Hello Content Design team and players. I wanted to suggest a new type of dungeon. Before i get into this concept i’d like to mention that i believe the next level of evolution for dungeons and mutations in new world are dungeons that do not just focus on the “offensive” aspects of a dungeon, but also “defensive” and “problem solving” aspects. Offensive is combat related, defensive is blocking, and problem solving is puzzles.
A New Dungeon Concept
The idea of this dungeon is not for “combat” but in fact is for a test. There are 5 “pathways” that branch from start. Each member of the party will need to take their own route. Each path will have tests, trials, and puzzles that each member of the group has to pass.
At the end of their individual payways is a button they need to stand on (similar to the three in the jail cells in laz). These buttons when all pushed will unlock the doors that collect them back to each other to a primary chamber, where the boss of the dungeon is located. This is the only fight in the dungeon, however it is not one for combat, but for puzzle solving.
The boss fight
This engament is very tricky. Its designed to be a “on demand riddle solving”. In this room there are a few buttons that need to be stood on. When you stand on them they activate a shield. The group has to find the correct button to stand on based one of a few phrases that the boss says. Each one of these phrases will bring about some sort of condition change to the room, like flooding it with ice/slow, Poison, and so on. Each one of these conditions will kill the group very rapidly if they do not stand on the correct button to remove the room wide status effect.
Each time the button is turned on corretly it will damage the boss and ultimately kill him.
Some key concepts of things a long the way to the boss
- ** All the content of this dungeon should interact with azoth staff, Taking shields from starstone, opening doors on glyphs, etc.
- Lots of traps and puzzles will need to be created by the design team for this dungeon
- the dungeon can link puzzles, for example two people can stand on buttons a long the way to open doors for each other to progress through their unique pathway.
- there should be things like swinging axes, booby traps, and so on.
A Key Note
I am trying to find a solution to the tanking problem in mmo’s. My though process is that tanks are not popular because they dont feel good and previous posts have explained why tank weapons like the greatsword may be the future of the tank class.
This being said, I wanted to test the theory of having a full damage, full heal, or full tank group where your role, gear, etc means nothing. Just your wits, and your reaction speed. Hopefully it will prove to be an interesting mesh up to dungeons and help push the idea of solving this problem.
lastly, content design like this is a potential way to help pump content at lower costs.