I’m very curious about the upcoming dungeon system, as I’m sure many of you are as well, so I’ve collected all the information I could find and placed it within this post. As more information becomes available about dungeons I’ll be sure to add it here – at least until its own dedicated developer blog is released. If I’ve missed anything please let me know and I’ll be sure to include it.
I’ve also created similar threads for the following:
Here is what we were told about dungeons in the 0.8.4 & beyond dev blog :
Patch 0.8.4 will bring our first dungeon into the game. The dungeon system is another major system in Last Epoch that we will build upon over time adding more dungeons and dungeon mechanics in later updates. We will have more information for you closer to the patch release, but for now, we can reveal that it will utilize our first iteration of map layout randomization and will offer different gameplay compared to Monolith maps.
Since then Mike has answered various questions pertaining to dungeons during the dev streams. I’ve gathered all these below – transcribing them to the best of my ability, but I’ve also provided links (if the dev stream is accessible on their YouTube channel) or timestamps (if the video is still only accessible on Twitch) for all the content if you’d rather watch Mike answer them.
October 8, 2021 Developer Q&A Stream - YouTube
Q: Hey Mike, anything you can tell else about dungeons? And if not, is there a system within another game you can best compare it to?
A: Dungeons are going to hold a few roles. They’re not going to be for just one thing. Dungeons are going to tie into a few different systems. They’re going to be accessible a little bit earlier in the game. It is tying into endgame systems. There will be features there that’ll help more advanced players enjoy the game even further as well.
Also, the initial launch we’re doing for dungeons is pretty – it really is an initial version of it. We do plan to add quite a few more of them – it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I think dungeons are going to be fun. I think they’re going to be a great alternative to Monolith and Arena to get something else to do in there.
I don’t really have anything good I can compare it to off the top of my head. Like, I don’t know, maybe Countess runs in Diablo 2 [Mike laughs]. That’s not really a good comparison, but yeah. There will be some really unique and interesting things happening in dungeons that I’m really excited to share with you guys and that I’m very intentionally leaving out of this conversation, unfortunately. They’re going to be great and I know you’re going to be excited for them once you see exactly what they are.YouTube Link
Q: The map randomization in the dev blog, is it procedurally generated from like tilesets or what? I don’t know if you can go into more detail on that.
A: It’s pretty limited now, at first. As far as the procedural generation for map content is considered it’s not what you’re expecting. It’s not like here’s a straight piece, here’s a corner piece, and here’s a t-section and we’ll plump them down and stitch them together – it’s not that. However, it will tie into the dungeon mechanics nicely.
There’s some new mechanics coming in the dungeon that creates some really interesting design space for us, which we’ve been looking for recently. This is a way for us to get into that space and have a lot more interesting boss fights, I think. This really opens up space for an unlimited number of new boss mechanics that we haven’t even discovered we can do yet. Most of them will be terrible and we won’t do them [Mike laughs], but there’s lots of options now which is great.
I don’t know if you guys remember, but one of the things I mention frequently about boss mechanics design is that there’s only a set number of tools that we can assume the player has. Which is move and attack – we know you’ve got those two things no matter what.YouTube Link
Q: What is a dungeon compared to existing content?
A: It’ll be – like compared to an entire Monolith Timeline each dungeon will be shorter; a little bit more bit sized, with specific reward goals.YouTube Link
Q: Can you spill some beans on the upcoming dungeons that were mentioned?
A: They’re going to be fun. It’s going to be the first little taste of randomization. We’re starting slow with them – getting the mechanics right, getting the feel right. We do plan on adding a lot more dungeons as we go. We have to build a lot of systems to make dungeons possible.
So we kind of have a choice; we can either build the systems to make the dungeons possible and make the first dungeon and just hold onto it all this patch, and then next patch release a whole bunch of dungeons all at once, but instead what we’re doing is we’re starting small with the number of dungeons and getting that out right away. Then we’ll take feedback from that and probably make changes to the system overall, and then significantly expand the number of dungeons available.
There’s going to be a dev blog that’ll explain all of this and give a lot more details on the goals of what dungeons are designed to achieve. They’ve got multiple purposes so it’s supposed to fit a few things that we need to have in the game that are not in the game yet or in too short of supply within the game.YouTube Link
Q: Is there any info you can share about the dungeon system? It’s been tackled differently by many games and I wonder what it will be like in this game.
A: It’s going to serve multiple purposes. It’s not a single purpose event, and it will be expanded upon in subsequent patches. So the initial version of it will be a little light in content that is available for it, a little, but it’s going to have some great rewards so you’re going to want to do it [Mike laughs]. You’ll definitely be wanting to do it. You’ll prepare for a reward, then you’ll go do it, you’ll get your reward, and you’ll be really happy. Or you’ll be a little disappointed, maybe, but have to do it again to get a better reward. Whatever it is it’ll be very strong.
However, we did find some edge cases that aren’t very strong with the rewards, but you have to manually and very intentionally do that [Mike laughs]. You can set it up such that the rewards are really bad but you have to very specifically and carefully do that. Like you have to work for it to be a bad reward, but I do very much expect that to be a thing people will do.
I’m going to want to see the worst possible reward you can make out of the dungeon. That’ll be a challenge that I ask for post patch [Mike laughs]. And there’ll be some funny ones. There’s one we came up with already, but it’s the obvious one. You’ll see, and I know I’m telling you nothing by saying this so I’m so sorry!YouTube Link
October 15, 2021 Developer Q&A Stream - YouTube
Q: With regards to the upcoming dungeons, will there be many bosses per dungeon or just the one? Or is it still a secret?
A: Ah, umm the first dungeon…first off, we’re planning on making many dungeons eventually. The first iteration will be very light and there’s a lot of functionality things – there’s a lot of little things that come with it that we have to set up. Like the initial dungeon randomization system which is in now. Just setting that up takes a lot of time, which takes a lot of time out of being able to design and develop new dungeons. In subsequent patches we’ll have a lot more time to add more dungeons in, but for now we’re starting pretty low on the number of them.
The initial one – and once again bosses do take a lot of development time as well – so the initial one will, I think, only have one boss. That’s not to say that it will stay at only one boss, or maybe that some dungeons will have variable bosses or optional bosses – I don’t know what – but the initial offering for the very first dungeon will only have one boss.
It’s going to be a fairly unique boss fight because – this is something that I’ve been kind of eluding to for a while now in streams and we’ll get into it a lot more later, but I keep mentioning this – is that when we’re designing boss fights the only thing we can assume players have is move and damage. One of the things we are hoping to get out of the system is more design space for bosses.YouTube Link
Q: The only thing you can assume players have is movement and damage? Did I hear that right and if so can you elaborate a bit?
A: Yeah, so the only two things we can assume players are able to do is move their character and attack. So we know you have the move ability and we know you have basic attack. That is all we know for sure that you actually have. You could have anything else on your action bar – maybe you have Lunge set to do no damage at all or maybe you don’t have a movement skill at all. We can’t guarantee that you have a movement skill, we can’t guarantee that you have a healing skill, we can’t guarantee that you have a ranged damage skill – the only things we know for sure is that you can move and you can attack. Which means if we have a boss mechanic that say sets up a wall and the only way you can hurt that boss is to shot it at range, but some characters don’t have any ranged abilities. Those characters just can’t do that boss. So we can’t assume players have certain abilities. Or maybe we say you have to get out of this certain area fast enough in order not to die. We have to assume that players can get out of that area by just walking and not having a movement ability.
Which is why – I see this all the time – that Lagon’s impossible. Like I use Lunge but I can’t do it with Lunge. You can do Lagon without using any movement abilities, and not ever get hit by one of his big attacks. It’s really hard, and it’s way easier with a movement ability but it is possible. We do test most boss fights with this in mind. We try to build characters that are a little bit lacking in some key areas but the mechanics are still functional. So what I was saying earlier, if we had a way that we could guarantee for specific bosses that you had a new mechanic available to you, regardless of class, it would give us new opportunities to add boss mechanics that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
I think a really good example of this done well is actually within the Zelda franchise. For those that don’t know, most Zelda games have dungeons throughout the game where you get into the dungeon and there’s a bunch of locked doors. Lets say there’s a bunch of these eyes over the doors and if you shoot the eyes with an arrow the door opens. However, you don’t have a bow so you can’t shoot it but in the dungeon at some point you get a bow and the rest of the dungeon opens up because you can now shoot the eyes over the doors. So throughout the dungeon you learn how to – and a lot of enemies in the dungeon are susceptible to arrows as a weakness type of thing, and when you get to the boss fight the only way to kill the boss is with the item you found within the dungeon…or it’s way easier with that, maybe. So this is a good example of where they can design boss fights with the assumption that you’ll have access to this mechanic because they know that in order to get to the boss in this dungeon you had to use this mechanic and learned it a little bit.
So we’ve been looking for a way to assume players have specific mechanics in order to have new mechanics in boss fights. That’s something we’re working on.YouTube Link
Q: Have we gotten any info on how dungeons will work?
A: Very little. There will be a very expansive dev blog that goes into detail on that. We just had our first functional version of it up this week. We need to make sure what we’re doing first is solid before we roll it out because if we announce it and give details on it, but then we’re like ‘oh, by the way we had to change it’ – then that’s kind of lame.YouTube Link
Q: Will dungeons have unique loot drops, specific to that dungeon?
A: Yes, there will be things you can only obtain by going into that dungeon and completing it successfully, in some cases. Though, I can’t tell you what those are yet.YouTube Link
Q: How does dying in a dungeon work? Do we respawn or start over?
A: There’s a bit of a death penalty in there. You will respawn outside the dungeon, I think is the answer to that.YouTube Link
Q: How many variations of dungeon maps will be possible?
A: I don’t know what the math is on it, and some of the variations are very small, but if you want to get technical it’s probably somewhere in the millions.YouTube Link
October 22, 2021 Developer Q&A Stream - YouTube
Q: How will dungeons scale their difficulty? Will they scale by just area level or will the player also have choices available to them that scales the difficulty higher and thus the available rewards? Additionally, if dungeons interact with other endgame systems will those also scale their difficulty even further?
A: Wow, lots to unpack there. I can’t really give you exact info because we haven’t done our big dungeon detail dev post yet. We’re still working on dungeons, the functionality is not – well the functionality is actually in and it’s playable right now, but it’s not polished yet. We are still actively developing it and things could change so I don’t want to say too much about exactly how it’ll be. However, it is designed as both a leveling mechanic and an endgame mechanic, which is only really possible if there’s some form of scaling involved. So yeah, expect some form of scaling happening unless we completely change how we want it to work in the next, like, time to actually getting the patch day [Mike laughs].
Yeah, with the dungeon scaling and when we do have scaling difficulty then scaling rewards is also a thing. I guess that’s not always the case because sometimes we do things where difficulty scales and rewards don’t – like with Masochist mode where we’re just like, ‘good luck!’ [Mike laughs].YouTube Link
October 29, 2021 Developer Q&A Stream - YouTube
Q: Any new maps or bosses coming in the new patch?
A: There’s one new boss in the new dungeon and there’s new maps in the dungeon, a new zone there, so there will be some new content with the new dungeon, but Monolith is not getting any new zones next patch. We will look at getting the Monolith a few new zones relating to the latest chapter content, but it’s not there yet because level design has been working on the dungeons – and game design too.
ReimerhArts [in the comments after Mike said that there would be no new Monolith zones]: Yes it will.
Mike afterwards: Oh, I’ve just been told that we are making new Monolith zones. I was wrong. So that’s good news, more Monolith zones. Yay! [Mike laughs]YouTube Link
Q: Will dungeons have targetable loot?
A: Yes, and no. There will be things that you can target through dungeons and there will be things that are random as well in there – so both.YouTube Link
Q: Will you have any endgame system that isn’t infinitely scaling?
A: Yes, the dungeons aren’t infinitely scaling. The dungeons have scaling, but it’s not infinite. I think…I’m pretty sure [Mike laughs].YouTube Link
Q: Do you see dungeons later on getting some sort of puzzle mechanics? Or I guess any aspect of LE getting some?
A: Yep. I could see dungeons having some elements of puzzle mechanics. There’s a little bit of puzzle mechanics, that are even in the first one. It’s very light and it’s kind of a stretch to call it a puzzle mechanic, but it’s there.
There’s this thing with puzzle mechanics in RPG’s that I’ve always had a hard time reconciling in my head, and this goes back to D&D and Pathfinder – things that I’ve played – and things like that. It’s where you’re faced with a puzzle in the game and maybe you’re brilliant – maybe you’re a fantastic puzzle solver, that’s what you do…you solve puzzles all day, it’s your bread and butter – but your character’s dumb. You’re character’s really dumb. So you get to this puzzle in the game and you, as a player, know the answer but your character shouldn’t. Then it becomes this tricky thing of does your character know how to complete this puzzle or not? And it’s not something that’s easy to reconcile, I think. There’s also the opposite of that too. Maybe you can’t figure out the puzzle and you get frustrated and get stuck, but you’re like my character is the smartest in the world and they should know the answer immediately.
It’s having that break from the game world that can cause problems. Also, people just getting stuck on puzzles, and the puzzle has to be static. Maybe you just end up looking up the answer online. That process of going to another source to have to do something in the game is not something we’re overly keen on. When we do have puzzle mechanics – and there is a puzzle-y mechanic in the dungeons – they’re pretty light. It’s not asking you to solve a chess puzzle level of difficulty.YouTube Link
November 5, 2021 Developer Q&A Stream - YouTube
Q: I hope we get ultimate abilities at some point. Like a slow gauge that fills up during battle!
A: Yeah, that’s a cool concept. So that’s another sort of thing we were talking about with umm…having been kind of teasing with dungeons – we’re not doing specifically that, just to be clear, right now – but that is something that we could do. I’ve talked about it a few times already with boss fights where we can only assume you have move and attack. We can’t really assume you have anything else.
Giving specific mechanics to players to make boss fights more interesting – like guaranteed mechanics in boss fights. So that could be a time where maybe there’s a boss fight where you get some special ability. The thing that comes to mind, and you can tell how many games I’ve played, because the next example is a Zelda example…surprise, surpise. In Skyward Sword, spoiler alert, there’s this giant monster that’s coming out of this hole and walking really slowly around the outside of this big arena and you got to hurt him and he falls back down. You’ve got to do that a few times throughout the game and it gets harder each time. Near the end of the game when you have to fight him the last time you actually have your friend Groose – who starts the game as your enemy, but becomes your friend – and he’s got this big bomb catapult that runs around the top edge of the arena that can shoot bombs at him. It charges up over time and then he’s like, ‘hey I can shoot now’ and then you take control of him and shoot – great.
That’s the extra mechanic that’s been added in specifically for that boss fight and you don’t have anywhere else, but it helps you with the boss fight and it’s something that you have to master for that fight. But it also – it’s that same thing you were just talking about – it charges up, you get some ultimate ability that you can trigger. I really like that design where you can give new mechanics to boss fights based on something in the environment…something in the story. I do feel that we could do something relatively similar.YouTube Link
Q: How many dungeons are being added on the first iteration?
A: Just one. A lot of it is getting the mechanics and the feel right for dungeons, in general. There’s a lot of work that goes into making a dungeon and so having that be something we’re in, is solid – and there’s also a lot of behind the scenes mechanics that have to get worked on.
The options were; build the dungeon systems this patch and don’t release it and over the course of the next patch cycle make a whole bunch of dungeons and release it all at once, or we can build the system and get one done and push it out. It does work fully as its own system. We do have some things planned to expand it as we bring more dungeons in and make it more cohesive and feel more like an ecosystem of itself. So we are building it with very intentional plans for expansion.YouTube Link
November 12, 2021 Developer Q&A Stream - YouTube
No questions relating to dungeons were answered.
November 19, 2021 Developer Q&A Stream - YouTube
Q: Is today the day you accidentally announce the dungeon release date?
A: Umm, well I don’t have to accidently do it because we’ve actually already announced it. It’s December 10th, so that numbers out there.YouTube Link
Q: Dungeon, crafting & legendary leaks? Anything for us to chew on?
A: Ahh, I don’t really have much for you right now with that. Umm, we’ve got the – I should probably bring up the article to figure out what you guys actually know because that’s where I get into trouble where I’m like, ‘ah they know this for sure…blah, blah, blah’. Dungeons are going to be fun. It’s going to be a really interesting system to design for in the future. We actually just had a meeting today about future dungeons for subsequent patches. So this first patch where we come out with the dungeon system isn’t going to have a lot of dungeons. I’ve talked about this before so it’s not really a leak, sorry.
We spent a lot of time this patch developing the system in the first place and developing tools to make the system – to make the levels and everything so there’s a lot of work that goes into it that way. Yeah we could have waited a patch and not had anything like that, but we decided to release one of them right off the bat. The way that you interact with dungeons is going to change slightly after the second, third, fourth, fifth dungeon come in just because of how the entrance is accessed for all of them. I’m sorry, I’m like skirting around this because I don’t know what’s public knowledge yet.YouTube Link
Q: Does the dungeon have a name?
A: It does have a name. Ahh, I don’t think we’ve shared what the name is yet though. We may have…I just got to bring that up. Okay we have unveiled the name for it. New Endgame Dungeon: Temporal Sanctum.YouTube Link
Q: Is the “alt leveling” with dungeons still a thing?
A: Yeah the ahh – so dungeons are…there’s a few purposes they’re going to serve. One of them, their main purpose, is as a new endgame activity to do with unique rewards and mechanics that go with it. That’s the primary feature I would say…well, that’s how I’m going to look at it as the primary feature [Mike laughs]. The secondary thing that it does do is that it will give you opportunities to augment the leveling process for alts. I know that’s the same line I used last time. There’s no new information there, but it will be coming I promise.YouTube Link
November 26, 2021 Developer Q&A Stream - Twitch
Q: I bet this gets asked a lot, but are there any plans to make Echoes more diverse or randomized? Even in this stream alone it feels like you’ve been in this area 2-3 times.
A: We do add…every time we do a chapter we do add new areas to the echoes, or at least we try to. We are working on randomization systems right now. The dungeons will have the first instances of randomization in the game in them. I think this ties in a little bit to a question that was asked earlier about having things show up in the middle to break things apart and I do really like that as a way to keep things fresh. Yeah, I think the short answer is yes we’ll be adding more stuff.
December 3, 2021 Developer Q&A Stream - Twitch
Q: Will you need a key to enter the dungeon?
A: Yes, you will need a key to enter the dungeon. It’s not just open to any mere mortal who wonders past. It must be earned to enter the dungeon [Mike laughs].
Q: How frequent are dungeons going to be if there is the chance to make a legendary in each one? Or is there some sort of limit?
A: Each dungeon is different and the rewards for each dungeon will be different. Right now we’re starting with just one dungeon so part of this dungeons reward is being able to make a legendary item.
Q: In the video, where a legendary is being created, what does the “D” key next to the health globe do?
A: That is a new ability slot. So I don’t know if you guys remember, but I’ve talked frequently about how when we’re designing boss fights and we’re designing mechanics for zones in general is that the only thing that we can really guarantee that every single character can do is move and attack. We can’t guarantee that they have a movement ability, we can’t guarantee that they can stun things, or that they can apply ailments, or anything like that. Move and attack is the only thing that we can guarantee they can do.
Well, in order to give us a little bit more freedom in our puzzle design, in our boss design, and things like that we have now, in the dungeon, you get a new ability specific to that dungeon. So this is the only dungeon that has this ability, everyone gets this ability, and now we can assume everyone has access to this ability – because you do. We can also design mechanics around it as well. By default, the hotkey for it is “D”.
Q: Are the dungeon keys found in Monoliths? And are they different from other keys?
A: They can be. Yes, they are different from other keys.
Q: When is the earliest we can access the dungeon? Will it be available in campaign or will we need to hit Empowered Monolith?
A: This dungeon’s lowest level I believe is 55. I could be wrong about that. I think that’s when this dungeon starts. You can do it in campaign. You will need a key for it and that key will not drop before the dungeon starts. Like you won’t be leveling and find a key and then be able to go into the dungeon. You’ll find the key on subsequent characters – on your first character that goes through – and then be able to put that key in your stash. You can put that key on a low level character and as it levels you can get to the dungeon and use that key. So you can use it for leveling, but it will not be on the first character through – so alternate characters.
This is why I was saying – the phrase that I used was dungeons will be able to augment the leveling process for alternate characters.
Q: For alts and experience in dungeons and the term augment, will this be on par with Monolith clearing or have some kind of experience rewards?
A: Part of it is skipping sections of the campaign. That’s a big part of that. So you’re less looking for gaining levels out of them and more just umm – because it’s a second character you likely have better gear than what you’re finding on just anything, and you’re likely more experienced because it’s not your first time through the game. Part of it is you’re bounding past – like you go into the dungeon at one point of the story and you come out at a different point and you skip something in the middle.
Q: Where is the dungeon located?
A: Crap, I don’t know [Mike laughs]. Reimerh, tell them where the dungeon’s located. Tell them what they’ve won [Mike laughs].
[No answer provided in the comments.]
Q: Will there be a dungeon dev blog before patch?
A: No, there will not. This is your dungeon dev blog [Mike laughs].
Q: Also, will there be any kind of randomization elements to help keep replay value fresh?
A: Yes, dungeons will have randomization to them. You will not be able to memorize an exact path through. Kind of like as I was talking about – there’s a lot of stuff I’ve been talking about in the last few dev streams where you’re going to be like, ‘oh he was talking about the dungeon wasn’t he’. I went on a big side note about Zelda dungeons and using the bow to open up different sections of the dungeon because that was the ability you got in the dungeon and how it’s key for the boss fight. Same thing here. That “D” key will be key for both the boss and advancing through the dungeon.
Q: What would getting our character killed do to our dungeon progress? Can we get back to where we were or would we have to start again?
A: You have to start again. It’s one and done, dead you’re out, but it’s not really that long either so the biggest thing you’re losing out of that is the dungeon key.
Q: Will dungeons have any modifiers for monsters? Will you be able to add modifiers to make it harder?
A: Yes. As you go through the dungeon you’ll be able to select more and more modifiers to stack up – as you go through floors of the dungeon.
[ReimerhArts in the comments] It won’t be as extensive as in the Monolith, but the dungeon will get harder as you progress through it.
Q: Will there be a new epic boss similar to Shade of Orobyss to fight in the new dungeon with new unique drops?
A: Yes, there is a new unique dungeon boss with new unique mechanics, and new unique drops.
Q: Are you all willing to talk about the map randomization you have implemented? I am curious and was hoping to read about it in a dev blog.
A: Yep, we can talk about it. What do you want to know?
Q: How long is the dungeon to run on average with a speed character, and does it have separate levels in it?
A: I would say – depends on how good you are at it, how good your build is, all those sorts of things – I would say roughly 10 minutes I’m going to guess. Well, I think we just extended it a bit actually. It’s still a little bit in flux. We actually made some pretty heavy changes to it based on CT feedback just this week. So it might have gotten a little bit longer, but not by much. It’s definitely a shorter experience – it’s bite-sized content. I would say it’s longer than an echo and more similar to two or three echoes – maybe a little bit more depending on how lucky you get. You might find the exit right away, or you might not [Mike laughs].
Yes, there’s more than one floor. There’s different levels to it.
Q: How do dungeon modifiers affect rewards?
A: Each risk comes with a reward. So if you take, for example, “enemies have 100% more damage” – I don’t actually know what all the enemy modifiers are right now – you’ll get something like “whenever something drops, something else drops with it always” or “there’s a higher chance of these other items dropping”. There’s high value targeted – like really specific rewards – if that makes any sense. In some cases they can be high value, I should say.
Q: Is ‘returning to the eternity cache in the future’ going to mean we have to do the dungeon again to get the legendary item?
A: No, you will have a mechanism to do that right there. It’s slightly symbolic. The process of doing that takes a good second or two [Mike laughs].
Q: How does the difficulty of the dungeon (its modifiers, floor you are in) influence reward on Eternity Cache involved in creating legendary items?
A: It changes the maximum level of unique that you can use. So in a max tier dungeon you can put any unique item in there that you want. The lowest level dungeon you can only put uniques up to – maybe this is where I was thinking level 55 – no it’s level 50 that’s the base one…yeah. In the base level dungeon you can put a unique up to level 50 into the Eternity Cache, but these numbers could change. And then there’s other ones and there’s also a spectrum again.
Q: How does it function? How much randomization is there really? Like how many runs will a person do before seeing maybe some repeated layouts? Or is that even possible?
A: So the randomization is a lot of little micro randomization decisions. So you know how, maybe you don’t know this, if you have a deck of playing cards or even say a deck of Magic cards and you rearrange these in a unique order. I’m holding about 50 cards here or more – there’s billions of ways to rearrange these into unique orders. So while it’s possible to hit the same randomization and you may get some that are similar enough that you might have the feeling of deja vu, but finding one that is the same or even close enough to the same that you can know which way to go – it’s not going to happen.
Q: With dungeons and possibly adding more, do you have a design vision on that system? Such as will they drop exclusive rewards, or provide alternative ways to level, etc?
A: Yeah we do, definitely. So we want to have – the long-term reality of the system might change given the feedback we get from people. We’ve already changed how the dungeon works based on feedback from the CT’s. It could change again. The answer to this question – I could tell you what we want to do right now, but please don’t take that as this is what is going to happen. Ideally we will have several dungeons spread across different levels and different points in the campaign whereby you will be able to get unique keys for each dungeon which can allow you to enter that dungeon at either the level they appear at in the campaign appropriately or higher tiers for higher rewards and they will all skip you past some chunk of the campaign.
So if you have a key for every single dungeon you can skip probably the majority of the campaign by doing just dungeons. Now if you do that you’re not going to get anywhere near as much experience on your character so you’re probably going to be under-leveled. So you’re going to need either a high quality build, or high quality gear, or just be really good at the game. Part of the goals as well is that each dungeon has its own unique mechanic, it’s own unique rewards…yeah. Like I said, this whole grand vision for dungeons can change and it’s still up in the air and it’s based a lot on what you all think of the first dungeon. Which is part of the reason why we’re releasing the first one on its own because we do believe that this one can stand on its own and still be fun – and it takes a long time to make them.
We wanted to release one this patch, but we didn’t have enough time this patch to make 5 dungeons, 10 dungeons, I don’t know how many we’re going to do eventually. We also want it to stand as an endgame system as well whereby you can find keys for one dungeon in a different dungeon so that you could chain high level dungeons together, if you wanted. Just be like I love dungeons and it’s all I run. Cool, have fun.
Q: Will you also be looking at implementing this randomization outside of dungeons and into monoliths or other systems?
A: Maybe, it all depends on how well this goes.
Q: Are there any specific enemy modifiers we will see in dungeons which are specific to these dungeons?
A: Maybe eventually. I don’t think there’s any in this one. I think they’re all also somewhere else, but I could be wrong on that one.
[ReimerhArts in the comments] Dungeon enemy modifiers are fairly modest.
Q: Can you tell us more about the special ability in dungeons that you mentioned (is it only in dungeons, can you use it outside of it, is there only one special ability, will there be more, what’s the purpose of it, can you bind any skills on it)?
A: Lots of questions there. Okay, lets go through those one at a time. Yes, I can tell you more about it. Is it only in dungeons? Yes, it is only in dungeons. That specific ability is only in the Temporal Sanctum, which is the name of the dungeon by the way. So the Temporal Sanctum has the Temporal Shift dungeon ability and the Temporal Sanctum is the only place that you can use Temporal Shift. It does not exist anywhere else.
Is there only one special ability? Yes, and it is called Temporal Shift. Will there be more? Probably. As we add more dungeons they’ll each have their own unique abilities that go with them. This is so that we can make unique mechanics for those boss fights. Can you bind any skill to it? Well you can bind any key to use that ability just like you can bind any key to the other ones, but you can’t drag another ability into that slot. This is part of that thing where we want to guarantee that people have access to specific abilities so we’re guaranteeing that you have access to this ability. So that you can’t take it off your bar once you’re in the Temporal Sanctum – once it’s there it’s always there, it’s always on your bar.
What’s the purpose of it? Great question, no one asked that yet. I wasn’t going to tell anyone what it is until someone asked, but I will tell you what it does. Temporal Shift, as you may have guessed, very quickly jumps you to a different era – a very specific different era. So you can flip between two specific era’s very quickly. It doesn’t move you in space, only in time.
Q: When you say it will skip you past some part of the campaign, does that mean it will give you passives/idol slots from the side quests in that part of the campaign?
A: I think so, but I can’t remember if it does or not. I know this has come up and I think its been addressed somehow, but I can’t remember exactly how we addressed it. But yeah, I probably should have come prepped with that one. Reimerh, if you know please answer the question.
[No answer provided in the comments.]
Q: Ooooooooooh Temporal Shift, that might explain the cache!
A: It might, it might, yes. This is why I said it’ll just take a second to do the time travel referenced, because you just hit the “D” key and you flip [Mike laughs]. And why I said it’s largely ceremonial.
Q: Will Monolith nodes have the dungeon keys as a rare echo reward?
A: I think so. If not, good suggestion. I kind of assumed it would, I think [Mike laughs].
Q: How many secrets/Easter eggs can we find in the new dungeon?
A: I have no idea. Our level designers – more than once I’ve come to them and been like, ‘how long has this been here?’ And they’re like, ‘like a year Mike. How did you not know?’ And I’m like, ‘no one’s found this yet’ [Mike laughs].
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– in the 