What's Your Take on Dungeon Design?

[AbsolutePitch]

I remember getting lost in that place every time I got in there. Good times. XD

Getting lost in Sunken Temple was even more fun, not only was that place confusing as hell but everything looked the same. The fact that you could get lost in those instances itself was fun, except when you'd end up pulling the whole instance running back to your group lol

[Frozen Death Knight]

Getting lost in Sunken Temple was even more fun, not only was that place confusing as hell but everything looked the same. The fact that you could get lost in those instances itself was fun, except when you'd end up pulling the whole instance running back to your group lol

Oh, Sunken Temple. Don't remind me. It got kind of claustrophobic wandering around that place. Most groups just disbanded because they had no idea where to go rather than the bosses being difficult. XD

I also remember that trinket item that had a spirit (dragon spirit, I believe) whispering to you when using the CD on it. Manage to get it and I recall it being quite useful as well.

[Travio]

In today's market customers value time a lot more than the quality of the rewards. If you don't get rewarded in a relatively short amount of time then a majority will not do that content. You may think that the rewards are better because it takes time to get them, but most are just fine with a somewhat lesser quality of the reward as long as they can get it during the amount of spare time that they have at the time.

Whether you think it's a better design or not, you still can't get more people putting more time into something when they don't think they have that much time to waste to begin with. Blizzard realised long ago that a lot of people don't care about challenge in this game whatsoever and that time is precious for their customers. Sure, they can make content that requires more time and has better rewards, but if it comes at the expense of the crowd that only want to play in short spurts then they should make sure the latter gets what they want first and foremost.

If it wasn't just more useless space in the dungeon, though? What if it was like... instead of 3 or 4 bosses, you had like 8 or 9 in the instance? Would the rewards of those extra bosses make the length worth it? More chance for rewards along the way, and you still get a longer dungeon out of it. It just comes down to balancing out the investment:reward ratio.

[Dasani]

I'm kind of torn on the subject.

In an ideal world, i'd like 5-mans to be long with a bunch of different bosses because it's just more fun than requeueing over and over and over. I'd rather the rewards for running dungeon be more in line with per boss rather than for dungeon completion to offset the longer runs and make it more of a profitable experience to kill as many bosses as you can.

However in a more practical world we live in, I like them short. And there are two primary reasons. First being that you have absolutely no control over who you are randomly assigned with in your group, unless you go in with a premade group which is going to be less and less likely the further into an expansion you are as no one really cares anymore. You sometimes get complete fails, bads, trolls, all kinds of people i'd rather have nothing to do with. Furthermore the votekick system in LFG is horrible and designed to protect tools and fools. You can't even votekick more than one person out of your group per run, and generally you have such a long timer to kick the first guy out, it's easier to simply finish the run and carry their dumb ass then ignore and leave. Because of this, short dungeons with only around 3 bosses is ideal because you can get it done fast, even if you get stuck with all fails you don't have to be in there long. The second reason is loot. When theres only 3 or 4 bosses per dungeon, and the dungeons are short, it makes it easier to farm up specific pieces of gear.

Again, i'd rather dungeons be longer with more bosses, and have greater rewards per boss instead of completion bonuses. This benefits DPS especially because it increases the amount of time you spend in dungeon and rewards you get per time spent, whereas the short dungeons have you spending more time waiting in queue to get in than actually being in a dungeon. The longer they are, the greater this ratio changes to your favor. If you are rewarded enough per boss kill, there is no reason to have a completion bonus to stick it out till the end simply because you'd want the reward for killing the boss either way.

Ideally, the votekick system would have no cooldown, no timers to begin, none of that shit. If 3/5 people in the group want someone else gone, they should be gone, no exception, no excuses. That still protects people from being just thrown out for no reason unless 3 out of 5 people in your group are just assholes, in which case do you really want to run with them anyway? It isn't that common. It is far MORE common to get into a group with a fucktard and no one has the means to remove them because the system is so flawed and designed to protect stupidity.

I like current MOP design as far as difficulty. They're very easy on normal and still quite easy on heroic, but much much harder in challenge mode. And I think that is the way to go. Challenge mode is for when you want a challenge or whatever, but heroics are easy so you can get them done quickly and get your rewards and move on with your life instead of struggling to get through content with bad players.

If the votekick feature was improved and made actually functional instead of retarded, i'd love much longer dungeons. Otherwise, keep em short, so you only have to deal with idiots in short bursts.

I loved the old huge vanilla dungeons like BRD and Sunken Temple. Where you actually had to know where to go through experience, which came from exploration, as opposed to all dungeons being a tunnel with no variation, no alternatives, and literally impossible to get lost in. They added a lot to it imo. I was sad when they ruined sunken temple and turned it into the tiny mess it is now, was also sad when they split stratholme into 2 different dungeons.

[Sithalos]

They were pretty spot on with 5 mans at the start of Cata. They fucked it up after they nerfed them to oblivion. They're just boring now..

And no, don't bring up the farce known as "Challenge Modes". There is zero reason to go back and do them after you get your gear.

[Dasani]

And no, don't bring up the farce known as "Challenge Modes". There is zero reason to go back and do them after you get your gear.

That is the point.

People aren't running dungeons because they're super fun if they are really difficult. They are doing it for other shit like JPs, Valor, and drops. It is a necessary evil as part of the early gear process and no one wants to be stuck in difficult dungeons with undergeared people who have no clue what they are doing just so they can get their starter max level gear.

If you enjoyed the hard dungeons just for the sake of running hard dungeons, the option is there. For those who want to just get that shit over with, it's better that they are quick and easy so you don't have to put up with it for long.

The fact you're saying there is no reason to go back after you get your challenge mode gear very clearly illustrates hard dungeons are not fun in and of themselves. It's better that they are optional for optional rewards instead of being a required part of the gearing process early in an expansion.

[Olrox]

While I think your post definitely has room to grow into a good discussion, you've managed to use more irritating buzzwords in one page than I've seen in so many over the last month. I hate those terms because most of them either can't or won't apply anymore, never did or are just irritating and stupid (I fucking hate the term "theory-craft" and the man who came up with it should be shot)

That said, I have actually pondered this very concept/issue/whatever you'd like to label it as for the current game more lately after spending a month dabbling in Final Fantasy XIV. One thing that struck me about some of that game's content was that the bosses and encounters in the dungeons brought something that WoW five-player content hasn't in a while - "unique" situations; not to say that some of the bosses don't do just that, but most of them are still pretty standard form in terms of having one beast/humanoid figure to vanquish and floor-dropped things to avoid. One of the most memorable bits in FFXIV was the Demon Wall boss in Amdapor Keep; mostly hated for being such a strong fail-check (I'm not going to use a specific term here, some think it's an IQ test or a DPS check but it's just a decent-mechanics check above all) and it's a bit different from any boss we've had in WoW 5 mans the last couple expansions.

So the fight is identical to how it appears in nearly every FF game if you've played one (aside from XII that is, because it's actually a wee bit different in that game) in that the wall blocks your path and moves forward as the fight goes on and you can't get around it without killing it - so it has a healthy amount of HP and does a cycle of placing shit on the ground for you to dodge while you have to kill it and handle two adds that it spawns half-way through and they cannot be ignored as they have a ramping-up of their damage and will eventually be able to one-shot the tank. So you have to deal with avoiding floor-doom and the adds along with the boss shoving you back every two cycles of his floor attacks and eventually he'll kill you with the closed distance AND he can throw you off the bridge on which you fight him if you're in the wrong place when he shoves you back (it'll also throw you to your doom if you're facing the wrong way)

WoW's five mans have yet to bring such a boss to the fray and there are a couple other oddball fights in FFXIV that I think mechanically could work in WoW but just haven't been in fives.

Now, this isn't at all me saying WoW as a whole is lacking these things but I've kind of noticed that WoW really sparsely uses unique fights in five man content - it's almost universally a straight fight with one boss and maybe a few adds - the formula for five man bosses rarely breaks this and I think we could use that a bit. The most awesome encounter in a five man I can think of in years was the Arthas portion of Halls of Reflection - that was easily one of the coolest bits they've ever done and I don't think any five since then has tried something quite like it - raids have this kind of stuff for sure, but fives just don't seem to get that.

I suppose what I'd really like to see in five man design is more variety of circumstance and a little more creative-juice injected into the bosses - I want more fives like the Icecrown ones in Wrath and tbh, fewer re-worked old dungeons. I know a ton of people like them and I do too, but I'd rather just get two or three more brand new dungeons instead of another set/pair of re-vamped old ones or even just one more new one if that's all the dev time/manpower three classic heroic re-vamps eats up since a few of those are based on Cataclysm old-world updates anyway.

I disagree with your whole immersion argument because MMOs just are not immersive, period. That entire concept is dry in an MMO unless that MMO is essentially a single-player game in the majority of its content (SWTOR was immersive I think, you really had a huge hand in the plot and your character felt much more important to the events around it; FFXIV was sort of like this as well) and WoW's story-telling and event-style just are not conducive to immersing you in the world anymore; you're not the hero - Vol'jin is or Varian is or Chen Stormstout is. You aren't important, you're not really impacting events and most of the really heroic stuff you do was with nine other people and the game doesn't really single you out. I think that's something that while odd to some, was great about FFXIV - even in an eight-man story dungeon for the end of the plot quests, you still had cut-scenes and such with only YOU doing the important stuff or being the fixated enemy of the main antagonist - WoW just doesn't or can't do this and thus the immersion isn't there and won't be unless the game fundamentally changes (which it probably won't and I'm honestly fine with it)

I meant to address difficulty as well.

Cataclysm heroics were not well-tuned, period. I also strongly suspect that 9/10 people who cry out for the "return" of Cataclysm-launch heroics were also crying about the difficulty when they didn't have a full group of reliable guild mates (aka, the majority of the time you ran them since your guild, if that skilled, wasn't going to farm the shit out of them for very long and that meant any stray pieces you wanted to run them for or any alt you ran them for was a pug or LFD and that was a fucking nightmare in shit like Lost City, BRC or Grim Batol)

BC heroics were well-tuned because a larger portion (not everyone, but the majority) running them when they were really important were organized - I NEVER pugged heroics when they were important for gearing for Kara - I ran everything with my guild for a short bit until we were good to go and it was because they were stupidly hard and who the fuck wanted to run Shattered Halls without people you KNEW WITH CERTAINTY were intelligent/skilled/etc/blah and would get you through it.

So I don't know why a certain group of people thinks that making some parts of the game (trivial ones, especially) difficult for no really good reason will make it better - it won't; it's not going to bring your good times in BC back or your not-really-good times in early Cata back.

Should Bastion of Twilight normal have been hard? Yes. Should heroic Grim Batol be nearly impossible with a LFD group? No. If I missed out on my heroic Eye of Rajh should I have to just suffer in HoO with LFD since my guildmates can't be assed to run it anymore and it's unrealistically difficult? Of course not. Raids are meant to kick you in the nuts and challenge you; heroic raids are meant to eat your soul and challenge modes are meant to invite you over for a good old fashioned duel - heroic dungeons are meant to get you geared for the raids that are going to start the beating that will be your raiding career for a given expansion but they're NOT the main event and given how many times you might have to run some of them for specific pieces, you should be able to reasonably complete them in LFD, not flop at the second boss because a random player can't handle something about beams and MCs. Yes I'm drawing on a ton of experience with Cata heroics here and yes I raided and yes gearing for it was a nightmare without my guildmates, which isn't how it should be for dungeons - I'm ok with pugging raids being a very risky gamble though.

[Sithalos]

The fact you're saying there is no reason to go back after you get your challenge mode gear very clearly illustrates hard dungeons are not fun in and of themselves. It's better that they are optional for optional rewards instead of being a required part of the gearing process early in an expansion.

I thought the 5 mans in early Cata were fun. I probably won't remember the names of any MoP 5 man after the expansion is over. Not only are they too easy, but they're dull as hell, even if they were harder.

[Frozen Death Knight]

If it wasn't just more useless space in the dungeon, though? What if it was like... instead of 3 or 4 bosses, you had like 8 or 9 in the instance? Would the rewards of those extra bosses make the length worth it? More chance for rewards along the way, and you still get a longer dungeon out of it. It just comes down to balancing out the investment:reward ratio.

The only way I could see this work would be if Blizzard did the same thing they did with some of the ICC Heroics by being connected to each other and you had to finish one to go to the next. Blizzard still would have to divide the dungeons into sections for LFD like they do now with raids in LFR, but it would be a good trade-off for people wanting to travel through one huge dungeon (premade, of course) without sacrificing content for the majority of their players.

[Travio]

The only way I could see this work would be if Blizzard did the same thing they did with some of the ICC Heroics by being connected to each other and you had to finish one to go to the next. Blizzard still would have to divide the dungeons into sections for LFD like they do now with raids in LFR, but it would be a good trade-off for people wanting to travel through one huge dungeon (premade, of course) without sacrificing content for the majority of their players.

Like the way they split up BRD? In the LFD, it's split into what, three, four pieces? But if you want, you can run the entire thing in one go (unlike the LFR setup, where when you join a wing, it only spawns in the bosses for that wing).

[Zantera]

I miss the days when a heroic dungeon was heroic. It started in WotLK and has continued since. (with a few exceptions like Halls of Reflection, early Cata-hcs and so on)

On one hand I get why they do it, because many people have to farm these places to gear up, and if every hc is 2 hours, that might be annoying. However, we're at a place now where you blaze through a heroic, much like you blaze through a low-level dungeon in heirloom gear.

They should find a balance that makes heroics harder than they are now, but maybe not as hard as they were in the past. I love TBC-heroics and the early Cata-heroics, but I fully understand that the whole community doesn't share that thought. I just hope they can make heroics feel heroic again, and not just the shit you do before you can start raiding. Back in TBC and to some extent WotLK, they found a way of making the heroics a more integral part of the game. Even when you didn't need gear, there were still reasons to run those heroics, either for reputation, daily quest or something else. I remember the best times in TBC when we sometimes did the daily heroic after the raid. Got 5 people together, had fun and ran the heroic. They need to find a way of making the heroics feel more important. Personally I miss the "daily heroic" quest. It was always fun seeing what dungeon was chosen for being the daily, and then doing it. I think reputation for dungeons needs to come back too, otherwise there's no carrot for doing them over and over again. This was fantastic in TBC where each dungeon gave rep for factions, and you kept running them.

[Fincayra]

They tried harder dungeons. It almost cost them this game. People need to realize that shitty easy dungeons are what the masses want, because they are going to be farming them for gear and points.

[AbsolutePitch]

Now, this isn't at all me saying WoW as a whole is lacking these things but I've kind of noticed that WoW really sparsely uses unique fights in five man content - it's almost universally a straight fight with one boss and maybe a few adds - the formula for five man bosses rarely breaks this and I think we could use that a bit. The most awesome encounter in a five man I can think of in years was the Arthas portion of Halls of Reflection - that was easily one of the coolest bits they've ever done and I don't think any five since then has tried something quite like it - raids have this kind of stuff for sure, but fives just don't seem to get that.

I suppose what I'd really like to see in five man design is more variety of circumstance and a little more creative-juice injected into the bosses - I want more fives like the Icecrown ones in Wrath and tbh, fewer re-worked old dungeons. I know a ton of people like them and I do too, but I'd rather just get two or three more brand new dungeons instead of another set/pair of re-vamped old ones or even just one more new one if that's all the dev time/manpower three classic heroic re-vamps eats up since a few of those are based on Cataclysm old-world updates anyway.

I disagree with your whole immersion argument because MMOs just are not immersive, period. That entire concept is dry in an MMO unless that MMO is essentially a single-player game in the majority of its content (SWTOR was immersive I think, you really had a huge hand in the plot and your character felt much more important to the events around it; FFXIV was sort of like this as well) and WoW's story-telling and event-style just are not conducive to immersing you in the world anymore; you're not the hero - Vol'jin is or Varian is or Chen Stormstout is. You aren't important, you're not really impacting events and most of the really heroic stuff you do was with nine other people and the game doesn't really single you out. I think that's something that while odd to some, was great about FFXIV - even in an eight-man story dungeon for the end of the plot quests, you still had cut-scenes and such with only YOU doing the important stuff or being the fixated enemy of the main antagonist - WoW just doesn't or can't do this and thus the immersion isn't there and won't be unless the game fundamentally changes (which it probably won't and I'm honestly fine with it)

I meant to address difficulty as well.

Cataclysm heroics were not well-tuned, period. I also strongly suspect that 9/10 people who cry out for the "return" of Cataclysm-launch heroics were also crying about the difficulty when they didn't have a full group of reliable guild mates (aka, the majority of the time you ran them since your guild, if that skilled, wasn't going to farm the shit out of them for very long and that meant any stray pieces you wanted to run them for or any alt you ran them for was a pug or LFD and that was a fucking nightmare in shit like Lost City, BRC or Grim Batol)

BC heroics were well-tuned because a larger portion (not everyone, but the majority) running them when they were really important were organized - I NEVER pugged heroics when they were important for gearing for Kara - I ran everything with my guild for a short bit until we were good to go and it was because they were stupidly hard and who the fuck wanted to run Shattered Halls without people you KNEW WITH CERTAINTY were intelligent/skilled/etc/blah and would get you through it.

So I don't know why a certain group of people thinks that making some parts of the game (trivial ones, especially) difficult for no really good reason will make it better - it won't; it's not going to bring your good times in BC back or your not-really-good times in early Cata back.

The ICC 5-mans are actually a very good model for what I'm suggesting here. They were long, but not ridiculously so, and divided while still being connected, allowing the possibility of a single zoom-through, and the mechanics not only with boss fights but with trash mobs and environments were incredible too. I think the HoR dungeons would make an excellent template for further dungeons. Their lore and storytelling was cohesive and wonderfully executed, and, as you pointed out, had unique boss and dungeon mechanics.

As for difficulty, I agree with a lot of your points - I don't think I had considered them. But I'd imagine that those technical elements of group creation/moderation could always be adjusted by Blizzard to suit newer circumstances, right? It's not like they're set in stone. As far as tuning goes, that's also something that's fixable, something like finding a balance between dungeons that are impossible if only one idiot is in the group and ones that are easily doable even if the entire group is a bunch of idiots.

Considering the immersion thing, I strongly disagree. While your role as a single player isn't monumental, it is as one of Azeroth's many heroes; you're not just an average villager, you're one of those ground units that escorted the pivotal heroes, greater than yourself, when WC was underway - at least I like to think of it that way. I actually prefer this model, being braver-than-average and accomplished individuals who support the main lore characters in their pursuit of villains, like helping Maiev and Akama take down Illidan. Being the sole hero who does all of this stuff actually doesn't appeal to me, it just feels unrealistic. Being a part of a group of heroes who bring about the enemies' demise is far more feasible to me personally, and therefore more conducive to immersion. It really doesn't require a single-minded mentality.


P.S. Just pretend I used the word "theorizing," lol. I'm reacting to the online social atmosphere myself, so the vocabulary adapts unconsciously.

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They should find a balance that makes heroics harder than they are now, but maybe not as hard as they were in the past. I love TBC-heroics and the early Cata-heroics, but I fully understand that the whole community doesn't share that thought. I just hope they can make heroics feel heroic again, and not just the shit you do before you can start raiding. Back in TBC and to some extent WotLK, they found a way of making the heroics a more integral part of the game. Even when you didn't need gear, there were still reasons to run those heroics, either for reputation, daily quest or something else. I remember the best times in TBC when we sometimes did the daily heroic after the raid. Got 5 people together, had fun and ran the heroic. They need to find a way of making the heroics feel more important. Personally I miss the "daily heroic" quest. It was always fun seeing what dungeon was chosen for being the daily, and then doing it. I think reputation for dungeons needs to come back too, otherwise there's no carrot for doing them over and over again. This was fantastic in TBC where each dungeon gave rep for factions, and you kept running them.

I agree 100%. It gave dungeons replay value and made them feel like an important part of the game even as raids continued being the main attraction, meaning that a good deal of investment in their mechanics and storytelling would not go to waste. They can keep the whole dailies-galore thing they did with MoP (and even TBC), but bring back reputation and currency benefits to running dungeons so that players are rewarded for more difficult and sociable undertakings.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Like the way they split up BRD? In the LFD, it's split into what, three, four pieces? But if you want, you can run the entire thing in one go (unlike the LFR setup, where when you join a wing, it only spawns in the bosses for that wing).

Well, yeah. The original BRD would be considered way too hardcore by today's standards, but the idea of having one huge area that had multiple dungeons connected to each other was quite appealing (at least for me it was). Though, BRD kind of had the problem of being a giant mace because of it (not to mention the aesthetics, but Blizzard have improved immensely in that department), which I guess you could have as long as the LFD version is properly divided into parts so that it doesn't get confusing for the people wanting to do quick runs.

[Deleted]

Personally, I lament the loss of the classic 5-man format. It is dying a sorry death.

Most of my best experiences in this game have come in 5-mans dating right back to Vanilla where I used to sell my services as a guide in BRD to all the poor clueless souls who didn't know their way around that maze. I particularly miss the NEED for CC'ing mobs, remembering back to a day when tanks couldn't just run in & tank everything at once but pulls had to be thought out, CC targets marked & pets put on passive :P

I just feel like the WoW experience has changed from the equivalents of going out for a £20 per-head meal at a nice chain restaurant to Happy Meals all-round... Nothing seems to require any thought anymore except high-end raiding (which is great btw, it's where all the best work is being done by Blizz atm imo).

I like Scenarios but not at the expense of 5-mans.

[Deleted]

I agree with the OP: 5 man content can be a great part of the game, providing immersion and challenging game play, and need not degenerate into a zerg for VPs (or timed challenge run). The BC era dungeons are the standouts for me, especially heroics at the time, along with the ICC 5 mans and Cata launch heroics. But I still enjoy Wrath normals while leveling alts and many of the classics (especially up to about level 40, then the amount available instances starts to thin out and BRD is just too big).

I feel the MoP design - zergs or challenge runs - is a big misstep for the game. I love 5 mans but the one thing I hated was the "gogogo" guy. What does MoP give players who want challenging 5 mans? The most unrelenting gogogo guy of all - a medal system based on clearance speed.

I'm not sure how to get back the old challenging 5 mans. Gear scaling might be one way to keep the challenge throughout an expansion as players move up tiers. Give a nice reward - like the high VPs for heroic scenarios - to reward people for the greater effort it will require. I don't buy Blizzard's argument that you can't combine an automated queuing system (LFD/LFR) with challenging content. Maybe require gold proving grounds and a bonus normal achievement in order to queue?

[Otimus]

I won't go into detail or anything, but I will say, I enjoyed doing WOTLK's heroics/cap normals over and over and over and over, and I don't really know exactly why it was so enjoyable. I don't feel that way about any of the dungeons prior, and certainly, practically all the ones after have been mediocre. There was just something about WOTLK's, it just seemed to be a good balance of accessibility, length, and difficulty. None too far in any direction, squarely in the middle. Plus, they were very different from one another, had their own look. I don't know! I just really loved WOTLK!

Current design, as in MoP, seems to just be that the dungeons are there... because they had to have dungeons to begin with, and didn't really think it all the way through. They have zero lasting appeal, they're too easy in the wrong kind of way, and the lore is dull, and they feel a bit too samey.

[Deleted]

If it wasn't just more useless space in the dungeon, though? What if it was like... instead of 3 or 4 bosses, you had like 8 or 9 in the instance? Would the rewards of those extra bosses make the length worth it? More chance for rewards along the way, and you still get a longer dungeon out of it. It just comes down to balancing out the investment:reward ratio.

they tried this with the New Zul Gurub and it was a skip fest everytime with people not wanting to do X boss, but one of the member needed that one, so it was constant drama.

At that point you could say "well then make them all mandatory" and then you will have the outrage "OMG LINEAR DUNGEONS, HERESY"

[AbsolutePitch]

I agree with the OP: 5 man content can be a great part of the game, providing immersion and challenging game play, and need not degenerate into a zerg for VPs (or timed challenge run). The BC era dungeons are the standouts for me, especially heroics at the time, along with the ICC 5 mans and Cata launch heroics. But I still enjoy Wrath normals while leveling alts and many of the classics (especially up to about level 40, then the amount available instances starts to thin out and BRD is just too big).

I feel the MoP design - zergs or challenge runs - is a big misstep for the game. I love 5 mans but the one thing I hated was the "gogogo" guy. What does MoP give players who want challenging 5 mans? The most unrelenting gogogo guy of all - a medal system based on clearance speed.

I'm not sure how to get back the old challenging 5 mans. Gear scaling might be one way to keep the challenge throughout an expansion as players move up tiers. Give a nice reward - like the high VPs for heroic scenarios - to reward people for the greater effort it will require. I don't buy Blizzard's argument that you can't combine an automated queuing system (LFD/LFR) with challenging content. Maybe require gold proving grounds and a bonus normal achievement in order to queue?

The "gogogo" guy thing reminded me of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgnMp...695CE&index=81

Good times.

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they tried this with the New Zul Gurub and it was a skip fest everytime with people not wanting to do X boss, but one of the member needed that one, so it was constant drama.

At that point you could say "well then make them all mandatory" and then you will have the outrage "OMG LINEAR DUNGEONS, HERESY"

That's been a staple of optional bosses since Vanilla to be honest, that's why it's better to go with friends. I honestly believe that the system many of us are trying to restore here is supposed to really push people towards making groups with friends, or by themselves on a mutual understanding. The current system really demolishes social ties, and it's been normalized to the point that people just accept it as an unavoidable barrier that separates quality from capability.

Then why accept that barrier in the first place? I think players should be rewarded and heavily encouraged to be sociable and amicable, and those who are helpful and pleasant towards others are rewarded with further adventures with them, adventures of a higher quality gaming experience. Those who opt to take the easy path have to inherently accept that not all players, especially veiled behind the anonymity of the internet and the brevity of LFD/R experiences, are going to be decent human beings. If you can't stand that, make friends, join a guild, speak with people on your realm, etc. Blizzard needs to put its foot down at a certain point and tell the players they always have the (far superior, if a little more of a time investment) option of making actual friends to group with.


P.S. you might also find the video I linked funny, it has a part about asking to do optional bosses in LFGs.

[Raeph]

Something that I remember with some fondness is the old large 5 mans from vanilla. I remember my first BRD run still. Killed every boss and did all the events...6 hour run.

Granted that was when I was 23 and I can't devote a Saturday to a dungeon like I used to, however I think there is room in the game now for a large sprawling 5 man. With scenarios and heroic scenarios we have the "quick run" content for people who just want to knock out their VP cap. I would be fairly pleased if in the next expansion we had progression in the first tier:

Leveling dungeons > Level Cap Scenarios > Heroic Scenarios > Heroic Dungeons > "New Dungeon Type" > Challenge Modes >>>>Raid Content of your choice/ability

The New Dungeon type would require the average item level of the gear that drops in the heroic dungeons, in the current expansion 463. It would differ from heroics in three ways: 1) Would be designed to be run in 40-45 minutes, rather than the current 15-20 minutes, 2) Rather than a "Hallway" style it would sprawl a some, with 3-5 main bosses and 3-5 optional bosses, with the VP reward at the end based on how many bosses killed plus bonus on completing the dungeon(10 per boss, 30 for completion as example) and 3) The final boss in the dungeon will drop a LFR quality epic weapon, if all the optional bosses are killed.

Like challenge modes they can only be done in a pre-made group with no match making available.

Granted though something like this would require quite a bit of resources to pull off but it would be interesting if they could do something like this.