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Old 04/08/08, 9:02 AM   #1876
Emily
Piston Honda
 
Blood Elf Paladin
 
Doomhammer (EU)
Originally Posted by Vaccine View Post
At the "Rail Shooter" people, what is it exactly that you want from dungeons? I for one don't want to see a return to the sprawling monstrosity that is Blackrock Depths. Is it just a complaint because you can't choose a path or which order to go in? BRD had so many paths I actually spent time in a cleared instance once just working out where everything was and how to get to various places from somewhere. That sort of dungeon is a relic of an inferior system, as is its spanning of a large level gap (like 6-7 levels at first).
Big wide-open dungeons are fun. Sometimes. BRD was nightmarish to PUG, especially at first, as you had 5 people all wanting to visit different areas, usually with no real idea of how to get there or how they linked up.

I do think the "sprawling maze" mechanic has a place in the game, but I would argue it's better suited to a 10 man dungeon. You typically have more time set aside to run a 10-man, and you're usually with a group of people who either have similar goals in there, or will be understanding if you want to make a deviation in there (clearing out side rooms in Kara's approach to Maiden to get the journal etc).

The current 10 mans in TBC display this to some degree - Kara has optional bosses, ZA has a degree of freedom in terms of choosing boss order, and using shortcuts to cut down on clear times - but I do agree that they could be made a bit more sprawling and free-form.

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Old 04/08/08, 9:31 AM   #1877
Nezralix
Bald Bull
 
Orc Warrior
 
Burning Blade
Originally Posted by Vaccine View Post
I for one don't want to see a return to the sprawling monstrosity that is Blackrock Depths.
I do.

Sure, it could stand to be a bit more intuitive than BRD was, but that's essentially what a dungeon *is*. What the hell kind of dungeon never even gives you the opportunity to decide which way you want to go? And not only are they strategically boring, but the extremely flat, horizontal architecture is aesthetically bland.

They can have a dungeons that essentially have no purpose but to be whipped for loot, but they also need a few dungeons with some substance.

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Old 04/08/08, 9:49 AM   #1878
Maledict
Bald Bull
 
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Undead Mage
 
Bloodhoof (EU)
Blackrock deapth was fun though. Its nice with the option to explore. But they could very well have done it differently. Perhaps have the whole mountain with most of BRD and even some of UBRS/LBRS be non instanced. So there is the big city to explore; possibly make the area elite with group quests;
Whilst I can see both sides of the BRD arguement, I want to point out what a monstrously awful idea this would be, in every sense of the word. Outdoor elite areas do not work. They didn't work in the original game (Stromguard nayone? Hinterland troll city? Heck just the crap outside ST was bad enough). They don't work in TBC (Seen many folks doing the Path of Glory quests in Shadowmoon valley recently?). Apart from one off encounters, outdoor stuff has to be soloable. WoW ahs shown time and time again that if you have large areas of non-instanced elites, the vast majority of your playerbase will never go near it. And the older that content gets, the worse it becomes.

In the bigger scheme of things, I suspect that Blizzard will keep the sprawling, maze like instances to the 10 player stuff on a lockout timer, so you don't feel like you have to burn an entire instance in one go. 5 player instances really are aimed at the "one hour to play" max crowd, and if you want to facilitate that playstyle, then stuff has to be laid out very easily, and players have to feel a constant sense of "getting somewhere" - something very much missing from most BRD / BRS runs.

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Old 04/08/08, 10:02 AM   #1879
Vaeys
Von Kaiser
 
Draenei Shaman
 
Khadgar
PvP - currently one new battleground and Lake Wintergrasp (Westfall-sized) zone coming in Wrath. Siege weapons & destructible buildings will probably play a (semi-)large role in both - possibly AV done "right"? I'd guess Wintergrasp would have some combination of the world pvp elements they've used in TBC (Auch towers plus Halaa?) and daily/repeatable quests as a source of honour in the zone to get people coming back. (and/or Halaa style tokens)

They did say they were looking at multiple maps for each style (capture the flag, etc) in the Blizzcast, though I'd expect it later rather than sooner.


Item Quality - For whatever reason, they completely avoided having multiple "tiers" of blue-quality gear in TBC - the upgrade path is (with a couple of exceptions) green -> blue -> purple - blue ilvls have been stuck at 115. Maybe they're trying to avoid having lower-level epics surpassed by blues for whatever reason (to keep it "simple" for those who don't know or care about ilvls and item stat distribution - purple > blue > green, full stop).

Regardless, it seems unlikely they'd change it for Wrath (and I find the possibility of having separate colours for PvP-earned gear even less likely)... though having different models for PvE vs PvP obtained gear, or some other way of making it easier to distinguish at a look (rather than just a colour-swap) what sort of player you're looking at.


Dungeons on rails - there is some medium between dungeons in normal and dungeons in TBC - it seemed there was a lot more to "do" in instances at 60 (far more quests involving bosses and storyline related stuff) than ones at 70 - go in, kill bosses, kill endboss for quest, get heroic key, continue. Badges and rep do mean you have more of a reason to run the 70 dungeons continually however.

More storyline and "epic" questlines for Wrath dungeons would be nice

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Old 04/08/08, 10:14 AM   #1880
Maledict
Bald Bull
 
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Undead Mage
 
Bloodhoof (EU)
More storylines would definitely be good. I felt Tempest Keep was okay for this, but Auchindon Crypts for example really was the pits - no clue why you were going in there, no relevance between each instance, and only the fact that Mana tombs & Murmur were fun made it interesting. They definitely need to tie the storyline and quests together better for these instances.

(A one line quote from Vashj as her bridge opens up does not explain the Serpentshrine Cavern instances at all, for example. A Horde questline that 99% of the server never even knew existed is not good enough explanation for Auchindon. In their effort to make the instances very accessable, they lost a lot of the good stuff that made them work). IF we go into Uldum and find the same style quest & storyline as most TBC instances, I'll be dissapointed.

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Old 04/08/08, 10:33 AM   #1881
Kumar
Don Flamenco
 
Blood Elf Rogue
 
Exodar
I agree, there needs to be more focused storyline initiatives for the instances. I think they did it nicely for HP instances (atleast from the Horde side), but IMO Terokkar Forest and Zangmarash in themselves seemed like a boring area to me and the main reason to run the instances in that area was for rep and drops.

But just in TBC there are areas of the map that don't really fit in that well. I loved SMV because that zone felt epic, so much going on, great stories, great quests. Netherstorm was a slap in the face, didn't even know there was an instance in that area till I looked up on Wiki about running Mechanar. For an area like Netherstorm, we don't need Goblin towns, we needed towns for Shatar, Aldor, Scryers.

Murmur actually had a better story attached to it in someway but I would like them to kickoff the storylines for instances in an area from the major quest hubs that exist for that area.

In that same vein, I would actually like to see the story arc for getting to Arthas kick off from the moment we land on North rend, getting into Icecrown Citadel shouldn't be a walk in the park.

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Old 04/08/08, 10:44 AM   #1882
Yenadar
Piston Honda
 
Dwarf Paladin
 
Stormrage
I also, would like to have at least 1 10-man that is the sprawling monstrosity of BRD. However, give the different paths exclusion locks of some type, so that in 1 run, you can only do a given area of the instance. A soft reset would reset these locks so that you can run it multiple times in the 3-day lock period, each run being different and interesting. They could easily model the instance after the Shattered Sun Offensive, in that your first time in after the hard reset you have to take out A, B, and C bosses. Then a soft reset converts much of that area to neutral/friendly, and you assist with their assault on the next D, E, and F bosses the next time you are in. Another soft reset has most of the outter defenses over-come, and the final entry into the instance has you taking on the last 1 or 2 bosses. The instance is hard-reset on the 3-day timer, giving the casuals enough time to fully complete it, hard core can clear each phase right before or after raiding, but keeps a progession of sorts within the 10-man, but at the same time as not requiring tons of time to sit down and clear it. (or allowing a 2-3 hour speed clear once a week.)

I enjoy khara still, but I wish there was something different about it when I run it, rather than being exactly the same path/strat every single time. I love BRD in that I can take a different route each time, but yes, was a massive pain to figure everything out in the first place. This type of idea would keep that pain out, but still have the size and expansiveness of the instance in place, and make each individual run interesting. Not exactly the same thing every single time. Even a rotation among 3-4 set paths is preferable than the current rail shooters.

I frequently get irritated enough with them and their lack of change, that I get sorely tempted just to drag each boss to the end and fight them all at the same time for something new. Moroes then Maiden? or Maiden then Moroes? is about the only change in Khara. (Heck, I've even pulled Maiden down to Moroes once for something different). Even ZA it's still, Do a circle, clockwise or counterclock wise, then a line from there to Zul'Jin. It is quite a bit more interesting than Khara, but still falls short of the mark. Give me goals within the instance, make changes in the instance based on who I kill when. Make it so that I can get a different fight when I go in the instance, and not just "the doomfire runs in a different direction!" Random bosses are somewhat nice.... but still short of the mark. Make the INSTANCE change. It isn't beyond Blizzard's capabilities.

Last edited by Yenadar : 04/08/08 at 10:51 AM.

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Old 04/08/08, 12:05 PM   #1883
Smear
Glass Joe
 
Human Paladin
 
Steamwheedle Cartel
Originally Posted by Yenadar View Post
I also, would like to have at least 1 10-man that is the sprawling monstrosity of BRD. However, give the different paths exclusion locks of some type, so that in 1 run, you can only do a given area of the instance.
I utterly fail to see the purpose in excluding people from doing as much of the instance as they want to on a certain day. If they want to devote an entire Saturday to clearing the instance, why not let them? If they're overgeared for the instance and want to just swiftly crush the whole thing, why stop them?

A soft reset would reset these locks so that you can run it multiple times in the 3-day lock period, each run being different and interesting.
In the current model, "soft resets" take only 30 minutes to accomplish. Thus, all you'd be forcing people to do is take periodic 30 minute breaks.

I still fail completely to see any benefit behind any of this. What is your motivation? If you want variety, then you're perfectly welcome to *choose* to break the instance up into different sections and do them on different days.

I enjoy khara still, but I wish there was something different about it when I run it, rather than being exactly the same path/strat every single time. I love BRD in that I can take a different route each time, but yes, was a massive pain to figure everything out in the first place.
I concur that making dungeons more diverse, more sprawling, more option-permitting is a good thing. But *forcing* people to follow specific options to the exclusion of others directly contradicts the very versatility you're attempting to inject. Design your cool dungeon, sure. But then allow me to pick and choose how I wish to explore it. Otherwise, your dungeon is really no better.

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Old 04/08/08, 12:19 PM   #1884
Kumar
Don Flamenco
 
Blood Elf Rogue
 
Exodar
If you could implement the randomness of RTS maps (even though they aren't truly random) to Dungeon Design you have a good case of keeping things interesting for quite some time.

I too would like to see a starting 10-man dungeon like Kara for our initial gearing up.

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Old 04/08/08, 1:00 PM   #1885
Douglas
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Night Elf Druid
 
Earthen Ring
Originally Posted by Smear View Post
I utterly fail to see the purpose in excluding people from doing as much of the instance as they want to on a certain day. If they want to devote an entire Saturday to clearing the instance, why not let them? If they're overgeared for the instance and want to just swiftly crush the whole thing, why stop them?
Thinking back to my own early days of running BRD, I think I know why.

Did you PUG BRD much? You often had people who had no idea what the scope of the instance was. People wanted to do different areas, and fought about where to go and what to do next, and it was easy to waste a lot of time. I think the person you're responding to is looking for some way to force PUGs to focus, at least for short periods of time. "I know you'd like to hit the anvil, but we literally can't until we do this other stuff first."

That's my theory anyhow. I haven't run a PUG (to anywhere!) in a very long time, so I don't know if things have gotten better, but I'm actually considering starting to run them again.

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Old 04/08/08, 1:01 PM   #1886
Yenadar
Piston Honda
 
Dwarf Paladin
 
Stormrage
Smear:
Actual application could easily shift around, but the object was to get away from the static un-changing instances. MY point/request was more towards the fact that the instance evolves and changes as you run it. I only included the comments about soft resets and such since that was the first way that jumped to mind that they could mark changes to the instance during any 1 given lock period. There are certainly more ways to accomplish this.

And not something as simple as crawling through the sewer to kill 1 boss behind a locked door, that now opens, and get to the end boss before he kills a prisoner. (SH)

Make the instance runable in 1 session... sure. But make it change as you run it. And more than just a door gets unlocked or a prisoner doesn't get killed, or the portals spawn in a different spot. BRD changed as you ran it, WAY more than most zones. Even if it was very localized, it still happened more than most zones.

What if Thrawl took one of 3-4 different possible routes when escaping from Durnhold, and you didn't know where exactly you were going to encounter the paladin boss? What if you and Thrawl got ported into a random instance by the last boss, and you had to find and fight the last boss in that instance?

There is so much more that they could put into instances to make them enjoyable for more than just the daily badge farm run. More than 1 way to reach bosses, bosses that don't have to rely on other bosses being dead. Scripts and changes to the instance depending on which bosses died in which order. NPCs changing friendly/neutral/hostile based on what actions you take, and when.

Most players, hardcore or casual, find trash and bosses more enjoyable when they get immersed in it somehow, and there is more to show for killing something than just a sparkling corpse and loot rolls. Even if they had dynamic difficulty, where an early boss kill speed influenced the strength of later bosses.

SOMETHING more than this mindless instance grind.

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Old 04/08/08, 1:02 PM   #1887
Pyros
Bald Bull
 
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Undead Death Knight
 
Twisting Nether (EU)
Originally Posted by Maledict View Post
More storylines would definitely be good. I felt Tempest Keep was okay for this, but Auchindon Crypts for example really was the pits - no clue why you were going in there, no relevance between each instance, and only the fact that Mana tombs & Murmur were fun made it interesting. They definitely need to tie the storyline and quests together better for these instances.

(A one line quote from Vashj as her bridge opens up does not explain the Serpentshrine Cavern instances at all, for example. A Horde questline that 99% of the server never even knew existed is not good enough explanation for Auchindon. In their effort to make the instances very accessable, they lost a lot of the good stuff that made them work). IF we go into Uldum and find the same style quest & storyline as most TBC instances, I'll be dissapointed.
While it was pretty light on the lore, there's a decent storyline in zangarmarsh explaining why you end up going there to check out stuff(the water pumps draining all the watter from zangarmarsh, so it'd end up as the swampish thingie in the northeastern corner of the map). With auchindoun, there's actually quite a few different storylines. One for the skettis lore part with Sethekk, the mana tombs with consortium lore related stuff and the crypts are related to most of terrokar bone wastes shattar rep camp thingie, and also end up being explained somewhat with the nagrand long storyline. Shadow lab though, I'm still unsure what the fuck is it supposed to be. The shadow guys are awakening an ancient being?


But yeah overall the lore aspect has been pretty light. Then again it was the same in the past for a lot of stuff. As far as I remember, you get sent to dire maul east to kill some random people, then you get a key to north/west and only once you're inside you somewhat understand what's going on, very roughly. why is the demon dog imprisonned though, hard to tell, and how he ended there, or why is the north wing overrun by ogres. One of the good lore dungeon zone was blackrock, since you have many quests around that explains what's up, and they're all somewhat linked together.

I'll take good design over lore though. And I'll second people saying BRD was fun, it was. Obviously the first few times it wasn't the greatest time ever, especially since the difficulty wasn't on the easy side really, but once you understand the layout, it's really a pleasure to go do quests in there, go out, go back in, take another way, skip stuff and so on. It's REALLY huge too, and it has some very interesting places like the arenas and the bar. And the goddamn lyceum, bane of PuGs. They could make it an outdoor dungeon, with more recognizable landmarks so people can tell where they are. Problem with BRD was it was multi level, so the minimap was shit(much like BRS), and since it was mostly lava and brown stone walls, it was hard to tell what was what.

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Old 04/08/08, 1:10 PM   #1888
Emily
Piston Honda
 
Blood Elf Paladin
 
Doomhammer (EU)
I recall reading a quote somewhere from Blizzard admitting they'd been too rushed to include as many dungeon quests in TBC as they would have liked. Hopefully we'll see a few more of those lengthy multi-dungeon quest chains in WotLK to give the dungeons a bit of purpose and character, which would help relieve that "loot rollercoaster" feel that the TBC dungeons tend towards.

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Old 04/08/08, 1:28 PM   #1889
bv728
Piston Honda
 
Dwarf Paladin
 
Shandris
In theory, Winged Dungeons are supposed to take up some of the sprawling feel, but most of them didn't really succeed on that level in TBC; Hellfire did, in my opinion, because the quests make sense, the lore is pretty obvious, and they tied together everything in the outside world as well as the inside world. Zangarmarsh's plot is simplistic, and Auchindoun has been taken over by, what, four different power groups, leading to a level of schizophrenia.

I agree with other posters; a more 'sprawling' 10 man, and more focused 5-mans seem to be the design paradigm for the future. I wouldn't expect to see BRD-esque dungeons with a half dozen totally optional bosses and five paths through, even then, because A) Such Dungeons are very difficult to PUG, and B) Such dungeons are extremely design intensive. Hopefully we'll get more Scarlet Monestary and Hellfire Citadels, and not more Auchindouns.

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Old 04/08/08, 1:34 PM   #1890
Wednesday
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Wednesday
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Originally Posted by Nezralix View Post
I do.

Sure, it could stand to be a bit more intuitive than BRD was, but that's essentially what a dungeon *is*. What the hell kind of dungeon never even gives you the opportunity to decide which way you want to go? And not only are they strategically boring, but the extremely flat, horizontal architecture is aesthetically bland.

They can have a dungeons that essentially have no purpose but to be whipped for loot, but they also need a few dungeons with some substance.
I would imagine that's what Azjol-Nerub will be like, though not entirely instanced. My hopes for it would be something similar to BRD, though bigger and with several individual instances in the far corners.

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Old 04/08/08, 2:10 PM   #1891
Addled
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Draenei Shaman
 
Moonrunner
I actually enjoyed BRD because it had so many aspects to it: a bar, a huge dwarf presence, elementals (both Fire and Earth), etc. Basically it had the "feel" of a bustling city. I was really disappointed in the short, hallway designs of all the 70 instances, and annoyed by the fact that I had to keep running them to get heroic keyed. I would rather do one big clear of a huge instance rather than doing 3-4 clears of the same, boring, short instance.

But if Blizzard doesn't want to do another BRD, then another Maraudon would be terrific. I personally feel that Maraudon is one of the most visually stunning places in WoW (especially Earth Song Falls and the Princess areas). Maraudon is still "hallway" like in that both sides (purple and orange) dump players out into the princess area, but at least players get a choice in the initial side they want to go through, and there are plenty of optional bosses (the goblin, which drops AMAZING loot for that gear level) and the croc boss).

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Old 04/08/08, 2:46 PM   #1892
Nezralix
Bald Bull
 
Orc Warrior
 
Burning Blade
Originally Posted by Emily View Post
I recall reading a quote somewhere from Blizzard admitting they'd been too rushed to include as many dungeon quests in TBC as they would have liked. Hopefully we'll see a few more of those lengthy multi-dungeon quest chains in WotLK to give the dungeons a bit of purpose and character, which would help relieve that "loot rollercoaster" feel that the TBC dungeons tend towards.
I disagree on this point. Flavor quests are great, and give great opportunities to show what's going on, but you need an interesting environment to build on; they could add ten quests to Shadow Labyrinth and it would still be a boring hallway with everything pretty much just sitting around waiting to die.

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Old 04/08/08, 2:53 PM   #1893
Denogran
Don Flamenco
 
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Dwarf Paladin
 
Gilneas
Originally Posted by Addled View Post
I actually enjoyed BRD because it had so many aspects to it: a bar, a huge dwarf presence, elementals (both Fire and Earth), etc. Basically it had the "feel" of a bustling city. I was really disappointed in the short, hallway designs of all the 70 instances, and annoyed by the fact that I had to keep running them to get heroic keyed. I would rather do one big clear of a huge instance rather than doing 3-4 clears of the same, boring, short instance.

But if Blizzard doesn't want to do another BRD, then another Maraudon would be terrific. I personally feel that Maraudon is one of the most visually stunning places in WoW (especially Earth Song Falls and the Princess areas). Maraudon is still "hallway" like in that both sides (purple and orange) dump players out into the princess area, but at least players get a choice in the initial side they want to go through, and there are plenty of optional bosses (the goblin, which drops AMAZING loot for that gear level) and the croc boss).
Ugh. I hated Mara. BRD was only really acceptable because of the theme - I love dwarves, underground cities and lava. Otherwise, what a time-sink.

The thing is, if I want to go exploring, I don't want to have to inconvenience 4 (or 9!) other people to do the same exploring as me. There are plenty of really cool places in the outside world that are interesting to explore, and that you can do on your own.

I like the linear dungeon design. When I get into a group for an instance, I know exactly what I'm getting myself into. There's no pleading with others to do that annoying optional boss that I desperately need, or pleading from others to go do that godawful optional boss they need. Given that I'm already committing between 45 min and 3 hours to an instance, I don't want that to drag on even longer, as the hard-to-find group for that one annoying instance is composed of people needing 5 hours worth of bosses.

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Old 04/08/08, 3:15 PM   #1894
Smurrf
Don Flamenco
 
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Human Paladin
 
Lothar
I have gone back into BRD of late, picking up the odd few LBS's or twinking an alt through there. I, personally, love the place...but it's freakin' huge. Expecting people to make their way all the way through to the end in a timely matter just isn't going to work.

What I would like is the ability to unlock shortcuts. Make the dungeon as big, or even bigger, than BRD...but give it multiple entry points from outside. Stratholme does well as an example, but they could have expanded on it for BRD. There could have been keys to the larder, perhaps make the exit of the bar actually lead to outside the instance, with the ability to bribe the guard to get in, a map that shows your character (and therefore unlocking the ability to use) a hidden crack in the wall to get deep into the engineering portion, things like that.

Obviously, you can only gain access to these unlock pts by going through content previously in the dungeon, but that shouldn't be an issue. Having these in place would simply allow you to, in the future, walk into close by what you actually need, and go from there. This only works, obviously, if they give an incentive to go to each of the sections. The forge deep in BRD was one such reason, the alchemy lab in Scholo was another. Perhaps they could recycle those ideas (or different, but along the same lines) by allowing for higher proc rates. Or, for example, what if the Mana Loom in Shat actually cost money to use, but if you went to the one in Arcatraz, for instance, it was free, with an added bonus of reduced materials cost?

There's a lot of ways they could make a larger dungeon, yet be able to break it up into manageable portions...I'm sure I've not even scratched the surface.

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Old 04/08/08, 3:21 PM   #1895
Nezralix
Bald Bull
 
Orc Warrior
 
Burning Blade
Originally Posted by Denogran View Post
There are plenty of really cool places in the outside world that are interesting to explore, and that you can do on your own.
What exactly are you talking about? I can't think of any. What kind of "exploration" is there in the outdoors world that isn't trivialized by a flying mount? I can think of about three places where you can "kinda sorta" explore:

1) Netherwing Mine: Not really that bad; some stuff to find. Also happens to be identical to a mine in Blasted Lands.
2) The Deathforge: Some quests there that are reasonably engaging, but overall very short.
3) Coilskar Caverns: Boring maze with nothing in it.

You could just as easily cheat your way through a single player RPG if you just want to see some graphics. What BRM, Stratholme, and even Scholomance offered players was the opportunity to be a "band of intrepid adventurers" conquering interesting, lively, "believable" (within the context of a virtual world) dungeons, in a way that isn't possible in soloable content.

I like the linear dungeon design. When I get into a group for an instance, I know exactly what I'm getting myself into. There's no pleading with others to do that annoying optional boss that I desperately need, or pleading from others to go do that godawful optional boss they need. Given that I'm already committing between 45 min and 3 hours to an instance, I don't want that to drag on even longer, as the hard-to-find group for that one annoying instance is composed of people needing 5 hours worth of bosses.
What it sounds like you're saying here is that you've given up on the prospect of meaningful content because it's too hard to organize a group.

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Old 04/08/08, 3:33 PM   #1896
Ja7us
Don Flamenco
 
Tauren Druid
 
Steamwheedle Cartel
Originally Posted by Smurrf View Post
I have gone back into BRD of late, picking up the odd few LBS's or twinking an alt through there. I, personally, love the place...but it's freakin' huge. Expecting people to make their way all the way through to the end in a timely matter just isn't going to work.
This is a valid point, but I don't necessarily think it's a good argument against sprawling, massive, "epic" dungeons like BRD. While I certainly don't think all dungeons should be the way that BRD is (and at 60 they were all "long"), I think dungeons of BRD's scale have their place.

I would have liked to see a single huge level 70 dungeon in TBC. Keep Shattered Halls, Black Morass, etc the way they are - short, sweet rail shooters - but make, for instance, Shadowlabs into a classic-style dungeon crawl, and I'd be in heaven. A dungeon with the length and nonlinear feel of BRD at 70 would have a lot to offer, especially with a trash-respawn mechanic similar to raid instances (so you aren't forced to reclear trash from the start of the instance if you take a long time in the place).

An example of the sort of experience I'd want to see from a TBC dungeon would be something similar to an experience myself and two friends had in BRD. We were leveling a group of alts (prot paladin, holy priest, and a rogue) together, and we decided to take on BRD with just the three of us. We started the instance at levels 49, 50, and 51, and proceeded to do every quest and every boss over the course of a week. Each run, we'd clear a ways in, fight a few bosses, gain some experience, and have a fantastic time. By the end of the week we were levels 53. 54 and 55, and we'd had some great, incredible challenges with the Chest of the Seven and the Princess rescue quest. That's an experience we couldn't have had with any TBC dungeon, and I think that's a shame. Not every instance needs to be friendly to PuGs or completable in an hour; in fact, if a few of them aren't, I think that adds a lot of richness overall.

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Old 04/08/08, 3:43 PM   #1897
Anedris
King Hippo
 
Troll Priest
 
Steamwheedle Cartel
Meaningful content doesn't have to require a group.

I would agree that the avenues for exploration in the solo world are lacking, and would actually greatly enjoy it if they were expanded (I had fun poking around Coilskar Caverns, for example, but it was disappointing that there was nothing of note in there). Put rare spawns in long sprawling caves that are a pain to get to (but make the mobs along the way drop useful odds and ends - motes, cobra scales, cloth, chunk-o-basilisk, whatever) and make them soloable (but give them multiple spawn points to make them even more of a pain to find - in other words, a reward for explorers rather than something farmable).

I also loved BRD. Once I knew my way around. It was absolutely horrible back when I first reached the place, but once I knew the layout and found out how the three different ways to reach each boss, and the lava hopping route to the Core, and so forth it was a lot of fun (the Lyceum was awesome too, as long as you weren't in a PuG - though nowadays a protadin would trivialize a similar area).

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Old 04/08/08, 4:02 PM   #1898
Nezralix
Bald Bull
 
Orc Warrior
 
Burning Blade
Originally Posted by Anedris View Post
Meaningful content doesn't have to require a group.
It may not have to require a group, but it does have to be instanced, because the experience is basically ruined if the path is being cleared or has already been cleared by other "explorers", or if somebody manages to steal your kill after *you* cleared it, or you get ganked while in the middle of it and having to fight your way through respawns, or any number of other factors related to shared content with many other players participating. Never mind that it would have to be so trivial that groups would just go in there and obliterate everything. As with Jintha'alor. And regardless of how poor the loot is, unless it's *massive* (i.e. barren wastelands of Star Wars Galaxies massive), then the density of players there will still be non-zero. Hell, people still do LBRS for XP.

So it puts them in a spot where they might as well make it instanced content.

I don't have the numbers on BRD or LBRS, so I don't know how many people did or did not experience them, but I can't imagine it was *that* unpopular.

I also loved BRD. Once I knew my way around. It was absolutely horrible back when I first reached the place, but once I knew the layout and found out how the three different ways to reach each boss, and the lava hopping route to the Core, and so forth it was a lot of fun (the Lyceum was awesome too, as long as you weren't in a PuG - though nowadays a protadin would trivialize a similar area).
The time investment of a BRD group was fine if you had a focused goal in mind. Which suggests that they could've parceled it up with a bit better direction and created something that didn't turn into a nightmare for first-time PuGs, while still not resorting to linear Shadow Lab hallways.

EDIT: I made a thread relating to this topic almost a year ago: http://elitistjerks.com/f33/t12880-i...pre-_post-tbc/

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Old 04/08/08, 4:11 PM   #1899
Axanor
Don Flamenco
 
Axanor's Avatar
 
Tauren Druid
 
Area 52
Stratholme is the perfect example of a winged "sprawl" dungeon. 2 completely different areas existing in the same zone without much player confusion.

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Old 04/08/08, 5:17 PM   #1900
songster
Chief Passenger
 
Gnome Rogue
 
Earthen Ring (EU)
I'd include Dire Maul with that too. The only "problem" with those two was the tendency to simply regard them as separate mini-dungeons and never run the place in one sitting. There ought to be a small perk/benefit for those willing and able to clear the lot. Say a single extra boss that becomes accessible after you've killed Balnazzar and Baron within the same copy of the instance.

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