I too miss challenging dungeon crawls, but it sounds to me as if a great deal of what you are saying is difficulty, I would say is tedium. Things should be very hard, and you should have to move slowly, for fear of hidden monsters, traps, puzzles, and the like, but fast respawns, no instancing, and the very harsh punishment of failure are all things I do not like.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I miss the MMOs with the classic dungeon crawls. None of the mobs are soloable, the mobs repop within a few minutes after you kill them, and there is a long trip to get to the back of the dungeon. The party had to make sure it never wiped or lost its casters because there were very few ways to get back to the party if you got killed, respawned and had to find your way back to your party.
If you try to get back to your party it was practically impossible.
AoC had some areas like this such as Onyx, but not nearly enough content like this throughout the levels.
Not interested. Make very frusting gameplay.
i don't want to commit whole nite to a dungoen .. 1-2 hours is the right length. And this business about not be able to get back to the group means a lot of time wasted.
If you dont know it yes you prolly think this way, but a challenge is just much more fun and adventures then a safe dungeon with no risk.
Im sure becouse of players like you we soon have dungeon where you can have every meter a chest with goodies or mobs that stand still do nothing and you kill and you get all shiny things you desire and after 20min fully equipped with godlike gear you always wanted:P
Time waste is something all you new players keep saying this in mean while you all play many hours a day doing same shit over and over again lol.
Maybe a gameworld with dungeon crawlers and dungeons for lazy no risk dungeons for all who want there stuff handed easy on silver plate should give both groups satisfaction they want hehe.
You are totally illogical. What has time to do with the level of difficulty? The lich king hard mode is super challenging but the fight itself won't last longer than 15 min.
If you take away all the trash and bosses leading up to it, it is still challenging.
It is total BS that the length of the dungeon has anything to do with whether it is easy or not.
i wouldnt mind having dungeon crawling to come back, unfortunately my first dungeon crawl game was diablo so im constantly trying to find a game that has the athmosphere than in the first installment of diablo ... sounds, music, the overall feel to the game was just so amazing..
If every fight in such a dungeon is sort of a big picture versatile challenge then i agree it would be a nice experience. But it has to fit into a 1,5 hour session (3 x 0.5 hours) for example.
The most boring experience would be a dungeon filled with trash mobs like some in the tier 1+2 raids of aoc (have stopped playing b4 tier 3 release so i have no clue about them). You get no feeling of accomplishment but a feeling of slowing down for no reason.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
The only proper dungeons found in MMOG's are those found in DDO. Most other game's dungeons have a shopping mall atmosphere with choreographed gimick bosses that have more in common with hopscotch than they do a dungeon.
Originally posted by midmagic Originally posted by Ozivois I miss the MMOs with the classic dungeon crawls. None of the mobs are soloable, the mobs repop within a few minutes after you kill them, and there is a long trip to get to the back of the dungeon. The party had to make sure it never wiped or lost its casters because there were very few ways to get back to the party if you got killed, respawned and had to find your way back to your party. If you try to get back to your party it was practically impossible. AoC had some areas like this such as Onyx, but not nearly enough content like this throughout the levels.
Which MMOs are these where dungeon content could not be soloed? My chanter, bard, necro, druid, etc say nearly all of EQ was reasonablly soloable (until PoP where things really changed up) ;p Was it UO? Na, everything was soloable. What is Meridian? Was it some random MUD? Or was it just FFXI and its ladybugs of doom?
:-) hehe, Ladybugs of DOOM!!!1! :-) <= deserved an extra smiley.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Personally I think even 1-2 hours is too long. Offer challenging 30-min wings to a dungeon. If I have time, I can chain each wing together into a 2-hour experience and earn an extra piece of bonus loot or two, but otherwise I can reliably play for exactly as long as I have time for.
I think it's pretty crazy that Blizz went back to ~1.5 hour heroics, personally. Their most popular dungeon of all time (Scarlet Monastery) was popular largely due to the bite-sized session sizes. All they needed to do was give a light "dungeon chain" bonus for those who have time to do everything at once and it's the perfect setup.
Longer than 2 hours is just nuts and relegates a game to an ultra-niche audience.
Some days i only have 10-min to play, so better do 10-min wings, or better 10-min dungeons... or better yet each 5-min just pop a button on the screen with the word "LOOT" ( so people with low attention span wont miss it ) and each click it will give some epic lewt kewl loot.
The problem i see here is that people only know the instanced dungeons, the good part of non instanced dungeons is that you can do it solo or in a group and you can invest 10 min or 6 h. because you are getting a blast doing it while interacting with other people, your are not doing it just for the loot like all the instances we have, that loot is just the icing on the cake.
The gener is evolving to a casual single player grind game ( CSPGG™ ), it will have a ton of more people playing it of course but it will lose his soul, maybe already lost it.
Personally I think even 1-2 hours is too long. Offer challenging 30-min wings to a dungeon. If I have time, I can chain each wing together into a 2-hour experience and earn an extra piece of bonus loot or two, but otherwise I can reliably play for exactly as long as I have time for.
I think it's pretty crazy that Blizz went back to ~1.5 hour heroics, personally. Their most popular dungeon of all time (Scarlet Monastery) was popular largely due to the bite-sized session sizes. All they needed to do was give a light "dungeon chain" bonus for those who have time to do everything at once and it's the perfect setup.
Longer than 2 hours is just nuts and relegates a game to an ultra-niche audience.
Some days i only have 10-min to play, so better do 10-min wings, or better 10-min dungeons... or better yet each 5-min just pop a button on the screen with the word "LOOT" ( so people with low attention span wont miss it ) and each click it will give some epic lewt kewl loot.
The problem i see here is that people only know the instanced dungeons, the good part of non instanced dungeons is that you can do it solo or in a group and you can invest 10 min or 6 h. because you are getting a blast doing it while interacting with other people, your are not doing it just for the loot like all the instances we have, that loot is just the icing on the cake.
The gener is evolving to a casual single player grind game ( CSPGG™ ), it will have a ton of more people playing it of course but it will lose his soul, maybe already lost it.
Would you be opposed to having options? May as well have instanced or non-instanced dungeons, solo dungeons, short ones, long ones. As long as the rewards are appropriate for the duration and challenge then what difference does it make?
Or are you one of the many who is hung up on the past when it was possible to force a playstyle on people that wouldn't choose that playstyle? There is enough competition in the genre now that if someone wanted short solo instances then they will play a game that provides them. If a game only offered one type of dungeon then it will only attract the players that want that one type of dungeon.
Personally I think even 1-2 hours is too long. Offer challenging 30-min wings to a dungeon. If I have time, I can chain each wing together into a 2-hour experience and earn an extra piece of bonus loot or two, but otherwise I can reliably play for exactly as long as I have time for.
I think it's pretty crazy that Blizz went back to ~1.5 hour heroics, personally. Their most popular dungeon of all time (Scarlet Monastery) was popular largely due to the bite-sized session sizes. All they needed to do was give a light "dungeon chain" bonus for those who have time to do everything at once and it's the perfect setup.
Longer than 2 hours is just nuts and relegates a game to an ultra-niche audience.
Some days i only have 10-min to play, so better do 10-min wings, or better 10-min dungeons... or better yet each 5-min just pop a button on the screen with the word "LOOT" ( so people with low attention span wont miss it ) and each click it will give some epic lewt kewl loot.
The problem i see here is that people only know the instanced dungeons, the good part of non instanced dungeons is that you can do it solo or in a group and you can invest 10 min or 6 h. because you are getting a blast doing it while interacting with other people, your are not doing it just for the loot like all the instances we have, that loot is just the icing on the cake.
The gener is evolving to a casual single player grind game ( CSPGG™ ), it will have a ton of more people playing it of course but it will lose his soul, maybe already lost it.
Would you be opposed to having options? May as well have instanced or non-instanced dungeons, solo dungeons, short ones, long ones. As long as the rewards are appropriate for the duration and challenge then what difference does it make?
Or are you one of the many who is hung up on the past when it was possible to force a playstyle on people that wouldn't choose that playstyle? There is enough competition in the genre now that if someone wanted short solo instances then they will play a game that provides them. If a game only offered one type of dungeon then it will only attract the players that want that one type of dungeon.
You can have variety without instances. Sure, if you want instances, then let there be games with instances designed and tailored to you needs. But for those of us who want worlds without Single Player game instances, there certainly can be worlds with a wide variety of dungeons that you can hop into and out of for short or long periods, and still have fun.
The thing is, these are two different types of games, and there are players who want one or the other, and players who'd accept either. There's plenty to go around. But I'm really tired of hearing that only the instanced games for Single Player gamers have validity in MMORPGs.
What's funny is that it's the Single Player mode MMOer who accuses us "Worldly/Sandbox" types of hanging onto the past. It's actually the Single Player Game MMO player who wants to hang onto a past from before MMORPGs came out, and don't want to advance to the social arena of true Massive Multiplayer, because you don't want to deal with other people. That's not to say that such games shouldn't do something about griefers of all sorts. They should, and it can be done, up to a point that should be acceptable considering you're in a social sphere with lots of other players. And that social sphere brings new, social game play (real politics, not some card game called a "Political System") that many of us expect to see in a Massive Multiplayer world.
>>> It is total BS that the length of the dungeon has anything to do with whether it is easy or not.
Ahem, sorry, but your last statement is not correct.
As long as the encounters before the end figth offer any challenge (as in chance of failure) it is of course more challenging to defeat that deep dungeon compared to a dungeon that only got the end figth.
Of course if you make all encounters before the end fight trivial (known as trash mobs) you don't increase the challenge but only the time needed.
Anyway, there is a correltaion between the length (number of encounters) in a dungeon and it's challenge depending on the number of encounters that provide a chance of failure.
You can proove this mathematically but I leave that to someone other.
My vote goes to dungeon crawling but with smart enemies. The ones that try to flank you, kill your low hp members, use LOS on YOU, etc etc @_@
That way you wont really need bosses as much because everythings going to be challenging anyways! @_@
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Personally I think even 1-2 hours is too long. Offer challenging 30-min wings to a dungeon. If I have time, I can chain each wing together into a 2-hour experience and earn an extra piece of bonus loot or two, but otherwise I can reliably play for exactly as long as I have time for.
I think it's pretty crazy that Blizz went back to ~1.5 hour heroics, personally. Their most popular dungeon of all time (Scarlet Monastery) was popular largely due to the bite-sized session sizes. All they needed to do was give a light "dungeon chain" bonus for those who have time to do everything at once and it's the perfect setup.
Longer than 2 hours is just nuts and relegates a game to an ultra-niche audience.
Some days i only have 10-min to play, so better do 10-min wings, or better 10-min dungeons... or better yet each 5-min just pop a button on the screen with the word "LOOT" ( so people with low attention span wont miss it ) and each click it will give some epic lewt kewl loot.
The problem i see here is that people only know the instanced dungeons, the good part of non instanced dungeons is that you can do it solo or in a group and you can invest 10 min or 6 h. because you are getting a blast doing it while interacting with other people, your are not doing it just for the loot like all the instances we have, that loot is just the icing on the cake.
The gener is evolving to a casual single player grind game ( CSPGG™ ), it will have a ton of more people playing it of course but it will lose his soul, maybe already lost it.
Well the 15-60 min range seems pretty obvious to me like the sweet spot of time investment for a singular, beefy task for most people (~50 mins is the natural soft upper limit for most RTS games for exactly that reason; most FPS rounds are 15-25 mins for that reason).
Calling MMORPGs singleplayer simply because they offer a single-player option is such a uselessly extremist argument that I often have difficulty replying to comments from players who bring it up. Especially since in WOW (the MMORPG most bemoaned as "single-player") you can level faster in groups than out of them, and spend most of your time grouping (all of it if you're a tank.)
I played the non-instanced dungeons in games like DAOC, AC, and AO. They weren't particularly good. Mostly it was boring grinding, often with a non-rewarding grind against too-low enemies in the early bit. Compared to modern dungeons, they absolutely sucked.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
>>> It is total BS that the length of the dungeon has anything to do with whether it is easy or not.
Ahem, sorry, but your last statement is not correct.
As long as the encounters before the end figth offer any challenge (as in chance of failure) it is of course more challenging to defeat that deep dungeon compared to a dungeon that only got the end figth.
Of course if you make all encounters before the end fight trivial (known as trash mobs) you don't increase the challenge but only the time needed.
Anyway, there is a correltaion between the length (number of encounters) in a dungeon and it's challenge depending on the number of encounters that provide a chance of failure.
You can proove this mathematically but I leave that to someone other.
edit: added quote, somehow the forum ate it.
Your argument is assuming the difficulty of each encounter is fixed.
Thus, let say encounter A and encounter B each has a completion probability of 10%, then the completion rate is only 1% if you chain A & B together, assuming that the completion probability is independent.
The flaw in your logic is that the difficult of the encounters have to be constant. Developers OBVIOUSLY can tune them up or down.
Thus, if there is a desirable completion probability to be 1% (i.e. very difficult & most people can't make it), then they can just tune encounter B (the one at the end) to 1%.
There is no reason to make the dungeon ultraly long in this scenario. Just make it as difficult as your want, while keeping the dungeon length within an hour or two .. which seems to be the optimal for most people's schedule.
I played the non-instanced dungeons in games like DAOC, AC, and AO. They weren't particularly good. Mostly it was boring grinding, often with a non-rewarding grind against too-low enemies in the early bit. Compared to modern dungeons, they absolutely sucked.
Maybe thats the problem, none of these games you say have the dungeons as the main theme, EQ, EQ2 and VG have the best of them, just in EQ you have Chardok, Sebilis, Karnor, Guk, Solb, etc... i only can feel sorry for people that didnt exp. zones like that because rigth now there is no game in the market with the same mechanics as EQ at '99 that let these kind of zones shine.
Anyway i can understand that people just want to grab some friends and do an instance, its ok, but for me thats is not what im looking for in this genre ( i have other games for that ), its not what i was after when i joined the genre more than ten years ago, i want the massive from MMORPG be the strongest part of the genre.
I remeber playing online in Baldurs Gate, yes online, and it was hella fun, doing dungeons with friends, man it was awesome, that was back in 1998... but we were looking for something more, we just didnt feel it massive, it was just like doing an instance on today's MMO's and we moved to UO and then EQ... nowdays i feel like playing Baldurs Gate again with a few friends... just with more grind, worse history and an Auction House, i just hope the genre will move forward once again, because these games dont feel massive anymore.
With all this rant i dont say that my opinion or my vision of the genre is better than yours, its just that i had the impression back in the day that this genre was about virtual worlds and not just online games, and all this instances, phasing, hand holding, quests driven ( just to name a few ) mechanics are killing the virutal world part just to be more accesible/mainstream and grab more people.
Here are my grievances with non-instanced dungeons:
Objectives and bosses are camped. Its a waste of my time to get all the way to the boss only to wait in line or to waste more time returning to that place at a later date.
They can't scale to any number of players. If the dungeon was made for solo players then its too easy with two players. If it was made for 5 players then its too easy with 7. It its a raid zone designed for 100 players then the guild that brings 200 players is going to have no challenge. Whoever that was getting hung up on there being a challenge should consider this.
They cannot scale to player population. Have you ever entered a shared instance 2 minutes after another group? Its boring and wastes everyone's time.
They require respawn just to work. Respawning of any kind is a simulation breaking mechanic. Its odd that the sandbox/world supporters would prefer this over a separation of players into instances.
As I get older my desire to share an instance with random immature scrubs becomes less and less. I don't play MMOG's to compete or to "win". I play them to share an adventure with friends and family. Instancing is the only way to ensure that I can play the game the way I want to.
I would definitly support a "shared instance" mode for dungeons that you can choose in the game options or upon entering an instance. That way you can play how you want and I can play how I want.
BTW, I thought it was awesome how Fallen Earth has a seamless (no load screen) transition into instances. Brilliant, and it addresses one of my biggest issues with instancing.
I remeber playing online in Baldurs Gate, yes online, and it was hella fun, doing dungeons with friends, man it was awesome, that was back in 1998... but we were looking for something more, we just didnt feel it massive, it was just like doing an instance on today's MMO's and we moved to UO and then EQ... nowdays i feel like playing Baldurs Gate again with a few friends... just with more grind, worse history and an Auction House, i just hope the genre will move forward once again, because these games dont feel massive anymore.
NOpe .. i doubt the genre will move BACKWARDS back to non-instance dungeon.
The point is that not every massive is fun. A boss, respawn on a timer, is just not a fun encounter if you have 200 players camping him. If you want dungeon/boss encounter type entertainment, obviously massive is not the answer.
Massive can work with huge PvP battles cause there is no need to scale the AI. WG is an example.
And if you want to just "feel" massive ... just stand in orgrimmar for 5 min. There are more people than I care to interact with.
Personally, i would much prefer a better gaming experience. That comes first. Whether it is massive or not .. is secondary.
Here are my grievances with non-instanced dungeons:
Objectives and bosses are camped. Its a waste of my time to get all the way to the boss only to wait in line or to waste more time returning to that place at a later date.
They can't scale to any number of players. If the dungeon was made for solo players then its too easy with two players. If it was made for 5 players then its too easy with 7. It its a raid zone designed for 100 players then the guild that brings 200 players is going to have no challenge. Whoever that was getting hung up on there being a challenge should consider this.
They cannot scale to player population. Have you ever entered a shared instance 2 minutes after another group? Its boring and wastes everyone's time.
They require respawn just to work. Respawning of any kind is a simulation breaking mechanic. Its odd that the sandbox/world supporters would prefer this over a separation of players into instances.
As I get older my desire to share an instance with random immature scrubs becomes less and less. I don't play MMOG's to compete or to "win". I play them to share an adventure with friends and family. Instancing is the only way to ensure that I can play the game the way I want to.
I would definitly support a "shared instance" mode for dungeons that you can choose in the game options or upon entering an instance. That way you can play how you want and I can play how I want.
BTW, I thought it was awesome how Fallen Earth has a seamless (no load screen) transition into instances. Brilliant, and it addresses one of my biggest issues with instancing.
There are many things a Sandbox/Worldly game can do to solve the problems you mentioned. Remember that as a Fantasy or Sci-Fi world, there are "magical" things you can do, along with more mundane seeming things.
I'm sticking with Fantasy here, since it seems to be the predominant desire in RP games. (Besides, a lot of Sci-Fi games have a degree of the Fantasy stuff in them too, and regardless you can substitute pretty easily.) I also want to point out that you want to set up the game world with lost of lore to lead into the "reasoning" and causes of some of this. Several ancient kingdoms of greater magical skills than the present day world, links to other dimensions of Hells and Abysses and Elementals, etc. A conflict between present day peoples and forces from the past as well as the present who use the magics and knowledge from those past times lost in antiquity.
"Objectives and bosses are camped. Its a waste of my time to get all the way to the boss only to wait in line or to waste more time returning to that place at a later date."
A dungeon can have all sorts of objectives, and in a Sandbox game substitute "Leaders" for "Bosses", and forget that repeatable, never ending, never changing "Boss" encounter. Let MOBs wander, can even set up goals for them to follow, to lead them throughout a dungeon. For "objectives", you can have all sorts of resources to be collected in one form or another. Minerals used for magic or crafting, the waters of magical pools, mosses and roots, etc., sought by both the players and NPCs (so things can also be found as loot).
Other objectives can be in the form of highly magical altars, forges, etc., built by the ancients or extra-planar beings, to be used in the creation of specific magical items.
Still more objectives can be in the form of knowledge. Inscriptions on walls, maps on floors, things like that. Imagine that an ancient book is held in a major library, that has clues in it to the ancients, and you need to go to these places to figure out answers to those clues. The answers could lead to treasures, magical items, or the means to defeat a true "Boss", a GM played "big bad" that's running around in the world causing trouble in an event arc. (By the way, "defeat" does not have to equal destruction and the end to this sort of GM Boss. He could come again and again, and a final defeat that does destroy him should be an event to be remembered. I don't believe in fixed outcomes here, I'd allow for final destruction at any time, dependent on the players to get the right answers. If not, play it by ear and move forwards under the goals and guidance of the Boss's design. He may still be an underling to an even greater Boss.)
"They can't scale to any number of players. If the dungeon was made for solo players then its too easy with two players. If it was made for 5 players then its too easy with 7. It its a raid zone designed for 100 players then the guild that brings 200 players is going to have no challenge. Whoever that was getting hung up on there being a challenge should consider this."
"They cannot scale to player population. Have you ever entered a shared instance 2 minutes after another group? Its boring and wastes everyone's time."
"They require respawn just to work. Respawning of any kind is a simulation breaking mechanic. Its odd that the sandbox/world supporters would prefer this over a separation of players into instances."
I'm going to get at all this together. I think that in a great Sandbox game, you have to work with all this (as well as what I said above) together under one scope of design, because in a "worldly" game all things should affect and be affected by all other things.
I'm not concerned with that sort of "difficulty by design". That's for Single Player Games, and for the Clones based on that sort of play. However, I am concerned to the extent that you want the game world to offer plenty to do. Ther does need to be some dungeons made to offer constant respawns. For both training and just plain fun. This can easily be done, and make sense, in a Sandbox game.
Oozes that drip down from ceilings and form elemental forms, undead rising from the ashes of ruins (even in dungeons), demons from one way portals, there's all sorts of ways to account for respawns. But only in some dungeons spread out in the world.
You can also have magical devices that spawn when things happen. Demon troops from a demonic statue when someone enters a room, etc. You can even go farther with this, and make it random. In other words, many dungeons have these demon statues, but it's a random chance that a particular statue gain this spawning power to await the next opportunity.
Some spawns can be based on the numbers of players present, or the power of the spawn related to the numbers of souls present, or allied souls lost in the room before. There's lots of possibilities.
You can also have instances in a Sandbox game. But they need explanations that make sense. Portals that lead to other planes, so a cavern in a mountain sized rock on the Elemental Plane of Air could be one of an infinite number of such places, thus allowing for an instanced adventure.
Remember too that in a Sandbox game, it's best suited to not have the wild differences in player capabilities like the Clones have. In a world that doesn't have "level 80's", it brings things much closer. It becomes much less dependent on abilities and more on numbers, to a degree.
I'd also point out that fun is fun, and doesn't neccessarily mean challenge. I think challenge is important, but it doesn't have to be in every adventure.
Let me give you an example of a world, the way I'd play with it's design.
You have some dungeons with constant respawns as above. You have many dungeons that can be cleared, populated by wandering MOBs (even if this is simulated somehow), or by magical portals from other planes. Once a dungeon is populated by MOBs, they grow in numbers unless player clear them out. As the numbers grow, they spread out in the dungeon. If left alone, they'd take over the entire dungeon. Or run into other spawn types, creating a battle zone that stops each's growth unless one side is more powerful, which would eventually take over the entire dungeon.
Now add in another aspect. From the ruins and ancient temples of evil in the world, lets make some of them Seats of Power related to specific forces. Lets give them a variety of trails to follow between them and the dungeons related to their ancient lore. Lets given them, under specific circumstances (to be disvovered by the players with great diffuculty, see "knowledge" above) the ability to send out a special NPC to a close associated dungeon, ruins, temple. With the purpose of opening a gate to bring in more, so as to take back a dungeon. The NPCs could be shape changed or otherwise disguised, and discoverable by players, or not.
A Sandbox/World should be much more about what happens in it than tailored dungeon instances. Oh yes, it should be fun, but it also has the possibilities of being much more interesting, random, and exciting.
I went back and added a few points here and there, so if something doesn't make sense that's why. It's difficult to "make" this much of a game, get all the details, in a few paragraphs. But then, with some readers here, they're more interested in arguing angles to make Sandbox ideas not work rather than try to see how it can. So I may have wasted a bunch of time here, heh.
I have come to accept the fact that most people nowadays dont really want to play a game.
They want a mostly automated Online "im suprah kewllll" simulator. Queing up 15 minute dungeons that are supposed to be halfway across the world from a mailbox outside a bank in town. Then they use some addon which tells them. RIGHT FOOT BLUE, LEFT HAND GREEN. NOW JUMP BACKWARDS 2 TIMES. OMG U WIN U SO GOOD LOLOLOLOL JUICEBOXES AND COOKIES FOR ALL YAY!
Personally I think even 1-2 hours is too long. Offer challenging 30-min wings to a dungeon. If I have time, I can chain each wing together into a 2-hour experience and earn an extra piece of bonus loot or two, but otherwise I can reliably play for exactly as long as I have time for.
I think it's pretty crazy that Blizz went back to ~1.5 hour heroics, personally. Their most popular dungeon of all time (Scarlet Monastery) was popular largely due to the bite-sized session sizes. All they needed to do was give a light "dungeon chain" bonus for those who have time to do everything at once and it's the perfect setup.
Longer than 2 hours is just nuts and relegates a game to an ultra-niche audience.
Great idea. Bite sized chunks.
Make sure no content exceeds 30 minutes to 1 hour, unless it can be cut up into pauses and paused for later use.
deep dungeon crawls are great. i think they should be even longer than 1-2 hours. I know plenty of people that play 8+ hours a day that would be willing to trudge through them. one of my favorite dungeon crawls was Eye of the Beholder. i loved the fact you couldn't leave.
"Alright we are pretty banged up. Lets go back to to town. Shit it's caved in."
Comments
I too miss challenging dungeon crawls, but it sounds to me as if a great deal of what you are saying is difficulty, I would say is tedium. Things should be very hard, and you should have to move slowly, for fear of hidden monsters, traps, puzzles, and the like, but fast respawns, no instancing, and the very harsh punishment of failure are all things I do not like.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
You are totally illogical. What has time to do with the level of difficulty? The lich king hard mode is super challenging but the fight itself won't last longer than 15 min.
If you take away all the trash and bosses leading up to it, it is still challenging.
It is total BS that the length of the dungeon has anything to do with whether it is easy or not.
i wouldnt mind having dungeon crawling to come back, unfortunately my first dungeon crawl game was diablo so im constantly trying to find a game that has the athmosphere than in the first installment of diablo ... sounds, music, the overall feel to the game was just so amazing..
If every fight in such a dungeon is sort of a big picture versatile challenge then i agree it would be a nice experience.
But it has to fit into a 1,5 hour session (3 x 0.5 hours) for example.
The most boring experience would be a dungeon filled with trash mobs like some in the tier 1+2 raids of aoc (have stopped playing b4 tier 3 release so i have no clue about them).
You get no feeling of accomplishment but a feeling of slowing down for no reason.
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The only proper dungeons found in MMOG's are those found in DDO. Most other game's dungeons have a shopping mall atmosphere with choreographed gimick bosses that have more in common with hopscotch than they do a dungeon.
Was it UO? Na, everything was soloable.
What is Meridian? Was it some random MUD? Or was it just FFXI and its ladybugs of doom?
:-) hehe, Ladybugs of DOOM!!!1!
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I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Some days i only have 10-min to play, so better do 10-min wings, or better 10-min dungeons... or better yet each 5-min just pop a button on the screen with the word "LOOT" ( so people with low attention span wont miss it ) and each click it will give some epic lewt kewl loot.
The problem i see here is that people only know the instanced dungeons, the good part of non instanced dungeons is that you can do it solo or in a group and you can invest 10 min or 6 h. because you are getting a blast doing it while interacting with other people, your are not doing it just for the loot like all the instances we have, that loot is just the icing on the cake.
The gener is evolving to a casual single player grind game ( CSPGG™ ), it will have a ton of more people playing it of course but it will lose his soul, maybe already lost it.
Would you be opposed to having options? May as well have instanced or non-instanced dungeons, solo dungeons, short ones, long ones. As long as the rewards are appropriate for the duration and challenge then what difference does it make?
Or are you one of the many who is hung up on the past when it was possible to force a playstyle on people that wouldn't choose that playstyle? There is enough competition in the genre now that if someone wanted short solo instances then they will play a game that provides them. If a game only offered one type of dungeon then it will only attract the players that want that one type of dungeon.
You can have variety without instances. Sure, if you want instances, then let there be games with instances designed and tailored to you needs. But for those of us who want worlds without Single Player game instances, there certainly can be worlds with a wide variety of dungeons that you can hop into and out of for short or long periods, and still have fun.
The thing is, these are two different types of games, and there are players who want one or the other, and players who'd accept either. There's plenty to go around. But I'm really tired of hearing that only the instanced games for Single Player gamers have validity in MMORPGs.
What's funny is that it's the Single Player mode MMOer who accuses us "Worldly/Sandbox" types of hanging onto the past. It's actually the Single Player Game MMO player who wants to hang onto a past from before MMORPGs came out, and don't want to advance to the social arena of true Massive Multiplayer, because you don't want to deal with other people. That's not to say that such games shouldn't do something about griefers of all sorts. They should, and it can be done, up to a point that should be acceptable considering you're in a social sphere with lots of other players. And that social sphere brings new, social game play (real politics, not some card game called a "Political System") that many of us expect to see in a Massive Multiplayer world.
Once upon a time....
>>> It is total BS that the length of the dungeon has anything to do with whether it is easy or not.
Ahem, sorry, but your last statement is not correct.
As long as the encounters before the end figth offer any challenge (as in chance of failure) it is of course more challenging to defeat that deep dungeon compared to a dungeon that only got the end figth.
Of course if you make all encounters before the end fight trivial (known as trash mobs) you don't increase the challenge but only the time needed.
Anyway, there is a correltaion between the length (number of encounters) in a dungeon and it's challenge depending on the number of encounters that provide a chance of failure.
You can proove this mathematically but I leave that to someone other.
edit: added quote, somehow the forum ate it.
That way you wont really need bosses as much because everythings going to be challenging anyways! @_@
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Well the 15-60 min range seems pretty obvious to me like the sweet spot of time investment for a singular, beefy task for most people (~50 mins is the natural soft upper limit for most RTS games for exactly that reason; most FPS rounds are 15-25 mins for that reason).
Calling MMORPGs singleplayer simply because they offer a single-player option is such a uselessly extremist argument that I often have difficulty replying to comments from players who bring it up. Especially since in WOW (the MMORPG most bemoaned as "single-player") you can level faster in groups than out of them, and spend most of your time grouping (all of it if you're a tank.)
I played the non-instanced dungeons in games like DAOC, AC, and AO. They weren't particularly good. Mostly it was boring grinding, often with a non-rewarding grind against too-low enemies in the early bit. Compared to modern dungeons, they absolutely sucked.
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Your argument is assuming the difficulty of each encounter is fixed.
Thus, let say encounter A and encounter B each has a completion probability of 10%, then the completion rate is only 1% if you chain A & B together, assuming that the completion probability is independent.
The flaw in your logic is that the difficult of the encounters have to be constant. Developers OBVIOUSLY can tune them up or down.
Thus, if there is a desirable completion probability to be 1% (i.e. very difficult & most people can't make it), then they can just tune encounter B (the one at the end) to 1%.
There is no reason to make the dungeon ultraly long in this scenario. Just make it as difficult as your want, while keeping the dungeon length within an hour or two .. which seems to be the optimal for most people's schedule.
Maybe thats the problem, none of these games you say have the dungeons as the main theme, EQ, EQ2 and VG have the best of them, just in EQ you have Chardok, Sebilis, Karnor, Guk, Solb, etc... i only can feel sorry for people that didnt exp. zones like that because rigth now there is no game in the market with the same mechanics as EQ at '99 that let these kind of zones shine.
Anyway i can understand that people just want to grab some friends and do an instance, its ok, but for me thats is not what im looking for in this genre ( i have other games for that ), its not what i was after when i joined the genre more than ten years ago, i want the massive from MMORPG be the strongest part of the genre.
I remeber playing online in Baldurs Gate, yes online, and it was hella fun, doing dungeons with friends, man it was awesome, that was back in 1998... but we were looking for something more, we just didnt feel it massive, it was just like doing an instance on today's MMO's and we moved to UO and then EQ... nowdays i feel like playing Baldurs Gate again with a few friends... just with more grind, worse history and an Auction House, i just hope the genre will move forward once again, because these games dont feel massive anymore.
With all this rant i dont say that my opinion or my vision of the genre is better than yours, its just that i had the impression back in the day that this genre was about virtual worlds and not just online games, and all this instances, phasing, hand holding, quests driven ( just to name a few ) mechanics are killing the virutal world part just to be more accesible/mainstream and grab more people.
Here are my grievances with non-instanced dungeons:
Objectives and bosses are camped. Its a waste of my time to get all the way to the boss only to wait in line or to waste more time returning to that place at a later date.
They can't scale to any number of players. If the dungeon was made for solo players then its too easy with two players. If it was made for 5 players then its too easy with 7. It its a raid zone designed for 100 players then the guild that brings 200 players is going to have no challenge. Whoever that was getting hung up on there being a challenge should consider this.
They cannot scale to player population. Have you ever entered a shared instance 2 minutes after another group? Its boring and wastes everyone's time.
They require respawn just to work. Respawning of any kind is a simulation breaking mechanic. Its odd that the sandbox/world supporters would prefer this over a separation of players into instances.
As I get older my desire to share an instance with random immature scrubs becomes less and less. I don't play MMOG's to compete or to "win". I play them to share an adventure with friends and family. Instancing is the only way to ensure that I can play the game the way I want to.
I would definitly support a "shared instance" mode for dungeons that you can choose in the game options or upon entering an instance. That way you can play how you want and I can play how I want.
BTW, I thought it was awesome how Fallen Earth has a seamless (no load screen) transition into instances. Brilliant, and it addresses one of my biggest issues with instancing.
NOpe .. i doubt the genre will move BACKWARDS back to non-instance dungeon.
The point is that not every massive is fun. A boss, respawn on a timer, is just not a fun encounter if you have 200 players camping him. If you want dungeon/boss encounter type entertainment, obviously massive is not the answer.
Massive can work with huge PvP battles cause there is no need to scale the AI. WG is an example.
And if you want to just "feel" massive ... just stand in orgrimmar for 5 min. There are more people than I care to interact with.
Personally, i would much prefer a better gaming experience. That comes first. Whether it is massive or not .. is secondary.
There are many things a Sandbox/Worldly game can do to solve the problems you mentioned. Remember that as a Fantasy or Sci-Fi world, there are "magical" things you can do, along with more mundane seeming things.
I'm sticking with Fantasy here, since it seems to be the predominant desire in RP games. (Besides, a lot of Sci-Fi games have a degree of the Fantasy stuff in them too, and regardless you can substitute pretty easily.) I also want to point out that you want to set up the game world with lost of lore to lead into the "reasoning" and causes of some of this. Several ancient kingdoms of greater magical skills than the present day world, links to other dimensions of Hells and Abysses and Elementals, etc. A conflict between present day peoples and forces from the past as well as the present who use the magics and knowledge from those past times lost in antiquity.
"Objectives and bosses are camped. Its a waste of my time to get all the way to the boss only to wait in line or to waste more time returning to that place at a later date."
A dungeon can have all sorts of objectives, and in a Sandbox game substitute "Leaders" for "Bosses", and forget that repeatable, never ending, never changing "Boss" encounter. Let MOBs wander, can even set up goals for them to follow, to lead them throughout a dungeon. For "objectives", you can have all sorts of resources to be collected in one form or another. Minerals used for magic or crafting, the waters of magical pools, mosses and roots, etc., sought by both the players and NPCs (so things can also be found as loot).
Other objectives can be in the form of highly magical altars, forges, etc., built by the ancients or extra-planar beings, to be used in the creation of specific magical items.
Still more objectives can be in the form of knowledge. Inscriptions on walls, maps on floors, things like that. Imagine that an ancient book is held in a major library, that has clues in it to the ancients, and you need to go to these places to figure out answers to those clues. The answers could lead to treasures, magical items, or the means to defeat a true "Boss", a GM played "big bad" that's running around in the world causing trouble in an event arc. (By the way, "defeat" does not have to equal destruction and the end to this sort of GM Boss. He could come again and again, and a final defeat that does destroy him should be an event to be remembered. I don't believe in fixed outcomes here, I'd allow for final destruction at any time, dependent on the players to get the right answers. If not, play it by ear and move forwards under the goals and guidance of the Boss's design. He may still be an underling to an even greater Boss.)
"They can't scale to any number of players. If the dungeon was made for solo players then its too easy with two players. If it was made for 5 players then its too easy with 7. It its a raid zone designed for 100 players then the guild that brings 200 players is going to have no challenge. Whoever that was getting hung up on there being a challenge should consider this."
"They cannot scale to player population. Have you ever entered a shared instance 2 minutes after another group? Its boring and wastes everyone's time."
"They require respawn just to work. Respawning of any kind is a simulation breaking mechanic. Its odd that the sandbox/world supporters would prefer this over a separation of players into instances."
I'm going to get at all this together. I think that in a great Sandbox game, you have to work with all this (as well as what I said above) together under one scope of design, because in a "worldly" game all things should affect and be affected by all other things.
I'm not concerned with that sort of "difficulty by design". That's for Single Player Games, and for the Clones based on that sort of play. However, I am concerned to the extent that you want the game world to offer plenty to do. Ther does need to be some dungeons made to offer constant respawns. For both training and just plain fun. This can easily be done, and make sense, in a Sandbox game.
Oozes that drip down from ceilings and form elemental forms, undead rising from the ashes of ruins (even in dungeons), demons from one way portals, there's all sorts of ways to account for respawns. But only in some dungeons spread out in the world.
You can also have magical devices that spawn when things happen. Demon troops from a demonic statue when someone enters a room, etc. You can even go farther with this, and make it random. In other words, many dungeons have these demon statues, but it's a random chance that a particular statue gain this spawning power to await the next opportunity.
Some spawns can be based on the numbers of players present, or the power of the spawn related to the numbers of souls present, or allied souls lost in the room before. There's lots of possibilities.
You can also have instances in a Sandbox game. But they need explanations that make sense. Portals that lead to other planes, so a cavern in a mountain sized rock on the Elemental Plane of Air could be one of an infinite number of such places, thus allowing for an instanced adventure.
Remember too that in a Sandbox game, it's best suited to not have the wild differences in player capabilities like the Clones have. In a world that doesn't have "level 80's", it brings things much closer. It becomes much less dependent on abilities and more on numbers, to a degree.
I'd also point out that fun is fun, and doesn't neccessarily mean challenge. I think challenge is important, but it doesn't have to be in every adventure.
Let me give you an example of a world, the way I'd play with it's design.
You have some dungeons with constant respawns as above. You have many dungeons that can be cleared, populated by wandering MOBs (even if this is simulated somehow), or by magical portals from other planes. Once a dungeon is populated by MOBs, they grow in numbers unless player clear them out. As the numbers grow, they spread out in the dungeon. If left alone, they'd take over the entire dungeon. Or run into other spawn types, creating a battle zone that stops each's growth unless one side is more powerful, which would eventually take over the entire dungeon.
Now add in another aspect. From the ruins and ancient temples of evil in the world, lets make some of them Seats of Power related to specific forces. Lets give them a variety of trails to follow between them and the dungeons related to their ancient lore. Lets given them, under specific circumstances (to be disvovered by the players with great diffuculty, see "knowledge" above) the ability to send out a special NPC to a close associated dungeon, ruins, temple. With the purpose of opening a gate to bring in more, so as to take back a dungeon. The NPCs could be shape changed or otherwise disguised, and discoverable by players, or not.
A Sandbox/World should be much more about what happens in it than tailored dungeon instances. Oh yes, it should be fun, but it also has the possibilities of being much more interesting, random, and exciting.
I went back and added a few points here and there, so if something doesn't make sense that's why. It's difficult to "make" this much of a game, get all the details, in a few paragraphs. But then, with some readers here, they're more interested in arguing angles to make Sandbox ideas not work rather than try to see how it can. So I may have wasted a bunch of time here, heh.
Once upon a time....
I have come to accept the fact that most people nowadays dont really want to play a game.
They want a mostly automated Online "im suprah kewllll" simulator. Queing up 15 minute dungeons that are supposed to be halfway across the world from a mailbox outside a bank in town. Then they use some addon which tells them. RIGHT FOOT BLUE, LEFT HAND GREEN. NOW JUMP BACKWARDS 2 TIMES. OMG U WIN U SO GOOD LOLOLOLOL JUICEBOXES AND COOKIES FOR ALL YAY!
Great idea. Bite sized chunks.
Make sure no content exceeds 30 minutes to 1 hour, unless it can be cut up into pauses and paused for later use.
I'll have to see what I can do.
deep dungeon crawls are great. i think they should be even longer than 1-2 hours. I know plenty of people that play 8+ hours a day that would be willing to trudge through them. one of my favorite dungeon crawls was Eye of the Beholder. i loved the fact you couldn't leave.
"Alright we are pretty banged up. Lets go back to to town. Shit it's caved in."