Special Area: Dungeons

[evev]

For better or worse most fights in Game! are routine. You know about how many hits you need to bring down a monster or you know what progression of spells (Drain, Drain, Quake, Bolt) to cast to kill something. So far the only "unique" fight I've been in (as a lowly level 13) is facing the Mysterious Figure boss. From this a fairly straight-forward idea has arisen to possibly include dungeons in Game!.

-=What is a Dungeon?=-

• A dungeon is different from regular fighting areas because you can not stay fighting in it forever. Instead, once you are in, you are taken through a pre-set series of fights to the end Boss monster.
• You need an item that will act as a key to let you access the dungeon. This item can be different for each dungeon. You can have any number of these keys on you, but without at least one you will be unable to get into the dungeon.
• You lose the key assigned to the dungeon when you decide to enter the dungeon (it is removed from your inventory).
• If you defeat the boss monster, successfully Run away from any of the dungeon fights, or if you die in a dungeon, then you are taken outside (thus losing the key) and would have to start the dungeon all over again if you have another key.
• You are given a period of respite between each fight to use healing items, cast buffs, change equipment, or to eat consumables. You'll also be given the option to leave the dungeon during the respite, thereby forfeiting the key and having to start from the beginning should you choose to.

-=What is the Point of a Dungeon?=-

• The point, hopefully, is to present a challenge to the player by pitting them against a series of progressively harder fights, all culminating in a Boss encounter.
• The biggest difficulty is that you can't use the Healer's services in between fights since doing so would have you start the dungeon all over again. Because of this, stockpiling healing items/potions will be important and should give a greater demand for them.
• Finally a player who makes it to the end will have a chance to gain wealth and rare items if they manage to defeat the final Boss.
• Succesfully completing a dungeon can be the goal of a quest. Furthermore if a number of dungeons are added then the Wise Sage can rank players based on how many dungeons they have completed.

-=Options for Making Dungeons more Challenging=-

• To add to the difficulty (or frustration), there can be included a small chance that the Boss monster is not present at the end of the dungeon.
• The key items for their respective dungeons can be made difficult to obtain, have a level requirement to use, or require a hitherto unknown recipe to make.
• If you run out of Stamina in the middle of a dungeon and are thus unable to finish the dungeon, the new day will place you back in town.

This is just a general idea that would, of course, require "flesh" in the forum of names, descriptions, statistics and the like. Please let me know what you think!

[Mad Merlin]

I like the idea. I've been kicking around something similar in my head for awhile, it was quite similar, except for all the differences.

One interesting aspect is having them tie into quests, which is something I hadn't considered. Another interesting point is that some might be repeatable, and others not.

Now I just need some time to implement them.

[evev]

I'm glad you like the idea

Only allowing players to run some dungeons once is an interesting idea: I can certainly see that to be the case for quest dungeons (kind of like how the Basement disappears). It's going to kind of bite if a player can run a dungeon at the end of which he has a certain % chance of getting a rare item only once.

Also, I'm sure that Game! has lots of creative folks, so if you are looking for names or descriptions, maybe other players can contribute somehow (unsure if it'll be worth the work, just a thought).