This isn’t my idea. I was watching Tales of Tyria and they mentioned this concept. I’m just improving on their idea.
The problem with dungeons now is that they are a tedious way of grinding for gold, tokens and loot. Also, because so many enemies have high hp and low drop rates, they are commonly skipped because it’s usually not worth the effort to deal with them. Those are issues that lead to finding exploits and a more general consensus that using them is okay.
All this can be fixed with a dungeon point system. The basic concept behind it is, just about everything you do in a dungeon will grant you points. For example let’s say that dodging at the right time netted you 2 points. That 2 points will be added to your personal score and the overall party score. Other things that would give points is healing, removing conditions and buffing allies, giving conditions and stripping boons from enemies, interrupting attacks, disabling traps, combing attacks, reviving allies and so on. Of course some things like combos should give more points and combos involving more than one party member get an even greater amount. In this manner, playing well and cooperating well will you a higher score. On the other hand, skipping content will cause potential point loss.
I will add that time to completion should be left out completely as the only thing it will encourage are speedruns. That gets enough encouragement on its own.
At the end of the dungeon, these points will be tallied for each player by adding their personal score with the overall group score. The end result will affect how much karma, dungeon tokens and gold they gain. However, if they reach particular milestones, it will affect the choices of the 4th drop.
The 4th will be a choice between armor, a weapon, crafting materials or upgrade components. If the player did poorly, they’ll get white quality choices. While these will have the skins of the dungeon, they’ll have the stats of similar quality items. The quality will become higher and higher until they reach rare, in which case they’ll be able to choose from dungeon specific items sold by dungeon vendors. At the exotic level, they’ll get the best items that dungeon can offer, with the exception of fractals, which is according to the best the fractal level can offer.
I feel this system will encourage players to cooperate more as it benefits the individual and the party as a whole. They are also less likely to skip content because that will lower their overall score. I can see using exploits may actively be discouraged because not dodging boss attacks, having no reason to heal or running past groups of enemies will only lower the overall score. Not to mention high scores are bragging rights.
Naturally there will have to be checks and balances to ensure the score system can’t be abused easily. My first thought is a group of people dodging boss attacks until they reach exotic level. A way to handle that is to give bonus points at the end for achievements like never being downed or defeated, which would be a lot faster to gain than dodging for an hour. Care should be taken to anything that could potential put party members in rivalries that are detrimental to the overall party performance. In addition to that, this system has to be designed so that it’s more beneficial to play dungeons similar to the way they were designed than to rush to the last boss and grab the tokens.
And now I’m going to do my best to encourage critical thinking. I know there are going to be naysayers but, before you just type, “that’s stupid and never going to work,” I want you guys to give me detailed reasons as to why you think it won’t. Those reasons need to be backed up by hard facts. For instance, if you say, “90% of players are going to do things this way,” I need you to show me at least two examples where 9 out of 10 people did so. However, if you say, “I don’t like it because of this,” that will hold a lot more weight because it shows your personal opinion.
For everyone else, if you have something to add to it then, by all means, do so. I’ve already added my 2 cents and would love to see yours as well.