Who would be interested in a larger investment into developing 5 man content?

[Marsc92]

Providing it could be balanced to prevent conflicting too much with raid gear (this is a huge issue) would you guys actually enjoy 5 man content being:

Of a higher importance to the game

Having potentially additional levels of difficulty

Being further developed beyond the roster of 7-8 five man instances per xpac lately

[Stormspark]

They need to introduce Mythic 5-mans at the beginning of the second tier of raiding. This mode should be tuned to basically require full heroic dungeon gear, be harder than heroics, and drop gear that is just below (maybe 10-15 ilvls below) the current tier of raiding. Obviously the drops from this mode should increase as new tiers come out.

In addition to that, we need more dungeons added. And the new dungeons should be available as normal, heroic, and mythic. This would keep the drops constant across all dungeons, rather than say, the ICC heroics, where you would run those and NOTHING ELSE because the earlier dungeons became irrelevant. There should NEVER be a situation where only a small subset of the "current" dungeons provide relevant rewards. This happened very badly in patch 4.1 and 4.3, to where the total dungeon "pool" was either 2 or 3 dungeons because no others had relevant rewards.

[Dasani]

The problem with 5-man content is it is incredibly short.

So you get through it very quickly and get sick of it very quickly.

Even if you fully clear BRF every week, it's gonna take you a while to get sick of it unless you clear it like 3-4 times a week because it's long, there are diverse bosses, etc.

In a 5-man it's the same tiny 5-man with 3-4 bosses each and you get tired of it fast because you've done it a hundred times. Even if they added a mythic difficult that you could only run once a day or even once a week, it doesn't matter, because you've still done each dungeon a hundred times each in normal and heroic difficulties and are sick of doing them.

Some vanilla 5-mans were large, sprawling dungeons like BRD and sunken temple and they were a little more involved and entertaining. But blizzard has changed their stance on such large, expansive dungeons a long time ago and turned them into tiny, fast dungeons you just go in, spend 10 minutes in, and get out. Bite sized chunks of content for casuals.

It's why raiding is more fun and entertaining. More complicated mechanics, can't do it as often, and takes longer. 5-mans, even with extra difficulty just aren't as entertaining.

[RH92]

I never really did any PvE, but I would love if 5 man content was expanded into a scale of Raids.

The problem with Dungeons I have is bosses are simply boring, they have only few abilities with only one really significant you need to deal with. You also kill them pretty fast, it only takes around one minute to kill most of the bosses in WoD! If the bosses had multiple phases and took around 5 or more minutes to kill it would be much more epic.

I also don't like how small and linear the dungeons feel, there is only one path with 4 bosses. If there were multiple wings, it would again feel more epic. Those wings could actually be seperate instances, just like it was in Burning Crusade, not necessarily like Maraudon. The point is, it has to feel like a part of something bigger.

[mvaliz]

As of this writing, I'm so far glad the "more 5 mans/patches" is winning over "Mythic 5 mans".

Honestly I'm sick of multiple difficulties in raids... please don't spread that infection into 5 mans as well. 2 difficulties is already enough (and, lets face it, one of them isn't a difficulty as it's mid-leveling)

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The problem with 5-man content is it is incredibly short.

So you get through it very quickly and get sick of it very quickly.

Even if you fully clear BRF every week, it's gonna take you a while to get sick of it unless you clear it like 3-4 times a week because it's long, there are diverse bosses, etc.

The odd thing is, i don't seem to have that effect. I'm honestly tired of BRF, but do enjoy the dungeons when I queue on my tank. One of the things that helps this I believe is variety of location and mobs. I'm not just running through grungy Orc building #235 and facing off against Orc Grunt #341... I get Arakkoa in apexis architecture, Shadow council draenei in a Draenei Temple, a beautiful but mob-infested Forrest that ends with protecting stormwind, an ancient Orc Burial ground populated by animals and a handful of Shadow Council, and an ogre mining operation filled with Ogres and Ogron. This is, of course, in addition to Grimmrail, Iron Docs and UBRS - which are again Orc #451 slaughtering - but at least the three feel VASTLY different from eachother in esthetics (Outdoor speeding train, outdoor dockyard, indoor blackrock fort).

[Ballrug]

The problem with 5 man content is that it gets taken over by the CM/speedrun/currency-farming crowd, and Blizzard seems to have no interest in catering to players who just want some pixel dragons to kill while they chat with one another.

[Deleted]

As of this writing, I'm so far glad the "more 5 mans/patches" is winning over "Mythic 5 mans".

Honestly I'm sick of multiple difficulties in raids... please don't spread that infection into 5 mans as well. 2 difficulties is already enough (and, lets face it, one of them isn't a difficulty as it's mid-leveling)

It's not exactly "winning" as it's a multiple choice poll, we could easily have both more 5mans and another difficulty. As for whether one difficulty is enough or not, I'm not sure how that could be the case if we actually want them to be rewarding, especially if we want them to be relevant to people with raiding gear.

Steamrolling through content that you heavily outgear is not fun for anyone, you ignore the intended mechanics even more than before, you send in DPS tanks and DPS healers because the content isn't challenging enough, it's all about rushing through it with as little time as possible because clearly noone who plays this game actually has the time to play the game, they all have more important things that they should be doing but is for some reason still rolling through a dungeon that is way too easy for them.

If you enjoy steamrolling through dungeons then by all means only run the "heroic" difficulty. But how exactly would an additional difficulty above that hurt your experience?

[Deleted]

I just want more of them really. Oh, I also used to like farming them for rep with the tabards.

[Deleted]

I just want more of them really. Oh, I also used to like farming them for rep with the tabards.

Reputation through tabards kind of defeats the entire point of both tabards and reputation. Back in Wrath we even had people asking for an option to hide your tabard because they found it ugly and preferred another one, but still wanted the reputation with the faction they supposedly "represented".

[Whales96]

The amount won't matter if you go through them just as fast a you do now. It's a waste of time for that reason. They should just stop making 5 mans. That content is filled by lfr.

[Selah]

Dear God, please don't invest into 5-mans more. After the 8+ years I've played WoW and other games with the same type of content I'm sick to death of grinding away in 5 mans. Doesn't matter if you get extra shiny rewards from the hardest modes possible, it's just mind numbing. After you learn the instances it's all pretty boring. I'd much rather see those resources invested into open world content. I'm talking world events, zone events, random events, bounty hunter events. Something to get us out of 5 mans more.

[Deleted]

Dear God, please don't invest into 5-mans more. After the 8+ years I've played WoW and other games with the same type of content I'm sick to death of grinding away in 5 mans. Doesn't matter if you get extra shiny rewards from the hardest modes possible, it's just mind numbing. After you learn the instances it's all pretty boring. I'd much rather see those resources invested into open world content. I'm talking world events, zone events, random events, bounty hunter events. Something to get us out of 5 mans more.

My guess is people would either get bored of those even faster or not even bother with them to begin with. I tried such events in Warhammer Online, they were fun perhaps the first three or four times you did them, after that you noticed all of them were pretty much the exact same and it became really dull and boring.

But if you have any ideas for how to keep them entertaining, interesting, possibly challenging, rewarding even for people with raiding gear and not a complete grind or such that it leaves you feeling miserable because you feel the need to log in every ten minutes just to check if such an event is or isn't happening, then by all means shoot. (Dota tried the whole idea of having their Chinese new year celebration event occur at random times of the day, even though it only rewards purely cosmetic items there was pretty much an outrage from people feeling like they had to stay logged in at all times in order to not miss it. Chances are Blizzard would end up with the same thing.)

[Selah]

My guess is people would either get bored of those even faster or not even bother with them to begin with. I tried such events in Warhammer Online, they were fun perhaps the first three or four times you did them, after that you noticed all of them were pretty much the exact same and it became really dull and boring.

But if you have any ideas for how to keep them entertaining, interesting, possibly challenging, rewarding even for people with raiding gear and not a complete grind or such that it leaves you feeling miserable because you feel the need to log in every ten minutes just to check if such an event is or isn't happening, then by all means shoot. (Dota tried the whole idea of having their Chinese new year celebration event occur at random times of the day, even though it only rewards purely cosmetic items there was pretty much an outrage from people feeling like they had to stay logged in at all times in order to not miss it. Chances are Blizzard would end up with the same thing.)

Guild Wars 2 and Rift both have an excellent example of open world content. The only complaints I see on their forums are people wanting more.

[Shelly]

I'd rather they bring back scenarios for quick story/lore filled bits.

Then replace 5 mans completely with a "leveling LFR" where it has bracketed difficulty based on your level. Which then at max level you can gear up for a "heroic LFR" which would be equal to our current difficulty.

This way we'd get another raid tier out of it and it puts more people in the world leveling too since they may not want to go through LFR all the time.

[Deleted]

Guild Wars 2 and Rift both have an excellent example of open world content. The only complaints I see on their forums are people wanting more.

Well I've played neither of those games so that doesn't exactly tell me how they work, thus it doesn't exactly help your case for them.

What kind of rewards do they offer? Unless people find them rewarding enough they won't care for them.

How difficult are they? If people can steamroll them it will be nothing but a grind. If it's too difficult people won't do them.

How often can you do them? If they can be farmed all the time people will get tired of them quickly, at the same time if they are too restricted people might not even bother with them.

How do they work amongst other players around you? If you can't do it alone that will be an issue, if other people are seen as competition that will be an issue, if you need to group up and compete with other groups that will be an issue.

They need to hit a sweet spot where both freshly max leveled characters as well as characters in full raid gear find it interesting, fun and rewarding all at the same time, otherwise it will be considered a failure and waste of development resources.

[Pull My Finger]

The problem with 5-man content is it is incredibly short.

So you get through it very quickly and get sick of it very quickly.

Even if you fully clear BRF every week, it's gonna take you a while to get sick of it unless you clear it like 3-4 times a week because it's long, there are diverse bosses, etc.

In a 5-man it's the same tiny 5-man with 3-4 bosses each and you get tired of it fast because you've done it a hundred times. Even if they added a mythic difficult that you could only run once a day or even once a week, it doesn't matter, because you've still done each dungeon a hundred times each in normal and heroic difficulties and are sick of doing them.

Some vanilla 5-mans were large, sprawling dungeons like BRD and sunken temple and they were a little more involved and entertaining. But blizzard has changed their stance on such large, expansive dungeons a long time ago and turned them into tiny, fast dungeons you just go in, spend 10 minutes in, and get out. Bite sized chunks of content for casuals.

It's why raiding is more fun and entertaining. More complicated mechanics, can't do it as often, and takes longer. 5-mans, even with extra difficulty just aren't as entertaining.

I think that can also be seen exactly the other way around. 5 mans become much less boring because they're short and quick. Digestible bits, diverse scenery, and a much more fun pacing, instead of the long-ass claustrophobic borefest that a raid can be.

[Shelly]

Guild Wars 2 and Rift both have an excellent example of open world content. The only complaints I see on their forums are people wanting more.

As far as leveling content through open world content SUCKS!

It sucks SO HARD!

Mostly because there's a lot of folks to help at the start and a lot to help at level cap, but no one in the middle.

Now GW2 solved this by flattening levels to the zones, but GW2 is also incredibly boring unless you like playing a CCG.

[Selah]

Well I've played neither of those games so that doesn't exactly tell me how they work, thus it doesn't exactly help your case for them..

You should give them a shot, very interesting and fun games. Rift is more or less the only WoW clone I've ever seen done right. GW2 is really big into open world content and personal stories for the players.

What kind of rewards do they offer? Unless people find them rewarding enough they won't care for them..

GW2 offers high end gear, I'm not sure if it's the best gear but it's definitely good gear. Not to mention cosmetics and other loot not gear related.
Rift is similar to GW2 except the best of the best gear can only drop from raids. Doesn't mean you can't get some good drops.

How difficult are they? If people can steamroll them it will be nothing but a grind. If it's too difficult people won't do them..

Both games have scaling events. Similar to rare mobs that scale with the amount of people attacking them. No one is facerolling it, and they aren't brutal difficult either.

How often can you do them? If they can be farmed all the time people will get tired of them quickly, at the same time if they are too restricted people might not even bother with them.

How often in both games I couldn't tell you, what I can tell you is that both games offer a wide variety of events for every zone. GW2 has more events because they don't just do zone events like Rift. GW2 has a ton of events that you'll just run into. Rift has more zone events though and subsequently more world bosses. It's not hard to run into an event in either games.

How do they work amongst other players around you? If you can't do it alone that will be an issue, if other people are competitors to it that will be an issue, if you need to group up and compete with other groups that will be an issue..

Both are very player friendly. No one competes against each other for these events. While in Rift the zone events do tend to need a group, it's not hard to find a group because people are out in the world, and player groups do not compete. All mobs in both games just require you to hit them to get credit for the kill.

They need to hit a sweet spot where both freshly max leveled characters as well as characters in full raid gear find it interesting, fun and rewarding all at the same time, otherwise it will be considered a failure and waste of development resources.

.

See the thing is that the "living" world idea with all these events has been done already, that sweet spot has already been hit by other companies in the industry. Blizzard can do it, they can do it well, and they can make it rewarding.

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As far as leveling content through open world content SUCKS!

It sucks SO HARD!

Mostly because there's a lot of folks to help at the start and a lot to help at level cap, but no one in the middle.

Now GW2 solved this by flattening levels to the zones, but GW2 is also incredibly boring unless you like playing a CCG.

That's your opinion. I loathe just going from quest hub to quest hub collecting boar asses and picking flowers with the occasional kobold genocide here and there (oh, I take candle). I just leveled a character to 80 in GW2 the other day and it was a lot of fun, especially with the personal story quests. It was quite enjoyable.

[d0e1ow]

I loved logging in back in the day and doing some Pit of Saron runs or in Cata doing some of the troll 5 mans. I thought that was a really cool re-vamp. The death of 5 mans in Mists was a travesty.

[MoanaLisa]

I don't know. They are already an enormous time/resource investment. Increasing that would damage raid content. That might or might not be a good thing but there's a good case to be made that given the long history of the game, turning dungeons into end-game wouldn't work very well and not leave anyone very happy. The one thing we've learned is that they have a short shelf life. CM's and the proposed Mythic mode wouldn't solve the content problem. More likely it would just add to it while dividing players into more and more silos. Just adding in more difficulty modes a la raiding isn't the answer. I don't know what the answer is but I don't think it's that.

Group content really needs a rethink. Most everyone just wants to go back to whatever it was they liked the best but that rarely ever really works. It's perfectly OK to think that maybe the group content structures that have gone on for 10 years with variations but in most ways unchanged might be a bit played out.

I have some thoughts but it wouldn't be 5-man content so won't say much else other than I don't think the answer is in any of the poll choices. Sufficient rewards just to keep running something over and over? No.