PS: Sorry for the wonky english, I’m from Brazil and never did any english classes. All my knowledge came from gaming
Hi fellow dungeon crawlers!
I’ve just done every single path and got my title. Since now I know almost everything there is to know about dungeons, I would like to give some feedback about my journey and hear what you all think about it. I am sure most of these words have already been said in this forum, but if then it will at least serve to reinforce our points.
First of all, I love the scenario of every single dungeon. It’s nice to come back to a place and discover all its mysteries, helping people according to their plans and such. I definitely think it’s the right way to lead the whole system, and it’s way better than just repeating the same content with a higher difficulty.
That said, after our path is chosen there is very little dynamism in the system, and for me this is the biggest downside of it. We choose a path and know exactly wich foes we will face, where they will be, and how they will try to stop us, and it just need to end. In my opinion, Story Mode is where a cohesive, guided narrative should be – while exploring, things must be wild. How can it be achieved? Some ideas:
1) Don’t let us know what we will face
This is what explore means, period. We can’t explore something if we already know everything about it, so don’t let us. Make random mobs attack us at random times along the way – that troll in Ascalon Catacombs is awesome, and there definitely should be more things like it along the way. Don’t just put a pull patrolling the corridor in every situation, but let randomly generated groups trully ambush us.. You know, that’s totally what gravelings, spiders and brigand would do.
Also, don’t specify wich bosses we will find in each path. We can have epic moments, but they can come in a variety of manners – that giant Moria-like hall in Ascalon Catacombs is awesome to house a big boss fight, but also appropriated for a massive graveling burrow spawn with an epic escape to that giant door at the end, you know? Like “I feel something bad is about to happen, guys. But I don’t have any clue what is it”. In a related note, Alpha could also become some sort of Nemesis, attacking us along the way in random places and making us flee or weaken him until the very right moment to finish him off..
2) Give us more options along the way.
I love how we can “mix” paths in Twilight Arbor, and I think we should do it not just more often but better. You should totally let us decide how we will approach some obstacles on the go! There is a big foe in our way, are we going to face it or walk around it in the shadows? Are we activating cannons and traps or use brute force to deal with that horde of minions? Are we going to steal the key to that door, or blast it using powder kegs? Our party could split up in some moments, maybe?
Also, these decisions should matter. That big foe may come back and get us in a harder situation, and that blast from the door could draw attention of the bad kitten janitor. Some NPC or even temporary player sacrifices along the way would also be awesome and give us something to care about. Give us some more Bills and Tybalts!
3) Let us use that geography
Some dungeons are so big and good looking that I wish we could explore them at once, so let us do that instead of finishing a path and starting other from scratch. Don’t make predefined paths, but rather let us chose wich way to go at that intersection. We are exploring, after all.
More importantly, like a truly exploration, reward those who go further. Make we feel rewarded to reach that room in the middle of the dungeon and come back home with nice treasure, but let us go further to confront even more dangerous situations in the promise of better spoils. Feel free to increase content difficulty the more we stick our noses into what we shouldn’t; Make us wake up the Balrog while we search for that Orichalcum..
.. and let us find it, literally. Why don’t you put some (rich?) crafting nodes inside dungeons? What about letting us find salvageable items in the dirty ground and loot corpses while we explore these places? What about meaning POIs, and even Vistas? Give a meaning to all those empty corners. It would blend wonderfuly with the whole “don’t let us know what we will face” thing.
Last words
You have proven more than capable of doing something like that before. Some Personal Story moments are really touching, and the Dynamic Event system is so awesome and powerful, being able to interact with players on the go. But more important than anything, you have talented people who can make amazing content possible. Thank you so much for what you have given us so far.. But also give us MOAR!
(edited by Yulan.4069)