Guild Wars 2

And not just a new dungeon, but also a new dungeon style, like Fractals of the Mists.

Right now, there are a few things that are severely lacking in dungeon content: there is a lack of content that can’t be cleared easily by stacking DPS, there’s a lack of good solo content in dungeons, and there’s a lack of difficulty. (Not to mention persistent new content!)

I really liked how Guild Wars 1 pulled off dungeons, so this is my attempt to pull some of what I believe made Guild Wars 1 dungeons interesting into a Guild Wars 2 dungeon, along with adding several other unique twists and roguelike-based elements.

Depths of Tyria
Depths of Tyria would be a multi-layered one-person dungeon with a significant amount of differently numbered depths, and checkpoints at the end of every depth. Each checkpoint would save your progress on the character, and you’d be able to return to any depth that you’ve already cleared. And, of course, each depth cleared would also increase the difficulty of subsequent levels.

Due to taking place deep underground, a significant majority of the levels in the Depths of Tyria would be mazelike and populated by large swarms of Destroyers, with occasional lava seas acting as Destroyer spawning points and obstacles to be traversed. Due to this, the dungeon would be a test of not only skill but also perseverance: can you make it to the end of the Depth and navigate through the corridors, even as the lava seas spawn Destroyers every moment who patrol through the caves in increasing numbers?

Mechanics
The Depths of Tyria would be populated by Destroyers. A certain amount (dependent on depth) would start the area roaming through the caverns, and as time goes on, more would spawn from lava seas distributed around the depth. Obviously, the deeper you are, the more would spawn from the lava sea.

If you die within a depth, there are no waypoints to resurrect at. You have failed that depth and are promptly removed from the instance.

There would be a very large pool of possible cavern layouts, some of which would only appear at certain depth ranges. All depths, however, would select from a pool of cavern layouts available to their range, in order to make each level unpredictable. Only a significant amount of time spent in the Depths would allow one to recognize which cavern they were currently in, and things such as randomized spawn points and exit points could further shake things up.

At lower/higher-numbered depths, a debuff would be in place in the dungeon that makes you move slower and cast skills slower. The longer you are in a depth without finding a hidden underground wellspring, the more the debuff would stack, until it maxes out at 25, causing constant damage. Entering an underground wellspring cleanses the debuff, applies a long-lasting regeneration buff, and prevents it from happening again for a certain period of time.

There would be three “major” terrain features in the Depths of Tyria. One would be the natural mazelike caverns that make up the majority of each area. The second would be lava seas, which spawn Destroyers and bear significant resemblance to the area that the Great Destroyer from EotN was fought in, with small stepping stones leading across. The third would be underground springs, which would be distributed around each area. Each underground spring would apply a buff that removes the heat debuff you get from traversing the area at lower depths. However, after a small amount of uses from each underground spring, it would dry up, leaving it open to be attacked by Destroyers and forcing you to move on.

At each underground spring, there is a random and rare chance of finding a stone dwarf guarding the spring from Destroyers. If you find them, they will follow you and fight alongside you until they die. They are powerful, immune to Burning or the heat debuff, and will take a significant amount of damage before dying, but they do not regenerate health and cannot be resurrected. They will split from you at the end of every depth and continue on their way.

In addition to Destroyers, a few other enemy types can randomly be found, all of which will be hostile to both you and Destroyers:

- Subterranean creatures, such as Cave Scutters.
- Dredge.
- Underworld creatures, such as Imps, Shades, and Aatxes. If they occur, there will be a portal in the area that they spawn from, and they will populate the entire area battling against Destroyers.
- Skritt.
- Inquest.

Every 5 depths, there would be a major champion-level Destroyer boss in a lava sea. Upon entering the area, the Destroyer boss would immediately aggro and begin to chase you through the dungeon. While it would be possible to beat the Destroyer, it would be extremely difficult, taking a long time, a very good gear setup, and intelligent use of terrain and underground wells to retreat into. The other way would be to attempt to outrun it and find the exit to the area.

While attempting to run straight to the exit of each depth would be possible, it would be extremely difficult, thanks to a significant amount of Destroyers using the Cripple status, other Destroyers using ranged attacks, pulls and knockbacks, and others such as the quick, explosive Destroyers from the Only Zuhl jumping puzzle. In addition, rewards at the end of the level would be based on how long you managed to hold out: speedclear the dungeon and kill very few Destroyers and your rewards are paltry, but hold out as long as you can to escape at the last moment and your rewards increase significantly.

Killing a Destroyer boss would yield a significant amount of loot. However, if a portal spawns on the same level as a Destroyer boss, it will instead spawn a very high-level Underworld denizen, which is unkillable, extremely hard-hitting, and must be retreated from, but will significantly boost the amount of rewarded loot upon completion.

If you attempt to camp out in a depth for too long, the caves will become unstable, and will begin raining down debris. This will be prefaced by shaking in the caverns up to a few minutes before it begins. The falling debris will quickly kill you if you don’t find the exit.

In my opinion, this would be a great deal more dynamic and exciting than the dungeons currently ingame, all of which are very static, based on grouping up and DPSing through content, and few of which have innovative dynamics which truly challenge player skill.

While I ended up showing this as a solo dungeon idea, I also think this could easily be put ingame as a group-based dungeon for five people.

With that in mind, what do you think of this idea? And if it were ingame, would you care to play within the dungeon?