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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 - Core Concepts

Daemonheim, Floors and Themes The Ring of Kinship and the Dungeoneering Party Interface

As mentioned in the overview of raiding, Dungeoneering is designed on the basis of dungeon floors that are explored by a team of players, often called parties. A party can have anywhere from 1 to 5 players in it. While the overall process of raiding remains the same for all party sizes, the details of what you find in the dungeon floor changes substantially based on the number of players in the party, as well as their combat prowess and skill levels.

Solo play just means playing with a team of one: yourself. This can be done simply by forming a party using the ring of kinship and then entering the dungeon without inviting anyone else to join you.

The main advantages of solo play are simplicity, freedom and flexibility. Specifically:

• You can play when you want, for as long as you want, without having to coordinate schedules with friends, or take a chance on playing with strangers. It’s easy to log in quickly to do a floor when you have 20 minutes of time to spare.
  
  
• You can play how you want, without having to deal with conflicts between yourself and other players. You don’t have to deal with players who are in a big rush, or those who want to take an hour to do a floor, or those who make decisions that knock down the XP earned.
  
  
• There’s no need to worry about finding a common “undone” floor among a party of players, to ensure that nobody takes a prestige penalty for repeating a floor.
  
  
• You won’t get stuck if a teammate suddenly leaves in the middle of a floor.
  
  
• All of the resources on a floor are available for your exclusive use.
  
  
• Since you are handling all of the keys, there’s no confusion related to figuring out who picked up what.
  
  
• Some of the puzzles and bosses are significantly easier when playing solo.

The major drawbacks of solo play have to do with the restrictions imposed on solo players by the design of Dungeoneering:

• As a solo player, you are restricted to only small (4x4) floor maps. (The knowledge base says solo players are supposed to be able to play medium sized maps, but they cannot).
  
  
• Solo players have a fixed difficulty level of 1.
  
  
• Solo players generally earn less XP than teams (in part because of the ability of teams to play bigger maps and at higher difficulty levels). This reduction of XP can be very significant for the deeper floors, where a team of 5 can earn 2 or 3 times as much XP per hour as a solo player.
  
  
• You won’t have teammates to help out if you need a skill level higher than you possess to do a puzzle or open a door.
  
  
• Some players get lonely when doing dungeons on their own.

Overall, solo play is ideal for independent-minded players, those who have little time to play RuneScape, and those who don’t want to rush through the skill. It is more relaxed and simpler than group play, but you lose the ability to get the really big XP rewards that come from a large team on a big floor.

When you form a party of 2 to 5 players, you will be engaging in team play upon entering the dungeon. Team dungeons are not just solo dungeons with more and higher level monsters in them: they change in a number of important ways.

The most important advantages of team play are expanded capabilities, synergy between players, faster training speed and interaction:

• As a team, you have access to medium sized (for teams of 2 to 5) and large floors (for teams of 4 or 5). This allows you to take advantage of the many benefits of larger dungeon floors.
  
  
• You are more likely to find resources that you need to make good quality armor and weapons, or to get them as drops.
  
  
• You get more equipment and supplies in the starting room.
  
  
• Players can exploit each other’s strengths, so if one player has high Smithing he can make armor and weapons, while if another has high Runecrafting, she can make runes and staves.
  
  
• If you enjoy playing with others, the game is much more interactive and interesting in a team.
  
  
• A good team usually gets more XP than if its players went solo.

The drawbacks of team play are mostly related to complexity and coordination difficulties:

• You have to find common times when all team members are available. This may be easy for a bunch of teens who get together frequently “in real life” and play RuneScape a lot, or college roommates, but can be extremely difficult for adult players and those who are otherwise busy with other things much of the time.
  
  
• You have to coordinate uncompleted floors, to avoid having some players need to repeat floors (leading to huge XP penalties).
  
  
• Coordination within the dungeon floor can be an issue; you need to decide who will do what, ensure that party members can find each other, and choose how to split up resources.
  
  
• There is a substantial risk of conflict between players, unless they know each other very well. Potential areas of concern include dungeon settings, exploration strategy, key handling, how much of the dungeon to explore, which monsters to kill, and how to deal with the boss.
  
  
• If you get onto a floor with a team of players who are selfish or incompetent, the raid can become a nightmare very quickly. There are players who think it’s perfectly fine to stand around chopping branches while everyone else deals with the monsters. Conversely, you can also get players utterly obssessed with going as fast as humanly possible, who keep rushing teammates to the point of expecting them to go into the boss room unprepared.
  
  
• Players leaving mid dungeon can cause leave those who remain in a lurch.
  
  
• Some of the bosses are significantly more difficult in teams than they are for solo players.

Team play works best with small groups of friends who know each other well and have plenty of time to play. Ideally, they will coordinate both their schedules and their prestige resets to ensure compatibility, and get into a “groove” over time where everyone knows what to do automatically.

I do not recommend teaming up with random players unless you have a lot of patience or a high pain threshold. I’ve done this extensively and even with high-level players, you are going to frequently get at least one jerk or clueless twit out of four.

Daemonheim, Floors and Themes The Ring of Kinship and the Dungeoneering Party Interface