A simple yet robust way to add more life to the late game

One of the best things about AO has always been the procedurally generated dungeons, but for some reason, Funcom drifted away from the best ones, the old school RK original ones.

I could easily see an entire small expansion based on one simple mechanic. Infinitely deep procedurally generated dungeons for solo or team play.

There is a corruption of the Source, and it has led to dimensional cracks threatening the very existence of the planet of Rubi-ka.

All factions want to see these problems fixed. All factions would offer missions to cleanse dimensional cracks. No crack can ever be completely sealed, as there will always be flaws, but the rewards increase depending on how deep the crack can be cleansed.

Creatures found in cracks would be random, but based on a rough difficulty scale. Regular L200 RK mobs obviously aren’t going to be considered as difficult as L200 Hecklers or Dynabosses.

This would allow for random groups of mixed mobs from all expansions. Aliens, hecklers, and hellhounds, oh my!

The best part?

It’s all recycled content. All of it. It’s just rearranged into a new format.

What sorts of rewards might one get? Well, maybe that could be new…

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This is a actually a really good idea. It’s a bit like WoWs Thorgast, currently in development for WoWs totally not rippoff Shadowlands expansion. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s also a bit like Vizaresh Gauntlet conceptually.

I am not sure tho if the code and mechanisms exist for generating endless levels.

Currently the way it works is that the randomly generated playfield is generated when you enter the playfield. From start to finish.

I remember back in the day there was some sort of mechanism for even checking the loot inside upon entering. Some sort of hax or whatnot, don’t recall.

Also endless procedural generation might be harder than it seems with the current code of AO (especially as the playfields generated are not as random as you think, once you’ve done enough you kinda end up getting a feel for all potential layouts, I suspect this might have to do with the fact that there’s a limited number of room configurations and how they can connect to each other.)

Well, the simple solution for limited procedural content generation is to control the mission by creating it step-wise.

In other words, the ‘infinite mission’ is actually a series of discrete procedurally generated missions.

In order to access mission 2, you have to complete 80%+ of mission 1, which can be handled by the existing token generation calculations of mission completion.

This also allows ladder competitions to be more fair, as some classes are far better at bypassing content than others.

If someone manages to get to mission tier 275, then they have, by necessity, actually cleared through 80%+ of every mission prior to that.

The mechanics to make this work seem to already exist.