I have been delving into dungeon content recently and there are a couple of bits of feedback I would provide.
- Consistency of Challenge:
It’s an acknowledged fact that certain dungeons have much easier explorable modes than others, with most people rating Citadel of Flame and Ascalon Catacombs at the lower end and Crucible of Eternity and Arah towards the upper end of the scale. Even within these dungeons, however, there are certain paths that are more challenging than others. I would be perfectly happy to take a relatively inexperienced group into Crucible of Eternity Path 1, but would not be optimistic about their chances in Path 2 and Path 3.
This isn’t necessarily an issue. I think the addition of Fractals of the Mists has proven that many players, myself amongst them, enjoy experiencing challenging content. The issue from my perspective is that the rewards are the same regardless of which dungeon and path are selected. This, unfortunately, usually results in players avoiding the more challenging paths in favour of taking the easy option: particularly when it comes to farming tokens for their exotic gear. Most of the people running the harder paths are either in it for the challenge, like myself, or for a particular set of appearances or stats that are particular for that dungeon.
Given that Fractals of the Mists has introduced the concept of having better rewards for more challenging content, it seems a shame that the rest of the dungeons are left behind. Perhaps the more challenging paths and dungeons could have higher drop rates or reward more tokens? Or, more radically, the dungeons and paths could be re-balanced to be more in line with each other and additional ‘hard mode’ paths added in that provide more challenge and additional rewards (perhaps in the form of ascended items). Either way, some consistency in risk vs reward across the dungeons would be much desired.
- Awarding Completion:
This ties back in with some of my points regarding rewards, however at the moment a common theme in dungeons is to skip past many of the sub-bosses, champions and normal creatures in order to complete the dungeon faster. For many dungeon running groups this has become the norm rather than the exception. Why? Because the rewards for the dungeon are largely front-loaded in the chests awarded for primary bosses and the final reward for completing the dungeon. Given this fact, it is most beneficial for a group to finish a dungeon quickly rather than to clear it completely.
The recent patch to add bags of loot to sub-bosses has gone some way to rectifying this issue, however the bags have not been added consistently and some bosses (Subject Alpha in CoE comes to mind) reward bags on only some encounters and not others. What I would suggest is that rewards should be spread more consistently across the dungeon. Perhaps, rather than rewarding all the tokens at the end, the reward should be split and tokens awarded for the completion of each boss along the way? I would also go further and suggest that the bags of loot be made more pervasive and a low chance given for normal mobs to drop them. This would add additional motivation for completely clearing a dungeon, as groups who did this would receive additional tokens and rewards. You could go even further and perhaps grant an extra chest for killing all enemies in a dungeon path.