Can we just geek out over "the era of TO?"

[Reinhart11]

Yes in theory, this will happen. We don't know what this will look like in practice. Not sure how an Arms Warrior with basicly no self healing or utility is supposed to do the same solo dungeon in Torghast for example, that a bear tank, or any tank, or DH or DK or Beastmaster will do. Either they have to balance it, that it is doable for speccs like Arms, which would make it ridiculously easy for a lot of the strong solo speccs, or they have to balance this kind of content to each specific class/specc, which would be a nightmare when it comes to the amount of work and ressouces this will eat up. So i'm really not sure what we will get here from the developers. It could become a major shit show.

The only somewhat simple solution in my mind would be class design like it was in MoP. Where literally each class and specc had self healing, utility and such, which would make creating this 1 to 5 instanced content much easier. But i doubt the class developers are able to recreate such class design if Holinka says that he is proud about what they have done and accomplished. Because bringing back some old abilities they didn't even create themselves and took away, because they have no clue, without proper class design and good synergy between abilities and proper mastery will be meaningless when it comes to fun class gameplay. So i very much doubt we will get MoP like class design, because this would certainly be a big class overhaul equal to Legion. But they clearly stated that this won't be the case.

Instead we will get a bunch of talent trees and abilities we will lose in the next expansion, again. On top of that, our characters will be different strength wise when it comes to open world, certain dungeons or raids, because we get extra abilities in Torghast or some abilities aren't active in PvP or Raids or only active in specific regions like it is in Nazjatar with Benthic gear. Which is garbage design in my opinion. Even in WoW Classic there was gear that gave me plus 1% crit everywhere in WoW. But apparently in BfA this bonus has to be restricted to certain content.

[TheVaryag]

Starting with patch 8.3, and going into the likely 2 year run of shadowlands, there will be a consistent, supported and intentionally important avenue of progression content for not one, not five, but one TO five players! Role agnostic, scaling to size, this could redefine how we look at this particular MMO!

The people I play with formed a pretty tight circle of friends that enjoyed steamrolling LFD in WOTLK for badges and profit back in the day. As the years rolled on and we got all adult and busy, it's become almost impossible to line us all up for a 5-man run. If M+ had hit in WOTLK, we likely would have gravitated toward it, but in this time of heightened accessibility we've basically replaced dungeons with World Quests because we just never line up. We get in the occasional island, and we really appreciate that it's 3-man content... but with the idea of one TO five of us having something to do together, we haven't been this excited since our brief return to city of villains (which has always had level and group-size scaling content) when it came back with quasi-official servers!

Honestly, I have nothing in common any more with the core dungeon running community, because to do that content I have to deal with people I don't know and, to be honest, I don't play this game to do that. It's not a social "meet people" setting, it's a place I play alone or with friends, and oh boy are we ever excited to have an avenue of content that fits the exact number of people we can line up on any given day: One TO five!

We can't be the only ones looking forward to this, and I know we'll be leaning hard on this content to do our best to "vote with our time" and tell the devs "more of this please!"

I'll just simple say I believe It's a horrificly bad Idea to push the role-agnostic thing forward more than It needs to be, a side-thing, an extra, a bonus but not the focus of future content hopefully. I say this mostly as a Player of Wow since Vanilla 15 years ago and a player of SWTOR for almost 8 dreadful years. SWTOR In the last 3 expansions has done a POOR job at making the holy trinity, tank/healer/dps mean something. There were leveling dungeons you did from 10-60 and then you did essentially Heroics as the Holy Trinity, but, get this: If you were still level 50-60, you can queue up for heroics but you'd be scaled up.

Imagine that that, you're leveling in BfA as a level 115 but you'd be able to queue for Mythic + 10 or something, how stupid is that? That's what they did basically. There's another tier above that, Master Dungeons (Or Flashpoints as they call them) which ARE only lvl 75 (The current highest level as of the last expansion releasing a month or so again, Onslaught).

And even there people who queue up for the HARDEST DUNGEON DIFFICULTY IN THE GAME have no bloody clue what tank/healer/dps really is and the huge problem was this: SWTOR has made all the leveling dungeons from 1-60 In the last three expansions be role-agnostic, they added kolto healing stations near bosses for people to use instead of a healer, and whoever had the agro just had the agro and that's It. It's really dumb. The leveling process Is there to teach you how to tank, heal and dps as well as learn about your class/spec and what you might enjoy, WoW has a similar problem but that's for another post.

This role-agrnotis ONLY leveling dungeons means nobody is learning the holy trinity in swtor, you have people dying left and right and leaving, replaced soon with another person, easily could be 3 people on average changing places In the same dungeons as they die, rage quit and leave and get replaced. Some people who know what they're doing can manage, but total newbies won't understand. They're not gonna be impressed, they won't learn anything.

And If you push the Idea of roll-agronstic content to Blizzard so much they might just do that to leveling dungeons and think It's a good bloody idea cause that might just bring In players faster to the End-game content, as Blizzard has a hard on for making people rush the levleing experience rather than fixing It, and even the Shadowlands leveling "Revamp" Isn't going to solve It, what they showed there Is at best a short-term solution as always.

Role-agrostic can be fine, aslong as It doesn't Interfier or entirely replace the Holy Trinity during leveling and endgame. And with the way Blizzard are acting now I dont' trust them, they might just see a post like this and think It's a good idea and adopt It.

[Mikazukinoyaiba]

Do people actually excited with POTD copycat or are they just pretending?

[drbatman]

Role agnostic, scaling to size, this could redefine how we look at this particular MMO!

yea its not like flex raiding hasnt been out for YEARS....

[monkaW]

What to geek out over?

Its Palace of the Dead, but instead of level you gain AP (Anima Power), tuned for accesibility so if you expect to do something cool, dont bother.

[CerealLord]

Do people actually excited with POTD copycat or are they just pretending?

POTD was and still is one of my favorite things in FFXIV. Trying to clear solo all levels on my RDM was a shit ton of fun. Now, I hope that Torghast will be similarly not restricted to a certain amount of runs per day but will allow people to play at their own pace, but im pretty sure they are discussing limiting it.

- - - Updated - - -

What to geek out over?

Its Palace of the Dead, but instead of level you gain AP (Anima Power), tuned for accesibility so if you expect to do something cool, dont bother.

POTD was great content in FFXIV, lol. I know im in a minority, but I enjoyed it. HoH however was miserable.

Edit:

Also, some people haven't even touched ffxiv so they have no idea what potd actually is, but I expect it to be nearly exactly the same in WoW.

[Speedlance]

I like both solo and group content så im happy

[donuthoe]

Hope it rewards something like mage tower but doubt it

[SunspotAnims]

This was something I started thinking a lot about over the course of BfA.

Content that requires grouping is not necessarily "social" content. If anything, the grouping requirement is one of the biggest factors that killed the staying power of island expeditions and warfronts. Imagine if islands and warfronts were instead played with 1-5 players; they'd be easier to jump in to, you wouldn't feel rushed playing them, your decision-making matters during them, and you can play them while grouped up with any number of people that you actually want to play with. It'd make them infinitely better, and that along with randomized generation is why I'm so interested in seeing how Torghast plays out. If they pull it off and it actually turns out to be a fun feature, I'd love to see it lead to more content that would usually require queuing up with randos instead allow you to choose to play it as a solo challenge or tackle it with friends. Hell, maybe they should even start developing all dungeons to be 1-5 player experiences.

"Wouldn't that kill the MMO part of MMORPG?"

Nah. I've realized at some point that it doesn't really make a difference if I'm playing alone or with a bunch of random people I don't care about surrounding me. Neither is a "social" experience, but one of them is often more enjoyable. Actual social experiences usually involve playing with people I actually want to play with: friends, guildmates, etc. Torghast enables playing with friends but doesn't force other people on you, which makes it more accessible while ensuring that the social experiences you have in it are higher quality.

I agree that the concept of being in a world full of people is core to WoW, but it doesn't necessarily make the game "social" and can even be a detriment to the enjoyment of certain gameplay if overused, e.g. islands and warfronts. Instead, there are better ways to make random social interactions more interesting; for example, more options for player expression allow players to say something unique to everyone around them without having to say anything at all.

[hulkgor]

If you're talking about that pve tower thing, I thought they said 1-4 players.

Bring up to 4 friends...

you (1) + up to four friends (4) = 5.

[Beefhammer]

It's an MMO. If you play it as a single player, it will get boring.

I would know, I'm an actual shut-in.

I've played many a MMO solo. Most if my time spent in WoW has been solo. I have a blast. My worst experience was in EQ when you were pretty much forced to group just to level above 20 I think, been too long but there was a wall where it was early impossible to level without at least one other in the beginning.

[MHMabrito]

I'm sorry, are you complaining that you can do it with as many people as you want? I'm confused how this is an issue to you if you all have become adults and live busy lifes leading to not everyone being on at the same time.

[Omedon]

Role-agrostic can be fine, aslong as It doesn't Interfier or entirely replace the Holy Trinity during leveling and endgame. And with the way Blizzard are acting now I dont' trust them, they might just see a post like this and think It's a good idea and adopt It.

Here's hoping!

[This One Time At Bandcamp]

I agree with you OP, I rarely play with a full team anymore, so this is a GREAT addition to the game for me.
I often work evenings, so I have to grind stuff alone in the morning/noon-hours. I always feel left behind because of that.

I loved the Mage towers, I hope this will have the same feel.

[Zyky]

We can't be the only ones looking forward to this, and I know we'll be leaning hard on this content to do our best to "vote with our time" and tell the devs "more of this please!"

I just want to point out that they had this idea with Warlords LFR. Where if you needed a tank the game would adjust properly so that you could continue the run while down a tank or down a couple healers, but they never followed through.

I can't speak if it'll be different this time or if they'll actually follow through, all I can say is don't hold your breath and get excited for something that's over a year away when Blizzard as a long track record of not following through from Blizzcon announcements to in-game implementation.

[Lane]

I've been waiting 8 years for WoW to do something like this, ever since Rift added Chronicles back in 2011.

[plz delete account]

If you're talking about that pve tower thing, I thought they said 1-4 players.

No. You can bring up to four friends is what they said, and where you might've gotten the 4 from.

[HulkSmasher]

Solo content is super important to me. I like having the freedom to do my own thing when I choose. So yes, definitely more of this content please.

[Omedon]

I've been waiting 8 years for WoW to do something like this, ever since Rift added Chronicles back in 2011.

Mad respect for RIFT on so many different fronts! They were a major fallback point of high quality when we took a WoW hiatus from late Cataclysm to late WoD! We tried so many MMOs in that time, but RIFT was the closest to a second home... largely because of their housing and open world content as well as chronicles!

[Shakana]

i love the rise of "1 to X" content.

i only have one friend i do things with, and they're the only person i don't lock up and feel embarrassed to talk and enjoy myself around. me and him do a bunch of stuff together, so having a dungeon we can 2man is awesome.

Same, me and my boyfriend love to do stuff together, and sometimes we get even annoyed we need to bring more people (random people) to do it cause it's required more people. Even m+ being the most fun, sometimes i feel if we could just do me and him we would get stuff done much more easier, or bring just a healer with us.
I hate healing, and he is not much of a healer too, we prefer tanking and dpsing. But when it's just me and him doing stuff it feels so much better.

I mean, we don't mind getting more people if they know what to do, but you literally don't know anything unless you go check elitist armories and parses and whatnot.
At least with just each other we know how we play and that's enough for us to go along everywhere.

I'm a quick learner, even if a wipe on something i try again and mend my mistakes and the next time i do it, it will get better, and so on, until we can just do it super easily. For me to learn mechanics on stuff, i just basically need a quick and basic explanation and then experience it in the time and all it's good.

I wish stuff would scale to the party size you have and not just be required always 5 people.

For me this is a great addition to the game. I hope i get more stuff like this. (Btw im not anti social xD i just love to do stuff with my friends and boyfriend, or guildies, instead of having to pull it off with randoms, im even guildless lately cause all they think about is mythic raiding and progress and i want to do more stuff than just that, even getting glory achievements from old raids, or just glory from dungeons that gives you mounts, i don't know i get entertained easy with having achievements to accomplish)