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Randomize the WvWvW Dungeon
User	Guild Wars 3 perhaps
Categories	Player vs. Player Mechanics

Go here to see a list of my other GW2 suggestions and discussion contributions.

I've just finished watching Guildcast wherein the panel discussed the WvWvW dungeon. From their description, it sounds like it will be incredibly fun and challenging.

Except...

After players have run through it a few times, they will memorize its layout. They will know - even in the Dark Room - where all the jumps and ledges are. They will know where all the traps are. They will develop muscle memory such that they will be able to jump, dodge, spin, and run through it with as much sure-footed grace as a Mountain Goat.

In short, what made the dungeon fun and unique the first couple times - it's unpredictability - will eventually be eliminated. This has two detrimental effects. First, an innovative and well-designed piece of content will be rendered boring over time. Secondly, it will give veterans of the dungeon such an overwhelming advantage over any one new to it that the inexperienced players won't stand a chance of surviving. This in turn kills the fun factor for this set of players if they're constantly getting ganked by those who have already memorized the dungeon and the trap locations.

My suggestion is to randomize the dungeon. Perhaps not all of it; but significant enough portions of it that it's a new experience each time someone enters it. This can be accomplished through various means:

• Instead of making all of the jumps a static ledge hewn out of the bedrock beneath a keep or rigidly placed posts and beams of wood, make some of the jumps swinging platforms suspended from the ceiling by chains or swaying columns of vertically-placed logs. In so doing, the platforms are now in motion. Players will not only have to position themselves correctly (as they would with a static ledge) but now there's the added challenge and the ever-changing twist of having to time their jumps just right, as well.

• Even a platform in motion gets old after awhile; a player will eventually figure out the timing sequence of the platform's motion. So change-up the motion; make it random. Every so often (maybe once a day, once every 12 hours, etc.) the direction of motion and/or the speed of a platform will change . This will force players to constantly recalculate the timing of their jumps every time they enter the dungeon.

• Add trap controls to the dungeon which control the platforms. Not to the extent that a jump is now made impossible by permitting a player to change the distance, motion, or speed of a platform to an extreme degree.

No, that's not what I intend at all. But the controls would allow a player to change the position (including Z-axis), orientation, motion, and distance of a jump just enough that it is now a different jump than it was before. Players won't be able to simply go on auto-pilot, easily jumping through these platforms the same way they did yesterday. If they wish to make a successful jump, they will have to re-assess each one which has been changed due to another player throwing the switch on a trap control.

• As for the original traps themselves, change these up, too. By doing so, players will constantly be kept guessing as to the location of the traps rather than being able to memorize - and avoid - them after sufficient experience in the dungeon. The location of the traps can be changed and/or the type of trap at a location can be changed. For example, what was a flame trap yesterday is a spear trap today or the rolling boulder trap that was in a particular corridor yesterday isn't there today; it's moved to a different corridor.

• Add puzzles to the dungeon which - if failed - rearrange the dungeon. For example, players come to a room where they have to follow a "Simon Says" puzzle to open a gate into a jumping puzzle. The jumping puzzle can be seen beyond the gate and the path through it can be plotted out based on its current arrangement.

Successfully completing the "Simon Says" puzzle opens the gate and keeps the current arrangment of the platforms intact. However, failing the "Simon Says" puzzle opens the gate but also rearranges the platforms; now the players have to figure out a different path through the jumping puzzle.

Exiting the room and re-entering will give a different arrangement of the jumping puzzle each time. This way someone who fails the "Simon Says" puzzle can't just exit the room and re-enter over and over until they get the "Simon Says" puzzle right in an effort to "freeze" the jumping puzzle's arrangement in a default configuration; there will be no default.

• Break-away platforms (which eventually regenerate; but perhaps in a different arrangement each time). Landing on a platform causes it to start to crumble away; better make the jump to the next one before it completely disintegrates and drops you to the bottom!

• Maybe add the challenge that anyone who wants to take control of a dungeon's trap must first solve a puzzle or get through a trap themselves. Failure to do so and a trapdoor opens, dropping them to the bottom of the dungeon or some other consequence. Now anyone who wants to spring a trap on other players has to put some "skin" in the game, first.

Also, mix up these trap puzzles. It can't be the same one everytime or it's only challenging on the first attempt. After that and it's either a matter of the player has memorized what they need to do to complete the puzzle or outwit the trap that unlocks the control or they go read the solution on a wiki. It has to randomize every time someone attempts it.

These are just a few examples; there's dozens of variations which could be implemented. Being the creative folks you are and based on my sense that many of you are "old timers" (I include myself in that statement; it's not a criticism) who cut your teeth on the earliest video games - including classic platformers and puzzlers - I'm sure you can come up with all sorts of fun, unique, and ever-changing puzzles and mechanics for the dungeon that will make it a new experience each time someone enters (or at least every 24 hours).

The dungeon should be designed so that it is as unique on the 100th time a player enters it as it was on the first time they entered it. In doing so, you maintain the challenge of the dungeon, prevent players from gaining an unfair advantage by memorizing the dungeon's static jumps and traps, and you keep it "fun" (for everyone) !

Thank you for reading.

Guild Wars 3 perhaps 00:29, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

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Did you ever play the UT2k4 map "Pathway Naive" or it's varients? User-controlled traps make things increadably interesting the 1000'th time you play it. Assuming that the traps are powerful enough and the area designed with them in mind. 82.41.46.0 16:02, 27 June 2012 (UTC) (Copied this response to the Discussion tab and continued the conversation there.)

Update

Something I completely forgot to include in the original suggestion; monsters. What's a dungeon without some monsters wandering around? Consistent with the intent of my original suggestion, said monsters would spawn randomly throughout the dungeon. This prevents players from memorizing their spawn points and being able to plan strategies for killing them in advance of the actual encounter. Instead, with randomly spawned monsters, players must always keep their wits about them because they never know what might be lurking right...around...that...next...corner.

The monsters should randomize not only in spawn location (which should essentially be anywhere in the dungeon except right on top of an existing trap so players can't memorize the spawn points), but also in type and number. For example, one randomly spawned "monster" could be a wandering party of Skritt rather than a single creature. There could certainly be spawns which produce just one monster. In such cases the creature's strength should scale up the fewer and fewer there are per spawn. A single Skritt, for example, isn't much of a threat; so a large group has to be spawned to compensate. Conversely, only a single Aatxe (or whatever monster is of equivalent power in GW2) would spawn.

Though I haven't played through the WvWvW dungeon, I imagine it's a fairly good sized map; so there should be room for spawning more than one monster or group of monsters at a time. Once spawned, they should be free to roam the dungeon - or at least patrol an area - rather than being rooted to a single spot. There may be instances where spawning a monster in a particular room of the dungeon would make sense; to guard a treasure chest or a trap control in that room, for example. However, this defeats the purpose of why I'm suggesting monster spawns to begin with; to add an element of randomization and the unknown to the dungeon. If a monster's spawn point is in a specific room and it doesn't leave that room, then the spawn point is static and players will eventually memorize its location.

Thank you for reading.

Guild Wars 3 perhaps 16:35, 27 June 2012 (UTC)