Dungeons Make Dungeon Keys more Common

To be honest I don't really think the dungeon key system makes much sense to begin with. Once you unlock a dungeon I feel like you should be able to do it as much as you like. Forcing the player to go and farm for long periods of time between dungeon runs doesn't really make the game more fun, or add difficulty either, it just makes the game boring.
But at least dungeon keys should be made much more common, and new ways of getting them should be added. Outside of Raids, which don't even exist as a viable method until the level 70s or so and beyond, getting dungeon keys is almost entirely luck-based. Sometimes you'll hang around in ancient nemract for a whole hour and never see a key guardian, sometimes one of them spawns immediately. There's basically no even remotely reliable way to get keys so trying to get them feels extremely unrewarding.

The main way you get keys for most of the game is by killing key guardians, and in my opinion only Decrepit Sewers, Corrupted Ice Barrows, and Ice Barrows have reasonable spawn rates for their key guardians. The worst offenders are Underworld Crypt, Sand-Swept Tomb, Lost Sanctuary, and basically all of the Corrupted Dungeons (I've seen a total of 3 or 4 CUR guardians in my entire time playing wynncraft). All of these spawn rates need to be buffed, quite a lot. There's beem more times I can count where, even after exploring the areas quite thoroughly, I run out of keys to a dungeon after just a few attempts and can't get back in.
In addition to that, more ways need to be added to get keys. I think having them spawn in tier 3+ loot chests would be a good idea, as well as having them drop from nearby Boss Altars. Both of these would reward players for exploring the map and looking for things like caves and boss altars. Secret Discoveries sometimes giving keys wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Also, many dungeons currently have quests other than the dungeon quest itself which also give you keys, for example Jungle Fever gives you an Undergrowth Ruins key, so having many more quests give these would also be a good idea.

A lot of attention tends to get put into content like Dungeons, both creating and improving them, but players will never get to see any of that if they can't get into the Dungeon in the first place, and that's what happens with most dungeons in the game.

 

YESYESYEYSYEYSYEYSYSYSYEYYSYSYSY ADDD A POLLLLLL

 

I disagree. If you could simply go in without an entrance fee then death loses its tension.
CSST, CLS, and CUR guardians should probably appear more frequently, though

 

yes i agree that d keys shoulld be a thing but what i was yessing about is the frequency

 

i just went to the maltic coast for 2 minutes, killed 4 d-sewers key guardians.

 

not those

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try finding corrupted key guards

 

https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/remove-soul-points-v2.296106/ (good arguments for both sides of this)
Death shouldn't cost money. It's not fair to say that dungeons should be first-tried, and taking away money (by making players pay for keys) every death disincentivizes playing the game at all. Why should I play a game that punishes me for learning?

 

Tension is valuable, that's true, but the current punishment seems to expect you to do dungeons first or second try, and then never die again, which sucks fun out of the game, in addition to obviously putting the idea of doing challenge runs out of the picture for players who can't afford to pay half an LE every time they die. A typical level 70 player on their first playthrough will not have the funds to pay for what the keys for dungeons at that level currently cost, nevermind lower levels where keys are often even more expensive and players are even poorer.
Plenty of tension already comes from the fact that dying will make you start the dungeon over. The fact that dying to dungeon bosses forces you to do the entire dungeon again from the start already sets them apart from boss altars and most quest bosses where you can come right back after dying, and that on top of soul points makes the situation even worse (although I of course want those removed as well). Tension is good for a game like this, but the amount of tension in these dungeons makes it very hard to focus and makes it often feel like a downright painful experience.

Also, the way that tension is created here is by threatening the player with having to grind. The tension that gets naturally created from having to redo a dungeon improves the dungeon, but the penalty for dying that it gives you is having to do the dungeon again, which is (or should be, if it's a good dungeon) something that is still fun. One of these ways of adding tension forces the player to spend massive amounts of time doing things that aren't fun, the other one makes sure that the game stays fun even if the player would likely have preferred to beat the dungeon instead of losing.

Just as an example of the kind of issue that led me to make this post: Corrupted Slykaar and Redbeard, two bosses that I really like, who would probably be two of the best ways to spend my time playing the game, and who's stats scale with your level so they can be fought at level 100, are nonetheless bosses I haven't fought in about a month despite playing wynncraft frequently in the last few weeks, not because I don't want to but beacuse keys and runes are just that hard to get for me.

 

They shouldn't be. Unlocking a dungeon gives you a key for free, and dungeon guardians spawn in plenty in the region around the dungeon. It's not very difficult to amass several keys from simply walking around the place they're in for ten minutes.

You're not in a tutorial when doing a dungeon, you're putting stuff you've already learned to the test. It's a challenge, not a handheld step by step.

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Which I entirely agree with...? That is why I commented on having the key guardians for corruption dungeons spawning more frequently, so it is easier for players to get into doing it without demanding money from their own pocket

 

I think dungeon guardian spawnrates (especially guardians like DS, IP, UC, CDS, CIP, CUC, Nii guardians) are fine as they are. A more interesting idea (in my opinion) would be to instead have them spawn in more areas. Some of the worst offenders on this list is CLS guardians, who only spawn in the eastern Gylia Lake region, and CUC guardians, whom I've only ever seen in, like, southwest CotL. From what I can tell, the dev's intentions are to have people kill any dungeon guardian you find in your travels, collect the keys, and store them for when you need them. That's the reason why some keys are so much easier to get than others, since they spawn in so many areas (seriously CIP guardians spawn on like 1/3 of all of Wynn Province's landmass).

Simply make dungeon guardians spawn in more places, people will encounter them more often without actively looking for them, and will passively end up with more keys.

 

Honestly low level dungeon keys are nothing but a pointless annoyance to me at this point, and late-game ones have become completely irrelevant thanks to the huge amount of keys one can get by simply doing raids.

The keys were introduced back in 2014 during the Mob Update, and it was possibly one of the main reasons why I disliked the update so much at the time. It isn't fun, it is just annoying. Having to repeat the entire dungeon because I died is already enough of a punishment since I'm getting 1 to 10 minutes of my time on average wasted by doing so. I don't think the keys add anything to the game except for perhaps the Forgery since it has no sort of requirement to access it other than level, unlike the normal dungeons which have quests to do before you get to access them.

The keys at this point are either an dumb annoyance at best during the normal dungeons and a pointless waste of bank space at higher levels thanks to raids. It's not like corrupted guardians are common anyways. I'm pretty sure that, since the addition of the Forgery back in 2016 I still haven't seen a single CUC guardian yet.

Dungeons are kinda outdated at this point anyways, some are too close together in terms of game progression (IP, LS and UC specifically), some are visually awful (I'm sorry for whoever made the IB dungeon back in the day, but wow that kind of texturing has not aged well at all and the corrupted version is even worse), some are not exactly interesting (IP and LS are the main culprits, specially LS where there is only one interesting section and it gets dragged on for way too long) and then there is the survival miniboss room in UC, like for real, they have pull and push spells and I think I'm quite vocal at this point about what I think of those two spells. Also I have no clue how to survive the fire mage one without either glitching it somehow, taking cover behind the blocks that are next to the bridge deployment part of the room and pray or just tanking it out somehow.

I think keys should just disappear except for maybe the corrupted dungeons. Or perhaps they could just ask for runes, like raids.

Also they don't even add a punishment for dying. You are going to have to go grind more keys if you want to get more attempts to run dungeons whether you beat the dungeon or not, so it isn't even a punishment for dying, you get punished regardless of it. Dungeons are supposed to be replayable (they ask for like 5 of the boss's something for the gear the dungeon merchants sell for a reason after all) and the keys make me not want to replay them, independently of whether I beat them or not.

 

That's because Decrepit Sewers key guardians are extremely common, by far the most common in the game except for maybe CIB.

No they don't. I've walked around Ancient Nemract for about an hour at one point and not found a single underworld crypt key guardian. I've spent hours in the desert without finding any SST key guardians. I've spent hours in Canyon of the Lost without finding any key guardians, in fact, I've probably spent about 20-30 hours in CotL in my life and I could count all the key guardians I've seen on one hand. I've spent hours in time valley without seeing and CLS key guardians, I've spent hours in the SE since the release of 2.0 and only seen 2 CGG guardians.
And these aren't cherrypicked examples of instances where I looked for key guardians for long periods of time and didn't find them, in many of these areias these are the norm. Most of the time when I spend time exploring the desert I don't see key guardians.

Do you mean IP? CIP guardians don't spawn in wynn at all to my knowledge, since that's a level 74 dungeon.

Decrepit Sewers key guardian spawnrates if anything feel too high, I almost get sick of running into them, but that's a preferrable problem to have. IP, CDS, and CIP feel appropriate, but UC, CUC, and Nii guardians are wayy to rare. I'm a big fan of the new kander forest and am someone who tries to spend as much time there as possible on every playthrough, and I've only seen 2 Nii guardians since 2.0 came out which is only enough to pay for a single CDS run, UC key guardian spawnrates are extremely unreliable in my experience (sometimes I get multiple of them in quick succession, sometimes I run around nemract for an hour and don't see a single one), and I've only seen like 3 CUC key guardians in my life despite how much time I've spent in CotL.

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This is unrelated to the thread but I just want to defend some of these dungeons momentarily
Specifically, Lost Sanctuary's kill sections are actually interesting if you're actually willing to work with it's mechanics. You have to keep track of where all the mobs are and what phase the armored triceratops guys are in in order to not get blown up by heavy charge or swarmed while you're distracted with the creepers, and unless you're on a tankier build where their damage is negligable it actually feels like there's progression as the rooms get more and more full of new mobs as you progress.
And Underworld Crypt's use of push is not really bad at all. The mob tries to push you into the giant fire pits so all you have to do is make sure that you're not lined up with one of them when he casts it. I won't defend the High Priest though, I'm starting to hate it a bit less after doing UC like 10 times recently but that miniboss still stinks.

However, that's just nitpicking by the lost sanctuary defender in me. I agree with what you're trying to say overall. Most dungeons need to be changed fairly significantly. Underworld Crypt does stink, in fact that miniboss section is about as good as the dungeon gets in my opinion; Ice Barrows now sucks in both the corrupted and normal versions thanks to whatever tf they did to the freezing guard room; Infeseted Pit is only really interesting for one room, and CIP is only really interesting for two because that dungeon only has 2 combat rooms; CSST is pretty boring since it seems when making it like nobody considered the fact that players have more mana at level 86 than they do at level 35; Undergrowth Ruins is pretty dull and boring except for the big slime room and in the corrupted version not even that one is good; and as a rule almost all dungeons are too small and too short. I think that the basic conventions of how dungeons work really need to be reworked since right now the formula feels very outdated. CGG and the new GG were a big step in the right direction, but I hope future dungeon reworks (or new dungeons) will go even further in that direction.

 

That is the one I said is interesting but gets dragged on by a bit too long. It is cool but it would be a lot cooler if that wasn't the only interesting section in the dungeon.

 

(what has this thread become)
I think they should do a full rework of underworld crypt (and make the boss fight 4x harder because it is really easy). Like the battlefield room should be a sort of battle crawl to the other side where you have to command an army to take strategic points while actually fighting (unlike in the original) yourself.

 

Well yeah, I guess that other key guardians can be hard to find.
But if you guys are like me, you have a healthy stock of the dungeon keys that you find on your travels.

 

UC Guardians very consistently spawn in Ancient Nemract and near Nemract Spiders, to a point I have an excessive amount of keys from the times I do go to Nemract Spiders for mob kill objectives.
I can agree on SST possibly being too low, and if you read what any of my other comments were, you'd know I have already said I think that corrupted key guardians spawn too infrequently.

 

This is a good suggestion as long as the spawn rates don't get cranked up so much that key guardians start swarming players. Fighting a key guardian at level already feels like a boss/miniboss fight to me, and I like that, but having to fight multiple at once would just feel unfair and unfun, especially if players are trying to do something else, like a quest.

 

Oh, yes I do mean IP, my b for the typo

I take back what I said that all key guardian spawnrates are fine as they were. They were fine before 2.0, but in my experience playing a new profile post-2.0, it looks like they were nerfed, which is definitely something.
Again, not as big of a problem as reducing the number of places guardians can spawn - I'd if they made it so that guardians spawned in more areas, or close to well-travelled areas like major roads and attractions like Forgery and Qira Hive, it could argued that the lower spawnrates would be entirely appropriate. ...But yeah, that's something that should change.

Don't make me afk farm in obscure areas if I want dungeon keys! It's fine for stuff like elephelk trunks and inversion cores, but not for dungeons.

 

I've had such a different experience it's kind of hard to square with this account. I don't really do nemreact spiders ever (especially since by the time you are using it for mob kill objectives you'll obviously be high enough of a level to overpower it, and thus also way above UC level), but I've found grinding in Ancient Nemract to be unbelievably unreliable. Most of the time after dying in the dungeon I come out and run around for 15-30 minutes and then one spawns (which is a pretty long "runback" for a dungeon, since I rarely get them to spawn multiple times in one sitting), and the most I've ever gotten in one sitting in 2.0 (there may have been other instances before 2.0, but they aren't fresh in my memory; I've tried quite hard to grind for the keys in the last month or so, having attempted the dungeon about ~6 times on my recent ironman playthrough) was when I got 2 keys after grinding for like 30 minutes. The opposite would be the time I ran around for about an hour in ancient Nemract and didn't find a single one.
I wouldn't be too surprised if the discreptancy between our experiences is just down to luck, as I can remember times in the past where the key guardians felt like they were spawning a lot, and I can also remember times like this one where it took on average about half an hour of running around for one to spawn. They're just inconsistent (another reason why there should be other ways of getting keys that don't rely on the RNG of mob spawnrates)
(Beyond granting access to the dungeon, the key guardian is also just a cool mob to occasionally fight in an otherwise mostly boring area, so increasing the spawn rate a bit would make the place more fun too. I honestly enjoy fighting the key guardian more than the dungeon, although that mostly just says something about the dungeon. This is beside the point, though)

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I'm guessing this is in your bank, and you have at least one fairly high level class, at least higher than the levels of most of these dungeons.
Consider the fact that new players on their first characters, and ironman players, do not have access to all the keys that they have amassed from their higher level characters. When you have to grind these for yourself it's a lot harder to get such high amounts. There's also the fact that when you encounter a low level key guardian on a high level class you're pretty much guaranteed to just oneshot it, whereas at-level there is at least a slim chance (higher with some key guardians) that the key guardian will kill you, and you obviously won't get the key, and will have to play the waiting game all over again.
But also, I can name a handful of dungeons where 5 keys, even 7 keys, would not be enough for me to feel confident that I could beat a dungeon enough times to get one of the better items. CIB and EO would be two examples, but there might be many more, depending on the skill of the player.