So, here’s another idea on the table, an endlessly updating zone that has small new additions every living story update, the Endless Labyrinth (Working Title).
What is the Endless Labyrinth?
The idea behind this between myself and a colleague was a giant maze like open dungeon accessible to every player in the game at any given time that has the first real sign of vertical progression in the game, agony atunement.
In order to enter the Labyrinth you only need to be level 80 and have finished at least 1 tier of fractals, allowing players to enter at any given time with huge zerg like raids designed for large groups and difficult encounters.
An idea of the Layout
So, imagine if you will, entering a large room which everyone enters as a form of open lobby, and at any given time you or anyone else can just waltz off into this endless maze, there is only one way point in the entire place which means that if you die alone you’re going to spend a while going back the way you came.
The zone winds into many different tunnels all with singular rooms specifically designed with miniature world bosses, each one a very tough and challenging encounter designed specifically to be progressively harder the deeper you go with yourself and your group.
Not only are the bosses more difficult, have more HP, do more damage, but in addition you require more agony resistance to progress deeper into each layer of the maze, giving you a reason to go back to do fractals of increasing difficulty, while returning to this endless open world raid for the real challenges of the hardcore.
Sounds fun, but what kind of rewards would I get for killing the bosses?
The Bosses would each contain a very specific skin drop that has a guaranteed chance to drop for any player that defeats them, but for obvious reasons, each one would be more difficult to attain than the last.
These skin drops would range from armor skins shared by all three classes, to weapon skins only attainable by downing the boss.
In addition, later and more difficult bosses would have chance to drop exotic and even ascended quality materials needed for crafting.
How many Tiers would the place have?
There is a reason it is called the “Endless” Labyrinth, so one can assume the tiers literally never end, however, obviously due to game play implementation there is only so much one can add initially and later on.
The idea would work along the lines of this:
Launch Tier: Ten Bosses, three at the first tier difficulty, two at the second tier, and then one for every subsequent difficulty beyond that.
Additions Tiers: Every Living Story patch a new boss is added to the dungeon at an additional tier, with even greater difficulty and new weapon/armor skin additions.
This essentially means that when you enter the open raid, there are three bosses for the easiest challenge, two for the moderate, and from that point onwards, only the hardcore would really dare to keep progressing onwards.
Boss rooms and between encounters would grow progressively harder as you go deeper, with agony resistance and a 3% increase to every random mobs stats for each tier.
Technically we already have Fractals for this kinda thing
We do, but Fractals are five man dungeons compared to a proper end game style raid, this is more of a challenging, zerg scaled tactics heavy gauntlet that requires a lot of planning and preparation for the end game guilds and essentially adds just that “the end game”.
In addition, there could be a leader board for the guild/players that kill the bosses the fastest, thus giving a form of pve competition to the end game.
I also feel this would be a great way for A-net to add new assets to the game subtly, as each boss room could be filled with elaborate in game detailing allowing for texture map tests and subtle teasers to new scenery they may be playing with.