So, heroic dungeons are now pointless?

[Pua]

A point I made about Mythic dungeons during 6.2 was that they would cause design problems if they were a “thing” going forward. Now that the latest build is seeing “Legion Dungeon Hero” require Mythic achievements, rather than heroic, it would seem as though this is now coming to fruition.

Ultimately, the problem is that Mythic dungeons crowd out the requirement for heroic dungeons as just another piece of content to repeat once geared. When you hit max level, you’d traditionally use heroic dungeons to gear up for raids. Now, with Mythic dungeons in place from the start, you’ll hit max level, and then gear up for Mythic dungeons by running heroic dungeons… Prior to raiding (assuming you do that at all). We’re also now at the stage where another meta-achievement, largely aimed at more casual players, has been pushed to a higher difficulty for no reason.

I get the basic design concept, though.

The new Mythic+ system has been devised for players that want small-group progression, and that’s a good thing. One of the side-effects, however, is that heroic dungeons are now essentially pointless. Because they’re nothing but a gearing hop, especially with the meta-achievement now taken out, players are likely to try and avoid them altogether. Blizzard’s solution to this recently has been to put currency or some other reward into them, but that won’t apply solely to heroic dungeons – any such system would surely be applied to Mythic as well.

So why keep heroic dungeons in the game?

What are they there for if you’re simply going to skip over them as soon as you start clearing up Mythic dungeons, which will be available at launch?

Might it not have been a better idea to go for the Heroic+ system, rather than crowding pre-raid gearing options with yet another needless addition to the gear treadmill?

Answers on a postcard.

[Deleted]

A point I made about Mythic dungeons during 6.2 was that they would cause design problems if they were a “thing” going forward. Now that the latest build is seeing “Legion Dungeon Hero” require Mythic achievements, rather than heroic, it would seem as though this is now coming to fruition.

Ultimately, the problem is that Mythic dungeons crowd out the requirement for heroic dungeons as just another piece of content to repeat once geared. When you hit max level, you’d traditionally use heroic dungeons to gear up for raids. Now, with Mythic dungeons in place from the start, you’ll hit max level, and then gear up for Mythic dungeons by running heroic dungeons… Prior to raiding (assuming you do that at all). We’re also now at the stage where another meta-achievement, largely aimed at more casual players, has been pushed to a higher difficulty for no reason.

I get the basic design concept, though.

The new Mythic+ system has been devised for players that want small-group progression, and that’s a good thing. One of the side-effects, however, is that heroic dungeons are now essentially pointless. Because they’re nothing but a gearing hop, especially with the meta-achievement now taken out, players are likely to try and avoid them altogether. Blizzard’s solution to this recently has been to put currency or some other reward into them, but that won’t apply solely to heroic dungeons – any such system would surely be applied to Mythic as well.

So why keep heroic dungeons in the game?

What are they there for if you’re simply going to skip over them as soon as you start clearing up Mythic dungeons, which will be available at launch?

Might it not have been a better idea to go for the Heroic+ system, rather than crowding pre-raid gearing options with yet another needless addition to the gear treadmill?

Answers on a postcard.

Heroics can be queued for, they still drop titanforged, and the early gearing stage still makes sense to do from heroic dungeons. I'm not saying heroics will stay relevant, but there are certainly reasons they could / should. I'll wait for release to make a final judgement.

[Isheria]

Heroic dungeons are what you do to farm artifact power, the artifact power rewards got buffed even further and to get some early gear as well and if you're lucky enough you can get titanforged stuff.

[tangers58]

A point I made about Mythic dungeons during 6.2 was that they would cause design problems if they were a “thing” going forward. Now that the latest build is seeing “Legion Dungeon Hero” require Mythic achievements, rather than heroic, it would seem as though this is now coming to fruition.

Ultimately, the problem is that Mythic dungeons crowd out the requirement for heroic dungeons as just another piece of content to repeat once geared. When you hit max level, you’d traditionally use heroic dungeons to gear up for raids. Now, with Mythic dungeons in place from the start, you’ll hit max level, and then gear up for Mythic dungeons by running heroic dungeons… Prior to raiding (assuming you do that at all). We’re also now at the stage where another meta-achievement, largely aimed at more casual players, has been pushed to a higher difficulty for no reason.

I get the basic design concept, though.

The new Mythic+ system has been devised for players that want small-group progression, and that’s a good thing. One of the side-effects, however, is that heroic dungeons are now essentially pointless. Because they’re nothing but a gearing hop, especially with the meta-achievement now taken out, players are likely to try and avoid them altogether. Blizzard’s solution to this recently has been to put currency or some other reward into them, but that won’t apply solely to heroic dungeons – any such system would surely be applied to Mythic as well.

So why keep heroic dungeons in the game?

What are they there for if you’re simply going to skip over them as soon as you start clearing up Mythic dungeons, which will be available at launch?

Might it not have been a better idea to go for the Heroic+ system, rather than crowding pre-raid gearing options with yet another needless addition to the gear treadmill?

Answers on a postcard.

It annoys the crap out of me that Blizz is missing the point with the war on queues. The queue is not the problem, the anonymity that comes with playing with other servers is. Dungeon finder was a good idea if it hadn't put you with other servers, that took away the one thing that kept people fairly decent, that if you douched it up with players on your own realm you would only be screwing yourself over.

[Super Kami Dende]

You can Queue for them.
They are harder than Normals but not as hard as Mythic.
You can Queue for them.

[Nevcairiel]

Mythic is not queueable and has a weekly loot lockout, that makes them distinctly different from spammable and queueable heroics, which still yield random item upgrades and artifact power.

[Deleted]

I also find today's change odd. Why don't they just make mythic+0 the entry level dungeon? Besides, it's very hard to enter heroics near launch because they require 810+ and that is really not growing on trees at the start of the expansion so most of the 5man hc that will be done will be entering the actual instance with a guild.

[Super Kami Dende]

It annoys the crap out of me that Blizz is missing the point with the war on queues. The queue is not the problem, the anonymity that comes with playing with other servers is. Dungeon finder was a good idea if it hadn't put you with other servers, that took away the one thing that kept people fairly decent, that if you douched it up with players on your own realm you would only be screwing yourself over.

Except if you were a Douche and they were single server Queues, Groups are still randomly put together so bad people would still get groups.

[Pua]

Heroics can be queued for, they still drop titanforged, and the early gearing stage still makes sense to do from heroic dungeons. I'm not saying heroics will stay relevant, but there are certainly reasons they could / should. I'll wait for release to make a final judgement.

Heroic dungeons are what you do to farm artifact power, the artifact power rewards got buffed even further and to get some early gear as well and if you're lucky enough you can get titanforged stuff.

Both of which will be available via other mediums, as well as Mythic dungeons.

So, my question is, what's the point in heroic dungeons, other than as a gearing hop?

It could reasonably be argued that they were always a gearing hop to raids, but that doesn't answer why dungeons are now a loot hurdle... To exactly the same dungeons, all over again.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

Im having hard time understanding the need for so many difficulties. Normal = normal diff, heroic = hard, thats it, thats the way it was in tbc and cata. Theres no need for faceroll difficulty, easy, normal, then hard(cms), its an absolutely unecessary and moronic system that failed epically with raiding and now they're bringing it into dungeons.

We only need normal, hard, maybe a step above it. We sure as hell don't need four difficulties, 2 of them being a complete joke.

OT: Yes heroics will only serve as a way to get gear very early in the expansion, then will become 100% useless a la MoP/WoD.

[Nevcairiel]

but that doesn't answer why dungeons are now a loot hurdle... To exactly the same dungeons, all over again.

You mean like normal dungeons in previous expansions? You only did them during leveling and at max level to get into heroics.
You are not making any new arguments here, its just the difficulty names that changed. Normal is basically leveling/story now, and Heroic takes the place of what mostly used to be Normal, and so on.

[Deleted]

weekly loot lockout

True. I forgot that important factor. It's probably why they are in a conundrum and they must keep heroics in even if they look quite out of place, partly.

[Pua]

I also find today's change odd. Why don't they just make mythic+0 the entry level dungeon?

That's what I'm getting at. This doesn't make any sense.

You could get exactly the same progression approach by having heroic dungeons as normal, tuning them up to almost Mythic (so that they're "heroic" again), and then starting the Heroic+ keystone system that starts a bit easier.

That would achieve exactly the same design, but without a needless level of tuning and implementation.

[Deleted]

I find it odd that you can't easily get the gear to enter a (random) 5man hc by the way.

That's what I'm getting at. This doesn't make any sense.

We forgot the weekly lockout of mythics so they can't do that with mythics. They must have a 5man that is daily. Or at least if they want to keep daily world quests with 5mans etc.

[Hyve]

Why does it matter if it's Mythic or Heroic Dungeons we gear from? Heroic Dungeons haven't been relevant past the first ~3 weeks of an expansion since Wrath. At least now, Mythic Dungeons will be relevant throughout the expansion and that's a whole lot better to at least have some form of relevant dungeon, regardless of what it does to the lower tier dungeons.

Remember running Normal Dungeons to get gear back -- Oh, wait. No-one ran Normals outside of leveling. The same will happen here. People will do Normal while leveling, Heroic in the first ~3 weeks, as always. But now, at least there is something else to do as well.

[DarkTZeratul]

That's what I'm getting at. This doesn't make any sense.

You could get exactly the same progression approach by having heroic dungeons as normal, tuning them up to almost Mythic (so that they're "heroic" again), and then starting the Heroic+ keystone system that starts a bit easier.

That would achieve exactly the same design, but without a needless level of tuning and implementation.

Because, as Cataclysm so brilliantly demonstrated, if you put together a group of random players for a piece of even moderately challenging content, they will fail hard more often than not.

[Thrif]

One is queable and without weekly lockout and functions as pre-raid gearing/farming for artifact power and such.

One is meant to be an alternative end-game path for people who can't/don't want to raid but still enjoy group PvE content.

I do agree that Dungeon Hero shouldn't require mythic dungeons though, even though mythic dungeons (without the +) will be pretty easy.

[Deleted]

naming them better or more advanced -
it just advertising and bad old car salesman stuff,
they still sell old cars, not spaceships.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

Because, as Cataclysm so brilliantly demonstrated, if you put together a group of random players for a piece of even moderately challenging content, they will fail hard more often than not.

Until you wipe a few times learn the fights, and dont wipe ever again. Thats the way pve works in wow, thats how raiding is, thats how cata dungeons were. Having two easy difficulties makes 0 sense.

[Echo of Soul]

Mythic is now the new heroic, both for raids and dungeons. I think the whole number of difficulties thing needs some work.
* For leveling purposes normal mode dungeons could stay but once you're at levelcap mythic+ should be the only difficulty needed. It would start off kinda low so pretty much anybody could do them.
* LFR should probably be turned into a small group queable content and upped a bit in difficulty so that all 10 players need to participate to beat the encounters.
* Normal and heroic raiding should probably be merged into one single difficulty for the majority of the raiding community.
* Mythic raiding should still be a thing for the 1% doing cutting edge content but it could probably be simply a super challenging version of the raids that doesn't reward any new gear and is tuned around everyone in the group having full raid gear from the previous difficulty. It would be released some time after everything else so that the world first players have ample time to gear up and start competing. It could reward vanity rewards such as mounts, unique transmogs, pets and gold instead.