Dungeons after spawn growth tweak

[gotesu]

I might be wrong, or this might not be a bug, but ever since the last update I've been experiencing that dungeons are being somewhat stuck around low spawn.

This also happens in less populated times and also at dungeons that are not very frequented, so I found it quite odd.

Dungeons checked: Salamanders tomb (Harakir), Fire snake cave, Temple of Harvest, Tejeda, Vestibule, Skeleton Cave.

Since the update is quite recent I can't say I have a statistical significance, but some of these dungeons I've checked several times and oddly the situation was most of the time the same.

Im posting it here to see if other people have been experiencing the same or is it just me.

[Ryujin]

Fire snakes are often harvested, Tejeda is one of the most popular dungeons. I haven't seen skeleton cave as a good spawn in ages (Often run..?)
Aside from that i have noticed the same. Dungeon spawns seem lower than usual to the point where it is grating.

[myrddraal]

It does feel like they are growing at a much slower rate than before even.  My last few attempts to go out and dungeon have pretty much all been met with low spawn dungeons.  The only ones that have been high or max spawns are wildlly unpopular ones.  It could be that they are just being run all the time and Im having bad timing but it seems very consistent.  I went to loot a spot earlier today, saw it was basically just run, and came back like 6 hours later and it was still very low spawn.  Was it possibly run after maturing?  Perhaps.  Though its not a particularly popular one to clear so less likely.  The tuning down may have been over tuned down.

[EO]

We toned down the impact player count has on dungeon growth rate to make more sense. Dungeons were never supposed to be permanently at a high spawn, that was a very recent development.

[Hemlock]

Is there any appetite to return it back to the previous spawning cycle? I know I've felt the impact a bit on low and high level PCs. In some cases, it felt deflating to run dungeons that were geared towards the target level only to 'steamroll' through them with minimum resources.

[Di Infernis]

For sure, since this change, whether at peak times or at 5 a.m. with 30 players connected, the dungeons have been disastrous. I sometimes try to organize hunts in advance with a large group of players in a faction, once or twice a week, but each one has been a fiasco. I just think it's a shame that people who do 7-8 dungeons a day penalize the whole server, couldn't the spawn be affected directly to the characters instead of globally, like if you go to a place more than once a week the spawn will be weak without affecting other players on the server?

[myrddraal]

We toned down the impact player count has on dungeon growth rate to make more sense. Dungeons were never supposed to be permanently at a high spawn, that was a very recent development.

Is it inherently bad that people can log on and just enjoy the content at its peak challenge rating?  I feel like nerfing dungeon spawns only further incentivizes ninja looting over actually getting people together to tackle something collaboratively.  In general you dont log on expecting random DM encounters, so is there really any harm in dungeons being closer to their highest spawns for the enjoyment of content available?  It is genuinely unfun to run to multiple locations for all of them to have been hit 5 hours ago and not have it be worth doing because it will reward no xp.

[Madame Trousers Son]

How much was the tweak, out of interest?

[EO]

How much was the tweak, out of interest?

It's rather complicated since it's a modifier applied ontop other modifiers, and it scales over player population count. The impact of player population on population growth is roughly halved when we're at around 100 players online.

We'll review the numbers in the coming weeks to see if further adjustments are needed.

We've never intended for dungeons to be always on high spawn, that was a very recent development, following a fix to a problem which limited dungeon power growth.

[Evendur]

We toned down the impact player count has on dungeon growth rate to make more sense. Dungeons were never supposed to be permanently at a high spawn, that was a very recent development.

May I ask what the intended purpose of low spawn dungeons is? I have never seen any other reaction to a low spawn then frustration from players. What is the idea behind it?
 

[EO]

May I ask what the intended purpose of low spawn dungeons is? I have never seen any other reaction to a low spawn then frustration from players. What is the idea behind it?

It's to reflect how players, by their actions, impact the environment around them, and also, to slow things down, like several other mechanics we have.

[myrddraal]

May I ask what the intended purpose of low spawn dungeons is? I have never seen any other reaction to a low spawn then frustration from players. What is the idea behind it?

It's to reflect how players, by their actions, impact the environment around them, and also, to slow things down, like several other mechanics we have.

That may be the intention but in practicality it just allows people to gate keep content for the sake of gate keeping content.  That is one of the big problems with everything being open world in MMOs (for the sake of argument dungeons are an MMO aspect of the game) and many of them moved away from that model for the sake of sustaining subscription player bases.  It may be free to play but if you are constantly gate kept on content because someone decided to run 6 dungeons in a row in spite of them having been red capped on experience since the first dungeon, theyre just doing it to either grind coin or deny everyone else access to said content because they dont want anyone else getting XP to out level them or find the gear they wanted.  Its why most games with dungeon content went with entirely instanced dungeons with less open world competition - and an important distinction in this is that the open world content was still static in its challenge rating it did not rise and fall.

I have always been an advocate for maintaining a more static dungeon spawn so the only "random" element is loot from pools and otherwise only injected by AMPCs / MPCs and DMs to enhance the environment.  I honestly think that this system discourages RP because you cant show up to a dungeon and expect to find it meaningfully progressive so you are more likely going to be left in a constant state of FOMO.

I'd like to draw a direct comparison to another game I have played a lot that is about the same age, Everquest's emulated Project 1999 server.  Raid bosses spawn basically every 7 days for major ones within a 16 hour window of time.  So if It was killed at noon on a tuesday, the next time it would spawn is the next tuesday between 4am and 4pm.  People can and do sit on characters to track the spawns and let out a notification on discord the instant it does and the raid boss is generally dead within 15 minutes.  This means a vast majority of the players simply never will see that content because they arent willing to put that sort of time into a hobby because its not sustainable for enjoyment.  The competition element of racing to a mob to kill it before anyone else is definitely fun for some people, but not for most.  Most people want to just be able to log in, roleplay without having to worry that whatever dungeon they might want to hit was hit 5 hours ago while they were at work, and do content when its convenient for all of them.

One final thought for consideration.  I checked the Reaver cave in Blaustein to ninja it 3 times today for its spawn.  The first was at like 9 am.  The second was at like 1pm.  The last was almost 9pm at night.  It was freshly cleared the first time i went to check.  It was still not even max spawn at 9pm.  Things were tweaked waaaaaayyyy down.

[Madame Trousers Son]

Yeah, I checked the Old Sewers yesterday; they'd been recently cleared. Then again just now, probably around 30+ hours later. Barely half way to max. It does seem to be a pretty severe change.

[Di Infernis]

Are those change on test server too?

[EO]

One final thought for consideration.  I checked the Reaver cave in Blaustein to ninja it 3 times today for its spawn.  The first was at like 9 am.  The second was at like 1pm.  The last was almost 9pm at night.  It was freshly cleared the first time i went to check.  It was still not even max spawn at 9pm.  Things were tweaked waaaaaayyyy down.

You're presuming you're alone here. I had a look at that dungeon and it was hit roughly 10 times today, and most times, its population power was above 80%. Only twice was it at a low spawn. You likely were unlucky.

We're not a MMO, and that's never been our intention. Having others impact your gameplay is part of playing in a shared narrative; your character doesn't exist in a vacuum. Obviously it can be frustrating, something that can be taken in-character, or may be an occasion to pivot to another dungeon instead.

[EO]

Are those change on test server too?

Yes, but you won't notice an impact there because the recent changes are based on server population, which is close to 0 on the test server.

[Di Infernis]

One final thought for consideration.  I checked the Reaver cave in Blaustein to ninja it 3 times today for its spawn.  The first was at like 9 am.  The second was at like 1pm.  The last was almost 9pm at night.  It was freshly cleared the first time i went to check.  It was still not even max spawn at 9pm.  Things were tweaked waaaaaayyyy down.

You're presuming you're alone here. I had a look at that dungeon and it was hit roughly 10 times today, and most times, its population power was above 80%. Only twice was it at a low spawn. You likely were unlucky.

We're not a MMO, and that's never been our intention. Having others impact your gameplay is part of playing in a shared narrative; your character doesn't exist in a vacuum. Obviously it can be frustrating, something that can be taken in-character, or may be an occasion to pivot to another dungeon instead.

I don't presume to say that x or x has touched such and such a dungeon, but I do know that it's shared by the majority of my group, a dozen or so active people. None of us has seen a single high-spawn dungeon since that maj , and I'm not necessarily talking about the super-popular ones like Tejeda or the shipwreck, but I've tried the Markovia spiders for example, the temple under the VoB graveyard, the VoB werewolf cave. Even these atypical dungeons, chosen to be interesting and challenging, were practically empty.

So even changing dungeons, which we've tried three or four times, proves uninteresting. My group's goal isn't to zerg any dungeon, but I think that wanting to make one expedition a week, often roleplaying, in a dungeon that doesn't end in seven minutes because 25% of the dungeon only spawns, is still something reasonable.

I don't have access to the devs' stats, I just know that these dungeons were much more interesting before this change and I waited to talk about it on the forum to make sure it wasn't a placebo effect or pure badluck.

[Lucadia]

I look forward to a new tweak. Fighting players to get one decent spawn for my PC that says it longs for adventure has never been a go post. But it will incentive witch hunting pcs caught soloing instead the oh well, I can come back tomorrow.

[myrddraal]

One final thought for consideration.  I checked the Reaver cave in Blaustein to ninja it 3 times today for its spawn.  The first was at like 9 am.  The second was at like 1pm.  The last was almost 9pm at night.  It was freshly cleared the first time i went to check.  It was still not even max spawn at 9pm.  Things were tweaked waaaaaayyyy down.

You're presuming you're alone here. I had a look at that dungeon and it was hit roughly 10 times today, and most times, its population power was above 80%. Only twice was it at a low spawn. You likely were unlucky.

We're not a MMO, and that's never been our intention. Having others impact your gameplay is part of playing in a shared narrative; your character doesn't exist in a vacuum. Obviously it can be frustrating, something that can be taken in-character, or may be an occasion to pivot to another dungeon instead.

With all due respect the most consistently available content that is enjoyable is PVE content.  DM events are not expected to be the norm.  There are not really that many AMPCs.
 Most high end crafting material is acquired in dungeons.  Almost all high end gear comes from dungeons.  Its DUNGEONS and dragons.  There are more meaningful ways to have others impact your characters story than "I ran that dungeon, this dungeon, this dungeon, and this dungeon 4 hours ago so tough luck no xp for you today."  I, and most others, enjoy the more serious moments of RP with high stakes but you cant do that every single scene.  Its unfeasible because there are very real limitations on what you can RP without a DM to oversee it.  They're volunteers and have lives outside of this, we shouldnt expect them to watch over every scene, its very rare.  One of the more active ones was just let go as well, which is unfortunate but the reason was understandable.

A lot of dungeons are also run subsequently because of their close proximity.  A lot of the time if people go to say, the library of thoth, they also will clear the trolls and Sobek's temple because the Library of Thoth's exit is right next to it.  The fire mines are very close to the Curst keep.  Its not uncommon for people to go to several places in Markovia in one trip.  For people to hit the ship and reavers and then go to naillat / the brothel.  Under the current function of spawn maturation, I do more often than not find myself pivoting to new dungeons.  It isnt scintilating RP.  Its just inconvenient on an ooc level and spending more time traveling to a new place which also may or may not have been hit within the last few hours.

People hitting specific dungeons on farm probably has more to do with them being over rewarding more than anything else.  The fire mines are hit basically every 2-3 hours it feels like since it is relatively easy, only really requires a handful of buffs and ice varnish to clear.  The traps arent that hard to get, the locks arent particularly high, and you can get drift metal, dragon scales, blessed antlers, etc.  The risk is far lower than the reward.  Markovia's treetops in contrast has the potential for many of those same rewards but with a much higher floor of difficulty.  The safe in Markovia's treetops has no cheat code like the brothel.  It does not have traps either mind you - but the DC on the chest is usually mid 60s into the 70s which does make it much more inherently difficult.

Tejeda is another example of a dungeon that is simply far over rewarding.  You can easily get 1/2 to 3/4 of a level with incredibly easy mobs, traps are like dc 35 to disable, the locks are only about DC 40, almost anyone who has a handful of tailored lockpicking / trap disabling gear is able to take care of the locks and traps there.  This is one place that was tinkered with a few times, you used to be able to regularly pull 100k worth of loot out of it and now its closer to 50-60k but the difficulty even with a handful of crossbowmen is simply not that high.  That is why it is another overly farmed dungeon compared to anything else that a level 8-15 can go to.

Dont get me wrong, I love a lot of the older dungeons and try to go to them.  Not everyone does though.  They want the fastest and most efficient way to collect gold and items.  I cant blame them.  Once word gets out something can be found at X dungeon whether its crafting material or a rare drop people who want it will go to that dungeon until they get it.  When I heard Cane of Detection dropped in Markovia on my last character I went to several of those dungeons at least once a week looking for it hoping that might be the day RNG smiled on me.  It didnt stop me from actively roleplaying until everyone we needed came available.  Moving more of the top tiered items out of mid level dungeons would do more to encourage people not farming them than anything else imo.  Move the elite tier items to Ghastria, to Sithicus, to Perfidus and people would be less likely to just grind "easy" dungeons for loot.

[FinalHeaven]

Almost certainly in the minority here but I actually kind of like the reasoning behind the change.  I'd almost go a step further and say it might be interesting to put certain boss spawns on a cooldown even outside of the low to high spawn cycle.  It'd be a good boost for immersion imo instead of the odd disassociation that usually occurs with PvE content.

I do kind understand the sentiment of being frustrated with missing out on an optimal dungeon though, particularly if you're missing out because one person or group is constantly farming a spot that has reached high spawn.  In that regard it might be nice if something could be done like how ninjalooting is handled.  Repeatedly going to the same spot over and over again offers diminishing returns.

[Di Infernis]

Almost certainly in the minority here but I actually kind of like the reasoning behind the change.  I'd almost go a step further and say it might be interesting to put certain boss spawns on a cooldown even outside of the low to high spawn cycle.  It'd be a good boost for immersion imo instead of the odd disassociation that usually occurs with PvE content.

I do kind understand the sentiment of being frustrated with missing out on an optimal dungeon though, particularly if you're missing out because one person or group is constantly farming a spot that has reached high spawn.  In that regard it might be nice if something could be done like how ninjalooting is handled.  Repeatedly going to the same spot over and over again offers diminishing returns.

It would be really interesting if you couldn't enter a dungeon more than once per reset, or even for a set period of time. This would make us choose carefully who we go with, and also reduce the ninjaloot a bit if you can only go to one place once.

[myrddraal]

Almost certainly in the minority here but I actually kind of like the reasoning behind the change.  I'd almost go a step further and say it might be interesting to put certain boss spawns on a cooldown even outside of the low to high spawn cycle.  It'd be a good boost for immersion imo instead of the odd disassociation that usually occurs with PvE content.

I do kind understand the sentiment of being frustrated with missing out on an optimal dungeon though, particularly if you're missing out because one person or group is constantly farming a spot that has reached high spawn.  In that regard it might be nice if something could be done like how ninjalooting is handled.  Repeatedly going to the same spot over and over again offers diminishing returns.

It would be really interesting if you couldn't enter a dungeon more than once per reset, or even for a set period of time. This would make us choose carefully who we go with, and also reduce the ninjaloot a bit if you can only go to one place once.

This is more or less the system that many MMOs adopted with instanced raid content.  To keep people from farming it daily they had cooldowns of about a week before they were able to attempt the content again if they succeeded or failed to clear it within the allotted time.  Though the content was still static in its challenge.  If dungeons were only able to be hit once per reset by an individual I dont see any reason why there should be a gradual maturation and not just a constant CR.

[Neuwwwo]

I do kind understand the sentiment of being frustrated with missing out on an optimal dungeon though, particularly if you're missing out because one person or group is constantly farming a spot that has reached high spawn.  In that regard it might be nice if something could be done like how ninjalooting is handled.  Repeatedly going to the same spot over and over again offers diminishing returns.

+1, this both makes it so other people can run the dungeon and slow downs people who want to grind the same ones all the time. Maybe going so far as not giving xp at all if you run it twice in one reset.

[Blingstone]

If spawns are kept this low, I would recommend more dungeons be added. Because competition out there is going to be fierce.

People won't get as much xp from dungeons, driving them to run more dungeons to make up the difference. Driving the spawns of all the dungeons down, thus they will be receiving even less xp from dungeons causing people to run even more of them to receive the same rewards.

I like how it encourages people to go to obscure places. I just think we could use way more obscure places!

[myrddraal]

That is also true.  People would be further discouraged from actually roleplaying because they’d be running around to more dungeons like Bling said.