True Dungeons - It's just an opinion.

Before I begin, this is just a personal view on how I know I'd enjoy seeing a dungeon.

I've played on a few NWN2 servers in my day and I have to say honestly I have only found one server that did Dungeons to my liking. That being said; they didn't actually do it the way I would prefer it was just close.

When I think of a dungeon, I don't think of a place I go to kill a few enemies, maybe a slightly harder monster and then wait for it to respawn and then do it again. It is unfortunate but when I think Dungeon, I think of a multi tiered type of adventure. With multiple challenges and it gets harder as you go deeper. Making the sense of companionship and accomplishment that much greater.

It is also something I feel should take time. Which can be a bad thing to most people and I'm not saying it isn't a bad thing. I just feel like the servers put out dungeons just for grinding purpose, as they miss the idea of "adventure" and fun. It is like now a days "Go here when you're level 5, grind them till you are 10 then go here and so and so forth." While this is great for those people looking to just grind mindlessly. Where is the sense of "Man, we are making some progress in this cavern." or "These things don't seem to end." I want that feeling even if it is just one super dungeon. With some sort of story and real atmosphere.

For instance...you happen to know about these catacombs, so you crush through some skeletons and come up across this "Necromancer Acolyte." who happens to have a key, that unlocks a near by door that leads into a stair well, that takes you deeper, come to find out this one Acolyte that perhaps your group had a "semi" hard time with is apart of a cult. So now you start running into Acolytes one in every three groups of mobs. Then you get to the end of that level and then what is that? A wright? So you crush the group with some hefty teamwork and effort but as that happens the floor "collapses" and you find your group deeper into the crypts and now...you have to find your way out. Now surrounded by Zombies, Skeletons and such things as you search the various rooms you finally are able to find a staircase upward that could lead to freedom but it gets blocked off by a magical barrier and then bam the final fight, a minor lich or vampire something of the sort...you find out the cult was all under his rein, yadda yadda you see where I'm going with it though. That to me, is a dungeon. Layed out with traps, locks and various other hidden things.

+1 to all of the above.

We've been discussing what kinds of dungeons to include, what to put in it, and where to put them. Thus far it seems favor is leaning heavily toward having a solid mix of environs and set-ups so things don't get stale. Out in the wilderness areas away from the city, I foresee us having some of those places where you can just wander around and kill things that respawn (not too quickly though) because it would make sense for the area.

But when it comes to dungeons, I want something more interesting than a tunnel filled with spawns that don't do anything but charge and fall over dead and make way for the next tunnel.

The first dungeon that I just built last night is a pretty simple (mechanically and level-wise) place I'm just using to tinker with spawn scripts and loot stuff. After that, I plan on putting in more interesting things. Traps, secret doors, hidden levers, maybe even a puzzle or quest or something.

I'm excited.  

I've wondered for a while now, but how viable is it to have randomized enemies? Games like Torchlight and Diablo have a lot of staying power just for that element.

Rather than always fighting the same spawns in the same locations in the same dungeons, are they able to just select from a pool of enemies, possibly based around player levels?

So the forest fort we battled and cleared of goblins at level 3 winds up being full of gnolls at 7, then a necromancer at 14. That kind of thing. It'd at least give a sense of the world 'growing' while the character does. I see how this could be an issue in parties with a blend of levels, or of a level 30 running through an area with a level 1 actually battling there, but I would still be curious about giving the world a sense of chaos and randomizing.

It makes people think on their feet, prepare for more and would likely get them to group up more often. If you expect goblins and find ogres, you'll regret not havin' a buddy there.  

FrankHullenbeck wrote:
So the forest fort we battled and cleared of goblins at level 3 winds up being full of gnolls at 7, then a necromancer at 14. That kind of thing. It'd at least give a sense of the world 'growing' while the character does. I see how this could be an issue in parties with a blend of levels, or of a level 30 running through an area with a level 1 actually battling there, but I would still be curious about giving the world a sense of chaos and randomizing.

It makes people think on their feet, prepare for more and would likely get them to group up more often. If you expect goblins and find ogres, you'll regret not havin' a buddy there.  

I actually believe there was a server that had a script that actually ran like this and I don't mind that either. I am just a real big fan of long, complicated dungeons with some decent story attached and it is something that NWN2 has been missing for me it would seem.

I'm all for good areas and plenty of monsters don't get me wrong.

Absolutely. Overall, dungeons should strive to meet a number of criteria: Why is this dungeon here? Why would people go to it?

You don't need massive amounts of complex scripting to accomplish this; a few scattered notes and the occasional pop-up text over a character's head or in the combat log do wonders for building the scene. Not to mention that dungeons that 'make sense' actually do provide significant RP fuel.

Exactly, my friend. Exactly. Though I do like depth to the dungeon aswell. You know not something I can just smash through in like ten mins and just farm respawns over and over. While that is effective and useful, if we're going for a more story oriented dungeon. Have something with mutiple layers. A "semi boss." And a big boss. I like the idea of just...really well constructed "adventures/dungeons."

For the record though, I believe we are also having some bog-standard grinding zones that, while they'll make sense, will mostly be there for the grinding, not the story.

That doesn't mean we won't have the long complicated dungeons, but they get tiring pretty quickly, especially when you're by yourself and have some spare time to grind. I am very much for the duality of having both of these - a grinding area like Haven's Goblin Island, and special dungeons like was common at ToA (though I think we could spice them up a bit. :3).

That way, we get the best of both worlds.

Maybe design it so there're grinding areas on the surface but within them some kind of themed dungeon? Have the grinding areas set to respawn like BG's but the dungeons respawn like ToA/PoS.