ESO needs old school dungeon-crawling (Labyrinth Idea)

Roneth

drogon1 wrote: »

Hehe what's missing is not so much dungeonnons, but dungeon xp. You can design the best dungeons available in any MMO, but if you get next to no xp from them what's the point?

I like the OP's idea, but without decent xp, it is fail, like most of the group content xp in ESO atm (pre-VR level, apparently things change after that but I wouldn't know). Simply rewarding players for grouping up and running the current dungeons would cause many non-questcentric MMO'ers to return to Tamriel.

Zenimax could design it so the deeper you go into the Labyrinth the better the XP rewards. Not only that, but the main bosses at the end would drp legendary loot. Both of these design changes would promote players to do the long dungeon crawl.

MaxBat

That dungeon map is awesome ... just awesome.

Wow, I didn't realize 70% of the dungeons in TESO were cut and paste. That actually kind of ... sucks.

c0rp

One of the best things I loved about Asherons Call was getting lost in some of the dungeons and having that feeling of dread and panic take over. I've never experienced that feeling in any other mmo dungeon. (you also dropped your items on your corpse)

Jeremy

Roneth wrote: »

I would love if the developers added a few massive dungeons to ESO. Basically, most of the dungeons currently in the game are fairly small to medium sized and can be completed in less than 1 hour. I think having a few massive dungeons would be good for the game and would require roughly 2 to 4 hours to complete. These dungeons could be either instanced or public. Zenimax could even give these massive dungeons a unique name such as "Labyrinth" to distinguish from regular dungeons. The picture below illustrates the idea perfectly...

Thoughts/Opinions?

This idea has my support ^^

wrlifeboil

Long dungeon crawlers aren't appealing to many if not most gamers today. Younger gamers? Just think ADD (attention deficit syndrome). Older gamers don't have the time. Even WoW saw this coming. They have BGs, arenas, Brawler's Guild, 15-minute pve scenarios, even lfr which are quick in, quick out (there is no stigma in leaving an lfr raid after doing one boss, the group finder queuing system finds replacements relatively quickly).

It'll be interesting to see how Wildstar does with their emphasis on the more traditional mmo gamers and their marketing pitch to hardcore raiders.

zeuseason

There isn't enough bag space for something like this.

wafffllesss

I Love this idea!

Curious, at the very moment I read labyrinth I thought of the "living" labyrinth from wrath of the titans... Perhaps that would be a good dungeon too, huh?

joshisanonymous

Roneth wrote: »

Enkil wrote: »

Def agree.. and it would be nice if there was a lot more variety in the current dungeons as well. Variety is what the games needs.. Every dungeon feels almost identical. Where are the complex challenging dungeons? Sure there are torch+ dungeons but they are still kinda boring and have almost the same layout.

Yeah, its a little disappointing that most of the dungeons are copy paste.

I imagine this has to do with technological limitations or something? In the sense that it may require quite a bit more processing power if all 100 or so dungeons were completely unique, particularly because they're sort of instanced.

I think this would only work in Cyrodiil if my guess about processing power is correct. (If the Imperial City is reminiscent of Darkness Falls from DAoC, we might actually be getting this sort of dungeon already, actually.) If it's done in the regular world, there's no way to avoid the need to instance it because of how the megaserver works, meaning you could end up with entirely too many copies of this massive dungeon running. Then again, if it's no bigger than a zone, and allows the same number of people to enter, then it wouldn't matter where you put it. Then the problem would just be figuring out how to accomodate all those people in one dungeon instance.

As for the need to sell things along the way: Either the end gear has to be good enough that you'd be willing to ignore all loot up to the end to do it (unlikely since this would go against the incentives they've placed on crafting) or you'd have to have points along the way where you could access a bank/vendor/crafting tables. Crafting tables along the way would be pretty interesting because they could be for special sets, which makes just as much sense as the random tables in the current world. This would also promote doing the dungeon for reasons beyond just the end loot.

Actually, this might also provide the perfect incentive to max capacity mounts. If your entire raid has this mount, and maxed bag sizes, you'd have a huge amount of space to store everything.

zeuseason

Copy/paste? Ha! One thing this game does really well, is environment design. I've played thru to vet content and I have no issues with the delves, even tho some are the same. I could literally care less because it's so well done.

jaidon

Awsome idea, I hope zenimax reads this thread.

Ruddertail

While it's not quite that scale, Shada in Craglorn felt like a serious dungeon crawl.

dc1509

Roneth wrote: »

I would love if the developers added a few massive dungeons to ESO. Basically, most of the dungeons currently in the game are fairly small to medium sized and can be completed in less than 1 hour. I think having a few massive dungeons would be good for the game and would require roughly 2 to 4 hours to complete. These dungeons could be either instanced or public. Zenimax could even give these massive dungeons a unique name such as "Labyrinth" to distinguish from regular dungeons. The picture below illustrates the idea perfectly...

Thoughts/Opinions?

^ want ! next patch please. I'm serious

Cybrdroyd

I would love a few massive dungeons like this. You can port out anytime you want with the map pin, so what you do is, leave one player in the dungeon while the other 3 ports out to empty bags, then they "travel to player" and then he takes his turn to empty out and he "travels" back to the group. You could have several "quests" running inside the dungeon too.

Laura

you mean like the old days? This was all ONE dungeon from EQ. I am of the firm belief that the extremely liner vanilla tiny dungeons is what is wrong with, not only this game, not only MMOs, but RPGs in general today. When was the last time you got lost and afraid in a dungeon? not recently unless you were playing an older game I'd wager. I'd LOVE to see a return of this sort of thing.... but... instant gratification may not allow that. I can dream. maybe we are ready again? HOPE PLEASE

YES?!?!?

demendred

I would spend all day in that massive maze of a dungeon.

Cybrdroyd

Laura wrote: »

you mean like the old days? This was all ONE dungeon from EQ. I am of the firm belief that the extremely liner vanilla tiny dungeons is what is wrong with, not only this game, not only MMOs, but RPGs in general today. When was the last time you got lost and afraid in a dungeon? not recently unless you were playing an older game I'd wager. I'd LOVE to see a return of this sort of thing.... but... instant gratification may not allow that. I can dream.

RylukShouja

Roneth wrote: »

Enkil wrote: »

Def agree.. and it would be nice if there was a lot more variety in the current dungeons as well. Variety is what the games needs.. Every dungeon feels almost identical. Where are the complex challenging dungeons? Sure there are torch+ dungeons but they are still kinda boring and have almost the same layout.

Yeah, its a little disappointing that most of the dungeons are copy paste.

While not incorrect, per se, it is misleading. 41.3% of the dungeons have a different design from each other. Of that 41 odd percent, 11% of those original models have copies. So 59% of the dungeons are photocopied off of a template of 12 dungeons. We still have 41% of our dungeons that are original...and even with that, the photocopied ones are copied in layout only (mostly). Most will have varied themes, which make them look/feel different for most people.

Pristia

Does anyone remember Darkness Falls from DAoC? That was a fun dungeon, and was only open to the faction that owned the most realestate in the PvP zone, but it was really fun when the ownership switched and everyone would jump on thier 50's and run to the other factions side and wipe them out. I havent played any vet content or much PvP here yet, so I dont know if there is anything like this in game, but it would be fun.

UrQuan

I'd love to see a couple of really large dungeons. One thing that I loved about Skyrim was the bigger, more complex dungeons where you had to fight lots of enemies and work out puzzles - and frankly with all of those ones I found myself wishing that they were bigger. What I really want is something that's an epic dungeon crawl like in the old days of D&D. I want a Castle Greyhawk or an Undermountain, or even a Descent Into The Depths of the Earth (Blackreach in Skyrim kind of reminded me of that, which was part of what I liked about it)

The way to make this work in a game like this is to allow you to unlock exits/entrances. You could do this through portals or through actual physical entrances to the complex that you can only unlock from within. Either way, unlocking each exit/entrance would be a quest within that section of the dungeon. That way, you can power through the whole thing with one group if you've all got the will to do so, or you can complete one stage, leave, and come back later to pick up where you left off. Group with some other people who have completed the same stages as you, and you're good to go.

Some things I'd love to see in such a dungeon (labyrinth, I guess, because why not give it a good distinct name like that):

1. Each individual stage should be bigger than one of the standard solo dungeons that you see in ESO - probably around the size of the public dungeons.
2. The labyrinth shouldn't have a single, linear path that you have to take to go through it. At the least, each stage should allow you to explore freely within it, even if it's linear in terms of the order in which you go from one stage to the next.
3. Maps that make sense. If the place is a massive dwemer ruin, I want to see one area set up as living quarters, another set up as a workshop, and so on. If it's a natural cavern complex, I want the layout to seem natural.
4. Enemy populations that make sense. For the most part ESO is fairly OK with this, I just want to make sure that we don't have an infamous 10' X 10' room with 1000 goblins or something... I seem to remember stories of that in old school D&D.
5. Puzzles! I know there are some ESO dungeons with puzzles already, but very few, and the puzzles tend to be super easy.
6. Decent backstory - I want to know why I'm going in to this dungeon and killing everyone there.

bloodenragedb14_ESO

oh dude, $@#$ing hell yes, that would be awsome, having to map out a dungeon room to room on paper, i really miss those old school dayz

Matt.vanelsenb16_ESO

Just for a start, before we get all these massive dungeons, it would be nice if they actually made it so that you had to run through a dungeon to map it out, rather than just getting a full map as soon as you enter with a big room at the end that just screams: "The boss is here". If they could do that and make it so that all the new dungeons have a few additional paths that lead to a dead end or an exit, that would be a nice start and would actually require you to think in a dungeon, instead of just facerolling all the enemies following one linear path.

WebBull

Looks horrible, unless it was a public dungeon and each faction had their own entrance....PvP enabled of course

Roneth

c0rp wrote: »

One of the best things I loved about Asherons Call was getting lost in some of the dungeons and having that feeling of dread and panic take over. I've never experienced that feeling in any other mmo dungeon. (you also dropped your items on your corpse)

Yeah. I want to get lost in a dungeon dammit! lol

Roneth

This was one of my favorite dungeon crawler games back in the days...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO2YX-2MfZ8

Locnaar

clicked agree to almost every post in this thread as this is what I envision for elder scrolls endgame content and a wonderful way to obtain (possible) epic / legendary items and / or equipment.
/golfclap for OP
+1

Cogo

Roneth wrote: »

I would love if the developers added a few massive dungeons to ESO. Basically, most of the dungeons currently in the game are fairly small to medium sized and can be completed in less than 1 hour. I think having a few massive dungeons would be good for the game and would require roughly 2 to 4 hours to complete. These dungeons could be either instanced or public. Zenimax could even give these massive dungeons a unique name such as "Labyrinth" to distinguish from regular dungeons. The picture below illustrates the idea perfectly...

Thoughts/Opinions?

Very interesting! I would suggest you /feedback this in game. Zenimax already stated they are working on different types og dungeons/instances etc. They already proved this with the "Trial" type...or I missed that when ESO was released which features they would have.

Who knows, Maybe they copy your idea and we get to do it!

mitchell.niemib14_ESO

LordEcks wrote: »

Jade_Knightblazerb14_ESO wrote: »

This is what next gen MMOs are missing. Yes please!

I would even enjoy it if each room was a boss fight. Bwl themed. Would be something for endgame as well as bragging rights / achivos

There's a reason next gen MMOs are missing this. Last gen MMOs had it.

Dungeon runs and even raids like this generally tend to prove unpopular to the general crowd. For the simple reason that the majority of players only play 1-3 hours at a time, most of whom don't (want to) spend that entirety in a dungeon run.

I personally miss big raids like this, and find them fun though.

Its been a trend in many games, specifically RPG styled games. A lot of developers dont want to make long RPGs because the majority of the players never finish the game. So the content they worked so hard to make goes unseen by over half of the players.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/08/13/only-42-of-players-finished-mass-effect-3/

That link is a single player RPG reference, but the same mentality persists in MMOs. They tend to cater more to the casual gamer who has roughly 1 hour to play (including time required to find a group).

I do like your idea though, and thats a radical dungeon map. D&D much?

I think that's the beauty of this design you can delve as deep as you would like, also there would be no real set end to your crawl so technically yes you could sit in the dungeon for your whole life but you can really leave just about whenever you'd like and be done with it.

Roneth

mitchell.niemib14_ESO wrote: »

LordEcks wrote: »

Jade_Knightblazerb14_ESO wrote: »

This is what next gen MMOs are missing. Yes please!

I would even enjoy it if each room was a boss fight. Bwl themed. Would be something for endgame as well as bragging rights / achivos

There's a reason next gen MMOs are missing this. Last gen MMOs had it.

Dungeon runs and even raids like this generally tend to prove unpopular to the general crowd. For the simple reason that the majority of players only play 1-3 hours at a time, most of whom don't (want to) spend that entirety in a dungeon run.

I personally miss big raids like this, and find them fun though.

Its been a trend in many games, specifically RPG styled games. A lot of developers dont want to make long RPGs because the majority of the players never finish the game. So the content they worked so hard to make goes unseen by over half of the players.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/08/13/only-42-of-players-finished-mass-effect-3/

That link is a single player RPG reference, but the same mentality persists in MMOs. They tend to cater more to the casual gamer who has roughly 1 hour to play (including time required to find a group).

I do like your idea though, and thats a radical dungeon map. D&D much?

I think that's the beauty of this design you can delve as deep as you would like, also there would be no real set end to your crawl so technically yes you could sit in the dungeon for your whole life but you can really leave just about whenever you'd like and be done with it.

Getting lost in dungeons has a unique frustrating feeling. Let's bring that to ESO.

Enteum

Just dropping in to make up numbers that agree. Yes please! +1! Something like this would be epic beyond measure!

Roneth

Enteum wrote: »

Something like this would be epic beyond measure!

Yes!