THE SCREENSHOT TOPIC RETURNS

author=Xenomic
Ok, I'mma have to put my foot down on this. I'm honestly curious as to your guys tolerance with how long dungeons take, because I'm pretty sure that several older RPGs have dungeons generally around this size and generally still take 10-20 minutes to get through, if not longer.

An hour and a half is about my maximum, for the longest dungeon in the game. I expect most dungeons to be about 30 minutes long, but I'm willing to tolerate longer than average dungeons, as long as there aren't too many of them. But if something takes an hour or more, I expect it to have a lot of really interesting stuff and change meaningfully several times during it; I also expect multiple mid-dungeon cut scenes, multiple puzzles, NPC interactions, minibosses, sidequests, stuff to do, stuff to find, etc.

The fact that there are old games that aren't like this doesn't make it okay. Because for the most part, those old games suck horribly, and the only reason we remember them fondly is because they were all we had. A few games did certain things brilliantly, though it was mostly by chance since the study of game design didn't formally exist yet. FF6 had great dungeon and event pacing, Chrono Trigger had great enemy formations and character balance, Shin Megami Tensei had great party customization and challenge, FF Tactics had a level of complexity that made people feel smart for figuring out how to make their team unbeatable. But none of them even came close to doing everything brilliantly, or even doing everything acceptably. And the games you're citing as doing dungeons the way you did had unfathomably horrible dungeons that were only excused because other parts of the game were so ridiculously good for their time. These days, there are so many games that do so many more things right at once that it's no longer acceptable to players to totally abandon any attempt at quality in aspect of the game. I think that's where the disconnect is coming from between what you've seen in other games and what people expect from yours.

author=Xenomic
My LPer, who was using a character that had double speed and also got semi-lost, got through within 20 minutes. So yeah...despite its size and the random encounter (remember, encounter for most areas is set to 70-80 so it's like 1 fight for every 70-80 steps, give or take), it does NOT take super super long to get through.

If your encounter rate is set that ridiculously high, that indicates a major problem with the dungeon size. And if I'm doing the math right, that means your battles only take like 30 seconds each? If I can win an RM2K3 battle in 30 seconds, that means I probably didn't even get to use my entire team, much less fight an engaging battle that I enjoyed. It also means there's no boss and there are no cut scenes.

Plus, from your own earlier posts, the cave dungeon you're working on now is like 10x this size, and a maze. So... uh. If I'm really generous, that's going to come out to 3 hours and 20 minutes. But it's really going to be more because backtracking in a maze is much more time consuming than backtracking in an open field, right?

My baseline of comparison is FF6, since it's the game I've played enough times to memorize it.

20 minute dungeon from FF6

45 minute dungeon from FF6

1 hour 15 minute dungeon from FF6

2 hour long final dungeon from FF6, not counting the final boss

(A let's play video of this dungeon where he goes as fast as he possibly can, kills enemies super efficiently with ultima/ultima/x-magic+ultima/ultima, edits out 90% of the random battles, edits out all the times where he stops to equip the weapons and armor he finds, never dies once, and already knows exactly where everything is and makes a beeline for it takes 37 minutes)

author=Xenomic
I think you're kinda overthinking how long things take. The longest dungeon in the game right now, when I went through it, took like maybe 1 to 1 1/2 hours maybe, and that one had random encounters, 6 bosses, and 31 maps total. Of course, the sheer size of some of those maps will be cut down since they don't need to be that big, but I digress.

And really, even in post-SNES games, dungeons still take about as long (excluding FFXII of course because who likes THAT game). Granted, THOSE games can add more complexity and whatnot, but nonetheless!

First off, why the XII hate? It's a decent game; not the best, but there is no truly "bad" game in the main FF series. (This excludes sequels like X-2/XIII-2, since..well, they weren't really necessary.)

And, for six bosses to take such a short amount of time..are they really even worth fighting? I'm not saying each of those should take like 20 minutes or so, but adding the time spent on those, plus the time spent exploring, and random encounters..it kinda seems rather short to me, idk. :p (Unless you're fairly powerful enough by that point.)

author=LockeZ

author=Xenomic
Ok, I'mma have to put my foot down on this. I'm honestly curious as to your guys tolerance with how long dungeons take, because I'm pretty sure that several older RPGs have dungeons generally around this size and generally still take 10-20 minutes to get through, if not longer.

An hour and a half is about my maximum, for the longest dungeon in the game. I expect most dungeons to be about 30 minutes long, but I'm willing to tolerate longer than average dungeons, as long as there aren't too many of them. But if something takes an hour or more, I expect it to have a lot of really interesting stuff and change meaningfully several times during it; I also expect multiple mid-dungeon cut scenes, multiple puzzles, NPC interactions, minibosses, sidequests, stuff to do, stuff to find, etc.

The fact that there are old games that aren't like this doesn't make it okay. Because for the most part, those old games suck horribly, and the only reason we remember them fondly is because they were all we had. A few games did certain things brilliantly, though it was mostly by chance since the study of game design didn't formally exist yet. FF6 had great dungeon and event pacing, Chrono Trigger had great enemy formations and character balance, Shin Megami Tensei had great party customization and challenge, FF Tactics had a level of complexity that made people feel smart for figuring out how to make their team unbeatable. But none of them even came close to doing everything brilliantly, or even doing everything acceptably. And the games you're citing as doing dungeons the way you did had unfathomably horrible dungeons that were only excused because other parts of the game were so ridiculously good for their time. These days, there are so many games that do so many more things right at once that it's no longer acceptable to players to totally abandon any attempt at quality in aspect of the game. I think that's where the disconnect is coming from between what you've seen in other games and what people expect from yours.

author=Xenomic
My LPer, who was using a character that had double speed and also got semi-lost, got through within 20 minutes. So yeah...despite its size and the random encounter (remember, encounter for most areas is set to 70-80 so it's like 1 fight for every 70-80 steps, give or take), it does NOT take super super long to get through.

If your encounter rate is set that ridiculously high, that indicates a major problem with the dungeon size. And if I'm doing the math right, that means your battles only take like 30 seconds each? If I can win an RM2K3 battle in 30 seconds, that means I probably didn't even get to use my entire team, much less fight an engaging battle that I enjoyed. It also means there's no boss and there are no cut scenes.

Plus, from your own earlier posts, the cave dungeon you're working on now is like 10x this size, and a maze. So... uh. If I'm really generous, that's going to come out to 3 hours and 20 minutes. But it's really going to be more because backtracking in a maze is much more time consuming than backtracking in an open field, right?

Oh I'm sorry, but Chrono Trigger still easily beats any recent incarnation of Final Fantasy. They might as well rename the series to Final Fallacy at this point, it's more true to the quality of the games.

If you're running from random encounters, you're fighting too many identical or near-identical battles. This is either an indication that the dungeon is too long, or that the enemies are too similar, or that the rewards for battle are too miniscule, or all of the above.

If you don't like your own random battles, why are they even in the game? You could totally make a game with nothing but bosses, you know.

Back to screenshots!

Agreed, lol I posted two screenies on the previous page, if anyone feels like critiquing 'em~ I'm still amateurish in the field of spriting, but I managed to edit at least those two exactly how I wanted 'em to look~. :)

Also, great gollies Deckiller! Haha, are those Sairen clones? :3

LockeZ
If you don't like your own random battles, why are they even in the game? You could totally make a game with nothing but bosses, you know.

Unfortunately it's set in a large dungeon I didn't have the time or skill to map particularly well ;V

DUNGEONS: THOU ART MY GREATEST WEAKNESS

but hey, won me my first(? i think) misao, so... nifty

EDIT:

Hoho~ I'm not all too keen on the Phantasy Star series(outside of Phantasy Star Universe), but that looks fairly pleasant! Nice job on it~ :D

^
Those signs stick out like a sore thumb. It's the color discrepancy between shiny, colorful signs and drab chipset. There has to be a better way, either by recoloring or finding alternatives.
Also a minor nitpick, the building shadows' corners should be angled from the southwest edge of the building. If it's time consuming to fix, don't bother. Nobody will really care when playing.