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RuneScoop.com  >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide for RuneScape       >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering            >  The RuneScoop Ultimate Skill Guide - Dungeoneering - Strategy and Trade-off Analysis

The Speed Versus XP Trade-Off and “Rushing” Specific Floor Completion Strategies

Players primarily influence how Dungeoneering works by their choice of floor parameters. Changing the floor size, team size, difficulty level and complexity have a major impact on how much work is involved in assembling a team, how long it takes to do a floor, how difficult it is to get it done, how tough the boss is, how much XP is gained at the end, and more.

I explain all of these parameters, what options are available for them, and the pros and cons of each in my overview sections on Dungeoneering concepts and floor features. I’ll now get down to brass tacks by giving you my thoughts on these parameters and how to best use them for efficient training.

You can play small, medium or large dungeons, which are based on 4x4, 4x8 and 8x8 room grids, respectively. The main trade-offs here are related to speed, complexity, XP awards, and the relationship to team size; I get into these in detail in my overview of the topic.

To briefly summarize the key pros and cons:

• Team Requirements: You must have at least 4 players to do large floors, and at least 2 for medium floors. Soloers can only do small floors.
  
  
• Difficulty: Small floors are simpler and easier. Large floors are complex and more demanding of good strategy. Medium floors are in the middle.
  
  
• Overhead: Doing large floors means spending a larger percentage of your time actually Dungeoneering; small floors means a lot of time is wasted “churning”, by which I mean entering and leaving dungeons, making teams (if not soloing) and so forth.
  
  
• Bosses: Large floors have tough bosses, but you fight them infrequently. Small floors have easier bosses but you spend a greater percentage of your time in the boss room.
  
  
• Enjoyment: Many players find large dungeons more enjoyable than small ones because there is more to do. On the other hand, some players find the need to coordinate and work with 3 or 4 other players aggravating.
  
  
• Resources: Large floors have the most resources for those who like to make things; small floors have the least.
  
  
• Experience: Large floors give the best XP, not only because you spend more time in the dungeon itself, but because you receive a much higher base XP and better bonus modifiers.

As always, the choice depends on your priorities, but there are a few well-established patterns that have developed since Dungeoneering was released.

First, and obviously, players who only solo will only play small floors.

Most players use a hybrid approach to training. They use small maps for the low-numbered floors to get through them quickly, and large maps for the high-numbered floors, to get maximum XP for these floors where XP potential is highest. Medium-sized maps are sometimes used for the “in between” floors.

Often players just go straight from small to large because not many teams do medium maps. But medium floors can be a very nice compromise between the tedium of small maps and the complexity of large ones. They are often used by duos or trios of friends (as opposed to teams assembled by recruitment) and make for an enjoyable experience with decent XP.

The matter of what size team to use comes down to one major trade-off and one matter of personal preference. The trade-off is between convenience and XP; the preference issue relates to enjoyment.

Small teams are more convenient and offer greater flexibility than large ones. Solo play means you can do a dungeon any time you want, and you can always do whichever floors you need to complete on your current prestige run without worrying about anyone else. A small team of 2 or 3 players reduces flexibility, because you need to recruit teammates or coordinate schedules with friends, and find common floors to do. Large teams of 4 or 5 make this worse, and also often require a lengthy time commitment.

The flip side is that soloing gives by far the worst XP in the game. You can get effectively double the XP rate in a team of 5 that you can playing by yourself. This is the payoff for the inconvenience of assembling a team.

As for enjoyment, this is largely personal taste. Some players really have fun playing with teams, especially if they have friends they go into dungeons with routinely. Other players detest teams, finding the need to constantly recruit teammates and deal with the occasional (but inevitable) idiot a real annoyance. On the other hand, certain players find solo play relaxing, while others find it boring as hell.

If you prefer playing in a team, you should always do teams, for their XP benefits.

If you enjoy soloing and dislike teams, but are willing to put up with them for high XP, then I recommend using my solo “snake eyes” method on floors from 1 to 25-30, and then doing teams on large maps for the deep floors. Also consider trying to find a friend to duo some of the floors with instead of soloing them, as you might enjoy this more than a typical big team, and you’ll get more experience.

If you absolutely hate teams and will not be in one under any circumstances, then obviously you will solo. You should probably use a limited rush method for the lowest floors, and then fully explore the higher numbered floors to maximize XP.

Lowering the difficulty level is only possible in teams. It reduces the XP you get, but also make doing the dungeon faster, and reduces the chances of not being able to finish the floor if someone leaves.

If you’re soloing, obviously this is irrelevant.

For teams of two or three, you are usually best off in most cases to leave the difficulty at its nominal setting (2:2 or 3:3). These maps aren’t generally too difficult to begin with, and reducing the difficulty lowers XP a fair bit. You also shouldn’t have to worry too much about someone leaving in the middle.

Large teams are where difficulty gets more complicated. First, if you are using a “rush” method on lower-numbered floors to get through them quickly, definitely consider lowering the difficulty: a setting of 5:3 as opposed to 5:5 (or 4:2 instead of 4:4) will only slightly reduce XP but greatly speed up completing the floors.

For larger floors, most players prefer to stick with 5:5 difficulty, because they are trying to get the most XP for the dungeon. This is what you’ll most often see advertised; if a team leader doesn’t specify a difficulty on a party doing a floor numbered 25 or higher, it’s usually safe to assume it’s 5:5.

I personally prefer large dungeons on 5:4 difficulty. They give a little less XP, but there are some real advantages: the dungeon is easier; there is less risk of death; you don’t get the truly nasty bosses; you can have someone leave and not get stuck on a challenge room like Follow the Leader; and you can do such challenges without needing all 5 players in the room.

The problem is that I have a hard time finding others to do 5:4 floors. Even though most players readily give up XP bonus by skipping monsters in dead end rooms, they view the lowered difficulty as costing them too much experience. So I often have to do 5:5 anyway.

Finally, don’t lower the difficulty level if you have mixed combat levels and the game warns you about an unbalanced team penalty: it can be excessive.

This one is actually pretty easy. Because of the enormous penalties imposed on complexity levels 1 to 5, you should always use complexity 6. In fact, this is so standard that nobody even bothers to advertise “complexity 6” when recruiting teams.

The only exception to this rule is when blasting through low-numbered floors using “snake eyes”.

The Speed Versus XP Trade-Off and “Rushing” Specific Floor Completion Strategies