Was thinking about Dungeon Alert 2.0...

[Bogenbroom]

So after the spirited conversation yesterday on Dungeon alert yesterday, I was thinking about just how Dungeon Alert v2 could improve. Beyond the obvious bug fixes and what not...

First, my biggest gripe about DA is that it feels artificial. So my objective would be to try to lessen that. Try to make a Dungeon Alert *feel* like it is part of the quest and not a game-mech. How?
- Certain aspects of DA should be tailored to their environments. DA against Orcs should be different than DA against undead, or against wolves, etc.
- DA should have audio and maybe visual components. If a bunch of hobos are signaling to their friends further in the dungeon that intruders are coming... it would be nice to hear that signal. There are gongs all over the place... let's use them!
- At this point all enemies use the exact same "attacks" when DA kicks in. Attacks should be more specific to the type of enemy involved. One thought that I really liked on this front was to have animal type creatures bite-and-hold on upper DA levels. That would reasonably A) slow the characters movement speed, B) lower the enemy's AC, and C) continue to do damage to a character until he/she kills it. Have only 1 bite-and-hold at a time, and have the enemy stick with the character until dead. Casters could maybe pre-grease or Wall of Force areas. etc.

Second, *maybe* we would want to avoid penalizing a whole party when one character is causing a problem. Maybe, and this is just a thought, DA could scale somehow to factor in characters out of range of other group members. Or maybe DA should be individualized. How many enemies are aware of *you*. 1 point for aware and 2 points for aggro-ed on or some such.

Third, and maybe most important... AI for enemies activating while under DA needs to change. Casters should be casting false life and shield on themselves as characters are whipping by them. Archers should be running away to setup ranged attacks. Their objects are altering from a purely kill bad-guy/survive mentality to a hinder bad-guy while friend catch up to help out mentality.

Those are just some thoughts. I, by no means, intend this as a DA sucks commentary. Nor a rant on what DA breaks/makes harder. We know DA is important to Turbine and will stay, and we know they will try to fix areas that it currently breaks. I am interested in how to make DA a better part of the game (and no, taking it out won't make it a better part of the game.)