What makes a good dungeon crawler?

[Ebonsword]

One thing that I think is really important is variety, especially in characer classes/races, items, locations, and enemies.

When there is always something new to see just around the corner, I usually find myself drawn into the game.

However, when I find myself fighting monsters that look identical to the ones I have been fighting for the past 10 levels, except that they're blue instead of green, then I get bored quickly.

 

[IlkuWarrior]

I agree with most of the stuff put here and would like to add two points:

Concerning exploration, I think it is very important to reward players who like to explore. A lot of games that have huge worlds don't do this, such as mmo's, where you figure that something could be on that cliff over there, trek through enemies to get there only to find there's nothing. It's quite frustrating. On the other hand, if you say decide to explore one bit of the dungeon that's not the "main path" you definitely should never encounter a dead end. The reward doesn't have to be much, but the game has to say to you "you decided to explore this bit, good job!" in some way. A treasure chest, a bit of lore, an NPC, a dead NPC, a special enemy, even a room with some extra pretty graphics, it doesn't matter. It makes the player feel like they accomplished something.

Secondly, I think dungeon crawls should have a bit of randomness. Now, there's good randomness and bad randomness, and that's a topic of it's own, but, in short, some good randomness does wonders for a crawler...

 

[poocolator]

A good dungeon crawler is an oxymoron.

[/thread]

 

[bonch]

I am afraid Dragon Quest is not a good dungeon crawler, because all it takes to defeat an enemy is press the Fight button once.

And all it takes to get stronger is to walk around in circles, kill enough random encounters, and see your level go up. You can do that from location One, so any part of the game you see later on will not have any more thinking either.

And we are not talking about good honest western RPGs where even high level heavily grinded characters can be doomed due to the Hold spell of a single weak spellcaster, or die a long painful death from the poison arrow of stray enemy. Let alone those instant death criticals.

Why don't you check your facts before spewing bullshit?

So much nerd rage over Dragon Quest.