global mechanics vs boss mechanics: radial dungeons

Rungar

I generally find the dungeon experience to be linear and less than what they could be. Most dungeons follow a similar linear path,  Trash-->miniboss-->trash--Boss, to completion.  There is usually nothing to do except kill your way to the end. Most of the challenge is stacked into "boss mechanics" which results in "do this now" or die gameplay. 

I would like to offer a better suggestion, what I call global mechanics and the radial dungeon. Rather than a linear path well instead provide a setting. The setting might have a number of smaller paths radiating out from it.  Rather than going from A-->B  it will have a different type of gameplay including the folllowing: 

The defeat of the dungeon will not necessarily be a boss kill but the completion (or failure) of what i call global conditions. Global conditions are kinds of like smaller tasks players can complete while they participate in the dungeon. The more global conditions you can satisfy without failure the better reward you get. 

so there will be a number of tasks to complete but most of them are optional. This allows us to dramatically improve both the difficulty and replability of dungeons. 

I will explain by example. 

Castle Greyskull. 

You and your team has been charged with going to castle greyskull and investigating the undead attacks in the area. When you get there  at dusk you see the courtyard is teeming with undead who break down the door as soon as you get there. Your first task is to get past these undead and repair the door. 

Once repaired the undead will keep beating on the door the entire time. You need to keep it repaired and failing that keep them from overwhelming you. You have to survive until dawn. You can find supplies to keep the door repaired in the castle keep. While your holding down the door monsters will come up from the basement. 

The second stage of this dungeon is to  find all the survivors that are scattered throughout the castle. 

The third stage is to find a sacred object hidden somewhere in the house. 

The Fourth stage is to go into the basement and  destroy the monster generator down there. In this case the monster generator is an optional miniboss.


Your reward is based on what you accomplish in the dungeon. The global conditions.

If you ( at least 1 player) survive until dawn you get the Wood chest
if you survive and additionally save at least 5 survivors or find the sacred object you get the copper chest
If you survive, save 5 survivors, and find the sacred object you get the silver chest
if you survive , save 5 survivors, find the object and complete the optional boss you get the gold chest
if you save ALL the survivors, find the object and complete the optional boss you get the platinum chest

so the only critical part of the dungeon is to survive but if your strong enough to complete the other objectives you get rewarded for doing so.

In order to complete these objectives your team might need to split up and use strategies other than kill your way to the end. The following mechanics will be at play. 

Surviving until Dawn is the Critical mechanic to pass the dungeon. 
The door is a maintenance mechanic. Someone will need to get the wood from elsewhere in the castle and keep the door repaired.
Saving the survivors is one of two active quests. The survivors are in random locations each time in the upstairs areas
Finding the sacred object is the other active quest The sacred object is in a random location each time in the basement areas
The boss is also optional. 

In order to complete all these tasks before dawn you will likely need to split up your forces. If you want to complete all the tasks you will have to determine who will do what. Someone has to keep the door repaired. Others will need to save the survivors and find the find the object and then the optional boss needs to be faced. Some objectives may not require brute force. Stealth might be the better strategy. Not everything needs to be killed so some things might just be avoided too save time. 

Its another way to look at dungeons and it melds perfectly with my role mitigation since roles can be more fluid with that method. Most of the action stems from a central location where players can strategize to complete the radial tasks. I want to give players time to talk to each other in dungeons. Additionally some players are better suited to some tasks than others so they could decide who should do what.  

ill post a few more examples after. There are a number of ways to set it up. 
 


   

 

Scot

This is an interesting idea, may I add one I know you will hate? How about "dungeon" bosses even mobs being played by staffers? Imagine the look on a raid teams face when the boss, still deep in the dungeon calls them out for being an "ill prepared gang of tomb robbers"? Now I know you have a love of automation, but there are some things programming just can't do and the personnel investment of fighting a staffer "raid" boss would be one of them.

Back on track I can remember some splitting into two teams for raids in Lotro and ESO but they had simpler gameplay than what you are suggesting. If I remember right the Lotro version was more complicated than ESO's.

Rungar

Scot said:

This is an interesting idea, may I add one I know you will hate? How about "dungeon" bosses even mobs being played by staffers? Imagine the look on a raid teams face when the boss, still deep in the dungeon calls them out for being an "ill prepared gang of tomb robbers"? Now I know you have a love of automation, but there are some things programming just can't do and the personnel investment of fighting a staffer "raid" boss would be one of them.

i'm not against it. I also have a similar idea called the "surprise visitor" which is a miniboss/character from another part of the game showing up where they dont belong and causing mayhem. 

Rungar

Scot said:

This is an interesting idea, may I add one I know you will hate? How about "dungeon" bosses even mobs being played by staffers? Imagine the look on a raid teams face when the boss, still deep in the dungeon calls them out for being an "ill prepared gang of tomb robbers"? Now I know you have a love of automation, but there are some things programming just can't do and the personnel investment of fighting a staffer "raid" boss would be one of them.

Back on track I can remember some splitting into two teams for raids in Lotro and ESO but they had simpler gameplay than what you are suggesting. If I remember right the Lotro version was more complicated than ESO's.

Because everyone who plays doesnt have the same skill or experience i thought it best to provide tasks they could participate in. This gives long time and experienced players a chance to lead the dungeon while new players get to participate with a potentially easier task until they get the required experience. 

i also dont like the "throw yourself at it until you succeed or give up" aka muscle memory model. There should be multiple tiers of success and the ability to fail.  

delete5230

I have to admit,
I started reading with the agenda to debunk your idea..... It's what we do here 

However, It's not a bad idea, kind of like "Dragon Age Inquisition" story line scenario.
 


Or why not a Dragon Age mmorpg ?.... Forgot no one makes mmorpgs anymore. I guess I debunked it anyway, sorry 

Wizardry

I rather do away with MOST of the mmorpg philosophy.Dungeons are just crap cheap lazy content and yes they are very shallow/linear ideas to house a boss/s.

Why are the mobs even there,what do they eat,there is no indication of any realism or immersion,just the same old design throughout,jot down some mobs for xp or loot and THAT is the entire boring world.
I want the game worlds to feel AND act like a real world and it's inhabitants would act.

Then i want to see LOOT that is relevant to the mob you killed.Basically i want to see these rpg's make sense as this is no longer the 90's with limited tech and devs are still learning,it's time to step up.

delete5230

Wizardry said:

Why are the mobs even there,what do they eat,

MMO mobs usually eat corn and raw potato's.

From my experience anyway.

Rungar

Example 2: the library of bad words

You and your team has been tasked to investigate the bad library. When you get there you see a huge cage with a giant spike on a chain over the top of it. The sign says only 2 may enter. 

When two players enter the cage the dungeon begins. All the doors to the library open and the spike very slowly descends on the players trapped in the cage. The other players who were not in the cage have to search the library for the book that will open the cage. The library is infested with undead and is also, like any library, full of books. 

The book you need is in a random location in the library and you will have to check many hallways and bookshelves but beware as danger also lurks in the bookshelves. Opening the wrong book can leads to all sorts of things happening as follows. 

1) it might be an enemy book and attack you
2) you might be switched out for one of the players in the cage.
3) you can either weaken or strengthen the final boss ( the librarian)
4) it can spawn additional enemies in the cage
5) temporarily stop the spike giving you more time 

You have to find the book before the spike hits the cage. While your busy looking the trapped players will be kept busy with waves of enemies, not including those you mistakenly spawn by opening the wrong book. 

All this time the librarian is on the other side of the cage taunting the trapped players, but in his arrogance giving you hints to find the book as well. 

The secondary optional task is to find the pages to a magical manuscript which are spread around the library randomly. 
additionally there is an  optional Lich miniboss that roam the halls. 

You have 40 minutes to find the book to deactivate the spike and open the cage. When you do this you face the last boss, the librarian, who you all face together. 


If you defeat the librarian you get the wooden chest
if you defeat the librarian and collect at least 7 pages of the manuscript or the optional boss you get the copper chest
if you defeat the librarian, collect 7 pages and beat the optional boss you get the silver chest. 
if you defeat the librarian, collect all the pages, defeat the optional boss you get the gold chest.
if you can do all that in 30 minutes you get the platinum chest.

additional to the lich there is a chance the surprise visitor will make an appearance, either in the library or in the cage. If he shows up and you defeat this character you get the your chest upgraded one tier ( platinum still max).    


  

 

Sid_Vicious

Someday the content will be guided and controlled by various players or GMs perhaps from time to time... making sure that every experience is unique.

What you had described seemed like it would probably play out to be linear in the end when you had all of your code worked out and done... lol.. think about it.. you just described doing some quests in a dungeon pretty much but no I feel you.

I thought it was really cool when Darkfall devs controlled the mobs.

iixviiiix

delete5230 said:

Wizardry said:

Why are the mobs even there,what do they eat,

MMO mobs usually eat corn and raw potato's.

From my experience anyway.

They eat data cause they are living in database .

Rungar

Sid_Vicious said:

Someday the content will be guided and controlled by various players or GMs perhaps from time to time... making sure that every experience is unique.

What you had described seemed like it would probably play out to be linear in the end when you had all of your code worked out and done... lol.. think about it.. you just described doing some quests in a dungeon pretty much but no I feel you.

I thought it was really cool when Darkfall devs controlled the mobs.

This is pie in the sky though. If more than 1000 players are playing having devs control the monsters becomes impossible as youll need a warehouse of people to control the mobs. Whats the difference between this and pvp anyhow? The mob is bigger? 

Much better to have a real strategy that improves players experience with dungeons, if your going to have instanced dungeons. 

Kyleran

What is described is an extension of the castle siege model found in DAOC, WAR and perhaps one day CU.

In those there are multiple "duties" different classes <grin> perform.  Ranged classes defend from the walls, reining death from above.

Healers, buffers, debuffers roam the keep keeping everyone up to snuff while melee classes generally man siege weapons and everyone can participate in door and wall repair.

Additionally smaller parties can roam outside of the walls when opportunity presents, think of the final grand charge out the front gate in the Battle for Helms Deep.

There's usually secondary targets of opportunity such as farms, lumber mills etc which make defendng the keep easier or more difficult if lost to the enemy.

Even inside the keep the presence of enemy stealthers sets up a bit of a mini game involving tracking, evasion, search/destroy and heroic rescue.

There's even a boss fight, a Keep Lord of some sort which has to be heroically defended when the inevitable breech occurs.

So what's proposed here is to recreate most of that in PVE setting, perhaps adding a few more sub duties.

Sounds interesting, but after typing all of this I'm starting to ask myself why I'm not already playing one of the games which already has such.

Rungar

Kyleran said:

What is described is an extension of the castle siege model found in DAOC, WAR and perhaps one day CU.

In those there are multiple "duties" different classes <grin> perform.  Ranged classes defend from the walls, reining death from above.

Healers, buffers, debuffers roam the keep keeping everyone up to snuff while melee classes generally man siege weapons and everyone can participate in door and wall repair.

Additionally smaller parties can roam outside of the walls when opportunity presents, think of the final grand charge out the front gate in the Battle for Helms Deep.

There's usually secondary targets of opportunity such as farms, lumber mills etc which make defendng the keep easier or more difficult if lost to the enemy.

Even inside the keep the presence of enemy stealthers sets up a bit of a mini game involving tracking, evasion, search/destroy and heroic rescue.

There's even a boss fight, a Keep Lord of some sort which has to be heroically defended when the inevitable breech occurs.

So what's proposed here is to recreate most of that in PVE setting, perhaps adding a few more sub duties.

Sounds interesting, but after typing all of this I'm starting to ask myself why I'm not already playing one of the games which already has such.

Because a pve version doesnt exist yet.  You are right though. Its more similar to a castle siege than a traditional linear dungeon. Based on its design it could be exactly that. 

The real question is why it hasent been adopted into pve.