So I’m a bit of an altoholic and typically spam dungeons to level. One thing I’ve noticed is that the low level dungeons do not challenge the players at all. They are always a cakewalk and there’s no sense of danger being in these dungeons.
For example, there are no mechanics in lower level dungeons that punish players for making mistakes or playing their class incorrectly. This is bad game design because a new player will never understand things like interrupts, positioning, etc. These skills are only necessary for max level content.
So what I propose, is the devs introduce a new difficulty to the leveling dungeons. This difficulty would have better rewards for completing them. Ideally they would be as punishing as a mythic 0 and bosses/trash would have more mechanics. Here are some examples of how the difficulty would be:
You missed an interrupt on a dangerous ability? Well, here comes big damage. Hopefully your healer is a pumper.
Didn’t mitigate incoming damage properly as a tank? Dead or close to it.
You’re a dps in front of a cleave? Dead.
Here is what I imagine the rewards would be:
More bonus XP for completing the dungeon.
Gear rewards that are better than heirlooms for their respective level.
More gold for completing the dungeon.
Mounts/titles for completing certain achievements tied to these dungeons.
I feel that adding this to the game would make leveling feel a lot more engaging and rewarding like it used to back in the day. It would also allow players to master their class a lot earlier on so when they step into higher level content, it will feel so much more natural.
So…yeah. That’s my million dollar idea. Feel free to add suggestions to make this idea even better as well as any feedback you have on why maybe this wouldn’t work.
It wouldn’t work because basically all this is, is a “gift” to better players doing what they already do.
All those things you talk about really aren’t that challenging to better players. They’re automatic. If they were challenging, then we’d have more wipes, more time, and the Community would be in an uproar over not being able to do content that they “have to do”. That’s “unfair”.
The problem with low level dungeons is gear imbalance and scaling. Low level dungeons used to be “hard” back in Classic, lots of undergeared players striving to get through them, but very few overgeared players (they’re off doing other dungeons). So they were easier to tune. Now, not so much.
There is a scaling problem with the lower level dungeons.
They make a lower level player have very have very weak enemies to play against. If you were to take the worst possible case, a level 10 arcane mage with heirloom gear and take it into a dungeon, you have a chance of doing 50% of all damage in the run.
The only time you have a chance of that not happening is if you have another level 10 in the group. By about level 16 that starts to change, but it still makes those low level dungeons extremely trivial since most players doing those dungeons will be below that level.
This would be entirely optional. It’s meant for veteran players who want to have a more engaging experience while dungeon leveling while also giving a new player the opportunity to play their class at a higher level.
You’re right. This would be sort of problematic for those classes who would need those abilities. I suppose if Blizzard did something like this they may decide to give players these abilities at level 10 at least so they are all on a level playing field.
Playing TBC again has been pretty much a confirmation that current dungeons are pretty boring and easy. I have yet to see anyone mark CC in a SL dungeon, but I see, and mark, CC all the time. I have seen mages have pointed out to them that they have an interrupt for a reason.
It actually killed my interest in retail’s dungeons.
That said, TBC does have a class imbalance, for dungeons, that is pretty nasty. If you have a tank who can hold AoE agro and an AoE heavy group, you can just run through them more often than not. And since it makes such fast and easy dungeons, way too many people do it.
Since I tank feral, I get to see the more engaging part of it.
That dungeon is so buggy right now that I have had a run that was literally unplayable. The dragon for one player despawned while in mid air, he lived, but he couldnt do anything. He had to log out to get control back. Then the other dragons refused to come when called again.
They would have to add some gate keeping. After level squish most healers don’t have any kind of group heal till 21-22. Tanks are hit or miss on mitigation till mid 30s.
Currently you can queue into a level dungeon and roll with a level 15 tank, a level 10 healer and a 60 dps using level sync with full 9.1 gear and soul binds, etc… who can pull threat off a low level tank.
Or completely redo how and when certain skills get earned… or do level brackets for dungeons again…
This one cannot really happen. You get cut off from doing it at level 49. That said, you are right, unless it is a level 10 tank.
That comment I made about the scaling exists to offset how few abilities you have at low levels. It works well for solo leveling. In dungeons though, it just doesnt work right.
Since arcane mages get so many powerful abilities so early, they are overly strong and will pull off any level tank. I have proved this more often than I care to think about while testing it with a level locked level 10 arcane mage.
The sad part is, even with pulling off of a tank so much, I actually get thanked for making the run so quick.
I know it doesn’t matter for heroic or low keys, but there are a few pulls in SL dungeons I can wish I could get more people to use hard CC on.
The biggest one to me is the pull before the 2nd boss in Spires.
It’s a large pull and they all take 75% reduced damage until the squad leader dies, but most of my groups just go ham aoe and it’s wasted. Wiping there is very common.
You could hard CC 2 mobs, focus the squad leader, and then handle the rest but players are impatient.
Jesus HP Christ…YOURE the guy who comes into lowbie runs with that MUH FAZEROLLZ crap and pulls every fearing mob in two rooms…and then does it again AFTER the wipe, arent you?
I had to look that one up because I never had problems there. When I saw the area, I know the group you are talking about. I am going to admit I never did it past M5.
That seems to be anathema to way too many people now.
