This is a personal rant, and I expect to get bagged for it, but I’ve been percolating on the subject for years now.
Constantly fine-tuning and over-tuning Dungeons and Raids to be exercises in masochism, especially in LFD/R brackets, with excessive damage spikes, stupidly finicky AoEs and demanding players memorize complicated strategies for months only for it all to have to be abandoned for the next tier is, quite frankly, dumb.
By all means, punish sloppy behaviour. Fights should be fun and challenging, dungeons should be thematic and be cap-stones to a zone, while raids should serve the same but for a patch or expansion, and fights should be memorable and something players look forwards to after their lock-out expires.
But raids and dungeons aren’t fun anymore.
They’re all set up for streamers, and speed-runners, and E-Sports. The bosses are notorious, especially in Shadowlands, for being over-tuned and punishing to reliably get past, let alone deal with for the majority of the player-base, unless you’re over-geared, or Blizzard nerfs them due to complaints.
So here’s some theories on how we could do Dungeons and Raids in the future without it turning into the same kind of Second Job Nonsense that Blizzard has expected of their players for the past six or seven years now.
1) WE ARE THE LOOT GOBLINS
No matter the story-beats, no matter the in-character reason, we’re all there for the shinies, the gear that makes numbers get bigger, the titles and the cool stuff.
So … make what we do in the Dungeon/Raid affect this in a variety of ways.
There is a Loot Bar added to the UI. Smashing barrels, freeing prisoners, slaying all enemies, sparing enemies, killing bosses with environmental hazards or triggering them into different phases can all raise or lower this bar.
For example, players are raiding a Dungeon that is based around a prison. Players start with 50% Loot in their Loot Bar. Along the way, the players find killing Guards raises their Loot Bar, and certain rooms contain smashable chests and barrels that do the same. Freeing Prisoners lowers the Loot Bar, since you have to arm and equip them to be useful, but each cell of Prisoners the Players liberate comes with options.
Players can send a cell’s worth of prisoners to the surface, losing Loot, but gaining Reputation with certain factions. This is useful both for reaching Exalted, and also getting those lovely ‘you ground out even more rep’ treasure chests.
Players can use those recently armed prisoners to help them take on the next boss. This will kill the Prisoners, they were captured for a reason after all, but an under-geared or rushing group can use this to speed-blitz through a boss, burn quickly through a DPS phase.
And finally, Players can direct the Prisoners to free other Prisoners and loot the dungeon areas that they have (hopefully) cleared, which nets a minor Loot loss at first, but if the Players have cleared wandering patrols and stronger enemy mobs, the Prisoners will ransack the place and provide more Loot than you expended, and possibly rare or random items relevant to the story that led you there, or thematic to the Dungeon itself.
LFR and Normal might just have a Loot Bar. Heroic might come with a timer that lowers the Loot Bar by a set amount for every 10 or 15 minutes that pass, and random encounters that can quickly add a whole heap of additional loot to compensate for this. Mythic could add even further shenanigans to this in the way, such as hidden bosses, specific enemies that are worth a lot of Loot or something similar.
The Loot Bar should go to 150%. Most groups starting out will reach 60-80%. A competent group should reach 80-100%. A dedicated group can reach up to 130-140%, if they know the place and the strategy off by heart. The higher the Loot Bar is by the time the final boss is defeated, not only is MORE loot given out to the players, but the quality of the Loot might also be increased as a result of their hard work and effort.
2) Gold Drops in Dungeon and Raid encounters are insulting
or2) Even a Partial Drop is better than a lump of Gold
If you’ve designed content where you have to drag out the players’ ability to gear up to make it relevant for longer, you have failed at game design.
Rather, remember how we used to buy armor and weapons with tokens and faction currencies? Bring that back. Combine it with the Transmog sets we farmed up in Warlords of Draenor.
Want a proto-Raid set but can only do Heroics because of time issues and a small friend group? Grind those Heroic Dungeons. Every boss, regardless of if it drops gear, will drop a [Fragment of X]. These fragments can be combined with items made by crafters, or found in World Quests, or earned from Battle Grounds and PvP content, and with an expenditure of gathered resources and gold, can be taken to a specific NPC who can make Armor types relevant to the Player Character, which becomes an LFG-equivalent item.
Players choose the slot and can choose ONE secondary stat. Primary Stats (Stam, Intel, etc) are relevant to their class, but all other values are random.
This is not intended to replace gear drops as the means of Player Power Progression, but compensate for time and effort sunk into doing content only to get slapped in the face with a meaningless amount of Gold while all your friends get a shiny new upgrade … or as I’ve found in several LFR runs, not one person in a 25-Goon squad getting anything but a pittance of gold after a full three-boss wing.
If your content is that sparse that you’re having to starve players of gear to make it last longer, you’ve screwed up badly.
3) More than One Way to skin a Dragon
We all know the drill. Run in, smack Dragon on the butt. Tanks swap out every so often, DPS and healers stand off to the side, perverts cluster under the tail, push buttons until Dragon collapses in a sweaty pile and we do it all again next week.
But what if Bosses had multiple different phases that players could trigger? And depending upon how the fight progresses, gear drops may be altered, or even augmented in unique and fun ways, or specific gear tables might be accessible? Remember the Sarthion 3-drake attemps? That kind of thing. But fun.
Let’s say the Players are fighting a Mage Knight. Players can tank and spank, weather through DPS phases, punish the boss when they’ve expended their power and need to recharge.
But what if the other actions taken during the Dungeon/Raid had knock on effects? The relics you gathered from the other bosses could be plugged into nearby pylons that will enchance the boss’s attacks … but also greatly weaken their defences. It becomes a no-holds-barred slugging match where the DPS get to throw all caution to the wind and just burn like madmen, the tank gets to prove how well they can strut their stuff, and the healer can have several heart attacks in the space of a minute.
Or … they could call upon their Prisoner Buddies from the previous example to run in and curb-stomp the boss. And if they’ve resisted the urge to call upon the prisoners for the other bosses … its a big group of prisoners. The Boss get swarmed and so long as the tank can position the Boss well and keep the NPCs out of harm’s way, that’s a massive DPS boost and you get to see the hilarity of the Raid Boss desperately trying to cast spells, and constantly getting interrupted by the Prisoners who are very interested in repaying the Boss for their treatment in this prison.
Or … those monsters in the cages? Those very hungry monsters who have been starved for weeks? Players might be able to toss ‘Pungent Bait’ at the Boss and run for cover as a variety of horrors, be it Hydras, Dire Trolls, Demonic Beasts or worse come running for the bait and ignore all other targets as they home in on that Pungent Bait. Doing so might lower the Loot Bar because, you know, the Boss is getting Shrek’d left right and center by something trying to eat them, but it is poetic justice. Also hilarious to hear the boss screaming from inside a Hydra’s gullet before exploding the beast to escape and yelling about that being the second worse thing they’ve ever seen.
Option A) from the above list gives the items that are dropped a higher I-Level and possible a bonus Secondary Stat, like Leech, Speed or Avoidance.
Option B) might give a Rep gain or possibly something fun and unique relevant to the faction the prisoners come from.
Option C) might reduce the Loot Bar, but if a group is struggling with content due to team composition or other issues, it is a method to bypass a difficulty spike and get the drops needed for them to overcome this difficulty, even if it takes a few months of doing it.
4) Change it up, mix it around, rebrand and sell it again
We all run the same Dungeons and Raids.
Over and over and over again.
Blizzard is the Reskin King of MMOs, and its about time that power was put to good use. We’ve seen that they can reskin older models and make them look great. Okay. All those old raids and dungeons? Reskin them. Bring them up to today’s standards. Turn them into new, randomised content.
Sign up to a Random Dungeon or Raid. The theme could be a calendar event. Bronze Weeks send you forwards or backwards in time. Imagine doing Black Temple, but from the perspective of the Draenei protecting themselves from the Fel-crazed Orcs of the Dark Horde? Imagine doing Battle for Stromgarde, but from the perspective of the High Elves and Humans vs the native Forest Trolls, rather than the Horde or the Alliance? Imagine doing the Dire Maul Dungeons, but from the perspective of the Kaldorei during the Sundering, defending it from Demons?
Mercenary Weeks might see you going Cross-Faction and racing NPC bands, similar to PvE-version Island Expeditions. Fighting against both a resurgent Naga incursion in Blackfathom Depths and a rogue band of adventurers set on the same treasure as you? Racing against a Clan of Mogu in the Throne of Thunder, while also having to deal with the Pirates from Kul’tiras, who got kicked out and are looking to make a new home port for their fleet? Helping the Dark Spear take over Zul’Gurub, while simultaneously dealing with the other Jungle Troll tribes trying to fend them off and a rival band of Adventurers trying to loot the place and awakening dark spirits as a result of their greed and incompetence?
There’s a heap of ways that older content could be polished, set up and re-sold as new content with different enemies, upgraded Item Levels and even more importantly, continuing the stories of these zones long after we’ve passed the content and come back around for more.
And I’ve got to return this soap box.
Sorry all, this has been bugging me for years now, and I had to get it off my chest.