I think XP and loot is in the end is what makes us go to dungeons but i really hope that we get dungeons like in EQ and Darkfall where you farm mobs for the XP per hour/Gold per hour or material per hour.. I dont want a dungeon like in WoW where you go in and kill trash and then a boss and thats it you run another dungeon or do the same one again to get that item you want.. i prefer farming mobs for gold/mats with maybe a low chance to drop the Leather boots of agility thats a good gear piece for leather users for example.. or a low chance to drop the mega crystal of doom that you can sell for alot of cash to crafters.. thats the kind of farming i want in pantheon because i like grinding in games!
Here is an example for how darkfall did alot of their dungeons.. this is not one of the hardest once or the biggest once but it has a cool look and feel for it and if you watch him run through it you can even tell that the area is getting darker and scarier the further in you go! some dungeons were so big that you could have tons of groups farming at their own spots without any problems..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Fv6fIaIJs
You basically went into a dungeon and the start mobs was for like level 20s and the deeper you venture in to the dungeon you find harder and harder mobs and at the end a boss mob that usually had some nice drops (like more mats and gold then the normal mobs in the dungeon) and mobs respawned kinda quick and you could just kill the room, rest up and eat food and then new spawns come and you kill them.. if you did that with some friends it was alot of fun because you talked about all kind of stuff while you where farming and then every 30min-1hour the boss respawned and you had a hard/longer fight.. I love that!
Another thing with darkfall the dungeons only had 1 instance so lets say me and 3 friends where farming the boss room and then another group enter the dungeon they would find us at the end of the dungeon and you could kill people and loot them and take their stuff so that added another fun layer to always scout and keep everyone healed up while fighting because maybe someone was sneaking on you waiting for the perfect moment to attack..
Sarim said:I'm playing EQ again since a while, on Phinigel, the TLP server. When you listen to the LFG chat, you can notice that most of the LFG/LFM requests are for only two dungeons: Unrest and Guk. What makes these so special? Actually, Guk I can understand, it is a great place. But why Unrest over say, Najena or Runnyeye or Sol A?
I'm kind of worried that Pantheon may have several great dungeons for a given level range, but that the same thing will happen and people will congregate at only one or two. So how do you rate those factors that could make you choose one dungeon over another:
- loot?
- exp?
- accessibility (how "out of the way" can a dungeon be)?
- difficulty?
- can support multiple groups?
- dungeon setup (for example, crawling vs. camping)?
- ability to sell nearby (or in dungeon)?What would you do to prevent one dungeon from be left aside by the players?
to be fair lguk has a LOT of good drops and distinct camps.
Sol a and najena never had anything I'd want to camp unless I'm a Mage for najena pet foci drops.
Unrest i cant really give a good reason...
runnyeye except the bam and such (which isn't a great exp spot more of a ph snipe. Is also not that hot
I think what makes a dungeon attractive is the right balance of experience, loot, atmosphere, and difficulty. Unrest and Guk are so popular because they have these things all balanced well. As much as people are saying they want to be challenged, there are a lot of people who are going to take advantage of the safest ways to get that experience and loot. Of course, safety is a relative term. Some people just feel more comfortable in some dungeons that others feel are death traps. It's very nice to have options, though.
I love the idea Fulton brought up. It's a good question. Why don't more games take the opportunity to expand existing dungeons rather than completely overhauling them? I'd love to see stuff like that. Hell, you wouldn't necessarily even need to build onto the dungeon in every case (though I think that's good also). It could be as simple as adding a new spawn in. I think EverQuest had plenty of options, but a lot of them didn't make sense because other options were just better. I'd like to see the team give attention to the under-utilized dungeons in PRF.
We all know it's going to happen. There will be that easily-accessed, relatively safe, high experience dungeon full of good loot that people are going to prefer. At that point, I'd like to see the team add a room, or a wing, or even just a new spawn to that empty dungeon way out there and/or bump up the experience modifier. Someone else compared Permafrost to Solusek's Eye. If the team sees a situation like that, maybe they look at Permafrost and they add in a new named or a new drop, and increase the experience modifier. Then, when Permafrost is less empty, they move on to the next low-population dungeon and give that one something as well.
That said, I do remember reading about how they want to make it so things are going on in different places and at different times, and you'll want to be in those places at those times to experience those things. I'm sure they have a plan for this.
EDIT: Punctuation
HemlockReaper said:Eerie screams throughout the halls from the many victims of a well dressed mistress who nows her whip. :()
I'd totally go to such a dungeon! :)
I really enjoyed reading through everyones answers btw. And some thing I realized while reading is that a big part of what makes a dungeon fun for me is overcoming the challenge it provides. While leveling up in Unrest, I often tried to motivate people to move over to Castle Mistmoore. Its a darn nice dungeon too, but more difficult because its easier to get bad pulls. If I was with a good, PATIENT group which wouldn't break up after a single wipe, it was usually a super enjoyable time to be had. Sticking together through the hardship...that's the fun for me.
Yeah. Mistmoore is a pretty cool place, but I was terrified of it in the old days. I didn't really get comfortable with it until P1999 where pond groups were really popular and great EXP. That's a perfect example of the safety I was talking about, though. I chose Highkeep goblins every time in the old days. Just felt safe and steady to me. Lol.
Zarzak said:Sarim said:I'm playing EQ again since a while, on Phinigel, the TLP server. When you listen to the LFG chat, you can notice that most of the LFG/LFM requests are for only two dungeons: Unrest and Guk. What makes these so special? Actually, Guk I can understand, it is a great place. But why Unrest over say, Najena or Runnyeye or Sol A?
I'm kind of worried that Pantheon may have several great dungeons for a given level range, but that the same thing will happen and people will congregate at only one or two. So how do you rate those factors that could make you choose one dungeon over another:
What would you do to prevent one dungeon from be left aside by the players?
Sol a and najena never had anything I'd want to camp unless I'm a Mage for najena pet foci drops.
Unrest i cant really give a good reason...
Well people picked Unrest over Najena likely because the drops are better and for a wider range of classes and because the zone was open and relatively small and easy to learn. Najena was kind of maze-like and had false floors and a need to find keys to get different places. It was far more hassle for a group to jump into and you couldn't nearly as easily train to zone.
As for Sol A? I think that was also a case of it being a more complicated dungeon to navigate paired with the bind point for any good aligned races being Freeport so rather long corpse runs. I don't quite remember being able to be bound in Nektulos or the Temple of Solusek when they added that.
People being in the dungeon. Thats what makes it attractive to me especially at younger to mid levels. If choice spots are taken being able to move to a fringe area and test skills. Its very nice to actually walk around and look around a dunngeon when it is full of people- and then run back to your group even if being chased by an accidental pull.
Manouk said:People being in the dungeon. Thats what makes it attractive to me especially at younger to mid levels. If choice spots are taken being able to move to a fringe area and test skills. Its very nice to actually walk around and look around a dunngeon when it is full of people- and then run back to your group even if being chased by an accidental pull.
Yeah I like seeing people. Kind of messed up, but I like seeing dead people too. Death leads to all kinds of opportunities ...
HemlockReaper said:Sarim said:What makes a dungeon attractive?
Eerie screams throughout the halls from the many victims of a well dressed mistress who nows her whip. :()
Screams through the halls and mutilated corpses caught in traps as an omen of the things that await you
And somewhere in a dark corner a cutie that needs to be rescued <3
The magetower soundtrack from dragon age orgins was one of the best dungeon tracks in recent games.In betweens it had a woman scream
Fitting soundtracks help too.Following some that I love
This is actually a very easy questions to answer:
-How easy is it to get to
-Easily defined camps
-Safe Areas to sit LFG
-Many named camps spread far enough out to get good experience as well
People will, given choices, almost always pick the path of least resistance. Seb was a perfect example of this. A massively succesful dungeon. Look at its layout, multiple great camps wth named mobs that can be easily defined. Seb also had a great safe spot around the orb outside the zone to sit LFG.
You guys may have marveled at the dungeon showed in the last stream but I will bet my bottom dollar if there is a zone even remotely similiar to Seb/LGuk at that same level range that zone will sit mostly empty except the bottom parts. It will only take one or two falls to your death and a long corpe run back to turn your tummy from that place. The dev's who made the zone fell many times during the stream. I for one am not looking forward to that zone at all.
I always like dungeons with rare bosses and encounters, and bosses that varied to some extent from time to time.
I hope Pantheon will include various set ups for the trash and the bosses within the dungeons, with alternating patrole routes etc. and lots of surprise/rare encounters.