I dislike it when the developers treat the trash mobs as actual trash - encounters that offer no challenge and serve only to extend time spent in the dungeon. Trivial encounters are boring for players. You want trash mobs to present a challenge. Not to the point of frustration, but enough to require teamwork and thought.
Allow players to make use of the skills characters have. Don't just have all trash encounters be about AoE and nuking. Make it important for the crowd controller to use his CC skill, make encounters where the healer gets to use his AoE healing and others where using single target healing is best. And so on. Think about what abilities each class in the game have, and come up with situations where they can make a difference so the player feels important rather than another nukenerd easily replaced.
I'm also not a fan of linear, scripted dungeons. Scripted content tends to get old after doing them once, as is linear design a poor fit for replayability.
I'd like to see the return of pulling - areas where players can use timing and skill to pick off patrols and straggling monsters to ensure an easier fight, but must suffer tougher trash fights if they fail. Especially interesting when some classes have special abilities to make better pulls or bail out on poor ones.
More freeform dungeons where there are multiple paths to the same objectives, or maybe even some rearranging on mob and boss positions, or perhaps even layouts, to promote exploration. Without making the dungeons huge and sprawling. I still have nightmares of full Blackrock Depth runs from Vanilla WoW.
LOTRO had the best raid and dungeons back in the day.
In modern MMO I can't find nothing better,today the worst end game PVE is in TESO,GW2 also has poor PVE features,WOW lately has become boring and all focused on DPS.
I think this article is interesting. I have been playing MMORPGs for a little over 12 years and have watched the changes through the developers and the games themselves.
Earlier it was more a focus on challenging the player like the console RPGs did. Keep them interested on quality push their minds and hell even make some endurance runs.
Gnomeragon was one of the dungeons I loved the most in Vanilla WoW... Many hated it because it was a major pain in the butt. one wrong move could wipe a party. one didnt just go stupid and pull everything in a room... it was kinda fatal.
Dungeon design today has forgotten quality and is more focused on rewarding the player with faster content and less thinking involved. Its quantity over quality, Instead of putting effort into designing a kick arse dungeon with storylines tie ins and events in the dungeons... Companies have gone to making the games look pretty with meager candy in there.
I once had a developer tell me:
"A player has to have something happen to them in a game every three minutes or they get bored and quit."
I have heard this same statement published in articles and from other developers... I find it amazing that these people actually believe this crap.
How many of you played with friends and even perfect strangers, waited around, planned the attack, and if something went wrong.... spend the time to correct it? I did this often and very very often it took far longer than three minutes.
Developers seem to have made assumptions about players in general and Sure i can see this about an app game, but in an MMORPG? I dont think this bears weight. Yet the developers have seen fit to use this clause as justification to put less effort in designing quality games.
Hell, I could be wrong and what I have seen over the last 12-14 years is a jaded view... However I dont believe I am off by far and the truth is probably far stranger..
Ah Gnomeregan.... there was always one hunter who forgot to dismiss pet before jumping down... it ran round and round and round bringing a train of death with it
I loved doing dungeons not to grind XP, not for loot but just as a chance to go somewhere cool that was inaccessible by yourself. You made friends and shared an adventure. I spent many many happy hours in BRD without really thinking we could make it to the throne room.
Original BRD was the high point in dungeon design for me.
My suggestions then:
Make dungeons that are so immersive that merely being there is enough. Loot corridors are not the way to go - they cause people to focus on... loot... and getting down corridors as fast as possible.
Take away 'must have' essential spec items from loot tables so that players are focussing on having fun rather than 'grinding a dungeon'.
I like dungeons that had significant time and resources put into them beyond the bare minimum required to come up with a dungeon with a different layout and textures than the other dungeons made so far. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the popular option when creating a MMO. Dungeons are just another category of MMO design where the majority of developers are content to do the same thing everyone has been doing for a decade and their dungeons are another reason I'll feel I've been playing their game for years (in a bad way) even though it just released.
Now if devs want to give me massive open dungeons a la EQ then we can talk. If one goes so far as to make dungeons on the scale of Grimrock like an above poster mentioned and also bring enemy behavior and combat into the present day and put the same amount of time and money into their questing as ESO did then I will love them forever, or at least sub to their game for a long time.
EQ1, DAoC, and Vanguard had some of the best dungeons in the business.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I cant stand instanced dungeons. Making dungeons instanced and then requiring you to have a party to go in sucks.
I want to be able to go in solo and expect the worse because it should be dangerous. I want to be able to enjoy chatting with other players besides my group while im exploring a dungeon. I want to be able to stay in a dungeon and farm whatever I want for hours without having to reset the instance and have to run through the dungeon all over again.
All the MMO's out there that uses the instanced dungeon system just cant get me to feel immersed. I get bored having to run them over and over again to finally get the gear i want.
The best dungeons I've explored would have to be in Vanguard. You start outside a temple area, crawl your way underground, and bam! You're moving into another dungeon that connects with the one you came from.
Another great thing about dungeons way back was when you did not have any maps. Every turn, every corner, every trap, and every boss area you had to memorize. That was the greatest thing ever.
Comments
Dungeons and "tiers" are the mostly well know MMO killers.
Give me back open wrld PvP or, instead, 3 factions RvR such as DAoC's one.
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)
I dislike it when the developers treat the trash mobs as actual trash - encounters that offer no challenge and serve only to extend time spent in the dungeon. Trivial encounters are boring for players. You want trash mobs to present a challenge. Not to the point of frustration, but enough to require teamwork and thought.
Allow players to make use of the skills characters have. Don't just have all trash encounters be about AoE and nuking. Make it important for the crowd controller to use his CC skill, make encounters where the healer gets to use his AoE healing and others where using single target healing is best. And so on. Think about what abilities each class in the game have, and come up with situations where they can make a difference so the player feels important rather than another nukenerd easily replaced.
I'm also not a fan of linear, scripted dungeons. Scripted content tends to get old after doing them once, as is linear design a poor fit for replayability.
I'd like to see the return of pulling - areas where players can use timing and skill to pick off patrols and straggling monsters to ensure an easier fight, but must suffer tougher trash fights if they fail. Especially interesting when some classes have special abilities to make better pulls or bail out on poor ones.
More freeform dungeons where there are multiple paths to the same objectives, or maybe even some rearranging on mob and boss positions, or perhaps even layouts, to promote exploration. Without making the dungeons huge and sprawling. I still have nightmares of full Blackrock Depth runs from Vanilla WoW.
LOTRO had the best raid and dungeons back in the day.
In modern MMO I can't find nothing better,today the worst end game PVE is in TESO,GW2 also has poor PVE features,WOW lately has become boring and all focused on DPS.
I think this article is interesting. I have been playing MMORPGs for a little over 12 years and have watched the changes through the developers and the games themselves.
Earlier it was more a focus on challenging the player like the console RPGs did. Keep them interested on quality push their minds and hell even make some endurance runs.
Gnomeragon was one of the dungeons I loved the most in Vanilla WoW... Many hated it because it was a major pain in the butt. one wrong move could wipe a party. one didnt just go stupid and pull everything in a room... it was kinda fatal.
Dungeon design today has forgotten quality and is more focused on rewarding the player with faster content and less thinking involved. Its quantity over quality, Instead of putting effort into designing a kick arse dungeon with storylines tie ins and events in the dungeons... Companies have gone to making the games look pretty with meager candy in there.
I once had a developer tell me:
"A player has to have something happen to them in a game every three minutes or they get bored and quit."
I have heard this same statement published in articles and from other developers... I find it amazing that these people actually believe this crap.
How many of you played with friends and even perfect strangers, waited around, planned the attack, and if something went wrong.... spend the time to correct it? I did this often and very very often it took far longer than three minutes.
Developers seem to have made assumptions about players in general and Sure i can see this about an app game, but in an MMORPG? I dont think this bears weight. Yet the developers have seen fit to use this clause as justification to put less effort in designing quality games.
Hell, I could be wrong and what I have seen over the last 12-14 years is a jaded view... However I dont believe I am off by far and the truth is probably far stranger..
Played: UO, LotR, WoW, SWG, DDO, AoC, EVE, Warhammer, TF2, EQ2, SWTOR, TSW, CSS, KF, L4D, AoW, WoT
Playing: The Secret World until Citadel of Sorcery goes into Alpha testing.
Tired of: Linear quest games, dailies, and dumbed down games
Anticipating:Citadel of Sorcery
Ah Gnomeregan.... there was always one hunter who forgot to dismiss pet before jumping down... it ran round and round and round bringing a train of death with it
I loved doing dungeons not to grind XP, not for loot but just as a chance to go somewhere cool that was inaccessible by yourself. You made friends and shared an adventure. I spent many many happy hours in BRD without really thinking we could make it to the throne room.
Original BRD was the high point in dungeon design for me.
My suggestions then:
Make dungeons that are so immersive that merely being there is enough. Loot corridors are not the way to go - they cause people to focus on... loot... and getting down corridors as fast as possible.
Take away 'must have' essential spec items from loot tables so that players are focussing on having fun rather than 'grinding a dungeon'.
I like dungeons that had significant time and resources put into them beyond the bare minimum required to come up with a dungeon with a different layout and textures than the other dungeons made so far. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the popular option when creating a MMO. Dungeons are just another category of MMO design where the majority of developers are content to do the same thing everyone has been doing for a decade and their dungeons are another reason I'll feel I've been playing their game for years (in a bad way) even though it just released.
Now if devs want to give me massive open dungeons a la EQ then we can talk. If one goes so far as to make dungeons on the scale of Grimrock like an above poster mentioned and also bring enemy behavior and combat into the present day and put the same amount of time and money into their questing as ESO did then I will love them forever, or at least sub to their game for a long time.
Simple. Make them uninstanced.
Make them huge.
Make them dangerous.
MAKE THEM SOCIAL.
EQ1, DAoC, and Vanguard had some of the best dungeons in the business.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I cant stand instanced dungeons. Making dungeons instanced and then requiring you to have a party to go in sucks.
I want to be able to go in solo and expect the worse because it should be dangerous. I want to be able to enjoy chatting with other players besides my group while im exploring a dungeon. I want to be able to stay in a dungeon and farm whatever I want for hours without having to reset the instance and have to run through the dungeon all over again.
All the MMO's out there that uses the instanced dungeon system just cant get me to feel immersed. I get bored having to run them over and over again to finally get the gear i want.
The best dungeons I've explored would have to be in Vanguard. You start outside a temple area, crawl your way underground, and bam! You're moving into another dungeon that connects with the one you came from.
Another great thing about dungeons way back was when you did not have any maps. Every turn, every corner, every trap, and every boss area you had to memorize. That was the greatest thing ever.