Dungeoneering: Beyond the Release

[Guest Melvinkooi]

Since the release of Dungeoneering, a plethora of adventurers have been delving the depths of Daemonheim and uncovering its many secrets. As weve watched and listened to the feedback of these adventurers and observed how theyve been reacting, we came up with a bunch of cool ideas of how we could improve the Dungeoneering experience, and so, alongside building the new content for the batch 2 release, weve been working on doing them! These updates are in addition to the new floors, challenge rooms and bosses that well be adding to Daemonheim as part of Dungeoneering batch 2, and are likely to be added to the game before batch 2 comes out.

That takes class

 

Work-in-progress ring interface

One thing weve noticed when watching people play together in parties is that they often specialise in certain roles to help each other out - things like warriors in heavy armour protecting the more vulnerable mages and rangers while also dealing damage, or other players preventing skillers from being attacked while theyreproviding their party with tasty fish, protective gear and sharp sticks to poke their enemies with.

We thought it would be nice to encourage and reward these player-created classes, so weve been hard at work designing a system to upgrade your Ring of Kinship (using Dungeoneering tokens) for use inside a dungeon.

These upgrades will allow you to specialise in a role, and will provide unique benefits for doing so. There will be specialisations available for each type of player in Daemonheim - be you a noble warrior, an archer extraordinaire, a prodigal mage or an artisan of non-combat skills, theres a Ring of Kinship for you!

Are you constantly slaving over a hot furnace to make items, and wish you could waste less material, and maybe squeeze an extra dagger out of those five bars you made into a platebody? Theres a Ring of Kinship for that! Do you spend a lot of time behind a kiteshield, taking all the attacks that would otherwise smush your magic-wielding partner, and wish you could take less damage to make your food last longer? Theres a Ring of Kinship for that! Or perhaps you simply spend a lot of time sniping enemies from a distance, and wish your arrows would fly straighter and truer to deal your maximum potential damage more often? Theres a Ring of kinship for that, too!

Building the future

 

Groupstone portal

We noticed that one of the most common things said is that getting around dungeons could be easier. This is what we originally introduced the Gatestone spell for, but it soon became evident that it wasnt sufficient. For a start, it has a Magic level requirement, plus it takes quite a few different runes.

We also noticed that a few skills - namely Herblore, Farming and Construction - werent being used as much as we had anticipated within Daemonheim. We deduced that this too was because of accessibility - most skills can be performed within the start room, but Farming and, therefore, Herblore could not, and you cant make potions if you dont have herbs!

On top of this, we realised that the only use for Construction in Daemonheim is in skill challenges. While these do benefit the party by allowing progress, theres nothing that a high Construction level can do for you unless you happen to come across a very specific challenge.

With these issues in mind we came up with something pretty nifty: a Construction hotspot in the start room!

This hotspot will start life as a Groupstone portal, a conduit anyone can use to teleport to the new Groupstone (which is similar to the Gatestone, except that everyone in the group can use it and it will never shatter on use). The hotspot can be replaced with various other states, including a Farming patch or a Cooking range. Weve also had a second look at the rune cost of the Create Gatestone spell to make it more accessible.

Daemonheim and beyond

 

A surface dungeon entrance

Weve taken some time to consider the surface world applications of Dungeoneering - things your character can do outside of Daemonheim thanks to their hard work at levelling the new skill. Weve come up with the concept of reward dungeons.

Several places across RuneScape will have extra nooks and crannies added that only those skilled in delving the depths of Daemonheim will fathom how to enter. These areas may contain a few extra spawns of that over-camped monster youre trying to kill; or perhaps some additional resources for you to collect with less competition from other players; or maybe, just maybe, a fearsome creature new to the surface of RuneScape, freshly escaped from the frozen depths of Daemonheim itself!

Whats in a name?

Weve also been wracking our brains to come up with some new awards for the dungeon end interface (or, as we affectionately call it, the 'WIN-terface'), so that you can have all new reasons to show off to your friends (or hang your head in shame) after a bout of Dungeoneering.

Here I go again on my own

And, last but not least, we havent forgotten the plight of all you solo adventurers. From a technical standpoint, weve been making a fair bit of progress with allowing single players to re-enter dungeons after disconnecting; however, this is a very big project and is technically very costly, so it will still take us some time to perfect the system. As such, this particular update may not be released at the same time as everything else covered in this blog. All we can do is thank you for your patience and assure you that we are definitely working on it .

 

We'd best get coding...

 

Well, thats enough blogging for now. All this awesome stuff isnt going to code itself!

 

Link: http://devblog.runescape.com/view_post.ws?post_id=97&page=1

[Toad]

Looks really good :)

 

The hotspot can be replaced with various other states, including a Farming patch or a Cooking range

 

so a portal farm patch etc that'll be great!

[Youmu]

These new things look awesome. :)

 

Though, I think a farming patch and a cooking range should already be in the smuggler's room in the first place. Probably prayer altars too, but not sure about that.

[PhaperPlane]

Good to hear that they are going to be supporting solo adventurers and thank God we can use this skill outside of Deamonhiem! :)

[Jabuli]

Sounds good. I hope the ring updates are worth it.

[qeltar]

Some nice looking stuff there. They do still need to deal with binding, however.

[Sy_Accursed]

These outside applications sound good, especially if they truly do have decent resources and monsters in.

 

Imagine say a lvl 115 dungeoneering dungeon that has 3 rune rocks in etc etc.

[Toad]

Some nice looking stuff there. They do still need to deal with binding, however.

 

Yep

[Zaaps1]

Win-terface lmao.

[xpx]

Not bad updates, though 90% of people will just become warriors. The tele changes seem great, i've always thought gatestones needed way too many runes to cast. I don't, however agree that farming and herblore are rarely used- i've never personally done a large dungeon without making a pot(and growing herbs for it) to enter rooms or to make strong melee potions. For construction, yes, it's very rarely used, but so are agility and thieving. It's suthing that they would make real-runescape applications for the skill- makes it fel much less like a minigame.

 

Some nice looking stuff there. They do still need to deal with binding, however.

Other than being able to bind whole spells, there is nothing wrong with the binding system right now. It's more than satisfactory and makes things even a little challanging.

[Saru Inc]

Plethora? Wow thats a big word considering Jagex's intelligence level.

 

 

 

 

 

 

i kid i kid. In all reality, if these updates do come to life, I should love Dungeoneering (Since like.. everything they mentioned is everything I hate about it, expensive skilling material, dc'ing in solo dungs, outside implications, group gatestone <33333

 

 

 

Not bad updates, though 90% of people will just become warriors. The tele changes seem great, i've always thought gatestones needed way too many runes to cast. I don't, however agree that farming and herblore are rarely used- i've never personally done a large dungeon without making a pot(and growing herbs for it) to enter rooms or to make strong melee potions. For construction, yes, it's very rarely used, but so are agility and thieving. It's suthing that they would make real-runescape applications for the skill- makes it fel much less like a minigame.

 

 

Yea I make TONS of potions. I really need 84 Farm for lycopus...

[Lady_Shahdie]

A surface dungeon entrance

Weve taken some time to consider the surface world applications of Dungeoneering - things your character can do outside of Daemonheim thanks to their hard work at levelling the new skill. Weve come up with the concept of reward dungeons.

Several places across RuneScape will have extra nooks and crannies added that only those skilled in delving the depths of Daemonheim will fathom how to enter. These areas may contain a few extra spawns of that over-camped monster youre trying to kill; or perhaps some additional resources for you to collect with less competition from other players; or maybe, just maybe, a fearsome creature new to the surface of RuneScape, freshly escaped from the frozen depths of Daemonheim itself!

This portion truly excited me the most. As fun as it is to escape from typical RuneScape and wreck havoc down in Daemonheim, I was really hoping this skill would have surface world application. While this isn't exactly what I pictured it certainly would be helpful nevertheless. I can only pray that there would be a secret dungeon with a new rune respawn :pray:. I would gladly level my dungeoneering much more adamantly if this will be the case. That being said, they better make the reqs on the steeper side if a miner like myself or any other skiller could truly benefit from less competition.

[Golvellius]

Once they add that con hot spot then it will officially make agility the most useless skill in dungeoneering.

Thanks for that Jagex...

Sounds like they won't even have half of that in before 2011.

These diaries are usually the kiss of death for upcoming content. (See fairy tale pt 3 diary from Jul09 finally realized) :roll:

[Saru Inc]

A surface dungeon entrance

Weve taken some time to consider the surface world applications of Dungeoneering - things your character can do outside of Daemonheim thanks to their hard work at levelling the new skill. Weve come up with the concept of reward dungeons.

Several places across RuneScape will have extra nooks and crannies added that only those skilled in delving the depths of Daemonheim will fathom how to enter. These areas may contain a few extra spawns of that over-camped monster youre trying to kill; or perhaps some additional resources for you to collect with less competition from other players; or maybe, just maybe, a fearsome creature new to the surface of RuneScape, freshly escaped from the frozen depths of Daemonheim itself!

This portion truly excited me the most. As fun as it is to escape from typical RuneScape and wreck havoc down in Daemonheim, I was really hoping this skill would have surface world application. While this isn't exactly what I pictured it certainly would be helpful nevertheless. I can only pray that there would be a secret dungeon with a new rune respawn :pray:. I would gladly level my dungeoneering much more adamantly if this will be the case. That being said, they better make the reqs on the steeper side if a miner like myself or any other skiller could truly benefit from less competition.

 

 

I actually think the idea is fitting, it makes sense.

 

 

Off-topic: Yea you have 99 Mining and I still see you at LRC quite often. You know you can get help, there are people with your condition, you're not alone.

[anonymouse_]

Finally an update I'm actually looking forward to. :thumbup:

[C110]

I can't wait! :D

[Myweponsg00d]

Some nice looking stuff there. They do still need to deal with binding, however.

 

Whats wrong with binding, again?

[xSxqPowerx]

Sounds pretty awesome actually, was a bit skeptical at first but it seems like all of these changes will only be beneficial.

[tortilliachp]

and then all the complaining nay-sayers have yet again been shown that the two-batch system was implemented to ensure that we got what WE wanted as playes. We've been shown yet again that jagex realized the limitations of batch 1, the "mingame-skill" the lack of ingame interaction. we've been shown, just like summoning, dungeoneering is a work in progress. That's also very similar to slayer (remember not being able to switch tasks, and getting 150+ steel dragons?) remember farming where seeds were released alone?

 

this is the time for us to all say "we told you so". thanks for judging the skill too early.

[Krampell]

This sounds AWESOME!!!

[NukeMarine]

Work-in-progress ring interface

Sounds good. Yeah, most will pick warrior, but it's nice they're responding to how organized teams are approaching the dungeon.

 

Groupstone portal

Great idea! This combined with regular gatestones allows teams to split up yet meet back up real fast to tackle a room together if need be. Going to be really popular and speed up the larger dungeons.

 

A surface dungeon entrance

I believe Mr. Qeltar among others suggested such things before. An obvious idea but one that'll be appreciated. Heck, I'd like for there to be some "skill spots" (roots of trees you can cut, rocks that can be used as anvils, lava spots you can smelt at, etc) that you only notice when you're at a high enough dungeoneering.

 

Whats in a name?

Not exactly sure most care about the titles awarded at the end of the dungeon. Anybody?

 

Here I go again on my own

Here's hoping.

 

I'm with Qeltar that they need to fix the binding issue. Seriously, they have all these Primal armor pieces but no one is going to bind boots or gloves ever. Plus the rune/arrow issue can be fixed. Some good suggestions popped up in the Dungeoneering thread that seem easy enough to implement.

[Kaida23]

A surface dungeon entrance

Weve taken some time to consider the surface world applications of Dungeoneering - things your character can do outside of Daemonheim thanks to their hard work at levelling the new skill. Weve come up with the concept of reward dungeons.

Several places across RuneScape will have extra nooks and crannies added that only those skilled in delving the depths of Daemonheim will fathom how to enter. These areas may contain a few extra spawns of that over-camped monster youre trying to kill; or perhaps some additional resources for you to collect with less competition from other players; or maybe, just maybe, a fearsome creature new to the surface of RuneScape, freshly escaped from the frozen depths of Daemonheim itself!

This portion truly excited me the most. As fun as it is to escape from typical RuneScape and wreck havoc down in Daemonheim, I was really hoping this skill would have surface world application. While this isn't exactly what I pictured it certainly would be helpful nevertheless. I can only pray that there would be a secret dungeon with a new rune respawn :pray:. I would gladly level my dungeoneering much more adamantly if this will be the case. That being said, they better make the reqs on the steeper side if a miner like myself or any other skiller could truly benefit from less competition.

This was my thought on that section as well. It would certainly make leveling Dungeoneering worth while.

[Jon Arcane]

Some great tweaks and improvements to come, can't complain, it's looking great!

[D. V. Devnull]

Some nice looking stuff there. They do still need to deal with binding, however.

Whats wrong with binding, again?

I very much know what qeltar is talking about. Having to wait until level 50 to bind your second item is way beyond too long. Further, not knowing if you'll be able to bind additional ammo to yourself is a headache in itself. (Anyone with a high Dungeoneering level want to reply as to binding abilities on ammo, please? I would seriously love to know about this!) Heck, it has been turning ME off from dungeoneering quite a bit, and I'm normally one to very much dive into new content that F2P is given! :huh:

 

 

BTW, I am looking forward to those Dungeoneering updates... I just hope they'll be made as helpful as they sound. :unsure:

 

 

~Mr. D. V. "We can only hope RuneScape's future is as good as it sounds..." Devnull

 

 

 

(p.s.: I've noticed a lot of posts have rolled in while I was typing this... I honestly don't know whether to try and post more on this thread, or if I should give up and walk away...)

[miracleman58]

Did everyone miss the part where they were hinting at a new boss? OUTSIDE of Daemonheim...