Designing Dungeons

System has 2 translucent panels open. On the left he has the dungeon design panel and on the right he has his notes. He is planning to make a big MM investment, so he wants to make sure he gets it right. His notes contain all of the intelligence he acquired by badgering Elitia, Saudia and Westwoods. Since systems aren't physical in nature, the only way they can write stuff down, is using the GUI. Elitia would scold System, if he saw him typing on the "on screen keyboard", but System prefers it this way. The only thing that's really missing is the tactile bump he used to get from his MX greens. His coworkers used to complain about them, but he knew they were just jealous. They even went so far as to point out, that the top hit on youtube for "MX green" argues that you should never buy them. Nobody gives feedback like that without an agenda.

I digress, dungeons. In System's notes it is written, that a level 1 dungeon can have 1-4 mana accumulators and 1-4 monster spawn points. Dungeons draw energy from the elements and use that energy to create monsters. When those monsters are slain, mana is released and channeled to the system. Mana is the dominant resource systems use, so dungeons are very valuable to the systems. A single level-1 mana accumulator can have a single level-1 spawn point spawn a single monster about once a day. Spawn rate is linear compared to the amount of accumulators as long as the amount of accumulators is less than or equal to the spawn points. Having more accumulators than spawn points still increases spawn rate, but at diminishing returns (note: Elitia wouldn't or couldn't tell me the exact rate, experiments required). It's possible to place one-off monsters and they can be up to a tier higher than the floor. One-off monsters don't get re-spawned when killed. (note: Since it doesn't generate more mana than it costs, isn't this in conflict with the purpose of the dungeon? I will have to think about this feature).

His discussions with the other systems brought another key concept to light: occupancy. Depending on the tier of a dungeon, floors have an expected base occupancy of monsters (note: base occupancy calculation unknown, experiments required, although Elitia did mutter something about floor size being relevant after considerable persuasion/annoying him). When a floor has over 100% occupancy, slaying a monster sends most of the mana to the system (note: Yes!). When a floor has less than 100% occupancy, then the mana is absorbed by the dungeon instead and used to create new monsters. This process is suboptimal and a large chunk of the mana is lost (note: avoid at all costs!). System can't harvest MMs like that. If the occupancy keeps rising, then eventually overflow will occur, causing a dungeon break (note: overflow occupancy unknown, experiments required). Monsters that have left the dungeon send their mana to the system when killed (note: experiments required. Is it possible to abuse this mechanic? Can I create a dungeon on the wall of a cliff and have monsters fall to their death, creating a perpetual mana generator? Can I create a dungeon underwater so that the monsters drown when they leave, etc.) Overflow on the deeper floors causes monsters from all floors above to panic. They will run away from the more powerful monsters and go into hiding on their own floor, a higher floor or join the dungeon break. Elitia once offhandedly remarked that mana accumulators will feed the spawn points on the same floor, but will reroute to floors with <100% occupancy. (note: how does this affect optimal dungeon design? Experiments required)

Accumulators draw elemental energy from the surroundings and feed the spawn points. If a dungeon isn't cleared in a long time (decades), accumulator efficiency drops, due to a lack of remaining elemental energy in the environment. Spawn points are areas in which the walls of the dungeon spawn new monsters. Every spawn point has to be configured to spawn a specific type of monster. At least one spawn point is required to match the floor level. Other spawn points on a floor are allowed to be of a lower tier (note: do lower leveled monsters still cause overflow? Experiments required). Raising the tier of a dungeon, doubles the minimum spawn points on the floors above it and quadruples the maximum accumulators and spawn points on the floors above it. (note: this gives a lot of flexibility in dungeon design. I can have more accumulators than spawn points or vice versa. Having more accumulators raises monster production at reduced efficiency, but this exhausts elemental energy while creating less monsters. Having more spawn points than accumulators seems like a bad idea. But how does this interact with rerouting to floors at <100% occupancy or mana absorption by the dungeon if the floor itself is at <100% occupancy? Experiments required)

Floors can have at most one boss. Bosses are placed in a boss room. Adventurers will be locked in the room until either the boss or the adventurers die. Boss rooms are required to have a reward chest at the appropriate level. The boss and reward chest are re-spawned a month after killing the boss. >100% occupancy does not speed up this process. However, it does speed up if overflow is eminent. All of the energy will be redirected to spawning boss monsters and overflow will be delayed until all of the bosses have re-spawned (note: do boss monsters join the stampede? Experiment required). The last floor is required to have one boss room on the critical path. For other floors the boss is optional and doesn't have to be on the critical path. The boss has to match the tier of the floor, but the other systems remark that there is considerable flexibility in changing the difficulty by picking a boss monster type.

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At the end of the critical path is the dungeon core. It has to be on the deepest floor somewhere after the boss room. Dungeon cores are autonomous and control the dungeon after they are placed. When an adventurer destroys the core, the dungeon is destroyed in the process. The remaining resources are converted into XP for the adventurers. Adventurers want nothing more than to destroy the dungeon core, effectively preventing the system from gaining any further mana or DXP (see below).

Although the other systems never mentioned this, System's own tinkering with the GUI has taught him that the dungeon has to follow certain rules. It is not allowed to create rooms that cannot be reached. There has to be an unobstructed critical path through the dungeon. Rooms may be hidden behind illusions or hidden mechanisms, but the critical path may not. The critical path has to be traversable as well. Though traps are allowed. (note: the GUI seems to be requiring a form of "fairness". I might be able to get around this by finding exploits. E.g. what if I hide the proper path in darkness? Or what if I lure adventurers away from the critical path with a treasure chest? What if I turn the critical path into a lengthy winding amusement park line?).

Apart from monsters, it's possible to place treasure chests and traps in the dungeon. Both draw energy from the accumulator to reset. According to Saudia treasure chests reset once a week, but faster when at or above 100% occupancy. (note: Traps don't yield mana. Better to have adventurers face monsters instead). According to Elitia, adventurers need to have a reason to go dungeon diving. All interviewed systems have commented on the effectiveness of using treasure chests for motivating adventurers to dive (note: need to figure out ways to influence who finds the chests). Chests colors follow coinage: bronze, silver, gold, etc. Better colored chests are permitted at deeper floors and offer better rewards. Like with monsters, non-resetting traps and chests can be placed. These can be one tier higher than resetting traps and chests.

A tier one dungeon has a maximum radius of 1km. According to System's calculations, the area that can be excavated is roughly 3 KM². A tier one dungeon is required to fill half of the radius. In other words, less than a KM². System's discussions with the other systems suggest, that the other systems keep their floors as small as possible. Needless to say, designing a KM² of dungeon space quite a lot of work. Though the tool allows the system to copy sections. The dungeon boundaries are circular, but round dungeons are hard to design. So typically there is some dead space. Every additional tier doubles the radius of the floors above it. So, for a tier two dungeon, the first floor has a maximum radius of 2KM and the second floor has a maximum radius of 1KM. A tier three dungeon has a ½-1, 1-2, 2-4 KM radius for the third, second and first floor respectively. A tier three dungeon would allow system to create a massive 50 KM² first floor. (note: that's around the same ballpark as the size of Manhattan).

For every floor of the dungeon, the system has to assign a biome. Only bosses, monsters and spawn points appropriate to the biome can be selected. Before the monster or spawn point can be placed, the system has to make sure that the area can support the monster. To give an example, you can't place a spawn point for fish if there is no water. Only the biomes for nature, life and death are unlocked. After that follows a long list of locked biomes. Certain biomes have restrictions, such as a minimum and maximum floor depth, where the biome can be placed.

Dungeons work with a separate XP system called dungeon experience (DXP). DXP can be used to unlock novel monsters, biomes and features such as customizing treasure chest rewards, spawn point monster level and spawn rate, etc. Of course System has 0 DXP, so he can only look at the locked features longingly. He does get one free monster unlock per level and one free general unlock per level. Tier one has about half of the monsters unlocked, which makes sense, otherwise there would be no way to start. DXP can be gained with achievements. For example: 10 DXP for creating a tier 1 dungeon, 100 DXP for tier 2 and 1000 DXP for tier 3 and so on. Annoyingly, this DXP won't be available to him until after he places the dungeon and he can't modify the dungeon after placement. There's also achievements for killing 10/100/1000/... adventurers and for killing monsters and bosses in the dungeon. There's different achievements for killing monsters and bosses of different tiers. In fact, there are so many achievements that he will probably be unlocking some of them without being aware about their existence. System realizes that the GUI is designed to have systems start with low tier dungeons and work themselves up from there. As he is designing his dungeon a voice is constantly nagging in the back of his head that he should start with a tier one dungeon to figure out how everything works. He knows that it is the right choice, but is unwilling to acknowledge that fact. Since everyone (especially Elitia) keeps telling him not to create a tier three dungeon, his pride won't permit him to start with anything else. { *mutters* even the GUI is plotting against me }

There is only one problem. He doesn't have enough mana. He thought he did and he had enough to create a tier 3 dungeon, but not the dungeon he wants to make. System was in a pickle. Once he started adding all the accumulators, spawn points and other dungeon props, his remaining mana dropped so quickly that he realized he was short by quite a bit.

{ How do I save up more mana than I already am? I have been assigning cheap classes to save MM's, but eventually the adventurers will need a follow up class. At that time my strategy will backfire, because adventurer plus a career class will raise the cost of the career, even though it is cheap now. Is there any way I can avoid spending so much mana on assigning classes? Wait a minute... How about I just hold off on assigning classes altogether? I'll just assign their class later, that shouldn't cause any real problems for anyone. In fact, I doubt anyone will even notice! }