What makes a great dungeon?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Knutplate, May 9, 2013.

  1. Battleaxe Augur

    The 13 hour corpse recoveries and trying to beat your corpse and gear rotting produced a lot of desperation that the current game can't produce. Having been through that, I can agree.

    But I also appreciate your point that establishing a foothold in a zone can still be a significant part of the zone's challenge and create tension even if it doesn't produce the degree of desperation a, when it was new, PoFear break did.

    Players aren't willing to do 13 hour CR/break ins with their gear on the line anymore exciting or not. There's a line where challenging is no longer fun. It's just frustrating and feels very unfair. 13 hour CR's are well beyond that line.
  2. Adaire Lorekeeper

    TONS of fantastic ideas here that I agree with wholeheartedly some of them include:

    1. LDoN style
    2. Progressively harder content
    3. Better risk vs reward
    4. Making class specific requirements (based on current classes in group - no this. Door is locked and only a rogue can open it if there isn't a rog in group please!)
    5. Timers
    6. Different selectable content
    7. Random content - ie entire theme is the same but specifics cannot be "memorized"
    8. Alt rewards akin to chits etc
    9, combine weps idea like uhhh what was it HoT?

    Not sure if this was said but I loved the ranking systems, bring back those, but modify them and add to them, epeen compares for all to see and tie those to the reward system. Keep them updating for different time frames though, daily weekly etc and have some rewards for those too...
  3. Randragon Augur

    Walls, ceilings and floors to start.
  4. Randragon Augur

    The real problem with the dungeons in todays games is that there is not enough randomness in it.

    Once you run through it a few times there really is no reason to go back to that zone. I wish they would take the next expansion and create a virtual changing dungeon crawl which changes factions on its own, as well as its makeup such as traps, mobs, etc.

    Make a new zone for groups, guild etc that adds spice back to the game. In fact create a whole expansion with soo much depth and surprises for solo, group and raids which constantly changes so you never know what strat to use until you are in the thick of it.

    I don't care if this expansion is one zone but make it massive and make it so you want to go there. Even if you don't want to create many new items, pull from the loot table of the last few expansions and make it random drops on the mobs. Never know what you may get.

    Nowadays you kind of know what drops on what raids or group encounters and it's become too predictable and vanilla (bland).
  5. Explicit Augur

    You mean weapon crushing, like in UF? Turn 2 items in, get the item you want kinda deal. If so, I agree - would be nice to see that return...but I don't think it falls in line with a dungeon since IIRC it was a raid-only thing.
  6. Tegila Augur

    there are a lot of things abotu "dungeon crawls" that i hate, and a lot of things i like..but it's pretty much balanced to the point idc if they make dungeons again or not.

    problem to me is people in today's game talkign about crystal caverns as a dungeon: CC is just annoying. as someone else said: dont give me a maze that's beyond annoying, with and without maps. Give me a zone that changes as you move to different areas, mobs have different abilities, drops differnet items, scenery changes, theres a reason to go to each portion. Breeding grounds is awesome IMO in this respect, plus it's full of dragons (i hate the stupid rats though heh) However it's the same every time.

    Randomizing is cool, things dont have to be a maze to be unpredictable or at least unmemorizable (most randomized zones in games are still predictable in that they use various "blocks" of terrain that are randomly rotated and combined together..thus that each block can be remembered but the order will never be the same)

    randomizing the bosses would be awesome. Make these like ldons where the zone scales to group level..but make it so it drops out the lowest level but NOT the highest level, this way a lvl 100 cant get in a gourp with buncha 85s and plow through a lvl 85 dungeon with ease, maybe instead of averaging there's another method that could be used, but make it variable. Then within each spawn any boss mob in the game with all its abilities..scaled to the level of the dungeon. Make their loot just like the 14th anni augs wehre theyre required 10 recommended 100 (or wahtever's max at the time) etc. balancing the minimum to average at lvl 10 for useful gear and the max to what would be typical at 100, maybe a bit higher on both ends. Make it a surprise but not a maze.

    The dungeon crawl is fine, whether you box or not (sorry guys boxers can move and play too, and many do have mezzers in their team) but make them be on their toes doing so. Wanderers a definite must have but not SI wanderers. make them zonewide wanders taht have say 4-5 wanders for the zone, all on different paths, all respawning every 10 minutes..but the rest of the zone does not respawn. Now when you're killing mobs you have to watch for those roamers but if you have to go to the bathroom you can group invis and be ok afking for 5 minutes. Today's playerbase requires theability to emergency afk to pick up gramma off the bathroom floor, pull down the 2year old from the countertop, separate the cate from the curtains or the dog from the mailman etc, take the irate phone call from the wife or the boss (same/same heh) etc..but make there a risk while actively playing in the zone.

    Make a central location for requestion these so taht people dont try to use lfg tool as if it would work or spam general chat begging for groups..if you need a group yo ucan go here and there WILL be groups to be had. simple as that.

    Do not ever make 1 single class absolutely necessary for anything. general abilities etc..yes, but not 1 single class. if a mob spawns adds dont make them only mezzable but not rootable or stunnable..they shoudl be controllable by all forms of cc not just 1 type, etc. Dont make any mobs that only can be kileld with melee or only spells etc. Except the random nameds i mentioend earlier.

    Make it flat out instead of random anywhere..every so many minutes a named spawns somewehre in teh zone..a named from anywhere in the game, tuned to your dungeon level etc..and that named will despawn in 10 minutes if you cant find it, clear to it, and engage it before then. do this every so many mobs or every so many minutes etc..but make them sectional. first mob in first section second in second section, so yo ucant just park at zone in and wait for that mob every 10 minutes, you have to crawl to get more nameds, etc

    dor gods sake DO NOT make any of them monster missions. i mean yo ucould make us all turn itno weird mobs when we zone in but dont make use play toons of other classes with no gear or abilities of our mains, that negates the purpose of developing ones own toon (like dains and omm's did) make hte mobs progressively more xp the deeper you go so your group will decide how far they think they can go or how much time they can spend, and 30ish minutes before theend or before they think theyll get to the ultrarisky time..they can burn a lesson, but dont make the zonein as good as deeper so people wont hang out there for free xp etc. each boss you kill should have a chest (not the mob himself's corpse) like in missions, where you open it and are near and you get an xp surge..make it a chest so those taht die at 0% dont lose out, they get rezzed then chest can be opened etc and they move on.

    as much as i love campfire..dont allow campfiring, coh, corpsesummoning, etc etc in these zones. make it pure crawl, after 30minutes no one can be added, when teh group falls apart it falls apart you start a new one with a new dungeon etc. and while you do this..put campfires etc back in ALL OTHER GROUP ZONES..including corpse summoning.

    thats all i haveto say i guess. progressively more xp but not progressively harder..make that choice at the start. easy normal hard..with hard being aimed at raidgeared persons of the level of the gorups, easy being low aa-slightly lower geared (like t1 rof at 100 rather than t3 rof at 100) etc, and normal being about the difficulty of the current t2/3 group game of that level etc. make the drive to push farther for more xp and more bosses sicne it wont repeat or get better staying still, you have to move to get better, the longer you go the more you get so no oen will be flipping instances either, and dont do the ability to add after 30minutes, because if 1 person leaves you can pop a merc, if 3 people leave go make a new group and get a new instance, start over so they get to experience it all, also with no adding or campfiring you dont sit yoru alts out and add them for drops etc, you bring actual people that may need the drops as yo ugo. maybe even put in locked doors after a period of time..once you kill the stage 1 boss and you move past his doorway, theres a cavein and you cant return so no one zoning in an hour later to get drops (since no repops except roamers) can jsut run straight to camp etc..

    ok yapping but..as someone that never lived through LDoN when it was current or even hate and fear and sky wehen they were current, but experiencedh tem later, but has playedm any dungeon-y games with other mechanics..this is my take on dungeons in eq, how id like them and how id hate them (mainly..no mazes dear god no mazes and no water lol. lava ok but no water) and no lamps etc on the walls that you get stuck on at every turn either lol

    edit one afterthought: make them freeze normal buffs (but not discs etc..anythign shortterm that goes to songwindow etc..anythign thatl asts under 15minutes shoudltn be frozen) that way there will be a reason to keep going through keep pushing through teh zone isntead of getting a new one everytime buffs fall off..now this also adds some danger in dying sicne yo ucant gate and campfire back with buffs etc..you either bring your buffs with you , you do without, or you start over if you die...but let the normal buff buffs stay on indefinitely if you can live that long..make it a marathon for those that want it to be .

    edit 2: coudl also put a merchant/banker at the end of each "chunk" after each boss dies a merchant and a banker spawn for 10minutes so you can unload yoru bags as needed, there will be no leaving the zone and returning in this setup, but there needs to be a way to push it for as long as you want to or can handle it, no artificial need to leave the zone (though many have vet aas taht summon these things, you can only do it once in such a crawl so would be quite limited still in how long you can go) make the items progressively more valuable (from trashmobs) so thel oot doesnt jsut get left to rot, etc etc etc
  7. Tegila Augur

    omg i wrote a book lol..sorry :)
    moogs likes this.
  8. Fyrerock Augur

    What made a great dungeon in the old days was not the dungeon but how the fight went. Running out of mana was a real factor in the old days, for both the healer and the enchanter, so you used to have 30 minute plus running fights where both the enchanter and the cleric would run out of mana more than once, and during that time nobody knew if the group was going to win or lose and that is just from fighting trash mobs as they repopped.
    moogs and Szan like this.
  9. Mikestab Elder

    Environment is important. As you go deeper it should feel darker in light and tone. Tighter and more sinister. Sounds are great too. Like in Po Torment. Wailing, chains ratteling. Manaical laughs. Traps are a must. How about ones that randomly port some of your party. Seperation is scarry. A few old zones had random emotes, that was fun. "You are wondering why you would come here." Being stuck and a bit dispowered is fun too. Cant zone out where you zone in. No gate or porting out. Maybe track is blocked.
  10. Szan Lorekeeper

    Fyrerock is onto something, if you think back, way back to the days of Lower Guk, you would be in a room (or camp) and pulling mobs, one would get away and you would have to hope that the enchanter you have with you is good enough to keep the train inc to the camp locked down, and that you could kill it all fast enough so that he didn't run out of mana.

    So one of the things that is missing is the "oh sh.." factor. Are you going to survive, etc. But of course today's game is different from back then, now we have mobs that hit really hard and so having 3 or more active you aren't likely to survive long enough to pull out that win.

    I see alot of people talking about LDoN 2.0 and for me I was never as impressed with those dungeons as I was with Nurga, Droga, Seb, Lower Guk, etc. I can understand wanting to have your own private dungeon, time limits, etc. But I would also like to see a static dungeon with static camps like the above listed dungeons.

    Let you get settled in and try and get that named to spawn for a chance at his loot (especially if that loot is something unique and powerful enough that anyone would want it), but have the base pop be fast enough that adds are a constant problem, etc (like the above dungeons). Or having the mobs so packed together that you need to have a good puller to split them apart and get the number you can handle. Having a "camp" that is like in the old days were its not a safe spot to setup shop, you have to kill the stuff in the room and then pull mobs to that spot, making sure to time respawn so that you dont wipe the group by having 2 inc and 2 respawning.

    Szan
  11. Nolrog Augur

    Not sure sbout you, but I always died with me gear on. Getting I back, now tht was the challenge.
  12. Wuttever Augur

    I still find the slippery floors a real blast, even if it does mean I go over the edge on occasion. And my favorite, I think, is the invisible bridge. I was not part of finding it, but wish I had been. Still makes me sweat to go across that thing.
  13. Wuttever Augur

    I do prefer instances, and having no respawns.

    Being at the keyboard for long doesn't work for me, now, if it ever did. Sitting that long is bad, staring at the screen that long is bad. I take a lot of short breaks now days, and the game is much more fun. So having no respawns means I can do that and still progress.

    Having intense encounters is fun. Doing so for half an hour straight, not so much.
  14. Wuttever Augur

    Another thing which I really enjoy about dungeons is the puzzle of how to pull crowded rooms, and how to handle the adds from roamers. The chaos is fun. When you stand there after killing 5 in a row when you only wanted to pull 1, and you're all nearly dead and out of mana, it's a pretty good feeling.
    moogs and Qest T. Silverclaw like this.
  15. Qest T. Silverclaw Augur

    I too agree with those who remember loving dungeon crawling Nurga, Droga, Chardok, etc. (nobody could crawl Sebilis because it was mostly/completely camped) over LDoN; however, randomized LDoN can, I think give us more entertainment bang for our developer bucks. Once we have LDoN v2, then we can worry about slowly adding masterfully crafted world zones.

    What if part of LDoN v2 also included our favorite old zones? I'd love to have to crawl through Droga again, but this time as a level 100 vs. level 98-105 goblins.
  16. Kamea Augur

    Best example of a static zone dungeon that would work well in the modern game is something more like Dreadspire than the old school dungeons.

    Dungeons are paradoxical in the fact that the thing that makes them fun is also the thing that makes them frustrating; difficult travel (eg, not just being able to invis past everything.)

    Zones like Dreadspire is more like a hub that's relatively easy to travel through and is connected to multiple small/unique dungeons that are more dangerous.... and the zone is clever and cohesive enough to really be high quality.
  17. Kravitz Augur

    Charasis was a great crawl and your post is very analogous to the feel of Charasis. I think the biggest missing element of a good dungeon these days seems to be no respawns in instances. Once you clear a certain area, you can setup camp and it doesn't push a group forward, you can pull the whole instance to that camp spot once you clear it. Therefore, there is no risk element at all. A dungeon should have the element of crawling and not staying in one spot.
  18. Fyrerock Augur

    The most popular dungeons were always the ones that people found a camp spot, and pulled to it. The dungeons that you need to crawl were for the most part empty.
    Elricvonclief likes this.
  19. Wuttever Augur

    I remember when we first tried to get the flowing black silk sash, we set up camp just outside the room, and planned our pulls from the room between spawns. Someone was responsible to know when the spawn was going to happen in the room we were in, and let us know so we could wait on it before pulling the frenzied again. The spawns didn't make us move.

    LDoN, I would pull from crowded rooms, to the group which was just a little ways back. In the dungeon crawls I was a part of, we would clear, move up a little, clear more, move up. Only the puller ever went into the rooms with mobs, while the rest stayed well back. Remember how the main tank would tell the group to "move to me"?

    Perhaps EQ might benefit from having mobs in instances be tethered to their spots, and not able to be pulled very far at all, such as some are now.
  20. Illusionist_Innania Augur

    I hate tethering as it stands in the game now, but having a mob go "DA", de-agro, and path back to it's spawn if pulled too far would work.