I’v spent so many hours in dungeons of Baldur’s Gates, Pillars of Eternity and other similiar games… so i can’t say, that i hate them. When i get to repetitive content (many floors of dungeons, 3 items on opossite sides of map to open gate to next level and so on), i want atleast a challenge, loot that will make my favorite character better, maybe some puzzles and interesting boss in the end. I think it has to do with fighting system and maybe party system. It’s more about controlling group and big group fights, overcoming an army of enemies, it’s fun.
Long, solo dungeons. Well, you can’t fight an army, u fight many smaller battles in many rooms… by yourself. It seems, just by logic, that you can’t have dungeons like that going for too long. We are talking about story driven games, not action RPGs. Diablo 3 is different and people will mindlessly run through levels and collect shiny items, while watching something on their other screen, which is cleraly not case of this game.
When i played Skyrim or Fallout 3/NW, i didn’t really care about levels, how many exps i get for certain activities. I just leveled what i wanted, went where i wanted and did what i wanted. In those worlds, i didn’t feel restricted to 1 location and need to finish it before moving on (like in Dragon age: Inquisition - i felt so forced to stay in those maps and do stuff and in the end, i overleveled and had grindy and boring experience in the next ones, even on highest diff). If i don’t feel forced to stay in location until finished, i probably won’t mid anything, because i can just move on.
If i like fighting system (doesn’t matter if party or solo), i’d probably play 4 hour dungeon with no problem. I’m not sure if it’s going to be the greatest thing that i did that day… If it’s tied to maybe some npc, companion npc i like or interesting quest and you give me something in the end and i feel satisfied, fine. The outside events after this “chore” might feel even better and more refreshing now.
For the poll - i voted for filler, waste of time, longer doesn’t mean better (also known as Dan Vavra’s Choice).
I’d probably add after the “longer doesnt always mean better”, that if im interested in the game and games gameplay or character/s - i will crawl through dungeon for 4 hours no problem.
For KCD, i’d rather have satisfied feeling of great game and be little sad that it’s over bit too soon (30h instead of 60h) than have the experience watered down by fillers.