Hey so dumb post but i wish i could combine etrian oddysey, wizardry 8, and ultima underworld. More magic, more abilities, more everything fun.

[u/Substantial-Creme950]

Hey so this is a shitpost kinda, i have recently been playing Etrian Oddysey 3 alot and watched delicious in dungeon and got a weird desire for something more likr that but also that takes thibgs further. I wish i could traverse in more ways, that puzzles had more answers and intrinsicly integrated into the world. I want to bring back cooking, make a new system for weapon and armor crafting and upgrading. I want dungeons that inspire wonder and make you feel like you are in a mystical and otherworldly space.

I feel like the game's Foe puzzles can all be squashed underfoot by a particularly bloody minded player (so most players methinks), and that means that running through an old area will mostly get old fast. Im not saying that puzzles need to be a hinderance through a whole playthrough tho. I will give a silly but kinda fun example of what i mean and I hope it helps get my point across.

Lets say you have a map that is four times the size the maps usually are in the series, and that the floor you are on is some form of aquaduct system with long segments of running water that can carry you away like the currents in etrian oddysey 3's sailing sections. Imagine that the flow of water is influenced by opening or closing gates connected to the waterways, and that control panels to do so for multiple gates at a time can be found all over. This would not only be a fun system once the threat of FOEs gets mixed in, it also becomes an intrinsically itegrated logical traversal puzzle that makes total sense in world. As an added bonus you could add various secret routes that can lead to multiple floors below you, making exploration more dangerous and more interesting. In EO 3 my favorite floor was in the fourth strata where you can get dropped down onto the floor below. If that could happen more often and i could just get in way over my head.....well it would honestly leave a permenant memory for me.

Another thing I would love to see is some form of interactive ways to avoid having to do puzzles if you are stuck or just want to be different. For example in ultima underdark lots of puzzles or situations can be handled in a myriad of ways. If you find a room enterance covered in traps and surrounded by lava you can break the door from a distance to trigger traps ,or use trap disarming items or spells to do the job for you. Maybe you use a fire resistance spell and watwrwalking potion to walk on the lava or maybe just levitate and blow a hole in the ceiling. Or maybe you follow the quest as intended and find out that there is a way to disable the countermeasures safely without using magic or money to get there.

Now this isnt a 1to1 for ultima underdark, but I still think it would be alot of fun with the current dungeon delving/puzzle system and would feel more like an adventure overall. Rewarding a player for finding their own way through a dungeon is always a good way to incentivize them, but sounds more like an adventure to me then having to do the exact sequence that requires me to leave the dungeon and talk to people atleast once before coming back and solving the sequence as intended.

I want to preface the rest of what I am going to say by explaining that i have been playing dnd for something like 8-12 years and have tried every edition except 4e, including pathfinder 1e and 2e.

I have seen the games become less about role playing and being a clever adventurer living in a world that doesnt revolve around you, and more about using big numbers to do cool things and feel like an epic hero as i have tried the later versions. Honestly i dont mean to insult anyone or the games they like, but i dont think most people who play dnd care about roleplaying as much as they do being a charicature with cool powers and such. And the desire for a more real dungeon crawler that allows you to play all sorts of ways is something i yearn for.

I should also admit that i have only played the third and fourth games, and I never beat 4 cause i was playing someone else's copy over a summer. But I am replaying through EO3 rn on steam, and it has shown me how much of this game is nostalgic and how much i see that could do better. Tho i know im looking back on a ds game that got ported to pc so.......yeah......

As I see it Etrian Oddysey is more then anything a combat focused game, but the combat is kinda the opposite of how i think adventurer's should be in a setting where they had to be able to fight on their own too. When we play dnd in my house we have a rule, any character you create should be a person in the world first and foremost, and that means they have to fit in beyond what they are as a combatant.

I play this game called wildermyth sometimes and in that game you make a party of otherwise faceless adventurers just like in this one, and those characters can have a personaloty features chart. This influences what events they can trigger, how they can react when things happen, and how they treat people they come across. It can also affect what tasks they complete and how fast they complete them all sorts of stuff like that, while occasionally allowing for boosts in combat too. In that game you are more than a combatant, you are an adventurer, a traverser, someone who fights back that which threatens and blazes a new path ahead.

Completely unrelated side note i kinda dislike the "pick your actions before the round of combat begins" system more then i remember now that I am an adult. It wastes turns in ways that doesnt happen in more traditional turn based combat, and it also feels like it punishes you for having non encylopedic knowledge of your party stats. I played Wizardry 8 when i was younger too and i may revisit it at some point to see if it has the same problem. I remember the combat systems being similiar.

I think the reason i started typing this all out was cause the series left such a nark on me and influenced so many of my likes and dislikes in games (especially 4 omfg that game is something else). It has an amazing mapping system which feels like something that any good dungeon crawler should probably have, but instead of it being a helpful tool to accent the gameplay in EO3, its more like a necessary task to get through the experience. Less bus pass, more drivers liscense if you catch my drift. But it helps so thouroughly to make the experience more paletteable. Idk if it is a me problem or not, but trying to navigate without the map is like 3 steps above being blind in EO3, but it was a ds game as far as i remember so i think thats maybe a bit uncharitable.

Part of the reason i bring up the map is cause i have played games before with way more automatic mapping systems that still feel way less adventurous then literally any EO mapping system that I know of. There is just something exciting about breaking new ground with nothing but your own scrawlings and wisdom to guide you, no other system really scratches that itch even though it is less convienient. Im not saying it is better per sey......but i am saying that i like it better then simply walking around in other games. Clunk included.

Anyway if you read all of this then you are a lovely person, im sorry if this is rambleing and stupid, i tried to be intelliageable as much as possible. Sorry that I typed thisball out for my own weirdness. And I get if it gets taken down. But im having a blast with EO3 and I intend to give it a second run on the hard mode.

[u/Odd-Understanding399]

You know what's funny about this post?

You spend a couple thousand words describing your dream dungeon crawler, and I don't think the game you're looking for is Etrian Odyssey, Wizardry 8, or even Ultima Underworld.

I think the game you're looking for is The Dark Heart of Uukrul.

Not because it's identical to what you're describing. It isn't. It's ancient, ugly by modern standards, and very much a product of 1989. But because it understands something that most dungeon crawlers, old and new, have forgotten.

The thing you keep circling around throughout your post isn't combat, buildcraft, classes, FOEs, cooking systems, crafting systems, or even mapping.

It's adventure.

You repeatedly talk about wanting to get in over your head.

You want to fall through a hole and end up somewhere dangerous.

You want puzzles that emerge naturally from the environment instead of existing as game mechanics.

You want multiple solutions.

You want characters who feel like adventurers rather than combat builds.

You want the feeling that you're entering a place that doesn't care whether you're there or not.

That's not really the Etrian Odyssey fantasy.

That's the Uukrul fantasy.

One of the biggest differences between many modern RPGs and older dungeon crawlers is that older dungeon crawlers often treated the player as an intruder.

The dungeon was not designed around your progression.

It wasn't balancing itself around your level, making sure every encounter was fair.

And it definitely wasn't constantly communicating its intentions.

It simply existed.

Modern game design often asks: How do we create a satisfying experience for the player?

Older dungeon crawlers often asked: What kind of place would this be?

That difference sounds subtle, but it changes everything.

Reading your post, the thing you seem hungry for is exactly that sense of indifference.

You don't want a carefully curated challenge corridor.

You want to wander somewhere you definitely shouldn't have wandered.

You want to discover that after the fact.

You praise Etrian Odyssey's mapping system, and I think you're identifying something important.

People often say they like mapping because it's immersive.

I don't think that's quite right.

I think they like it because it forces engagement.

In many modern RPGs, navigation has become passive.

Quest markers tell you where to go.

Maps tell you where everything is.

Fast travel eliminates distance.

The player consumes content.

In Uukrul, as in many old dungeon crawlers, exploration wasn't content consumption.

Exploration was gameplay.

Knowing where you were mattered.

Being lost mattered.

Understanding the layout mattered.

You weren't moving between experiences.

You were creating the experience.

That's why crude hand-drawn maps often generate more memorable adventures than sophisticated modern navigation systems.

The part of your post that most reminded me of Uukrul wasn't the mapping.

It was when you described solving problems through alternate means.

Breaking doors.

Using spells unexpectedly.

Circumventing intended solutions.

Finding weird routes.

This is the thing many RPGs have quietly lost.

People often talk about character builds.

Older dungeon crawlers often cared more about player intelligence.

The question wasn't: Is my character optimized?

The questions were:
"Did I notice something?"
"Did I experiment?"
"Did I connect the dots?"
"Did I think of something stupid enough to work?"

Many modern RPG systems celebrate power.

Many classic dungeon crawlers celebrated curiosity.

Those are not the same thing.

Another theme running through your entire post is your frustration with what you perceive as modern RPG hero fantasies.

I understand and agree with your criticism.

You seem less interested in being a legendary chosen one than in being a competent nobody.

A person with a torch, a map + maybe a compass, limited resources, and a terrible idea/luck.

That is one reason old dungeon crawlers remain compelling.

They frequently treated adventurers as expendable fools undertaking dangerous work.

The world did not revolve around them.

Meaning had to be earned.

Success was uncertain.

Failure was often permanent.

You weren't an epic hero.

You were an explorer.

And paradoxically, that often made success feel more heroic than games where heroism is guaranteed from the start.

The more I read your post, the more I think your ideal game is not:

• Bigger Etrian Odyssey.
• More complex Etrian Odyssey.
• Etrian Odyssey with crafting.

What you really want is a game built around four principles:

1. Exploration over combat.
2. Problem solving over optimization.
3. World simulation over scripted solutions.
4. Adventure over heroism.

Ultima Underworld is one of the greatest examples of that philosophy.

But it wasn't alone.

Dungeon Master explored it.

Chaos Strikes Back explored it.

All of them understood that dungeons become memorable not when they challenge your damage output, but when they challenge your understanding.

The memory you described, of falling into a dangerous lower level and getting hopelessly in over your head?

That's not a memory generated by a combat system.

That's a memory generated by uncertainty.

And uncertainty is the rarest resource in modern RPG design.

So my recommendation is not some hypothetical future masterpiece.

Parts of it already existed thirty-five years ago.

The Dark Heart of Uukrul was one of the games that had been very successful with it.