When I heard about the Dungeoneering Remaster, I immediately thought back to this concept I was working on which I called world dungeons. I've finally found them, and decided to remaster the concept itself.

When the very first Elite Dungeon was released, I remember thinking "Finally, all that practice in Daemonheim is going to pay off". And while I do like Elite Dungeons for what they are, my imagination made way for disappointment. The environment of ToA had such aesthetic polish, but there wasn't much more to it than slaughter everything.

What I imagined instead was something which held truer to Daemonheim, which I called world dungeons. Basically instanced and unrestricted thematic dungeons which put everything to the test.

Core Idea

1-4 players start a party and enter the dungeon, this creates an instance. The dungeon should feel like an adventure, allowing you to bring your skills, items, and knowledge to the table. Puzzles procedurally span across several rooms similar to how key-door pairs are generated. Monsters occasionally respawn and hunt you, keeping you on your toes until the floor is complete.

From there, players may take a break before starting the next floor. They may also choose to leave early and take loot with them. Those who stick it out to the end reap the best rewards.

Difficulty

The base difficulty would be dependent on whichever is higher: number of players or floor number.

floor_difficulty_base = max(player_amount, floor_depth)

This basically means:
3 players doing floor 1 will be experiencing level 3 base difficulty
3 players doing floor 5 will be experiencing level 5 base difficulty

Bosses

Each floor features a mini-boss randomly to progress. The final boss will be random based on the region. For this reason, players should prepare and adapt. That's where survival skills of your team help increase your odds.

Rewards

Keep it simple: dungeoneering xp and items. Bonus loot can be found by killing monsters, thieving trapped chests, agility to get to hard to reach places, mining, wc, etc. Fishing for unique or special fish, you get the idea.

Death

Never settled on how death should work. Extra lives, maybe. But I always thought it would be fair if players dropped most loot but keep some (kind of like losing a streak at Arch-Glacor). Your character would wake up outside of the dungeon, and cannot rejoin until a new party is formed. Other players could then pick up what ever was dropped.

Dungeon Earring

This one's kind of a joke, but it's also just right there I couldn't help myself. Maybe it drops from one of the dungeons. All I know is, it'd be nice to free up that ring slot.

Summary

I feel this type of content would keep players engaged with a unique experience as they press forward to the boss fight each time. This was a fun idea to explore. Consider it a wishlist for the Dungeoneering Remaster. What kind of features or game-play loop do you want to see with the new Dungeoneering content? Thanks for reading scapers!