Unpopular Opinion: Dungeon design has been bad for a long time

[Kaethra]

MMO game philosophy for the last 15 years maintains that leveling content is a sort of long 'tutorial'. Its meant to show the very basics (and I mean VERY BASIC) of what is expected of you while not serving as a barrier. Understand that I don't really agree with this, I'm just pointing it out.

The way it used to work in Everquest and early World of Warcraft (prior to Lich King) is you would have static groups of mobs tactically placed in a way that meant pulling them was part of the challenge. In addition like you mentioned there were patrols that had to be accounted for as well so that you did not double pull.

But there were two roles available that have been long since omitted. Puller (was not always the Main Tank, frequently wasn't) and your Support/Crowd Control. Sometimes one class could fulfill both those roles, but not always. In 2.0 we had a minor use of CC with Repose and Sleep. I remember using them in dungeons like Wanderer's Palace, and even Stone Vigil. There was a few pulls in the latter that were quite devastating to tanks. Mainly the three mini dragon pull that could pull a fourth and the two sets of trio of ice sprites.

I personally would like to see the art of pulling come back and CC to become a thing again as well. I'm not opposed even to a fourth role of Support being added as well, with possibility of increasing group size to 5 or 6 to account.

The other issue there is with dungeon design is target prioritization. Other games have in the past used very dangerous mobs in groups that you wanted to take down or CC. Usually some sort of Wizard/Rogue type mob that could inflict high amounts of damage or inflict the party with debuffs or CC itself. Imagine if you did a Wall to Wall pull and one or two of the mobs would target the healer and sleep them. You would either want to burn them down first, CC them yourself, or be prepared to use a cure effect/potion on your healer.

Right now at least in Amourot they do have mobs that are slightly more dangerous because of AOEs they do, but telegraphed ground based marker AOEs are easily avoidable.

[Shurrikhan]

MMO game philosophy for the last 15 years maintains that leveling content is a sort of long 'tutorial'.

1. Dungeons include, but are not limited to, leveling content. What of level-cap dungeons?
2. Tutorials tend to add elements of difficulty cumulatively with the intent of expanding practical knowledge and means of engagement. Dungeons do not have cumulative difficulty, but instead regress and leap arbitrarily, with no provable accordant learning purpose over their course, only via select dungeons.

[DonovanLifeweaver]

1. Dungeons include, but are not limited to, leveling content. What of level-cap dungeons?
2. Tutorials tend to add elements of difficulty cumulatively with the intent of expanding practical knowledge and means of engagement. Dungeons do not have cumulative difficulty, but instead regress and leap arbitrarily, with no provable accordant learning purpose over their course, only via select dungeons.

dont forget tot ake into account that modern mmo players = if i cant dps race it, its not fun.
they are level capped for a good reason.
i would have pitied you so much in velketors labyrinth, karnors castle or kitikhor woods ate night.....
and i agree with kaethra we need to see a masive return on crowd control, pullers and social monsters who flee to all for extra help, and a nerf into the dps race addicted players <3
and thats why semantic based complains are never taken into account.

[Makeda]

The way it used to work in Everquest and early World of Warcraft (prior to Lich King) is you would have static groups of mobs tactically placed in a way that meant pulling them was part of the challenge. In addition like you mentioned there were patrols that had to be accounted for as well so that you did not double pull.

Old content also had non-linear maps. Sometimes there were multiple paths you could take and the dungeons didn't always have a 'kill this boss and the completion thingy pops' concept. So you just went in and went after some stuff, then left.

Multiple hour runs of places like Mauradon in WoW - was a very different era back then...

I miss it, but I also get why they dropped it. Many of the people playing back then are still playing - meaning they're 14 years older and have a lot more 'real life' to deal with...

[TheMightyMollusk]

Old content also had non-linear maps. Sometimes there were multiple paths you could take and the dungeons didn't always have a 'kill this boss and the completion thingy pops' concept. So you just went in and went after some stuff, then left.

Multiple hour runs of places like Mauradon in WoW - was a very different era back then...

I miss it, but I also get why they dropped it. Many of the people playing back then are still playing - meaning they're 14 years older and have a lot more 'real life' to deal with...

I was the weird one that loved the original Blackrock Depths and Stratholme, even if they took half a day to fully clear. BRD in particular had more than 20 boss encounters, about half of them optional. Plus the Dark Iron bar halfway through with multiple ways to clear it.

[Arazehl]

The way it used to work in Everquest and early World of Warcraft (prior to Lich King) is you would have static groups of mobs tactically placed in a way that meant pulling them was part of the challenge.

Aye I remember the early days of Everquest. You had to work to get to the final boss. We called it clearing trash. It was a skill to pull selected trash mobs, mainly done by a monk who could feign death, just to get a selected few mobs to bring back to the raid party. It was not a tanks job to pull. Each job of that raid had a purpose.

I also remember the long arduous task of prepping with buffs and potions before raids and the actual time it took to do that and complete a raid. You are talking 3 to 5 hours. That I "do not" miss. I do not miss the contested raids that were a daily occurrence because there was only one instance per boss, per server. Nor do I miss the long camps for these spawns. It turned me off to raiding all together. Then I played FFXIV and started to raid again.

Sorry if OP doesn't like the set up. Maybe when you get to end game in Shb it will be more of a challenge for you.

[ApolloGenX]

Aye I remember the early days of Everquest. You had to work to get to the final boss. We called it clearing trash. It was a skill to pull selected trash mobs, mainly done by a monk who could feign death, just to get a selected few mobs to bring back to the raid party. It was not a tanks job to pull. Each job of that raid had a purpose.

I also remember the long arduous task of prepping with buffs and potions before raids and the actual time it took to do that and complete a raid. You are talking 3 to 5 hours. That I "do not" miss. I do not miss the contested raids that were a daily occurrence because there was only one instance per boss, per server. Nor do I miss the long camps for these spawns. It turned me off to raiding all together. Then I played FFXIV and started to raid again.

Sorry if OP doesn't like the set up. Maybe when you get to end game in Shb it will be more of a challenge for you.

To be fair, dungeons in EQ were a LOT more dangerous, had loot that was useful...was generally part of large quests..and at the appropriate level was VERY hard to get to the end... and respawned.

Nothing in this game is anything like that...that was total sandbox dungeon crawling... sometimes even raiding. This is theme park design.

[Zelent]

To be fair, dungeons in EQ were a LOT more dangerous, had loot that was useful...was generally part of large quests..and at the appropriate level was VERY hard to get to the end... and respawned.

Nothing in this game is anything like that...that was total sandbox dungeon crawling... sometimes even raiding. This is theme park design.

Actually, Eureka and BA were pretty close (or at least, as close as you can get nowadays) to this design philosophy.
And to be completely honest, I really enjoyed. Never had so much fun in an MMO since Vanilla WoW.

This type of content is not suitable for leveling, but I'd love to see more of it as side or end-game activities.

[ApolloGenX]

Actually, Eureka and BA were pretty close (or at least, as close as you can get nowadays) to this design philosophy.
And to be completely honest, I really enjoyed. Never had so much fun in an MMO since Vanilla WoW.

This type of content is not suitable for leveling, but I'd love to see more of it as side or end-game activities.

I think it was supposed to be like this, but it wasn't. The reason why it wasn't (imo) is that it did not have the accompanying compelling content to make it "worth it". There were no long storylines with epic rewards. It was just more punishing content for an alternative very temporary reward and no real character progression. I might agree if Eureka was a way to get alternative advancement points or something like EQ had.

Older games weren't just punishing for the sake of it... there were real and lasting rewards attached to that grind. This game cannot sustain that kind of reward in the current design.

I didn't grind in OS or Bastion of Thunder ... or PoEarth for some junk that would be obsolete in a month or so...and I don't think that long grind/big reward model will work anymore....