Hack&Slash

[Tazarith]

Dev's,

How about creating a new element to the game that's purely random generated? Your classic dungeon crawl with unexpected encounters, traps and loot where smart and cautious party play holds the key to success.

As a DM, I miss those old'n days of PnP where tables and dice determined everything - from dungeon flavor like moaning sounds around a dark damp corner to whether those unsuspecting mushrooms you were about to pick were Deadly Feverbranches or Shriekers that are about give away your presence to a not so friendly wandering band of Yuan-Ti's you narrowly escaped from a few minutes ago.

I sure hope someday we can recreate this kind of feel and excitement and have it here in DDO.

Give me a dungeon and a good random generator to run her by.

[Uska]

no thank you I like a little forethought to my dungeons.

[Alaudae]

With friends you know, and are willing to go slow, random dungeon would be a hoot.
Many ways to have fun.

But then again, randomized dungeons have allways been bit less than spectacular, counting from early days of computers.

Still, i would, with people i know.

[phalaeo]

I'd be all for more random trap locations.

[Ryiah]

But then again, randomized dungeons have allways been bit less than spectacular, counting from early days of computers.

A bit less spectacular, but a lot more enjoyable. It gets old after a while running the same content over and over again to level/raid/whatever. Eventually you either move on to a new game or you start trying to figure out new ways to do stuff.

Plus it depends on how well designed and coded it is. Which is probably why its not a good idea for Turbine to attempt it. Last thing we need are unsolvable dungeons.

[Alaudae]

I really think i would take not so well working random dungeon still.

It is of course built of blocks that people memorise.

"Ahead, kobold cave 4, i go left"

Still, i would take it

[William_the_Bat]

There's already some semi-random dungeons. Wiz king comes to mind, where many of the tiles get plugged in at random, and you don't know which side has the full break away floor and which side has the partial. But while many of the tiles look similar enough that you don't really know if you are about to be attacked by mummies or clay golems, you still know it's going to be one or the other.

Also, semi-random trap locations are in many quests. Feast or Famine, for one. Sadly, there' s not quite enough variation. You know to watch each door lever, for instance.

Still, it makes things just interesting enough that you have to be a little careful.

[MarkusWolfe]

/signed

[Tazarith]

Further along the discussion - IMO for DDO's first generation of completely random content it could look something very similar to the current Wilderness areas. In these Dungeon Crawls, however, there may not be an obvious end to the content, so like in PnP you would not receive your xp until you've gone in, earned it and successful exited. A good analogy would be like deep sea diving. Going as deep as you can before running out of air and having to return to the surface to survive.

Party xp would be earned based on interface with the content provided and ultimately rewarded at completion.
More to come.. brainstorming here

[donfilibuster]

Don't forget or overlook that PnP Random Encounters are never entirely random to the point the dungeon gets broken or inconsistent, the dungeon usually comes with tailored monster lists that are appropiate.

Random encounters work very much like the rares in the explorer areas in DDO, you know a monster lives around but with some luck you don't cross its path.
And you often wish you don't cross its path, rather than routinely hunting them.

Now what simple random monsters describe is pretty much what respawning areas do in DDO.
It might be difficult to design a quest full of respawning areas properly, as goes on dungeon crawls.
But in dungeon crawls the goal sometimes wasn't to get to to the end but to see how far u could go.
You also had a lot of tools like illusion spells, wall spells, etc. to avoid being ambushed too often.

On dungeon crawl the monsters are not mobile, they are found in chambers, you just don't know which room is which.
Conversely on true random encounters are more like the monsters are mobile.
You know the monsters live or prowl there but there's only a slim chance you find them.
So in one case the roll is to find more monsters, in the other the roll is to avoid more monsters.

This kind of encounter check is usually when you linger in the quest or stray from the way and get lost.
On a well built campaign map you had some travelling speed that dictates your pace and routes.
For example if the night catch you without a campfire you roll for encounter, if you search the library you roll to see if something stumbled in the meantime, etc.
This is like irestone inlet in DDO where u have orc patrols walking by every few minutes.

[Sintwar]

/Signed!

I actually posted a threat about this, and with some ideas of how to make it work and make sense a while back. Have a read!
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=214777

Also, for all the naysayers: If you don't want to explore random dungeons, then don't go in them! Nobody is asking Turbine to stop making new hand crafted dungeons.

[AyumiAmakusa]

Only if it was in one quest (like Shadow Crypt) but with more varying rooms (and not just square water mazes).

[Firepants]

I'd rather randomly generated dungeons (think Undermountain in the Forgotten Realms) so that you actually get a sense of exploration. The number one thing that sucks to me in DDO, aside from having jack squat to do at level cap aside from loot whoring, is that nothing gives you that sense. There's no reason to go slow and scout what's ahead and have a proper dungeon experience. Just run run run kill kill kill, pop a couple chests, get **** look 99.9% of the time, and be expected to do it all over again. And again. And again.

Make a pack with the grand-daddy of all dungeons that you can play at all difficulty levels (much like Devil Assault) and just spend hours slogging through level after level of dungeon with the monsters getting increasingly difficult. At casual, you go in at level 1-4, once you hit level 5 you can go in on normal and start from that dungeon level, hard would be appropriate for levels 10-15, elite 15-20, and epic would be epic.

Make the mobs change around as well, not just an a$$load of trogs or something, have it make sense - different communities of different creatures live at different strata within the dungeon ecosystem.

Have the layouts always different-ish to represent going in at different points in this giant dungeon. Random traps. Random (but grouped thematically) textures for the environment. Things like that. At the very least it'd give capped toons something to do besides the same ol' raid/epic runs over and over again.

And for the cowardly robots out there who prefer to never have to think and would rather just know what exactly is around every bend, you just plain don't have to play it. I know, the unknown can be very scary and it's hard to work by procedure when you have no pre-generated map and a walk-through telling you precisely what and when to do something. But many of us aren't too worried about such things.

[Tazarith]

But in dungeon crawls the goal sometimes wasn't to get to to the end but to see how far u could go.

Exactly!! Thanks for the supporting input

[Sintwar]

I really think i would take not so well working random dungeon still.

It is of course built of blocks that people memorise.

"Ahead, kobold cave 4, i go left"

Still, i would take it

It's not just blocks that people memorize. Take a look at this random dungeon generator. Not only does it generate a map, it also generates each room, it's contents/monsters, is generated specifically for a range of level, and even has hooks/story lines to it.

And the best part? It's different every single time you hit that generate button. I'm pretty sure this could be translated into 3D, and incporprated into DDO.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/mapper/launcher.htm

[Alabore]

Something I really dislike about DDO is how dungeons stay the same.
Vets could complete them blindfolded, running blinded chars.

Somehow I feel that defeats one of the staples of DnD, the exploring part, and makes some skills less than desirable, to the point of being dropped altogether in min-maxed build, such as spot and listen.

It really widens the gap between vets and new players.