In-Game Dungeon Overlord AKA Player Built Dungeons :)

Rothgar wrote:

See now, I completely 'get' point one. I can understand that it's a massive overcomplication of a nascent feature to attempt to work player characters into the design.
But really... all currently existant content has the problem you mention in problem two. It may be somewhat undesirable on a theoretical level (though psychologically it's a rather greyer area) but it is also how all content in EQ2 works, so presenting it as a big ol' problem seems a bit strange to me.
Unless, and this is a biggy, Dungeon Builder rewards are real tangible rewards for raid-geared players. Current 'easy' content doesn't offer a challenge to raiders, but equally doesn't offer much in the way of reward. If you've got some system where the rewards from DYOD remain real and influential regardless of character gear quality (my own personal dream was a tie-in with reforging) then I completely get your whole 'don't want people to trivialize' point. And it may even make me more on board with the whole thing than I originally was.

steelbadger wrote:

Yeah, I thought that was weird, too, but I think it's the dungeon building rewards (as opposed to the rewards for your player character) that concern them. They don't want casual players to feel like they have to raid in order to design the best dungeons - just running other player dungeons should be enough.

Rothgar wrote:

Makes sense. Just because you have raid gear doesn't mean you're the best player at that class (doesn't mean you're not either). But raid gear by itself can still do significant damage even if played by a chimpanzee.
Here's a thought that may already be one of your ideas on how to make it fair:
Let us play our own characters, but when we zone in, our gear gets replaced with T9 mastercrafted gear and their inerverated weapon that we can't swap out while in the zone. Masters, AAs, tinkered items, etc. should be already available to everyone regardless of whether they are solo players or raiders so that should be pretty fair already but if you think masters are unfair, drop everyone's spells to expert level as well.
Just doing that would make the playing field fairly even. It wouldn't let me play my characters to their full abilities but it would at least let me play MY character with MY hotbar setup, AA spec, etc.

Dethdlr@Butcherblock wrote:

I just think upping the difficulty would be easier Letting the Overlord set the difficutly, script, and the TACTICS and maybe even equip the mobs.

These are going to be such ghost towns~

Gaige wrote:

The key will be finding a way to have more people want to run them than make them. For example; I would LOVE to design a dungeon, but I am far less interested in running a bunch of other people's self made dungeons. I bet a lot of people feel this way.
Two ways I can see to potentially fix this:
1. Very good rewards for your main by completing others' dungeons (bad/unbalanced)
2. Rewards that make your dungeon better by completing others' dungeons (good if it works)

EDIT

Seggen@Crushbone wrote:

Ideas:
Mercenaries hired in the game-world scale to the player-made dungeons. Create a mercenary and unlock it through a quest.
Reward players with tokens redeemable for appearance gear and maps upon the completion of objectives within player-made dungeons.
Maps are available for purchase and trade, and are also available as a reward in player-made dungeons. In this way, one dungeon may lead to the next. This could be used for many things, like guild-trials or timed competitions. Maps are items that enable access to a player-made dungeon wherever in the world the creator of the dungeon places the point of access: if a dungeon-creator connects the point of access to a boulder in Antonica or the Loping Plains, players with the map must travel to the point of access and select the boulder to enter the dungeon. Cartography.

Crothos@Antonia Bayle wrote:

How to kill this feature with one term.
Anything less than gear of real use while out adventuring in the rest of the game will NOT hold the interest of people for more than a few weeks. The rewards need to be useful. And useful to more than just people who make the dungeons, there needs to be an audience for the dungeons.

steelbadger wrote:

What about resources instead of useable gear, in addition to appearance-gear and maps? Do you like the map idea? I hope they do something with it.

Crothos@Antonia Bayle wrote:

'Resources'?
Do you mean, for example, consumable temporary adornments that could be used to add procs to existing gear? This would be fine, to my mind. Assuming the procs are of reasonable quality (and perhaps lesser version are obtainable from other content) then they should represent a decent incentive to run Custom Dungeons.
The map idea, while in some respects interesting, is pretty much dead in the water. So far as I'm aware the plan is to include custom dungeons in the dungeon finder feature coming soon (tm); the aim is to reduce exploration (though it is thought of in this context as an uneccessary time-sink) not increase it. I believe the dungeon finder groups you up automatically and zones you into content without you having to do any legwork at all. Your idea is the kid of thing that sounds nice to start but would probably get reeally boring and be thought of as a bit of a nuisance by the people who used it.
Additionally, with the hoped for leaderboard feature it is really important that zones are fully accessable for everyone, to have a star rating system in place when people can't even choose their next dungeon from the full gamut is not really any good at all.

steelbadger wrote:

Sure.
Then the map idea may be a good way of recording favorite layouts of randomly-generated dungeons discovered in certain areas, like under rocks and behind waterfalls...Perhaps for EQ Next.
What do you think of designing your own mercenary, that you unlock through a quest, to run player-made dungeons?

If you cannot run your own characters SOE needs to just go ahead and find something else for the people working on this to do.
DYOD is now as far as I am concerned DOA.

Did a medical herb shop open up near SOE HQ recently?

It seems like a cool idea for a game other than EQ2. Honestly doesn't fit the game setting, the lore, the story, or even the type of game play I'm looking for as a paying subscriber.
Rather see the new dynamic level 90 dungeons. Even re-using old zones sounds cool to me. I like revisiting old continents.
DYOD? Meh...

Zaldor wrote:

I at least have a glimmer of hope now for this feature. It sounds like Rothgar and the rest of the dev team are not against letting us run through these with our characters, they just want to find a way to level the playing field for everybody.
Does that go against pretty much the entire rest of the game where content basically gets easier with better gear? Yes. Does it seem to be something that they find important anyway? Yes.
I understand what they're talking about at least. If they DO implement a way to level the playing field and let us run these with our own characters I'll find it quite interesting that I'll have a shot at the leaderboards even though I don't raid. There have been times where I would have liked the ability to do a sort of mentoring down of gear. Click a button or talk to an npc and you're wearing all handcrafted or mastercrafted gear with Apprentice or Expert level spells/CAs. Then you could easily duel/parse on a training dummy/etc. and compare skill rather than gear (not counting class differences of course).
If the encounters end up being interesting and fun to do with the only downside being that I have to do it with an avatar, then all they have to do is find that way of letting us run them with our characters. If it ends up only being mediocre though, adding the ability to run them with our characters may not be enough to save it.
I at least have a little hope now.

Gaige wrote:

From what we know so far....I agree 100%.

Dethdlr@Butcherblock wrote:

I agree that things might be different down the road. But from where I am sitting right now I see no reason at all to even have this as a feature of the game.

When I log into EQ2 I am logging in to grow my character, not have my character play another character.
This is turning into that Onion news story where Blizzard was going to release an MMO that lets you play a character that is playing WoW.

I think there needs to be a little more information on the mechanics of this...Hopefully those of you in Beta will be able to give feedback to this.

Regarding DYOD,
So lets say some character (lets say his hypothetical character name is haxor teh'gamexor) makes a dungeon which consists of 500 mobs in a room. How does that character and dungeon now work into the lore of this norrath universe? As far as i can tell, most player dungeons have the potential to be nothing more than crappier versions of professionally designed dungeons. How many crappy player made dungeons will we have to sift through to find even a single thoughtfully designed and entertaining dungeon? How many of them are just going to be traps set up for LOL's, or have anything whatsoever to do with the lore of the norrath universe? How many will be just powerleveling playgrounds, or new spots to farm loot? How many are going to have massive polygon counts because the guy designing it is running the latest hardware and didnt notice? Wheres the quality control and beta playtesting before it hits the server?
The only solution is to make these dungeons fairly cookie cutter, which defeats the purpose, and makes for terrible gameplay. There is a reason this concept has failed in every game that has tried it.
Edited: I see how this wont be a PL playground with the avatars, but that brings up a different point. Whats the point of advancing your main character if you are just going to play an avatar instead? I mean this appears to be just another step towards removing the need for progression from this game, just like the mount speed masacre. Frankly I worked hard for my raid gear, very hard. Who says i shouldnt benefit from that hard work? You say that someone without raid gear shouldnt have to work 4x as hard to get the benefits from the DYOD. I say they should, because I had to work 4x as hard to get the raid gear I have. Your idea of balancing this system is so far off, you have obviously lost touch with this game and have no business contributing to its future.

Zabjade wrote:

I'm guessing it is objecting to "a s s essment"