I see many people complaining about gated content, and mostly about the three dungeons being gated behind rather rare keys. I also see many people saying that the rewards can be powerful (especially in the Temporal Sanctum) and thus should not accessible too easily.
Proposition: let the dungeons open and freely accessible, but put a gate with a key just before the reward. This way, people could go in the Temporal Sanctum as often as they want, but they would need a key to access the Eternity Cache.
Dungeons offer an opportunity to explore additional repeatable content with higher rewards. While each dungeon has a unique reward mechanic (Eternity Cache, Soul Gambler, Vault of Uncertain Fates) the dungeons also provide other increased rewards throughout the dungeon. Temporal Sanctum in particular offers much higher Exalted drop rates, and targetable exalted farming. If a key requirement was removed, the through dungeon rewards would need to be greatly reduced. There is also an important part in “cost of entry”. By having a cost of entry, it increases the desire to optimize rewards - clear more of the dungeon to get more from each key spent. Without having anything spent, there’s no incentive to do anything other than rush the single most rewarding aspect (typically boss) and ignore everything else. This is one of the issues currently encountered with the Monolith. And while we are working on other solutions for the Monolith to provide more than simply rushing the objective, Dungeons work differently, and the same solutions won’t apply.
We currently believe having a cost of entry (dungeon key) is an effective measure for Dungeons to provide value to what can be found within, and allow the rewards within to be more rewarding based on key scarcity. A solution of moving the key to the reward mechanic would also not work universally (Soul Gambler), so such a solution would create an inconsistent experience across different dungeons.
Getting the correct balance for key scarcity and rewards for trying to get value from each key is a very delicate balance, and certainly something we’re looking for feedback regarding to ensure keys are exciting finds and something you ‘always’ want to see drop.
Okay, so if the issue at core is repeatability and incentive, that’s fine. But when do you want a character to be able to first access Tier 1 of each dungeon? It feels…bad, during the campaign, to find a fancy dungeon and not be able to access it; would it break things to have a key the first time you find it? It’d be easy enough to implement with the quest system.
Was commenting on the rarity of dungeon keys in another thread and thought I should create a separate post about the fact that all dungeons have multiple “gates” or requirements to be able to run then… At the moment, I count at least 3 for each Dungeon: A key - all of which are currently pretty rare A secondary requirement - Gold, Soul Ember, Unique with LP & a matching exalt, A difficulty tier - defeating dungeon bosses (which are arguably the hardest in the game at higher tiers) A…
Your definition of “gate” in this reference is skewed. The “gating” refers to what is ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED to participate in an aspect of a game. It is NOT referring to what is needed to OPTIMIZE the reward of the activity.
You don’t need exalted items to ENTER Temporal Sanctum. You don’t need Embers or gold to enter either of the new dungeons. The only thing you need to enter is a key. That is the gate.
What you are referring to is how to optimize the rewards. That’s an ENTIRELY different conversation, and (at least in my mind), your complaint is a bit skewed there also. You don’t NEED a unique and exalted to get the rewards from Temporal Sanctum, because you are GUARANTEED to get a matching unique and exalted when you kill Julra. Sure, it might not be the unique you wanted (as she only drops specific items) and the exalted probably won’t have the stats you want, but you still get them.
Similarly, you earn embers (and i’m assuming gold) in the new dungeons. You don’t need them BEFORE you enter (although obviously having gold ahead of time might help). They’re not gates. The difference between being able to PARTICIPATE in an activity and being able to MAXIMIZE the rewards from that activity are two very different things. It’s important that the dungeons are accessible (ie, key drop rates), but it’s also important to have a wide range of rewards to ensure replayability.
They’ve acknowledged the keys aren’t dropping often enough, so the “gate” part is already on the radar.
Entirely understand your viewpoint… Nothing wrong with it…
My version of a gate is different to yours… As opposed to you, I dont feel that there is any purpose of running the Dungeons without the reward at the end - to me that is the entire purpose of the Dungeons existing over an above just running already existing content like Monos…
I do not run Temporal Sanctum unless I want to make a Legendary… I dont run Light Arbour unless I want to gamble Soul Embers for Reward, etc… which, when considered with that in mind, make the requirements for gettings good rewards actual Gates imho.
I do not run Temporal Sanctum unless I want to make a Legendary… I dont run Light Arbour unless I want to gamble Soul Embers for Reward, etc… which, when considered with that in mind, make the requirements for gettings good rewards actual Gates imho.
I understand what you mean, and I agree with you to a certain extent. Sometimes I WANT a better reason to run Temporal Sanctum.
But this topic you’re complaining about isn’t “gating”. When people talk about “gating” in games, specifically MMORPGS, which i’ve seen multiple people compare this to, they are talking about the BARRIER TO ENTRY. What is REQUIRED to participate. You might have to grind a reputation, or complete a specific achievement in order to access a feature.
I’m not sure of your gaming history, but the best example I can think of this is how World of Warcraft gated flying behind an achievement that required weeks of farming/grinding specific reputations. If you wanted flying, you HAD to farm the reputation, and some of those had limits on how fast you could get them, which meant that you had to farm (as an example) over a period of 2 months or so, which also led to the term “timegating”.
The only thing that is REQUIRED here is the key. That gets you into the dungeon. How the rewards are structured is a whole other thing, and like I said, I kind of agree with you on some of the points regarding rewards. It’s like saying you want a new drink because your steak was burned.
I made the other post (about gates) exactly because I realised that the Dungeon process is getting dangerously (imho) close to MMORPG like play… Your WoW example is spot on… and while the grind is not as excessive (hopefully never will be), the example of making a good legendary from start to finish smacks of MMORPG mechanics to me.
I will stop playing LE the moment they implement anything like timegating - may the person who first created that rot in hell for all eternity… I used to play Perfect World (many many years ago) and I stopped when I realised that my min/max Wizzie only had one Legendary weapon left to get (yip, had everything in the game) and it was over a years timegated grind or pay US$1800 to get it in a week… Ruined MMOs for me…
You are understanding my intepretation perfectly - I just view the reward and the requirement to be able to get access to the potential reward as one and the same while the devs and yourself, view them as independent…
I suppose its just a different way of viewing the same thing and the perspective skews the outcome…
I had an experience similar to yours in Perfect World, but mine was in the original SWTOR, before the rebranding and going FTP etc. I definitely agree that timegating has to be used VERY carefully, it at all in an ARPG.
Yes, it’s “only” semantics, but that’s important if we are trying to communicate what we want improved or changed.
I used to play Perfect World (many many years ago) and I stopped when I realised that my min/max Wizzie only had one Legendary weapon left to get (yip, had everything in the game) and it was over a years timegated grind or pay US$1800 to get it in a week… Ruined MMOs for me…