Dungeon events and rare/random spawns

Right from the start, I know some people are happy with running dungeons all day as they are to cap currencies. I wouldn't be looking to remove that type of dungeon run from them. The system I'm suggesting would be an option to check off, or even a separate type of roulette. Given that a lot of time is spent repeating dungeons for currency/gear I think there could be more variation in running them.

One of the easier ways to do this would be to have variations in the types of enemies found in the dungeon and the patterns that they follow. Throw in some enemies that are really deadly that should be avoided. On rare occasions there could even be a boss style enemy that is free roaming, with the potential to encounter the party anywhere. Give him a unique loot pool and currency should it happen. Have some out of range enemies engaged in a summoning. After a certain amount of time in the dungeon they spawn a powerful demon that you can return to fight or ignore.

Randomly throw in some npc's, both helpful and in need of help. Perhaps give players an option to accept additional NPC quests inside the dungeon that opens up a new area with it's own trials and rewards. There could be lost/captured merchants that offer items that you would not find find anywhere else. There could be random minions locked away in cells that you would have to search for keys through out the dungeon to get. Drop an alchemist lab table somewhere with a random potion effect or rare dyes. Cursed tombs that when open provide rare items or materials, but inflicts a penalty on the party until the dungeon is complete.

Maybe if the party has not crossed into an area by a certain time the enemies are alerted to their presence and setup a blockade. Players could choose to descend into an otherwise locked area, with it's own set of challenges events and rewards, or fight through the blockade to return to the standard path. Perhaps when the players get to a boss room they find a hostile party of "dungeon raiders" has killed the boss and laid claim to the treasure. Make them a random composition of classes with the choice for the players fight them instead.

There are hundreds of ways and combinations of things that would make a dungeon feel interactive and give parties the decision of what to do next. It would be fun to go into a dungeon with a sense of adventure and unease about what you are getting into, instead of an autopilot mentality. Due to the added time/difficulty it would draw a smaller crowd, but I think if the rewards were balanced around that it would be a popular choice for people looking to break up the monotony of standard dungeons.

I like this idea, and some of these mechanics are already in use in several different dungeons in the game so it's not like they can't be done.

yes, spice up dungeons pls!

The game needs less RNG with drops, not even more.

Yea please oh please

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Originally Posted by Gilthas

The game needs less RNG with drops, not even more.

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I wouldn't want to see it effect gear as much as glamour items, minions and things that wouldn't effect endgame activities. Also since it would be an add-on for what players are doing anyways its kind of just a bonus.

you enter Tam Tara HM. You then realize a girl with a white dress and long black hair is slowly following behind you and if she gets you... *gulp*.... lets put it this way. Get your ass to the boss ASAP!

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Originally Posted by Marxam

you enter Tam Tara HM. You then realize a girl with a white dress and long black hair is slowly following behind you and if she gets you... *gulp*.... lets put it this way. Get your ass to the boss ASAP!

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Lol, exactly this kind of stuff. You could even have undead and ghosts haunt the dungeon in addition to the standard foes until you find and put to rest some angry spirit. Anything to add variety to those times you just want a change of pace.

You could even randomly give a message to a single player, like they are the only one to notice a gust of wind from a secret passage. "Hey guys, I think I found something over here." Some reason to talk to each other aside from the "Hi!" and "Good Job!" if even that.

I really like this idea! Also having world events where a very powerful boss would decend (sorta like odin but free roaming) on a zone and crush everything in their path If not handled with strategy and skill. You would have to somehow load balance the server though so it wouldn't crash when it happened.

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Originally Posted by Evira

I really like this idea! Also having world events where a very powerful boss would decend (sorta like odin but free roaming) on a zone and crush everything in their path If not handled with strategy and skill. You would have to somehow load balance the server though so it wouldn't crash when it happened.

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RIFT had something like this back in its very early days. There were basically... let's call them totems for the sake of ease... that players had to activate within a time frame. This basically meant that a party would have to spread across the map, and collectively coordinate when to activate the totems. In so doing it would start an event timer, and after some amount of time a world boss would spawn in the zone. Now, in that game, it was commonplace for a party of monsters to run to the nearest town or encampment, kill the NPCs and lay claim to the area and force players to defeat them in order for the NPCs to eventually respawn... I don't expect SE to devise a scheme which would force players to have to take back an encampment, since low population zones would have issues on this front, but I don't see why they couldn't do something like this. Especially considering that FATEs are just RIFTs without the flair.

I feel like the suggested ideas would be great to revitalise the monotonous low level dungeon runs :)

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Originally Posted by Aniforani

Maybe if the party has not crossed into an area by a certain time the enemies are alerted to their presence and setup a blockade.

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I like the entire idea, but this part seems to be the most likely feature that we could see in the near future. I'd imagine that the Garleans would do something like this, since they already know who we are and know that we aren't to be trifled with. Really hoping to see these ideas implemented in future dungeon runs!

I'd love to see this implemented! As MihaelB said, it would help to make the older dungeons interesting, but it may also help cut down on queue times. Especially if they put something like this in CT (hopefully with a higher chance of encountering the event).

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Originally Posted by Marxam

you enter Tam Tara HM. You then realize a girl with a white dress and long black hair is slowly following behind you and if she gets you... *gulp*.... lets put it this way. Get your ass to the boss ASAP!

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So exactly like... Wanderer's Palace.

Like the idea of randomized dungeons, at the moment they are very predictable and just a case of going through the motions.

What i would really like though are some decent open world dungeons.(Hard ones)
Fates are the closest we have atm and they are pretty much just a spam fest.

Thanks for the interesting idea! While we cannot promise such a feature can be added, we have relayed the information to the dev. team. Let us know if you have any other great ideas to make dungeons interesting! :)

Is this really such an interesting (and original) insight? I applaud Aniforani (the OP) for spelling it out here. But if the Dev. team isn't already thinking in these terms, then we collectively overestimate their worth.
I really hope this is not a fresh thought, that had to be relayed to them, by you, from the player base, but one (and a pretty basic one, at that) of many paradigms that they are constantly formulating to create depth in their (and our) game universe.

Great idea dungeons definitely need a bit more to them. Especially now that were getting 2 new dungeons per patch to last us 3 months. Personally I find it gets real boring after that much time.

And I guess well see what Void Ark has to offer us, but I think the 24 man raids could really use more to them. CT's were hard for like the first day then just get as much DPS to clear everything easy and ignore mechanics.

Perhaps after you beat the final boss, you have the option to leave, or turn around and fight a harder version dungeon in reverse back to the beginning! Even better, take that idea a step further and keep upping the difficulty having you literally running forward to the end, backwards to the beginning, and forward to the end until you either can't fight anymore, or the timer runs out!

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Originally Posted by Rutelor

Is this really such an interesting (and original) insight? I applaud Aniforani (the OP) for spelling it out here. But if the Dev. team isn't already thinking in these terms, then we collectively overestimate their worth.
I really hope this is not a fresh thought, that had to be relayed to them, by you, from the player base, but one (and a pretty basic one, at that) of many paradigms that they are constantly formulating to create depth in their (and our) game universe.

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Actually, Zhexos wasn't part of the team last time it was discussed so was either unaware or simply being polite. but either way the devs have acknowledged this idea before, and flat out said it's not going to happen.

The basic run down was, it'd need to be harder than normal so new players couldn't win if forced to face them and most people that are looking for higher difficulty aren't going to run old dungeons anyway.

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Originally Posted by Kaiser-Ace

[...] most people that are looking for higher difficulty aren't going to run old dungeons anyway.

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That is, unless the developers make the enriched "old" dungeons worth running further down the line. However, having said that, I (for one) think that more randomness (in the trash distribution, possible links, and location of chests--to mention just three elements) should be a fundamental aspect of every dungeon from the onset. We all, casual or not, have to run and re-run dungeons for our dailies, so why not add a limited amount of unexpected challenge?

And before someone mentions the developer's (and the marketing department) bend towards casual content, allow me to say two things: a) that such randomness could be graded in sync with the level of reward, and b) that nothing stops them from building the structures that generate it as a basic element of the design, and simply offer an option to remove it, making it revert to the very lowest level of rewards, when such option is applied.

Ah, and on re-reading my reply to Zhexos, I realize that Kaiser-ace's comment is well placed. I did make it sound as though I was chastising Zhexos for doing his job, which is to convey the payer base's opinions to the developers. It wasn't my intention, and for that I apologize to him.

I like the basic idea behind the thread, however I also see problems for the Dev Team doing this:

Simply - Do they spend time on creating horizontal progression dungeon content which would then increase the time between patches, or continue with the current trend.

I would love to see this simply due to the fact that there are quite a bit of potentially unexplored areas in dungeons.

Tam Tara (NM) had quite a bit of areas that could be explored if Miner and Carpenter were given in dungeon skills of clearing rubble and building woodworks to open up passages that were blocked. Many dungeons have this. This would be a way to add lvl 60 playability to older dungeons.

Also, give the Rogue or Ninja an in dungeon skill for picking locks for doors that were locked the first time to open up to lvl 60 content in an older dungeons.

The above are some simple ideas that were on the fly thoughts while typing. If you have no love for the above jobs/classes, I wasn't trying to offend.

The above sounds easy in theory but it still requires time.

My hope is that the Dev Team is able to expand the team overall so that way when we get to 4.0, Yoshi-P and the Dev Team will be able to to say something along the lines of:

"During the 3.x game progression we spent some time adding people to the Dev Team who are responsible for the upgrading of 2.x and 3.x areas of gameplay. During the 4.x game progression, you will see their hard work added to the game."

Like all things - Time always tells the real truth.

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Originally Posted by Aniforani

Snip.

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Just came to show you some support. This is a thread full of awesome ideas and you took your time to think about all that! Some surprised me, some others were like "Well, it's obvious, a dungeon... SHOULD HAVE THAT!"

I'm glad you got dev attention, deserved.

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Originally Posted by Aoxaviar

potential
Tam Tara (NM) had quite a bit of areas that could be explored if Miner and Carpenter were given in dungeon skills of clearing rubble and building woodworks to open up passages that were blocked. Many dungeons have this. This would be a way to add lvl 60 playability to older dungeons.

Also, give the Rogue or Ninja an in dungeon skill for picking locks for doors that were locked the first time to open up to lvl 60 content in an older dungeons.

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I actually like these ideas, especially the Ninja one. These could be restricted to parties consisting only of high level player (30+) and it could be scaled based on the player leves in tiers of 10. Would make things like when I ran satasha nm yesterday with a team full of 40+ players alot more tolerable.