I would like to hear everyone thoughts on dungeons. Should they be a campng similar to EQ or should the game encourage or force a group to proceed further in and actually crawl the place.
Camping never quite felt right to me so i'd like to see some crawling. However please do not debate the breaking in a room/pulling as I think this could be achieved with either setup. I beleive that moving thru the dungeons might keep you challenged most of the time since you always have to solve the next chamber instead of breaking the pattern and then picking single spawns as they come.
Where I have my doubts is how to actually encourage moving without instancing the place. Traps/flooding rooms + no going back might do it, but it would get cheesy in every dungeons.
I have often seen the need for basically two types of dungoens, the first being your typical 'crawl' and the second being more of a 'boss' dungeon. The 'crawl' type dungeon will have multiple paths which will support multiple parties engaging different mobs at the same time. Upon clearing the mob in one room you can proceed to the next with the mob you just cleard respawning after a short time. This will prevent just running back to the past several room for a safe zone as some games have done. The mobs should respawn and not just stay cleared. You should have to fight your way back out as you did going in (unless somehow you teleport out). To me this type of dungeon is for loot, tiered crafting supplies, and great experience. It should take some time to accomplish so the eps should meet the challange.
The second type of dungeon is the 'boss' dungeon. In ths type of dungoen, it is more of a straight line dungeon towards the main boss with some small minions along the way. In this dungeon, the time to get to the main fight is shorter but the actual fight is much longer. This boss should be based in lore and have a reason for being there and for being killed. The earlier mobs can stay cleared to set up a staging area for organizing the group for the final battle. The rewards for such an encounter should be the epic gear (raid type gear) since this type of fight will take a much larger group. The total exp mayl be less but the rewards are more than a simple crawl.
As far as camping the dungeons, I feel that in the boss dungeons, there should be a timer on rewards, be it 24hrs or longer to prevent camping in the main reward areas. You should be able to run the dungeon time after time if you want, kill all you want to help others, but not get the rewards at the end till the timer is up. I always hated that the entire dungeon was blocked after I had done that particular quest (non repeatable quests suck). I have always tried to help others and lower level players and not being able to repeat a dungeon is a horrible implementation.
As for as a crawl dungeon with it's multiple paths supporting multiple parties, there should be no restriction unless a possibility of a level cap which can open up another can of worms.
Open world deep dark dangerous dungeons please
If you make them crawls they will have to be instances
and they will become speed runs like any other crappy mmo out there.
Make the dungeons big, make them span vast level ranges so when you get to the dungeon you know for the next few days, or weeks you know where you will be hunting. As you hunt in these dark places you begin to develop relationships with the other players in the area and next thing you know....you have an actual community in the game and not just a Que up in the LFG tool, zone into dungeon and then run the thing as fast as possible.
If players are to crawl a dungeon, the most important factor will be dungeon size. After that, there has to be a reason to keep players moving. I'm sure the dev team can think of ways to do this. Some ways we've discussed in the past would be to do what EQ did from Kunark onward, and to have multiple spawn points for a single rare spawn spread throughout a section of a dungeon or the entire dungeon itself. There will probably be some mobs better suited to static spawn points (like a king that spawns on a throne), but randomizing would encourage players to stay moving around. It would also reward the stronger groups rather than a group that has simply sat on a spawn longer. It would also give added benefit to having classes that can track in your party. An example of this would be the skeletal warlord in Karnor's castle (tranquil staff) or many of the named that spawned in the Hole.
Another solution would be to have trigger mobs. If you are camping the High Seer that spawns in a particular area, perhaps its necessary to kill other seer mobs spread throughout that wing of the dungeon. This could be more problematic though, as multiple groups could kill the triggers and yet another group could swoop in and kill the boss.
I personally hope we see a combination of both options in dungeons. Those who don't want as much action could keep a small area cleared and camp a particular static named. Others can roam around and kill named that spawn randomly.
I personally miss EQOA's style of XP camps. Dungeons have never really gave me that sense of immersion. In EQOA, you got a group together, trecked through the world avoiding danger, found a camp that looked like it would have good respawns and XP, then you had at it. Some other groups would show up, see the camp full and move on. This was more "life like" than any MMO i know to date and gave it a sense of a true open world sandbox. One thing i have grown so sick of is "hey let's go run an instanced ABC dungeon again for the 100th time", it's just so....boring....Now, i'm all about "dungeons" in the sense of something like Envar was in EQOA, it was a real battle to get through it to find an XP spot but the payoff was great. I think to me the whole idea of instancing as a whole just makes for such a bland experience in an MMO. Give me Defias camps, Elephant graveyard, Deathfist citadel etc camps to grind XP all day, bring back that immersion!
Sevens said:Open world deep dark dangerous dungeons please
If you make them crawls they will have to be instances
and they will become speed runs like any other crappy mmo out there.
Make the dungeons big, make them span vast level ranges so when you get to the dungeon you know for the next few days, or weeks you know where you will be hunting. As you hunt in these dark places you begin to develop relationships with the other players in the area and next thing you know....you have an actual community in the game and not just a Que up in the LFG tool, zone into dungeon and then run the thing as fast as possible.
Totally Agree ! :)
striderida1 said:I personally miss EQOA's style of XP camps. Dungeons have never really gave me that sense of immersion. In EQOA, you got a group together, trecked through the world avoiding danger, found a camp that looked like it would have good respawns and XP, then you had at it. Some other groups would show up, see the camp full and move on. This was more "life like" than any MMO i know to date and gave it a sense of a true open world sandbox. One thing i have grown so sick of is "hey let's go run an instanced ABC dungeon again for the 100th time", it's just so....boring....Now, i'm all about "dungeons" in the sense of something like Envar was in EQOA, it was a real battle to get through it to find an XP spot but the payoff was great. I think to me the whole idea of instancing as a whole just makes for such a bland experience in an MMO. Give me Defias camps, Elephant graveyard, Deathfist citadel etc camps to grind XP all day, bring back that immersion!
I'm not saying you're not entitled to your opinion, or that it wasn't a superior mechanic, but please explain to me how sitting in a throne room waiting to kill the Crushbone Emperor for the Xth time of the day more "life like" then walking in a dungeon and leaving it devoid of life.
Mekada said:striderida1 said:I personally miss EQOA's style of XP camps. Dungeons have never really gave me that sense of immersion. In EQOA, you got a group together, trecked through the world avoiding danger, found a camp that looked like it would have good respawns and XP, then you had at it. Some other groups would show up, see the camp full and move on. This was more "life like" than any MMO i know to date and gave it a sense of a true open world sandbox. One thing i have grown so sick of is "hey let's go run an instanced ABC dungeon again for the 100th time", it's just so....boring....Now, i'm all about "dungeons" in the sense of something like Envar was in EQOA, it was a real battle to get through it to find an XP spot but the payoff was great. I think to me the whole idea of instancing as a whole just makes for such a bland experience in an MMO. Give me Defias camps, Elephant graveyard, Deathfist citadel etc camps to grind XP all day, bring back that immersion!
I'm not saying you're not entitled to your opinion, or that it wasn't a superior mechanic, but please explain to me how sitting in a throne room waiting to kill the Crushbone Emperor for the Xth time of the day more "life like" then walking in a dungeon and leaving it devoid of life.
Is it really that hard to see how its more realistic to go to a place where there may randomly be other players as opposed to a place that is a copy of a dungeon, disconnected from the game world itself? There is no arguing that there is more variety in the open world with people all having their own agenda, than a static instance.
Camps. Not just because I want to sit and talk to people while I xp instead of having to worry about whats around the next corner, but also because you find out who the scumbags on your server are when they steal your mobs. Also an expansive dungeon can have multiple camps and still the want to advance to the next area. Or even a raid boss at the end like say Sebilis?
We had some discussion regarding this topic awhile back, and I posed it as a Roundtable Question for future Developer Roundtables (which haven't occurred). Not sure if they will again, but if they do, hopefully the question is still on the table. I'm very preferential to the "Camping" style Dungeon. Although, I couldn't find the quote, but I remember the developers discussing there potentially could be both. I know there were some even older threads as well, but it appears they've been archived.
Here's a link to a couple of the threads - the first discussing camp vs crawl and the second with roundtable questions, with one being the Camp Vs. Crawl:
2. https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1564/round-table-discussion-questions/view/page/4
Let Velious era EQ1 be your guide. Massive, sprawling, open world dungeons with multiple layers of increasing difficulty...and NO INSTANCING.
Anyone who did those dungeons knows. Still as good as MMO dungeon design, theory, and intent has ever been. Nobody's made anything that good since. Even the good designs in vanilla WoW take a distant second because of instancing. It just cheapens the overall design to me.
Challenges are one thing, and OK, instance them. But for proper dungeons, think Sol A + Sol B + Lord Nagafen, or bolt Old Seb onto Guk as one continuous environment. MASSIVE is the word. BIG, HUGE, SPRAWLING affairs. Non-instanced, death around every corner, serious MMO dungoen play.
IMHO, YMMV.
Venjenz said:Let Velious era EQ1 be your guide. Massive, sprawling, open world dungeons with multiple layers of increasing difficulty...and NO INSTANCING.
Anyone who did those dungeons knows. Still as good as MMO dungeon design, theory, and intent has ever been. Nobody's made anything that good since. Even the good designs in vanilla WoW take a distant second because of instancing. It just cheapens the overall design to me.
Challenges are one thing, and OK, instance them. But for proper dungeons, think Sol A + Sol B + Lord Nagafen, or bolt Old Seb onto Guk as one continuous environment. MASSIVE is the word. BIG, HUGE, SPRAWLING affairs. Non-instanced, death around every corner, serious MMO dungoen play.
IMHO, YMMV.
Bro you hit the nail on the head ! Right on !
I like both.
The main issue I see with straight up crawling is that the number of players in game may prohibit it, unless everyone moves along at the same rate through a dungeon, you eventually catch up to the group in front of you, and the old golf saying "play through", doesn't work as well in MMOs.
There was a reason you could walk into Seb, Guk, etc and do a "camp check" and it would be full. There are just that many players.
The only way I know to deal with it is instances, and that creates a whole other set of problems when it comes to loot inflation.
Camping also promotes socializing, as downtime is when most would chat and get to know each other. It was also when we answered the door for the pizza guy and replenished our Mountain Dew. ;)
Mekada said:I'm not saying you're not entitled to your opinion, or that it wasn't a superior mechanic, but please explain to me how sitting in a throne room waiting to kill the Crushbone Emperor for the Xth time of the day more "life like" then walking in a dungeon and leaving it devoid of life.
Here is the reason why I'd much rather see camping than dungeon crawling: it drastically increases the appearance of the world's size and it's replayability.
If you do a complete dungeon crawl over and over (Like in WOW) when you come back on an alternative character you've already done everything start to finish! Killing Emperor Crushbone for the Xth time might get repetitive but it's only experiencing that one part of the zone.
But let's reverse the situation; let's say you only got to experience Orc Trainer, and the Throne Room Wall camp. You've familiarized yourself with the surroundings and you like the area. You like the area so much you're willing to bring your next character to this area and there is still something new for you to try! (The Throneroom). Versus. Leveling up a new character and going back to that Crushbone instance you've already cleared a bunch on your first character (Deadmines anyone?)...How boring.
-Furor
Fulton said:I like both.
The main issue I see with straight up crawling is that the number of players in game may prohibit it, unless everyone moves along at the same rate through a dungeon, you eventually catch up to the group in front of you, and the old golf saying "play through", doesn't work as well in MMOs.
There was a reason you could walk into Seb, Guk, etc and do a "camp check" and it would be full. There are just that many players.
The only way I know to deal with it is instances, and that creates a whole other set of problems when it comes to loot inflation.
Camping also promotes socializing, as downtime is when most would chat and get to know each other. It was also when we answered the door for the pizza guy and replenished our Mountain Dew. ;)
The way to deal with it is to have your server population and amount of content closely match the amount of players that can consume said content, if I zone into Pantheon Sebilis do a camp check and everything is camped, then the developers did a bad job of loot/exp distribution through dungeons, that made everyone want to end up in Sebilis only. It needs to be more like Velious was, there were several high end places that could be farmed for loot: Kael Drakkal, Skyshrine, Siren's Grotto, Velketor's Labyrinth, Plane of Mischief, even people who would camp dain mobs.
I love dungeons in EQ: usually the opening areas of the dungeon are lower level mobs while the mob level and difficulty increase, usually drastically, as you fight deeper into the dungeon. If this is implemented, you crawl til you camp and you don't really have a choice.
If it's done properly, the dungeons overlap somewhat so that there isn't a lvl 10-15 dungeon then a lvl 15-20 dungeon. I'm positive VR will design the world so that people interact well without crowding any particular dungeons. There should always be an options to someone - with some exploration involved to find or travel to the next option.
maslo said:I love dungeons in EQ: usually the opening areas of the dungeon are lower level mobs while the mob level and difficulty increase, usually drastically, as you fight deeper into the dungeon. If this is implemented, you crawl til you camp and you don't really have a choice.
If it's done properly, the dungeons overlap somewhat so that there isn't a lvl 10-15 dungeon then a lvl 15-20 dungeon. I'm positive VR will design the world so that people interact well without crowding any particular dungeons. There should always be an options to someone - with some exploration involved to find or travel to the next option.
@Maslo
Agreed, and that was one of the replies I had discussed in the previous thread I linked. Some of the discussion was about the Rights of Passage System that was introduced around that same time, but you could substitute that idea for dungeon crawls. I'll paste my comment below:
Raidan said:
@Rivacom
Probably, but I argue that Brad's dislike for camping is wrong. One of the aspects that made the community in EQ great is EQ dungeons and the camping element of them (downtime that forced interaction), contested content, etc. I get his idea that he wants everyone to experience all the world, but it shouldn't be because forced game mechanics cheapen the experience.
And, his point awhile back about camping the same mob from 1-50, although I'm sure was a hyperbole to stress a point, was simply wrong. I did stay in Unrest with some characters (my alts mainly) from 12-35, but it was not camping the same mob, but rather, based off level, I would be able to travel further into the dungeon - the yard mobs until 17, first floor until low 20's, second floor mid 20's, 3rd floor/Basement high 20's, low 30's, etc. and you had a sense of achievement once you finally could conquer the dungeon like you had earlier stated. Even more than that, on my first character, I typically went to where I heard stories of good loot, or good exp, or even based off friends/guildmates recommendations etc. and I did experience much of the world, even if it was not every dungeon/area.
I like having different factions/races experience different sections of the world versus trying to force players to see all the world on the first play-through, it makes it seem more real, and makes the replay-ability better if you wanted to experience the world from a different race/perspective.
Bottom line, if you want players to experience the world, develop content that makes people want to go there, versus having forced mechanics (rights of passage steps, etc.) that bring you there. Because, even if it's just a quest step basically that brings you to the zone (and the zone is terrible), people will only complete that quest step and then go back to their favorite zones. If there's enough zones with viable content, loot, etc., I highly doubt one player will camp one mob/zone etc. only.
With that said... I could gush about this topic forever, and I will wait to expand on it more till I hear it answered in a future Roundtable :)
Give me both. I'd like to think if we only had one or the other then that would limit the scope of the game.
If we have both types then that gives us options and mixes things up for our adventures while breaking up the monotony. Why limit us to only camps so that we know every time we go out to group we are going to a camp? Why limit us just to crawls so that when we get together with our friends we know for most part our group will be crawling through some dungeon or castle or what have you?
If we have both then that would give us different types of experiences for our groups and would create varied experiences throughout the game. In not only certain areas of the world but certain areas of our leveling we would come across giant castles and dungeons where we will find our group partaking in a 'camped' scenario for the next few days to weeks clearing out different sections of the locale. Then in other situations we would find ourselves grouping in a particular area where crawling makes more sense or is more efficient.
I'd love for the devs to mix things up and give us both and possibly other types as well, whatever those may be IF they may be. I'd like to think that the locales are varied enough to require different types of settings which would make for more unique experiences.
Sevens said:Open world deep dark dangerous dungeons please
If you make them crawls they will have to be instances
and they will become speed runs like any other crappy mmo out there.
Make the dungeons big, make them span vast level ranges so when you get to the dungeon you know for the next few days, or weeks you know where you will be hunting. As you hunt in these dark places you begin to develop relationships with the other players in the area and next thing you know....you have an actual community in the game and not just a Que up in the LFG tool, zone into dungeon and then run the thing as fast as possible.
THIS. Please please, avoid the LFG tool and the speed run nonsense we see in every MMO these days. Its sickening, and the community suffers. I'm perfectly OK searching for people with /lfg on or those actively looking for a group in a LFG channel.
Massive, sprawling, open world dungeons. NO INSTANCES.
If I wanted to play in small groups only and not see anyone else, I would have been playing another game. If I wanted a solo instance, I would have been playing another game. God knows that there's enough such games.
I'm looking for a real MMO for a reason. I'm here, in Pantheon, for a reason. I want a massive multiplayer world. The word 'massive' refers both to the size of the world and any zone/dungeon in it, and to the number of players I'm likely to encounter.
But if you make dungeons straightlined, for a straight crawl, they become useless for open world. A dungeon has to be large. If it's large enough, then some crawling becomes not only possible but even necessary, since even if you plan to camp somewhere, you need to get there first.
But let players decide whether to camp or crawl. Give them the playground - a dungeon, large enough (the larger the better), complex, sprawling, convoluted, a lot of mobs, a lot of minibosses and bosses, involved in many qests, and players will do the rest.
I remember in Everquest having to dungeon crawl to get to a camp. So you can have both. Mobs that can see through invis create the need for the crawl and having locations where special or named mobs are known to live provides for the camping aspect. I enjoy both crawl and camp.
