Where are the dungeons?

[yoyolll]

IMO here are the good ingredients for a RPG (the order doesn't matter):

 

1/ A good universe with rich background and possibilities.

 

2/ A charismatic vilain with deep identity and goals.

 

3/A good system of build and fighting.

 

4/ A LOT OF DUNGEONS WITH MANY TRAPS AND HARD OPTIONAL BOSS!

 

5/ A good variety of class and spell for good replayability.

 

Yeah, that basically covers all the good cRPGs: BG 1 and 2, IWD 1 and 2, KotOR 1 and 2, Pillars 1.  The Fallouts don't really match, though.

[evilcat]

Old CIty of Netaka

Catacombs of Berath

Quest Adra dungeon

Wodeica cult pyramid.

 

This are just from the start.

 

It is easy to sink into Netaka doing city quest, when there is an option to just sail away to explore some islands.

[morhilane]

 

I think Raedric's Hold is an excellent example of a good RPG dungeon.  As a big fan of Icewind Dale, I prefer dungeons on the scale of Endless Paths, but I really would've been happy with 3 or 4 dungeons the size of Raedric's Hold.  Instead, the world is made up of several large quest hubs and some mini-dungeons scattered across the islands.

 

Fort Deadlight, Engwithans Waystation, Oathbinder's Sanctum and maybe Drowned Barrows going by the wiki (I haven't explored it yet).

 

 

Either you are blind or your memory is distorting the actual size of Raedric's Hold.

[Purudaya]

 

 

I think Raedric's Hold is an excellent example of a good RPG dungeon.  As a big fan of Icewind Dale, I prefer dungeons on the scale of Endless Paths, but I really would've been happy with 3 or 4 dungeons the size of Raedric's Hold.  Instead, the world is made up of several large quest hubs and some mini-dungeons scattered across the islands.

 

Fort Deadlight, Engwithans Waystation, Oathbinder's Sanctum and maybe Drowned Barrows going by the wiki (I haven't explored it yet).

 

 

Either you are blind or your memory is distorting the actual size of Raedric's Hold.

 

 

That's unnecessary.

 

Perhaps a lot of those dungeons will feel longer once the difficulty is improved, but as of right now not one of them takes as long as Raedric's Hold, Durgan's Battery, etc. I don't personally mind the smaller dungeons and think they probably lend themselves better to the theme of Deadfire than, say, an Endless Paths-style dungeon would, but that doesn't mean it isn't an accurate observation. 

[morhilane]

 

 

 

I think Raedric's Hold is an excellent example of a good RPG dungeon.  As a big fan of Icewind Dale, I prefer dungeons on the scale of Endless Paths, but I really would've been happy with 3 or 4 dungeons the size of Raedric's Hold.  Instead, the world is made up of several large quest hubs and some mini-dungeons scattered across the islands.

 

Fort Deadlight, Engwithans Waystation, Oathbinder's Sanctum and maybe Drowned Barrows going by the wiki (I haven't explored it yet).

 

 

Either you are blind or your memory is distorting the actual size of Raedric's Hold.

 

 

That's unnecessary.

 

Perhaps a lot of those dungeons will feel longer once the difficulty is improved, but as of right now not one of them takes as long as Raedric's Hold, Durgan's Battery, etc. I don't personally mind the smaller dungeons and think they probably lend themselves better to the theme of Deadfire than, say, an Endless Paths-style dungeon would, but that doesn't mean it isn't an accurate observation. 

 

 

It took me more time to "do" Fort Deadlight than Raedric's Hold and that was with less combat involved in Deadlight. Durgan's Battery is from the expac, I'll wait to see what the 3 DLCs gives us before bringing that up.

 

And for the record, you can finish Raedric's Hold in like 5 minutes with a no combat approach. It's not like you have to kill everyone there.

[Voss]

Some big dungeons would have fit just fine. The entire area has remnants of ancient civilizations (mostly the usual suspect) but exploring them is simply cut off in favor of rehashing the same tiny maps again and again.

[rjshae]

Yes, dungeons don't have to be vertical to be big. An expanse of ancient, cursed ruins could be just as enjoyable.

[yoyolll]

 

 

I think Raedric's Hold is an excellent example of a good RPG dungeon.  As a big fan of Icewind Dale, I prefer dungeons on the scale of Endless Paths, but I really would've been happy with 3 or 4 dungeons the size of Raedric's Hold.  Instead, the world is made up of several large quest hubs and some mini-dungeons scattered across the islands.

 

Fort Deadlight, Engwithans Waystation, Oathbinder's Sanctum and maybe Drowned Barrows going by the wiki (I haven't explored it yet).

 

 

Either you are blind or your memory is distorting the actual size of Raedric's Hold.

 

I've done Raedric's Hold 3 times.  Last time was two weeks before Deadfire came out.  None of the "dungeons" you listed are anywhere near the size of Raedric's Hold, nor do they have the complexity.  Fort Deadlight is the only one that even comes close, and it is far shorter and smaller by comparison.  Before calling others blind, why don't you go to the wiki and compare the size, number, and complexity of areas in both.

 

And for the record, you can finish Raedric's Hold in like 5 minutes

I'm gonna need some proof on that one.

[Shadenuat]

The problem with hours spent in Deadfire is that half of them is clicking around the map driving little ship, clicking 1111 through ship combat, collecting junk and rice and fruit, and engaging into other meaningless content like that 22th bounty you have to get.

 

In that respect I'd much rather hunt some cult with Keldorn or re-capture castle from trolls than run around a map full of small scattered isles which are not really connected to anything.

 

The areas in Deadfire are big, and map is vast, but the content is simply not there.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Shadenuat

[morhilane]

 

 

 

I think Raedric's Hold is an excellent example of a good RPG dungeon.  As a big fan of Icewind Dale, I prefer dungeons on the scale of Endless Paths, but I really would've been happy with 3 or 4 dungeons the size of Raedric's Hold.  Instead, the world is made up of several large quest hubs and some mini-dungeons scattered across the islands.

 

Fort Deadlight, Engwithans Waystation, Oathbinder's Sanctum and maybe Drowned Barrows going by the wiki (I haven't explored it yet).

 

 

Either you are blind or your memory is distorting the actual size of Raedric's Hold.

 

I've done Raedric's Hold 3 times.  Last time was two weeks before Deadfire came out.  None of the "dungeons" you listed are anywhere near the size of Raedric's Hold, nor do they have the complexity.  Fort Deadlight is the only one that even comes close, and it is far shorter and smaller by comparison.  Before calling others blind, why don't you go to the wiki and compare the size, number, and complexity of areas in both.

 

And for the record, you can finish Raedric's Hold in like 5 minutes

I'm gonna need some proof on that one.

 

 

When I got to Fort Deadlight my reaction was "oh a wannabe Raedric's Hold", the exterior is basically a copy-paste. After resolving the quest that sent me there the way I did, my reaction was "this is much better than Raedric's Hold". I think you are paying too much attention to the amount of enemies, in term of floor pace both are comparable, even if Deadlight is not straight 3 floors like Raedric. It's like the Oathbinder's Sactum, it's larger than the Temple of Eothas in Gilded Vale (3 floors vs 2, map size similar, yeah I compared it last week) but with a lot less enemies...because everything has a lot less enemies in Deadfire, people complained about that.

 

Raedric's Hold in ~5 minutes:

 

Scale vines on the left side, stay on that rampart level, there will be one guard you might be unable to avoid. Reach the first door

Enter that door,

pick robes in chest as disguise,

pick the lock (requires min 7 mechanics) of the door in the top most room on that floor. If you can't do that, you'll have to convince Nedmar to give you the key which might means a little trip under the castle and killing lots of undead which will bust the 5 minutes.

takes passage down to Raedric

talk to Readric, accept is offer.

It's not like you have to kill the guy.

 

 

[yoyolll]

 

When I got to Fort Deadlight my reaction was "oh a wannabe Raedric's Hold", the exterior is basically a copy-paste. After resolving the quest that sent me there the way I did, my reaction was "this is much better than Raedric's Hold". I think you are paying too much attention to the amount of enemies, in term of floor pace both are comparable, even if Deadlight is not straight 3 floors like Raedric. It's like the Oathbinder's Sactum, it's larger than the Temple of Eothas in Gilded Vale (3 floors vs 2, map size similar, yeah I compared it last week) but with a lot less enemies...because everything has a lot less enemies in Deadfire, people complained about that.

 

Raedric's Hold in ~5 minutes:

 

Scale vines on the left side, stay on that rampart level, there will be one guard you might be unable to avoid. Reach the first door

Enter that door,

pick robes in chest as disguise,

pick the lock (requires min 7 mechanics) of the door in the top most room on that floor. If you can't do that, you'll have to convince Nedmar to give you the key which might means a little trip under the castle and killing lots of undead which will bust the 5 minutes.

takes passage down to Raedric

talk to Readric, accept is offer.

It's not like you have to kill the guy.

 

 

 

The world record holder for Pillars 1 speedrunning took 11 minutes to complete Raedric's Hold.  If you can do it faster than that, you should probably go for the record.

 

Raedric's Hold has 3 floors inside and 2 floors outside.  Deadlight has more interesting characters, I'll give it that, but in every other way it really is a wanna-be Raedric's Hold.  Temple of Eothas wasn't really a dungeon either.  It's much more comparable to Deadlight.  In fact, here is what I said in my OP:

Pillars 1 had Raedric's Hold, Endless Paths, Skaen Temple, Cragholdt Bluffs, Heritage Hill, Durgan's Battery, Flames-That-Whisper, Abbey of the Fallen Moon and probably a few other good ones that I'm forgetting.  The largest dungeons in Deadfire were more similar to the Temple of Eothas in Gilded Vale or the sewers under Defiance Bay.

 

 

 

That's not to say I don't like those types of mini-dungeons, but they are appetizers.  Raedric's Hold, Durgan's Battery, Fallen Moon etc. are entrees.  Deadfire, as a whole, feels like a series of fancy appetizers.  It's delicious, but there is no main course, so I left feeling both impressed and unsatisfied at the same time.

[Big-Ben]

It's interesting as I play through the game more (I'm busy and can't play for hours on end) that the game is indeed larger to some extent but the actual content is more spread out. In the first game if I didn't have my ass in gear a dungeon like Raedric's Hold or The White Forge could take a while due to how battles turned out and how much I was carrying supply wise. I think what the community should be looking at is whether we prefer less content (In number of events) with meatier content or more content with less meat.

 

I personally am okay with either but I'd really like it to be a meaningful regardless. I don't mind small dungeons if they're interesting but I also don't want "Rudimentary Dungeon Where Some Dude Got His Fafe Eaten" to be the only thing occurring. I think more an abundance of leaner but more abundant content lends itself to Deadfire's structure more because of how the map is.

 

But I also don't have a problem with the PoE concept where I travel to a smaller amount of areas with meatier content. Again as long as it isn't  a "BILLY GOT HIS FACE EATEN HERE TOO?" sort of deal.

[Purudaya]

The problem with hours spent in Deadfire is that half of them is clicking around the map driving little ship, clicking 1111 through ship combat, collecting junk and rice and fruit, and engaging into other meaningless content like that 22th bounty you have to get.

 

In that respect I'd much rather hunt some cult with Keldorn or re-capture castle from trolls than run around a map full of small scattered isles which are not really connected to anything.

 

The areas in Deadfire are big, and map is vast, but the content is simply not there.

I can't agree with the idea that the content isn't there, it's just spread out/structured differently than the first game (which we tend to remember with White March/Battle of Yenwood added). PoE1 at release was actually quite short, with two cities that were virtually lifeless and a 15 level dungeon where about 10 of the levels felt copied/pasted. Deadfire's quests are more focused but come in smaller bites, which means that the format is going to suffer badly from something like, say, ridiculously bad difficulty balancing at release.

 

It would be nice to have both, but I'll take a Neketaka over a Raedric's Hold any day. I have plenty of criticisms about Deadfire, but if the contest is between PoE1 and PoE2 *at release* then PoE2 is the richer game. If my guess is right and the DLC adds some significant single-location content, maybe the lack of multi-level dungeons won't feel so glaring.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Purudaya

[DaKatarn]

Maybe the DLC will add good old dungeons, the second DLC in particulary.

[ktemp89]

After all of the leveling up, gearing up, and theory crafting I've done since this game came out, ultimately there's not really a large challenge to throw my characters against. Not having something like the endless paths, not having a single area that takes even more than 30 minutes to complete in a cRPG feels like a pretty large mistake. I love the game's mechanics, setting, story, everything else, but I'm pretty unsatisfied with the same things the OP is, and won't be playing it again. At least not til all the DLC's are out, and the game is balanced to the point that you can't just beat it with the AI on auto. 

[wih]

After all of the leveling up, gearing up, and theory crafting I've done since this game came out, ultimately there's not really a large challenge to throw my characters against. Not having something like the endless paths, not having a single area that takes even more than 30 minutes to complete in a cRPG feels like a pretty large mistake. I love the game's mechanics, setting, story, everything else, but I'm pretty unsatisfied with the same things the OP is, and won't be playing it again. At least not til all the DLC's are out, and the game is balanced to the point that you can't just beat it with the AI on auto. 

 

I would like to be able to play all the battles in PoE with the new engine. I wonder if Obsidian would be able to import the Endless Battles dungeon into Deadfire.

[Messier-31]

So far, I really do love the game.  But I've noticed that there are no real dungeons in all of Deadfire.  The closest one was Drowned Barrows, which was still quite small.  I guess you could add in Fort Deadlight and Crookspur if you took the hostile approach at those locations, but those were really small as well.  I found a lot of mini-dungeons and such on the islands that were made up of 4-5 rooms with an item at the end, and that was it.

 

Pillars 1 had Raedric's Hold, Endless Paths, Skaen Temple, Cragholdt Bluffs, Heritage Hill, Durgan's Battery, Flames-That-Whisper, Abbey of the Fallen Moon and probably a few other good ones that I'm forgetting.  The largest dungeons in Deadfire were more similar to the Temple of Eothas in Gilded Vale or the sewers under Defiance Bay.

 

Still haven't played the game past first 15 or so minutes, but I'd like to say that I like what I see/read here on the forums. Call me a casual, but e.g. Dragon's Eye (Icewind Dale) was kinda tedious monkey-work, only to become a bloody chore in the pesky sequel. For realsies, I've even read about some mates who actually abandoned their playthroughs because of it. Maybe the issue was not the big scope of the areas themselves, but the sudden cumbersome gameflow bringing the progression to a halt. In other words: "Could we not have hired some poor fools to do this for us? This is no place for a man of my stature." Still, gotta wait a little longer to check the Deadfire dungeons for myself.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Messier-31

[Stephen Unsworth-Mitchell]

I have said I like few longer dungeons but think problem is the per encounter system.

 

With per encounter every fight has be made challenge and because this having long dungeon would require more fights and requires xaurip's fight to be as tough as dragon fight, if fights aren't as challenging as each other then underwhelming fight becomes trash fight and filler, as the per encounter has no way wearing watcher down and as for abilities spells you have what you have and this doesn't change from fight to fight. So every fight has be levelled with thought that watchers/companions going use best buffs and spells and best abilities every fight. Therefore easier to have lots little bits that don't need to much combat and don't show true weakness of the per encounter system. One big endless paths dungeon would 1 worthwhile fight and rest trash or dragon at the end will feel underwhelming cause it was as challenging as xaurip's fight at start.

[Sedrefilos]

The dungeons are there, they're just spread out a lot and one might spend many hours in talking, walking, sailing, exploring before encounter one, so they feel sparse. And although most are good, none is as good as the White March dungeons up to now (still have a lot of game ahead of me!) imho or as memorable as Temple of Eothas or Raedric's Hold.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Sedrefilos

[geala]

This aspect of the game makes me very sad. I like big dungeons. Reasons for not having them are not convincing, it's a fantasy setting and huge forgeotten dangerous caves filled with a plentitude of enemies could be found on islands, too, maybe magically protected against water or deep under sea level. Maybe such unknown dungeons could be found especially on islands, separated from the rest of the world, remnants of something old and evil.

 

I don't see the new combat system as a hindrance for dungeon crawling. Abilities per encounter are the norm in many games and are no reason not to have huge dungeons. I really hope for the DLCs as a cure to this big disadvantage of Deadfire which in almost all other areas is an improvement over part 1.

 

BTW, game playtime is an individual thing (I'm a slow player) but such RPGs like PoE or DOS should have a really really long story. At least I'm not very interested to play it again, as the story is important but done with one playthrough. 120 or 200 hours may sound a lot but in Fallout 4 for example I have over 1,000 hours, as such a game offers much more than a story.

Edited May 24, 2018 by geala

[Shadenuat]

In Gamasutra interview Josh aknowledged poor distribution of dungeons and lack of big dungeons. Maybe we'll get some in DLCs.

[evilcat]

There is a good size for dungeon like Roderick Stronghold or Durgan Battery.

But going bigger or deeper, could be boring, and dilute theme of dungeon, turning it into monster safarri (and now level fill with ooze).

Maybe Catacombs should go deeper, graveyard is great place for uneased spirits.

Generally there is a issue, that we could spend too much time doing talk quests around level 7, which is fine. But there could be a route to do killing monsters.

Edited May 24, 2018 by evilcat

[AntiGrav1ty]

I disagree with people who actually think that Raedric's Hold was a great dungeon. The only reason I liked Raedric's hold was because of the loot but fighting through the whole fortress was actually pretty tedious and repetitive. Not to mention that you barely got any experience for any of it. The sneaky approach wasn't much better either. Size isn't everything.

 

Temple of Eothas, Cliaban Rilag or Durgan's Battery were better dungeons and are probably the kind of dungeons I would have liked to see more of in PoE2 but they still pale compared to some old classics. I think a lot of the dungeons in Baldur's Gate 2 were perfect. De'Arnise Keep, Lavok's Sphere, Firkraag's Lair, etc. If you look at them, they were actually not that big either but they had a great design and very unique encounters.

[Sedrefilos]

I disagree with people who actually think that Raedric's Hold was a great dungeon. The only reason I liked Raedric's hold was because of the loot but fighting through the whole fortress was actually pretty tedious and repetitive. Not to mention that you barely got any experience for any of it. The sneaky approach wasn't much better either. Size isn't everything.

 

That's assuming you fight through it and not do anything else.

That's the greatness of that dungeon. I did only a medium ammount of combat if not little and I didn't even have a sneaky party. Its ways to be played and resolved were so many and varied and so well executed that, for me, it's a seminarial dungeon. Other designers ahould take notes.

[Stephen Unsworth-Mitchell]

loved all possible options of Raedric,s hold and also loved the pit in endless paths. So yeah think its not just about having long dungeons its about variety of enemies, options for how to complete it and suprises. Perfect dungeon the right mix of things.