Dungeons we need to talk dungeons

[Illmaeran]

Call me the minority, but I enjoy dungeons the way they are. They're good for leveling, getting tomes and other sundry items, glamour farming, generally derping around with friends, and *practicing mechanics*. I think this last one is most important. Dungeons give us the opportunity to practice mechanics on various classes before going into the 8 and 24 player content where they actually matter.


I agree that the two-packs and a boss recipe gets boring, but anything will be boring after a while. Larger dungeons with more varied pathways will not only get boring, they'll get *tedious* after a while, leading to the old Aurum Vale syndrome. Roulette dungeons are pretty much the best of a bad situation so the best we can do is put our heads down and get them done with as little fuss as possible for those weekly tomestones.

[Roda]

I just want dungeons to be about more than the numerical progression you get out of them. Because if I'm not having fun in the content, it doesn't matter how quickly it's over, that content is not respecting my time.

[ReynTime]

Mt. Gulg is the best dungeon with the largest pull possible in the entire game and it's awesome to do it with WAR. That is a quality upgrade for me.

Having different paths like in The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak is awful. You just run across 1-2 mobs and some random chests. That's not creativity, it is waste of time.

The mechanics of the Shb dungeon bosses are far more interesting than those of the dungeons from previous expansions.

Boss mechanics have no connection with the design of the dungeons themselves.
ShB dungeons have NOTHING that sets them apart aside from setpieces.

[Jirah]

So after doing Mt Gulg and Dohn Mehg where we wiped several times, I think I’m starting to understand where the stagnate mindset is coming from, leveling dungeons are fine if anything SHB 73-79 are ok dungeons just the 8 “endgame” dungeons all suck and are far less likely to really be fun. Let’s see..

*Spoilers*
Best 80s dungeon in the game, purely by default sadly but still a fine 7/10

Grand cosmos
Interesting mechanics for a few bosses otherwise bland 5/10

Anemosis Anyder
Really boring first room which if overturned could’ve been fun, otherwise besides the summoning like a 6/10

Heroes Gauntlet
Glorified Solo instance, literally this isn’t a dungeon and could’ve been cut for a better hard mode. Still decent bosses. 6/10

Relict
Worst dungeon in the game but worst I mean disgustingly generic, annoying how it’s also 1/2 expert dungeons so it’s spammed to oblivion. Fun fact the trash and bosses are so under-tuned you can easily do this without Tank buffs or doing half of the mechanics. Besides snort 2/10

Paglth'an
It’s ok 5/10

That’s the jist of the dungeons, they are just passable nothing too exciting nothing too engaging. Which after 8 years shouldn’t be the case

[FoxyAreku]

Mt. Gulg is the best dungeon with the largest pull possible in the entire game and it's awesome to do it with WAR. That is a quality upgrade for me.

Having different paths like in The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak is awful. You just run across 1-2 mobs and some random chests. That's not creativity, it is waste of time.

The mechanics of the Shb dungeon bosses are far more interesting than those of the dungeons from previous expansions.

Totorak is a very poor example. "More enemies to pull at once" is not variation either, it's still the same boring formula with enemies that hit like wet noodles.

There's so many ways you can spice up dungeons so they are a different experience between runs without just having hallways with nothing in any of them like totorak. Don't know why you even brought that place up, it's entirely an example of how *not* to do it.

I really struggle to call any dungeon boss 'interesting', either...different strokes on that point.

[DPZ2]

Congratulations to all of you who are bored by dungeons. You've reached max skill level in this MMO. There really isn't anything left for you to do outside of trying another one. This game does not promise you more than it's already delivered.

I understand that Amazon has an amazing MMO that just recently released. Well, perhaps you might want to wait just a wee bit. I've been led to understand that PvE was pretty much an afterthought by the game designers.

[Deveryn]

Dungeons are fine as they are. Any further changes will only serve to cause confusion. If anything, I wish they would go back and adjust some of the markers to be more consistent (Sohm Al comes to mind with the one red marker where people need to stack).

They're there to tell a story and give some easy loot. If they get to be too boring, then maybe you should be exploring extreme / savage / ultimate content.

[Steelbreaker25]

Totorak is a very poor example. "More enemies to pull at once" is not variation either, it's still the same boring formula with enemies that hit like wet noodles.

There's so many ways you can spice up dungeons so they are a different experience between runs without just having hallways with nothing in any of them like totorak. Don't know why you even brought that place up, it's entirely an example of how *not* to do it.

I really struggle to call any dungeon boss 'interesting', either...different strokes on that point.

You got any examples?

[Jirah]

You got any examples?

To suggest any which will inevitably be shot down by the stagnating crowd, one needs to understand the dungeons best attitudes are explorative content and teamwork. With these fundamentals you can have a lot of avenues.

Midpull mechanics, Example being but not limited to like stack markers doing a pull so your not just grabbing a crowd and spamming your aoe. Ghmliyt sorta does this.

Unscripted mechanics, have it randomize to adjust not to order but to familiarity so you need to watch which action is a tank buster which action is raid wide and which action does unique stuff

Telegraph thru mob action, example would Be skalla where the final boss does actions similar based on its anatomy like slashes and beams

Hazards and traps. I think Hullisland had bear traps and Dona castle had turrets to walk around with your trash, so you needed to dance around it if you carried it further. Autumn vale had vents and poisons so you couldn’t just stand still

Key hunting, Totorak and Hakkue manor had these while one is universally hated and the other is a joy to do more so since it’s the first dungeons to do as jobs

Roaming hostile mobs, again hakkue manor did this and to lesser extent long step and greater extent crowds of roamers like vale. This would require The Tank to actually watch out and either collect them or take the mobs away from others

Intractables, like the cannons in Stone vigil where you needed to use outside means to destroy the boss or mobs

Prioritized mobs, this one is for the DPS, have them focus on vital mobs like the retrain collar in Baelsar’s wall, the final stingers in quarn or the Banish III casters in Pharos

Hazardous Dots, like the frostbite in The Burn, or several poisons from Ampdapor. As healers and when everything is fine, that should be a nother thing to watch out for and keep in check it or your making your job more difficult.

Open areas, long step dark hold and vale work against the W2W boring tactic due to their respected rooms. This would complete flip the monotony.

Sad thing is these have all been done before and the best suggestion the hyper casuals have in this thread is play something else and let the bland content rot.

[Jirah]

Totorak is a very poor example. "More enemies to pull at once" is not variation either, it's still the same boring formula with enemies that hit like wet noodles.

There's so many ways you can spice up dungeons so they are a different experience between runs without just having hallways with nothing in any of them like totorak. Don't know why you even brought that place up, it's entirely an example of how *not* to do it.

I really struggle to call any dungeon boss 'interesting', either...different strokes on that point.

Totorak had some interesting ideas but poorly executed due to the boring environment and leden debuff and boring bosses. The venom sacks trained you to use ranged attacks as melee, and the interactables in the keys made the dungeon more unique. Sadly Totorak biggest issue is, the level was too low to fully embrace the ideas and also this was the 4th dungeon overall. Mechanics need to be revisited and more mobs won’t fix anything, as seen in relict where it has a lot of mobs doing single digit damage and generic cone aoes