Difficult content. (dungeouns)

Well in a lot of games companies cater to casual players or make content not to difficult . But let me explore the other end of the spectrum dealing with difficult content.

So lets say you make one 8 man dungeon that is very difficult like a challenge dungeoun but not setting for it just the dungeoun is hard. Takes careful planning, gear has to optimized, the pulls have to be perfect and has some good raid mechanics.And let say it is difficult enough that well not every one actaully completes them just certain percent of population.

Here is what this does.
It provides challenging content with out having to do 40 man raids. It acts as a milestone as far as pve skill is concerned especially if there are rewards associated with that dungeoun. It prepares toons for tougher raids.
But the most important thing that it does is that it sets a goal for a player to reach and a journey to embark upon. Personally I tried to tank one this type dungeouns and wiped and ended up not finishing. Did not feel to good about it but realized I had to lift my game.

So it took a while but after practicing on other dungeouns and watching videos and research finally I went back and I did a lot better to the point were i could actually finish one of those things. Thing is if that challenge dungeoun was never there I would of never gotten any better.

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Comments

Damokles

I think we already had a post about challenging content

Here is my take on it:
I want Dark Souls of saltyness in at least 4 dungeons over the leveling progress that reward you accordingly.
A good idea would also be a "maze" dungeon as a max level small group pve challenge, which is going to be on a timer and changes every time you challenge it again.
The concept would be that there are around 5 mini bosses and one endboss. Each time you kill a miniboss you get to loot a chest and you get more time to progress further. Later bosses get increasingly stronger (first boss has no buff, second boss has one buff stack, third has two stacks etc), and when the time runs out you get to fight a minotaur as the final boss, who only gives materials instead of fear/items.
If you manage to kill all mini bosses in the given time, then you dont have to fight the minotaur and reach a treasure chamber with good gear/materials.

Wandering Mist

I'm perfectly fine with putting hard content into the game ("hard" being completely relative and subjective of course). However, if you are going to put hard content into the game I believe there should be a smooth learning curve leading up to it. Big spikes in difficulty for group content don't do anyone any good.

One of my major gripes about the Dark Souls games, particularly Dark Souls 3, is there is really no learning curve. In Dark Souls 3 you make your character, face half a dozen basic mobs that are no threat at all and are then immediately thrown into the first boss.

Now that's fine if you have played Dark Souls games before but for anyone who is new to the franchise this can completely ruin the experience and make them quit.

Lots of mmorpgs fall into the same trap: GW2, FFXIV, WoW, Tera, etc. They all put in huge difficulty spikes for seemingly no reason. Actually WoW is the saddest of the bunch here because it actually has a very smooth learning curve for group content, but then ruins it with the way it distributes gear.

georgeblack

If I put aside the fact that I prefer open world mmorpgs instead of isolated pve stages called dungeons (which players mostly select and port to from a group finder window) I hate how they are based on:
Red circle/cone! Avoid!
Boss flashing! Block strong atk!
...and the rest of the time you stand still rotating abilities. A dps race.

I like it when you really have to move around and the bosses attacks are less predictable. I think it would be more fun if:
1) Raid bosses are not a dps race before the wipe mechanic nears but rather hard throughout.
2)Hard for the tank to maintain control, hard for the healer to maintain MP.
3)Hard for the dps to not get hit. Being hit shouldnt be a death sentance but rather a trouble for the healer.
4)Boss attacks should be more natural instead of red cones/circles and charging attacks full of flashy.. flashes. Less indicators, more forgiving dmg, more natural gameplay, still need for skill otherwise the healers should ragequit.

By all means blocking and dodging should be extremelly important, but avoiding the death hit and then standing still dpsing until the next indicator is boring.

Damokles

@georgeblack
Well the typical red circles etc wont be in the game, Steven once said that the only indicator will be boss animations (boss lifts right arm behind his head = smash for example), so i would not worry about that ;D
Another thing that was promised is that Attack rotations of boss monsters will be random

Noaani

georgeblack wrote: »

If I put aside the fact that I prefer open world mmorpgs instead of isolated pve stages called dungeons (which players mostly select and port to from a group finder window) I hate how they are based on:
Red circle/cone! Avoid!
Boss flashing! Block strong atk!
...and the rest of the time you stand still rotating abilities. A dps race.

You don't hate dungeons, you hate WoW.

Good games don't have dungeons like this.

georgeblack

noaani wrote: »

georgeblack wrote: »

If I put aside the fact that I prefer open world mmorpgs instead of isolated pve stages called dungeons (which players mostly select and port to from a group finder window) I hate how they are based on:
Red circle/cone! Avoid!
Boss flashing! Block strong atk!
...and the rest of the time you stand still rotating abilities. A dps race.

You don't hate dungeons, you hate WoW.

Good games don't have dungeons like this.

Eso. Ffxiv. Never had the chance to play wow. L2 was my game at the time

Wandering Mist

georgeblack wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

georgeblack wrote: »

If I put aside the fact that I prefer open world mmorpgs instead of isolated pve stages called dungeons (which players mostly select and port to from a group finder window) I hate how they are based on:
Red circle/cone! Avoid!
Boss flashing! Block strong atk!
...and the rest of the time you stand still rotating abilities. A dps race.

You don't hate dungeons, you hate WoW.

Good games don't have dungeons like this.

Eso. Ffxiv. Never had the chance to play wow. L2 was my game at the time

Have you ever done end-game dungeons in GW2 (known as fractals)? Those were actually fairly interesting. Yes there were lots of dodging the big red circles, but most of the dungeons were puzzle-based.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSO2lzBBgBo

This was one of my favourites and a great example of the GW2 content. They are very different to the dungeons you see in WoW, ESO or FFXIV.

CrazySquiggle

I just want the boss fights to be as intense and fun as Tera and Monster Hunter World. Then have mechanics that can get as complex as some of the things you see in raids in Destiny 1/2 and Division 2. This way the bosses will be difficult but also have mechanics to some of them to change up the fights

Damokles

whitedude31 wrote: »

I just want the boss fights to be as intense and fun as Tera and Monster Hunter World. Then have mechanics that can get as complex as some of the things you see in raids in Destiny 1/2 and Division 2. This way the bosses will be difficult but also have mechanics to some of them to change up the fights

There are raids in division 2? How are they?

CrazySquiggle

damokles wrote: »

whitedude31 wrote: »

I just want the boss fights to be as intense and fun as Tera and Monster Hunter World. Then have mechanics that can get as complex as some of the things you see in raids in Destiny 1/2 and Division 2. This way the bosses will be difficult but also have mechanics to some of them to change up the fights

There are raids in division 2? How are they?

Sadly you HAVE TO run a pure gun dps build with a LMG/SMG/AR or you will never beat it. It has some nice mechanics, but with the bosses being pure sponges it is way too boring to run more than once. It currently just has one raid, and it is just a pain in the ass for console players because you need to have pin point accuracy for the first boss. PC had their world first clear in about 5 hours but console could not clear it for 48+ hours. It was very clear to the entire community that it was only ever tested on PC and not console.

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