Designing a Well-Balanced Dungeon

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Shift! is a community project, meaning anybody can contribute in whatever way they would like. This includes creating and designing dungeons to make them unique apart from other dungeons and provide what is arguably the core gameplay aspect of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series.

In this article, I will emphasize the importance of balance when designing a dungeon, and provide guidelines when designing a dungeon. At best, your creation will be favored by the community and become a popular exploration site. At worst, the community may largely ignore the dungeon whether it is in favor of other ones or because design flaws have been found. No one can dictate what you do and how you do it, but this does not necessarily mean poor dungeon design is acceptable; I will be demonstrating how to reasonably design a dungeon.

Length - Time, Difficulty and Reward
Yikes, 30 floors. That would certainly take quite a bit of time to complete. When designing a dungeon, the length of it has a generally simple structure; the shorter the length, the easier the dungeon tends to be to explore, whereas the longer the length, the more difficult the dungeon is. You have to ask yourself, "what about this dungeon makes taking the time to explore 30 floors worth it?" Is there a rare Pokémon on the higher floors? Is the EXP gained throughout very strong?

What about the challenges you will face? Are all the Pokémon of particularly high level? Does the dungeon feature many Pokémon of many types? Are there many dangerous traps to overcome? Why should a person invest their time and effort to complete this dungeon?

A dungeon such as Dream Forest, which has 60 floors, is widely regarded as a favorable location as the dungeon appeals to a large range of levels throughout and is a prime training location for Fire-type Pokémon, a common type among players. At its end it also has the item Wonder Chest as a possible reward, which is considered to be very valuable. The EXP provided throughout is additionally very strong, making for an overall very good dungeon. These are some factors to consider when designing a particularly lengthy dungeon.

Items - Value & Relation to Dungeon
Oh my, those are some very good looking items Pi2z has there. Is that a Wonder Chest I see? And a TM Focus Blast? Oh, a Shiny Stone! ...Oh, but these items were found in a dungeon with an average level of 5. With 5 floors.

When designing a dungeon, the items you can find in it are a big part of its appeal. In a forest environment, you probably wouldn't expect to come across a TM Ice Beam or a Golden Seed just lying about everywhere, or even at all. Most dungeons will at least contain basic supplies such as Poké, Apples, Ethers, Leppa Berries, or Oran Berries, or otherwise some combination of them one way or another. Think of the environment your dungeon is set in; in a cold, icy climate, should there really be a Sun Stone or a Honey you could find inside? Of course, if you happen to develop a concept that actually makes this reasonable then you should present your resume to Nintendo and join the ranks.

On the other hand, not all dungeons should be made with some type of gain and value in mind; there is nothing particularly valuable in Canyon Strait, a simple Water- and Ground-type dungeon that carries little appeal other than Shards. You don't have to give a dungeon "unique" and "useful" items just to make it stand out. Besides, there are other purposes for dungeons to serve than being a place players will flock to, such as to serve as a place for the storyline or simply having some sort of gimmick (such as a dungeon designed to be unsanitary, thus finding sticky items often or Grimy Foods).

Item Spawn Rates - Abundance & Data
With items established in your dungeon, you will have to consider how often these items can appear. Word on the development street is that the smaller the list of items in the dungeon, the further apart their spawn rates can be, and the larger the list of items in the dungeon, the smaller apart their spawn rates should be. You need to consider how the item in question compares to the rest of them though. Prepare yourself, this next bit involves some math and you may be required to do some thinking.

In the Dungeon Editor's Structure, there is a minimum and maximum amount of items that can appear on each floor. For this scenario, we will assume that our minimum is 1 and the minimum is 3. We will also assume that there are 5 items that can appear; Apple at 50%, Ether at 45%, Oran Berry at 30%, Leppa Berry at 20%, and a Reviver Seed at 5%.

Imagine that the dungeon plays Russian Roulette to determine first how many items between 1 and 3 will spawn on our hypothetical floor. In our scenario, let's assume the dungeon rolls 3. 3 items are now going to appear on the floor.

Next, the dungeon plays another fine game of Russian Roulette to determine what items will appear. Apple is the first item, with a 50% chance to roll positively. If the Apple rolls a negative (meaning it is not chosen), then the dungeon tries to roll for the next item on the list, the Ether. Suppose the Ether, with its 45% chance to roll positively, does in fact roll positively. The Ether is therefore Item 1 and will appear on the floor.

Then, the dungeon moves onto Item 2. The same game of Russian Roulette is played, but this time beginning the roll with the next item on the list, the Oran Berry. Suppose the Oran Berry, with its 30% chance to roll positively, rolls negatively instead. The dungeon moves onto the next item on our list, the Leppa Berry. Suppose that the Leppa Berry, with its 20% chance to roll positively, rolls positively; Item 2 is now a Leppa Berry.

Finally, the dungeon moves onto Item 3 (the last spawned item on our hypothetical floor). The same game of Russian Roulette is played, now beginning the roll from the Reviver Seed. Suppose that the Reviver Seed, with its 5% chance to roll positively, rolls negatively. The dungeon starts the game of Russian Roulette over again to roll positively for an item to become Item 3, starting from the Apple as it was the first on the list. Suppose that the Apple, with its 50% chance to roll positively, does in fact roll positively.

Item 3 is now an Apple, and that makes the items that spawn on the floor in our hypothetical dungeon an Ether, a Leppa Berry, and an Apple. If necessary, review this information from the beginning of the scenario; it took me one day to learn this.

Because of how RNG works, it is entirely possible that, for example, this perfect situation does not happen and instead Items 1 and 2 out of 3 are filled by the Apple, simply because the Apple has that large of a chance (50%) to spawn repeatedly. You would ideally want your items to have a fair chance of spawning as otherwise an item may become so common that it overtakes the rarer item's chances to spawn, or the rarer items have a spawn rate so low compared to the other items that you may never see them.

My recommendation is that for smaller lists of items that can spawn, you use smaller larger spawn rates and for a larger list of items that can spawn, you use smaller spawn rates to give the rarer items a fair opportunity to be spawned (or rolled, if you understand this Russian Roulette style).

NPCs - Behavior, Capabilities and Gimmicks
Um, excuse me? Did the Battle Log just say that a Zubat used Precipice Blades? And are those Eevee? In a dark dungeon with a ground that looks like a hard ground surface?

When designing an NPC, it is entirely fine to keep things as expected; a Pikachu knowing moves like Thundershock, and not dropping any items when it is defeated. That's fine, really. If you'd like to spice things up however, you could give the Pikachu a move that would give it an advantage against a disadvantage, such as Iron Tail which it does not normally learn via level but instead would learn by TM or a tutor. This kind of design displays a unique challenge the NPC gives the player (such as the Pikachu hitting the player's Rock-type Pokémon with a super-effective move).

Not every Pokémon has to be given some kind of competitive makeover, and there are usually not much more than two or so Pokémon that know other kinds of learnable moves. Staravia in Justice Labyrinth for example know the move U-turn, which could potentially send it flying backwards into the darkness where you could no longer see it. Cubone in Canyon Strait know the move Perish Song, so while being level 5 as a rare recruitable Pokémon it could still very well spell doom for the player (or even itself should it become unlucky and the player does not act quickly). When it comes to the NPC's moves, I strongly recommend you set them to Auto by default unless the NPC in question is a boss or a Pokèmon you want in particular to stand out in the dungeon.

In my personal example, the vast majority of my NPC Pokémon will have at the least 3 auto-learned moves. This provides variety to the Pokémon, particularly at higher levels where Pikachu A may use Electro Ball while Pikachu B may use Double Team in there differing movesets. Setting too many Pokémon to have too many set moves will quickly become stale and predictable, and lose value as every other NPC like it would just be the same in every way barring level. And in a world where Pokémon have their own individual personalities, variety is a must.

The behavior of the NPCs is also an important detail. By default, the vast majority will attack the player on sight, but there are some cases where a Pokèmon can be designed to attack only under certain circumstances. The most basic is that of Attack Only When Attacked, where an NPC Pokémon will not pose a threat to a player unless the player in question attacks it. Lickitung in Tropical Path will mind their own business unless they are attacked, where the Lickitung individual that was attacked will begin to attack. When it comes to these kinds of Pokémon, I personally give them an advantage over the rest such as being of higher average level or having versatile moves; Arcanine in Justice Labyrinth are of higher level than other Pokémon there and know the move Close Combat, a powerful Fighting-type move that demonstrates its status as a formidable foe that should not be taken lightly.

NPC Pokémon can also be made to attack when another of its kind comes under attack, a behavior known as Guard. Pokémon known to travel in packs or groups could have this behavior, and will attack if another of its species comes under attack within its immediate sight. Ledian in Sunlight Lake will attack when attacked, but if there are any other Ledian nearby, then they too will attack. Such a swarm behavior is more of a gimmick than anything else, and can be used to further demonstrate a dungeon's environment. However, if the Pokémon happen to know a certain move, such as Ledian with Silver Wind, a group attack could quickly overwhelm a player and would thus encourage a player to think before unleashing a large scale move that could bring them an even bigger battle.