it's the reason I play MMOs in the first place

I love dungeons and raids

Originally posted by Gabby-air

I enjoy them for fun every once in awhile but not a fan at all of the way they are a requirement to do anything at end game. 

ye thats the problem with themeparks, you feel you have to do them, they are focused on [do->get reward] rather than a vehicle for playing with other people against a common challenge.  Themepark raiding = peer pressure/must keep up with gear raiding tiered gear cycle/ play no matter what or fall behind.  Fun or social aspects do not come into it anymore in these types of game, ugly.

1 casual raiders struggle against elite encounters but are now spoon fed final bosses in the form of nerfs that are unsatisfying for them and ruin the experience for others.

2 Mid level raiders are are under pressure to keep up with the joneses in terms of gear and performance.

3 Elite guilds aere under immense peer pressure to get first on server kills.

4. professional guilds clear content in a number of weeks and have no time for fun.

Everything is rotating around loot and peer evaluation rather than fun.  Themepark end-game is an utter mess.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Dungeons and small-scale teamplay are the best part of MMORPGs.

Play Diablo then as thats all you do in the online part.

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by Axehilt

Dungeons and small-scale teamplay are the best part of MMORPGs.

Play Diablo then as thats all you do in the online part.

Not mutually exclusive.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Dungeons and small-scale teamplay are the best part of MMORPGs.

Same for me.

In UO, Deceit was my favorite place for both PvP and PvE. In Lineage 2, I had a great time in the catacombs when we'd go as a group of 3 or 4 people. In AC, almost every dungeon was fun to do as a small pack of 4-6 people.

And,for me, the more chaotic the dungeon environment, the better. 

I miss open world dungeons, I am tired of instances.

Give me pre-LDON type EQ, old UO, and even some Vanguard...

The instanced dungeon rat race is old, doing one instance dungeon in EQ like 50 time to try to get someone some stupid boots, and my wife did it almost 100 for the same guy....It burned me out of the instances (never liked them too much anyway), and it made me hate them.

Call me crazy, but I miss getting a good group together, dealing with wipes/trains, seeing how much room you can clear and named you can get to at once and get some xp/drops and just hang out bsing with friends in a open dungeon...Much more fun for me, than the dungeon run is the reward, for you to rinse and repeat....Call it splitting hairs or whatever, but I still hate running instance dungeons to this day from the burnout of it.

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by Axehilt

Dungeons and small-scale teamplay are the best part of MMORPGs.

Play Diablo then as thats all you do in the online part.

I definitely will, although D2 didn't have anywhere near as strong teamplay as WOW did due to the lack of holy trinity gameplay.  So while many MMORPGers want to get away from the trinity, D3's potential lack of a trinity is a concern for me (I haven't followed the game close enough to know how much of a trinity it has.)

I mean you can accomplish strong teamplay without trinity gameplay, but few games manage it because it's a lot harder to do it well (for many games "teamplay" is "you need to zerg this challenge to beat it" which is barely teamplay at all.)

Originally posted by Axehilt

Dungeons and small-scale teamplay are the best part of MMORPGs.

I agree. I will add with a caveat though, when I have to start repeating dungeons for a grind of some sort (gear or whatever) then that is when I start to hate them.

Originally posted by Cuathon

Originally posted by Axehilt

Dungeons and small-scale teamplay are the best part of MMORPGs.

Play Diablo then as thats all you do in the online part.

I certainly will. But that does not mean MMO cannot use this kind of fun gameplay.

Originally posted by DJJazzy

Originally posted by Axehilt

Dungeons and small-scale teamplay are the best part of MMORPGs.

I agree. I will add with a caveat though, when I have to start repeating dungeons for a grind of some sort (gear or whatever) then that is when I start to hate them.

Nothing last forever. But certainly dungeons with good boss fights are fun.

Originally posted by Xthos

I miss open world dungeons, I am tired of instances.

 

I am glad open world dngeons are gone. Camping a boss with 50 other people is NOT fun. Running a dungeon with a group of 5 *is*.

Originally posted by nilden

When a dungeon is nothing but a hallway with a boss at the end... Do not want.

Players complained about long dungeon runs. That is why most WOW dungeons are short now, many with good scripted events.

It is actually pretty boring going though corridors and corridors of the same mobs. It is MUCH MORE interesting to have a shorter dungeon with more stuff happening.

Plus, most of the variety is in boss fight. Do i really want to kill 100 the same trash mob before getting to the interesting boss fight .. i think not.

Oddly the best fun I've had Dungeon crawling/exploring (if it can barely even be called that) has been in Minecraft, possibly the simplest game imaginable. Now, I'm not suggesting Minecraft is perfect by any means but I think some of the things that make it fun hint at the roots of what made exploration fun at the very beginning. Why? 

1. Digging around and find an open cavern with tunnels which are randomly generated and utterly unpredictable and you don't repeat the same one over and over, insta-teleport there and back, to get some predefined loot detailed down to the tiniest boring detail on google with drop rates, stats, gear sets bonus zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

2. Randomly spawning monsters can be anywhere, go for you on sight and scare the living bejaysus out of you when they creep up on you as opposed to predictable clusters of mobs, evenly spaced at predefined corners who apparently dont notice you until you get within a mysterious 'aggro range' zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

3. Old school preparation before exploring- food, tinderbox, torches, making your own arrows etc. makes it feel like a proper adventure versus the current google  preparation reading up on how EXACTLY to take down a specific boss you've already done two dozen times zzzzzzzzzzzzz. 

This may all sound trivial but these are the things that made paper and dice RPGs so iconic and enjoyable. Bring things back to basics and stop giving things to people on a plate so that the mere thought of doing a dungeon/instance sounds routine, predictable and eventually dull as cheese and onion crisps. OF COURSE people complain about having to put efforting into doing something worthwhile. OF COURSE people want to be teleported to the instance entrance and back to their beds afterwards. It's obviously better in the short term if something is simpler an easy...but if you take the mystery and effort out of things, what you get from them feels hollow and pointless in no time at all. 

in mmo's yes but for exemple in Skyrim i avoid exploring anything where u cant see the sky, i prefer open world

Old EQ2 and Vanguard I really loved dungeons. Getting a group together and go deep into a dungeon which can last 1-2 hours were some of the best times.

TOR is disappointing with it's heroic missions, they don't take more than a few minutes, maybe 15 at the most. And then when you turn it in you can add people to your friends list when taking the reward. As if you can develop any kind of friendship in the short time and low interaction you have when doing the missions.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Xthos

I miss open world dungeons, I am tired of instances.

 

 

I am glad open world dngeons are gone. Camping a boss with 50 other people is NOT fun. Running a dungeon with a group of 5 *is*.

 ZZZZZzzzzzZZZZzzz

Wake me when the excitement and challenge come back.

Originally posted by brody71

i dont particularly like doing them.  the only reason i would do a dungeon was either for a quest, or to update a piece or two of gear.  i never find myself saying "oh i want to kill that boss".

I used to like them, but MMO dungeons lately havn´t felt so good.

I want huge dungeons with traps in close to P&P RPGs, not 15 minutes of killing trash mobs followed by a large but predictable boss.

Dungeons have shrinked more and more and become less interesting for me at the same time. Almost my old favorite MMO moments are from dungeons and I hope someone will make a new massive dungeon game soon, something gigantic with evil traps everywhere.

DDO have pretty good traps but I still don´t really feel that P&P dungeon thing in it, You know the ones you map out with floorplans and have tin figurines when you play. That is still awfully fun. :)

Originally posted by nariusseldon

I am glad open world dngeons are gone. Camping a boss with 50 other people is NOT fun. Running a dungeon with a group of 5 *is*.

I don´t care if they are instanced or not, size, difficulty and how well they are made are more important to me.

And they have shrinked a lot the last 15 years, together with the diffulty being lowered.

A good dungeon should take a few hours, not 20 minutes no matter if it is instanced or not. I think people focus to much time complaining on instances and miss the point which is that they just ain´t as challenging anymore.

I like them, but lately everythings been so easy, its like they competely taken the challenge out of them so grannies can play.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by nariusseldon

I am glad open world dngeons are gone. Camping a boss with 50 other people is NOT fun. Running a dungeon with a group of 5 *is*.

I don´t care if they are instanced or not, size, difficulty and how well they are made are more important to me.

And they have shrinked a lot the last 15 years, together with the diffulty being lowered.

A good dungeon should take a few hours, not 20 minutes no matter if it is instanced or not. I think people focus to much time complaining on instances and miss the point which is that they just ain´t as challenging anymore.

 Essentially the reason dungeons are smaller today than they were 10 years ago, is because they realized designing these games around people who have 2-3 hours a session to play is a lot more profitable than designing them around those who have 15 hours a day to play.

It's basically the same reason everything in the genre is as it is today. Really the only studio that has been able to combine deep gameplay with the casual nature of working professionals is CCP, the real-time based offline leveling is key.