Designer Thoughts - The Dungeon Problem (Patreon)

Written by Brandon Pearce

Hi guys!

Here I'll be starting a new series called "Designer Thoughts" which are restricted to Patrons only, and are a little less formal than our "Week In Review" series. In this series you'll be able to get inside the heads of some of our designers and understand some of the challenges we are tackling as we develop the project.

In this post I'd like to talk about something that, while not entirely relevant at this point in development, is something that we're going to have to put a lot of thought into if we want to create a successful sequel to the first Aether experience.

The problem I'm talking about is how we approach dungeon development, and experiences like it, in upcoming versions of Aether II.

As many of you may know, in Aether 1, all of our dungeons were real structures that existed in the world. Once defeated, these structures could not be replayed. As such, they weren't well-suited for multiplayer where many different players would start in the same area. Dungeons in current and previous versions of Aether II solved this multiplayer issue by "instancing" the inner contents of each dungeon - the dungeon essentially existed in a separate dimension just for that party or player. This meant that even if a previous player has defeated that specific dungeon, other new players can still walk up to it and play it.

However, while Aether 1 dungeons didn't provide that same sort of flexibility in multiplayer, they provided a much better sense of these structures actually existing in the game space. Therein lies the problem with the current state of dungeons in Aether II. They act as portal structures to another dimension, but they never give you this sense of amazement that these are real structures in the world. Atmosphere and environmental storytelling are really important focuses for us in the Aether, and when we're posed with a challenge like this we try to take it seriously.

What does this mean for the experience and future development of these dungeons? While it may be easy to say "just make all dungeons generate in the real world!", there are many technical and design challenges that must first be overcome. Making all dungeons generate in the world would simply reintroduce the issues with multiplayer design where it essentially comes down to "first come, first serve"; newer players on older servers are always going to have a hard time enjoying the world when most of the content is already taken from them.

Aside from the design challenges, there's quite a big technical one too. Unlike the Overworld in vanilla Minecraft, there is a huge amount of empty space in the Aether. We don't have the luxury of underground areas to place these massive structures. As a result, it's not easy for our generation code to find a suitable place for these massive dungeons that we've designed. The solution could be to tone down the size of the dungeons, but that would only limit the potential of our future designs.

So where does this lead us? We have a plethora of problems facing us as a design team and with many possible solutions. After some discussion, these are the solutions we're thinking might work for the best:

First, we will be designing a subset of smaller dungeons called "Mini Dungeons". These dungeons will exist and generate in the real world, and aren't instanced. This means that they cannot be replayed in Multiplayer, but they have the benefit of improving the overall atmosphere of the world we're creating. These Mini Dungeons will have less loot and enemies to face.

Second, we'd like to keep the current instanced dungeons we've designed as the "Main Dungeons". These dungeons, of course, will be much larger and are designed for a more multiplayer-focused experience.

Likewise, we'd like to dramatically increase the size of our Main Dungeon entrances, to make them feel more like large structures in the world. No more small little platforms with a totem: we're going to be developing massive vaults with doors that match the size of these massive labyrinths.

And finally, while this isn't necessarily set in stone, we've been playing around with the idea of doing "Missions". These would act like Dungeons that are designed for a Singleplayer experience. While they would work in Multiplayer, they would be limited to one player only - so you couldn't have your party members with you while you enter the Mission. These would be uniquely crafted experiences that have a clear narrative progression, and they will be where most of the larger story pieces are placed in the mod.

While these certainly aren't the only solutions out there, we think they'll do a good job of solving the problem with dungeons. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts below; perhaps someone can think of some better solutions.

For now, thank you for reading and stay tuned!