With the addition of Follower Dungeons and the fourth endgame pillar, “World Content,” represented by delves in TWW, my friends and I were discussing ways in which Blizz could provide more ways to engage with the world and share and expand on the lore. We came up with the following: an “Exploration” mode for dungeons that scales all dungeons in the game and features additional objectives to each run that incentivizes exploration. This would be a 1-5 player, role-agnostic mode.
Example: Algeth’ar Academy. Exploration mode assigns you the following random objectives: 1) find a related series of books scattered throughout the dungeon, 2) save students trapped by enemies, and 3) fix ruined gardens, decor, and buildings. No locations for these objectives on your map. Maybe you can read the books for hints to find the others or the students tell you where their classmates are rumored to be. Some quest items drop like with the Azerothian Archives that require you talk to a related NPC somewhere (e.g., a file of old student applications shows all non-dragons getting rejected, and you bring it to Kalecgos who tells you more about the history of the academy).
This would be an expansion to delves which provide an alternative to the current endgame systems. It could also be a way for Blizz to add variations to dungeons and deliver story updates (e.g., show gnomes scouting out Gnomeregan after the adventurers had cleared it out, forsaken taking back Shadowfang Keep, etc.).