The Deep Dark
It's time for Dungeons!
It's time for Dungeons!
Off the eastern coast of Balak are the newly found Dark Reaches containing Loka's first proper Dungeon. 4 unique cave entrances allow surface access to the 4 wings of the Deep dark Dungeon. Enter, and drop down, but beware! The only way out is death or successful escape. There is no /leave in this Dungeon (recall stones are fine).
At any time you can use /dungeon to see this info and track your objectives. /cal to see when your loot resets.
Work on the DD Dungeon has been long ongoing and has been the result of refactors of a lot of major systems on Loka in order to better prepare for future Dungeons, Loot concepts, and more.
The Deep Dark is a new kind of dungeon for Loka. We're calling Loka's take on these Open Dungeons. Let's get into it!
The Ethos of PvPvE
Because Loka is a PvP server, we have been deeply deliberating internally how far in the RPG/PvE direction we want to go. There is a very slippery slope towards acting like a modern MMORPG or a Wynncraft like experience and we think going in that direction isn't in the spirit of Loka. We do want more PvE in terms of Dungeons, Story (quests), and many more opportunities for roleplaying. But we feel what makes Loka unique is it generally tries to maintain that PvP is a real part of the experience. As such we have neither the scale problem (yet), nor the desire to have a complex party-based instancing dungeon system like you might find eleswhere. So, we're sticking with our idea of Open PvPvE Content. Similar to how we decided to have the Witch Hunter be non-instanced, we're doing the same with Dungeons. They are shared instances, everybody can go, but the dungeon is Yellow Tag with Unstable Loot.
Dungeon Lockouts
Dungeon lockouts (a common trope) are the idea that you can complete a dungeon's content (clearing it) once every period of time. It gives you a chance over time to return and "full clear" the dungeon, and gives you a break after you complete it too before you feel you must return. Similar to RIs, just with more stuff.
Dungeons have a lockout time of 64h from when you start them (same reset hours as RIs). You can return to the dungeon as often as you like but your gathered loot bundles, mineable Resource Vaults (more below), and objective progress will only reset after 64h.
- Find Loot Bundles.
- Loot bundles are hidden all over the dungeon.
- Each one gives you loot, and 4 of them will provide a Deep Dark Vault Key.
- Unlock Resource Vaults
- Unlock each of the 4 Resource Vaults which contain things you can specifically mine. The rest of the dungeon is in adventure mode.
- The only place you can use shulkers is in the Resource Vaults.
- Survive the Swarm. Opening the central gates summons a monster swarm, and the Warden follows shortly after. Fight them off and get to a Levitation Pad.
- Escape. Rise up through the Deep Dark Portal to leave safely. Complete Objectives along the way and bonus loot bundles will be waiting for you in the escape room.
- Everything is Unstable. All loot is Unstable, so if monsters or other players kill you down there, you will drop it. Get it home.
Every run, each player is assigned their own personal set of Loot Bundles. Your bundles are visible only to you; other players see their own set.
4 of your bundles carry a Deep Dark Vault Key. Which caches they are is unique to you, and they're always among the caches you can see, so a full sweep is guaranteed to give you all four keys. Keys are soulbound.
Your bundles (and keys, and objectives) reset 64 hours after your run starts.
/cal shows your reset time.There are four Resource Vaults, each locked behind a vault block and iron-bar door. Use a Deep Dark Vault Key on the vault to open the door for you (everyone else still sees it sealed). Once open, a door stays open for the rest of your lockout.
When entering/exiting a vault, your tools get adventure-mode block-break tags to break that vault's resources (but nothing else). You can also you can place shulkers (only) within the vaults.
| Vault | What you can harvest |
|---|---|
| Amethyst Vault | Amethyst Blocks, Budding Amethyst, Amethyst Clusters and all bud sizes |
| Archaeology Vault | Suspicious Sand, Suspicious Gravel and Calcite |
| Dripstone Vault | Dripstone Blocks, Pointed Dripstone and Granite |
| Sculk Vault | Sculk (XP, or the block itself with Silk Touch) |
Archaeology: Suspicious Sand and Gravel on Loka have their own loot table. Mine em, (they drop like regular blocks in the dungeon), and brush em back home at your leisure.
The central arena gates have 2 levers each. Pull them together and the iron gate will slowly lower, but the noise it makes will summon a Swarm. Loads of smaller, easier-to-kill mobs and a Warden will spawn as a result of the swarm. You must fight off the swarm to make your safe escape.
- Swarm mobs take extra damage (easy to kill, and fun!).
- Splash and lingering potions of Harming do nothing to swarm mobs. One of you was gonna try it.
- Swarm mobs drop nothing and don't count toward the Slayer objective.
- The gate re-arms 60 seconds after a swarm ends.
Changes from Vanilla Deep Dark
Deep Dark Wardens have considerably more health. Good luck...
Sculk only hears players. Sensors and Shriekers ignore mob noise entirely, so every Warden that spawns outside a swarm is one that you rang for.
Monsters from the deep also lurk throughout the dungeon on their own, and those do count for Slayer. When something dies near a Sculk Catalyst the sculk blooms, sometimes growing new Catalysts and Sensors. Everything regenerates.
The safe way out is up. Find a Levitation Pad (sanctuary alcove) and stand on it for 8 seconds without taking damage. Taking a hit pauses your counter. Once it completes you get Levitation II for 30 seconds - ride it up through the Deep Dark Portal to escape into the loot room.
Every run has four optional Objectives, tracked on your sidebar and in
/dungeon. Complete them, then escape via a Levitation Pad, and a reward bundle for each completed objective will be waiting for you in the loot room. Reward bundles pay out once per lockout - the harder the objective, the bigger the bundle.| Objective | Difficulty | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Find Loot Bundles | Easy | Claim Loot Bundles |
| Slay Monsters | Medium | Slay monsters (swarm mobs don't count) |
| Slay the Warden | Extreme | Kill a Warden (group credit) |
| Unlock Resource Vaults | Medium | Unlock all resource vaults. |
Your progress persists across deaths and re-entries within the cycle. If you escape but can't grab your rewards right away, they'll be waiting next time you visit the loot room.
Here's what can come out of the Deep Dark, by source.
Loot Bundles
-
Deep Dark Vault Keys (4 per cycle, from your regular caches only)
- Echo Shards
- Reinforced Deepslate
- Music Disc 5
- Enchanted Books: Mending, Swift Sneak
- Ward and
Silence Armor Trim Smithing Templates
- Power Shards and
XP Bottles
- Gunpowder
Blaze Powder
Ghast Tears
Ender Pearls
Glowstone Dust
Glistering Melon
- Bones
String
Spider Eyes
Slimeballs
- Ancient Ingots
Objective reward bundles (escape room)
- Totems of Undying
- Power Shard Cores
- Recall Stones
- Enchanted Books: Mending, Swift Sneak
- Ward and
Silence Armor Trim Smithing Templates
- Echo Shards
Disc Fragments
Sculk Sensors
Sculk Shriekers
Resource Vaults
- Amethyst Vault: Amethyst Shards
Amethyst Blocks
Budding Amethyst
and buds
- Archaeology Vault: Suspicious Sand
Suspicious Gravel
Calcite. Suspicious blocks can be
brushed on the spot, or dug up and carried home to brush later. They hold Loka's own archaeology finds:
Pottery Sherds,
Dune and
Wayfinder Armor Trim Smithing Templates,
ingots, Amethyst, Strange Motes and the occasional Recall Stone.
- Dripstone Vault: Dripstone Blocks
Pointed Dripstone
Granite
- Sculk Vault: Sculk (XP, or the block with Silk Touch)
- 3 Epic Sculk-themed helms - the same creeping sculk growths the dungeon's monsters wear, in increasing stages of infestation. Wear the dark, become the dark.
- Legendary Warden Horns - the horns of the Deep Dark Warden itself. Only one way to get those...
While fairly exhaustive, this is our first dungeon and so there is likely to be a fair amount of tweaking loot as we feel out how this works.
Wondering what all those
- Craft Echo Shard over
Stick over
Feather for 4 Sonic Arrows.
- Deals normal arrow damage based on your draw, and your bow's Power, Flame and Punch enchants all still apply.
- No crits - the trade for never missing.
The Deep Dark ships with its own achievement category: ~40 achievements to earn, covering escapes, swarms, Wardens, vault doors and loot runs.
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