[Suggestion] Savage Dungeons

Here's an idea that I brought up not long ago in a thread about dungeon difficulty: Savage Dungeons. This would be a form of mid-core endgame. These dungeons are designed to be significantly harder to complete at-level than their Normal/Hard counterparts, but not necessarily take significantly longer (assuming the players know how to handle mechanics properly).

Here's the short version of my idea:

Savage dungeons should:

• Have trash that hits significantly harder at-level than Normal/Hard dungeons.
• Have bosses that hit somewhat harder at-level than normal dungeons, and have mechanics which, if ignored, will make the fight significantly harder or even wipe the party.
• Drop current (at time of release) tomestone items from the final boss, on a weekly lockout (excluding weapons).
• Drop items 10 ilvls below current tomestone items from other bosses (this can include weapons).

Savage dungeons should not:

• Have monsters with significantly more HP/Defense relative to the ilvl required to enter.
• Have rewards that are less powerful than current tomestone items from the final boss, or the current normal raid tier from other bosses, or more powerful than current tomestone items from any boss.
• Be a significant source of Tomestones of any kind (that's what Expert-level dungeons and roulettes are for)
• Be in any roulette, unless said roulette is only for savage dungeons.

Now for some more detail on the above:

Trash in savage dungeons should hit harder, but not have significantly more HP/Defense than what would be considered "normal" for the given ilvl: This makes trash matter, and makes doing full pulls at-level less feasible (but not necessarily impossible with good gear and/or strategies), without making the dungeon take significantly longer and/or become a "Slog".

Bosses should hit harder (but not as much harder necessarily as trash), and have mechanics that matter, but not significantly more HP/Defense: The idea here is that boss fights should be harder, yet not necessarily take longer than is usual for a dungeon.

Loot should be relevant for the content tier in which the dungeon is released: This means current limited-tomestone gear (or gear of the same ilvl, excluding weapons in either case) from the final boss, on a weekly lockout when released (which can be removed later), and gear equivalent to the current "normal" raid tier from other bosses, possibly also limited at first (each tier of gear should be on a separate lockout, tho). For balance purposes, this could also exclude body/leg pieces if needed.

Savage Dungeons should not be a significant source of Tomestones: This is so that they don't completely replace normal dungeons as a source of Tomestones for people who can run them.

Savage Dungeons should not be in a roulette, unless it's a "Savage Dungeon Roulette": This is because what SQEX calls Expert roulette really isn't for experts - it's for people wanting to farm limited tomestones, and includes Normal dungeons. It's also related to the above: Savage Dungeons should not be a significant source for Tomestones.

In short, Savage Dungeons should be harder, more rewarding versions of current normal/hard dungeons, without necessarily taking significantly longer to complete with a good group.

--Erim Nelhah

Alternately, and more importantly (because affects all content), strengthen the impact of level and Ilevel sync, no need to rebalance dungeons to be punishing, let level sync do what it was intended to do.

Make dungeon rewards depnd on clear rate time. Since there are multiple bosses and trash mobs.
The faster the clear the better the reward at the end.

Efit: I am talking about savage dungeons.

An 8 man dungeon in 1.x style would be nice as a Savage dungeon (including multiple chests from the final boss if specific conditions got fulfilled).

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Originally Posted by Yeol

Make dungeon rewards depnd on clear rate time. Since there are multiple bosses and trash mobs.
The faster the clear the better the reward at the end.

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That was also part of the 1.x dungeons (chest #5 for speedrun)

http://oi66.tinypic.com/1pdr4h.jpg

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

Alternately, and more importantly (because affects all content), strengthen the impact of level and Ilevel sync (...)

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Tightening existing level/ilvl sync doesn't accomplish the goal of making a sort of mid-core endgame the way savage dungeons (or extreme dungeons, if you prefer) would, and could end up alienating casual players if the tunings are too tight, which is something SQEX definitely does not want.

As for why the new dungeon tier: Currently, for casual players, we have expert-level dungeons, normal raids, and 24-man semi-casual raids. For hard-core players, we have Savage raids. Mid-core players only get Extreme Primals (and possibly the early floors of the current savage raid) currently, and those are very limited (1-2 per raid tier these days) and only last until players get the weapons and/or mount from them. In other words, they don't last very long. Having an extra tier of dungeons the way we have primals and raids would add more content that mid-core players could handle.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yeol

Make dungeon rewards depnd on clear rate time. Since there are multiple bosses and trash mobs.
The faster the clear the better the reward at the end.

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While I like this idea for Savage Dungeons (see below), applying this to normal dungeons would make the community more toxic towards bad and/or undergeared players. Sometimes such a player would get silently kicked, and others they'd be yelled at (and then maybe kicked afterward). This, once again, could lead to players feeling alienated, and leaving for other games.

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Originally Posted by Felis

An 8 man dungeon in 1.x style would be nice as a Savage dungeon (including multiple chests from the final boss if specific conditions got fulfilled).

That was also part of the 1.x dungeons (chest #5 for speedrun)
(image snipped)

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I like the idea of extra chests for optional objectives and/or fast clears, but creating completely new dungeons for Savage may not be feasible due to resource constraints. Having an extra chest at the final boss for beating certain time thresholds (say, 25m and 20m), and another for completing with no deaths, would probably work.

--Erim Nelhah

Making Trash mobs stronger doesn't do anything to enhance the difficulty of the content though. If they hit harder, pull slower, heal more, that's about it. If you wanted to make "trash mobs" or rather the experience of fighting minions to the boss more challenging you would need to add gimmicks to them to make them challenging.

A thought that comes to mind is RNG of certain reactions the mobs get when using certain abilities, they would have a tell above them to know what reaction they are under which would cause you to have to adapt to the situation.


Simple ones could be a reaction that causes them to counter every attack, to absorb dmg dealt from AOE attacks, increased DEF that builds up into increased Crit hit rate, increased attack with lowered def etc etc. If you have concept like this then it would encourage the flexibility of using the utility in hand, maybe the "trash mob" uses an ability and now they have guaranteed crits and hit harder, how do you fight back against that? Bind it, weight it down, push it back and wait for the duration to wear off.

Cause in all honesty, if all you do is just make them hit harder and that's it while keeping the mobs themselves exactly the same, all you do is create the same experience it just takes longer to accomplish but by adding in mechanics to these mobs that could be based on who is alive, who falls etc etc, you create strategies in which players have to keep in mind who they are targeting, when to change target and who they should kill first in case there is a scenario when Killing A before B results in B being a lot harder than if they had killed B first.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yeol

Make dungeon rewards depnd on clear rate time. Since there are multiple bosses and trash mobs.
The faster the clear the better the reward at the end.

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I would draw the line at making content where if you happen to have to use the bathroom you screw your team out of rewards. So for normal dungeons? I think it is a very bad idea. DF will be kicking people for having to go brb for bathroom or for being undergeared/not doing really high dps. Creates a more hostile environment imo.

If its specifically a savage dungeon only then okay, because people understand its optional and you know what you are signing up for if you choose to do savage dungeons instead of normal dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Airget

(post about giving trash mobs mechanics instead of just making them stronger)

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I like this idea, in a way, but it should be limited to a single mob in a pack. Things like a mook maker (generates extra monsters so needs to be killed fast), or a mob with an ability like "chirp" from PotD that needs to be interrupted would be great. Having 2 mobs with such abilities in the same pull, however, would not be the greatest idea (what happens if your party consists of tank/ast/blm/smn, which is very possible with DF?).

--Erim Nelhah

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yeol

Make dungeon rewards depnd on clear rate time. Since there are multiple bosses and trash mobs.
The faster the clear the better the reward at the end.

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I don't think speed running is a thing this game needs to be encouraging even more than it already does.

I am replying to savage dungeons topic. Not talking about normal dungeons :)

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Originally Posted by Yeol

I am replying to savage dungeons topic. Not talking about normal dungeons :)

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I hate to say it, but the way you originally posted that made it sound like you wanted it to apply to Normal dungeons.

As for your response, yes, simply adding a Challenge Mode equivalent would help. Heck, SQEX alreay has a "minimum ilvl" option, all they'd have to do is determine "bronze", "silver", and "gold" times for each dungeon when run at minimum ilvl, and add rewards for each (a static extra reward once/week just for completing with "minimum ilvl" enabled, and better rewards like exclusive cosmetic gear and mounts for faster completions). That, and actually tune the dungeons to the minimum ilvl properly (so that they're a decent challenge at that ilvl).

It wouldn't be as good as savage dungeons (think Mythic+ from WoW), but it would be a start. :)

--Erim Nelhah

I like the idea on paper, but I can't really get behind it in practice.

Why would I get together with 3 other friends to do a harder version of the same dungeon I'm already burnt out on after 3 months of daily runs?


I'd rather, if anything, that dungeons have more depth to them first. I'd rather enjoy, or at least tolerate, being married to 2 dungeons at a time without dreading logging in to do them to stay "competitive" with the hardcore side of the playerbase.

I don't need mobs to hit harder. I don't need some gimmicky add that needs CC'd all the time.

What I need is a bit more than literally running towards a brick wall, turning around, watching an explosion, turn back around... and then bust through said wall like the kool-aid man 4-5 times over 20 minutes.
Split the party or something. Give dungeons actual objectives that aren't murder. give us a single actual puzzle! PLEASE!

I don't want a difficulty slider, I want to have FUN 2-3 months down the line.

Waiting for the new Diadem cause this could be our part of "savage wild PVE"

I have to agree that syncing on the current dungeons is really, really not working as intended. When I first ran Amdapor Keep I remember the boss fights being really exciting while we all struggled to learn mechanics and had terrible gear. Every dungeon since has been progressively easier to the point where I actively have to try to screw up and die. The Vault was the only HW dungeon which felt risky. We three-manned Antitower the day of release when one of our team had connection issues and still cleared safely; people in better gear must find it even more facerolly because my FC is pretty casual.

I'm up for Savage dungeons. Let it replace roulette too for rewards for people of that mindset. Mindlessly repeating the same insulting-easy content over and over and over for tomes kills my enthusiasm far faster than a bit of extra difficulty. As my partner (currently unsubscribed) said to me recently, 'if there's no chance of failure it's no longer a game worth playing'.

This idea seems a lot like mythic+ dungeons in WoW:Legion

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

Alternately, and more importantly (because affects all content), strengthen the impact of level and Ilevel sync, no need to rebalance dungeons to be punishing, let level sync do what it was intended to do.

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This robs any sense of progression. At no point will my gear actually matter in dungeons since I'll be synced down to whatever level. I want dungeons to progressively become easier not be a forever long grind. The problem now is our supposed Experts are brain dead easy. There's an in between from laughably to savage. PotD is one such example or even Weeping City.