Advanced dungeons

[Bloody]

Those dungeons are still horribly linear, they just make it less obvious. Only Toto-Rak has an actual branching path, and it is small at that.

[Deithwen]

The game clearly lacks regarding dungeon contents, as many of you said it's basically rush from point A to B, pull as many mobs as you can and AOE them down. This has been like that for years now and I feel the concept has really gotten over used, especially when you have cleared those dungeons dozens of times.

A potential fix to this issue would be to include harder versions of these dungeons, with greater rewards, achievements for clearing those with a special comp, or killing a boss at a special time.. or finding a secret room that would appear randomly, offering a secret boss and extra loot. Not your average useless loot though, more like a minion or even a mount, glamour and extra tomes.
It doesn't even have to be a secret room, but one of the boss could be replaced by another, like the dragon that appears in brayflox longstop in the middle of the 3rd boss.

Those are just random ideas, but I feel it could add some diversity to the game.

[dragonseth07]

snip

None of these rewards have worked so far.

There are achievements for mapping out every dungeon. How many does your average player have? Only the ones from linear dungeons.

There are minions in off-the-path chests in some dungeons (AV and AK, IIRC both have minions that only spawn in specific chests). The only time I saw anyone grab the chest was when I did it.

There's a secret fourth boss in Halatali, loot and all. I've only ever killed it once.

[Xlantaa]

While I would like something like this, it is more probable than won't worth the investment at all. People is always looking that way to simplify everything. And reduce it to become a speed-run. There is already some dungeons with alternative paths at game launch. But they stop making them because no one care. Everyone follows a straight line in order to finish as soon as possible. The reason we don't have more labyrinthian dungeons or with more options is the behavior of players. They carefully study this to design the dungeons. So in the end, we get what we do. Probably they know don't worth making such dungeons, as people will try to speed-run and simplify as much as possible.

[Lambdafish]

Because it ended up being a waste of effort. All of that extra stuff built into Sastasha, Haukke, Brayflox, etc. essentially ended up being a waste of dev time, because everyone skips it constantly.

The real waste of effort is making bland cookie cutter corridors that players do not enjoy playing.

Also, what time frame are you using? any time after the initial 3-4 months that the content is out is when the content is outdated (thus speedrunnable). I remember wanderers palace being interesting and unique long after the initial 3 months. As for Haukke manor, it isn't the picking up of the keys that is interesting, rather the dungeons level design; the dungeon feels like a sprawling house, not a corridor, regardless of whether you speedrun it or not.

[Ultimatecalibur]

The real waste of effort is making bland cookie cutter corridors that players do not enjoy playing.

Also, what time frame are you using? any time after the initial 3-4 months that the content is out is when the content is outdated (thus speedrunnable). I remember wanderers palace being interesting and unique long after the initial 3 months.

Wanderer's Palace had rewards on side paths (relic weapon component mats) and invulnerable mobs that could one shot almost everyone.

Save for the Tonberry Stalkers, Wanderer's Palace is close to one of the worst examples of what you are talking about.

As for Haukke manor, it isn't the picking up of the keys that is interesting, rather the dungeons level design; the dungeon feels like a sprawling house, not a corridor, regardless of whether you speedrun it or not.

Haukke Manor is a chain of corridors. The only reason it doesn't feels like that to some is due to the the short cuts that open up and the back tracking through the areas you already passed through to get to the next. Players actually complained about the back tracking until using /return to get back to the start became widespread knowledge.