Feldon Ratwarlock has chimed in with an article covering the appeal and drawbacks of both Instance and Contested Dungeons. It’s worth a read over at his site RatWarlock.Wordpress.com.
Sentinel’s Fate (The 6th EQ2 Expansion expected in February 2010) will ship with one large progressive contested dungeon (reportedly twice the size of Sanctum of Scaleborn, with a progression of shareable quests available as you traverse the depths).
Our Stand
EQ2Wire believes that both types of dungeon have their place. Folks have gotten a bit burned out on having to “stick to the script” each time they group up in the ~20 TSO instance dungeons and repetition over the life of the expansion can be an issue. While the guarantee of named mobs being up every time you run through the zones is a draw, variety is, as they say, the spice of life. Sometimes folks want to experience something unique each time they run a dungeon. That is where contested dungeons come in.
However, some contested dungeons are so target-rich (lots of mobs!) with such a short respawn (as little as 4 minutes) that they are rarely visited at the appropriate adventure level or only for quest updates essential to Epic Weapon and other questlines. The examples that come to mind are Kaladim and Mistmoore Castle.
These zones were designed as “end game” content, expecting multiple well-geared groups to be constantly clearing trash mobs. Now that these zones are not “current tier” content, groups often find themselves without other groups “clearing the way”. Average groups with average gear don’t have a chance at the appropriate level.
Perhaps we might see going forward smart contested dungeons that detect the presence of other groups and scale the zone up and down automatically by spawning additional mobs based on the number of players in a specific area.
Shard of Love Target Audience
Speaking of instances, it was not clear until last week that the Shard of Love would be a scaling instance dungeon for one group of players ranging from level 50~80. Kander provided us with the details. Let’s hope the XP, AA XP, gear, and rewards from this zone make it desirable for the entire level range. So far, allowing folks under level 75 to do these zones hasn’t really paid the dividends of providing rewarding gameplay for level 50-70 players.