I really fucking hate dungeons/caves/crypts/sewers in RPGs.

[LordDenton]

What's with developers and their insistence of putting these long ass 5+ hour non-stop action sequences in their games? And if that wasn't enough, they also decide that the aforementioned events should take play in a shitty location like a sewer or a cave. WTF?

I am playing Drakensang 1, and reached the caves under the Dwarf city. I've (mostly) enjoyed the game so far, and combat always came only in moderate doses between exploring and talking to people. But these caves are testing my nerves. Kill 5 spiders, walk five feet, kill 10 undead, walk 5 feet, kill cockroaches, walk another five feet, kill 10 more undead, walk two feet, kill fire spirit, walk 20 meters, kill goblins, walk 10 meters, kill....

FUUUUUUUUUUUCK! It's driving me insane!



Same thing with Neverwinter Nights 2 (main campaign). The game was awesome, until you entered a tomb and especially the very end where you go to an underground temple and have to kill a fucking army of undead for hours. Jesus Christ.

There is no strategy or intelligence involved. I just have to kill countless monsters for the sake of killing.

I think I'll uninstall the game, go watch its ending on youtube (I think I'm close to the end anyway), and play a less action-y RPG to relax.

 

[Oriebam]

I actually thought of a few explanations for this, but I think it comes down to developers trying to make their games either
a)longer
b)EPIKK
c)more acessible(can't have players wandering without killing shit for more than a few seconds)

 

[Malakal]

Well designed dungeons are a plus but they need:
1. Good idea for the dungeon and a theme - like that shadow temple from BG2 for example, excellent theme, fitting the setting, beautiful art. Avoiding clichés is good too - no sewers!
2. Not to be too long - 5 hours will always be too much.
3. Varied encounters - with cool monsters with unique abilities providing a moderate challenge.
4. Puzzles of some kind - riddles are good, they serve as a break in killing and break the tedium. They could also present the story.

Because today we dont get dungeons we get derp roads again and again with copy pasted encounters.

 

[JarlFrank]

The problem with this is the thing usually referred to as "filler combat".

Dungeons are over-stretched, and it has a much higher encounter density than should be reasonable, just in order to stretch out the gametime. To make it worse, the encounters are usually easy to slog through and are copypasted countless times over and over again.

Room with 5 goblins. Room with 5 goblins. Room with 5 goblins. OH SOMETHING EXCITING FOR A CHANGE NOW a room with 7 goblins with 1 of them an archer and 1 a mage.

Repeat until you're so frustrated you want to smash your keyboard into the screen.

Dragon Age was especially guilty of this, with almost all of the mainquest dungeons being too long (I've always expected them to end after reaching the end of the first level, but then it descended down another level that was twice as long as the first and had twice as many pointless copypaste encounters). Doing this too often in a game will usually kill the fun and make it more of a bother you have to slog through in order to get to the fun bits.

Really, filler is the worst kind of game design imaginable. It's not just a thing of copypaste encounters or overlong dungeons alone, it's a mix of all these things that makes it so horrible. Overlong dungeons, copypaste encounter design, lack of challenge, combat that takes rather long to resolve, etc.

 

[catfood]

Pretty much what Malakal said. The Monastery in Wizardry 8 is a good example of a well done dungeon. Good design, some puzzles, varied monster encounters, even a boss fight, plot information, good length.

Haven't played Drakensang but NWN2 has really shitty dungeons, no wonder you hate them. Endless coridors with cookie cutter mobs that you can dispatch with a fireball or two are the bane of dungeons.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Dragon Age was especially guilty of this, with almost all of the mainquest dungeons being too long

Ah yes, the "Derp Roads", proof that Bioware devs have a serious Jenkem habit.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

Huh? Too long?

Have you heard of a genre called "Dungeon Crawls?"

Neither have I. Since the 1990's.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

As others have said, the problem isn't with dungeons being too long...rather too boring. Dungeons can be brilliant, varied and provide a myriad of challenges without the beloved talky that many enjoy, except that developers just cannot seem to create a decent dungeon anymore.

A bad combat system, mixed with an overdose of boring random encounters/placed trash mobs, and little to no other dungeon interactivity and puzzles kills the experience.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Because sewers, caves and the like are easy to make. People already expect a sewer to look like a sewer (samey and boring), so the repetition won't have such a bad effect as an endless town would.

However, because of that aspect, they can't afford to make the player repeat parts of it over and over or he'd go insane, so the fights are usually against trash mobs. I'm much more open to replaying a fight if it happened in an interesting location, against interesting people. Re-fighting goblin groups in an endless trek is considerably less amusing.

 

[Deleted Member 10432]

It's because they're an expected part of the RPG cliche. Like the PC coming from a twee little village that gets firebombed by Minor Boss #2 at the start of the game.

 

[Zarniwoop]

It's because they're an expected part of the RPG cliche. Like the PC coming from a twee little village that gets firebombed by Minor Boss #2 at the start of the game.

Yeah, that Minor Boss #2 is a real dick. Curse you, Minor Boss #2!! [NPC_NAME_48] will be avenged!!

But seriously, is there any game that actually has a good dungeon design then, if it's indeed possible?

 

[SCO]

Go read the dark heart of Uukrul LP by CrookedBee.

 

[felipepepe]

Arcanum had that Black Mountain Clan that made the game almost unplayable...gets my vote for worse dungeon ever, just for how it ruined the game.

The best one is a hard pick...can't think of any that was great now.

 

[mvBarracuda]

Arcanum had that Black Mountain Clan that made the game almost unplayable...gets my vote for worse dungeon ever, just for how it ruined the game.

Looks like you've never played Dungeon Master: Chaos strikes back. Now THAT was a frustrating dungeon :-/

 

[baronjohn]

Arcanum had that Black Mountain Clan that made the game almost unplayable...gets my vote for worse dungeon ever, just for how it ruined the game.

The best one is a hard pick...can't think of any that was great now.

BMC wasn't that big...

And you could switch to real time and run right by all the enemies then use a scroll to teleport to the surface. Time taken: 1 minute.

 

[Surf Solar]

It's because they're an expected part of the RPG cliche. Like the PC coming from a twee little village that gets firebombed by Minor Boss #2 at the start of the game.

But seriously, is there any game that actually has a good dungeon design then, if it's indeed possible?

Fallout. The Glow. It has perfect pacing, is not too long, a big part of it is optional, it involves fighting, "phat lewt", many new infos about the world the PC can aquire - all placed in a very well thought out enviroment, plus the danger of the radiation always sitting at your neck. If that's not a good "dungeon" then I don't know.

People should always take this as a good example when creating dungeons (so do I). Everything can become interesting, even sewers or caves, as long as the encounters are varied, the pacing is good and there is enough optional stuff to do.

 

[Johannes]

Frustrating maybe, but for completely different than BMC.

BMC was cool enough for my underleveled gunfighter though, who just ran through the whole thing in realtime mode (the slow golems couldn't hit him then), and when reaching the dwarf he teleported out with a scroll.


But yeah a lot of games that are only in a dungeon, work well. Chaos Strikes Back, Uukrul, Ultima Underworld, many roguelikes... Just not a very storyfaggy experience.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Sewers are always shit though. Even in games with otherwise great dungeon design, I've never seen a good sewer level. It's weird.

 

[felipepepe]

To just run through BMC is an exploit...almost the same as modding Fallout 2 so you don't have to go through the Temple of Trials every new game. It shows how desperate people where to get rid of it.

Fallout. The Glow.

That counts as a dungeon? If so, is really a marvelous one.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Fallout. The Glow. It has perfect pacing, is not too long, a big part of it is optional, it involves fighting, "phat lewt", many new infos about the world the PC can aquire - all placed in a very well thought out enviroment, plus the danger of the radiation always sitting at your neck. If that's not a good "dungeon" then I don't know.

Well yes it's one of the best locations in Fallout but not really a dungeon/cave/sewer is it? It's more a building really.

 

[Surf Solar]

What else is it then? It has everything a classical dungeon does have, just executed in a superior way.

 

[Serious_Business]

We're talking about dungeon crawling and your only idea is of Fallout? For shame, son

 

[Multidirectional]

But seriously, is there any game that actually has a good dungeon design then, if it's indeed possible?

I enjoyed dungeons in Risen greatly, and I generally dislike dungeon crawling.

 

[oldmanpaco]

I liked the old U6 dungeons. Not to long and not to many trash mobs from what I remember.

Could be that I have rose colored glasses on since it has been almost 20 years.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny.

You got futuristic cities, jungles, ice ruins, underground serpentine ruins that shook and sounded wind chimes every few seconds with a buried wizard's tower...

Fully navigatable in 3D, with sprite support. :D

Also, puzzles, craziness, hidden passages, A LOT of it optional to solve, with ph@t l3wt at the end. Areas were HUGE...compared to today's games. Spells, customizable. Not really an RPG, more of an adventure/crossover. I found ways into passages that were not listed in any guide or walkthrough I checked later...

Also, you could detach the mouse and move items in the environment to create physX puzzles! Way ahead of Half-life 2...and minor small passages you could only transverse by transforming into a lizard, or a beast, to move HUGE blocks aside and reveal hidden passages. Some of the areas, like the hidden <blank> had you move into painting-like scenes to manipulate levers, so on, static images, just like the first myst.

But there were stats, items, so forth. Yeah, great game. My first... Really set the standard for everything since, which ended up disappointing me in terms of first-person.