Compelling Reasons to Visit Player Dungeons

It would be really cool if player dungeon mobs would drop super rares that can only be looted there.

-or-

Dev/GM Run mechanics where one could spawn rare-drop mobs for, say a 24 hour period 1x a month

-or-

the ability to create boss mobs

Surely others can come up with cool ideas. All I know is there needs to be more compelling reasons to occupy Dungeons.

 

Totally agree! I know that with the right tools players could make some absolutely spectacular and rewarding dungeons. Sadly, like most things here, dungeons aren't rewarding and are still unfinished. Ah well...on to the next incomplete system!

 

Instead of Electric Katana Nunchuck #234239911 each month

Take part of that time into creating a unique loot like those virtue banners, the colored toadstools or (insert item here that doesn't break combat/economy/important systems)


Each month hand out spawners of this item to a very small handful of players in the world to use as loot.

They put them in their dungeon as loot.

If you want this item, the only way to get it is in X person's dungeon.

Design the loot so people may want multiple copies of the item.




You don't want dungeons to replace overworld zones but at the same time it would be nice to be able to create a dungeon and get some foot traffic.


Limit it to people who have put serious effort into pots / dungeons at first

Wait for the results and go from there

 

I'd love to be able to add to the loot table of my dungeon. I need to find something to do with all these rusty spoons and spatulas.

Items need for the quests I create might be a better use of this feature though.

 

Hey, rusty spoons and spatulas add up! Not going to get rich off of them, but they do garner a gold piece!

 

XP and loot isn't a reason for me to visit a dungeon at all. I get that almost everyone but the hardest grinders have drifted away, but they still exist.

So you've essentially asked "give us a way to make the grind better".

I ask "give us a way to design compelling experiences, ambushes, wave battles, bosses with dialog, bosses with specific powers that we choose, patrol routes, rather than the same ol' same ol' encounter."

Honestly, does anyone NEED more grind in this game? If that's all they can offer up to make dungeons compelling, it missed the mark.

So I will once again propose two modes for dungeon design: Today's pointless endless grind, where the encounters are super cookie cutter, and there is no creativity or ability to game the system, and in that increase the mindless loot and the mindless xp as you have asked.

Another type, a sandbox dungeon master mode, where enemies can be individually placed, spawned on timers, spawned by the ghost mode GM, talked through, given Inky scripts, etc. No loot or XP except what the DM coughs up, so the exploiters can't gain anything. This one is all for the people who like experiences, the people who want story, the people who left, the people who don't think Upper Tears was the end state of this game.

 

Modder toolkits like they do in other games or adding the functionality to the game.

Either one gonna take a long time lol.


For just loot,

Container Spawners could take care of personalizing dungeon loot without requiring players being able to adjust the values/drops of each individual mob or the dungeon itself.

Instead of spawning a lich or whatever it just spawns a box that u can preload with items and place them at key points throughout your dungeon.


As far as quest dungeons,

You can do a fair amount with just the inky guys.

Problem is it's crude and takes a lot of creativity / manual labor.

 

I guess I was hoping/thinking it'd be similar to Mario Maker, where there's mechanics, and you can individually place monster, and there's triggers and events, etc.

When the concept for the quest NPCs came up, I was hoping we'd be able to apply that to the closets-full of pets and creatures we've accumulated. I was disappointed by the limit of 5000 characters (or 8000 if you P2W your way through the potential dungeon competitiveness)... but was astounded when I heard that dropped to 1000 characters. That's barely enough to say "Hello, my name is [END OF LINE]". (Edit: I hear they raised it back up again) Ultimately, it seems like NPCs will be little more than glorified multi-page sign posts.

Like brewing, dungeons seem to have been largely,

 

While I appreciate the NPC Dialogue options using INKY, I also feel that he complexity (yes, its a simple coding script but still) may be blocker for a lot of players that either can't or don't wish to spend the time, to learn the scripting. I don't know what the solution to that is, other than other players offering each other scripting services.

I agree that more mechanics and "bells and whistles" are definitely needed, however, I think good loot should be a reward as well. In general, the loot system needs an overhaul, we all know that.

However, we are also spending a LOT of time and money building these dungeons and there needs to be a reason other than self satisfaction. No one visits for that as its completely personal and internal, which is great for an offline game, but not an MMO.

 

It is a shame that dungeons have become a waste of development. You're right when you said players can't or don't wish to spend the time. If there was a decent reward for my work I would take the time, but as it is no I rather spend my time doing other things in game.

 

We need the Crown Store Adventure NPC's to have the ability to dole out rewards (this way owners can create their own rewards or deposit items they've obtained to give out as rewards). We also need containers that can be manipulated the same way as those Adventure NPC's, so that people doing a quest can deposit unique-owner-tokens for a reward or just to advance quests. This system is already in place in terms of NPC's that accept items to advance a quest or to provide a completion reward (bounties) - in this case the NPC becomes a container. In this latter instance, I'm thinking of a box, chest, vase that a player finds with something in it that triggers either the next step in a quest or a final reward.

The only concern I have about the system doling out rewards is the potential for exploits. Otherwise, if it's airtight, yes that would be a great idea too!

 

Definitely the case. Why spend a lot of time figuring out a scripting language in some other piece of software for NPCs no one will visit anyway? The key really is allowing players to tie loot rewards to the quests better. Let us give quest rewards just like the game givers rewards. But not always out of our own pocket. Then maybe player dungeons could work.

 

I've said often that this game needs to reward its players in much more significant ways for playing it.

 

You know, we could try our best to overcome that by working together. While one cool idea would be to work together to string events/quests along through multiple player dungeons, even just acting as a support group amongst interested players could help. Players with a good handle on the process can help others along to bring their dungeons up to snuff.

 

I just wish they would finish what they started. Like the spawners. There are still things not added in yet for spawns. Spiders, Skeletons, animal types, human types, satyr/fauns, slimes. Zombies. That spider room and Ruins of Ravensmoor rooms are usless and taking up space for nothing. And with the deco restrictions on most of those rooms its hard as heck to wanna keep them in the dungeon. Only good thing about Ruins of Ravensmoor is that one door leads to the other end of the Dog Room in my dungeon right now...so that is pretty cool. But need those spawners. Cant even get a blueprint for them for spawns since we dont have them yet. Grrrrr.