Minecraft Dungeons Catch-all

Jonman wrote:

So I played this on PC courtesy of Game Pass, then picked it up on Switch to play with the fam.

It seems to chug quite a lot on the Switch, where it was butter-smooth on PC. Anyone else noticing that?

There were some reviews regarding switch docked performances getting FPS stutter and lower frame-rate. Likely just an optimization issue that can be patched later on. Games using Unreal Engine, in my personal experience, have always required some sort of optimization in a v1.1 patch to sort out smoothly.

Just picked up the game on switch and going to try it out with my gaming-lite SO. Excited to see how she reacts as this will be her first exposure to dungeon crawling games.

Double posted for some reason

FPS and resolution explained on every console by the experts over at DF.

TL;DW: Inconsistent 30fps on base consoles and Switch. Smooth-ish 60fps on PS4 Pro and Xbone X.

For those of you wondering about Switch performance jump to the 8:25 mark in the video for a breakdown. That frame pacing is pretty bad but can probably be fixed when they spend time optimizing or allow the resolution to vary more.

It's a little sad/funny that my kids are playing Dungeons co-op on a big 4k TV using my old day one Xbone at 1080p 30fps while I'm using the Xbone X (at 4k 60fps) but I'm streaming it to a tablet with a 10" 768p screen. When the Xbox Series X arrives I'm moving my Xbone X to my kids living room which will be a nice upgrade for them and finally let them take advantage of that 4k TV.

In comparison when I first tried it on PC I was playing at 1440p 144fps butter smooth on a 144hz freesync monitor and it was really nice. Going to any console from that is painful but without cross-system co-op there is zero reason for me to play on PC. Even 1080p 60fps on a basic PC would be a big step up from the base model consoles.

I read that Dungeons has undocumented Xbox-PC crossplay. Haven't tried it, as it's got couch co-op.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I read that Dungeons has undocumented Xbox-PC crossplay. Haven't tried it, as it's got couch co-op.

I tried that but couldn't get it to work. How did they manage it?

My Windows 10 character doesn't transfer between computers either so I guess there are no cloud saves on PC. Hopefully when they polish this and get crossplay working they also let my Xbox character transfer to PC.

One thing I realized today is that if my kids are both playing on the Xbone they have to be in offline mode and I can't join as a third from my other Xbone. Previously I'd always joined while only 1 of them was playing in online mode. So 3 players can't play on 2 consoles together and must all play on one.

Really? There's no simultaneous online and couch co-op? That's nuts!

You do have their console set to the Home Xbox, right? Sorry for asking such a basic question, I'm sincerely trying to help!

Edit: As for crossplay, apparently you have to glitch into it: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-p...

Supposedly true crossplay is coming.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Really? There's no simultaneous online and couch co-op? That's nuts!

You do have their console set to the Home Xbox, right? Sorry for asking such a basic question, I'm sincerely trying to help!

Edit: As for crossplay, apparently you have to glitch into it: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-p...

Supposedly true crossplay is coming.

Yeah their Xbone is set as home console.

They have said crossplay is coming but haven’t specified exactly how. The devil will be in the details. If they don’t allow cross system saves I might not want to restart my character on PC. If they don’t allow simultaneous online/couch co-op I wouldn't be able to join when both kids are playing on the Xbox anyways.

I am thoroughly enjoying this game. I typically play at a difficulty 4-7 power levels higher than my current level as it's fun to have a challenge and it keeps me on my toes.

However...

The boss balancing in this game is whack.

I'm not even talking mini-bosses like the Enderman or Evoker's, those are fine. It's the BOSS bosses that are just flat out broken. Spawning 20-50 mobs to attack you while fighting the boss is hot garbage.

I could live with all of that, if it wasn't for the tire fire that is the last boss. Karnak and I got to the final boss and 15 minutes of pretty challenging mob and mini boss fights with the Redstone Golems, the Arch-Illager fight is stupid and unfair in the worst way that takes what is an awesome little game that does some really cool things and leaves a horrific stain of stink on it. Ugh. The problem too is we were doing the recommended power level which is right at our current level of 26. There's literally no way to make it easier. Going to bed frustrated after having a whole lot of fun earlier in the day.

Boss fights are sh*t. Make your games better, it's 2020. I wanted to play chill Minecraft-Diablo, not Darksouls.

The Arch-Illager battle sucked the first time; the second time, one guy kited him, and he was arrowed away. Then we discovered you could drop the domed shield, which totally blocks his death beams. Should be easy from now on.

This game has a number of glaring bad design decisions where someone had to look at the choices available and actively make a bad one. However, I do believe they can be easily fixed. It's just baffling that they made them poorly the first time. The fact that only one person can be in their inventory at a time in a four-player couch co-op game astounds me, for example.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

The fact that only one person can be in their inventory at a time in a four-player couch co-op game astounds me, for example.

This. Particularly as there's an enormous amount of screen real-estate going unused in the inventory.

I don't want to like, beat up the devs, but I would be fascinated by a post-mortem with the design team where we'd find out how that and other poor choices ended up in the shipping product. I tend to assume, uncharitably, that the leader is not suited for that role, and that some poor soul(s) underneath them were trying to raise the issue and being ignored.

I do get that teams can simply run out of time, and if that's the only answer, then the post-mortem would be pretty boring. But there are some poor decisions that didn't require any more time than a better decision would have, like shipping with more than one difficulty available.

I expect they were told they couldn't delay release a second time and cut whatever polish and re-design they could to hit that date

In what may be an unpopular opinion, I think this is actually really good at release, and, knowing how Minecraft is continually enhanced and supported, I'm curious to see where it goes. I'm finding that getting the right artifacts and enhancements to make more effective builds is really interesting and adds a lot, and the ghost arrow artifact along with a bow with Gravity and Growing means you fire a giant glowing beam of death through walls that sucks people into its line of effect. I'm having a genuinely good time with this one.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

In what may be an unpopular opinion, I think this is actually really good at release, and, knowing how Minecraft is continually enhanced and supported, I'm curious to see where it goes.

I agree with you. I have my complaints but they aren’t stopping me from having fun playing a game with my kids which is exactly what I was looking for.

IMAGE(https://assets.penny-arcade.com/comics/qb7lta-u3ox1PG7c.jpg)
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic

My son 9 and I are enjoying the hell out of this. Is it perfect? No, but it's a great intro to loot dungeon crawling for him. We are just trying to beat the final boss, it's no joke!

El-Producto wrote:

My son 9 and I are enjoying the hell out of this. Is it perfect? No, but it's a great intro to loot dungeon crawling for him. We are just trying to beat the final boss, it's no joke!

Ditto, I'm enjoying it more every time I play. My almost 5 year old daughter has really got into Minecraft lately and she really wanted to play this so now I'm running dungeons with her and my 7 year old. Best gaming experience of my life. And I've levelled enough now that my kids are amazed I can be the "great Dad protector" for them when things get a bit sticky.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

...the ghost arrow artifact along with a bow with Gravity and Growing means you fire a giant glowing beam of death through walls that sucks people into its line of effect. I'm having a genuinely good time with this one.

Ooh, can't wait to try this!

Got excited hearing there are 5 hidden levels on the Conference Call this week. I never felt the need to explore much because there just seemed to be chests of gems at the end of most paths. If there was something more meaningful sometimes I probably would've discovered some of them myself.

I found one of them it has high mob density and lots of chests so good for farming emeralds.

Just finished the last boss, beat it by fluke with a more unique powerful crossbow that dropped during the run.

Seems more weapons and mobs open up after you beat the game once. A bit disappointed enchanted mobs don't drop loot.

Anyone else experiencing crashes left and right when playing online? This game seemed very solid on release, but the last few days online play has been impossible, as it seems to crash every level. Playing local haven't had any issues.

My family finally played our second session last night. We hit a hell of a wall when we reached the Cauldron boss fight. That thing is no joke and we used up all our respawns. I assume we keep all our XP and gear and will eventually be powerful enough to clear it.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

My family finally played our second session last night. We hit a hell of a wall when we reached the Cauldron boss fight. That thing is no joke and we used up all our respawns. I assume we keep all our XP and gear and will eventually be powerful enough to clear it.

Seriously. The increase in difficulty for that boss and for the final boss (I think) were ridiculous. We managed to beat the cauldron boss on our first attempt, but it was with me barking out orders and being ridiculously conservative and taking forever to arrow it down.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Anyone else experiencing crashes left and right when playing online? This game seemed very solid on release, but the last few days online play has been impossible, as it seems to crash every level. Playing local haven't had any issues.

Yeah, ran into the same issue the last couple days. Played through once and it was fine. Started through a second time and it crashes for me and a friend who were playing co-op online ever level.

pandasuit wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

In what may be an unpopular opinion, I think this is actually really good at release, and, knowing how Minecraft is continually enhanced and supported, I'm curious to see where it goes.

I agree with you. I have my complaints but they aren’t stopping me from having fun playing a game with my kids which is exactly what I was looking for.

IMAGE(https://assets.penny-arcade.com/comics/qb7lta-u3ox1PG7c.jpg)
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic

I agree. This was a perfect game for me and my 4 year old son. It's simple enough for him to grasp easily and just deep enough to keep me interested.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

The Arch-Illager battle sucked the first time; the second time, one guy kited him, and he was arrowed away. Then we discovered you could drop the domed shield, which totally blocks his death beams. Should be easy from now on.

Yea the dome shield is awesome for that fight.

I've had a blast with Minecraft Dungeons, so I'm a bit surprised to see the disappointment here. For me, it has solved two things that are often a problem with ARPGs.

1) They often take bizarrely long to become fun. From Path of Exile to Diablo 3 to Grim Dawn, you often need to invest 5-10 hours before you gain any good spells or items and really start having a blast. Dungeons starts throwing you fun items much more quickly.

2) There's less build stagnation. In most ARPGs, you're often working up until your build is great, but then once that happens, gameplay can start to become boring since it won't really change again. You can't just settle into a build in Dungeons, though, so you're often having to try to theorize a new build.

I'm not sure the boss balance is wrong, so much as terribly communicated. What I came to think is that whenever you run into a wall, you need to go back and tweak your build, likely by re-running some prior dungeons for the gear you're seeking. But, the game doesn't tell you that. Instead you run into a horribly tough boss and die very quickly. I think it's a good gameplay loop but perhaps not what the game initially bills itself as, because the first five levels are a cakewalk.

Jungle Awakens drops today, good timing cos my son and I just knocked off the Arch-Illager and I'm a little bored with grinding the old levels.

Anyone know if the expansions are included in Game Pass?

malking wrote:

Jungle Awakens drops today, good timing cos my son and I just knocked off the Arch-Illager and I'm a little bored with grinding the old levels.

Anyone know if the expansions are included in Game Pass?

Is this DLC part of the gamepass subscription??

Sonrics wrote:
malking wrote:

Jungle Awakens drops today, good timing cos my son and I just knocked off the Arch-Illager and I'm a little bored with grinding the old levels.

Anyone know if the expansions are included in Game Pass?

Is this DLC part of the gamepass subscription??

I can't confirm yet. When I click on it in game on Xbox it sends me to the Xbox store where I get an error. Possibly it isn't actually available yet.

pandasuit wrote:
Sonrics wrote:
malking wrote:

Jungle Awakens drops today, good timing cos my son and I just knocked off the Arch-Illager and I'm a little bored with grinding the old levels.

Anyone know if the expansions are included in Game Pass?

Is this DLC part of the gamepass subscription??

I can't confirm yet. When I click on it in game on Xbox it sends me to the Xbox store where I get an error. Possibly it isn't actually available yet.

I thought they'd said the game pass version wouldn't include the dlc, but I might be misremembering.

Can confirm the DLC isn’t included with Game Pass. But if you’re planning on picking up the Winter DLC coming soon as well you can save a couple bucks by getting the Hero edition upgrade instead.