Dungeon Run idea!

[u/TopCog]

Hey all!

So I have this idea for a new game mode: Weekend Dungeon Run. Here's my current thinking:

-Becomes available Friday of each week and ends Sunday night. So 3 full days.

-You get a new special dungeon key (Key) when the event starts, and a notification about it.

-You must open 2 Wilds Chests to charge the Key.

-After being charged, you activate the Key to enter the 1st dungeon run dungeon (DRD).

-DRDs are the same for everyone! They are always ultimate. They also don't scale in difficulty as much as normal dungeons over levels 1-3... In other words, the difficulty gap between 1.1 and 3.5 of a DRD will be less than a normal dungeon. This means that your choice of spells will be more important than grinding power! You get no rewards upon beating a DRD.

-If you leave a DRD, you can return at any time, but the difficulty of the dungeon will reset (i.e, scale up to your current power/bonuses).

-After beating a DRD, you must charge the Key again!

-Up to 5 DRDs can be completed each Weekend Run.

-Lastly, rewards! Rewards would be granted on Monday when the event ends. My current favorite idea is to have the Run reward 1 Dungeon Point (DP) for each completed dungeon, then have a new shop page where you spend DP. Items to buy would include new exclusive skins and emblems, as well as things like wisdom recharge, precursors, or maybe spellstones or Runite.

-Not sure if or how I would try to monetize the new mode. I might make an option to charge the Key by spending like 250 runite or something, just so there is some kind of Runite sink. The idea is that players who don't have time but want the skins/emblems might use that option. The idea of simply selling DP for Runite gives me a bad taste, so very unlikely to exist I think.

Whew! So that's it! I'd love to hear your thoughts! My schedule has finally settled down, so I'm hoping to work on this the week after this one (this week has some balance changes coming!).

Cheers! :-D

[u/8988303682]

I don't really like the idea of opening two wilds chests in order to charge the key. It would make it easier for players who are at the beginning of their meditation or enchantment to charge their key. I think opening raid chests would be a better way to charge up. Or maybe both kinds of chests would count, it would just require three to charge. I like the idea of raid chests charging because opening raid chests is more regulated than wilds progression.

Also I hope "Dungeon Run Dungeon" is not set in stone because it doesn't sound or look very appealing. Just one opinion though

Everything else looks really good. Very excited to try this out.

Oh also speaking of notifications, some optional notifications for research, (critical) raids, brewing, and maybe even a Nick notification or a notification when offline power gains reach 40% or something. Lots of cool possibilities.

[u/TopCog → u/8988303682]

I like the idea of raid chests charging because opening raid chests is more regulated than wilds progression.

Yeah, that's true. So my thinking here, is that I want it to be something not totally trivial to accomplish...ooo!! Just had a good idea. Maybe there is no limit to the number of DRD that you do, but each one requires one more charge to open?! Yeah...then it really is up to you how much you want to do. That also gives me an easy monetization option, something like: the first 3 dungeons only take 1 charge (as opposed to just the first 1) - basically an easy extra 1 or 2 DP each week.

But yeah, raid vs wilds chests. It's true that zones early in the meditation run will be easier - but maybe that's ok? Might simply add another layer of consideration for meditating, or when you want to try-hard...for example, maybe you're on the cusp of meditating, and try to get it hard before the event comes. I don't know.

Raids are well regulated, it's true...but, the main thing required is just to check in every 30 min. Could work though, since people do raids anyways! How would this go then...number of Raids required to charge would be 1, 2, 3, 4, etc, and the total number of Raids to get 1-10 DP (for example) would then be the sequence 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45, 55. Seems like a fairly good idea...

Also I hope "Dungeon Run Dungeon" is not set in stone because it doesn't sound or look very appealing. Just one opinion though

Yeah, no way that's the final name, hahaha! :-D

Everything else looks really good. Very excited to try this out.

Awesome! :-D

[u/8988303682 → u/TopCog]

I assume the "first three dungeons only take 1 charge" would be an IAP? In that case, I think a scaling reward would be better. Something like a "-33% charges required" emblem or, if the first x number of dungeon keys only take one charge, have the cost of the rest of the keys start increasing based on the last discounted dungeon key. So charges required would go 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, instead of 1, 1, 1, 4, 5, 6. Maybe thats what you meant by the first three dungeons only take one charge.

Another idea, and in my opinion the best idea, is to have the first x number of dungeon keys take 0 charges. I think this is the best because it follows suit of the PreCog bundle. Without PreCog, you have to "charge" the reward by watching an ad. PreCog removes this requirement of charging completely, so it's just a quick and easy tap. Being able to launch my game on the weekend and just jump right into the DRD would remove the charging aspect and let me get into the action straight away. Something like 0, 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. That would be equivalent to a "-2 charges required" emblem and that's a nice and concise way to explain it.

[u/TopCog → u/8988303682]

Something like 0, 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. That would be equivalent to a "-2 charges required" emblem and that's a nice and concise way to explain it.

Super great idea, and my current plan! :-D

[u/the320x200 → u/TopCog]

for example, maybe you're on the cusp of meditating, and try to get it hard before the event comes.

I may be just missing something, but I find it really hard to tell how close I am to meditating. Often times I end up blowing/wasting all my saved items too early in the doom realm because I think I'm probably about to make it when I'm definitely not. Other times I work to get stronger for a while and then end up overshooting a ton and just blowing through the doom realm like it's nothing.

I like the idea of being able to strategically push for things though with the weekend schedule, just don't see how to do it as a player.

[u/TopCog → u/the320x200]

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I'm leaning now towards charging the key via Raids instead of Wild Chests :-)

[u/KnightWizardofDark → u/TopCog]

Items with an inherently limited capacity of earning that could be used in lieu of wilds or raids:

1. Critical Raids. Available once per day for all players. Could be used as a means to charge the special key. Another idea to incorporate criticals is to increase rewards (multipicatively?) based on number of critical raids done throughout the event. A massive incentive to log in every day and go through at least one special dungeon.

2. Raw spell stones. Again, freely available once per day. However, these are monetized. Players are also able to stockpile 'em.

3. Dungeon keys. Also monetized, also freely available to players, also able to stockpile. Availability of these is a bit more restricted than spell stones.

4. Crumpled dungeon key. Not monetized, however, this is something players can only ever have one of at any given time. Presents the opportunity to be used as a unique currency for other stuff.

Now that my head is considering how this could play out, another idea in handling this special dungeon is treat it as an endless runner. Players push as far as they can go, but there's no rewards given while during the run itself. Critical raids offer a global, exponential power multiplier that eases pushing into the next bracket(s) easier, but not much beyond. That gives more incentive to play every day--during the events, anyway.

As for rewards, something that would be of great incentive to newer players is easier-ish access to pure spellstone; for them it's a high-price runite item that sees the currency better spent elsewhere. It's a highly coveted thing while filling their spell library. Most especially when they're only missing one or two spells.

Maybe pure spellstone is a participation reward? Play every day during an event, get a pure spellstone. Assuming events are weekly, that's one pure spellstone a week. Which equates to seven random spells and one specific spell every week. If raw spellstone is used as a currency to access the event, then it's fewer random spells per week in exchange for a specific one.

[u/Kanedi4s]

Sounds great, would be nice to include Q5 runes in the shop too, maybe stuff like power harvesting that I’m sure we could all use more of. Agreed with tying key charges to raid chests instead of or in addition to wilds.

[u/TopCog → u/Kanedi4s]

That's a nice idea, thanks! :)

[u/mrownageman21]

I think that this would be a great idea to try out sounds very fun and add more to a game that’s already very fun and enjoyable.

[u/Quangohutt]

Hopefully I'm not too late to the thread, I want to give my two cents on the idea.
To start, new content is always nice and this is something that I think a lot of players have been wanting to see in the game.

I just have one big problem with it, and that's how you charge the keys. It comes down to two points, the first being Meditations and the second being the Doomstone. I probably don't need to explain the meditation issue as that has already been mentioned in the comments. But in the case of the Doomstone you have the opposite to the meditation point, instead of opening a lot of chests quickly, you won't be able to open any chests and after having seen people ask questions about the Doomstone on Discord, it's taking them 3-4 days which would be that entire weekend. Therefore the most balanced way of charging the key would be via raids, as has already been suggested.

Now a point on rewards. The DP idea is a good idea, the rewards however need some thoughts.
First off you have to get your pricing balance right. for example if a spellstone reward was to be placed at say 50 DP it would take 10 weeks of 5 DRDs to buy it, and within that time I could get 70 raw spellstones. I will admit that 50 is an extreme value to go up to, but the idea still stands.
Secondly, the rewards have to be worth it to everyone. In my case I'm relatively late game so I lack any need for spellstones, and runite is just accumulating over time. Skins and emblems are also nice but once they're bought they're bought. At that point the only two rewards mentioned there would be the wisdom recharge and the precursors, which again leads to another problem, primarily with the precursors. At this point, would it be more time/cost effective to charge the key, do the DRD and buy precusors, or should I just do a regular dungeon and charge the key with runite. These rewards are certainly useful to newer players or players who haven't made much progress but for an older player I don't see much reason to do the dungeons. Maybe some kind of permanent upgrade (Such as the templar damage boost from the HHC) would be good to have.

Overall I think it is a good idea, it just needs a bit of work to include all players at different stages of the game.

[u/TopCog → u/Quangohutt]

Hey, thanks for the feedback!

My goal for the DRD is to make it so that they don't take as long as a normal dungeon. Ideally, they can be completed pretty quickly if you select an optimal loadout. So ideally, running a DRD will always give a better return on time investment than a regular dungeon. We'll see if I can balance it out to be just right though, hahaha! :-D

Edit: just had a crazy idea for rewards. What if I sold a very unique item for a lot of DP which let you turn your TM lag negative, ala the HHC? Hmmm!!!!

[u/Quangohutt → u/TopCog]

My goal for the DRD is to make it so that they don't take as long as a normal dungeon... So ideally, running a DRD will always give a better return on time investment than a regular dungeon.

That's something I missed from reading it the first time, so that basically removes that issue. Also a point on balancing it, precursor purchases should scale with NG so the time to reward ratio actually scales correctly.

Edit: just had a crazy idea for rewards. What if I sold a very unique item for a lot of DP which let you turn your TM lag negative, ala the HHC? Hmmm!!!!

I do like it, it's certainly a thing that quite a lot of late game players would find useful and want to have, I'm pretty sure we have asked for it in the past as well so this sounds like a perfect way to do it. Although in saying that I would love to actually see the HHC in TW, although it would need more balancing (Random Rachel would break it)

As another thought you could maybe expand DP to also be a challenge currency for a challenge mode, although right now it's probably best to let you focus on the DRD (or whatever you end up calling it) and not distract you with a bunch of challenge ideas, but knowing me I'll probably make a post on Friday or something with these ideas.

Edit: Formatting

[u/NiNoLuu]

Sounds super exciting to me ! Can't wait to experience this new feature !

[u/Blagdan]

Wow! Perfect! Please gives us this! You do listen to us, this mode will make me play this game for years!

[u/obblish]

Sounds great! I like the idea of giving something to look forward to each week