Reading the preliminary information about the Tower of the Damned, it’s said to be inspired by roguelikes. In WoW’s main competitor, one Final Fantasy XIV, there is a special instance called a Deep Dungeon. There are two Deep Dungeons; Palace of the Dead, and Heaven on High. I wonder if we’re getting something similar here, so I want to explain how they work over there.
In the Deep Dungeons, the object is to get to the next set of floors, with a boss at every ten levels or so. Each floor contains a random set of rooms where the object is to kill a certain number of monsters to unlock a teleporter, which will advance you into the next floor. Further monster kills will unlock a statue that can resurrect all fallen members of your party, should any be dead.
However each floor has its own set of variables. There are traps of several kinds; explosive traps, polymorph traps, pacifying traps, and monster spawning traps. Chests found in the roomscan sometimes be Mimics, which can be extraordinarily tough to kill in certain circumstances. And sometimes, the very floor itself has a variable: Buffs and debuffs, some of which are very powerful or very debilitating, such as being unable to recover health or mana, or extra resources (think being unable to generate Rage on a Warrior, for instance).
Gear is meaningless in the Deep Dungeon. Instead of your gear, you are given a weapon and armor made from an “aetherpool” which only gets stronger the more Silver chests you open. Any timwe someone opens a Silver chest, All members of the party have either their armor or their weapon empowered, and it helps you deal with threats a bit easier and advance to higher levels in the dungeons. Aetherpool arms and armor progression is saved, so subsequent delvings do not require you to start over. The downside is: The more powerful your stuff, the higher level you will need to be in the Deep Dungeon to see your aetherpool gear level up.
Your items are also not used in the Deep Dungeon. In addition to the silver chests, there are Red treasure chests all over the place that contain items used only in the dungeon called Pomanders, which do any number of things like buff your offense, defense, and speed. Some reveal a map of the region and any traps in the area. Some clear all the effects of the floor or disable extra monster spawns. One causes chests to appear when monsters are killed, which contain more Pomanders. One allow you to find treasure in hidden Golden chests within the dungeon that can be legitimately valuable, or even powerful, outside the dungeon. And there are some Pomanders that transform your character into either a big beefy creature used for killing regular mobs, or a spellcasting creature used for fighting bosses. Lastly, there are Copper chests, which usually contain low value consumables.
Palace of the Dead had 200 floors, and got increasingly more challenging the higher you went. The rewards would also get ever more lucrative, and you got your name placed on worldwide rankings for completing it.
Primarily, people used it as a means of leveling up alt classes. PoTD had a leveling system separate from the main game, but finishing a set of floors awarded quite a bit of experience. Heaven on High was a bit different, didn’t have as many floors, and was for primarily higher level people to do. But it still had the rankings.
Does any of this have appeal to folks here? Does anyone think it could work?