Dungeon-based campaign tree?

hustin1 · December 2014

Sometimes when I'm bored I go around soloing dungeons, with an eye toward looking for lore, side areas, or generally anything I haven't seen before. Last night, before I entered Gray Wolf Den, I took some time to look around in front of the entrance. When looking up at the surrounding cliffs I noticed that they are riddled with Netherese ruins and it gave me something to think about.

What if certain zones had not just one dungeon but several, with perhaps a campaign tree linking them?

Vellosk is so loaded with ruins, especially in those cliffs, that I started wondering what it would be like trying to explore them. The cliffs look like they hide a truly massive complex, but perhaps accessing every nook and cranny isn't just a matter of breaking through entrances: maybe one first has to gain certain ancient Netherese knowledge to enter -- and maybe that can only be accomplished by retrieving that knowledge from other Netherese dungeons.

So, I started envisioning a Vellosk-specific campaign tree, but then had another thought: what if some of these dungeons were chained?

I've seen this outside NWO, where entering a deeper part of a dungeon first required traversing part of an "earlier" one. I certainly wouldn't chain them all, but having multi-part dungeons could add to the feel of doing something really epic. One could argue that Castle Never qualifies, but it's not quite the same. You can always run the entire dungeon and it only has loot at the end. A campaign tree could involve boons, companions, or other mechanics that a single-run dungeon cannot.

Anyway, the idea has only been percolating for less than 12 hours, but it has me intrigued. I'm not talking about two or three extra dungeons here, but half a dozen or more.

gabrieldourden · December 2014

That would be great actually! We desperately need more interesting content and less power creep.

myles08807 · December 2014

Agreed wholeheartedly. Planting dragons in lower-level adventure zones has a very small side-effect that I deeply appreciate: 60s get to revisit these places and perhaps stumble across lore they missed or dark corners they haven't seen. (Every one of my seven toons has fully-lit maps; I've gone into every accessible part I can find of every zone.) "Excavating" beneath existing low-level dungeons to produce new epic content makes sense from the immersion point of view and from a story standpoint as well: There are far more aboleths lurking at the depths of the Chasm, a whole complex of caves only hinted at beneath the Cathedral in Helm's Hold, and yes, those Netherese ruins at Vellosk: all canonical, and all waiting for expansion...

kolatmaster · December 2014

This would be awesome! :cool:

loboguild · December 2014

I think a campaign structure similar to the PVP one is possible and could be introduced as early as Mod 6 because I think they have to move away from the dailies meta a bit. They also said they want to get people into older content in the AMA Reddit and such a campaign would fill that task as well.

zeusom · December 2014

Dungeon campaign tree is a great idea! This is Dungeons & Dragons after all.
In a way the zone dungeons were the first module.

silverkelt · December 2014

What I would like to see is actual DD's that give you something of value (RP!)
That can be joined with people you like to run with.

Getting a guaranteed black opal for every run, is a reason to run things on a constant basis again.

z0skii · December 2014

Sounds like a great idea. Hope mod 6 does bring something like this to the table.

yokanaan · December 2014

That's a very good idea

I would love to visit some old instances and meet some new challenging opponents in Vellosk, Pirate Skyhold or wherever it may take you. Chained dungeons would be realtively easy to design because Neverwinter is based on instances. We need to revisit these leveling instances because some had a really great and fun design and after you reach 60 you are too occupied with campaign tasks in high lvl zones.

rabbinicus · December 2014

Love the idea, hope they implement this very soon!

blackyluke · December 2014

hustin1 wrote: »

What if certain zones had not just one dungeon but several, with perhaps a campaign tree linking them?
Anyway, the idea has only been percolating for less than 12 hours, but it has me intrigued. I'm not talking about two or three extra dungeons here, but half a dozen or more.

OP your a genius!
A really great idea upgrading the normal questline system and maybe change it to a campaign - at best a tree system, with sidequests as branches.
A dungeon line with a deeper story to it would be AWESOME.

loboguild wrote: »

I think a campaign structure similar to the PVP one is possible and could be introduced as early as Mod 6 because I think they have to move away from the dailies meta a bit.

Agreed the DnD, appears like Dailies&Dailies to me already.
When this is Mod 6 when do we encounter Valindra in her retreat then? That *** I wanna find and kill her, im searching for over a year!

I think Mod 6 is already in the works, but nothing is revealed as of now. Either they aren't far in or it should be as suprise, the previous modules have been announced way ahead. However im sure the concept of Mod 6 is done.

loboguild wrote: »

They also said they want to get people into older content in the AMA Reddit and such a campaign would fill that task as well.

Welp, typical theme in NW sadly. When the Dev team creates a lets say enemy unit. Its only a reskin/remodel of an excisting enemy or they copy over the abilites/encounters/powers of excisting ones. Also after some time they introduce it as companion/mount so its used again.
Im a little bit disgusted how everything in this game gets recycled. Don't get me wrong, I recycle too! However sometimes this game creates unique things, beautiful things and copying or using it again, destroys this for me.

Looking forward to some Dev seeing this and making notes in his diary! Please, community mods when your not busy closing threads pass this to one of them.

gerult · December 2014

What a great idea, but the boons should just effective on pve content

carlfestin · December 2014

i would love to re-explore with a lot of fun incentives accompanied with exciting new quests on old maps that will be ignored after reaching level 60. Adding more lore, fun objectives, odd entertainments and certain chain quests that would be a player base decisions to decisions on which path on a chain quests each player wants to take. for example there was 2 paths to pick path A or path B. if i pick Path B path A chain quest would be locked and won't permitted me to enter path A specific chain-quested maps and path A would lead to another decision to Path B-1 or take Path B-2. this way certain players can group up to explore also have a different group experiences even if it's a limitation certain access. i would love to explore a solo chain quest that has certain difference from others or group up with friend to find out how far along can we go. Dungeon-Based Campaign Tree that Branches off to different paths.

Hahaha! wishful thinking and i know this won't be implemented on mod 6

:cool:

bioshrike · December 2014

silverkelt wrote: »

What I would like to see is actual DD's that give you something of value (RP!)
That can be joined with people you like to run with.

Getting a guaranteed black opal for every run, is a reason to run things on a constant basis again.

Add refining stones to Unicorn & Drake seal vendors, as well as a refining chance box to each, which can contain anything from a white pearl to a blood ruby, (all BtA of course).

postagepaid · January 2015

One thing about adding new dungeons that would worry me is that we'd get poorly designed ones like the prison for the well area where you're forced to fight end boss plus umpteen adds (by which point has become an incredibly boring and dull way of making a fight "hard") in a miniscule area.

To offset this and get some quality content they could have a foundry design contest with a set theme where the top 10 were taken, tied together into a story and placed in the game. Then all cryptic would really have to do would be to add the dodgy voice acting on top. A refining chest would be good however safe bet it would be more likely to spit out a pearl or two rather than anything useful.

Getting people into older content is a great idea since they made it far too easy to outlevel the older content and by the way the modules work have a built in obsolescence angle being worked. Dread ring was the last zone I regularly ran with my various alts although I will admit that the lagwind dale preformance issues will have impacted on that.

lewel555 · January 2015

Also in the third area of Sharandar, near the fomorian warriors there is an entrance to a temple/dungeon.

blackyluke · January 2015

lewel555 wrote: »

Also in the third area of Sharandar, near the fomorian warriors there is an entrance to a temple/dungeon.

You find unused areas and dungeon entrances in all Adventure Zones. NW did not start with PWE and Cryptic. NW is a requiem a piece that is finished by somebody else. Therefore you have a huge crack, between old and new content and also a quality difference.

Dungeon-based campaign tree?

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