WoW introduced the Proving Grounds in MoP as a way to add a new element of "this is how you play your class in a group setting" type thing.
These were fairly simple, with Bronze being easy to get, Silver having a modicum of difficulty, and Gold posing a challenge to some class/specs and even to seasoned players.
I thought these were a neat little additional that allowed people to see how they are performing in a "group environment" before actually being in a group environment, if they so chose anyway.
The new feature proposal would be to take Proving Grounds to the next level.
This would involve enhancing the Proving Grounds to incorporate Dungeon (and potentially Raid bosses, but Dungeons would be a big effort already).
Here's how it would work:
- When you enter the proving grounds, you would have an additional NPC so you can do the old school ones or you can choose a dungeon boss from the new NPC
- After you choose it, your current spec and role is locked into place and NPCs fill in the role gaps
- You are placed into the generic room (big circle) with the chosen boss in front and everything is paused until you hit a 'ready' button
- Before it starts, the Dungeon Journal is auto-opened to the boss and allows you to read the abilities and review what's happening
- Once combat starts, what you do is based on role:
--- Tank would pull the boss and be directed when to use defensives, when to move the boss, and any other factors associated with the boss/positioning
--- Heals would begin healing Tanks, directed when a Tank would take a big hit (need focused heals) and when a raid-wide damage event happens for raid healing
--- All roles would also follow the encounter-specific mechanics, such as 'move out of fire', 'stand in soaky bits', or 'kill adds' type of things
The encounter will be based on level of performance, so instead of just having a hard 3 minute window of 'stay alive', the encounter can end early if you fail a mechanic within a certain threshold.
Let's take Hakrias or whatever the rock guy's name is from HoA.
The Tank has to use defensives for a tank hit, DPS and Heals need to stay within the aura, everyone needs to avoid glassy stuff on the ground, and everyone needs to avoid laser beams.
The player would follow their role, tanking healing or DPSing, and be expected to perform the mechanics.
If you get hit by the laser, the encounter ends regardless of the NPCs and you get a chance to start over.
If you take more than X seconds of glass stuff under your feet, you fail and can start over.
Each failure will come with the ability that caused the failure and the Dungeon Journal explanation of how to deal with it.
The win condition will be when you complete the set of mechanics a certain number of times, so it's not a DPS race to burn the boss but rather a mechanics check to make sure you can stay in the aura, dodge the glass, and avoid the laser beam maybe 3 times total (just as an example value, sets of mechanics can change).
Once you do that, you pass and complete the encounter.
I can see the value in this for someone who isn't too familiar with the dungeons (so, no, if you clear +15 on every dungeon every week, this isn't for you) and wants to learn the boss mechanics without the stress of joining a group and potentially getting chastised for failing something, especially when you are a tank or heal, as well as people who may have done the dungeons multiple times but only as DPS and want to try their hand at healing, for example.
You could say "well, just run normal/heroic/m+0 and practice there", but odds are normal/heroic (as they lack mechanics and health) will be largely trivialized and mechanics won't actually matter (aside from one-shot mechanics), and even in M+0, some bosses will fall over before they even get off the entire mechanics set.
This can help people understand encounters better and be more confident in joining groups, especially for people who would want to join M+ and such but are intimidated by the requirements people hold, because that confidence will come with practice and understanding when to do what.
If anything, it becomes "just another proving grounds" with achievements (like the "ready for raiding" type ones) and titles, maybe even cosmetic stuff, can be offered through it as incentive to do it without requiring anything for access to dungeons or anything.
I don't want to lock anything out, just have an option to go and practice/improve should you choose and if you do, to get a reward of some type for doing so.
Eventually getting this to Raid encounters would be a decent way for people to practice those as well, though that would be a heavy lift from the dev end to balance this with NPCs and figuring out how mechanics rotations will work, taunt swaps between tanks (when one is a player), positioning, and just general strategies, so it would probably be a watered down "here's the abilities they do, one by one, in a vacuum" type of thing, since a lot of groups devise their own strategy around their makeup, roles, etc.
This could eventually be a boon to LFR so some people may actually take initiative to try it first before jumping in, but tbh I haven't entered LFR for quite a while now so I'm not sure what state it's in, in terms of success/failure, but I would venture failure rate is still fairly high based on some threads around here.
Anyway, let's see some opinions on whether this would be a good addition to the game, or whether people should just learn to play by the "trial by fire" approach.