BlizzCon has been and gone, and we’re left contemplating what is next for WoW. Delves are coming in The War Within, and as someone whose play time is severely limited these days, raiding is no longer a serious contender for me.
Enter Delves. While this meets a halfway mark for me - soloable progression content - Warbands present an interesting opportunity. I’d like to see a system in place where the content is up to 5 players, but you can play with any amount of actual humans, and fill the rest of the party slots with AI companions of your choice. Ideally (for me) these would come in the form of alts I’ve leveled and geared, making it a little less soulless and introducing a world where all my characters can exist simultaneously.
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So are Delves like Thorghast 2.0?
Will there be something like MageTower Challenge tied to it?
Will it reward gear with ilvl so “solo players” can have same ilvl than m+ players/raiders?
Honestly, my first hot take from listening while at work was this was the case. It would be awesome if it was.
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Delves look great. And I love the idea of having AI followers. They did this in Guild Wars (probably 15+ years ago?), and it was a lot of fun.
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You have no idea how cool I’d find it if I could do content as my Paladin, leading a party of my alts.
Maximum RPG moment right there.
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Not trying to be mean on this, but wouldn’t AI players be the definition of soulless?
I get that you want your alts to feel alive. And you’re a solo player. But knowing those characters jumping with you would take away from the real experience of group content.
My opinion.
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A little less soulless, but still soulless.
Based on the information presented at BlizzCon, they are progression content that mixes puzzles, encounters, and minor exploration into an instanced experience with seasonal changes like M+ and raid seasons. You will have a companion with you (currently Brann Bronzebeard) that you can spec to make up for any deficiencies. You can play these in a flex party of between 1-5 players.
It will have a Great Vault progression track for weekly rewards, and Delves themselves will award end-game (waiting for iLvl clarification) gear. There will also be cosmetic rewards in the same vein as Dragonriding customization, transmog etc.
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It works in ESO. No reason it can’t work in WoW. It’ll all just end up being personal preference and circumstance anyway.
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They are, but no more so than literally playing solo.
~5 years ago I played in a guild that did our best to push mythic raid content on a small server. We had a lot of fun, became close friends, and then slowly life happened and almost everyone stopped playing. I now have a toddler who doesn’t allow for a lot of the time required to establish a M+ or raid team that is consistent. It’s much more convenient for me to play at my own pace, in my own time, and if my child needs anything, I’m not inconveniencing anyone by pausing.
Adding my own alts into this just seemed like a fun way to play but still “do” group content.
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This is precisely what I’m thinking. ESO did it, even FF14 introduced a similar model for their story content.
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I suppose. Nothing wrong with wanting your characters banding with you. Just differences of perception and imagination.
I didn’t know that GW2 introduced something like this. Seems as though all of the other MMOs have done something akin to what I’m asking.
You’re right it is. It’s been a popular theory for a long time even before the AI craze that eventually the death of the internet isn’t shutting down, it’s when human interaction ceases, and it’s just bots talking to bots.
And if you do still use the internet figuring out if you’re talking to a bot or a person becomes indistinguishable.
WoW has it as well to a limited extent. You can group with AI for the introductory dungeon to Exiles Reach.
My only issue with this is that the game would dumb itself down further to support AI being able to actually clear the content. Yea they used them in exiles reach but there’s almost no mechanics in that dungeon.
or just AI companions - actually wish they’d do that for normal dungeons, just to get us used to them if we want
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I believe they said that the open world GV track can scale up to Heroic equivalent ilvl
I’d be excited for companions - I really enjoyed the Legion open world buddy, and it’d be even more fun if we could use our alts for the same thing.
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I’d use AI companions in dungeons for when I want to try roles that I’m not used to playing. It’d be a great way to practice since grouping with other players is often a rushed and impatient experience.
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Hopefully the Delves are kinda sorta similiar to ESO where you just walk in and do them and if others join in it just scales up etc.
It would be a lot of fun and I hope it is done right to where everything feels good etc.
I wonder if we will get vault slots for delves?
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