Japanese Style RPG Dungeons

I posted this under events because it is certainly related, but I'm not sure if the devs will consider them events so I also want to make it it's own discussion for the rest of the community if it is taken down from events.

I read a comment in another thread that made me think of something I have not actually seen in an MMO before. Japanese RPG style dungeons.

These dungeons, according to lore, appear naturally and randomly and have to be discovered by exploring. They are procedurally generated and biome based. They have an initial number of floors that expand over time and may be accelerated by player deaths within the dungeon. Each consecutive floor of the dungeon is more difficult than the last, and each floor has a floor boss (this can also be a procedurally generated mob but with higher stats). The dropped loot is the same loot the mobs drop outside of the dungeon with the exception of the floor boss having a higher tier item drop%.

A dungeon will continue to grow until it is cleared meaning the number of floors will increase and the difficulty will as well. This difficulty can be mob stats, number of mobs that appear at one time, or types of mobs. This can mean a dungeon has the potential to grow into an end-game challenge that even veteran players have trouble with.

A dungeon is cleared by defeating the final floor boss. Doing so should have a guaranteed chance of dropping a very rare or powerful item (scaled by the number of floors the dungeon had). Once a dungeon is cleared, it will disappear from the map.

Until a dungeon is cleared, mobs may spawn in greater numbers and attack nodes. Not only will this indicate that there is a dungeon nearby, but it can tie into some of the other events that are already planned. These spawns may be reduced if the dungeon is visited regularly.

I think these would be a great idea for several reasons:
1. It creates a whole new "profession" for those who want to be dedicated to clearing dungeons. Perhaps even add a tracker for dungeons cleared for clout purposes.
2. Because these dungeons are procedurally generated, it does not require constant manual updating. Once they are spawned, they run their course.
3. Dungeons will most likely require groups to complete based on the difficulty scaling. The most difficult dungeons require raids (which still might not be enough depending on the level of the dungeon). Maybe specific gear is needed to combat these challenges?
4. It will be exciting for the community whenever a high level dungeon is discovered. Maybe there could even be dungeon specific items.

Please let me know what you think. I really love the idea of a hoard of monsters attacking the surrounding area to indicate a dungeon, then after it is located, a group of players can try to defeat it, or die trying. Eventually a dungeon can become a staple for a node if it becomes large enough.

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Ludullu

I'm not sure if I like the "the more deaths the stronger the dungeon and the loot" mechanic, but other than that - yeah, this could be an interesting feature.

Nikbis

I hesitated to post similar thread for the past 3 months. Mostly because I have a hard time putting my thoughts on "paper".
Regardless, that's something I'd like to see in AoC because, on top of everything we already have here, it's a whole gameplay loop in itself.

I can't help but think that kind of dungeon crawler part of the game should ressemble something like the underground part of The Elden ring. It makes so little sense when you see that stellar night sky with these pillars springing out of the... sea? All that, beneath the ground.
It makes you wonder what's really happening in there. Something too big for you.
If there's something an MMO should give you is that: a sense of wonder and greatness. Something you don't have the answer in the next 6 months or a year, if you know what I mean

As for the difficulty, it should be harder the deeper, but the rewards should be on par with everything else. You go deeper for the sake of it, you just want to know "why".

Ho, and no instanced parts! It's stupid hard, and everybody has to figure out the odd mechanics by themselves. Only 6 players allowed in the boss room with 3 physical tanks and 3 magical ones to succeed, instead of the usual party of 8? Or Rangers only to beat the boss and unlock the next floor ?

Sure I like to fantasize about all this, but damn, the dev time to design so many floors and uniques mechanics for some side content...

akabear

To OP, what leads you to believe this is a Japanese RPG style dungeons thing?

invisibledecoy

akabear wrote: »

To OP, what leads you to believe this is a Japanese RPG style dungeons thing?

Ah, most of the light novels I read happen to be Japanese where this dungeon description is prevalent. I have also read plenty of Western stories, including dungeons and dragons adventures, but those dungeons are much more static, created by the being which is typically the final boss as opposed to the dungeon itself being alive and feeding off adventures and mobs that wonder in.

That is not to say that it was not originally a Western idea, but it seems to be much more prevalent in the East.

Nikbis, when you say "No instanced parts" do you mean inside the dungeon or the dungeon as a whole? Since it is procedurally generated and ever changing, for resource purposes I think the dungeons would HAVE to be instanced. I would love if there were no instances and they were part of the existing world, but I am not sure hardware has advanced enough to account for that.

Aerlana

NiKr wrote: »

I'm not sure if I like the "the more deaths the stronger the dungeon and the loot" mechanic, but other than that - yeah, this could be an interesting feature.

By itself the "more death = more difficulty" is not a good thing, even more because the difficulty would increase mainly around numbers (life, damages, maybe size of area of effect or the internal CD of the various skills being shorter). Because it is harder to do "various difficulty" with addition/remove of mechanics. Blizzard already doing 4 difficulty (adding/modifying boss mechanics) but the "flex" system (allowing a boss to be fight as 10 man or 30 man) which is a dynamical difficulty only relies on numbers...
It would lead to a "far too difficult" boss, and even a mathematically impossible to kill boss. (if he exterminates the tank... how could it be killable ? )

But you could add a decrease of strength if it is not killed for a defined time.
Each kills give him +5% difficulty, each 5hours alive (after respawn) removes 1%
Can't get under its base difficulty, and could imagine a high difficulty limit.

So we have bosses which are not so lucrativ staying mostly as easy as their base difficulty, while if a boss is far more full of interest for players than IS expected for its difficulty, it would remain at "high difficulty value" which would already help to reduce the influx of its precious drops. without needing IS to do a fast fix.

MrPockets

I actually really like this idea, it has big Sword art online (and other similar anime) vibes. I think the ideas form these light novels/anime really capture the fantasy that a lot of MMO players want in a game.

Aerlana wrote: »

It would lead to a "far too difficult" boss, and even a mathematically impossible to kill boss. (if he exterminates the tank... how could it be killable ? )

I think having "mathematically impossible to kill boss(es)" can be a good thing. Let player storylines develop, let the community create their own lore. Look at the C'Thun example from classic wow...it ended up becoming an interesting story in real life that players still reference!

IMO: let bosses exist for a long time, and see what the community does with it. why can't there be "undo-able" content?

This is also not even taking into account the fact that these dungeons would be open world...and the community could always just throw more players at the encounter....

Settite

invisibledecoy wrote: »

I posted this under events because it is certainly related, but I'm not sure if the devs will consider them events so I also want to make it it's own discussion for the rest of the community if it is taken down from events.

I read a comment in another thread that made me think of something I have not actually seen in an MMO before. Japanese RPG style dungeons.

These dungeons, according to lore, appear naturally and randomly and have to be discovered by exploring. They are procedurally generated and biome based. They have an initial number of floors that expand over time and may be accelerated by player deaths within the dungeon. Each consecutive floor of the dungeon is more difficult than the last, and each floor has a floor boss (this can also be a procedurally generated mob but with higher stats). The dropped loot is the same loot the mobs drop outside of the dungeon with the exception of the floor boss having a higher tier item drop%.

A dungeon will continue to grow until it is cleared meaning the number of floors will increase and the difficulty will as well. This difficulty can be mob stats, number of mobs that appear at one time, or types of mobs. This can mean a dungeon has the potential to grow into an end-game challenge that even veteran players have trouble with.

A dungeon is cleared by defeating the final floor boss. Doing so should have a guaranteed chance of dropping a very rare or powerful item (scaled by the number of floors the dungeon had). Once a dungeon is cleared, it will disappear from the map.

Until a dungeon is cleared, mobs may spawn in greater numbers and attack nodes. Not only will this indicate that there is a dungeon nearby, but it can tie into some of the other events that are already planned. These spawns may be reduced if the dungeon is visited regularly.

I think these would be a great idea for several reasons:
1. It creates a whole new "profession" for those who want to be dedicated to clearing dungeons. Perhaps even add a tracker for dungeons cleared for clout purposes.
2. Because these dungeons are procedurally generated, it does not require constant manual updating. Once they are spawned, they run their course.
3. Dungeons will most likely require groups to complete based on the difficulty scaling. The most difficult dungeons require raids (which still might not be enough depending on the level of the dungeon). Maybe specific gear is needed to combat these challenges?
4. It will be exciting for the community whenever a high level dungeon is discovered. Maybe there could even be dungeon specific items.

Please let me know what you think. I really love the idea of a hoard of monsters attacking the surrounding area to indicate a dungeon, then after it is located, a group of players can try to defeat it, or die trying. Eventually a dungeon can become a staple for a node if it becomes large enough.

That might have been my thread you read I believe. I'm glad that other are thinking along the same lines since this seems like such a great idea to implement. Sure it would take alot of resources to make, though once done it could be repeatedly used in a number of different scenarios. In top of that it could be something that pops up later on in the games life cycle to avoid "scope creap" or whatever is referred to as. All in all I believe it would only add to the game.

Ludullu

Aerlana wrote: »

So we have bosses which are not so lucrativ staying mostly as easy as their base difficulty, while if a boss is far more full of interest for players than IS expected for its difficulty, it would remain at "high difficulty value" which would already help to reduce the influx of its precious drops. without needing IS to do a fast fix.

I was talking more from the pov of countless players that would have to die in the dungeon just to get the dungeon to a point where the loot is the juiciest. That sounds really bad in a game where death penalties are meant to deter you from dying.

If players know that the loot scales off of player deaths, uber guilds will tell their people to die there on purpose just to boost the dungeon. And the dungeon would most likely require hundreds if not thousands of deaths, which is potentially levels-worth of XP debt for a lot of players. That just sounds like a shitty mechanic to me.

Taleof2Cities

NiKr wrote: »

I'm not sure if I like the "the more deaths the stronger the dungeon and the loot" mechanic, but other than that - yeah, this could be an interesting feature.

I'm with @NiKr ... it's a great idea but probably best for after release as a DLC feature.

There's already enough on Intrepid's plate IMO.

Voidwalkers

akabear wrote: »

To OP, what leads you to believe this is a Japanese RPG style dungeons thing?

The JRPG part of OP's dungeon idea is that the dungeons themselves are like a huge living organism / monster that can appear, grow and expand on their own (which is a recurrent idea in many Japanese light novels), instead of being static structures created by some ancient powerful evil beings (more common in western literatures).

invisibledecoy

MrPockets wrote: »

I actually really like this idea, it has big Sword art online (and other similar anime) vibes. I think the ideas form these light novels/anime really capture the fantasy that a lot of MMO players want in a game.

Aerlana wrote: »

It would lead to a "far too difficult" boss, and even a mathematically impossible to kill boss. (if he exterminates the tank... how could it be killable ? )

I think having "mathematically impossible to kill boss(es)" can be a good thing. Let player storylines develop, let the community create their own lore. Look at the C'Thun example from classic wow...it ended up becoming an interesting story in real life that players still reference!

IMO: let bosses exist for a long time, and see what the community does with it. why can't there be "undo-able" content?

This is also not even taking into account the fact that these dungeons would be open world...and the community could always just throw more players at the encounter....

Also, in a lot of these stories, some dungeons getting to the point where they seem to be unbeatable is a huge draw for them. Obviously with the node system it wouldn't be possible, but in the novels the largest dungeons have cities built around them as more people come to try to conquer them.

I do, however, believe there should be a limit to how large/how powerful they can get. This way it doesn't go from unbeatable to impossible (the difference being the legendary party that eventually does take it down for the first time). Where is that line? I think it should be drawn /after/ there is some experience with the mechanics.

Guilds theoretically could take advantage and send players to their deaths to increase loot values, but the guilds will not have exclusive rights to the dengeons (maybe? It sure would make for a great pvp incentive) so the risk/reward may not be worth it. Those who care about stat loss will be more careful with dungeons too, potentially giving them time to grow larger.

arsnn

@invisibledecoy @Voidwalkers @Nikbis
Could you name a few of those Novels or RPGs?
Im not aware of any of those except Sao, although i combed through quite some manhwas and scuffed chinese online novels.

Voidwalkers

arsnn wrote: »

@invisibledecoy @Voidwalkers @Nikbis
Could you name a few of those Novels or RPGs?
Im not aware of any of those except Sao, although i combed through quite some manhwas and scuffed chinese online novels.

"Mushoku Tensei" is one that has naturally growing / expanding dungeons (with some kind of magical crystals acting as "cores", guarded by boss mobs), although dungeon crawling is not the center element of this novel.

"Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?" 's world has one absolutely huge dungeon that kinda has its own will, e.g. it spews out boss level mobs if someone damages the dungeon itself by setting off bombs and blowing holes through walls & floors.

CroakerRPG

I hope the Harbingers act something like this. Large, alien constructs that shift and change over time, acting as a malevolent presence in the world that reacts to the events that take place and varies from server to server.

Nikbis

invisibledecoy wrote: »

Nikbis, when you say "No instanced parts" do you mean inside the dungeon or the dungeon as a whole? Since it is procedurally generated and ever changing, for resource purposes I think the dungeons would HAVE to be instanced. I would love if there were no instances and they were part of the existing world, but I am not sure hardware has advanced enough to account for that.

In the dungeon as a whole, as possible. The point is to draw a sense of permanent danger, from both the environment (mobs & hasard) and the players, the same as the outside. Except in there, your goal is to always go deeper. If you die, well then too bad! go back to start.
As for the technical side : It's not more demanding than the outside world

Well, it really depends on how many floors.

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

it's a great idea but probably best for after release as a DLC feature.
There's already enough on Intrepid's plate IMO.

This. It shouldn't be available right away. Noneed for feature creep. Intrepid already has a complete enough game to render.
Such dungeon crawler part should come after several months. Also, it shouldn't be the main attraction point. After all, we only know it's heavily guarded and hold -mostly?- basic loots. Is it worth it? Go and find out.

arsnn wrote: »

@invisibledecoy @Voidwalkers @Nikbis
Could you name a few of those Novels or RPGs?
Im not aware of any of those except Sao, although i combed through quite some manhwas and scuffed chinese online novels.

Quite often, the Dungeon crawler type of anime (I can't speak for novels, I don't read them sorry) is mixed with the isekai genre -someone from the real world is teleported to another world, often with stats and spells, kind of like in video games. I don't have much in my bag, but let me try with those I enjoyed so far

"Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon" a.k.a. "DanMachi" is a closest exemple from @OP's topic indeed. If you can go past the the "harem" bits that I despise (really, please stop that

), it's worth a good shot.

"Made in Abyss" is literally a dungeon crawler type of anime without the videogame bits. Do get fooled by its cartoony aspect, it feels... ruthless?
The most relevant, to me.

"So I'm a spider, so what?" is a pure isekai with it's dungeon crawler part on the "spider" side.

"Grimgar" is a nice addition to the genre, mostly on the isekai side with some dungeon crawler part IIRC.

"Goblin Slayer" is somewhat relevant? Still, a good one.

I couldn't say if "Mushoku Tensei" has dungeon crawler bits in it, the anime version at least. I still enjoyed it a lot.

invisibledecoy

arsnn wrote: »

@invisibledecoy @Voidwalkers @Nikbis
Could you name a few of those Novels or RPGs?
Im not aware of any of those except Sao, although i combed through quite some manhwas and scuffed chinese online novels.

@arsnn ,
Danmachi and Mushoku Tensei are definitely some that I am referring to. I happen to love the Isekai genre (although most of them have zero character development...) but it is the world-building that I am most enamored with. @Voidwalkers was right on the money by mentioning these. And as much as he hates harem's, "Harem in a Labyrinth in Another World" also has a good depiction of the type of dungeon I am imagining (I read it for the Isekai lore I swear! lol). "Tsukimichi" Also has a dungeon that is set to mimic these types of dungeons, though it is revealed that it was more or less created by someone.

I wholeheartedly agree that these should be added later (although I wouldn't mind if they could be squeezed in from a dedicated programmer ^_-) since I personally plan on exploring the entirety of the existing world as is.

"She Professed Herself as the Wise Man's Pupil" had a mechanic that certain abilities and skills could be "discovered" which would be more or less unique to that player. Obviously, unique abilities for players is more or less impossible in an MMO for balance reasons alone. I have a solution to this, but we have not yet reached the appropriate era for that. But, it would be pretty cool if, like flying mounts, there were unique rewards for players to do something different. Again, this could be implemented as silent updates later once things have been established.

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