certain that over 100 dinky little shrines, 4 divine beasts and hyrule castle ate up a lot of resources. TLoZ has 18 full, distinct dungeon layouts in a big overworld. Surely ditching a good chunk of the shrines and making a decent amount of dungeons say 8 or 9 could have freed up some of that space?

 

[DarkestLink]

The dungeon order was linear up to a point. TLoZ's Overworld was not. Barring 2 spots which requires the raft, you can go wherever you please.

Not quite...you need the raft for Dungeon 4 and that's it. Dungeon 6 requires arrows to complete. Dungeon 7 requires the flute. Dungeon 9 requires the triforce. That's nearly half the dungeons blocked by a hard barrier. There's also the soft barriers for dungeons 5 and 8, but I'm not considering those.

And I'm quite certain that over 100 dinky little shrines, 4 divine beasts and hyrule castle ate up a lot of resources.

TLoZ has 18 full, distinct dungeon layouts in a big overworld. Surely ditching a good chunk of the shrines and making a decent amount of dungeons say 8 or 9 could have freed up some of that space?

Not as much as you think. 40 of those shrines are copy/pasted ToS or Blessing shrines. The remaining 80 take 1-2 minutes to complete on average. Meanwhile your modern Zelda dungeon can take between 40-60 minutes. Not only that, but there's things developers need to consider with dungeons that they don't with shrines and DBs:

1) They need a unique theme.

2) The puzzles in the dungeons are connected. When building the puzzles, you need to consider the relationship they have with each other.

3) Each puzzle needs to be sturdily crafted so the player doesn't effortlessly break them with a moments thought.

4) For later dungeons, more items need to be considered when implementing puzzles.

5) Enemies are more frequent in dungeons and also need to be considered.

6) The geography of the dungeon itself must also be considered, especially if you want the player to interact with it without sequence breaking or trapping themselves.

What makes shrines so much easier to build is that you can create isolated puzzles (for the most part) without worrying about how it effects anything else or if the puzzle is well made. There's also areas like sidequests that also took a massive hit when implementing the overworld...kind of ironic, since they're one of the most important aspects of an Open World game.

 

[Spirit]

Traditional dungeons with lock and key would be nice, I didnt like the Beasts so much.

However I'm a sucker for Hyrule Castle as a dungeon so I'd like more dungeons like that too. BotW could have done this with all of the ruins but it didnt, even as mini dungeons but nope.

So both in the next Zelda would be nice.

 

[DarkestLink]

I'm not sure I'm following you here with regards to the apparent removal of dungeons. Are we not counting the Divine Beasts as dungeons now?

Of course not. They're part of the underworld, sure, but dungeons are a specific implementation of the underworld. Divine Beasts don't follow the same formula as dungeons and don't even remotely play like them.

The only thing missing from the traditional Zelda formula is the gaining of an item and the unique aethetics.

So basically the core element that separates a dungeon from any old cave. The unifying world for this is the underworld. And there are plenty of ways to implement it, with many games implementing it in different ways. Other games have their own forms of dungeons as well, but they're hardly comparable to Zelda Dungeons.

Sure, they're a different style of dungeon, but they still took just as much resources to create as a typical dungeon, especially with the introduction of more physics based puzzles which I can't think of any examples of in any prior game.

Except the developers explained the reason why they resorted to physics puzzles is because they're much easier to implement. Not surprising, since the puzzle is basically "do the thing, we don't care how, we're not going to prevent you from breaking this."

They are such by very definition in video game terms even outside Zelda.

Again, you're thinking of the underworld. And yes, different games have different ideas for what dungeons are. Zelda has its own formula. BOTW doesn't follow it. It doesn't even try to claim they are. Because they're not. And there's no sense in getting hung up over specifics, because I think you know what I'm referring to. You can call them whatever you want. Divine Beasts, Temples, Buildings, Dungeons, etc. but they don't follow the dungeon formula and aren't comparable to the dungeons founded by LoZ, which is the problem.

I've been out of the fan forum scene for a while now. However, after SS, the majority of the community was eager to lose the linearity. Linearity serves a purpose in that it allows tight control over how a player progress. That good if you're going to use it for specific purposes. Games like Uncharted couldn't function without it. Zelda has never been a series that DEMANDS linearity as their development process is the wrong way around for it. Story always comes last.

Story doesn't need linearity. In fact, non-linear games tend to have a much deeper focus on story and lore. Look at the Open World genre, it's one of the most (if not the most) story focused genres in gaming and it's also the most non-linear. Linearity allows for dungeons to build off each other and when you try to make the game more non-linear, the item usage becomes much more predictable and you're left with lower quality dungeons where the player is less likely to get stuck, as seen with ALBW.

Games like Super Mario thrive off of non-linearity, because restricting Mario limits his platforming abilities and hurts the platforming based gameplay. Meanwhile Zelda has always had a focus on gaining power through item progression and progression works better under a linear setting. The secondary focus (introduced with OoT) of puzzles also benefits from linearity. Without linearity, developers have more limitations on what items can be used, in the case of BOTW, the puzzles themselves and inferior and broken.

Choice and freedom are the main benefits of non-linearity. Open World RPGs benefit the most from it. But Zelda, even in its most non-linear form, doesn't make use of this at all. I'd even go as far to say that BOTW is the most restrictive Open World game I've ever played, next to Xenoblade Chronicles. Zelda rarely offers choices and when it does, they are almost always insignificant. This is most clearly seen with BOTW. Your choices are basically limited to what region you go to first, and it doesn't matter. The shrines from Hebra give the same reward as the shrines from Faron. The Korok Seeds have the same puzzles and same reward regardless of where you go.

If non-linearity is to be used, choice and freedom should be capitalized on. But it isn't. Because it's outside of Zelda's element. And if they were to capitalize on choice and freedom, they would need to fundamentally change what Zelda is. And why do that when they can make a brand new series instead?

Also SS was less linear than the previous titles, so I don't see what its linearity has to do with anything. It's the first 3D game since OoT that lets you do anything out of order. To be honest, one of my main gripes with BOTW is that it follows too closely in SS's footsteps and made a lot of the same mistakes.

OoT's Hyrule field was a non-linear environments and people still praise it. WW's Great Sea was a non-linear environment and is still my favorite part of that game.

What are you talking about? Hyrule Field and the Great Sea have gotten a LOT of flack. The overworld has consistently been the most hated element of every 3D game for being too open and barren. Meanwhile the 2D games didn't have this problem until PH came along, made the world much more open, and people hated it.

 

[Zero_Origin]

Wow, there's been a lot of good feedback here recently, I almost don't know where to start. Thanks for your contributions everyone!

Which is mainly aunoma's problem, and the problem of newer modern players mentality in struggling to envision an open world zelda with proper dungeons. It baffles me how so many people can't concieve of them being inclusive.

In full disclosure, my initial difficulty in envisioning the dual issues of non-linearity and open world layout (in terms of their impact on dungeon structure) stems from the fact that I've only played the major Zelda releases since OoT and never got around to playing the retro games including tLoZ. Beyond that, the extent of my exposure to open world games is Oblivion and Skyrim, which obviously owe a lot of their inspiration to tLoZ and in a number of ways are more similar to it than modern linear Zelda (roughly since when Aonuma became involved). I can see from the retro perspective how Aonuma's involvement in the series has been problematic. Although, for those who prefer linearity, like DarkestLink, his style has probably been great.

While it would be awesome for the whole fanbase to get what they want, say by having two different Zelda teams: one to create non-linear BotW style versions, and another to create tightly crafted linear versions, I don't see Nintendo being willing to dedicate enough resources to make this kind of thing happen. So the question that I'm still considering is how best to appease both sides of the fanbase with a single game, if that's even possible. Envisioning non-linearity and linearty as a continuum, what is the right balance to strike between them?

One possibility they could pursue would be to provide all the items/abilities that will be required in the overworld and dungeons at the beginning like BotW, and also have most if not all of the dungeons open from the beginning (though I would prefer that they at least hard lock the final dungeon until the others have been completed). That said, they could still allow for length/difficulty/complexity increases in the dungeons by soft locking regions with increasingly difficult terrain/environments (like BotW) and enemies (like tLoZ did). With this approach there would still be some inevitable loss in terms of dungeon complexity in that items that you gain from one dungeon couldn't be required in other ones. However, with the right starting toolkit of 4+ items, a cool specific item/ability acquired in each dungeon, and some dungeon specific mechanics/themes (like manipulating water levels in the Water Temple) I think the overall design could still be solid. The level of complexity possible could still be greater than the dungeons in ALBW for instance.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Not quite...you need the raft for Dungeon 4 and that's it. Dungeon 6 requires arrows to complete. Dungeon 7 requires the flute. Dungeon 9 requires the triforce. That's nearly half the dungeons blocked by a hard barrier. There's also the soft barriers for dungeons 5 and 8, but I'm not considering those.



Not as much as you think. 40 of those shrines are copy/pasted ToS or Blessing shrines. The remaining 80 take 1-2 minutes to complete on average. Meanwhile your modern Zelda dungeon can take between 40-60 minutes. Not only that, but there's things developers need to consider with dungeons that they don't with shrines and DBs:

1) They need a unique theme.

2) The puzzles in the dungeons are connected. When building the puzzles, you need to consider the relationship they have with each other.

3) Each puzzle needs to be sturdily crafted so the player doesn't effortlessly break them with a moments thought.

4) For later dungeons, more items need to be considered when implementing puzzles.

5) Enemies are more frequent in dungeons and also need to be considered.

6) The geography of the dungeon itself must also be considered, especially if you want the player to interact with it without sequence breaking or trapping themselves.

What makes shrines so much easier to build is that you can create isolated puzzles (for the most part) without worrying about how it effects anything else or if the puzzle is well made. There's also areas like sidequests that also took a massive hit when implementing the overworld...kind of ironic, since they're one of the most important aspects of an Open World game.

I said barring the raft for two places. The dungeons are not the overworld themselves.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Wow, there's been a lot of good feedback here recently, I almost don't know where to start. Thanks for your contributions everyone!



In full disclosure, my initial difficulty in envisioning the dual issues of non-linearity and open world layout (in terms of their impact on dungeon structure) stems from the fact that I've only played the major Zelda releases since OoT and never got around to playing the retro games including tLoZ. Beyond that, the extent of my exposure to open world games is Oblivion and Skyrim, which obviously owe a lot of their inspiration to tLoZ and in a number of ways are more similar to it than modern linear Zelda (roughly since when Aonuma became involved). I can see from the retro perspective how Aonuma's involvement in the series has been problematic. Although, for those who prefer linearity, like DarkestLink, his style has probably been great.

While it would be awesome for the whole fanbase to get what they want, say by having two different Zelda teams: one to create non-linear BotW style versions, and another to create tightly crafted linear versions, I don't see Nintendo being willing to dedicate enough resources to make this kind of thing happen. So the question that I'm still considering is how best to appease both sides of the fanbase with a single game, if that's even possible. Envisioning non-linearity and linearty as a continuum, what is the right balance to strike between them?

One possibility they could pursue would be to provide all the items/abilities that will be required in the overworld and dungeons at the beginning like BotW, and also have most if not all of the dungeons open from the beginning (though I would prefer that they at least hard lock the final dungeon until the others have been completed). That said, they could still allow for length/difficulty/complexity increases in the dungeons by soft locking regions with increasingly difficult terrain/environments (like BotW) and enemies (like tLoZ did). With this approach there would still be some inevitable loss in terms of dungeon complexity in that items that you gain from one dungeon couldn't be required in other ones. However, with the right starting toolkit of 4+ items, a cool specific item/ability acquired in each dungeon, and some dungeon specific mechanics/themes (like manipulating water levels in the Water Temple) I think the overall design could still be solid. The level of complexity possible could still be greater than the dungeons in ALBW for instance.

I like both styles to be perfectly honest. But trust me, its not a difficult concept to understand as its been done 4 times in the Zelda series.

 

[Zero_Origin]

@Kerest , @Darthnut

Personally, I wouldn't want to see traditional dungeons, or at least something closely resembling them, disappear entirely if that's what your suggesting. I think the kind of puzzle solving that's been around since OoT is a Zelda convention that has come to define the series, and without it we end up with something like the Elder Scrolls set in Hyrule, which is what it feels like your describing. That said, I'd be fine with the next game dropping the shrines to allocate the puzzle solving components to the actual dungeons, while having "traditional rpg"/ BoTW Hyrule Castle like areas serving as optional mini-dungeons to explore. Seems like it would be fun to have both types of environments.

I like both styles to be perfectly honest. But trust me, its not a difficult concept to understand as its been done 4 times in the Zelda series.

I know how they've handled it in the past. At least for me personally, I feel there are some downsides to previous approaches, which is why I offered an alternative.

 

[DarkestLink]

As a seasoned player of Zelda, I both entered and left each beast thinking "Yup, there's a dungeon".

I don't' care.

BotW's overworld is different to any other overworld in the series. Does that mean it isn't an overworld?

1) Overworld is a collective term. Dungeon is a specific term.

2) Tbh, it's really not. It follows the same basic design that OoT introduced, just blown up and with less unique content.

What about the boss battles? The story progression (what little of it there was)? The overall effect that completing the beasts had on the world that 'any old cave' does not?

What about it? These are traits you see all the time outside of dungeons. Pirate Fortress, Ikana Castle, the Moon, Forsaken Fortress, The Great Sea, Hyrule Field. Hell, most of the story progression takes place outside of the dungeons.

However, some puzzles taking less time doesn't mean they had to spend less time developing the dungeons.

What makes it less time consuming is that:

1) You don't need to fool proof them.

2) You have less items to consider.

3) Again, most importantly, they had no interaction.

You could look at each puzzle as a cog. Building a cog takes time. Dungeons are like machines where many cogs and other parts need to be put together into a machine. Creating a machine from a bunch of cogs takes even more time. Meanwhile, the dungeons don't have this relationship as the puzzles are all separate.

By the way, did that last sentence confuse you?

Meanwhile, the Divine Beasts don't have this relationship as the puzzles are all separate.

This is why I don't call them dungeons. It isn't about seeing them as lesser or less enjoyable, they're simply different and trying to refer to them as the same only makes discussion involving them more confusing.

Dude, I don't think we could be any more different . SS allowed some things out of order, yes, but I wouldn't describe that as necessarily non-linear.

Neither would I, it's still linear, but it seems weird to call it out on linearity, when the previous games for the last decade or so had been completely and rigidly linear. PH and SS were the first games in a long time to allow any wiggle room, for better or worse. Not only was it not more linear than the previous titles, but it's kinda impossible to be more linear than the previous titles since there was only one order you could do things in.

Sure, they have. But they've also got a lot of love. OoT's Hyrule Field in particular is still held as one of the most nostalgic moments in the series for a lot of fans. Just because you don't believe they were implemented well doesn't mean the core idea behind it wasn't beneficial for the series. If you don't like BotW dungeons, or WW's Great Sea, you're entitled to that. But there's a difference between something not doing it for you and something being innately damaging for the game.

It's not about that, it's just....where were you in 2003? The fanbase was absolutely rabid in its hatred for sailing and cell shading. I mean absolutely bat**** frothing of the mouth insane over their hatred for tWW. XD Even I got flack back then for so much as daring to praise it in other ways.

 

[Kerest]

@Kerest , @Darthnut

Personally, I wouldn't want to see traditional dungeons, or at least something closely resembling them, disappear entirely if that's what your suggesting. I think the kind of puzzle solving that's been around since OoT is a Zelda convention that has come to define the series, and without it we end up with something like the Elder Scrolls set in Hyrule, which is what it feels like your describing. That said, I'd be fine with the next game dropping the shrines to allocate the puzzle solving components to the actual dungeons, while having "traditional rpg"/ BoTW Hyrule Castle like areas serving as optional mini-dungeons to explore. Seems like it would be fun to have both types of environments.

I wasn't suggesting doing away with them at all. And, actually, Elder Scrolls is a good example of how to implement it; Skyrim showed how you can have traditional dungeons, open-world dungeons, and mixed cultural elements without detracting from the overworld. And, incidentally, Skyrim was cited as an inspiration to BotW (though, to be honest, the opening portion of the game more closely resembles Fallout 4).

However, I am not arguing that they should simply copy the Elder Scrolls style. Take the good from that design strategy, toss out the bad, and innovate. They should be able to easily do something better that doesn't feel like a Skyrim clone.

 

[NintendoCN]

Traditional would be a good return to form as far as dungeons, I don't hate the other ones, I just prefer the older style. I just don't want a repeat of the Great Bay experience as my group has decide to call that temple.