There is some great discussion in this thread and a number of good ideas. I’ve seen two major conversations happening:
1) Dungeons are too rewarding for the amount of effort required
2) Dungeons create too much gold, inflating the economy
I’d like to weigh in on both matters.
1) Effort vs Reward
There is some variety in experience here depending on the path, the players and the group. For simplicity I will refer to less experienced groups consisting of LFG and PUG groups as ‘open’ groups and more experienced and organized groups with optimized gear that frequently run dungeons as ‘organized’ groups.
Currently, organized groups may feel that certain paths are too rewarding for the effort required, but that is rarely the case for the less experienced open groups. Organized parties have optimized gear and often utilize shortcuts that speed up the run that open groups are not equipped for or aware of. Shortcuts vary from taking advantage of enemy AI or bugs to sneaking through seemingly impassable terrain. These shortcuts lower the effort for the organized groups, so while the effort/reward ratio feels appropriate for the open groups, knowing and using the shortcuts makes it feel too easy.
I think that bug-fixing/removing some of these shortcuts will help equalize the disparity between the organized groups and the open groups. Remove the shortcuts and the organized groups will have to put in full effort more similar to open groups for the same reward. The more skilled/ better equipped organized groups will still complete dungeons faster than the open groups, but not by taking shortcuts. This also prevents making an overall “nerf” to the amount of loot rewarded. Remove shortcuts like terrain skipping and take steps to ensure that bosses will be fought “straight up” by all groups. Examples:
- Ascalon Catacombs, Spider Queen- Remove the nook between the entrance stairs and the fence so she can’t be pulled into an area where she won’t use her multi-AoE poison pool attack.
- Twilight Arbor, Fyonna- Pull the group into the boss room and close the door behind you until the boss is defeated/party wipes similar to the Molten Boss fractal. This ensures that the boss’s mechanic (the spider eggs) is a factor in the fight instead of pulling her into a hallway away from the intended battlefield.
Removing shortcuts like these that make particular dungeons the “daily easy dungeons” may help equalize the effort/reward ratios for other dungeon paths or may expose opportunities where rewards balance may still need to be adjusted in the future.
2)Dungeon Gold and the Economy
Dungeons do seem to put a substantial amount of coin into the economy. I agree that is does seem to create more coin as a reward than is beneficial to the economy over time, however, I do not feel that players should receive less reward for completing dungeons. Instead I propose converting the daily bonus rewards to a material standard. Giving players valuable/desirable rewards other than gold limits gold inflation, helping the economy at large with minimal negative impact to the dungeon rewards of players.
Someone above mentioned the possibility of dungeons giving a number of t6 materials instead of a direct gold reward. I propose going generally that direction, but not directly/specifically t6 mats. Instead add a new universal dungeon token replacing the gold awarded in the daily bonus reward for dungeon paths, and a vendor that accepts these tokens for a variety of rewards similar to a laurel vendor.
Adding yet another currency to the game wasn’t my first choice, but it seems to be the least complicated solution to ensure that they can be maximum reward with minimal balancing. Simply replace the current gold bonus at the rate of 1 new token per 50 silver (CoF1= 2 tokens, AC3= 3 tokens, Arah1= 6 tokens). The vendor would then sell things that the player could use or sell on the trading post for gold. Similar to the first tab of the laurel vendor, but instead of ascended rings, trinkets, and amulets, options such as common crafting materials, dragonite ore, liquid karma or icy runestones. Instead of the existing minis and cat tonic, different minis, tonics or even something completely different for a cosmetic reward like a unique hat or back item. Maybe an item similar to the fractal capacitor or spinal blades that can be upgraded over time as a stretch goal.
By replacing gold with reward tokens prevents the creation of gold, while rewarding players with either the items that they would want to spend gold on, or items that they can sell to other players in exchange for gold. The material rewards stimulate trade, removing additional coin from the economy without removing player wealth.