I started Ultima 9 (only playing the best games, eh?) a few days ago, and yesterday I reached the second dungeon of the game, Hythloth, and my heart sank. Ahead of me was a sewer, filled with spiders, giant rats (rats poison you in this game) & water that poisons you if you fall into it. Ugh, these dungeons are always the worst, I thought, they're usually not particularly hard, just obnoxious. And lo and behold, Hythloth was not hard, it was just a very obnoxious dungeon to beat! (Yes, I'm aware that Hythloth was originally meant to be much bigger, and that you can access the unfinished second part, but I don't hate myself enough to try that!)

So that got me thinking. You often hear people complain about these types of dungeons, the sewer dungeons, the swamp dungeons, the "let's just fill this dungeon with zombies that poisons you if they hit you" dungeons. I'm sure you get the gist of it. Even if these are not always called dungeons in games, they are functionally dungeons (a long sewer level is a dungeon). But I never hear anyone say that these dungeons are their favourites, or even people saying that they're generally fond of dungeons that has these mechanics as their primary mechanics.
Use your best judgement for what's considered a "posion dungeon". If 60% of all enemies poison you on hit, it's probably a poison dungeon. If the game is filled with tiles that poisons you if you step on them, it's probably a poison dungeon and so on.

So what are your thoughts on these types of dungeons? Like them? Dislike them? Got any personal horror stories from these sorts of dungeons that you want to share?

Obligatory mini-train

5 years ago

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What do you think of dungeons in RPGs that uses poison as (one of their) main mechanics?

View Results
I hate them. Generally they're the low-point of any game they're in.
I generally dislike them
I have no strong opinions one way or the other. (i.e., they're fine, they don't stick out as particularly good or bad)
I generally like them
I love them. Generally they're the high-point of any game they're in

Haven't encountered a game with poison-themed dungeons yet, or at least... none that came to mind... maybe a tiny part of Dark Souls 3? Either way, can't have any strong opinions about it one way or the other. Also I don't mind menu-diving :P

5 years ago
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When I DM for my D&D group, I almost never use traps of any kind. But when I do, they tend to be nearly fatal.
I think the kind of traps you describe are just boring. They are a very artificial way to add "tension" (quotes because it's not what happens) but only manage to drag things out until it becomes boring and unengaging.

5 years ago
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They can be annoying but i don't mind em most of the time, it adds variety to the games.

5 years ago
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Well most of the games I played have such poison as long as it's not overdone. Some even have reduced healing ability when contacted with poison which is the annoying part of the game...

5 years ago
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Haven't played a game in a while with a similar dungeon (except Dark Souls last year) but I really dislike environments like you mentioned. At least DS made it clearer for me that how irritating a poison can be, even if it deals fairly low damage, and how much of a problem is if you don't have endless resources to cure the poison and/or heal afterwards. It's a mindgame, trying to trick people into using up stuff against the poison, while bleeding them try. Though the result is also kind of not cool - if the poison has high damage it is a real pain in the ass, and if you can heal it without issues ( spell + recharging mana) it just pads the game, which is also an unwelcome addition.

5 years ago
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Personally, I find that the only kind of mechanic more annoying than the one that slashes off a significant percentage of your HP every measure of time until you die is the one that makes you never hit anything (except maybe yourself), including failing to attack at all. That kind of thing looks like it's designed to simply irritate the player. My beef with those mechanics is that designers always seem to abuse them, rather than merely use them.

5 years ago
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Thanks for the train.

I like DoTs and debuffs, I always play the support/debuffer class in any MMO if there's anything like that available.

I hate how poison is done in most games though, a permanent DoT that has to be cured each time. It's almost useless to use on enemies because they generally die before it can do a significant amount of damage but when you get hit with it you're taking damage every step and every round in combat. Very few games have poison that lasts for a certain amount of time then wears off on it's own, which still sucks but isn't nearly as bad.

I think my favorite way it was done was in Fallout/Fallout 2 where some of the areas had toxic sludge on the ground that would cause damage with each step. You could find rubber boots to make you immune, but the the sludge would eat through them after a while so you had to hurry up in those areas.

5 years ago
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I don't think I'd have any favourite poison dungeon, but I do agree the poison mechanic can make or break the fun and immersion. It really depends on how the ailment works. Sometimes it can be a good wakeup call, as in "hey idiot, the NPCs in the previous village told you to stock up on antidotes, you dun goofed", and that's okay, but if it just serves for padding (e.g. constantly making you grind for antidotes and/or exit for healing because there is no better strategy) then it's definitely obnoxious. I mean unless being obnoxious is a game mechanic in itself, then it kinda fits the bill.

Also, how about the opposite? Many games with poison require some sort of support skill or unit (or items) to deal with enemy/environmental poison, but how many reward proper poison usage from the player's side? I'm instinctively thinking of Etrian Odyssey, where some monster drop conditional require the monster to either die poisoned or even to die from Poison Damage. I'm usually not much of a debuffer/ailment disher but that series made crippling enemies fun and rewarding, haha.

5 years ago
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Most of the time, poison is just a slow DoT, so unless you hit a boss with it, it's just a waste of time (and far too often, bosses are immune, or at the very least likely to resist it). I'm trying to think of examples where poison is useful, but I'm coming up mostly blank. in Guild Wars, even in PvE poison was useful, due to how easy it usually was to spread around. I guess there are games where "poison" is a catch all term for mundane status effects, that otherwise would be handled by spells, like paralyze and so on, and in those cases poison would be useful, but this is kind of stepping outside what I was going for with this thread :P

5 years ago
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bump

5 years ago
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Anything can be good if done correctly. If the mechanic is implemented well and fits thematically then by all means. I was just talking to someone that said that games should never have escort missions and I laughed as they're such a basic and prevalent thing that they're not really going anywhere but agreed that they certainly need to be worked on in most games.

5 years ago
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Yeah, escort missions are not inherently bad, it's just one of those things that developers tend to fail at making fun. Technically speaking, the levels where you defend the carrier in the Freespace or Wing Commander series are escort missions, but those levels are quite fun. And RE4's frequent escort sections were not all that bad either. But for every Wing Commander or RE4, there are plenty of games where it's not fun.

5 years ago
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The same goes for QTEs, sewer levels, and water dungeons.

5 years ago
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It depends on implementation. Generally I dislike any mechanics that can one-shoot player so if game give some chance to beat it then they're ok.

5 years ago
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I think they're a bit annoying but I see it as a sort of necessary challenge I guess?

5 years ago
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