An old fashioned dungeon crawl.

[Cauthey]

This really does not work in the DDo setting, or in most MMO settings, but especially not in an instance based setting to say the least.

This would be more suited for single player games, that can be paused, saved, etc, to allow for the player to play though the vastness at their own pace. Which was exactly like PnP worked. You "paused" for the night, and came back, again next week or whatever, and continued on with your static group of friends, and a dungeon like this would take a group of friends years to finish, if they ever finished.

However, in DDO since you can't pause, save, or return to it later, smaller, more streamline dungeons, smaller, quicker modules are the key to playing here, fast paced and moving from one to the next, are needed to retain entertainment value.



Having a map designed to stall or loose a player for extended periods of time, especially a dungeon type of set up, would not work in DDO or pretty much the player base in general.

As others have said, perhaps, one of the maps listed here, could be used for a slayer area as that would allow reentry at leisure.

I'm sure it would require a lot of new engine technology, but - what if it was progress save-able?

A party of 6 crawl through sections 1, 2, and 3 of the dungeon. Each section is progress hampered or sealed with some kind of a persisting key or quest reward. Perhaps something along the lines of the Necro 4 Sigil that has to be assembled. Each player could collect these on the completion on separate sections, and add it to their "sigil bag."

Then, a new party forms. 3 from the first, and 3 new puggers. The puggers have completed sections 1 and 4. So, sections 2, 3, and 4 must be replayed.

Just spitballing here, really. I think there might be a way to successfully incorporate a dungeon crawl into DDO. It isn't something we'll see revealed tomorrow, though.

[AZgreentea]

I could see this working possibly as a slayer-area style map. Lots of opportunity to explore, and like some of the existing slayer areas, there would be quest areas stashed away in hard-to-reach corners (either quests you pick up outside the dungeon, or walk-ups, or both).

I was thinking this too. The two big problems have already been mentioned, though. You cant save your progress in DDO (something that cause me a lot of anxiety the first few weeks. ). Not everyone has hours and hours to play a single map.

I understand the xp as you go, but there are a lot of players who only get maybe and hour or two of uninterrupted gameplay on a sunday afternoon at the most. I would argue (not being able to see the login info) that a large portion of the paying population only stays logged in for the length of a quest or two (maybe sticking around for a chain) before logging out again. Mix in the difficulty of finding a PUG that could run a map like this all at once, and its just a bit too much. As it is, its already difficult to find a group to complete a whole chain. Take for example the Catacombs. You almost never get to run a 6 man group for that, and most of the LFM's you see are "in progress." Its a fairly long chain with only moderate XP at a low level.

[Ungood]

Next, Its quasi xp as you go. So long as you can stand to go in for 1-2 sections then their shouldn't be any incentive NOT to go. Sure you might not complete the entire dungeon, but at the same time you'll get XP for each section you clear (open up exits, beat boss of section) and like any other dungeon, extra bosses and such.

As others have said, taking one section of the map and making a slayer area out of it may be feasible, but otherwise, just not going to work.

It would not be a good dungeon crawl, in the sense for players to work their way though if you can't save or work your way though it, and it would not make a good instance based dungeon because it's simply too big and convoluted.

At best, a section of this map could be used to build a slayer area.

[Robert4818]

As others have said, taking one section of the map and making a slayer area out of it may be feasible, but otherwise, just not going to work.

It would not be a good dungeon crawl, in the sense for players to work their way though if you can't save or work your way though it, and it would not make a good instance based dungeon because it's simply too big and convoluted.

At best, a section of this map could be used to build a slayer area.

Do keep in mind the map picture I posted is not an actual design, its way to big.

The picture was just to show more of the over-all idea. It could manage with each one the size of a challenge map or so.

[Ungood]

I'm sure it would require a lot of new engine technology, but - what if it was progress save-able?

A party of 6 crawl through sections 1, 2, and 3 of the dungeon. Each section is progress hampered or sealed with some kind of a persisting key or quest reward. Perhaps something along the lines of the Necro 4 Sigil that has to be assembled. Each player could collect these on the completion on separate sections, and add it to their "sigil bag."

Then, a new party forms. 3 from the first, and 3 new puggers. The puggers have completed sections 1 and 4. So, sections 2, 3, and 4 must be replayed.
http://forums.ddo.com/newreply.php?d...eply&p=4311379
Just spitballing here, really. I think there might be a way to successfully incorporate a dungeon crawl into DDO. It isn't something we'll see revealed tomorrow, though.

Well we have many series dungeons in effect already, to name a few: Sorrow Dusk, Delera's, Tangleroot, Thernal, Shan to Kor.

Now these are series quests, some with rather large maps to them, Delera's for example, and Sorrowdusk, are quite large, and to do the whole chain, can take quite a bit of time, considering that, in my last life, I opted to obediently follow Bravery, Sorrowdusk spanned 4 levels for me, as it started at 6th and ended at 10th (Which means I started to do it at 8th and ended the last quest at 12th).

So, we have these series "crawl" like quests in the game already, they are far smaller then the map linked. More in tune to say the size of some of the challenges, with their own story line and their own progression.

That are also Series Dependent, unlike a more open sandbox type quest arc, like Vault of Night, Sharn, Necro I, II, III, and Orchard, that can be done in any order, but follow a story line none the less and need to be completed for the last quest to be open.

So we have this in effect, we have dungeon crawls, and quest lines, just in more tight packages. And you have to admit, your first time going though Bloody Crypt, or The Vault of Night, that place is huge, even overwhelming to first timers.

But still, the idea of more time constraint minded quests needs to be put forth, simply because of the nature of MMO's and it's player base. Quests that drag on too long with no break, IE: Needing to do, say all of Delera's in one sitting, can be very straining on players, I have done Delera's in several sittings, and I have done them several times in one sitting, but that is the nature of MMO's and it's player base.

Right now, massive maps, I do not feel would contribute to the game in the way the OP hopes to have them contribute to the feel of a crawl.

But that is my feelings on it.

[Kmnh]

I don't like this idea. Random dungeons will never be as good as hand-crafted ones.

We have a few random mazes in DDO. Prey on the Hunter and A New Invasion come to mind. They do force you to run around and explore instead of zerging to the end, but the fights themselves are so easy and boring that it doesn't matter. Compare to the fights in Enter the Kobold and In the Flesh. The dungeons are more static, but in the end those quests are a lot more interesting.

[sephiroth1084]

I think the best implementation of this would be to use something like Threnal or Tangleroot as a base, or maybe STK. That is, each piece of the grid is its own quest; you have to complete the "entrance area" grid in order to progress to the next grid-piece, and then complete a grid-piece to progress to the next and so on. You would have the option of moving from one directly into the next through a doorway, or recalling to hit a tavern and rebuff before moving onto the next grid-section through the "entrance area" dungeon portal.

The grid sections look to each be about as complex in design as, say, Chamber of Raiyum if we include the basement area, at their simplest, and move up in complexity from there, which means that each grid-piece would be a self-contained "very long" quest as a piece of a larger quest arc. That would make for a rather long quest chain, which is something a lot of players disliked about the existing long chains we have currently: they become very difficult to PUG once you're past the beginning because people tend to drop partway through, and few people want to join chains without being able to get the end rewards associated with them.

One solution to that, and also a way to make the whole thing less linear, would be to have the chain length be shorter than the number of grid-pieces available: there could be 9 grid-pieces, but the chain may only be 5 quests long, selecting randomly from among the 9 pieces for the first part, and then randomly from among the remaining 8 for the second and so on. Each grid-piece would have 1 token that drops at the end associated with itself, and players would be required to present any combination of 5 tokens in order to get into the final dungeon. Players could seek to enter the dungeon grid beyond their 5 completions, and they would continue to select randomly from remaining grid-pieces, so if someone were to join on the 3rd piece (6 grid-pieces remaining), the group could do two more runs after finishing out the 5 that the first member needed in order to get the last his additional 2 pieces to make a 5-piece set (2 grid-pieces remaining), without anyone having to actually repeat anything.

The "entrance area" quest would be required to start the chain, but after that the other quests could be completed in any order, in order to flag for the final dungeon, which should probably be a raid. The randomization of this doesn't have to be antithetical to a storyline, as the idea could be that you simply needed to gather support from a majority of leaders (5 of 9) among different factions in a city, or tremendous network of caverns, or...something. Perhaps, at some point during the raid, tokens could be spent, where the group gained certain benefits for each unique token turned in, up to 9 possibilities, like extra XP, loot, or boss debuffs. If we were gathering support for an assault, turning in tokens could call forth the supporters' forces, possibly adding the might of 9 factions to the cause.

Any named loot for the pre-raid-chain would have to exist either in end reward lists that area universal to the chain, rather than being tied to specific grid-pieces, or able to be found in any of the quests. That could be interesting, actually... Say 1-3 pieces of named loot can be found in any of the quests, but the location of each piece would be different depending on the grid-piece. In Grid A, Bow of Awesomesauce would appear in the chest of an optional boss in the NE section of the map, while in Grid B, it would fall in a chest behind a trapped secret door off the beaten path in the South.

I doubt the devs would put in this kind of effort, particularly when it would be difficult to push players to rerun the whole chain, and it would be possible that few people ever reran the thing due to its length and complexity. Still...the raid reflagging could be a group effort, requiring a fresh 5 tokens be provided for each run, meaning that at least one person would have to run 5 of the quests again or 5 people would have to each run 1 of them or some combination falling between the two in order to reacquire the requisite tokens. The problem with this approach, though, is that it would mean that a single group would have to run 5 separate quests in order to reflag (although they would collectively have enough tokens for 5 more runs of the raid without reflagging)...

I wonder how people would feel about that. We don't really like having to rerun DQ1 every time we want to run DQ 2, but if we could run DQ 1 5 times now, and each be flagged to run DQ 2 another 5 times at our leisure with the added benefit of then not having to get anyone else flagged for those 5 runs...or at least be able to take 11 unflagged people on 1 run... I don't know fi that would fly, but it might.

I'd want to see some significant incentive to rerun the quests, without any requirement to rerun specific ones, unless we were to say that after you've run a quest once, you may choose to repeat it, rather than have to select from available options at random and hope for quest Y.

On paper, I like the idea of this, but I don't know how I'd feel about it in practice, and I imagine most people would be far less open to the idea. Still, it has merit.

[sephiroth1084]

I'd definitely prefer to see more dungeons with significantly larger, less linear maps, but where we have several options for how to proceed, rather than having to clear the whole map. If some of the paths had random elements to the as well, more the better.

Currently, the only real randomization we have in our dungeon layouts of real impact are Bastion of Power and A New Invasion, which both feel like mazes, in large part due to the sameness of their interiors.

If, instead of simply moving walls to either open up or close off routes to the end, the random elements were sections... Instead of saying this T-intersection goes here, and this X-intersection goes there, and we'll drop a barrier to prevent passage at this juncture, we had a dormitory area here, with a couple of floors or rooms all designed around a theme and attached to radiating hallways at 2 or more points, and an armory there similarly fitted, there would be that same randomness and forced exploration of the place, but without the same confusion and frustration at seeing the same scenery for 20 minutes to an hour that we get in the two Shavarath quests.

[Robert4818]

I'd definitely prefer to see more dungeons with significantly larger, less linear maps, but where we have several options for how to proceed, rather than having to clear the whole map. If some of the paths had random elements to the as well, more the better.

Currently, the only real randomization we have in our dungeon layouts of real impact are Bastion of Power and A New Invasion, which both feel like mazes, in large part due to the sameness of their interiors.

If, instead of simply moving walls to either open up or close off routes to the end, the random elements were sections... Instead of saying this T-intersection goes here, and this X-intersection goes there, and we'll drop a barrier to prevent passage at this juncture, we had a dormitory area here, with a couple of floors or rooms all designed around a theme and attached to radiating hallways at 2 or more points, and an armory there similarly fitted, there would be that same randomness and forced exploration of the place, but without the same confusion and frustration at seeing the same scenery for 20 minutes to an hour that we get in the two Shavarath quests.

My thoughts on randomness go in a different direction than your, but I still like it.

As said, each dungeon is broken into 10 pieces. Entryway plus a 3x3 grid. At this point there are two levels of randomization:

Interpiece and Intrapiece. Interpiece randomization deals with the result of the 3x3 grid. Each of the 9 parts of the grid is, itself, a hand crafted map, reminiscent of the Challenge maps. These 9 parts are drawn randomly from the pool of pieces (that can easily keep growing.) And placed in the grid in a raondom order. This is remeniscent of the kids sliding picture puzzles.



Only, here each tile is a handcrafted map. The only map changes are opening up and closing passages to adjacent tiles.

Down deeper are intra-piece map randomization tactics. These are the changes within a tile that make it different each time you run. There are two major tactics used: In the first case I picture each map needing 3 "key" pieces collected in order to complete it. This could be levers thrown, seals collected, or even bad guys defeated, depending on the map. These are never placed in the same spot on the tile. So, there's no way for players to simply run to each one, they have to be searched for.

The second one is traps. Each room and hallway is designed with at least trap. When each tile is selected, a certain number of these traps are activated, randomly. So, while the map of the tile hasn't changed, you never know which traps are there and which ones are not.

Here's an example of a tiled dungeon (made with a Pen and Paper Random Dungeon Generator)

[sephiroth1084]

The post above the one you quoted dealt more with the idea of randomizing whole dungeon entrances.

[Robert4818]

The post above the one you quoted dealt more with the idea of randomizing whole dungeon entrances.

I know.

[Krago]

What do I mean by this?

Well, most dungeons in DDO follow what are generally variations of linear design. These dungeons funnel you forward through the dungeon with very little in the way of exploration.

Even the most complex maps are rather simple.



I want a different style of dungeon that requires a much larger investment of brainpower.
I want an old fashioned dungeon crawl.

With a dungeon crawl map, the concept is to work your way through a very large dungeon. Randomness will be a BIG factor in this type of map.

EDIT 2-14-12: Image Changed to a simpler, home-made version.


You'll notice the map above is broken off into a 3x3 grid, with a large part up top. The part up top would bye your "Entrance" into the rest of the dungeon, which has the big grid pieces arranged in a random order. (This way the 9 tiles are never in the same location). Each tile will have its own boss, its own chests, and its own way of progressing.

Additionally, key items (like crests for doors) will be placed in random rooms in each grid, to prevent full on zerg runs on sections. Each grid will have placement for 100+ traps, but only certain ones will be active on an individual run. (So, again, you don't know where traps will be).

The beginning of the dungeon will have a general merchant, and an Auctioneer for offloading inventories.

You gain XP as you delve for each of the 10 (entry plus 9 grids) you complete. There will be few rest shrines, with the difficulty focusing on preparation and resource management, not necessarily "epic difficulty".

Anyways, its a thought.

What do you guys think?

Edit 2-14-12: The picture above is generated through a pen and paper map generator. Complexity is closer to what I imagine than the old one, but could still be payed with.

I would welcome the idea of a non-linear path to the end fight on a larger scale. However, as stated by others, the time it takes to complete such an epic dungeon would prevent most people from completing it in a single session. The Depths has been mentioned as a viable solution to such an undertaking but now this idea becomes nothing new.

I do not think there are the resources or the desire to have such a large dungeon implemented the way you have it envisioned.

[Robert4818]

I would welcome the idea of a non-linear path to the end fight on a larger scale. However, as stated by others, the time it takes to complete such an epic dungeon would prevent most people from completing it in a single session. The Depths has been mentioned as a viable solution to such an undertaking but now this idea becomes nothing new.

I do not think there are the resources or the desire to have such a large dungeon implemented the way you have it envisioned.

Though, as mentioned, the dungeon isn't necessarily MEANT to be completed every time its ran.

Its an endurance run. The more of it you complete (piece wise) the more xp you get, but not completing it is not an "issue" so to speak.

[Krago]

Though, as mentioned, the dungeon isn't necessarily MEANT to be completed every time its ran.

Its an endurance run. The more of it you complete (piece wise) the more xp you get, but not completing it is not an "issue" so to speak.

Then, like the Cannith Challenges?

[Ungood]

My thoughts on ... sic ...

Have you played Fate?

Because, what you are proposing, is pretty much exactly the way Fate is set up. A dungeon series with a set number of maps, that randomly spawn, it varying monsters, mini-bosses, and quests to obtain exp, loot, and fame.

Which, while I'll admit, Fate is fun in it's own way, and not the only game of it's liking, Diablo, used this method, and even an old game like Dungeon Hack used this mechanic. So the idea is simple enough, and I think we all pretty much fully grasp what you are putting on the table with this suggestion.

However, none the less, I do not see this as going over well in the DDO setting or with the DDO community base, as it would not provide anything the challenges do not already bring to the table.

I know that you like this idea, but, in practice and execution, It would (for most players) be no different then the excitement involved in players getting their daily challenge tokens and wondering what map they will be running this time, but without the challenge part and being pretty much a "Kick in the Door" gaming quest.

Equally so, the Progressive tile down approach you put forth would be highly detrimental to random Pugs, and might even strain less fixed static groups, unless it allowed people to go in on red or perhaps had no official end reward , similar to the challenges where you collect parts/ingredients from each level for a "turn in" making this idea for all intents and purposes, little more then a "very big" Dr Rushmores Mansion.

I have expressed that I do not feel this would mesh well with the DDO/MMMO design, but it works well for Single Player games, and has been used in them for quite some time to be honest, but, in MMO's I feel this would not go over well at all.