Dungeons after spawn growth tweak

[Di Infernis]

Ok, I'll try to explain my logic a little better.

Let us consider dungeons A B & C.

Assuming all the dungeons are at max spawn:
Dungeon A provides reward and exp and a high chance of success.
Dungeon B provides reward and exp and a moderate chance of success.
Dungeon C provides reward and exp and almost no chance of success.

Recently the status quo has been to seek out Dungeon A at max spawn because it presents the greatest guarantee of success with the highest reward of XP or loot or both. Some parties don't mind running it at a low or mid spawn because it's still a benefit to them. Some parties might seek out Dungeon B because it's manageable, but some may shy away because they're not confident that they can complete it. Those same parties will avoid dungeon C all together.

Now, the system has changed and spawn rates are accruing slower, thus dungeons are not reaching Max spawn as frequently.

Lets assume now that all dungeons will be at low spawn.
Dungeon A provides little reward by way of exp but still rewards loot and has a very high chance of success.
Dungeon B provides reward of exp and loot and has a high chance of success.
Dungeon C provides reward of exp and loot and has a moderate chance of success.

Now, rather than groups passing up dungeon C because it will be too difficult, they'll pass up Dungeon A because it provides less reward. In it's current state, the status quo should shift from seeking out the highest spawn on the lowest dungeons to seeking out the lowest spawns on the higher dungeons. This is a benefit to the server IMO as there isn't a feeling of time wasted seeking out the high spawn when some other party had just completed.

The benefit to the current system is that there may be a high spawn out there somewhere on Dungeon A making that trip slightly more challenging to the group, but also more rewarding because it provides said rewards. When Dungeon C is too challenging, parties may still work part of the way into the dungeon without completing it and still be rewarded whereas previously, they wouldn't have even attempted to go there.

Basically, what I'm saying is that if you shift your focus to seeking out dungeons at high spawn to seeking out dungeons at low and medium spawns you'll likely find more success in your dungeoneering as well as the potential for greater challenges within.

I feel like you are intentionally ignoring the time that it takes to pass from dungeon a to b to c which can also take upwards of an hour of peoples day during which they will have found zero content that was a suitable challenge for what was expected when they first set out.  Nobody plans for a low spawn.  Ever.  If you plan for a low spawn you are more than likely going to die.  You plan for a max spawn or at least relatively high spawn.  You would not show up to the barrow of the sleeping king or the salt mines hoping it was recently cleared so you could finish it.  Thats not a thing that happens.  Especially because as you get higher in level and things do get more dangerous and rescues become much harder, nobody wants to plan for a low spawn and be dead for hours on end waiting for a survivor, if there was one, to get help and rally a rescuing party.  Assuming you are doing it the way you are supposed to and not just @ing people on discord.

Coupled with the time spent roleplaying around your campfire or the outskirts or whatever other hub you are in until you've gathered all the players you require, an additional hour on top of what you've already spent is simply too much for most people to maintain interest or even have the play time to even use.

You're missing the point. Change your perception and seek out the low spawn of a dungeon that is more challenging instead of seeking out the high spawn of a less challenging dungeon. If the spawn rate is slower and offering more low spawn dungeons at this time, it simply means you need to adjust to the new reality which is, to no longer seek out high spawns, but to seek out low spawns. Time to travel between dungeons is irrelevant.

The problem with that point is that even challenging dungeon are on low spawn , I've got prophet, the dev who designed these dungeons, saying that spawns won't even work because bosses dropping keys to advance in the dungeon won't even spawn. So your low spawn challenging option doesn't even exist. So at certain point your option C don't even exist.

[The Prophet of Misinformation]

To clarify, two dungeons in Sithicus require a certain spawn level for boss encounters to materialize properly. Absent these encounters and the key they drop, it's objectively impossible to proceed. This is the nature of the spawn system. These dungeons aren't intended to run on "low spawn," 'cuz the players will be robbed of both the challenge and reward. These limitations were impressed upon the dungeons, amidst several others, to render them virtually impervious to ninja-looting. It's not impossible. Just totally meaningless to try.

I shall further add that, while we've all proven fairly opinionated on the matter, it's only been a week or two since this alteration was implemented. Accumulation and evaluation of data takes time. We take the feedback we receive seriously and are actively observing the spawn system to ascertain if it aligns with our expected outcome. Back in the day, I was a vocal proponent of "diamonds will spell the ruination of the resurrection system!" and now it's a commonly accepted reality. Point being, let's ultimately scrutinize the facts rather than our personal anecdotes.

[softdrink]

Dungeons that hold valuable crafting materials and are required to progress in multiple crafts are quite often sapped down to nothing and stay low because people need the materials; It exacerbates the issue of the new spawn timers as it stands. There are places that simply do not see foot traffic enough to reliably have others who are level appropriate to get you what is needed in even a moderately timely manner. You end up with situations where people are headed to do a dungeon and find it farmed down by everyone trying to get a crack at materials quite often since the dungeon spawnrates were tweaked.

I think a compromise could be safely made to quicken the spawns at least a bit more while not returning them to their previous rates if they were really an issue.

[Chadyo]

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.

Guess as player from Europe who does dungeons around the afternoon my time, I'll never see a high spawn again or see anything interesting drop. We'll just get the low spawns after a US crew blows through all the dungeons.

Dungeons that hold valuable crafting materials and are required to progress in multiple crafts are quite often sapped down to nothing and stay low because people need the materials

This is a roleplaying server, why don't we well you know. Reward these things through roleplay.

[Maiyannah]

You're missing the point. Change your perception and seek out the low spawn of a dungeon that is more challenging instead of seeking out the high spawn of a less challenging dungeon. If the spawn rate is slower and offering more low spawn dungeons at this time, it simply means you need to adjust to the new reality which is, to no longer seek out high spawns, but to seek out low spawns. Time to travel between dungeons is irrelevant.

To be frank, the dungeon design of this server is not conductive to this viewpoint and you will get yourself killed if you adhere to it.

Also, once you're in the 17-20 bracket, there is no "more challenging", theres just "worth your time" and "not"

"Time to travel between dungeons is irrelevant" - just because you don't value your time doesn't mean other players do.  There's no need to be dismissive of other players.

[myrddraal]

I just wonder what it is that you believe accounts for this dungeon spawn problem. That the dungeons are experiencing more activity must be the answer (since dungeon spawning is now set to the traditional levels). Well, next question is begged: What is it that you believe is the cause of the increased dungeon activity? More players dungeoning more, right? Well, instead of changing the traditional spawn rates, why not explore other solutions such as 1) Making more dungeons  2) Making more occupations (cargo delivery, etc). 3) Encourage the players who do not much else but grinding dungeons to find for their characters something else to do. 4) Anything else besides suggesting pumping spawn rates to max.

1) making more dungeons is a far more arduous task than you are tossing it out as.  Devs like Prophet have spent upwards of 30 hours on a single transition putting in the work to make it look beautiful.  That doesn’t even account for testing, balance, debugging, etc.  it’s not that simple.  More dungeons would be appreciated don’t get me wrong, but let’s not pretend that it’s as easy as that.

2) occupations in game are solo completionist jobs.  They do not really offer any real roleplay opportunity beyond “I’m a poor dock worker.”  Which most people are not going to want to keep up for long.  Unless you are going to be able to work directly for the npcs like Reds / Knives, there isn’t really that much that comes out of running deliveries from the Drain.

3) this is a task that requires plot hooks.  Whether it is DM, ampc, or player built plot hooks matters little in my experience.  I have a group that doesn’t dungeon at all together.  Most advancement however is dependent on dungeon grinding which then also advanced your mechanical and roleplay power.  I would love if DMs gave people entire levels for particularly good roleplay that builds stories, but it simply doesn’t happen.

More DMs would absolutely help, it was unfortunate Enigma had to be let go because he was very active and generated or fostered a lot of new leads but it is what it is.

4) again, what is so terrible about having static spawns?  Not penalizing other people because someone else also ran content 2 hours ago seems like a good thing.  The more efficiently people can do their dungeon the more quickly they can come back to roleplaying things that don’t revolve around pve.  People have already talked ad nauseum about how this game is already a massive time sink with the system of progression.

[Madame Trousers Son]

So I checked the Port Old Sewers yesterday and they were being cleared; not sure if they were fully cleared or not. Came back again about 12 hours later and the dungeon was at full strength.

If it takes about 12 hours for a dungeon to become full again on our current population level, that's probably fine. Much more than that and parties start stepping on each others toes, and simply going out to dungeon and have a bit of fun becomes more frustrating than it probably should be.

[gotesu]

I made more checks at unpopulated times (Euro morning -> noon) in Harakir : Trolls, Harvest, Hotep, snakes, Salamanders were lowish spawns.

If it takes about 12 hours for a dungeon to become full again on our current population level, that's probably fine. Much more than that and parties start stepping on each others toes, and simply going out to dungeon and have a bit of fun becomes more frustrating than it probably should be.

I wish to remark that in my humble opinion 12 hours to go from clear to full is -alot- of time and way too much. It means that out of a server population of 200+ ppl per day over about twenty relatively visited dungeons only a very few can find a dungeon at full spawn, and only dungeons that are relatively unpopular.

I'd also want to chime in with Chadyo's remark that this also means those who play at relatively unpopular times will never get a decent dungeon max spawn run.

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

4) again, what is so terrible about having static spawns?  Not penalizing other people because someone else also ran content 2 hours ago seems like a good thing.  The more efficiently people can do their dungeon the more quickly they can come back to roleplaying things that don’t revolve around pve.  People have already talked ad nauseum about how this game is already a massive time sink with the system of progression.

The underlying issue with static spawns, or spawning things conveniently so everyone gets their turn, is that it conflicts with thinking the gameplay itself in terms of the IC world. Making the way you "play the game" conceivable from an in-character perspective has always been one of our fundamental design principles. Whether you agree with the value of that, and whether we always live up to it, are different (and ever on-going) discussions, but that's the "why" here.

Guess as player from Europe who does dungeons around the afternoon my time, I'll never see a high spawn again or see anything interesting drop. We'll just get the low spawns after a US crew blows through all the dungeons.

In regards to any of the recent changes, it's actually quite the opposite. Part of the issue here was that we scaled the population growth parameters linearly with players online, but since some of the parameters are applied non-linearly, it massively accellerated the population growth when a lot of players were online (that is, disproportionally so). It became an issue after EE where we were fortunate enough to see a lot of new players, but another bug that we resolved recently was reducing the effect (it was causing spawn levels to reset randomly). We fixed the latter, but that made the former issue become much more pronounced.

That said, as already pointed out by Prophet, we all (the development team included) need to spend some more time to evaluate this. Some people here seem to suggest that spawn levels have been drastically reduced across the board, but that's certainly not the intention. On the other hand, perception is malleable so we should be all careful to jump to conclusions too. We (the development team) have access to the raw data and will be monitoring that.

[augustaugur]

Speaking personally, PvE content is already the least immersive part of play from an in-character perspective. For example, Dementlieu players such as myself simply have to accept that our characters will full kill hundreds of ostensibly human and not otherwise supernaturally corrupted individuals if we want to participate in mid level PvE content in our home domain. Being able to "get it over with" quickly, efficiently, and with the least amount of unnecessary resistance to combat experience slowdown by virtue of higher spawns so we can get back to being primarily logged in for non-combat roleplay is something I would prefer and appreciate. Making looking for spawns a key part of an already lengthy process will only call more attention to how unnatural it is.

There is also the collective punishment factor - more players means more chances where you're going will have been recently cleared. We play at primetime EST. You can see where the problem may lie in such a system.

Sure, PvE content is necessarily optional, but we do like being able to play with mechanical expression once a week as a group. We are playing a video game after all, however informed by in character story and roleplay it may be.

[Desident]

It really feels like a combination of being blessed with a large player count, and the... ever present problem of grinders is effectively making things -really- unsatisfying for casual players. Whether the current system has been in place for 15+ years or not, the current player base seems to largely dislike constantly being met with low spawns. They want their time respected, and to have fun with the content they choose to engage with, and the current system means that their fun is directly impacted by the actions of people whom they have no control over or even knowledge of.

If the team is unwilling to adjust the spawn timers to allow for faster strengthening to max spawn, then I think that there needs to be more places for people to go at the 8-16 level range, as well as a FIRM deterrent for grinders. People who spend 12+ hours a day on the server, grinding dungeons as much as they can, are impacting the server as a whole.

Maybe a flag can be set on characters who haven't been in a dungeon in a long while that pops it up to max spawn. This would encourage people to bring new people on their trips with them, thus letting more people experience the dungeons in their most rewarding state.

[Anarcoplayba]

It really feels like a combination of being blessed with a large player count, and the... ever present problem of grinders is effectively making things -really- unsatisfying for casual players. Whether the current system has been in place for 15+ years or not, the current player base seems to largely dislike constantly being met with low spawns. They want their time respected, and to have fun with the content they choose to engage with, and the current system means that their fun is directly impacted by the actions of people whom they have no control over or even knowledge of.

If the team is unwilling to adjust the spawn timers to allow for faster strengthening to max spawn, then I think that there needs to be more places for people to go at the 8-16 level range, as well as a FIRM deterrent for grinders. People who spend 12+ hours a day on the server, grinding dungeons as much as they can, are impacting the server as a whole.

Maybe a flag can be set on characters who haven't been in a dungeon in a long while that pops it up to max spawn. This would encourage people to bring new people on their trips with them, thus letting more people experience the dungeons in their most rewarding state.

I wanna give a stupid sugestion, that may not even be doable:

When a ninjalooter enters twice in 24 hours in a dungeon the loot is reduced, right?
And what if when a player enters a dungeon twice in 24 hours the spawn automatically reduces. Give an IC message: "As the creatures recognize their foe, they scurry and hide."

[Madame Trousers Son]

Yeah, I really like the suggestion of limiting grinding in a single dungeon, as per ninjalooting. I think it addresses some of the underlying behaviour more directly than the current system.

[The Prophet of Misinformation]

Speaking personally, the asinine invective of "people that play different than me are bad" poisons the well. Someone had the audacity to author the words "diminished playstyle" in the thread. I don't particularly care for "ninja looting." I try to make the experience miserable. I don't begrudge these players for pursuing whatever allows them to engage with the server. Even if I labor to make the experience masochistic. As somewhat later alluded to, the systems which enable or deter this behavior can be modified to improve the overall player experience.

However, the server is a fluid ecosystem and players themselves dictate their style of engagement and its consequences. If one doesn't dungeon frequently and expect that others (who do) to slow their pace for the sake of one's convenience, one is pushing their conventions on another. The argument is itself flexible and can be applied virtually down either avenue (all I do is dungeon and why can't I find RP?)

When dungoneers do invite larger parties of atypical participants (i.e. "the Geist train), it's frequently regarded as an abomination. It's a catch-22 with lots of people and their perceptions. I agree that the systems can do with refinement (as PotM is forever a beta). However, "the people (whomever they prove to be)" aren't the problem. Few are actively malicious and we should be mindful of that.

Frankly, I'd want to instance dungeons like an MMO but that's not in line with the design paradigms of the server. "Gating" access to a dungeon with decreasing gains in terms of spawn and loot seems like a workable idea. The change, is again, still in its infancy and we don't have data. The discussion of potential improvements is one that should be entertained and I support it. But we should likewise be patient.

[softdrink]

It really feels like a combination of being blessed with a large player count, and the... ever present problem of grinders is effectively making things -really- unsatisfying for casual players. Whether the current system has been in place for 15+ years or not, the current player base seems to largely dislike constantly being met with low spawns. They want their time respected, and to have fun with the content they choose to engage with, and the current system means that their fun is directly impacted by the actions of people whom they have no control over or even knowledge of.

If the team is unwilling to adjust the spawn timers to allow for faster strengthening to max spawn, then I think that there needs to be more places for people to go at the 8-16 level range, as well as a FIRM deterrent for grinders. People who spend 12+ hours a day on the server, grinding dungeons as much as they can, are impacting the server as a whole.

Maybe a flag can be set on characters who haven't been in a dungeon in a long while that pops it up to max spawn. This would encourage people to bring new people on their trips with them, thus letting more people experience the dungeons in their most rewarding state.

I think this would make things further frustrating for the people that do choose to engage in crafting, both casual and otherwise. The systems in place call for grinding of areas and resources and deterring this will just make things ever more difficult to get done, especially since some crafting materials need higher spawns to even collect. It's not a very good idea to punish or deter players for engaging with the systems in place and hopefully after they acquire the data they need we'll simply have the speed increased.

[Blingstone]

I would happily take the reduced spawn growth if we received more dungeons to visit.

For example. I really miss the fire salamander & Curst Cave. Why can't both exist simultaneously? Could even have a back door in the cave that leads up to the castle.

Some areas exist already that are like dungeons but lack all monsters. Like the mines up near Krofburg.

[Anarcoplayba]

I would happily take the reduced spawn growth if we received more dungeons to visit.

For example. I really miss the fire salamander & Curst Cave. Why can't both exist simultaneously? Could even have a back door in the cave that leads up to the castle.

Some areas exist already that are like dungeons but lack all monsters. Like the mines up near Krofburg.

Good idea in theory, not sure if the results would be so good.

Having more dungeons would not avoid the risk of arriving to a shitty spawn dungeon.

I would prefer (in the fantasy world in which wishes come true) to have more dungeons with a high spawn increase and a smaller level range.

For instance, shipwreck (in my player and biased opinion) is CR 12~16 depending on the spawn, where a 4 ppl party of lvl 12 has a good chance of finishing a low spawn and a hard time (maybe tpk) at full spawn.

Reducing the lvl range of the shipwreck for 13~14 and presenting another dungeon to lvl 15~16, making both faster to populate and with suitable rewards would be, IMO the best scenario.

Of course, this has many points of attention: doubling the number of dungeons in the server is no easy task, this becomes to similar to static spawn and, ofc, there is nothing but common sense  holding higher levels to sweep every single dungeon anyway.

But is an idea.

[myrddraal]

4) again, what is so terrible about having static spawns?  Not penalizing other people because someone else also ran content 2 hours ago seems like a good thing.  The more efficiently people can do their dungeon the more quickly they can come back to roleplaying things that don’t revolve around pve.  People have already talked ad nauseum about how this game is already a massive time sink with the system of progression.

The underlying issue with static spawns, or spawning things conveniently so everyone gets their turn, is that it conflicts with thinking the gameplay itself in terms of the IC world. Making the way you "play the game" conceivable from an in-character perspective has always been one of our fundamental design principles. Whether you agree with the value of that, and whether we always live up to it, are different (and ever on-going) discussions, but that's the "why" here.

Allowing ninja looting and having spawns static is more or less kind of the same thing.  Either way people are going into dungeons with maximum rewards because they're more than likely not looting a place with a sub optimal spawn to tank their own chance for the best loot.  The difference between them seems like it is just one of those options, the collaborative one where people are working together, are arbitrarily punished for other people also working together to have been somewhere earlier in the day.  As far as perceiving how that effects the world I'm sure theres an argument to be made about the mysterious dark powers that keep the world's evil forces strong just as they maintain the power of the dark lords and so on.

I do see the stance and can understand reasoning behind it - but as you said the discussion on general improvement of time spent on the game is a discussion worth having.  Maintaining static spawns is probably also easier on server resources and doesnt necessitate the creation of new dungeons (even though we all do appreciate the work from the team when they do release new ones.  I dont want the misinterpretation that we do not appreciate the effort the devs and DMs put into the game) to keep people running into adequate and fresh challenges.  There are plenty of dungeons as it is with wide varieties of encounters and needs.

[Duayne]

I agree that ninjalooting not resetting the dungeon spawn level goes against the apparent vision, however I’d say not to change this otherwise it would make the issues so much worse. I understand the vision outlined by Soren, hell I’ve thrown so much time away trying the make the IC make more sense at my OOC cost, however it isn’t 2005 anymore where it felt we had infinitely more time. Some people may only have 2 or 3 hours a day (if that), and if they are in an inopportune time zone, as others have said, they may never see a dungeon again as they would have before the change.

[goFigure...]

I just wonder what it is that you believe accounts for this dungeon spawn problem. That the dungeons are experiencing more activity must be the answer (since dungeon spawning is now set to the traditional levels). Well, next question is begged: What is it that you believe is the cause of the increased dungeon activity? More players dungeoning more, right? Well, instead of changing the traditional spawn rates, why not explore other solutions such as 1) Making more dungeons  2) Making more occupations (cargo delivery, etc). 3) Encourage the players who do not much else but grinding dungeons to find for their characters something else to do. 4) Anything else besides suggesting pumping spawn rates to max.

1) making more dungeons is a far more arduous task than you are tossing it out as.  Devs like Prophet have spent upwards of 30 hours on a single transition putting in the work to make it look beautiful.  That doesn’t even account for testing, balance, debugging, etc.  it’s not that simple.  More dungeons would be appreciated don’t get me wrong, but let’s not pretend that it’s as easy as that.

2) occupations in game are solo completionist jobs.  They do not really offer any real roleplay opportunity beyond “I’m a poor dock worker.”  Which most people are not going to want to keep up for long.  Unless you are going to be able to work directly for the npcs like Reds / Knives, there isn’t really that much that comes out of running deliveries from the Drain.

3) this is a task that requires plot hooks.  Whether it is DM, ampc, or player built plot hooks matters little in my experience.  I have a group that doesn’t dungeon at all together.  Most advancement however is dependent on dungeon grinding which then also advanced your mechanical and roleplay power.  I would love if DMs gave people entire levels for particularly good roleplay that builds stories, but it simply doesn’t happen.

More DMs would absolutely help, it was unfortunate Enigma had to be let go because he was very active and generated or fostered a lot of new leads but it is what it is.

4) again, what is so terrible about having static spawns?  Not penalizing other people because someone else also ran content 2 hours ago seems like a good thing.  The more efficiently people can do their dungeon the more quickly they can come back to roleplaying things that don’t revolve around pve.  People have already talked ad nauseum about how this game is already a massive time sink with the system of progression.

Hey, thanks for reply. I like everything that you said and agree with most of it. The final point for me is that I want a shared environment, even if it means that dungeons are sometimes empty when a group  shows up. Changing dungeons to be static max spawn or changing dungeons to be instanced is just not something I am into. I'd rather explore any other solution first.

Edit:
Here's a couple of my wild ideas that are totally pathetic and harmless but I think would help the issue/problem of dungeons after spawn growth tweak.

--Make a system that allows players to, even if only a bit, "charge up" the dungeon spawn. My example idea would be using various under-utilized dungeon-related skills to achieve success, like at a lore check spot located perhaps somewhere near the entrance. It makes sense that things might attract monsters to have a higher spawn such as disabling traps, unlocking doors, turning on wallsconce torches, etc. Anyway, the general idea here is that a group would arrive to the dungeon at low or no spawn and still be able to walk away with having done something about it. The whole idea is kinda a wild idea because it would involve a lot of actual development and new content to make it worthwhile at ameliorating the "no spawn" problem. This idea seems simple and non-abusable, just like the two lore pillars under the Vallaki Morninglord church.

--Another idea is to be able to pay more beggars, or even vistani, and other appropriate NPC's to be able to scout the dungeons spawn levels remotely. The accuracy of the results of such conversations could even be tied to under-utilized skills like appraise or influence (because information has its price). Being able to ascertain the state of a dungeon this way might even be limited to one use per server reset (to avoid abuse). The whole idea here is that most dungeons would have some way to scry out their activity level before travelling all the way there.

[Arszenik]

So right now, I am effectively feeling like i am just locked out of PVE content, it doesnt seem to matter if I want to harder dungeons to get xp/loot, or easier ones for crafting, I just cant, because regardless of what time of the day I try to do it, every place I try to go to is just near empty.

Its not even something that Im the only one experiencing, many people in this very thread have witnessed.

I havent been in diminished XP for well over a month before someone starts whining at me to do more social RP.

[FunkeyMonkey]

For those in the southern hemisphere, it leaves us with few players and few dungeons as most things are tapped by the time we get on.
With reduced growth, its pot luck

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

--Another idea is to be able to pay more beggars, or even vistani, and other appropriate NPC's to be able to scout the dungeons spawn levels remotely. The accuracy of the results of such conversations could even be tied to under-utilized skills like appraise or influence (because information has its price). Being able to ascertain the state of a dungeon this way might even be limited to one use per server reset (to avoid abuse). The whole idea here is that most dungeons would have some way to scry out their activity level before travelling all the way there.

This is actually already a thing. Dumitru in the Vallaki Slums, Constantin at the Fishing Lodge and the Rauni at the mist camp provide this info, but it may need to be made less vague.

[Savras]

Yeah, did find it beyond strange to walk into certain dungeons and find only 1 enemy in certain rooms. Was abit bizarre.

[Anthaxious]

--Another idea is to be able to pay more beggars, or even vistani, and other appropriate NPC's to be able to scout the dungeons spawn levels remotely. The accuracy of the results of such conversations could even be tied to under-utilized skills like appraise or influence (because information has its price). Being able to ascertain the state of a dungeon this way might even be limited to one use per server reset (to avoid abuse). The whole idea here is that most dungeons would have some way to scry out their activity level before travelling all the way there.

This is actually already a thing. Dumitru in the Vallaki Slums, Constantin at the Fishing Lodge and the Rauni at the mist camp provide this info, but it may need to be made less vague.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the intention of the recent change was to stop low-levels from being barred from doing dungeons, and to stop them from dying in high spawn dungeons.

On my old server that I worked on, we made sure to leave hints that a dungeon was high level by placing certain indicators before the actual area with spawns. In POTM, you could achieve this by setting this up based on the dungeons spawn level, basically if a dungeon is on high spawn, have some kind of indicator just before the main area, for example: a corpse of an adventurer laying dead before the cave transition, or a pile of bones, etc. This would help the other way, which would ensure that low levels are forewarned that a dungeon is on high spawn, and can lead to fun RP opportunities, when they see the danger/consequences of entering said dungeon right upfront.