Regarding Elite Dungeons...

[Carapace]

Hello everyone! We have some thoughts about Elite dungeons and their accessibility, and so I'm posing the question to the community. Thanks for taking some time to read and share your thoughts!

Regarding Elite Dungeons
Currently Elite dungeons are very rigid in that every run is a timed run. Due to the nature of a timed run being a potential leader board run, additional players are locked out from joining a timed Elite run once the timer has begun. Typically there is frustration associated with our more casual players that would very much like to defeat the content, and not be at the mercy of latency or players leaving mid run. This results in the run being unfruitful and leaves players with an unfavorable experience. Internally we have discussed two possible means of solving this problem, and so I am going to take a moment to convey these options to the community in such a way that we can make a more educated move in regards to potential implementations to address this issue.

Before getting into specifics, the cornerstone of these ideas is the idea of “Casual” Elite maps. This would be the exact same content as the normal Elite runs, only without the timer component and no leader board implications. This means that we can create Elite maps where players can join, leave, and progress further with multiple people interchangeably in order to experience the content free from the restrictions of the timed runs. Invite your friends, invite your guild mates, or replace a party member at any time during the run!

First solution
The first solution is our ideal solution. It creates an up front, easy to understand user experience that results in the best of both worlds. There will be a preference/option in the game options that allows the player to ENABLE or DISABLE Casual Elite mode, and as a result the game will funnel players trying to do timed runs into their respective dungeons, and casual players into theirs. The two would never cross paths, meaning a timed runner would never end up in a timeless map, and vice versa.

The problem here is that it will take quite a bit of tech time to complete, and as a result would be pushed out to a much further potential release date. We do however believe this is the correct way to handle this from a usability and design perspective.


Second Solution
The secondary solution is a bit more circumstantial. Players will all still start an Elite zone as a timed run, however once a player leaves of their own free will, or a player is disconnected longer than a specified amount of time the zone becomes an open run. The timer will go away, and other players will be allowed to join in from invites and others coming in to Elite games from the world map.

Things to consider here is that the pool of players will remain mixed. If player A and his team are doing a timed run and a teammate times out, it’s no longer a timed run. Player B then tries to join an Elite zone to do a timed run, but now instead joins this run in progress where he cannot do a timed instance. It really has a tendency to frustrate players interested in doing timed runs more than players who just want to be able to complete a zone and invite their friends after the fact. We feel we can justify this under the assumption that serious teams running elite maps have a full team that they are trying to run with.

There are some edge cases naturally – Players running Elite maps solo, teams of two or three, etc. but overall this is something that could be implemented fairly quickly by comparison to the original (and proper) solution.

We’re looking for community thoughts on this before discussing and getting plans moving.

Thanks everyone!
Carapace