"Flex" Dungeons.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

It should scale from 1-n players, and a solo player should be able to hire NPCs.

Or... they should leave dungeons the way they are, and create more solo Scenarios for solo-only players for this sole reason.


Those players who wish to play solo and only solo in a MMORPG designed to be played with many other players. If so, the same amount of solo Scenarios should be created and drop gear with item level no quite at the level of respective dungeon difficulty, but close, so to not render current dungeons of any difficulty obsolete (as obsolete they already are compared to M+ and raiding gear) and provides a decently viable alternative for players who are anti-social.

[Demsi]

I liked UBRS so yeah why not

[garicasha]

I don’t like it honestly, but I am a little surprised that the dungeon comp hasn’t been changed to 1/1/4 to try and accommodate more DPS.

[epigramx]

I don’t like it honestly, but I am a little surprised that the dungeon comp hasn’t been changed to 1/1/4 to try and accommodate more DPS.

I bet most of those problems are because of the technical issue that a lot of healing spells (and some other abilities) work only on 1 group and if you don't have multiples of 5 then it becomes too awkward to use those spells.

I think we had the same problem when we transitioned from 10/25 to 20man hard mode raiding. I had theorized the best might be a ~17man (the mid-point) but that would have had that issue.

[Dimmak]

Yes but it would need to be tight range like 4 to 7 that way you don't need to expand the healer or tank numbers which is usually what is in demand.

[Boricha]

Sounds like a good idea for everything below m+, but it wouldn't work in m+. Also, all the dungeon difficulties below m+ are so short-lived and irrelevant as it stands. It's a good idea but would have very little impact on the game unfortunately.

[loras]

Yeah. Crazy idea. But holy crap imagine what it could do for queues.

Instead of a standard 5-man dungeon, they could scale from 3-10 man. Still one healer, one tank, but then a second healer added as the 7th player. The rest are Damage Dealers.

Just like raids, enemy damage and health scales with the number of players. Maybe scale the tank's health as well?

That's so crazy it just might work.
The distinction between raid and dungeon has always felt strangely artificial to me anyway, though it might, once again, draw in whining regarding the quantuty and, more importantly, quality of loot.

Mind adding a poll to this thread?

[Caprias]

It'd be better to address why so little players choose to tank and heal.

Things like Mythic+ season one for example (and necrotic in general lmao) are dissuading any newer tank players really quickly with how much harder it is and the additional responsibility for proper routes.

Also give both roles ways to deal some real damage, tank and holy paladins this expansion are popular because being a blue or green dps is fun. (Obviously there needs to be some balancing but the idea in general could be that both roles can deal 70%~ of the damage of dps in every situation, dealing big deeps is fun.)

[chiddie]

It'd be better to address why so little players choose to tank and heal.

Things like Mythic+ season one for example (and necrotic in general lmao) are dissuading any newer tank players really quickly with how much harder it is and the additional responsibility for proper routes.

Also give both roles ways to deal some real damage, tank and holy paladins this expansion are popular because being a blue or green dps is fun. (Obviously there needs to be some balancing but the idea in general could be that both roles can deal 70%~ of the damage of dps in every situation, dealing big deeps is fun.)

Because tanking and healing are boring and useless (especially healing) if you play solo. You can do open world stuff or solo instanced stuff like Torghast anyways but you are slower and you have no benefits at all.

Unless you really want to go through M+/raid/PvP (where tanks have another minus), there’s no reason to choose one of the two roles.

Also especially tanks have a LOT of responsibilities in parties since it’s them who give the pace of the runs and they have to learn a lot more stuff than other roles.

To return it, for me it would be a useless feature, no one cares about normal and heroic dungeons besides leveling or fresh maxed because the gear in there is useless.

[XDurionX]

"Sorry we can't do this with 9 people, everybody knows it's a lot easier with 8"

[Coldkil]

Given how the only relevant dungeons are m+ and you don't want flex size in there, i think it's a useless idea. Not because it's inherently flawed but because it has no spot to fit.

If for some reason ti gets its way into m+, i can see how each dungeon would become a meta nigthmare woth different recommended sizes and comps.

[kizcrew]

Yeah. Crazy idea. But holy crap imagine what it could do for queues.

Instead of a standard 5-man dungeon, they could scale from 3-10 man. Still one healer, one tank, but then a second healer added as the 7th player. The rest are Damage Dealers.

Just like raids, enemy damage and health scales with the number of players. Maybe scale the tank's health as well?

The problem with your idea is that the hard part is getting a healer and a tank. So if it scaled from 3-10, a group made up of 3 players would still need a healer and a tank, but only allow for 1 dps. Which means there's going to be even more dps in the queue, making getting into a group harder.

So the system would then throw dps into the group until it's at 6 players. Effectively you would've just added another player to 5-man groups. Then the question is would you get another healer quickly, or more importantly, do you even need another healer at 7 players. Keep throwing dps into the group, and you'll need more healing. But add a healer that early, and you have more healing than you need.

I really don't think this idea was thought through.

[Caprias]

Because tanking and healing are boring and useless (especially healing) if you play solo. You can do open world stuff or solo instanced stuff like Torghast anyways but you are slower and you have no benefits at all.

Unless you really want to go through M+/raid/PvP (where tanks have another minus), there’s no reason to choose one of the two roles.

Also especially tanks have a LOT of responsibilities in parties since it’s them who give the pace of the runs and they have to learn a lot more stuff than other roles.

To return it, for me it would be a useless feature, no one cares about normal and heroic dungeons besides leveling or fresh maxed because the gear in there is useless.

Well that's kinda my point, figure out why players are picking tank/heal so rarely and address that, give them fun burst windows, give them tools just for the open world and lower the skill/responsibility floor a bit.

[epigramx]

Flex should work for 5man (up to 10) and for 10mans (up to 20) and for 20mans (up to 40), but that's part of a more comprehensive solution to the problems of the game I'll present at a later date.

Obviously: mythic/hard mode can not flex; it's technically impossible to balance or at least it makes it even worse at that; those things are mainly for fun and normal and heroic.

[garicasha]

I bet most of those problems are because of the technical issue

Yah I'm guessing that if they were to start again today they would re-design the game with groups of 6 or 7, so it'd be something like:
1/1/4 & 2/3/13
or
1/1/5 & 2/3/16
or
1/1/6 & 2/4/18

And then rebalancing a lot, tank damage would have to come way down. Healing would have to go way up or the amount of AoE going out would have to come down.

Honestly a party size of 7 (1/1/5) and raid size of 21 (2/3/16 or 2/4/15) would make some sense. Granted 21 is kind of a weird raid size, but if the game was designed around a party size of 7 it'd seem natural. They could also just make parties size 7 and raids of size 20, or raid makeup could be 2/3/15 + one flex depending on encounter.

And I think there's a not-insignificant number of tanks and healers that would play DPS if they could get a raid spot for it.

And I've said this in other posts, but the reason that tanking isn't as interesting as it could be is because the game is designed around the DPS having to pump the maximum at all points, which strongly discourages CC and kiting because it lowers the deeps.

[epigramx]

a party size of 7 (1/1/5) and raid size of 21 (2/3/16 or 2/4/15) would make some sense. Granted 21 is kind of a weird raid size, but if the game was designed around a party size of 7 it'd seem natural.

I think that depends almost entirely on healing because even if some other spells work on groups (e.g. enh shaman buffing): it's healers that mainly work with spells that work on 1 group only.

And when it gets to a 7man only (I mean an instance of 7 in total or a healer in a raid dedicated to a group of that): it should be something they can heal naturally and well and with fun.

My vague impression is that 1 healer can heal comfortably 1 tank + themselves + at most 3 others under random damage of each so that means a total of ...5 ok maybe 6.

[VinceVega]

If there is scaling there will be an optimal size which everyone will use.

If it is in groupfinder... you will ALWAYS have the max dps number and the healer is either fucked or it is faceroll...

so no... i don't think this is good. I also don't think flex should be in Mythic. Tuning is better when they have a fixed size.

[epigramx]

If there is scaling there will be an optimal size which everyone will use.

If it is in groupfinder... you will ALWAYS have the max dps number and the healer is either fucked or it is faceroll...

Yes and no. This idea is inapplicable on hard mode (mythic); it's impossible to balance it well and people would flamewar all day too about what setup was the hardest etc. (because we know that's what they did in the days of 10man and 25man hard mode); it's also the same reason that 10man should return in hard mode but only with its own dungeons (because 5man is an extreme with its metas of only a handful of specs dominating it).

But: on group finder: who cares; why would you hate that; imagine flex 5mans up to 10man: glorious.

[Tyris Flare]

I'd argue this is an entirely social problem. Tanking is easy and fun. People avoiding it do so due to other players.

Social problems can be addressed with incentives. It's not easy, but possible.

They probably need to increase tank DPS considerably, preferably where you can make a significant survivability tradeoff. Instead of hitting x you hit y when you want to do huge damage. For example, if prot pal had something like Templar's Verdict as prot where you could do twice the damage but not get the active mit that would be great. Also, all tanks need a dps cooldown at a minimum.

I think a lot of people don't realize how easy tanking is 99% of the time, but it's boring as hell because you do so little dps that it barely matters how you use your buttons. I had fun for a while this patch trying to do max DPs as a paladin (which is very high, can often beat mediocre dps players) but that's not true for most specs. And never true for single-target.

[czarek]

This is thorgast tbh. Theres no requirement except capability. We do want to spread tanks and healers more ? I think not. In that system 1tank and 1healer require min 1dpser so for example we got like 2tanks 2healers and 10dpsers. 1tank pair with 1healer and 1dps and 8dpsers still lookin for grp. I know u mean flexible. Maybe for leveling dungeons its good idea when we do need one more anyone or there is 7 ppl in a que for same dung. But im still not sure. It could be a messy merge 5 ppl isnt that hard.