A couple suggestions to make LB's Castle a great dungeon

First off I just want to thank Sannio and all the others for working hard on creating this new content. First time logging into QA and I love the battle your way through the castle adventure you guys have been working on.

I have a couple suggestions that could potentially make this a unique sort of dungeon.

First off, I noticed that there are those little pool spawners that you stand over to spawn the mobs. I'm not sure if that is intended to stay in the scene so players initiate the waves in each room but I feel that if those are hidden, it would add to the suspense of being ambushed in some of the rooms.

Second, there seemed to be a lot of encounters as you make your way through the castle (killing mobs in most rooms). I think it would be great if the mob encounters were kept where they are but were somehow randomized so each time you run through LB's castle, there is no path to memorize where players always know where the mobs spawn after only a few play throughs.

Third, I think there are tons of mobs in this that are super strong. I actually really like it to be honest. I couldn't make it past the kitchen I think it was? So while I appreciate the abundance of mobs, it could make it harder and more suspenseful if the amount of wave encounters is consolidated to some of the rooms where you just get jumped by really hard mobs or some rooms have lots of mobs where you get over run.

I am no developer but I don't feel it wouldn't be too crazy tough to implement. The reason I feel that these are good ideas is that intermittent rewards and variety in each run through will really keep players running through the entire scene of LB's castle more like a dungeon rather then a farming spot.

Would love to hear you guys' thoughts.

Thank you again for the awesome content. I always remind people who moan and groan about bugs and what not that this game has come a very long way to what it was and that the community is unmatched compared to any other MMO's.
And thank you for all the hard work!

PS.
Brains and/or blood should be food that gives death attunement buffs. (just sayin)

 

I agree about being too predictable. It is sad to me that we throw in wave battles over and over as our new content. Having it be a surprising, unpredictable, exciting, fun, experience would be awesome.

 

Perhaps each time you run through the castle, a different group of high-tier bosses can spawn on the roof. So one time it could spawn dragons (of any type/color) and another time it could spawn trolls. Other spawns can include destroyers, xen spiders, liches, etc. And during comet time, it could spawn aether creatures.
For those who want the super hard boss fight, they can proceed to the roof. For those that do not, they can complete the quests and leave the zone.
I am not sure how a roof-battle would fit into the lore of the zone, but trying to fight all those roof-creatures with the obstacles, stairways, and explosive barrels would make a roof-battle very challenging indeed.

Also, will there be an version of the zone that is unpopulated with enemies and has no loot, so people that don't wanna do all the fighting can run in and see the great design of the zone? Like perhaps "Lord British's Castle (Cleared)"

Another way to add some randomization could be "reinforcement" spawns. After the usual # of waves, there is a random chance that another wave will spawn before you can proceed to the next room/area. A message pops up stating "enemy reinforcements have arrived" and another wave of enemies would spawn. Perhaps it could be a 20% chance of reinforcements arriving with a maximum of 3 reinforcement waves (so insane RNG does not somehow cause 25 additional waves). To make it even tougher, the reinforcement waves could be 1 to 3 tiers higher in difficulty than the usual difficulty of the waves in that room/area.

@Sannio

 

But we already have the Compendium of Pain and Suffering which I already like. We are talking about Lord Britishes castle here. We aren't saying scrap the progressive aspect of the dungeon. All I was suggesting is to randomize which rooms proc mobs each time a new scene is generated. The mobs of course can still get progressively hard! If you want to make the larger rooms harder that's fine but @majoria70 even just agreed.

Predictability makes it a fun dungeon for just a couple weeks then leaves all the players hungry for more content after you just worked your ass off on a huge project.

I'm telling you @Sannio , even if LB's castle release is pushed back, I think most people will understand if it's because you guys were working on small tweaks to the mechanics to make it a slightly new adventure every time you run it.

Again, we are talking about Lord British's Castle here. LB's castle dungeon has to be a perfect excuse to tweak the mechanics a tad to make it something fun and interesting every time you run it. We aren't saying totally rework the system, just a little RNG to spice things up a bit on the new content.

 

Wait, Lord British would allow Darkstarr to host a party in his own home? That's not lore-breaking at all...

 

Kinda. That would however be a very chaotic thing to do.....

 

Allowing something to take place doesn't imply permission, only a lack of will or ability to do something about it. The former is lore breaking; the latter... well, if that's the case, maybe Lord British is no longer fit to rule.

 

Why? LB and Darkstarr are sometimes friends, just with different philosophical viewpoints. The lore is pretty consistent on that. Chaos and Virtue do not oppose each other, they are just different paths along the same trail.

 

That's exactly what @DarkStarr wants the Beast British to think.

 

Personally I was hoping for a large dungeon but not really all scripted up with waves, it would be cool to have a shared open world dungeon where u might encounter other people, perhaps that idea could be mulled over as an add on to this. I dont think anyone ever gets tired of super huge dungeons.

 

I like this idea