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Improving Dungeons: Skill Based Activities
lobo0084
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 663 Bounty Hunter
I'm going to focus this post on one of the many ways our current dungeons can be improved. As with all of these idea threads I make, I make no claim to owning the idea. I've heard others suggest it, thought it was great, and put my mind to trying to make it as reasonably applicable as possible while maintaining balance and the tone of the game.
Be aware that I believe such mechanics as loot drops, NPC AI, class imbalances and chest rewards are all component issues that have caused a failure in Neverwinters dungeon system. I will only address one of those concerns here, however.
Dungeons by Design
Dungeons in Neverwinter are a group activity requiring five players to activate and involving anywhere between 20 minutes to several hours of gameplay. They are generally balanced to require at least four different classes to be completed effectively, and involve a repetitive grind of high-level monsters, mixed with several mini-bosses and at least one, sometimes up to three, full-fledged bosses. One of the bosses culminates the end of the dungeon, and drops high-value loot at a higher rate than any other mob in game. This drop is randomized, in order to almost guarantee the player will have to run the dungeon more than once, thus forcing a level of end-game gear-driven content repetition.
Dungeons by Practice
Due to the enterprising/exploitative nature of gamers, each dungeon has a variety of exploits and procedures which help the players speed up the dungeon or skip mobs/bosses altogether in an attempt to reach the end boss, and thus, the major reward of the dungeon. Due to the randomized nature of that loot drop, multiple attempts are usually required to achieve high-end gear, and thus many players see the exploits and glitches as a requirement in order to reduce the 'grind' aspect that dungeons represent.
The Problem
Players, by and large, will attempt to take the easiest and/or fastest road to meet their goals. In this gear driven game, those goals are largely focused on the acquiring of better gear, gear usually dropped by the end-chest or the bosses in dungeons. Dungeons are full of campfire loopholes and exploitable terrain, and NPC AI can often be glitched to make killing bosses without fighting adds a complex process of standing on two toes while repeating the alphabet backwards. But no matter how complex the process is, many will still prefer it over the drudgery of fighting mob after mob.
Skill Usage Currently
There are five skills in the game: dungeoneering, nature, arcane, religion and thieving. Their current application in dungeons is almost primarily in the form of skill nodes, which provide a drop of profession resources and enchantments/runestones. In the rare instance, a hidden room or objective might be activated which provides a short-lived boon or opens a lesser chest. All nodes and secret locations can be activated by anybody with the appropriate skill kit or the class skill.
The Suggestion: Adding Skill Checks
These would NOT be applicable via kit, nor would they provide any loot. These skill checks would affect the dungeon in some way, either by weakening mobs or bosses, removing mobs, short-cutting sections of dungeon, spawning friendly mobs, or boosting party capabilities. They could be as simple or as convoluted as possible (such as puzzle, puzzle-traps, arcane mini-games, etc), but should in all cases provide parties with the ability to streamline the dungeon, favoring the less-used classes in said dungeon. Each skill check should require at least two separate classes to complete. In short, allowing those players who are going for maximized profit to do much what the exploiters already do, only by design and requiring team participation. The gain from using a skill check should be large enough and noticeable. I will include a list of ideas in the first reply to this post to demonstrate possibilities.
Randomized
Since dungeon replayability is obviously a factor, the prime component of adding skill checks is to make the availability randomized. This should be more complex than the same activation area requiring a random assortment of classes to participate. With appropriate creativity, dungeons could include two dozen possible skill check locations, and only have an assortment of four or five active on any run, or even on vary rare occasions none.
Removing Current Exploits
Be they campfire spawns or walking through walls, AI glitches or simply dumb mobs, the devs of Neverwinter should continue to clean and repair their dungeons. But as the dungeons become less exploitable, their content will become harder and/or longer, and require far more repetition. This process will further display the lack of AI options and repetitive nature of each dungeon, and I feel, push players further away from the content. Which is why I feel mixing the dungeons up a bit and allowing for that adventuring spirit would be a benefit to dungeon design overall.
A Whole Rebuilt Dungeon System
This idea of adding skill checks to the dungeon system to expand on the replayability of dungeons is just one part of a fully conceptualized dungeon rebuild, which could easily expand the purpose, replayability and enjoyment of the dungeon system of Neverwinter.
Other Ideas
Improving Dungeons: Dungeon Delve Keys
Be aware that I believe such mechanics as loot drops, NPC AI, class imbalances and chest rewards are all component issues that have caused a failure in Neverwinters dungeon system. I will only address one of those concerns here, however.
Dungeons by Design
Dungeons in Neverwinter are a group activity requiring five players to activate and involving anywhere between 20 minutes to several hours of gameplay. They are generally balanced to require at least four different classes to be completed effectively, and involve a repetitive grind of high-level monsters, mixed with several mini-bosses and at least one, sometimes up to three, full-fledged bosses. One of the bosses culminates the end of the dungeon, and drops high-value loot at a higher rate than any other mob in game. This drop is randomized, in order to almost guarantee the player will have to run the dungeon more than once, thus forcing a level of end-game gear-driven content repetition.
Dungeons by Practice
Due to the enterprising/exploitative nature of gamers, each dungeon has a variety of exploits and procedures which help the players speed up the dungeon or skip mobs/bosses altogether in an attempt to reach the end boss, and thus, the major reward of the dungeon. Due to the randomized nature of that loot drop, multiple attempts are usually required to achieve high-end gear, and thus many players see the exploits and glitches as a requirement in order to reduce the 'grind' aspect that dungeons represent.
The Problem
Players, by and large, will attempt to take the easiest and/or fastest road to meet their goals. In this gear driven game, those goals are largely focused on the acquiring of better gear, gear usually dropped by the end-chest or the bosses in dungeons. Dungeons are full of campfire loopholes and exploitable terrain, and NPC AI can often be glitched to make killing bosses without fighting adds a complex process of standing on two toes while repeating the alphabet backwards. But no matter how complex the process is, many will still prefer it over the drudgery of fighting mob after mob.
Skill Usage Currently
There are five skills in the game: dungeoneering, nature, arcane, religion and thieving. Their current application in dungeons is almost primarily in the form of skill nodes, which provide a drop of profession resources and enchantments/runestones. In the rare instance, a hidden room or objective might be activated which provides a short-lived boon or opens a lesser chest. All nodes and secret locations can be activated by anybody with the appropriate skill kit or the class skill.
The Suggestion: Adding Skill Checks
These would NOT be applicable via kit, nor would they provide any loot. These skill checks would affect the dungeon in some way, either by weakening mobs or bosses, removing mobs, short-cutting sections of dungeon, spawning friendly mobs, or boosting party capabilities. They could be as simple or as convoluted as possible (such as puzzle, puzzle-traps, arcane mini-games, etc), but should in all cases provide parties with the ability to streamline the dungeon, favoring the less-used classes in said dungeon. Each skill check should require at least two separate classes to complete. In short, allowing those players who are going for maximized profit to do much what the exploiters already do, only by design and requiring team participation. The gain from using a skill check should be large enough and noticeable. I will include a list of ideas in the first reply to this post to demonstrate possibilities.
Randomized
Since dungeon replayability is obviously a factor, the prime component of adding skill checks is to make the availability randomized. This should be more complex than the same activation area requiring a random assortment of classes to participate. With appropriate creativity, dungeons could include two dozen possible skill check locations, and only have an assortment of four or five active on any run, or even on vary rare occasions none.
Removing Current Exploits
Be they campfire spawns or walking through walls, AI glitches or simply dumb mobs, the devs of Neverwinter should continue to clean and repair their dungeons. But as the dungeons become less exploitable, their content will become harder and/or longer, and require far more repetition. This process will further display the lack of AI options and repetitive nature of each dungeon, and I feel, push players further away from the content. Which is why I feel mixing the dungeons up a bit and allowing for that adventuring spirit would be a benefit to dungeon design overall.
A Whole Rebuilt Dungeon System
This idea of adding skill checks to the dungeon system to expand on the replayability of dungeons is just one part of a fully conceptualized dungeon rebuild, which could easily expand the purpose, replayability and enjoyment of the dungeon system of Neverwinter.
Other Ideas
Improving Dungeons: Dungeon Delve Keys
"Every adventurer has two things in common: they don't like dying, and they love getting paid. The rest is just semantics." Brecken, famed mercenary of Baldur's Gate
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters
Post edited by lobo0084 on
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- Pushing a boulder off a cliff to remove a mini boss and mobs in the walkway below.
- Causing a tunnel to collapse, reducing the number of adds the final boss can spawn to aid them.
- Opening a secret tunnel that crosses through an mob-filled area without combat.
- Destroying structures which support the final platform, forcing the bosses AI to change from long-range combat to short range attacks, placing the boss in more favorable fighting position for melee classes.
Thievery
- Stealing a key to a locked door which bypasses mobs.
- Assassinating a guard, preventing mobs from spawning.
- Disarming a trap-filled corridor, allowing players to make it through certain death and skip a mini-boss.
- Arming traps in a region before summoning a boss, allowing environmental damage to the boss to help take it down.
- Poisoning mess hall food to weaken and debuff mobs in the dungeon.
- Finding hidden ledges and paths to sneak through.
Arcane
- Using an arcane gateway to teleport party members across the dungeon.
- Activating arcane nodes (not skill nodes) which buff the party more and more for each node.
- Using a long-channeling ability, arcane classes can change the landscape of the final boss fight to make melee combat less effective for the boss and force him to switch to a ranged AI.
- Using arcane might, wizards may tap into other powers to drop dungeon-wide meteor showers or earthquakes to reduce the effectiveness and debuff mobs in the dungeon.
Religion
- Summoning Angelic (or in future cases, Demonic) NPC aid in a final boss fight.
- Suppressing undead or demonic mobs. Even dismissing them, reducing the amount to fight.
- Activating shrines to provide regen heals to party members within their area.
- Breaking a summoned bosses link with his plane, reducing his effectiveness.
- Using 'ordained' campsites to teleport players between.
Nature
- Activating local fungus to put certain mobs to sleep, giving the party combat advantage or the ability to sneak past.
- Summoning natural aide to remove mobs from an area.
- Using water to weaken areas and slow nearby mobs.
Plus, as I mentioned that each skill check should be a combination of player capabilities to maximize party participation, you could easily combine many of the above ideas.
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters
It might also be possible to have skill or task related temporary instance buffs. E.g., a wizard can perform an arcane task that buffs each of the non-wizards in the party in some useful way through the end of the dungeon, but no one can get more than one arcane-sourced buff. A party with too many of one class would then not get all the possible buffs.
The way the game is now only Rogues have a skill that is useful in dungeons ... Well, not really. Rogues (me included) don't bother disarming traps because there is no point to it. Traps are pretty obvious and even if you take damage from traps you can recover easily. A trap filled corridor that will kill you if you try to run through it would give a meaning to the skill. To that they could add skills to pick locks or a Lore skill which would give certain classes the ability to read ancient text that teaches you secrets about ancient treasures or secret passages.
These are all **** good ideas. I hope the Devs take notice.
I'd like to add that not all dungeons need be a building or a cave system, I'd like to see some open air instances too. Also some obstacles/actions in dungeons could be tied to ability scores as well. Some of these could be -
-Str check to see if character can force gate, door, or portal open.
-Con check to see if character can resist poisonous areas or toxins used by enemies.
-Dex check to see if character can cross slippery or narrow surface.
Also racial abilities such as -
-Dark/lowlight vision
-Detect sloping tunnels, new construction
You could add class abilities such as a rangers tracking as well. These are but a few examples but they also could be tied into dungeon navigation and made more useful to the player.
I do like the idea of doing ability checks, for sure.
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters
Something I enjoyed in dungeons, party permitting, is the rare "puzzle" they bothered to put in. I think Pirate's Skyhold dungeon has a spot where CWs use their arcane knowledge to translate the code to turn the gears to unlock a chest location. Some people have this memorized, so it'd be good if that was randomized. There's also a simon-says deal in Wolf Den, I think that opens a room of chests and mobs. Then of course, gathering the items in Cloak Tower for the extra chests at the end is another example.
I'd like to see more dungeon activities like those implemented as well.
ALSO, this is me being completely demented for some but:
I think the chests should randomly spawn as chests or mimics. Mimics are great, but once you know they're there you just skip them every time and tell others to do the same. Having them randomly there or not would keep their infamous element of surprise going for them. Of course those chests gained by puzzle probably shouldn't be mimics. I've heard some people complain that chests aren't worth it though.
At the moment i dont see why traps are even in dungeons! they are an absolute joke and so obvious its just silly... nobody but a rogue should be able to spot a trap and there should be a decent punishment for just running blindly around a dungeon and not thinking about them.
I hate Mimics and I think you are completely demented
P.S. Anyone with an Arcane Kit can open that "puzzle" in the Pirate King dungeon and the order of the runes is Left-Right-Middle. You can figure that out by the order of the explosion if you successfully make the skill check.
I am a sentinel GWF who can look Malabog in the face when he does his three hit combo slam and laugh it off.
And the mimic chests in that epic dungeon eat me alive. They hit harder than any boss, outside of the dragon's strafing runs. So yeah, I'm up for not just random mimic chests, but random chest locations.
As another addition, I feel chests for boss fights should spawn in PE near the market after a dungeon is complete. This is mainly for those who get booted from party after killing the last boss, which we all know is a horrible move to stop players from being able to access loot roles on dropped gear.
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters
Why is that, though?
We ran MC again last night, and the final boss was simple and straight to the point. An easy fight, more or less, that required timing and a good mix of character classes. In fact, all the MC boss battles are that way. Light on adds, strong on timing.
Compare those fights with Karundax. Karundax himself is easy enough, but the second boss in that dungeon is simply ridiculous. The directed AOE attack from the adds, more specifically. It's a matter of the amount of adds, plus the strength of the individual adds, all wrapped up with the pace and tempo of the dungeon.
As most are aware, there is a rather simple process you can use to kill the boss outside of the adds. It's time consuming and relies on the bosses AI reaction to ranged attacks, but involves no hacks or glitches to do. It just takes the adds out of the fight.
Those kinds of methods are already in the current dungeons, along with groups who run between campfires and use wall hacks to make the fights easier. My argument is that, no matter the game out there, players will find the easiest way to do things. It's better to design shortcuts into the mix, than to constantly have a war between those who break the game and those who are paladin's of the straight and narrow.
If it's by design, then it can be calculated for and solved. And if players want the hard fight, they can do so. I don't hate on any player who wants to duke it out with that second boss in Karundax, but quite honestly and in my own personal opinion, he simply isn't worth the time and effort of the fight, which I feel is one of the hardest in the game.
As an aside, the option of changing the battlefield, and the battle, was one I took from fighting games. They created a bit of diversity in their obviously repetitious fights by allowing the scenery and battlefield to be adjusted, often randomly.
If we're going to be running that dungeon 10 times for one piece of gear, might as well make it as interesting as possible.
Finally, to agree, changes to current dungeons (while necessary in my opinion) are probably never going to happen. A few wall/campfire glitches will be fixed and maybe a bosses red zone here and there, but otherwise it's all probably going to stay the way it is.
But if they could add these in new dungeons, I would consider it a huge improvement to the game as a whole.
"D*mn wizards," said Morik the Rogue.
Learn what a GWF and GF really are: The History of Fighters