THE BONUS DUNGEON IS THE FINAL DUNGEON?

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unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I've been pondering this for a while about bonus dungeons that are often included as Post-Game content. I don't like them from a narrative standpoint. As people on this site have stated, it feels a bit off to have a bonus dungeon that's harder than the final dungeon and a boss at the end of the bonus dungeon that's harder than the last boss, as the payoff of the game and the big ending is locked behind the final dungeon, which either means you beat the game and come back to play the bonus dungeon, or you grind to beat the bonus dungeon and then sweep through the final dungeon and the last boss with little to no difficulty.

On the other hand, the bonus dungeon is appealing to me as a developer. It turns out when I go all out and make a big dungeon, I make a giant labyrinth that is too much for the average player. Which means, if I want to let loose and make a huge dungeon, it'd need to be a bonus dungeon.

So, my pondering has been "How can I be able to have a bonus dungeon without the narrative stuff that's so bothersome?" If you go through the Bonus dungeon, that's the hardest, most dire part of the game, and it seems like the game should end after that.

So I got an idea. What if the Final Dungeon and the Bonus Dungeon are one in the same? Hear me out: After going through say the first floor of the Final Dungeon, there would be two paths. You would be warned that one path is much harder than the other. The hard path would look like it's the same place as the easier path, but it would have visual cues that this is A Very Bad Place and just look wrong somehow.

The easier path wouldn't be easy; it would be regular Final Dungeon difficulty. It's just that the harder path can go crazy with Bonus Dungeon-like length and difficulty.

For what happens after you beat either version, I'd say that both should end with the Last Boss, but the Bonus Dungeon path's version of the last boss is much much harder, possibly even with an extra form that the regular last boss doesn't have.

Not sure if the endings should be different, but it feels like the bonus boss maybe should have something extra in the ending, if only as a reward to people who toughed out the harder version.

What do you all think about this idea? Would you be interested in playing a game that operated like this? Are there problems with this idea? I'm curious about how it sounds ^_^
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
You're on the right track, and I don't see anything wrong with the theory, but this still feels a bit weird from a narrative perspective to me. If I was a hero trying to save the world from a powerful evil, I wouldn't look at the two options and go "Yeah, let's do the longer, harder option and fight a much tougher enemy for lols."

There would need to be some incentive other than challenge to do the harder, bonus path. Of course, the incentive would vary wildly from game to game. Maybe an option would be fulfilling a character's side motivation? Maybe fighting the optional dungeon might explore and put to rest the antagonist's inner demons as well as defeating them? But that sort of character moment would be better served as part of the main quest. I guess it depends on the narrative being told.

Tales of Vesperia did something I liked that sounds similar to what you're suggesting, except it's a side quest instead of a dungeon: After a certain point in the game, you start a sidequest to collect powerful weapons for each character call the Fell Arms. Collecting them all doesn't do much for you since they are at first incredibly weak. However, after collecting them all, confront and defeat the final boss to trigger a new scene where the final boss takes your collected Fell Arms and activates them, gaining a new, incredibly strong form. Though the ending itself doesn't change.

You could try that, but with the bonus dungeon instead of a collect-a-thon. Completing the dungeon gives the party an item that the final boss could make use of (whether the player is aware of this or not) and gain a new form or become a stronger version of the original final boss.

Again, this is just from a narrative perspective. From a pure gameplay stance, I don't see anything wrong with what you're suggesting.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
This is basically how several of the Shin Megami Tensei games work. If you beat the optional superboss, the final boss changes in difficulty to be about equally hard (or harder).

It also has a different ending in that case, which makes it feel like the "true ending." From a narrative standpoint, this really helps make the optional superboss feel like it's actually an important part of the story. Unfortunately it also makes people who beat the original version of the final boss feel like they didn't really beat the game.

Bloodborne does something similar except the optional superboss ending is actually the "bad ending." So that solves that problem I guess? At the cost of making the player who does so without getting the good ending first not feel so great. But anyone who gets that far can go into New Game+ and get the normal ending again pretty fast, so I guess it's not a big deal.



With your idea, I would personally not make any narrative differences and just have the difficulty be a lot harder. I would perhaps also make the hard mode a little harder to get into than just a pair of doors. Make the player fight an optional boss just to get into the hard mode path, maybe? Normal battles often aren't a great indication of exactly how much harder the hard mode is gonna be, and it'd be frustrating to get 20 or 30 minutes into the hard mode path only to reach a boss they can't beat and die.

In almost any RPG, if you do have an optional superboss that's way harder than the final boss, I don't really see any downside to increasing the stats of the final boss to match the superboss once a player beats the superboss. They're clearly capable of winning and they clearly appreciate the challenge. I'm not in favor of scaling enemies in a general sense, because it adds a lot of weird metagamey stuff where the player spends the game trying to avoid making enemies stronger for as long as possible instead of trying to become stronger himself or herself, but in this case it's fine because it's already literally the last thing the player does in the game, and giving the player the option to skip it and do the easier version instead is exactly the point.



Edit: In SMT games it's not in a mirror version of the final dungeon, it's always in a separate location, usually a hidden dungeon. Having a separate dungeon does help make the player feel like it's more worth doing, which solves a problem Red_Nova brought up. "Because it's there" is honestly all the incentive a player needs to do a harder challenge, but skipping one dungeon to do another actually can kill this incentive. So that might be a problem with your idea of giving the player a choice between the two final dungeons. You might want to make hardmode players do both, or maybe beat an optional superboss that changes the entire final dungeon into the hard mode. As long as challenge-seeking players feel like they're getting more content as well as harder content, they'll do it without question.
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
It sounds good to me.

Actually, It sounds better than my idea, which was to make the bonus dungeon as an optional dead-end with no exps. There would be only unique loot and maybe a short story line as rewards. These bonus dungeons needn't to be harder, they can be unique in different ways. They can host interesting puzzles or other limitations (no magic, no normal attacks, exhaustion).
The point is that they are optional, yet you don't feel overpowered/too weak clearing/skipping them.
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
I'm not sure how bonus dungeons being harder than final dungeons is that much of an issue, and how it hurts the narrative is pretty debatable to me.

In most cases, the reasons bonus dungeons exist are:
> To add replay value.

> To provide additional challenge for advanced players who are familiar with the game's core mechanics, while the "main" dungeons typically serve to address all kinds of players.

> Worldbuilding. In games where exploration is a focus, finding extra areas is a welcome sight. Also, these areas don't have to be detached from the narrative, but expand it in ways the main campaign doesn't. Think of the Labyrinthian in Skyrim, just as an example. The main storyline suggests that there are these dragons and people who used to worship them, but it never goes into who exactly these worshipers are and curse they left on the world. The entire sidequest to find their masks was an additional journey to identify them all.

Another thing is that in most games I've played that had bonus dungeons, you had to go out of your way to find them a little bit. I think if people are associating your bonus dungeon as the "true final dungeon" I think there is a communication issue.

As for the idea of merging the two, I don't really know if it's called a "bonus dungeon" anymore, instead that would fall under "final dungeon with built-in difficulty options." Being that they are bonus dungeons, they are inherently something extra and something that's actually supposed to be a kind of reward for something?
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
author=Ratty524
Another thing is that in most games I've played that had bonus dungeons, you had to go out of your way to find them a little bit. I think if people are associating your bonus dungeon as the "true final dungeon" I think there is a communication issue.


Wording can be a problem here. Bonus stage or level in arcade games and platformers make perfect sense as they are a way how to reward player.
While talking about RPGs, I usually use words such as optional dungeon, side-path, detour dungeon. Sure, RPGs differ to a great extent. There are non-linear ones, such as TES series, which are all about roaming and seeking your own adventure. On the other hand a majority of RM games tends to have more linear design. This way, game can be divided in stages and have bonus ones in between them.
I liked how FF14 handled most of its narrative backdrops for the extreme / savage fights: You went to the deepest Hell and punch Satan in the face and came back and told a bard about it. Your tale inspired him to write a new ballad of your quest to go to Neo Mega Hell and punch Giga Satan in all of his three faces which unlocks the hard version of said content. The narrative is basically that the hard versions is how the bard's tale of what you did goes with more lasers and somehow you get your Magic Longsword +1 out of it.


I've never had an issue with the idea of bonus content itself. So what if Giga Satan could've farted and blew up the world? He just wants to play bridge with his bridge club, not blow shit up. I do like Lockez's suggestion of having a gateway boss to make sure the player doesn't just wander into Hard Mode and to give them an idea of what they're getting into. It doesn't even have to be in the final dungeon, make a side dungeon that has said boss who gives a magic token that unlocks Neo Mega Hell to keep the final dungeon streamlined.
Bonus means "free". All it's obligated to be is an extra, free dungeon, for those who want it.
Dragnfly
Beta testers!? No, this game needs a goddamn exorcist!
1809
Optional super boss and optional dungeon I think can be two separate things. Yes, I think an optional dungeon should contain an optional super boss but an optional super boss doesn't always require a dungeon. FF7 for example.

So tackling these separately I'll just post some feelings.
-I think the idea that an optional super boss shouldn't be stronger than the final boss for story reasons is flawed. True, it makes no sense if your super boss isn't a character but if they are then you can have loads of reasons why they're content to just sit in their cave and twiddle their thumbs until challenged. They may be have some personal code. They may be outright unconcerned with the world's events. They may be an enforcer of balance and when the hero gets too powerful they decide to step in and smack him down. They may be unable to act until certain conditions are met, like they (or the whole dungeon) is sealed away or something. In fact they may slay the final boss themselves and take that role. I HATE "true final boss from nowhere" syndrome but if you build up the lore or have them be present throughout the story it can certainly work.

Rewards:
This one is BIG to me. Rewarding your players with the best gear in the game after they've beaten the optional super boss is, well, stupid. Its useless. So I prefer it when it unlocks features. CGs, a developer room, extra scenes or routes, newgame+ features, a cutscene gallery so you can refresh yourself on the story without re-playing the game (GOD I wish more games has this), extra functionality or even extra characters. I'm against "bragging rights" items because I've never known jRPG gamers to be the achievement-hunting types. I'm certainly not. I want an entertaining reward and I don't care if some stranger in India knows I beat Ruby Weapon.

I say put the best gear IN the optional dungeon to help the players beat it's challenges.

Then there's the other option and that's rewarding the player with comedy and nods to your other works. After you've built up a few titles you can use cameo bosses and areas for the optional dungeon/boss and that becomes a reward on it's own.

So then we look at what I think you're really after, the dungeon. It's tough. Forcing the player to go through it to get a true ending will get you flammed by a lot of players. We're not all challenge-seekers or completionists. But on the other hand you no doubt want the player to experience the dungeon so you can't hide it away too well. Also, as was said you don't want them to accidentally wander into it, get far and then hopelessly die (unless it's hard enough that you'd likely die straight away, like crossing bridges in the early Dragon Warrior games). So I think having it be a branching path of the late-game story is preferable. I like the idea of it being in the final dungeon and it being triggered by game events. Not that the characters "choose" the harder path over the easier, but that some decisions made at the crossroads cancels access to the easier route. This decision would be lead up to in the story. There's also no harm in notifying the player to make a separate save beforehand.

So long as it doesn't change the ending adding a new super form to the final boss is a great idea. Contra-style LOL. The previously mentioned bit of the final boss making use of the bonus dungeon lore in some way works. Leave changing the ending for a True End route, which although harder than normal, shouldn't be optional dungeon and boss levels of hard.
I'm definitely in the camp of having your optional bonus dungeons and optional bonus bosses as entities separate from the final dungeon and boss. They should be monumental challenges and perhaps not easy to find, which lends the game replay value.

However, I agree that the narrative has the potential to break down when the optional bosses are stronger than the final boss. Sometimes this can be overlooked, because there is inherent conflict between the party and the final boss--they want to fight each other for some reason--and that conflict probably doesn't exist for the optional bosses. It's okay if the optional ones are stronger because they aren't involved in that struggle, their power isn't relevant to the state of the world.

Either way, however, when the actual final boss is trivialised because the optional bosses were so much harder, I believe it robs the player of a sense of accomplishment when the credits roll.

For that reason, in my game the final boss is going to scale with the player's level by gaining new forms and abilities and higher stats. That doesn't mean that I intend the final boss to be the absolute hardest at all times, because I'm cooking up some really cool challenges for optional bosses, but the final boss will always offer a rewarding experience no matter what level the player has achieved. In essence, the player may have his cake and eat it too.
I really like the concept of a bonus dungeon even for a last dungeon
or a final mini-dungeon. It should be optional yet accessable to players
once the final boss is clear. DK Country 2 is a prime example.
The average player is a wuss.

Besides, have that many people really been complaining about the difficulty of Luxen's final dungeon? I mean, 2000+ downloads and voluminous high praise, but suddenly frickin' Addit has beef? Maybe you're just overthinking things, inadvertently catering to the vocal minority. I imagine most players notice the obvious spike in difficulty, but adjust and accept. It is, after all, the home stretch.
I'm personally in the camp where I enjoy it when the optional boss have some effect on the story if you beat them. I think the 'man-behind-the-man' effect that some games use (Tohou for example), where the bonus boss is the instigator of the events and also needs a whooping works. I also like Disgaea's approach, where some of the optional dungeons you can unlock which are much, much harder than the main story (as is most of the game actually...) actually lead you to different endings, like invading earth or the like.

Could lead to a situation where your character does a sidequest that is far more difficult, finds the man behind the man behind the big boss that they thought were inconsequential/good, and takes them out, but overall for worse results, or in the 'screw destiny' route.

Which also brings to mind Soul Nomad, where there is an entire alternate story, much much harder than the main one, where you character goes 'Fuckit, I'mma be evil', and is by far one of the most fucked up storylines in an RPG. It's essentially a full bonus difficulty story.
it feels a bit off to have a bonus dungeon that's harder than the final dungeon and a boss at the end of the bonus dungeon that's harder than the last boss

?? Since when? This has actually been the norm for a lot of RPGs. It's not off at all.

Also, you don't actually need a narrative for bonus/optional dungeons.
Either way, I don't think bonus dungeons in post-game/optional content are an issue, really. It's after all bonus/extra, so players at not obligated to try those dungeons out. Besides, if players are capable of tackling a bonus dungeon, they're more than capable of tackling the final dungeon. After all, there are bound to be players who can't tackle the optional dungeons and will just proceed with finishing the game first.

Anyway, a solution I have is that you can make the bonus dungeon such that once you enter it, you can't turn back until you've cleared it (you can still save, of course). Then have all the optional-dungeon exclusive items in that dungeon. This is so that players can't bring the optional items with them to the final dungeon unless they've cleared the optional dungeon.

author=Dyhalto
The average player is a wuss.

Besides, have that many people really been complaining about the difficulty of Luxen's final dungeon? I mean, 2000+ downloads and voluminous high praise, but suddenly frickin' Addit has beef? Maybe you're just overthinking things, inadvertently catering to the vocal minority. I imagine most players notice the obvious spike in difficulty, but adjust and accept. It is, after all, the home stretch.

While I have no problems with the difficulty, you have to understand this from the casual player point of view, not from the hardcore player point of view. Fact is, there are more casual players than hardcore players.
------------
But yeah, unity, I do think you tend to overthink things sometimes. Just do whatever you like. I mean, you're after all creating free games, so you're not really obligated to pay heed to everything. You can listen to advice and all, but don't be afraid to disagree with things. Most importantly, follow your heart and instincts.

Also, for future games that you create, ask yourself this first. Who is your target audience? This is very important as it will properly set the tone and direction for your game.
Now, I have a question for you folks since we're on the topic of final dungeons:

What is your opinion on the idea of multiple, mutually-exclusive final dungeons? For example, depending on the path that you take through a game, you might end up in Final Dungeon A or Final Dungeon B, but not both. Neither is a bonus dungeon. You get one or the other. Interesting concept or dick move?

Asking for, uh, reasons.
author=SgtMettool
Now, I have a question for you folks since we're on the topic of final dungeons:

What is your opinion on the idea of multiple, mutually-exclusive final dungeons? For example, depending on the path that you take through a game, you might end up in Final Dungeon A or Final Dungeon B, but not both. Neither is a bonus dungeon. You get one or the other. Interesting concept or dick move?

Asking for, uh, reasons.


Interesting concept so long as the rewards are the same. It would also make me go back to where I crossed the Rubicon and try the alternate path, just to see what it's like.


I'd also like to take a moment and request that Uni makes a tutorial on how to make dungeons. Your dungeons are some of the best.
I agree with RedNova that I'd find it pretty weird in storytelling terms for the player characters to deliberately impose the challenge of an unnecessarily harder dungeon on themselves... just because. But there are ways to keep the final boss seeming climactic in story terms even when you have a bonus dungeon that's more difficult in gameplay terms. For instance, you can invoke Eleventh Hour Superpowers (tvtropes link) which make it clear that even if the final boss is mechanically easier, you wouldn't be able to beat it wielding only the same powers with which you fought the bonus boss. Personas 3 and 4 both provide good examples of this; both have bonus bosses that require extreme leveling and tweaking to beat, but have final bosses which would be undefeatable without powers which you only wield in the specific circumstances of those battles. Also, if the point of the final boss was never that they were the strongest and largest scale threat to the world which nobody else could overcome, but that they're personally behind the conflict which the protagonists are most invested in, then I think you can maintain a lot of weight for the final confrontation even if you give the player the opportunity to face other challenges which are strictly harder.

Dragon Quest VI had an interesting approach to the "bonus dungeon which is also the final dungeon" idea. The plot features a city which was ruined in the distant past by trying to summon a being which could defeat the Final Boss for them. Unfortunately, instead of fighting the Final Boss, the summoned being just destroyed their castle and killed everybody. But once you've beaten the final boss normally (or cheated to unlock every job class before the final dungeon,) you go back to a point before you beat it, but can now access a final dungeon which, after a long winding trip, leads you to that same being which was summoned back then. It provides a much more difficult bonus boss fight, and if you beat it, you get an alternate ending sequence where it performs the service it was originally summoned for: kicking the ass of the final boss for you.
Jeroen_Sol
Nothing reveals Humanity so well as the games it plays. A game of betrayal, where the most suspicious person is brutally murdered? How savage.
3885
author=Desertopa
I agree with RedNova that I'd find it pretty weird in storytelling terms for the player characters to deliberately impose the challenge of an unnecessarily harder dungeon on themselves... just because.


I... don't agree this is a valid argument. "Just because" is a completely valid reason for the player characters to do anything. It is also the reason people backtrack to previous towns, and kill lots of monsters in order to level grind. In many games, neither of these things make sense from a plot perspective, especially while the great threat of the final boss is looming over the world. Does that mean you shouldn't allow backtracking or grinding in rpgs? No, because limiting the freedom of the player like that would be no fun whatsoever.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
For the most part, if a dungeon exists outside the main story, it's considered a bonus dungeon. I suppose a "bonus final dungeon" could exist in cases where players can achieve multiple endings? Like, there is a "normal" final dungeon, and going through it will lead to a certain amount of closure. However, with the right conditions/choices, players can unlock a "true final dungeon", which leads to the "true end", or what-not.

*Edit: I suppose this comment links to another comment made regarding the Shin Megami Tensei series. I've only really played Persona 4, but, the concept is absolutely there.

*Edit2: I sorta have to agree with Dyhalto that you might be over-worried about Addit's comment on Luxaren Allure's final dungeon? I dunno.
Idea's pretty neat.

In fact, from a narrative perspective, it can be justified in some ways.

Like:
If you do it the easy way, the enemy is just sealed away for another dozen years and the NEXT group of heroes will have to fight him (if there even is another set of heroes in 12 years), whereas the hard route is said to be "impossible" but if you succeed then the enemy is gone for good and no one will need to fear the enemy ever again.

So it's like "I can do the easy and less frustrating path and pass the buck or I can do the bonus-hard dungeon and finish it for good"

There's probably loads of other ways to justify it too.

Or you can do the Persona 4 route and be like "if you do a certain set of post-game shenanigans you realize, OH WAIT THERES MORE TO DO!"
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