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

[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...

[gumas]

While the aesthetics of the dungeons is wonderful, every single one boils down to the exact same formula.

Long hallway, aoe pull / open area, long hall way, aoe pull / open area, boss. Repeat 3 - 4x.

That's it. There's no variation, no patrols, no choices. I get SO bored doing dungeons after the first few times.

I made a thread last month about the lack of challenge in this game, and dungeons are another example of that. If my only challenge is Savage raids, that's just piss poor design. I want to get behind my character and feel the impact of their level growth, but getting new dungeon gear and levels is almost meaningless now.

Why can't we have leveling content that has SOME level of challenge?

personally, it doesnt have to be a challenge. iam fine with more variety of dungeon. instead of the usual long hallway, they should be more creative with dungeon.

- stand your ground wave defense type of dungeon, make it like you are defending a fortress from sin eater attack or something.
- the 2nd boss from bardam's mettle is good, need something like that more.
- 2nd boss from stone vigil hard is also not bad, just a bit annoying.
- that one instance where you just need to defeat this extra large dragon in HW era.

they could do more but the dev just keep playing it safe, nothing wrong with that but things will get bored fast in the future.

[HWalsh]

personally, it doesnt have to be a challenge. iam fine with more variety of dungeon. instead of the usual long hallway, they should be more creative with dungeon.

- stand your ground wave defense type of dungeon, make it like you are defending a fortress from sin eater attack or something.
- the 2nd boss from bardam's mettle is good, need something like that more.
- 2nd boss from stone vigil hard is also not bad, just a bit annoying.
- that one instance where you just need to defeat this extra large dragon in HW era.

they could do more but the dev just keep playing it safe, nothing wrong with that but things will get bored fast in the future.

I would be down with a "Last Stand" kind of dungeon.

The game keeps hurling more and more powerful enemies as you defend a gate, or an artifact, or something. You need to hold them off for 20 minutes. The enemies spawn at fixed intervals so if your DPS isn't up to snuff you get overwhelmed when a wave spawns while still fighting a wave.

That could be fun.

[Ardeth]

Yeah Dungeon design is kinda shit. Hell most class design is the same way.

[Kaliesto]

The things I could suggest to the developers if it would make the dungeons better would be this:

Monster Randomization - Different monsters will appear in certain parts of the dungeons within each run except for scripted encounters (Holminster Switch is a good example of scripted encounters such as that big bear at the beginning), it will keep things fresh and you'll never encounter the same groups every time (just like classic final fantasy!) Imagine running into three Red Dragons instead of just one, that would be challenging.

Optional Boss - Surprisingly I'm kind of shocked the developers haven't done this yet for their dungeons, it would be neat if there was a path to take to fight a optional and very tough boss (for whatever reward like tomestones maybe).

Rare Monster Encounter - How about on the rare chance on your dungeon run that you encounter a seldom seen monster with a very nice item drop?

Job Requirement Route - Special Routes that only a certain job can unlock, say for example only a Machinist can shoot something down to unlock a special path through a dungeon.

Gumas ideas sound really fun too!

[Rosa_Frandlia]

There is a solution to this -

Add in a new dungeon type (you just need one) that is needed only once in the MSQ.

Dynamic Dungeons -

You create a stone fortress - You create 25 generic rooms - then 25 types of hallways - With 10 or so boss chambers.

Populate these with special bosses (or even Primals)

Give the rooms different mechanics as part of their design.

Each boss room terminates in a zone as you go deeper into the dungeon.

Each floor is procedurally generated.

You don't know the right path, or what rooms you'll encounter, you can have patrols and such here. Adjust the enemies to the group level for challenge.

Go nuts.

It would only need to be created once and could provide a bunch of replay value. As each expansion or update comes out tack on a new room or new boss or new couple of hallways.

Not complicated, well within the technological limitations of the current engine, and provides a varied game play element.

Remember:
Procedural generation of dungeons like this was first created by Richard Garriot in the PC game Akalabeth back in 1979. So if we could do it in '79 I'm sure we could do it in 2019 without too much fuss.

Isn't that Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High?

[Hawklaser]

Isn't that Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High?

Sort of. The problem with PoD and HoH, is they are not quite balanced the same as a normal dungeon. PoD and HoH are balanced around the possibilty of the group being all tanks, or all healers, or all DPS. So they kinda end up meh after a bit, now if they actually took an actual well put together party? That could be a totally different story. As I thought I would be for PoD/HoH, until I played them a few times and found how devoid of challenge they were in a group once you started getting a few upgrades to your PoD/HoH gear, as they were pretty much just run about and kill things until the next floor opened up, rinse an repeat until the boss.

[Zfz]

I'm not necessarily looking for a challenge, but having every single dungeon just varying numbers of AOE pull is getting old. I understand that people just want to get it over and done with when it's the 100th time, but it doesn't change the fact that dungeon content is bland, monotonous, and boring. And it had fed back into the job designs, making every job the same AOE machines.

However, I also understand the need to make dungeons something that's easily completed by everyone, so harder challenges are generally out of the question. But at least some variation would be welcome. Maybe have 4-5 different sets of mob layout and randomly assign each party to one of them. They're all still easy AOE pulls, but at least you get to pull different stuff some of the times.

Or put in a rare pop mini-boss instead of one of the packs that drops some minion or glamour pieces, as a bonus reward. Like sometimes we have a bonus target in combat leves.

Or design dungeons that have toggling paths with equal number of enemies but a change of scenery. This way people naturally get a different view even if they're doing the same pulls. Such as a weather effect that blocks a certain path when it's raining, shows the path when it's sunny. Or a door that is open when it's at night, and closed during the day.

Really just anything to break up the monotony would help towards bettering the dungeon experience.

[Seraphor]

The problem with optional content in dungeons is that players will inevitably find the path of least resistance, which will become 'meta' and you'll always be forced into that route.
So optional bosses, branching paths, etc. are all just unnecessary dev time.

There're some good ideas though, like randomised mobs.
And there are some pseudo non linear methods that work, such as Haukke Manor that has that loop on the first floor that replaces a shortcut, or Swallows Compass that has you loop around and cross your path as well. Just more novel ways to mask the linearity of a dungeon, and new ways of having 'shortcuts' in them.

[NekoNova]

unpopular opinion : I think our dungeons are fine, and have no qualms with them.


Just delete sastasha please.