Remove town dungeon teleports (except maybe sewers?)

Suggestions
1

A lackluster feature is the town-access to dungeons. It removes to a great extent the RPG-feel of the world and the desire for exploration. Dungeons are spoon-fed. This is unlike the newer mine dungeons for example. At it’s release some time ago, I spoke with handfuls of other players who agreed that they enjoyed the travel aspect / excursion-feel to the dungeon.

Furthermore it was interesting back in the day with, for example, Tradu mines and seeing other groups out there waiting outside the dungeons to reset or wait for party members. It became an end-game socializing spot.

It also consumed a valuable resource at the time, a mage reagent, to get you generally located where you need to be. Reagents are so common now that it may not matter, but at the least there would be some consumption of reagents by doing this.

4 Likes
2

I personally thought the orbs was just a place holder for now and then they were going to make the entrances various places around highsteppe or close to some other teleport stones.

Where the entrance could be if kept in highsteppe:
Airship - go to the airship round the back streets of highsteppe
Crypt - Under the tree where it is currently
Broken hall - Maybe a door somewhere around the under part of highsteppe?
Sewer - through a sewage drain somewhere in highsteppe

4 Likes
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As someone who’s done 700+ shard dungeons or so, struggling to find groups every single day at a time with empty servers with people willing to be 1-2h available for groups, at max, I can assure you this would have not been possible if those were spread out.

I HATED dungeons being spread out in the old world, omg all the idle time until all arrived, oh surprise, one drops out, so four people wait again for the replacement who’s running. And I also HATED waiting forever in front of Tradu until people ran back and forth to store their lvl 1 shards. Stuff being in HS was so much a relief for that.

I come on to play, not to run through the world. There are SO many occassions to run through the world now, you can farm, hop from event to event all you want, why on earth does it have to be dungeons out there. Our endgame content which we grind over and over and over, this is not “rpg” in the first place, bosses there anew every day.
You can have your RPG-feel everywhere. However, I come on with limited time, to play with my group, and running to dungeons spoils this, sorry, it is a serious flaw of the two new dungeons.

Due to these kind of demands of immersion-fans these new dungeons are already in other places. And surprise, they are hardly done by anyone, not spontaneously, ever, least not by our group. And the running is #1 reason for that! And especially they are not switched to with potions on, when every minute counts.

If we do the new dungeons, we try to do several in a row. However, this doesn’t take 30mins, but 45 with everyone running and taking their time and portaling back forgetting this and that; half an evening gone for one dungeon. I flatout hate it, I understand people in other timezones are not under such a timeconstraints, good for you, but, seriously … there’s already two dungeons now to run to, which is a major fuzz for others who wanna play them more than once a week. Enjoy.
The old dungeons staying where they are, at least to conveniently farm shards from them, is the least that could be done to not scare away everyone already struggling to find groups, imo. If we need to hop through areas, well for me this would seriously ruining it alltogether.

PS: We also play with new players, picking them up in front of the entrance of the dungeons. This central spot is a very good meeting place for those not wanting or knowing the lfg. All these spontaneous runs, the meeting point, it would be gone, guilds would do their runs alone, teleport around, be no longer visible in HS.
Also I guided new players to mine many times now btw, most did not even have the teleport to either new dungeon. So the whole group waited, 10mins, 15mins, until we finally could start. As said, fine if others have time for all that… I just smh over what is so enjoyable about that.

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it really wouldn’t be harder to find groups, you’d wait in highsteppe like usual and then travel to the dungeons. We did it before just fine and can do it now just fine. There’s many ways to find groups.

1 Like
5

so, remove the dungeons from the location there set in? ok how about we move the mines to hulthinse basen

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Meeting up is actually so easy though, especially when players are used to it. It was a complete non-issue in preborn for me at any given time. The only exception is someone who’s never been, and having to run them there. Even getting to the mine dungeon, without knowing where it was (wastelands), took like 5(3?) mins because it made sense to be in a cave. Being not prepared to do a dungeon and running back to the house is a personal problem for that player, same for dropping group.

I too, come on to play. People ran to shards just fine. People doing high level shards should know exactly where everything is, it does not take up the majority of your time.

Imagine for a moment how condescending this might sound if I were to say this exact statement to you?

Naturally you are entitled to your opinion. I personally disagree.

Yes this is the strongest argument, I think it was a bad decision to shove everything in one location. At the least, they could be moved to certain areas inside/out-around highsteppe and not just a orb you pop in your face. The mines being further out was a nice addition. Theoretically the airship could be moved to basin without major arm twisting. The fact of so many being in one place already undervalues the travel effort to seek other dungeons. Though with teleportation / (some) dungeon based rewards (if we ever see it…) can offset that.

1 Like
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That’s not my point, the point is, everyone got limited time for dungeons. Some got 1h, some 2h, some come later some come earlier etc. We got a core time of 1h per evening, only, where 5 people are on (total server count 20-30, so this is a structural issue, in many timezones other than US). The dungeon runs in the OG took easily double the time than the Reborn ones, due to people traveling in between, due to waiting for this and that person, it was one reason why so many quit. We were running more than playing, for example to Tradu.
Spreading out dungeons even more would cut our playing time for them, majorly and fill the time with stuff people don’t log on for. Running, exploring the world, use your reagents (I use alot for events, farming perks°) all this is nice and possible solo, in times where there’s no groups waiting for each other.
(And fine that this was a non-issue for ya… for me and many who left that game long ago it was a majorly annoying factor.)

And hoping with potions on, oh we did that also back then, people who are first were logging out again, can I login, can I login, is everyone there, nope still waiting, starring at your Orbus Dash, and all that fuzz, no thanks, never again.

PS: The only solution I can think of to please all is a working queue, to go to any specific dungeon, with 5 people. Then they could be spread out where ever. Whoever wants to run there instead, fine, just do. The groups with less time can portal in, similar to the normal raid.
Would still take away the meeting place for randoms and newbs (who cant even access higher areas safely btw), but whatever, then there’s lfg left and at least the distance does not force everyone to run, if they want or not.

2 Likes
8

wow, that was a joke about moving the mines to hulthines -.-

the 4 dungeons are set in highstepp, there part of the map, The other reason they were put there is so we have a way of getting from one dungeon to a different dungeon quickly and if new (non 30) dungeons were to get added in there would be no need to go messing around with the map (maybe braking something) to add them in. It was also annoying to organise enough to get them from dungeon to dungeon without people getting annoyed about going from the say desert to some were else several times in a row.

1 Like
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I feel like there has to be a mix especially in a VR game. I think keeping the ones in highsteppe is fine but having overworld ones (especially ones which are close to portal stones) is also a step in the right direction.

Quality of life features are good but in VR can noticeably remove gameplay mechanics and immersion. For example, I was a terrible mage in Preborn so I decided to master the teleport rituals so I could be the travel mage. This is pointless in Reborn, reagents are basically free, and given the portal menu, there is never actually any reason to learn the ritual for anything but highsteppe*.

Also, no one does mines and temple because they are generally more difficult than the other dungeons (doveregubbin base health is much higher than old game, I think, he takes a long time to kill) not because you have to run to them.

*Actually there is one case, trolling your party at the end of dungeon/raid runs. Sure I can make a portal for you guys back to highsteppe! Still, this is pointless, compared to actually being able to help people with teleport rituals.

EDIT: I’m also fairly certain that 90% of the raiders in this game don’t actually know where the normal mode raid entrance is which is kind of sad. It’s basically just a PVP shortcut back to highsteppe at this point. I’ll never understand why the hardmode raid entrance is in highsteppe and the normal mode raid entrance is in the rainforest.

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Yes, I know lol. Your “strongest argument” was not moving the mines, but how the dungeons are already in place. I then elaborated on how things could move…

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Well, there’s several things I think need clarification…

  • The raid entrance is in HS, actually, or should be, which fits to the lore and all. Why you only can enter hard mode through it, idk, but Rainforest I always regarded as exit, for both modes (and a poor-enough meeting place in any case). If anything, then the HS door should allow to enter both modes, or 2 doors should be there or such.
  • Yes, at least temple is harder, mine not really however, it is one of the shortest dungeons. And talking only for our groups, it is definitly not the difficulty, but the running which makes us postpone most or all the mines we get or not even consider them. Except we do a ‘mine evening’ or such; or a temple-practice evening etc.
    I experience this every single day. If someone only got an hour or 30mins left we surely don’t sacrifice 5-10mins to move the party elsewhere. Same with having potions on. This would be all different if those two dungeons were more accessible than now (ex. via queue).

  • That’s a different topic, yes, most portal runes are missing still, which is kinda stupid and should be changed. But again, I got a different game experience, the menus (which were already there for a really long time in the OG, btw…) do by no means make opening portals obsolete. The reason is always the same, you are in a spot where the next stone is further away. Specially during event-hoping portals are used all the time, even when stones are fairly close, to get around faster. I use Lamavora portal, btw, also during farming etc.

  • And I use lots reagents for farming perks btw, doing my weeklies, dailies and the event hoping. Plus there’s normal farming or fishing, if you’re into trading. I am still amazed that people are so fixated on a few dungeon entrances when there’s really - other than in the OG - a ton of activities requiring to venture out to all areas, have your immersion and all without having others wait for you all the time.

PS: On a general note, nobody I know really comes on for dungeons to feel like a real archer or miner or such, sorry… environments are nice, but grinding dungeons in groups and working out tactics for these is a rather non-immersive game activity, per se, imo.
What I don’t like about these discussions, also removal of portal menus and what not is the forcing-character of it. Everyone who wanna roleplay can already do so without changing the game for every endgame player. Everyone who wants to portal can do that also, currently to too few places, granted, but forcing the rest of players to learn portal-mage, well… The menus were introduced back in the OG for those physically not able to do that, and that was a very good thing.
Now the lightning and distance of the two new dungeons already ruined a good deal of gameplay for those lacking time or good enough eyesight, for no real reason. These changes infringe accessibility to the gameplay, at least for a portion of players - only for the sake of pleasing some aesthetics and immersive ‘needs’ which could be fullfilled in the overworld as well. Why on earth not darken the caves a little, why make a dungeon difficult to play instead, specially for older players (eyesight in the dark goes down 70% during the age of 20-60). Also it would be real easy to please both groups by giving an alternative, at least. Like gamma settings or an entering-queue for all(!) dungeons (there’s still the problem to solve what happens if one dcs, though; if you need to run back from HS or can’t get in, at all, like currently sometimes in the normal queue, this is useless). You can always not use QoL alternatives, but they should at least be there for those who want to use them.

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I guess my point is that QoL needs to be balanced with gameplay mechanics especially for a VR world. I would actually really like a gamma option as well, iirc my first ever post on this forum was about how I didn’t like playing runemage due to the combat spells being too bright.

I’ll need to phrase this carefully cause I do actually like Reborn and don’t want to make this into another one of those “Oldbus was better threads”.

On brightness, I actually knew an OG tank who always kept a number of body lantern potions so he could could be the Lantern Tank when running Maeo. They do need to make the Mage’s light spell sticky again and the tinkerer lantern should be brighter and be sticky when thrown too. They probably should have done this before darkening the dungeons.

Portal Mage is useless. Why didn’t they make it so that knowing the spells didn’t cost the reagent or something? This would have left the menu in for the accessibility issue. I play endgame as well, knowing how to do it was useful early on in the old game and people would practice it, if you messed up or couldn’t do it, well it’s an MMO so generally someone else in the party knew it as well. Everyone I know in Reborn simply portals to highsteppe and uses the menu to reportal somewhere else. This issue is partly related to reagents being cheap as dirt in this game. (Your playstyle might personally use them a lot but if you don’t believe me, trying trading a stack of reagents for just about anything, people will decline. In the old game, these were useable as money and worth about 200 dram a piece.)

I also like overworld dungeons but do feel that they’re occasionally too far from the teleport stone. In OG, the lamavora teleport required you to run most of the zone to Tradu, and the Guild City teleport was in a different zone altogether. I would have preferred the teleport just outside the Tradu lake. In the new game, temple seems located a reasonable distance from the portal stone while mines is actually a little too far. There’s a happy medium imo.

Also when I started Reborn, I knew about airship under the tree, but I can’t be the only player who went to the airship dock to see if there was dungeon entrance there or if maybe I could even enter the dungeon by waving to a dock NPC, etc.

I also regularly encountered traders or people selling resources in highsteppe in the old game. This is a lot rarer with the auction house now, so it has removed another immersive experience from the game. I do actually like auction house, and I think balancing it so that it isn’t convenient to trade stacks on was a good move.

My point though is that these features need to be taken in the greater context of experiencing a VR world and not just a game. Add QoL features but balance them so they don’t remove immersive aspects. This seems more important in VR than a normal game, I think.

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What if the portals were just moved around highsteppe? For instance Crypt stay where it’s at, Airship be placed by Helga and the airship in Highsteppe, Sewers can be placed anywhere with like a manhole opening, and broken halls could be placed at a number of doors in Highsteppe.

I just think this would add just a little bit more to the adventure aspect.

1 Like
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I can live with that, running-wise… However, the price might be high. The tree area with all teleports is a really nice meeting place, actually the only one where I hang out, at all. You at least see that one other guild who also does dungeons, right now, you can pick up randoms waiting in front, chat with others before and after runs, or with those also waiting for their groups or doing a pause etc. The groups doing mines or temples already vanished from there now, and if everyone else is running back and forth between more places this meeting place is gone.

I actually wished it became the opposite, 2 more portals for mine and temple under the tree, so groups like ours have a chance of doing them more. If there was a secure way to portal people in and out from there, the actual entrances could be all over the place, just like the raid there’s several ways to get in. The alternative is a queue, however, this would also make guilds vanish from any central meeting points, just like spreading out dungeons would.

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15

They are planning to make a social spot for us to hang out. What if they implemented the queue on top of this so therefore adding a meeting place while taking care of the quick travel in between. If they didn’t want to do a queue then maybe a portal room in the social spot the create so those who want the adventure have it and those who want quick travel have it as well.

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I don’t go to social spots tho, if I wanted something like this I’d play VR Chat. I come on to do either dailies or dungeons, as many as possible in the spare time we got, and all the social parts revolve around that, for example if we got pauses in between or reform groups.

So yea, a portal hub also being there would be great. My issue with the queues is that they are currently not working well, if you join a random queue and dc, you might be thrown out with no option to rejoin the dungeon, that would be dreadful for shards.

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So even though you personally wouldn’t be at a social spot to socialize but if they had a portal hub inside it you’d be okay with them then spreading out the dungeon portals correct? This is the best of both world in my opinion. This would be a nice compromise for both sides of the argument.

I’d like to know @Robert and the Devs opinion. What side they lean towards personally and if they believe this is a good idea or not.

Off Topic: So having a “portal hub” inside the social spot would increase the people who go to it or at least through it.

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By he way @Metris_Marshmallow I really appreciate the discussion without us disregarding each other’s opinions and being rude. This is how all topic discussions should go, we are both old school players and respect one another and that’s how everyone should be for all of us together are a single community. This of us as a tree, the game and Devs are the roots and the tree trunk is us as a whole and then the branches are our fellowships and the leaves are us individually. We are all part of a big picture and should always work towards a better game for all of us. Should always try to find the best for both worlds on every discussion. Just wanted to post this so others could see that this is a friendly debate and always should be for anyone on forums. So again thanks @Metris_Marshmallow

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This is just how I am discussing, always nice and sensible and never ever disregarding… ehmmm cough ok before others who know me die laughing, I try my best but think I tend to discuss aggressively/emotionally at times. Plus I kinda overreacted with caps and all above because I felt something could come which I really, really disliked in the old game - and which is, partly, already there with mine/temple gone from the hub. I wished we at least had a queue for doing those dungeons in normal mode, pulling in the level 30s in who queue for random dungeons, since there is alot of gear I’d like to farm there, plus the mount and I never have gotten groups for that since launch.

If any suggested things come or not idk, but for whatever plans devs got I think it is good to have the full range of opinions and arguments.

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