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  1. #1

    Are dungeons required to be approachable when we have so many options?

    For the last couple expansions it feels to me that the... gimmickyness of dungeons has begun to tick up to a point where it's no longer about "have gear, smash your numbers against the bosses' numbers, loot upgrades," but more and more outside the box mechanics.

    I just got a good look at what's being asked of players in some of the shadowlands dungeons, and this trend continues. More and more "do the thing and we're all screwed if one guy doesn't do the right thing" stuff that's not related to power or getting out of the bad, and you know... before my late-cataclysm-to-late-WoD hiatus, this would have concerned me, because I used to be a "dungeon guy," who sought his daily loop in 5-man content.

    But since legion, that hasn't been true. It hasn't been true for all of BFA, and it it's not going to be true in shadowlands. And... that's been, and will be perfectly ok.

    Since WoW started to design dungeons around "The MDI needs to be fun to watch," they have simultaneously added more systems and lanes of content to outright replace "the casual dungeon run." Between world quests, emissaries and timewalking vendors, I have fed up to 30 alts "good enough" gear without needing a single normal or heroic dungeon run for two expansions. I pretty much do not touch anything with groups assembled by the community, because I almost always don't have to, and I honestly don't feel like I'm missing anything. I say this to set up my key point: There have been very few "mandatory dungeons" since legion. The dungeon quests for the leveling game were off to the side of the main story, for both Legion and BFA. There were some in the class hall campaigns in legion, and the one mandatory dungeon in the launch phase was SoB for alliance, it was mythic only, and honestly... it was the singular "suck it up and stress for an hour" period of the expansion for me. I haven't felt compelled to run a dungeon outside of story advancement since.

    And again, that's ok. That's potentially intentionally on their minds as they design "if someone does the maze wrong we all start over" mechanics like we're going to see in Shadowlands. Quite clearly, this isn't "everyone will grind this" content any more because Torghast and the Maw and other such things will compete for our time. The weekly chest will apparently reward based on the sum of weekly activities.

    So I guess I pose the question here: Are dungeons potentially becoming more complex because they're becoming way more optional (in a fully optional game we all play for fun of course), with all the new parallel systems getting introduced each expansion?

  2. #2
    It would help the discussion if you provided examples of Mythic raid-esque "if one person fucks up, everyone dies" mechanics in dungeons (particularly the Shadowlands dungeons you mention but provide no information on), because I can't think of any from Legion or BFA or outside of Hertz Locker, which you shouldn't be trying to pug anyway.

    There's a lot of stuff that will get A player killed, especially on high keys, but unless the floor tanker is the healer or tank, it won't be a wipe.
    Cheerful lack of self-preservation

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Nefarious Tea View Post
    It would help the discussion if you provided examples of Mythic raid-esque "if one person fucks up, everyone dies" mechanics in dungeons (particularly the Shadowlands dungeons you mention but provide no information on), because I can't think of any from Legion or BFA or outside of Hertz Locker, which you shouldn't be trying to pug anyway.

    There's a lot of stuff that will get A player killed, especially on high keys, but unless the floor tanker is the healer or tank, it won't be a wipe.
    I just saw a bit describing the new ardenweald dungeon, and there is apparently a "do a maze, and if someone makes a wrong turn, we all go back to the beginning" element to it.
    Last edited by Omedon; 2020-05-25 at 01:07 AM.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Nefarious Tea View Post
    It would help the discussion if you provided examples of Mythic raid-esque "if one person fucks up, everyone dies" mechanics in dungeons (particularly the Shadowlands dungeons you mention but provide no information on), because I can't think of any from Legion or BFA or outside of Hertz Locker, which you shouldn't be trying to pug anyway.

    There's a lot of stuff that will get A player killed, especially on high keys, but unless the floor tanker is the healer or tank, it won't be a wipe.
    I think there are lots of instances in BfA, where a bossfight fails, if just one player of the group does repeatedly not follow the mechanics. MOTHERLODE last boss for example, Lord Stormsang and Priestess in Atal'dazar come to mind as well. Certain affixes, like bursting, will can also be pretty deadly, if someone does not play correctly and just DPSes on. This is of course assuming, that the dungeon in question is not outgeared by the group.

  5. #5
    Unless I'm doing a high level key I'm not looking for a challenge in my dungeons, personally. Low-level dungeons, especially ones before Mythic, are meant to be stress-free and approachable. It's what can get people ready for and in a large way prepare them for raiding if they're feeling anxious about it. Not everyone does dungeons and may even be scared to tank or heal in dungeons - making them even harder just makes them seem even more daunting for these players.

    Sometimes they have made decisions like these kinds of puzzles to be automated or skipped in M+ environments because the varied nature of them can ruin runs in terms of how it can impact the speed of a run.

    But also, there's a large potential for this kind of setup for players to troll each other and prevent the rest of the group from advancing. In the case of M+, this can destroy the key entirely. This could lead to an environment where simply no one is willing to do the dungeon in M+ at all simply because of this kind of behavior. And then Blizzard would be forced to implement a work-around mechanic like mentioned above anyway just to get rid of the toxicity.

    But even if the puzzles are super-basic level of easy, there's still the risk that people with disabilities may not be able to participate in the puzzles, and since in these puzzles everyone has to succeed for everyone to continue or they get ported back to the entrance, this could straight-up not let certain people be able to participate in certain content at least in PuGs because maybe they can't see a color or something.

  6. #6
    I'd like to see more things were you have to kite certain elements of bosses and they can't be tanked. Less just have the tank stand there and get smashed in the face type things. I'd wouldn't mind seeing encounters where a DPS has to become the tank.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Omedon View Post
    For the last couple expansions it feels to me that the... gimmickyness of dungeons has begun to tick up
    Can you be more specific? Other than a few spots in Mechagon (which was designed in that manner), the only "gimmicky" dungeon I can think of off the top of my head is Temple of Sethraliss, with its lightning puzzles and orb room.

    Or is that not what you meant? Which specific dungeons seem "gimmicky" to you from BfA and from Legion?
    "We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
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  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Gestopft View Post
    Can you be more specific? Other than a few spots in Mechagon (which was designed in that manner), the only "gimmicky" dungeon I can think of off the top of my head is Temple of Sethraliss, with its lightning puzzles and orb room.

    Or is that not what you meant? Which specific dungeons seem "gimmicky" to you from BfA and from Legion?
    I think the other posters in this thread, yourself among them, are filling out the examples just fine. I don't want to get into the specifics, welcoming "lol you think that's hard" and derailing the topic.
    Last edited by Omedon; 2020-05-25 at 12:52 AM.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Omedon View Post
    So I guess I pose the question here: Are dungeons potentially becoming more complex because they're becoming way more optional (in a fully optional game we all play for fun of course), with all the new parallel systems getting introduced each expansion?
    They can try that if they want but it's not going to work out for them lol.

    If they want to design dungeons around

    "The MDI needs to be fun to watch,"
    Make the fucking changes in M+ and leave everything below M+ the fuck alone. Any changes they are making because of M+ should only affect the high M+ people. I say high M+ people because +2 bros aren't going to aids complexity fun like a +20 bro will.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by LordVargK View Post
    I think there are lots of instances in BfA, where a bossfight fails, if just one player of the group does repeatedly not follow the mechanics. MOTHERLODE last boss for example
    What difficulty are you talking about? If someone doesn't stand next to the thing for his 'target player and slam' phase then it goes to someone else. That's not enough to make the fight fail. If it's shit like that in SL idc.
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  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Omedon View Post
    I think the other posters in this thread, yourself among them, are filling out the examples just fine. I don't want to get into the specifics, welcoming "lol you think that's hard" and derailing the topic.
    Well, I'm asking for specificity because if you mean more of what I was talking about: 'puzzles' etc. like in Temple of Sethraliss than I would fundamentally disagree that dungeons are getting "more gimmicky;" we've had dungeon gimmicks all the way back. Sethraliss's orb room was first used in Blackrock Depths. We've had Oculus drakes, WoD's Skyreach had that annoying wind path thing, but most dungeons still don't have 'gimmicks' like that.

    But if you mean what @LordVargK was talking about- mechanics that put the onus on a single player to perform correctly- then a) I wouldn't use the word "gimmicky" to describe that, and b) I would probably agree that this sort of thing is increasing. I wouldn't cite the reason as "the MDI needs to be fun to watch" (they designed the system before coming up with the MDI, yes?), but because having dungeons as a viable endgame progression path through the M+ system requires more than just an escalating gear check.
    "We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
    -Louis Brandeis

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Omedon View Post
    I just saw a bit describing the new ardenweald dungeon, and there is apparently a "do a maze, and if someone makes a wrong turn, we all go back to the beginning" element to it.
    Good gods, that sounds miserable. I hope that will get changed or Mists of Tirna Scithe will be THE hated dungeon in BFA.
    Cheerful lack of self-preservation

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Drusin View Post
    What difficulty are you talking about? If someone doesn't stand next to the thing for his 'target player and slam' phase then it goes to someone else. That's not enough to make the fight fail. If it's shit like that in SL idc.
    If it's unlucky, then the same player gets chosen multiple times in a row. And the slam does quite a bit of damage. Again, if your healer outgears the fight, then it's pretty easy, but in "progress" mistakes like that can wipe you, especially if it happens multiple times.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by LordVargK View Post
    I think there are lots of instances in BfA, where a bossfight fails, if just one player of the group does repeatedly not follow the mechanics. MOTHERLODE last boss for example, Lord Stormsang and Priestess in Atal'dazar come to mind as well. Certain affixes, like bursting, will can also be pretty deadly, if someone does not play correctly and just DPSes on. This is of course assuming, that the dungeon in question is not outgeared by the group.
    If people continually fuck up Mogul Razdunk, eventually the smash will catch up with and kill them, and the remaining four group members can carry on as normal. Same thing with Lord Stormsong. Only the person who fucks up dies. Everyone else kills the boss with four players. In Priestess Alun'za's case, true the boss gets healed if someone fucks up, but the healer can always just "accidentally" not heal them and the problem will sort itself out. In none of these instances does the group guaranteed wipe because someone fucked up; there's no "everyone dies and the attempt is over because one person screwed up" like there frequently is in Mythic raiding.

    I concede your argument with bursting, but that's also a transient mechanic that is not actually tied to a boss or dungeon. It's not always there, every run, so I wouldn't consider it a dungeon mechanic (because it happens everywhere for a week as part of the M+ rotation).

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    Quote Originally Posted by Razion View Post
    But even if the puzzles are super-basic level of easy, there's still the risk that people with disabilities may not be able to participate in the puzzles, and since in these puzzles everyone has to succeed for everyone to continue or they get ported back to the entrance, this could straight-up not let certain people be able to participate in certain content at least in PuGs because maybe they can't see a color or something.
    Literally not an excuse. WoW has had colorblind modes for multiple kinds of colorblindness (not just x-linked red/green colorblindness that affects 5-10% of men) since 3.0 dropped.
    Last edited by Nefarious Tea; 2020-05-25 at 01:35 AM.
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  14. #14
    WoW encounters in general have been going toward more complex trend because they have to catch up with players's aqquired skill over the years.
    Last edited by Wildmoon; 2020-05-25 at 01:38 AM.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Nefarious Tea View Post
    If people continually fuck up Mogul Razdunk, eventually the smash will catch up with and kill them, and the remaining four group members can carry on as normal. Same thing with Lord Stormsong. Only the person who fucks up dies. Everyone else kills the boss with four players. In Priestess Alun'za's case, true the boss gets healed if someone fucks up, but the healer can always just "accidentally" not heal them and the problem will sort itself out. In none of these instances does the group guaranteed wipe because someone fucked up; there's no "everyone dies and the attempt is over because one person screwed up" like there frequently is in Mythic raiding.

    I concede your argument with bursting, but that's also a transient mechanic that is not actually tied to a boss or dungeon. It's not always there, every run, so I wouldn't consider it a dungeon mechanic (because it happens everywhere for a week as part of the M+ rotation).

    - - - Updated - - -



    Literally not an excuse. WoW has had colorblind modes for multiple kinds of colorblindness (not just x-linked red/green colorblindness that affects 5-10% of men) since 3.0 dropped.
    Sure, you don't HAVE to die, but it is very likely, that if you fail Stormsong and one player gets permanently MCed, then the group will die, because the damage check for the next MC is not met (depends of how many spheres spawn) and you have an additional target you have to kill (because, irrc, you don't die when the cast goes through, but are turned against your group). And remember, the healer has not infinite mana. There's only so many mistakes that can be healed and so many DPS that can go missing, because one DD fails.

    Again, I'm only talking about a group, that is not overequipped for the difficulty of the dungeon.
    Last edited by LordVargK; 2020-05-25 at 01:54 AM.

  16. #16
    I see more of an issue in mythic raids than dungeons, where randomly-assigned (or occurs enough where most/all ppl need to do it) mechanics are pass/fail if one person screws up versus just being a setback that can be overcome. A large portion of the reasons why immunities are so sought after in group content is that all the mechanics are trending towards pass/fail with no chance of recovery.
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  17. #17
    There's nothing wrong with having mechanics in dungeons/on bosses that can't be overcome (or can't be overcome without serious gear) by brute force. 5mans are supposed to be mini raids, not 5 people hitting target dummies.

    If some lfr hero can't be bothered to learn to hook the guy off the wall in SL and you can't just mindlessly nuke the aboms down and the group wipes they deserve to get yelled at until they learn or they quit.

    Edit; I mean we're at the point now that the only time mythic 0s are challenging is like the first two weeks of an expansion, if lfd groups are going to be wiping in heroic because people can't figure out how to get back up to the lich by running through a gauntlet maybe some slaps on the wrist will make them open the dungeon journal.
    Last edited by Saltysquidoon; 2020-05-25 at 02:05 AM.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Wildmoon View Post
    WoW encounters in general have been going toward more complex trend because they have to catch up with players's aqquired skill over the years.
    This is a good point, but it's also illuminated something else kinda hidden in my OP that I've only just now found words for: There was a time when "just do a dungeon" was the DPS player's "path of least resistance." That path still exists, because it must, because casual money, but that path is seemingly moving out of dungeons, IMO. Normal and heroic 5-mans seem more of a prelude to "an actual Esport" now, and that path of least resistance has moved to world quests, the overworld, and potentially torghast and other role-agnostic content.

    Again, Dungeons are seemingly "permitted to be harder" because there is another path of least resistance. @Razion mentioned running dungeons just to relax, and that used to be my life (I am 100% on team "I don't do group content to be challenged!"). I haven't felt that life was viable in BFA, and it really doesn't look to be coming back in shadowlands either... but again, World Quests make me ok with all that. That's me speaking for me though. I would feel for anyone hoping to just chill their way through dungeons given the developmental trend of some kind of skill arms race with the playerbase.
    Last edited by Omedon; 2020-05-25 at 02:10 AM.

  19. #19
    Ever since Mythic/M+ it seems like that's what they are going for. Turning dungeons into a lot of pass/fail bullshit to make MDI attractive. I personally hate it, and feel that's not at all the right direction to go but it's here to stay and popular so there you go. But yeah I agree, I'm sick of having a ton of mechanics all over the place in dungeons. one or two per boss is fine but it tends to get crazy over time.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Nobleshield View Post
    Ever since Mythic/M+ it seems like that's what they are going for. Turning dungeons into a lot of pass/fail bullshit to make MDI attractive. I personally hate it, and feel that's not at all the right direction to go but it's here to stay and popular so there you go. But yeah I agree, I'm sick of having a ton of mechanics all over the place in dungeons. one or two per boss is fine but it tends to get crazy over time.
    But that seems stupid. Just as you can add mechanics for heroic from normal and for mythic from heroic they can add mechanics for keys and leave the low end content the fuck alone. You want to jazz up your MDI? Cool, go ahead, jazz up M+, but N and H don't need any extra Jazz. ESPECIALLY not as long as you randomly group people with players that don't speak the same language. You think that shit is hated now, wait until individual players can consistently wipe the whole group lol.
    Last edited by Drusin; 2020-05-25 at 04:25 AM.
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