Why are you destroying dungeons?

slurpy911 · March 2016

Mostly everyone has realized that dungeons aren't what they used to be. Dungeons used to have hidden paths or alternate paths. No it is one way or no way. No more excitement or anything... And now the total mess up with Castle Never. From T3 down to T2. And what upsets me most is It was a dungeon that could take you up to a hour. That was like a end game dungeon for me. Now we get a barely 15 minute joke.

*SAD*

plasticbat · March 2016

xbox.

Unknown · March 2016

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rayrdan · March 2016

plasticbat said:
xbox.

im sure this is one of the answer... console players are different in mindset from pc players but still this is just an excuse for lazy programming.
as a guy with soon to be short free time im not complaining much about it... im more bothered by having dungeons back as levelling content...who cares about them? im not going to play them

plasticbat · March 2016

Another reason: resource.

I don't even remember I was able to get into CN from the start to the end once. At least, less than a handful.
The queue took forever. When I could get in, it was only because somebody dropped out or be kicked.

5 person took up an instance for an hour takes a lot of resource.
e.g. if the server can hold 100 instance. it means it serves 500 players in an hour.
If they cut that to half an hour, it means the same resource can serve 1000 players in an hour.

Of course, a good solution is to increase resource. Well, you know that is not something they would do easily.

Unknown · March 2016

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Unknown · March 2016

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plasticbat · March 2016

dolrey said:
I am absolutely agree with author. Developers loosing alot of experienced players while continue to develop so casual and "joke" content. No challenge, no hard dungeons, no "end-game" content... So, what experienced players are going to doo? We are going to left neverwinter to the other new and interesting peojects. Thare is what a lot of my friends have allready done. I am still here because I see greatest potential in this game. But developers need to change they attitude to term "difficult" and need to stard develop content for experienced players because there is already too nuch content for casual beginners.

I agree that I also want more new content. I also agree that many players left for other games. However, some of them came back because they also do not see the grass is much greener over there. Some of them rage quit from those game too. It does not mean the grass is greener on this side. Anyway, that does not change the fact that NW does not have much new challenge.

Personally, my new challenges are:

- see what happen to mod 9.
- New project(s): create a new "challenged" character from scratch to see how challenging it will be. The 'challenged' character candidates for me to consider are archer HR and combat HR. Not as 'challenged' character, healing Pally. They can use the new leveling content too.

Unknown · March 2016

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dfnce · March 2016

defiantone99 said:
I smell another level cap increase coming. SH boons and the mount system demand it. Maybe then we will get real Epic dungeons like Dread Vault.

my bet is on module number 12 ... i prefer not to see any old new Dread Vault or other dungeon rehashed like CN though ...

Unknown · March 2016

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willson · March 2016

Cn used to be a challenge with rewards. Now it will be burn through like the rest of the dungeons.
The only hope is the releasing legendary difficulty!

santralafax · March 2016

dfnce said:

defiantone99 said:
I smell another level cap increase coming. SH boons and the mount system demand it. Maybe then we will get real Epic dungeons like Dread Vault.
my bet is on module number 12 ... i prefer not to see any old new Dread Vault or other dungeon rehashed like CN though ...

Or turned into levelling dungeons like Karrundax or Pirate King. What are the devs thinking???

I'm trying other games, none have clicked yet. Eventually one will. I started playing this game because of my love of Neverwinter Nights, and this game does suck those like me in, even though they say it is "totally unrelated". As soon as I find something that can pull me, I'll be gone--and will save money as a consequence.

urabask · March 2016

defiantone99 said:
For most players, a dungeon is just about how fast you can complete it and how many times you can spam it a day, for AD.

No one would run castle never if it took an hour because you could just run etos/elol for virtually the same rewards. They can't even significantly increase the rewards because some people would still burn through it anyways unless they added timers to parts of it (e.e. survive for 10 minutes or some dumb carp).

defiantone99 said:
I smell another level cap increase coming. SH boons and the mount system demand it. Maybe then we will get real Epic dungeons like Dread Vault.

They haven't even finished adjusting everything to the current level cap ...

Why on earth would they increase the level cap again just to have another mess like mod 6?

wildfirede · March 2016

it's simply the new queue for a ring chance dungeon, for the ppl who got lucky in the last fodder ones.

ianthewizard2012 · March 2016

defiantone99 said:
For most players, a dungeon is just about how fast you can complete it and how many times you can spam it a day, for AD.

^^^ This.

Dungeons are being in dire need of improvements to encourage exploring and team works. A dungeon isn't supposed to be about following a linear trail and doing speed run for "Pain Giver" or AD.

slurpy911 · March 2016

ianthewizard2012 said:

defiantone99 said:
For most players, a dungeon is just about how fast you can complete it and how many times you can spam it a day, for AD.
^^^ This.

Dungeons are being in dire need of improvements to encourage exploring and team works. A dungeon isn't supposed to be about following a linear trail and doing speed run for "Pain Giver" or AD.

I don't mind some dungeons to be fast run through AD Spammers. But CN was a long dungeon that gave you a feeling of excitement when completed. Not many could do it. And then the best part was the T3 rewards you could get. Nothing was better and you had to work for it. Today you can just pay to play and have all the success the other guys have

wildfirede · March 2016

where success is measured in r12's and not endgame hard to complete gear

throsbi · March 2016

So many have commented on several good points. xbox, resources - game, hardware, developer, etc. and more. I think you have to try and look at all of those to try and guess the reasoning behind the decisions made to stream line the dungeons overall. There is a bigger picture in play here that most of us are only looking at one tree stump in the thick of the forest.

cambo1682 · March 2016

Throsbi I agree that we, as players, are not seeing whatever big picture the Dev's have in mind. The problem I have though is that there appears to be more stumps than trees standing. The last semi decent dungeon we got was Mod 2, that seemed short. I really do not count eLoL as a dungeon, it is a skirmish at best. Dungeons were, for players like me and friends / guildies who have both remained and left, the heart and soul of the game. You got to know people, had to cooperate and had a fun adventure with a treasure hunt component. There is not much of a treasure hunt left and there is less adventure with so few epic dungeons.

Tiamat and eDemo are not adventures and you certainly do not get to know the people you run with in them. The rewards are so meh or walled behind idiotically poor RNG %'s. Seals are a nice consolation prize, but that is all they ever should have been, more like they are in the Demonic HE's. Opening a chest and having a reasonable chance at the piece you want was always exciting. Lots of people had to run SP dozens of times to get their head choice. It gave the group a purpose to do it and a cause to rally around. 20 or 30 times in a dungeon was considered a good story because they were, well epic. Running eDemo 100 times and never getting a sought after drop, well that is simply lame. Not fun, who can blame players for logging out!?

The devs may have a 'big picture' in mind, but so far all that many of us are seeing is removal. Constant removal. I'm not just talking about dungeons. Awesome armor set bonuses, BoE rewards, Leadership, Dragon Hoard Enchants, Dungeons lenghts and side areas, Coal wards in trade bar shop, post 70 power point frequency (read ridiculous XP requirements starting at lvl 60). The list goes on. What has been infused "into" the game? More refinining mostly. More ways to feed the guild mimic in your Stronghold. More XP required to advance from 60 to 70. More people quitting at level 63 because essentially the game starts to suck hard and someone thought it would be an awesome idea to drag that suck factor out with huge XP levelling increments.

I for one would prefer that they actually not touch the old dungeons, just scale them and put them back in as epic, hell even work on something interesting as drops later if time is so limited. I just do not trust that this team is plugged into what attracts and keeps players playing the game. For me it has been hope that things will improve. Chopping CN up is tanatmount to blasphemy for me, but I recognize I am probably pretty hard core about how I liked the old content better than the dilge they have churned out since mod 4.

They seem to listen to some feedback, but often the truly passionate feedback only comes AFTER they have messed something up with what often seems so obviously bad that players never even considered they had to worry about it. As the Executive Producer's letter mentioned, they plan things 6 months in advance. Hopefully threads like this will, at least in part, make them actually think about NOT further destroying the remaining dungeons 6 months from now.

bitt3rnightmar3 · March 2016

cambo1682 wrote: »

The devs may have a 'big picture' in mind, but so far all that many of us are seeing is removal. Constant removal. I'm not just talking about dungeons. Awesome armor set bonuses, BoE rewards, Leadership, Dragon Hoard Enchants, Dungeons lenghts and side areas, Coal wards in trade bar shop, post 70 power point frequency (read ridiculous XP requirements starting at lvl 60). The list goes on. What has been infused "into" the game? More refinining mostly. More ways to feed the guild mimic in your Stronghold. More XP required to advance from 60 to 70. More people quitting at level 63 because essentially the game starts to suck hard and someone thought it would be an awesome idea to drag that suck factor out with huge XP levelling increments.

^^^^
This.

ianthewizard2012 · March 2016

slurpy911 said:

ianthewizard2012 said:

defiantone99 said:
For most players, a dungeon is just about how fast you can complete it and how many times you can spam it a day, for AD.
^^^ This.

Dungeons are being in dire need of improvements to encourage exploring and team works. A dungeon isn't supposed to be about following a linear trail and doing speed run for "Pain Giver" or AD.
I don't mind some dungeons to be fast run through AD Spammers. But CN was a long dungeon that gave you a feeling of excitement when completed. Not many could do it. And then the best part was the T3 rewards you could get. Nothing was better and you had to work for it. Today you can just pay to play and have all the success the other guys have

I don't mind that, too. Having two or three dungeons which only involve constant fighting is okay. But so far, all dungeons are offering one linear way and require players to just kill all the way to the boss without variations.

ianthewizard2012 · March 2016

slurpy911 said:

ianthewizard2012 said:

defiantone99 said:
For most players, a dungeon is just about how fast you can complete it and how many times you can spam it a day, for AD.
^^^ This.

Dungeons are being in dire need of improvements to encourage exploring and team works. A dungeon isn't supposed to be about following a linear trail and doing speed run for "Pain Giver" or AD.
I don't mind some dungeons to be fast run through AD Spammers. But CN was a long dungeon that gave you a feeling of excitement when completed. Not many could do it. And then the best part was the T3 rewards you could get. Nothing was better and you had to work for it. Today you can just pay to play and have all the success the other guys have

I don't mind that, too. Having two or three dungeons which only involve constant fighting is okay. But when all dungeons are showing one linear trail and requiring players to just kill all the way to the boss without variations, I personally get bored easily.

zibadawa · March 2016

ianthewizard2012 said:
I don't mind that, too. Having two or three dungeons which only involve constant fighting is okay. But when all dungeons are showing one linear trail and requiring players to just kill of the way to the boss without variations, I personally get bored easily.

A joke of a trap system is a big part of this. That was always the lion's share of any D&D lair: slaying hordes of baddies and then making sure you don't get decapitated on your walk to the next group to murder. DDO had a good trap system, with traps that were actually relevant and were likely to one-shot an entire party of badasses if they weren't disarmed. Parties usually had to make sure they had a skilled trap disarmer, rather than a full load-out of DPS. The NWO system is all about combat, and that should have been fairly obvious from the start. So given that, what's wrong about dungeons that are all about combat?

hustin1 · March 2016

I think a big part of the problem with the dungeons is that not enough thought is going into why the dungeon was built in the first place. Who built it, and what was the purpose? As an example, I tried to give the final map of my Foundry a dungeon-like feel. That meant thinking about how it would be defended, for instance: would the defenses be layered? What would defenders do if part of the defense was breached? It meant placing rooms like armories and barracks in strategic places, and meant putting the mechanisms required to open things like doors or gates behind more defenses. Then I had to think about how all those defenders would be fed, where they got their water supply from, and where they slept. I then had to think about who their bosses were, and what rooms would be the most well-protected.

Other things I had to think about were, would defenders want alternate paths through the complex, and under what circumstances? For instance, they likely wouldn't want alternate paths before the primary defenses as they would want to bottle intruders up, but once past those defenses, they might want some alternate paths that they could use to either muster reinforcements or surround an enemy.

Another thing to consider is that the current inhabitants of a dungeon might not be the ones who built it. Did they make any changes? How did they make it their home? Are there any extra areas that they don't use, and could those areas contain surprises of their own? Does a dungeon contain multiple inhabitants, who either avoid one another or have some sort of truce? Of the present inhabitants, do they also require recreation, and what might that area look like?

Then there are other things to take into account. For instance, underground dungeons tend to flood. How do they deal with the local water table? What about getting rid of refuse? What about managing temperature? Taking these things into account can make a dungeon more interesting.

hroya · March 2016

I wouldnt mind if they scaled dungeons (and pvp) to gearscore rather than character lvl

sm0ld3r · March 2016

rayrdan said:

plasticbat said:
xbox.
im sure this is one of the answer... console players are different in mindset from pc players but still this is just an excuse for lazy programming.
as a guy with soon to be short free time im not complaining much about it... im more bothered by having dungeons back as levelling content...who cares about them? im not going to play them

Exactly, not to mention back in the day everyone was cutting out half the dungeon anyway by jumping across a few areas between the 2nd and 3rd boss.

warpet · March 2016

all they can do to is return stats soft caps and old 600 to 1 damage to power ever since they reworked power dungeons had become 10 15 mins runs and after removeing stats caps it became worse

raymond00713 · March 2016

Could be an xbox thing, like one poster said. I've only played on xbox but i cant wait to hear these complaints on there and then be able to call them out. No one ran castle never when it was available because everyone considered it a waste of time. People talked to you like you were an idiot for even suggesting running CN. Nope, they rather farm much quicker dungeons. I'm willing to bet those same people will complain about the shorter version of CN..

tripsofthrymr · March 2016

slurpy911 said:
Mostly everyone has realized that dungeons aren't what they used to be. Dungeons used to have hidden paths or alternate paths. No it is one way or no way. No more excitement or anything... And now the total mess up with Castle Never. From T3 down to T2. And what upsets me most is It was a dungeon that could take you up to a hour. That was like a end game dungeon for me. Now we get a barely 15 minute joke.
*SAD*

If you run in one of the 4K channels (which I do) CN is laughably easy. We had a run where neither the 2nd boss nor Orcus had an opportunity to trigger their second phases (spiked ceiling and green orbs) because we burned them so fast. On the other hand, I also went with groups where CN was mighty challenging.

I love exploring dungeons, checking stuff out and seeing what's there. The fact is, hardly anyone ever does that in MMOs. One reason is certainly the repetition factor. After the first few days, most if not all party members already checked out the alternate paths. Secondly, the alternate paths don't offer a reason beyond curiosity to take them.

Here's a partial solution: (Pseudo-) randomly hide desirable loot in the dungeon. Create several optional paths that may (or may not) have tough encounters along the way, and separately may (or may not) have worthwhile treasure. Challenge the grinding party intellectually to figure out whether they should head straight for the main boss, or whether there is economic benefit (time vs. reward) to explore side paths.

And another partial solution: The Lair of Lostmauth adds 3 paths, one of which opens randomly. Instead, create three paths that the party can choose from, and randomly vary the encounters along those paths. For example:

Path A
90% chance of trash mobs
10% chance of really, really tough encounter that takes a while (and can drop something worth having)

Path B
70% chance of trash mobs
30% chance of a really (but not really, really) tough encounter

Path C
50% chance of trash mobs
50% chance of a tough encounter

For added flair, have the allocation to each path vary weekly or daily.

Cryptic, I hear you. That's a lot more work to program with your limited resources and tight schedule. However, it's that extra mile that creates player loyalty, and gets players to tell their friends to come on back and give the game another try.

The new Castle Never, despite some complaints, shows a steady improvement in the fun factor (though please, can you introduce a time portal that lets us run the old one too?) Keep on your trajectory and enough players will be happy. Step it up, create some real variability in the dungeon experience, and many players will be thrilled. Balance it so that both average and expert players are challenged, and we'll love you.

feanor70118 · March 2016

I frankly hate speed runs in dungeons. I think I only managed to thoroughly explore old CN once, because my party was down to three like-minded players and we figured why the heck not. The new one isn't horrible but the old one was terrific. The new green death balls are a typical lazy Cryptic idea, though - something that pointlessly kills you unless you have a bubble paladin around. How is it supposed to be enjoyable to die for no reason because you are lagging behind your party due to 1) typical server issues, 2) the absurd RNG making you spend 6 kits to open ONE FRAKKING NODE at a supposed 75% chance, 3) playing a ranged character that just happens to typically run a little behind? Just. Give. Us. Our. Old. Epic. Dungeons. Back.

Why are you destroying dungeons?

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