Diablo 4 Hidden Dungeons

General Discussion
1

Here is a great Idea I spotted in a Post from Sardaukar.

I want a whole bunch of hidden dungeons. And with hidden I mean that they don’t glow like objectives like in D3, they’re not mentioned anywhere in the game guide and you basically have to stumble upon them. Some you can find after getting a tome somehow, others by listening to an NPC, some you need to get a couple of artififacts together (like the staff of herding, but with a lot better dungeon), some I want only visible during the day/night (ingame) or even a certain moonphase. Get creatieve, but give us different things to puzzle out, to accomplish instead of an unending number of Greater Rifts.

I added to this with One of the best things I have seen here, wonderful idea.

Even to the point that this type of Dungeon will never be seen in the same place by other people, say when a character is created a code number is linked to it " RND Code " so that you cannot just search for a post " I just found a map that no-one else has and this is where you find it "

But also with weather being a new thing maybe even take advantage of that for one of the hidden dungeons maybe cannot be found unless you are near it after a rain storm or you would never have seen the odd shaped foot prints.

Maybe it could be that a monster only feeds during a set of conditions like Moon Phase and again if you are not there at that time you can never find the entrance.

Wild Goose chase types where it starts as a rumor as you are leveling and you find-out more and more as you progress, so power leveled chars would never get all the hints and you have to get them all to unlock the opening.

I think plenty of others can come up with ideas that are better.

11 Likes
2

That would be great, they could add many posible doors to paces but randomly open a few of them, that would make them harder to find.

I like the idea of explore and find secret places. Maybe was for the demo but i would like them to remove the “arrow” thing for the places you can climb (maybe leave it at lower areas to allow players to know the system), this way they could put secret areas we can go only by searching and climb up or dowm from different places. Maybe a hole we can fall by accident.

2 Likes
3

Expanding on Hidden Dungeons inside some of them are locked Doors there maybe a message near the door blaming someone that ran away with the key and to then have to track that person down, a drunken fool you had seen sometime ago may well have been that person.

And now for something completely different.

There! Look!
What does it say? What language is that?
Brother Maynard, you’re our scholar.
It is Aramaic!
Of course. Joseph of Arimathea!

-Of course.
-What does it say?

It reads, "Here may be found…
"…the last words of Joseph of Arimathea:
"‘He who is valiant and pure of spirit…
"’…may find the Holy Grail…
“’…in the Castle of Aaargh.”’

What?

“The Castle of Aaargh.”
What is that?
He must have died while carving it.
-Come on!
-That’s what it says.
Look, if he was dying,
he wouldn’t bother to carve “Aaargh.”
-He’d just say it.
-That’s what’s carved in the rock.
-Perhaps he was dictating it.
-Shut up!

-Does it say anything else?
-No!
Just “Aaargh.”
Aaargh.

Do you suppose he meant the Camargue?
-Where’s that?
-ln France, I think.

-lsn’t there a St. Aaargh’s in Cornwall?
-No, that’s St. Ives.
St. Ives.

No, “Aaargh.” At the back of the throat.
No, in surprise and alarm!
-You mean a sort of a “Ah!”
-Yes, that’s right.

My God!
It’s the Legendary Black Beast of Aaargh!
That’s it! Run away!
We’ve lost him.
As the horrendous Black Beast
lunged forward…
…escape for Arthur
and his knights seemed hopeless.
When, suddenly, the animator
suffered a fatal heart attack.

The cartoon peril was no more.
The quest for the Holy Grail
could continue.

3 Likes
4

Since D4 will be open world, exploring for special dungeons is a great idea, this will make all areas of the zones feel alive and relevant.

5

I am currently playing Titan Quest, and they do that in an interesting way. You can find a few places in the game that have locked doors and you can’t open them until kill a specific boss or get a key to open it: and some times that key/boss is very far away. In one case the door is a the beggining of an act and the key drops at the end of it, in another you must gather parts of a recipe to create a key: must search for the pieces over 3 different acts and the door is at the 5th act.

I think this kind of things are interesting and put the player into a quest to find a place or an item that isn’t related with the main story.

2 Likes
6

They need to give us good and fun reasons to go back an old act, not just go kill this type of monster in act one.
I do like the idea of the old acts bringing you back some where to complete something, even if that is maybe part of a season.
Then add one per season, getting new loot each season is great but story, adventure and fun will keep us coming back. Not everyone likes the grind of Boss Runs.

7

I want to come across Preston and he says, “There’s some settlers in a cave that need your help.”

8

As long as when they say near by its not on the other side of the world

9

One of the reasons I believe WOW was a hit on launch even though it wasn’t the same genre of previous warcraft games is because they created a warcraft world. People loved the game and the lore and wanted to experience what it would be like to live in that world. The same can be said of Diablo and I was hoping they were going to take that same approach in D3 but alas, Jay Wilson.

Creating hidden dungeons would do exactly that. It would be world building and feel like you are actually in Sanctuary. In the book The Kingdom of Shadow adventurers seek the lost city of Ureh and the way to enter the city was only accessible during moonlight on a certain day. My suggestion would be adopt this mechanic and have it so you can only enter this area when its night. That could add to the spookyness and scary atmosphere.

Creating ease of life improvements ruins the sense of world, please do not make that mistake. Let the babies whine.

3 Likes
10

Also, it could be nice to have small hidden places. I remember the hidden things we could find at D2: weren’t many but it was a nice thing to have. Could be a secret room or stash, check inside a hole to find something, don’t know, there are unlimited posibilities with that.

Also, some hidden things should be almost imposible to find, something in the lines of open a door with a specific rune word or something like that.

1 Like
11

Exploration can be incredibly immersive if done right.

A open world Sanctuary is definitely the right direction.

Making objectives for every dungeon would feel redundant so I think it’s important for the developers to create other incentives to explore.

Different rarity chests, randomized boss encounters, secret side quests, etc.

2 Likes
12

Lost Ark has these. You find an item (like a tome) and it makes the dungeon visible to you. Once you complete the dungeon the item is consumed and the dungeon disappears.
Something like this would be a welcomed addition to D4 IMO.

2 Likes
13

Doing a whole quest line to open hidden dungeon seems tooo tedious in my opinion. Plus, if these are supposed to be hidden and random, wouldn’t they despawn to a different location by the time you completed the suggested questline to enter?

How about finding unique keys that if you have in your inventory or stash that unlocks it. I think they did say that certain keys are for certain dungeons but for hidden dungeons should they have a unique key. Even if you do find 1 and enter it how hard or easy do you expect it? 1k kill streak uber diablo is in there?

I remember in d3, pages would drop and i would wonder if i should keep it or not. Maybe in d4 i find 1 out in the world and maybe give it to a npc so they can point you in the right direction of where to look?

2 Likes
14

Hidden, like in D2 heading to Act1 boss Andariel, there is at least one room that has a hidden opening, you can only find by clicking on walls that don’t have glow-like thing.
The hidden opening doesn’t go to a dungeon, but is that same type hidden opening leading to something else.

This would be cool, but only in a side effect kind of way.

2 Likes
15

Go look up some of the Hidden Grim Dawn quests/rooms/areas…crazy stuff on that game. Absolutely should be a inspiration for D4.

2 Likes
16

An additional idea could be to have big areas with no portals close to them. I think that is why they add horses but i think that having isolated places can add a lot to the exploration.

17

The Tower in the first act of Diablo 3 was well hidden, and quite a low chance…

Those sorts of things are nice, if they making adventuring meaningful…

2 Likes
18

What to do if they add Pony level in Diablo IV? :rofl:

19

A quest starts with a rumour in a different town about the way moonlight shines on mountain side to show a door that no one knows how to enter.
On that, this can add another way to use Runes.
Without the right Runes used on a nearby shrine on that Moonlit Night you cannot open the door.

Yes there will always be people that just want to get to higher level areas, so most dungeons will need be walk-up and enter.

Back to my post at the top
Even to the point that this type of Dungeon will never be seen in the same place by other people, say when a character is created a code number is linked to it " RND Code " so that you cannot just search for a post " I just found a map that no-one else has and this is where you find it "

Not everyone wants to do side quests but for the people that do. I would hate to just be able to go to a search page to find them all.

I was thinking of hidden but story driven so you don’t just keep clicking and you will find it.
In the extreme, think of it like level 99 in D2 most people never get there but it’s something to do at points along your journy.

Yes in Grim Dawn hidden areas are not even shown on the overlay map at times some of them break when you are fighting and hit a wall by mistake, I for one when I first found one made me slow down and start looking for more of them as most had chests there.

If in a hidden area there was a note on a body about somewhere else in the same dungeon that helps you unlock a door, just so many ways to play on this.

Good point I think I can say this for a great majority of us - NEVER ADD ANY TYPE OF NOT STORY BASED Dungeons or areas in D4.

20

An old game, Nox, did this very well too. Break a wall, move a rock, move a barrel or table and a hole is below, get inside to explore a new area. Also had narrow paths that could easilly be missed. And some of the best things in the game could be found by exploring and finding this areas.