Random Queue and Leveling Dungeons

myles08807

Nobody is happy to see it: You queue for your daily random and a leveling dungeon pops up, with fewer rewards and a greater time investment than MotH or DL. Again, nobody is happy to see it when we queue for randoms.

Please bear in mind, though, that the most likely reason you got chosen for a leveling dungeon is that someone needed it. Someone who almost certainly isn't level 80; someone who almost certainly isn't endgame-equipped and buffed; someone who just wants to get in the capstone dungeon for the leveling zone they're in. That someone will almost certainly quit after dying half a dozen times if the rest of the party runs on ahead (on epic or better mounts in Caverns of Karrundax) leaving them to fight mob after mob alone...and that someone's interest in the game just took a hit.

I'm only writing this because I see it multiple times a week, and I saw it this morning, as I run my five endgame alts through their randoms. Yes, we're all very proud that your 24k main can sprint through a leveling dungeon killing or avoiding everything and making short work of the final boss...but the middle "M" stands for "multiplayer".

hexngone

I could not agree with you more. The mindset of 'gotta do it fast' drives me nuts when doing some the the dungeons when advanced players are in the mix. Patience is hard to find in an MMO, but is essential for group combat. I believe many of the reasons for over-scaling/mob-spawning additions to the game were to assure that many of the dungeons were no longer solo-able to encourage group play.

I also run multiple alts through dungeons daily, many of them are level 80 geared at the last level of questing they have completed (ranges from 30-70). I for one, always wait for the stragglers and try to warn them when not to aggro mobs (take ramp in Cloak Tower, stay right in Karrundax). Many times spent on a slow lvl 80 cleric/pally trying to keep up with an eager GWF/Barbarian.

That being said, the devs have chosen to trivialize the role of Symbols of Savaras as rewards for completing each of the sub-70 questing areas. This was done after the removal of the green tools/artisans at mod15. They also removed the ordered list of all the sub-70 areas from the Journal, and Knox's list of quests is in level-random order: https://imgur.com/C1WrZHD https://imgur.com/Nr29qjQ this further confuses many new players trying to determine 'what comes next' (as excessive XP through dungeon running and stronghold quests has put them levels ahead of the quest line). Now they complete an area, reach the last quest-giver and are given the quest to do the 'Capstone' dungeon - with who? There are rarely enough players in the level area needing the final dungeon at that moment (most have moved to the next area or are not to that point in the quest-line yet). If the did a Random Queue (notice the omission of the word 'Leveling') they know they can get AD for doing the dungeon in the queue instead of the few silver and minimal XP in the quest. So, they queue and hope for the dungeon (and dream of the Orc/Blacklake skirmishes - and hope they don't get the Illusionist Gambit). I have two characters that have been doing Random Dungeons for months without ever getting the Pirate/Frozen/Spider dungeons they need to complete the last quest (unlike the OPs assumption above, I sigh whenever I get the MotH or DL skirmishes because I have not completed Sharandar/DL enough to make keys yet).

Solution:
Change the reward for all the sub-70 final area dungeon quests to pay the 8000 AD they would get if they ran it in the queue. Then they could easily get others to party with them and do the dungeon they need to complete the area ... and they would be less dependent on the Random Queue dice-roll to give them the dungeon they need to complete the final quest. Others would be happy to party with them and help them if they got the same reward as a Queue.

The Story should always be the reason for doing a Dungeon the first time. Once that context is lost it is difficult to complete the 'adventure' in context.

NOTE: this thread should probably be moved to Feedback rather than Bugs

caldochaud

This is not just an issue with elite players running to the end. I have also seen poorly geared (below-level greens and blues with no artifacts) pre-programmed bots race to the end, die, respawn, race to the end, die, respawn... etc. They never fight anything. Just run ahead of everybody. Meanwhile, every monster agroed by these bots come swarming towards the rest of the party to play whack-a-mole with us. To make matters worse, we can't vote-kick the bots because "not enough time has passed".

frogwalloper

They don't/can't offer anywhere near enough to make random queues worth the aggravation - gave up on them months ago, and every day since has been a little more pleasant. As for leveling dungeons, my last few characters just skipped them altogether. Maybe I'll go back and solo them someday, but really, what's the point? I think they're only fun with a character who's leveling and running through with people who are around the same level.

The fact that the leveling dungeons are still open to characters that qualify for the expert queue is bizarre. The fact that those people actually go out of their way to run it - on purpose - is even more bizarre.

hexngone

I would also add that the Mod 16 shift to obsessive class-role focus with groups of 5 has also had a negative effect on the success of a Random Queue run. If the tank or healer are equipped below the required level for a dungeon, the entire group suffers because they cannot do their job. When the same dungeons were 3-man the mobs were not 'tweaked' to expect the dps of a 5-player group. When they re-leveled the dungeons for the 5-player groups they made the gap between levels/skills much more pronounced. Also, I find my DPS characters are endlessly doing MotH/DL skirmishes instead of dungeons because there just are not enough tanks/healers queuing up. I expect 10% Illusionist Gambit, 20% skirmish and 70% dungeons.

Personally, I think either they need to tailor the dungeons for the original intended audience (eg. Karrundax for level 56, Master of Hunt for level 60, etc.). Twice this past week the mixed group of level 70-something players were unable to kill the Master of the Hunt and the skirmish was abandoned. We used to have the added comfort of the Doohickey for those {expletive deleted] moments, but even that was nerfed to unacceptable/useless levels. More often than not the 'group' depends on one or two level 80 players with 10k more IL than the dungeon requires to do the work - that should not be a requirement.

Because they are a daily repeatable task, difficult (i.e. I die more than 2x and need more than 4 potions to finish) is *not* fun.

Unknown

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