I’m an altoholic, and as someone that doesn’t always have friends to play with, I love the idea of delves. But they have a BIG issue in design. Blizzard seems to like to up difficulty by being annoying but annoying isn’t difficulty. I hate underwater delves, not because they’re hard but because they’re extremely annoying. The addition of an extra thing to pay attention to on paper seems like it would up player engagement but it just punishes bad players and annoys good players. But then, Blizzard often adds insult to injury by making the mechanic of grabbing bubbles also have to deal with them being on a Z axis, and sometimes next to cliffs or in the middle of a bunch of assets that stop you from being able to jump into them. The thing is, these additions, if you know how to deal with them, don’t make the delve harder; they just make it suck to play.
There is nothing more frustrating than dying to something that was clearly just meant to be annoying: like not having a CC to stop a curse long enough to get your interrupt back, because you used that CC to hold a spore still so you could move out of it without having to split damage, or dying to jumping off a cliff (without even pressing the space bar) because an underwater bubble was put in a bunch of rocks and those same rocks create a ramp that flung you off a cliff.
ANNOYING IS NOT DIFFICULT. It’s just annoying. Anyone that can’t do your content because of garbage like this isn’t coming back. Those that CAN do your content despite this bad design won’t do that content if they can help it and in turn you’ve wasted money in development. Then, if you force them to, they will hate it.
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My friend, this might just be a gear thing. I didn’t finish my first 11 until I was about 600 ilvl. Just gear up and get some practice. Also, the underwater delves can have their breathing mechanic completely negated by anything that can give you underwater breathing such as a Draenic Water Breathing Elixir.
So far from my experience, there hasn’t been a single mechanic in any delve that has been difficult or annoying and I’ve almost completed the Glory of the Delver achievement.
EDIT: I went to your profile and saw that you’re sitting around 620 ilvl. I’m really not sure what to tell you- at that ilvl you should just be decimating anything in delves.
I’m not talking about difficulty due to gear. I’ve run plenty of characters through T8 solo at 560-580. The things I’m talking about are stuff that is a “deal with it or get 1 shot” based on standing in 1 location, with zero regard to the mobs casting AoE effects on the ground and things that just make you wait to continue without any real interaction like: the breath mechanic, spores, Fungal Lance in an area where ground effects are not visible with certain foliage settings (tbf, that’s it’s own issue), pulsating areas where you have to wait upwards of 20sec to interact with the objective, mobs that need to be LoS to make sure the patrol doesn’t aggro, while Brann taunts 1 where they were pulled (but only for a few seconds, and he’s willing to break CC).
For the most, part I find Delves fun, especially when I’m under geared. I don’t mind needing to CC a mob, prioritizing certain spells for interrupt, using defensive CD’s, or thinking about when I’m picking up potions so that I use them efficiently.
Btw, if you’re going out of your way to pick up a potion from a decade old expansion, that you could do the Delve without, off the AH for a single Delve mechanic… that mechanic just might be annoying.
I mean, the mechanic is incredibly easy to manage and practically non-existent, I was just giving advice for if someone WERE to have trouble with it. And from my experience, nothing on an 8 has to be LOSed, or CC’d (minus a few interrupts), or have defensives planned for other than maybe an occasional boss AOE pulse that you plan a potion pickup around. The one difficulty where that’s needed is 11s. In 8’s, you can pretty much mindlessly chain pull with minimal planning or thought.
However, the bugs like the stupid green swirlies under bushes, bugged out interactions, and Bran’s sometimes eratic behavior are incredibly annoying- but are obviously unintentional and not really part of the design flaw of Delves.
I suggest you go and attempt some 11’s, you’ll realize how free 8’s are.
It’s easy to claim something is annoying because you don’t want to admit that it’s difficult. I personally had no issues with it even in my first attempt. You literally get bubbles every so often and that’s it.