How difficult should the dungeons be?

ArchivedUser

Zastro said:

The best way to teach people how to work together is by giving them a challenge that they need to overcome together. Putting them through easy content teaches them nothing. Raid Finder in WOW is all the proof we need of that. So, lower level dungeons should start off somewhat difficult (obviously not as difficult as higher levels because of the lack of abilities and experience on the player's character's part) to encourage the growth of teamwork skills and synergy among players. 

Learning synergy and how to work together is best achieved by spending time with specific people and learning how the individual characters prefer to overcome challenges.
As best depicted on Log Horizon.

ArchivedUser

Solarion said:

Dygz said:

Dungeons should be challenging.
My preference would be that what determines difficulty is how well your character skills fit the obstacles/challenges and how many people you bring along.

And I wish we could reach a point where meaningful successes can partial.
If my objectives for a dungeon are to sneak through, disarm the traps and return with a map of the target areas - I should get credit and rewards for completing those tasks - even if I don't kill anything in the dungeon.

Are you talking about holistic rewards that are compiled at the end (like some games do)? 

There's also the possibility of mini-rewards from things like chests behind a waterfall that players can only get to after navigating a series of traps and puzzles. 

The ideal situation would be to have both the mini-rewards along the way and a compiled reward at the end.

Either way, I'm in favor of tallying up contributions from a multitude of measurable factors (including healing, buffs, challenge completion and item acquisition for things such as keys & maps). Perhaps I'm too competitive but, as I've mentioned in other threads, I'd also like the option to have leaderboards in dungeons (in addition to raids, and PVP etc.). Toxic players will be toxic anyway, so I can't see there being a huge spike in bullying just because someone is lower down on the leaderboard for a given dungeon run.

I don't necessarily have a preference for the types of rewards.
But, probably not just what can be found in a chest. If I'm disarming traps and mapping a dungeon for the Thieves Guild, I might be content with accruing points towards a rank or being awarded an augment after turning in the task.
Could be rewarded with new tasks or quests or clues or rumors along the way.

I expect the nodes to be able to track and tally our contributions - and dish out appropriate rewards.
Leaderboard can be useful, sure.
But, I hope we can also reach a place where we can partially complete a dungeon, so that clearing the dungeon doesn't always have to be the goal.
That way I can my role can be carebear rogue, rather than ninja assassin.

ArchivedUser

I agree with having the early dungeons be a little easier and then ramp up as your skills become available.

But still I believe that every single dungeon should be challenging, none of the bosses should be tank and spank and the ratio of trash to bosses should never be so harsh that you spent the majority of the time killing trash.

I much prefer fewer trash mobs that have much higher difficulty, requiring CC, proper tank positioning and the chance to for a wipe to occur with every single fight, even in the very first dungeon.

Everyone should know from day one that Ashes will not be a cakewalk and they need to be paying attention and on their toes. You shouldn't have to be the absolute best player in the world to succeed, but if you aren't paying attention, pissing around or just not have a clue what your class does, then you should fail.

ArchivedUser

I think it should be impossible for players to solo a dungeon unless there's a story mode given to them. 

ArchivedUser

dungeon tiers. 

tier 1 easy
tier 2 normal
tier 3 advanced-unlocks more challenges

so on and so forth

ArchivedUser

Czar said:

I think it should be impossible for players to solo a dungeon unless there's a story mode given to them. 

Players should be able to solo dungeons.
Doesn't necessarily mean players should be able to clear dungeons alone.
All depends on the specific tasks and quests and challenges associated with the dungeon.

ArchivedUser

Dygz said:

Players should be able to solo dungeons.

Doesn't necessarily mean players should be able to clear dungeons alone.
All depends on the specific tasks and quests and challenges associated with the dungeon.

No, for the simple reason that this sort of thinking is a path to ruining a good game.

Many MMOs listened to kids crying in forums and the nerfed and nerfed the content until kids had their magical land of solo shiny clicking, looking ad big numbers and shiny swords... and games turned to crap for everyone else besides 7 year old kids.

Content should be difficult, dungeons even more so, and definitely nothing in dungeons should be even close to soloable. Enter dungeon alone and get shred to pieces, and learn a valuable lesson to bring friends next time. Friends that know what they are doing.

Please IS, do not do the same mistake that many other MMOs have done.

ArchivedUser

@Gothix

Did you ever give a thought to the idea that it hasnt to be the 1 extreme or the other ?
That there are other gamers beside you are out there and they all deserve a game they can play with their given skill and time ? There can exist dungon's from moderate to very difficult and so every player has something to experience and will be rewarded in relation to the effort and skill he puts in. What i agree with u is that the rly hardcore dungeons shouldnt get nerfed just cause casual gamers dont want to miss anything.

ArchivedUser

Exploration, completion of tasks, puzzles, secret rooms, class specific obstacles, traps, fun scenarios: random team member is captured and you must free them, team gets separated and need to regroup, forks in the road that reward or punish but give clues as to which path to take, npcs that you find near death in the dungeon that can be healed to activiate a side quest, or remains of a solider that have a letter laid there that triggers a side quest, items you find in the dungeon that have no specific worth that can end up being later used in the dungeon, but its your desicion whether to pick it up, dunegon begins to cave in and you have a certain amount of time to escape... stuff like this.   

ArchivedUser

Sora_NGNL said:

That there are other gamers beside you are out there and they all deserve a game they can play with their given skill and time ? 

Players can play the game however they want, but content should not be expected to be tailored to their play style. If a person wants to play solo they should expect not to be able to do group content. Or at least they should expect to have an extremely difficult and slow time trying to do it.

ArchivedUser

@Zastro

Ye sure, solo content is solo content. Group content is group content. I just think good mmo's have group content for more the casual group's or random groups without ts/discord as well as very difficult group content. And the rewards should be suitable to the difficulty. This way no player will miss the feeling of running a dungeon. But if you want to do the hard stuff, better prepare and get skilled. Well just my opinion ^^

ArchivedUser

Sora_NGNL said:

@Zastro

Ye sure, solo content is solo content. Group content is group content. I just think good mmo's have group content for more the casual group's or random groups without ts/discord as well as very difficult group content. And the rewards should be suitable to the difficulty. This way no player will miss the feeling of running a dungeon. But if you want to do the hard stuff, better prepare and get skilled. Well just my opinion ^^

No player is excluded from running a dungeon. Depending on the difficulty of the dungeon you may have to group up with 3, 7, or 39 other people. The requirement to have more than one person does not LOCK anyone from content, if you choose not to do it that is on the individual player. 

ArchivedUser

My vote is to keep dungeons difficult while their current after a new content update, sure tune it down a couple percent or something then. I always hated when WoW started doing easy mode raids for the same content because then its really hard to find people that have the same motivation to do the same fight when its harder for almost the same rewards.

MMOs are suppose to be a social deal. People need to communicate, thats how you find those static groups that you need to enjoy running harder stuff. If theres no communication its too easy. Let people complain its too hard. They can then wait couple months down the road when something new comes out. If they want current content get better, learn your class, learn the fight, find a group that you can work with. If the above doesn't work then just wait for the eventual down tuning.

ArchivedUser

I'd like them to look at ESO's dungeon system. you have delves you can run on your own  and public dungeons and then group dungeons . But the dungeons Scale with the player . you can have a level 50 go into a dungeon and have a challenge and a level 10 can be in same dungeon and have the npcs scale to their level.


how they work out the magic math i dont know because a level 10 and a level 50 can fight together and it seems reasonably well balanced.

I think dungeons should be a challenge though 

ArchivedUser

You could do dungeons in various degrees of difficulty, but those players that complain will always complain, and when they finish easy dungeons soon they will start complain that those difficult ones are too difficult for them, and they will want them nerfed.

There is plenty of solo content outside of dungeons. Dungeons have always been and SHOULD always be a group content. A difficult content.

ArchivedUser

Welcome to Dark Souls . . . I mean Dungeon, how do you want to die today? Quickly? TOO BAD! SUMMON THE RATS!

That is my though on dungeons BRING THE PAIN MOTHA FUCKAS!

ArchivedUser

I like Chudyie idea's, the dungeons don't need to be based purely on combat, id like to see some mazes and puzzles to test the brain and maybe a choice of paths to take to the end rather than following a single path through the same mobs to get to the same bosses etc

And as CrazyCanukk pointed out, ESO's dungeon system is quite good, they basically scale the lower level players to the level of the group leader and the dungeon is also scaled to the level of the group leader so pretty much everyone can play.

You can also switch between 'normal' dungeon and 'vet' dungeon, so although they are the same dungeon you encounter different enemies/bosses that are much more difficult in the 'vet' version, these are all upto 4 man dungeons.

Ontop of that they have 12 man 'trials/raids' which also have a normal and hard version, these are time consuming and very difficult on hard even for the some of the best guilds, one mistake and its a wipe.

Id like to see something similar implemented on AoC and again not all purely based around combat, so long as they dont nerf the harder dungeons like ESO did.

ArchivedUser

Dygz said:

But, I hope we can also reach a place where we can partially complete a dungeon, so that clearing the dungeon doesn't always have to be the goal.
That way I can my role can be carebear rogue, rather than ninja assassin.

Ah okay, I think I missed that aspect of your original post. Yeah, it'd be nice if dungeons didn't have to always be completed - though, of course, completion could be defined in a variety of ways, especially if there are multiple "paths" and outcomes based on what enemies / obstacles you encounter.

For example, in GW2 there are at least 4 different ways to complete a dungeon: Story mode and then 3+ routes within Exploration mode. But,in GW2, completion is still orthodox because you have to beat some boss who is geographically placed at the end of a linear route, so I only like the "many paths" aspect of GW2 dungeons. I don't like the linearity and illusion of choice (choices lock you in) aspect of GW2 dungeons.  

In a similar vein, rewards are both subjective and objective. As you mentioned, for some players, maybe just getting far enough to grab a key or map to use for another run (or in some other world area outside the dungeon) would give some players a subjective sense of accomplishment. And, then, there'd be the (objective) digitally tangible rewards such as chests, loot, etc. that could vary depending on how far you get in a particular route.

I suppose there could even be something like tasks assigned from NPC or billboards where you go into a dungeon to find a particular item, assassinate an enemy (other than a boss), or complete some other challenge without having to go all the way to a geographical "end point." 

ArchivedUser

Edit: Double post

ArchivedUser

Edit: Triple post.

ArchivedUser

Edit: Quad post (Please remove these if possible)

ArchivedUser

CarbonCarl said:

And as CrazyCanukk pointed out, ESO's dungeon system is quite good, they basically scale the lower level players to the level of the group leader and the dungeon is also scaled to the level of the group leader so pretty much everyone can play.

You can also switch between 'normal' dungeon and 'vet' dungeon, so although they are the same dungeon you encounter different enemies/bosses that are much more difficult in the 'vet' version, these are all upto 4 man dungeons.

I'm not sure how Intrepid would be able to implement such settings for the dungeons that aren't instanced / zoned, but I like the whole idea of scaling and choosing difficulty settings.

If I recall correctly, Ashes will have some instanced zones, but I think they were trying to avoid having too many. I haven't been following the game as closely as of late, so I might be mistaken. 

ArchivedUser

Ah i see, then yeh that would be difficult if not impossible to implement if not instanced.

It's going to be interesting to see how those servers hold out if there going with minimal instances/zones etc

ArchivedUser

I would really like to feel a sense of achievement from completing a dungeon. To be able to have a story from the adventure. It has been too long since I have been able to do that, with dungeons just being 10 minute rushes where everyone, including the tank, just AOEs everything down.

Make them difficult because of strategy, not because a mob will one shot anyone who isn't the tank. I like the system in ESO where the tank is not supposed to collect every single mob in a room and tank it while everyone else stands back safe.

The tank needs to choose the high risk targets and take them (single target taunt only please) and then the rest of the party needs to use their skills to corral and kill the rest. Lets use our slows and snares and stuns and fears. 

Every player and every class should be integral to the success of a dungeon run. Not just the tank and the healer and everyone else just dpses as hard as they can. 

You bring back strategy, you bring back challenge.

ArchivedUser

I like it when they have levels of difficulty. I've played some games where they have the normal, hard, nightmare modes of a dungeon and it's was fun. Sometimes you cant get a full party or want to run something fast and the lower difficulty comes handy. Then there is when you want to be challenged and go for the most difficult option. This in a way caters to all play styles in my opinion

Obviously the higher the difficulty better rewards.

ArchivedUser

The thing is, there won't always be a dungeon in a node near you. Maybe open world dungeons, but not instanced dungeons. So people who only play to run dungeons and raid are going to have to move around the world a lot as nodes level and de-level and dungeons appear and disappear. In the beginning they will probably be very few and far between, so getting on to run dungeons may be a more difficult task than it is in other games. It will take longer to find a group and to actually get to the dungeon, especially if the dungeons happens to be two nodes over and you have to walk all the way there...