What I would like to propose is to add procedural dungeons in the form of timed warps/portals spawning randomly on planets leading to a procedurally generated dungeon.
It would differ to meteors in that the dungeon portals would open on every type of planet, even the safe ones and the player would have to make a conscious decision to go through it to engage in combat instead of randomly walking into “combat zone” of the meteor. Inside there would be various creatures to fight and/or puzzle to complete, leading to various coffers full of loot (total count of it would greatly exceed inventory size, so the player would have to be very picky about what to take back, or bring buddies along).
If the player completes the dungeon and exit through the exit portal, he/she gets to keep what they got from boxes inside, if the player is defeated, the inventory is reset to the state from when they entered the dungeon.
Both completing the dungeon and being defeated in it would move player back to where the dungeon portal used to be at (kinda like returning to previous coordinates from Sanctum upon logging in).
The main danger in the dungeon would come in the form of traps and enemies, dungeons would have the same kind of atmosphere as the planets they originated on.
Can also add in player made dungeons as well! But I do support/love this idea.
Puzzles, traps, group effort, Fun and Loot! Make the loot building theme centric, so we can sell that material for the builders to add special designs to their builds and even use the dungeon materials for themed decoration items.
I don’t know that they do it anymore, but Trove had a thing where players could design a set of dungeon rooms, and if the set got approved it would be added to the game as one of the procedurally generated dungeons in the world and the player would be compensated with some of the paid game currency.
Hi, nice Idea…
When you farm for some Time , Inventory near full, and than a Dungeon Portal pops up… so what? ; )
There should be an option, that all Loot in the Dungeon gets auto claimed at the End of Dungeon and you can claim it at Home ; )
Then either you quickly build a campfire and put it in a temporary chest or you just disregard the portal. Though the timers should be generous so if you notice one you have time to teleport to sanctum, warp to your beacon, put unneeded stuff in coffers and make a warp back to where the portal is. I think like an hour of time before it disappears on its own would be great. Though, after a player enters the portal, the timer should go to 1 minute countdown (to allow player’s friends enter as well), then disappear.
Also the thing about loot is that it should be always more than the player can carry, so you either
a) think carefully what you want to get from the dungeon
b) bring friends along to help you clean it.
Having it autoclaimed would defeat the purpose and would make the achievement of going through the dungeon hollow, decreasing the depth of the mechanic.
It has been a long time since I played a lot, but I’m pretty sure that the inventory is already so very large that for a dungeon to have more loot than a player could feasibly carry, it would either have to have a ton of worthless or nearly worthless loot so that picking the good stuff would become a chore, or it would have so much valuable loot that it may well literally imbalance the game between those who frequently control and clear dungeons and those who do not. After all, why bother farming or mining when you can bag a full inventory of valuable resources from a single dungeon run?
I’ve always been of the opinion that giving players the ability to make their own dungeons could be a viable solution. Infact, I suggested account limited shop stands ages ago as a key feature to allow players to make mazes or puzzles that reward players who complete them without having 1 person loot everything. I also think such a feature is far easier to implement then full on generated dungeons.
Such a feature could be expanded upon. For example, by adding a plot setting to prevent the use of grappling hooks or double jumps (perhaps with a 5 second pop-up warning when entering plots to prevent griefing).
