Game Design Dungeon Rewards

So after seeing the new Fallen Factory I was really impressed with the moving blocks and such, but I realized something. That Fallen Factory is already a pain in the ass to run. That's the case with most dungeons. Running them 7-10 times at a time is really really boring and grindy. Grinding is the antithesis of fun for most people. So here's my suggestion. Reduce the number of rewards you need to get each of the dungeon items. It's just tedious and mind numbingly boring. I don't think this would break the game, but if it would please tell me.

So for exmaple.
Gigabyte right now costs 8 Antikythera Supercomputer fragments, reduce it's cost to around 2-3 so that it's not just easily acquired and easy to get, but combined with the additional time to run due to the imrpovments to the dungeon, it would help make it much more fun and less tedious. Cheers

 

Yeah, I think for longer ones like fallen factory they should be a bit less. Maybe 4 but not 2! 2 is stupidly low, and would only take around 25 minutes to get. 4 at the lowest imo. But not 2. Thanks for sharing!

 

I've seen this suggestion before and it just seems like people are being lazy. The literal point of dungeons in almost any game I've played is to grind them for better rewards. While I do agree that it does get less and less interesting the more you do a dungeon because you repeat the same process over and over again (I should know after doing 6 of them 100 times), what's the point in the rewards if you aren't going to work towards the rewards? It defeats the entire purpose of dungeons themselves if you make it where you only have to do a dungeon ONCE in order to get the reward.

However, I do agree that for some of the lower level dungeons that the amount of times you need to run it should be decreased slightly, as usually by the time you actually manage to get the piece of gear you want, you're already at a higher level where you can get better gear (with exceptions like Hashr Claw, Blasphemy, etc).

One example is Undergrowth Ruins. I think we can all agree that practically all of the gear from it is very meh outside of like Molten Greaves (most people only grind it for powders). The weapons are particularly meh because the Olux Prized weapons easily outshine them in almost all aspects. This would be fine, but for some reason you need to do Undergrowth Ruins 8 or 9 times to get one of the said 4 weapons. It's not like Undergrowth Ruins is quick to do either because of the spawn rates in the blue token room being trash and the 40 token room existing (don't get me wrong I still am fine with UG itself). In conclusion for things like that, I do agree it should be decreased slightly.

As for the gear that can last a really long time (as mentioned before things like Hashr Claw and Blapshemy), those should stay the same. Most things from Corrupted Lost Sanc through FF/CIB can be viable for end game (90+), so those should probably stay the same as well.

Also yes, it does break the game slightly imo. If you only need to do a dungeon a couple of times in order to get something like Corrupted Witherhead's Bow (which is basically Az but not based on using courage/curse), you can easily just power level through literally anything with having to barely do any work for quite a bit of time (Corrupted Witherhead's Bow can honestly last you 10-15 levels if you powder it).

 

It's not being lazy, but being FORCED to grind is just irritating, I do agree for the good weapons, but for things like Byte, Gigabyte, Megabyte and the higher level items, it's clearly not needed. Also most of the complexity comes from the later levels and the end game content.

It should be decreased massively for the items that are meh and at the end game level because at that point it's just killing time. It does get a lot tedious at the end of the runs and it's just boring and not fun. And at the end of the day, isn't that what games are for? Having fun? I argue that keeping balance at the expense of player fun is a bad system. And hence at the end of each run, it's just killing time. I'd state that the fragments per item need to be reduced globally, but by how much depends on how good the item is.

Items like Corrupted Witherheads bow and such need to be at a high level and they shouldn't be touched. But items like Wall Breaker, Gigabyte, each of the element Sanctuaries need to be tweaked in order to be fun to acquire and not tedious.

 

The FF accessories are arguably some of the best in the entire game mainly due to their versatility, especially gigabyte, so I find it surprising that you consider them bad. Also yes, you could argue that enjoyment is better than balance, but when you think about it by that logic they should just give everybody mythics and say "have fun!". Balance is just as important as having fun in these types of games, since the basis of any mmorpg is to grind at some points in order to progress.

Also no, it is lazy. It's the same reason people look down upon people using CSST right now, and while I would argue that doing CSST is far more enjoyable than grinding in somewhere like Freezing Heights, it requires little to no effort to actually do (even if you're one of the people that actually gets tokens like me). The same would apply to dungeon rewards if we decreased them because it would be so ridiculously easy to acquire them.

Also, like I said, it should be decreased for the items that are meh like the UG weapons. For the two specific items you mentioned outside of the FF accessories
-Wallbreaker is arguably the best earth melee dagger in the entire game outside of maybe if you went grimtrap melee for some reason. However, since melee assassin isn't exactly popular to begin with (and neither is earth assassin for that matter), I could understand why it would be decreased.
-The sanctuaries are very good in the correct build. Decreasing how much it costs slightly would be understandable since they aren't used that often, but imo they should still stay at the cost they are.

 

The FF accessories are versatile, but they are end game, leaving no issues for you being overlevelled and breezing through them, so they don't fall in the bad item category, but for the higher level category I just mentioned. I too consider them excellent. Also context is important. If you give Mythic's to everyone and say "have fun!" then it is at the cost of ANOTHER players happiness since they worked to earn that item. Before you say that reducing the cost of the items is at the cost of another player, I mean reducing the item cost by an amount such that it isn't as tedious but doesn't devalue the effort others put into it.

-Wallbreaker is the best earth MELEE dagger but hardly anyone melees on an assassin, so that's just tediousness for the sake of tediousness.
-The sanctuaries are a niche item because they are only for glass cannons or items with low damage, so running 7 times for each isn't so tedious.

What compounds this IMO is the fact that you have to hunt for keys, I would be happy to pay a small fee of emeralds to enter or a key, but the fact that I have to hunt for keys AND run it several times is just boring and tedious. It sucks all the joy from the game for me.

 

I'm super confused what you're saying about the FF accessories. What I'm interpreting it as is that they're really good but even though they're good they should be easy to get, which doesn't make sense to me.

Also, what you suggested to do to Gigabyte definitely devalues the effort of others. You said you wanted it to go from 8 to 2-3. As said by Storm, that is way too low. That's nearly if not more than a hour worth of time of just doing the dungeon (not including the time needed to acquire keys either), so that definitely devalues the amount of time it took for everybody else before to get it.

Is working get a mythic not tedious then? You're arguing that doing a dungeon repeatedly is boring, but is lootrunning and/or normally grinding not the exact same if not more boring? You're working towards something still, in this case gear from the dungeon, so I don't really see what you're trying to say by that. If you don't enjoy something, that doesn't mean you can say "change it so it's exponentially easier to get please". Working towards something should actually take time rather than be immediate progression (which is more of a problem with mythics since rng is much more prominent).

However, I do agree that keys are a pain to acquire, especially for the corrupted dungeons, and people typically just wait for somebody to use their money to buy dbombs. Changing how the key system works for a dungeon (maybe slightly increasing the spawnrates?) would be much better imo than changing how many times you have to run a dungeon to get a reward.

 

The overall experience when grinding for 2 or more items from the same dungeon is just tedious. I want to reduce some of that tediousness. Either changing the key system or reducing the amount of fragments per piece will help in reducing the tediousness of it.

 

Don't worry, I misread at first to. It costs fragments (not the witherhead ribs) to buy the t1 powders, which (like all other dungeons) you should get 3 of per run. So, you need to do at least 2 times to get the powder already anyways. Keep in mind to that powders aren't as plentiful for newer players either.

I'm pretty split on if I would change talisman or not. Xp bonus is amazing at lower levels and it's a necklace, which is very scarce for players to come by that early on. The problem as said is that by the time you actually would have gotten it you're already higher level and you could've spent that time getting better gear outside of the necklace for your character. I disagree that it can't last for a while though and it very much so can (Criistal is basically a direct upgrade of it), so for right now I'd say it should go 6->5.

The thing about criistal is that it is a mid level necklace. While this doesn't apply for everyone, most newer players won't actually get a necklace early on (the glassblowing merchant does exist, but most people forget it even exists. Really, the only necklace I would expect a new player to have would be dark diadem). Criistal also has one of the best stats early on in the game, being it's xp bonus. Also keep in mind, Criistal actually has the 4th best xp bonus of any necklace in the game (and out of the top 4 it is the only one with a 100% set in stone xp bonus). However, I do agree that Criistal is somewhat overpriced, since all of the ice barrows gear is really good, but the thing to me that makes Criistal stand out is while the armor gear is all good, newer players lack accessories more than anything. I think the 9->6 is kind of a stretch and I think 9->7 would be more appropriate.

I don't think blasphemy needs a change. The 40 intel requirement is slightly high for that level (as it is nearly half of your skill points you can use at that level), but it definitely makes up for it. 6/4s is a LOT for such a low level. It can honestly last you till end game, if not even DURING end game, due to how much mana sustain it provides on its own (it might be glassy due to the low hp it provides at that point, although at its level the hp is fine). Not only that, but it also provides a small amount of lifesteal and xp bonus as well! Blasphemy imo is arguably one of the best chest plates in the entire game, and it is definitely worth the grind to get it.

I always wondered why admiral costed 10 runs, ESPECIALLY because when I first saw it the dungeon was still bugged.
Being as crazy as I am I grinded for admiral when the ship part was still bugged so it took like 2 and a half hours to get it but that's irrelevant since it's fixed now.
Don't get me wrong, admiral is extremely good. I just never got why it costs 10 instead of around 8 like you suggested. 10 to me even seemed to be too much.

The others (including admiral) I wouldn't mind though (Web plate is kind of iffy though, but I've never personally used it so I can't say how good or bad it is at lower levels. Just to be safe, I would say 8->6 would be better).

 

Just get a randy to do it with you it won't be as boring