My take on the game going forward

Since a lot of people are throwing around ideas to make the game better and more fun, I wanted to do the same.

Want I want to focus on is the description of the official website and this Subreddit here.
Basically the summary is always this: Dark and Darker is a Hardcore Fantasy Dungeon Exploration Game. You can explore with up to 2 Friends a dungeon filled with monster, mythical creatures and other players. Will get out unscathed with treasure in your pocket or will die and become the loot for the next person.

In my opinion this sounds like a perfect game idea (obviously) but Dark and Darker has drifted away from this over time.

The biggest problem in my opinion are the maps themselvs. The problem is that people know the current maps like the back of their hands. So they can just rush through the modules how they want and know exactly what is behind each door. This doesnt sound really like "exploring a dungeon" to me. So have note down some steps to mitigate this:

1. Make the Maps way more random. Yes the crypts basically has random layouts but what i want is more modules and even the modules to be somewhat randomized. For example, the labyrinth in the crypts could always be a different labyrinth. Change the location of Chests around in Modules (set areas where they can spawn and plays need to search for them). Not always choose all modules to be on the map. You could even introduce special modules for seasons or months.

2. Each Season or Month or whatever, have 1 Focus dungeon. What I mean by this is something like: "We found a new dungeon that needs to be explored". Basically every time interval or whatever a new dungeon is found that maybe has special rules like fall damage, weird modules only, no plate armor, no sound or whatever. Just a dungeon that probably should recycle some modules from other dungeons but should also introduce new modules and with added special rules, so people can go and experiment again on how to overcome this challenge.

3. PvE over PvP This is probably more a preference for me, but I want this game to be more PvE focused and less PvP. But this can only be achieved if people fear the PvE again. Therefore, I would also like to see new moves on enemies. Maybe not just here is a new skeleton, but like each skeleton in the Dungeon can pick like 3 moves out of a list and uses them. So that sometimes you will have a stupid skeleton that just does poke attacks, and sometimes the same skeleton makes broad swings. Obviously, Elite and Nightmare enemies then get more attacks and attacks faster. This way, people don't just know what an enemy will do just by looking at the model.

4. PvP Even tough I just said I prefer PvE over PvP, i don't want to remove it from the game. I think how it is right now with people needing to fear not just the NPCs, but also players is really good. But since the game should be a lot more focused on PvE then all the PvP andys need some outlet as well. Yes, i know IM is working on an Arena mode, but we definitely need one a put the leaderboard on that. The game loop imo should be something like this: - Go into the Dungeon and get gear. - Go into harder Dungeon to get better gear. - Either use good gear on PvE Bosses and get even more better gear or use gear in the Arena for ladder points and rankings / rewards. Obviously you could still buy gear with money.

5. Quests I kind of like the current quest system, but I also hate it. For starters, the quests NEED to be account wide if they are this specific and hard to do. Maybe we could do something like "Story quests" basically a series of hard to achieve quests that are account wide that focus on exploring the dungeon. So basically quests like "Find room x in the dungeon and loot the big chest in there", "Discover the deeper dungeon", but the further you go in this quest line you get harder quests like: "Find a centaur hoof" or "Kill the evil lich". There shouldn't be really a focus on killing others here. Besides those Account or Story quests, each Character can have a smaller series of quests tied to the class itself. A cleric could get quests to purify skeletons / interact with shrines or help others even. A ranger should focus on hunting monster parts like wolf pelts or find hidden targets in rooms to hit with an arrow. A fighter could get quests like use weapon x for the dungeon or duel a skelly champion. I don't know, but you get what I mean.

TLDR: To get the game back to how it was in the early playtests, i recommend making it more about dungeon exploration and less about PvP.
Focus on giving new Maps that people need to explore and cannot run through by randomizing them.
Arenamode for PvP and rank system.
Story quests should be account wide, with a series of quests for each character.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.