Now that we have war mode, how about epic mode?

[Thage]

Sever types are being done away with in BFA.

Sorta. RP servers will still be RP servers, and RP-PvP servers are being rebranded RP servers. In essence, every server is both a PvE and PvP server.

On-topic: Whatever. I don't care much, maybe it'll shut up the 'Everything must be Dark Souls!' crowd if they have to slog through every mob and pop cooldowns to take out three blood trolls because an add jumped into the fight. Realistically, they'll probably just turn around and whine about 'easy mode leveling discouraging people from progressing to Heroic leveling' like they do everything else, but they've done that shit since TBC so whatever.

[Darknessvamp]

They already have ilvl scaling for enemies and I believe they've had it implemented since 7.2. Frankly I find it a bit annoying as it is a fairly obvious increases e.g. killing something with 9800k on a freshly capped alt that's gearing up and suddenly it's 130mil 20 ilvls later and the fact it just adds a couple more minutes to down the mob I've already killed a bunch. Hooray for advancement and success leading to extra tedium. -_-

[Calfredd]

So what's your idea to make world content interesting and challenging again?

So all mobs starting from level 1 leveling with you so you never overlevel them isn't enough?

[yjmark]

Segregating the player base more is not usually a good idea...

[hulkgor]

Now that Blizzard has introduced war mode in BFA that will allow you to do world pvp in phase with other people willing to do so, seems obvious to me this could be used to make a hard mode for questing to make the world content more of a challenge to better players.

This could be an interesting way to make world quests and leveling more interesting for some people, by giving incentives (more XP, more rewards)...

I would assume this would mean some ilvl scaling (not just level) and some actually challenging world where a real sense of danger exists and you can't put 10 mobs and get away with it because you outgear the content.

Would you actually like something like that in WOW?

How about... no?

[Shadowater]

Nope, raids and dungeons are mainly about GROUP content (small group/large group respectively). Nobody ever said that outdoor content had to be a faceroll where you kill everything with one button.

How often do you one shot something now? Not counting when you are in full raiding gear and legendaries. When you have reached max level and gotten raid gear and wear legendaries it would be really weird if a random stag kick your ass while taking a short cut in the woods. WoW is mainly about working in a group so after you are done leveling world mobs shouldn't be a challenge unless they are world bosses and elites. Because you are past that content, it's like if they would make the first raid tiers harder each time they release a new tier because the new gear makes the first raid too easy after you out gear it. Makes no sense. Then they would have to improve the drops aswell. But if they make the gear in old raid as good as the new then there is no reason to ever do the new content since you can just get all the good gear in the first one. With Argus they did good, because it was a questing zone meant for geared players and many mobs offered a challenge with many elites and a good chance to die if you werent careful.
There is no need for a hard mode for leveling because they fixed that with the scaling system.

[Deleted]

I'd rather have dedicated realms for that I think. Warmode is one thing, but to divide a server into 3 modes? That's too much, particularly for smaller servers.

Give us 'mythic' realms, with a one time free transfer for up to 5 characters or whatever. Most dedicated people would probably go there and casuals could still play on their normal servers where things are easy.

My kind of mythic realm would only have Mythic raid difficulty, attunements (not BC length but still!), crafting and professions not just relevant but mandatory for raiding and any serious pve content, reputation grinds that matter (for recipes etc), hard hitting and beefy outdoor elites and mobs in general that you need to grind for resources. Oh and no queueing of any sort, only the group finder. I wouldn't go back to naxx40 kind of hardcore in terms of grinding for raiding, but TBC/early Vanilla level for sure.

[Spotnick]

Why does ALL of the world content has to be challenging?

It doesn't, that's the whole point of making it an optional mode.

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I'm sure it'd just decrease your stats, which... is that what you want?

Remove items for a personally adjustable experience.

Really, though, if it just made you weaker, it would come down to both the experience of play & which is more efficient after rewards, except that the experiences are almost identical overall (unlike War Mode).

-- EDIT

Personally, I'd like some "pick your path" (hard-ish mode) situations, like rather than "kill 10 raptors because they're a hassle," we get the choice to "kill the raptor matriarch and steal 3 eggs from raptor brood mothers."

Kind of Elite mode vs. Normal mode.

Quest option is not a bad idea at all. I would love that for invasions, 1 elite world quest or 4 normal.. of course you'd have to scale for groups.

But to answer your question, it should be the content that scales up, and not you that scales down. Mobs would all be elite instead of regular mobs, and who knows, use the new AI they are introducing in BFA.

[Moozart]

Now that Blizzard has introduced war mode in BFA that will allow you to do world pvp in phase with other people willing to do so, seems obvious to me this could be used to make a hard mode for questing to make the world content more of a challenge to better players.

This could be an interesting way to make world quests and leveling more interesting for some people, by giving incentives (more XP, more rewards)...

I would assume this would mean some ilvl scaling (not just level) and some actually challenging world where a real sense of danger exists and you can't put 10 mobs and get away with it because you outgear the content.

Would you actually like something like that in WOW?

You can do that for yourself already... just take off half your gear or more...

[Spotnick]

So all mobs starting from level 1 leveling with you so you never overlevel them isn't enough?

I was mostly talking about current content. I really don't see how they could put incentives in old content to use that mode unless they decided to do world quests with old content.

[Deleted]

Yes. Plz yes.

But it would divide the community in half.
Half the people instanced in hard mode and half the people in easy mode.

[Spotnick]

You can do that for yourself already... just take off half your gear or more...

Not really, the whole point would have to have bonus rewards/xp for doing it in a harder mode. Removing gear would just do the complete opposite and would be stupid.

Think of it like Mythic vs Mythic+, mobs would be fortified with some affixes in that mode, and in the end your quest reward would be of better quality, you'd get more gold/xp/resources, etc.

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Yes. Plz yes.

But it would divide the community in half.
Half the people instanced in hard mode and half the people in easy mode.

Well, pretty sure that divide was already in their head with the Pristine server idea, at least now you stay on same server and you can turn it off if you just want the normal experience.

[LoLcano]

It only gonna promote more leveling as tank , you rly cant make mobs so hard that it actually hurt a blood dk without making it impossible for other spec to play .

[Queen of Hamsters]

I would assume this would mean some ilvl scaling (not just level) and some actually challenging world where a real sense of danger exists and you can't put 10 mobs and get away with it because you outgear the content.

1. The real danger exists until you outgear. I can't get away with pulling 10 mobs with a DPS class on Argus at ilvl 870. In fact, I don't get comfortable attacking elites until waaay up in the ilvls. As for pre-110, I've died to leveling mobs when I wasn't careful as of 7.3.5.

2. They attempted to implement gear scaling beyond 110, but the playerbase cried out (rightfully so) about not wanting a step backwards for content they'd already completed and geared from/for. Blizzard instead opted for the option of making new areas jump a bit more in danger.

3. Terrible idea is terrible, how about we stop wishing for them to fracture the playerbase into safe spaces?

[Spotnick]

There is no need for a hard mode for leveling because they fixed that with the scaling system.

If you ever have played on a private server, or if you have a very good memory, you should remember it's not true.. leveling was a lot harder before the big revamp of Cataclysm. It was changed, of course, because they realized many people stopped playing the game while leveling and never saw the end game.

They made it easier, increased health regen a lot, and gave you access to key abilities faster.

So I wouldn't call it "fixed", but it's okay for new players that's for sure.

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I'd rather have dedicated realms for that I think. Warmode is one thing, but to divide a server into 3 modes? That's too much, particularly for smaller servers.

Give us 'mythic' realms, with a one time free transfer for up to 5 characters or whatever. Most dedicated people would probably go there and casuals could still play on their normal servers where things are easy.

My kind of mythic realm would only have Mythic raid difficulty, attunements (not BC length but still!), crafting and professions not just relevant but mandatory for raiding and any serious pve content, reputation grinds that matter (for recipes etc), hard hitting and beefy outdoor elites and mobs in general that you need to grind for resources. Oh and no queueing of any sort, only the group finder. I wouldn't go back to naxx40 kind of hardcore in terms of grinding for raiding, but TBC/early Vanilla level for sure.

Dedicated realm has the big issue of cross-realm experience, you can't turn it off.. so you would have the same issue they are trying to fix with war mode (pvp vs pve servers)

And it's not too far from the Pristine Server idea, except you had no reward at all for playing those as far as I know.

It would be the ideal to have various types of server for that, but since everything is going cross-realm, it's not a good idea.

Plus I just realized this is kind of very similar to Diablo 3 torment levels.

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2. They attempted to implement gear scaling beyond 110, but the playerbase cried out (rightfully so) about not wanting a step backwards for content they'd already completed and geared from/for. Blizzard instead opted for the option of making new areas jump a bit more in danger.?

Well, to be fair, this was poorly implemented and nobody knew about it. And again, you had no way to opt out of it, and it gave you no incentive to want to play that way.

Dungeons used to be obsolete after the first month, now with mythic+ they live for the whole expansion. I'm trying to figure if there is a way to make THAT content relevant for the whole xpac instead of a boring tedious grind (and make leveling more fun than just a chore). Maybe it's not possible.. of course gathering 10 nuts and 5 squirrels is not a world quest you can do in "hard mode", but maybe the way would be to implement Elite world quests indeed that would count as your daily 4 and that would be more challenging.

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It only gonna promote more leveling as tank , you rly cant make mobs so hard that it actually hurt a blood dk without making it impossible for other spec to play .

One can only hope the new AI they are doing for BFA NPCs in island expeditions can be smart enough to act differently based on the spec/class you're playing.

Well, there's that.. tanks would obviously need to be balanced, so would healers, because god knows why some people level in healing spec (I'm a healer so I know how terrible it is lol)

[A Chozo]

Why are you seeking hard content in the open world maps?

You are aware that we have Mythic Raids and Dungeons, right? Why aren't you doing those, OP?

Also, segregating the World PvE playerbase would make the game feel even less populated.

[Spotnick]

Why are you seeking hard content in the open world maps?

You are aware that we have Mythic Raids and Dungeons, right? Why aren't you doing those, OP?

Also, segregating the World PvE playerbase would make the game feel even less populated.

I am doing that content, I'm 11/11M on my main and 9/11M on my alts...doesn't mean world content has to be boring as hell because I have challenging content elsewhere.

Plus it's not like the idea removes anything from the game, it's actually putting the rest of the game on par with the multiple difficulties in instanced content.

And again, it doesn't segregate the playerbase, it's just in outdoor content, sharding puts people together already, it's not different from how it is already, except with various difficulties. In capital cities you still are with everybody else.

[draynay]

Whenever someone wants a hard mode version of WoW, I think of this:

[Deleted]

"Epic" mode with harder NPCS and better loot will just result in under-geared people switching between the two modes for specific items, example weapons and trinkets, then switching back to the normal mode.

ONLY way it would work is if if you could choose when you create your character and you would be locked to that mode. but then you would not be able to group with people in "normal mode" and they would not be able to group with you in "Epic" mode.


No, War mode makes sense, its the same loot just world PVP enabled. A two tier loot system whilst leveling would be a nightmare for a multitude of reasons.

[Shadowater]

If you ever have played on a private server, or if you have a very good memory, you should remember it's not true.. leveling was a lot harder before the big revamp of Cataclysm. It was changed, of course, because they realized many people stopped playing the game while leveling and never saw the end game.

They made it easier, increased health regen a lot, and gave you access to key abilities faster.

So I wouldn't call it "fixed", but it's okay for new players that's for sure.

True we did get better access to abilities. But the reason it was "harder" pre-cata was because:
1. You didn't have access to your main ability in lower level.
2. Quests were spread all over the place and you had to read them to know where to go and what to do.
The items and gear you got was usually very bad, lower level than you and stats that you didn't really need.
3. It was slow, so slow. The combat took forever, some classes could pretty much only auto attack. You had to run on foot because you didnt have a mount and the cost of flight paths actually affected you back then.

I played in the end of vanilla and I have tried vanilla private servers, that's why I know I don't want that in the main game because it wasn't fun. The leveling experience between 110 and 120 in beta is fun though. It makes you use CC and defensive cooldowns when you are leveling alone because you are very likely to die. I died 40 times while leveling to 120. Mostly because I pulled more than 2 mobs. Even back in vanilla 2 mobs werent a problem for a geared character.
So I don't really know what it is that this epic mode would bring? Do you really want to be ganked by animals when running outside the town?

And I guess the mode should restrict mount speed to 60% and lower the quality and durability of gear. Turn off health and mana regeneration to force you to carry food, drink and potions. And what would be the rewards really? titles? transmogs? It can't really be anything that makes the game easier because that would defeat the purpose of the epic mode.