Advanced dungeons

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Originally Posted by raela

For dungeons with lore tidbits, it's easier to use Return at the end then go through at your own pace.

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I do this quite often, but wish they'd make it easier. Extend the time we can remain in a dungeon after it's over, and lower the level of remaining mobs the group left behind, so that if we want to go back and explore on our own, we can then solo the mobs that originally would have taken the whole group.

It would solve a lot of incompatible objectives problems if we could start by racing to the end for players who only want the completion rewards for the boss kill, then those interested in side objectives could take their time going back and exploring / looting the whole place.

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Originally Posted by Keikun

We definetely need dungeons created with more imagination instead of the A-------------------->B dungeons que have now.

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Problem is, that's what people want. They want to speed run. They want to get their tomes and be done with it for the week. They're already going to find the fastest way to do it regardless, so devs have taken that into account and have overly simplified instanced content and added gates only as a means to stop people from pulling everything to a boss room and locking it out, or overpulling and wiping the party.

People want variety, but then complain that it takes too long when they get it. They want random generation, but then skip everything and beeline for the exit. They want new primal battles, but they want to skip as many mechanics as possible and cheese the fight where they can. Hell, if guildhests gave tomes, or hunts gave you EVERYTHING but atma like they originally did, dungeons would be dead in the water again. THEN they'd complain about lack of content.

I'm growing numb to these ideas - and as a quick clarification, I LIKE the OP's idea. But I grow numb to it because the community says they want one thing, then their actions dictate another. Yes, novelty fades on everything, and you're only new to it once, but when dungeons devolve into slipstreaming your way through until forced to stop and kill things, get your tomes as fast as you can, then afkomplain about nothing to do? Well, we bring it upon ourselves.

Didn't SE say that there would be a new design to the current dungeon system/format we now have in a live letter?

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

They want to get their tomes and be done with it for the week.

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And this is precisely where the issue lies: Rewards.

Rewards are a behavior control tool that's trying to make you do something you have no interest in and reinforce you if you do on your own volition. They reduce intrinsic interest in the actual activity - Students who get paid for good grades care less about the subject than they did before and more about grades, which leads to learning for tests, rather than life and a lower retention of knowledge.
Because behavior shifts towards maximizing rewards, they can set bad incentives, such as priorizing quantity over quality, cutting corners etc.

They're a necessary evil, at least in scripted content, but also fairly destructive.

The difficulty of level cap dungeons, 3.x level 60 and the upcoming 4.x level 70 dungeons should scale to the parties iLvl. I don't just mean that enemies should have more HP and do more damage if the parties iLvl is 10+ levels above the minimum to enter. But that additional enemies, mechanics, and possible drops from the additional enemies should be added to keep them interesting.

For example, if the requirement to enter is 260, and the parties average is 270+, then SE should not only make the enemies tougher, but add more mechanics and difficult enemies that can drop (RNG) rare crafting, minions, or glam items. And, have the difficulty and potential drops scale by 10 iLvls.

Also, the base difficulty of end game dungeons should increase with each patch. So the dungeons in 4.1 should be more difficult then the 4.0 ones, the 4.2 dungeons should be more difficult then the 4.1 dungeons etc...

As it is now, it's a bad sign when all of the 3.x dungeons have been face roll easy on the very day they are released.

this always ends the same. branching paths are fine the first few days then someone post the fastest route then people only using that one even mentioning the other paths a month down the line warrants a kick.

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Originally Posted by Bahd_Monkey

For example, if the requirement to enter is 260, and the parties average is 270+, then SE should not only make the enemies tougher, but add more mechanics and difficult enemies that can drop (RNG) rare crafting, minions, or glam items. And, have the difficulty and potential drops scale by 10 iLvls.

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Interesting idea, but it could cause major problems in unbalanced groups. Consider a brand new healer who just managed to get their gear up to the i142 level so that they can go through the Aetherochemical Research Facility, but they get teamed up with three players in i270 gear. The average is i238, nearly a hundred item levels higher than the healer. Is she going to be able to heal all the damage from mobs 96 levels above her? (Substitute tank or DPS if you like. The same problem holds true regardless which role the lower-geared player is on. It's just easier to describe if I pick one for the example.)

Actually, I suspect this problem is among the main reasons why this game chose to go with a sync system that syncs down players rather than syncing up/down mobs. Level sync or item level sync can help balance out groups made up of a wide span of characters.

Would love something like prime levels from WildStar (or I guess it's called mythic+ in WoW?). Hate mindless dungeons >_<

Linear dungeons are easier for the devs to produce, but hot damn are they boring as hell. The only dungeons I've run in the last year were for anima steps and keeping roulettes unlocked with new content patches. Old school dungeon design of non-linear even as an option would be way more appealing, especially if they made different paths have different rewards, so you could target paths for certain goals.

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Originally Posted by Bloody

Linear dungeons are easier for the devs to produce, but hot damn are they boring as hell. The only dungeons I've run in the last year were for anima steps and keeping roulettes unlocked with new content patches. Old school dungeon design of non-linear even as an option would be way more appealing, especially if they made different paths have different rewards, so you could target paths for certain goals.

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And then you get 4 people wanting to go 4 different ways in DF and being stubborn and all sitting at the entrance for an hour and a half.