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

[Kaethra]

I'm going to have to agree about the sprawling dungeon aspect.

They're wonderful the first time you do them AND if you are in a group who likewise are in their first run. But if any of those are not true, someone's experience is getting wacked. And ultimately much of the effort is wasted time and resources.

The dungeon design aesthetically in ShB IMO is well done. Though Qitana Ravel and Malikah's Well are a tad bit bland. But the pathing and pacing of the dungeons are fine. My biggest issue is the wall to wall pulling. I don't have a problem with the practice itself. I have a problem with the fact it is the go to on every section of every dungeon.

As I said before I would like to see the introduction of dangerous npcs that make wall to wall pulling.. well I won't say impossible. But lets just say it makes it risky. Mobs in each group that can inflict high damage periodically to their target or the group if not CC'd, interrupted, or burned down first. And pulling more than one could be disastrous. Or mobs that can CC members of the party meaning the risk of a healer getting sleeped and causing issues in a large pull could make it interesting.

Again you can still wall to wall in these situations. But you would want to coordinate group member abilities to make sure it works. Something like telling the dancer/bard/machinist to target a mob and AOE but keep that mob targeted so they can use their interrupt to make sure the healer doesn't get CC'd randomly. Or tell the DPS to burn down high damage targets first with ST abilities. Something a bit more than everyone hitting 2 buttons to AOE everything down. I want a challenge, I want strategy.

Maybe even have more mini-bosses. Boss like encounters that don't drop loot (maybe tomestones though, that'd be cool), but may offer alternate paths to groups of mobs or debuffs on the final boss.

[seraseth]

I'm going to have to agree about the sprawling dungeon aspect.
They're wonderful the first time you do them AND if you are in a group who likewise are in their first run. But if any of those are not true, someone's experience is getting wacked. And ultimately much of the effort is wasted time and resources.

That's why any 'sprawling' or exploratory dungeons should be their own thing and not in roulette. Leave roulette as the 'burn to boss, get your tomes and get out' runs for those who want that. And have the bigger, more randomized dungeons as their own unique thing. They can have their own rewards, could also have tomes, but have the tomes as a per boss thing, so if you skip half the side sections, you don't get all the tomes/shinies. Randomizing what hallways are open, as well as what's found at the end of them also prevents calculating the 'optimal' path. Different sections of the dungeons could use assets from different places to cut down on dev cost. Have the dungeon piece parts together like lego.

Some halls could lead to a normal boss for more tomes/rewards, some might lead to a superboss (that you might wanna skip, if your current party doesn't seem equipped for it), some might lead just to treasure (rare mats, minions, mounts, orchestrion, etc).

Not knowing how each run will play out would keep things fun, and as long as the rewards are worthwhile (and per boss, not for 'finishing' the dungeon, to encourage more exploration than zerging) I think it could keep people entertained for ages.