Feedback: Delves

In Development Midnight Beta Test
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In this thread, please reply with your feedback on Delves after you’ve tested them in the Midnight Beta.

All pre-season/leveling delves are available (Tiers 1-4).

Starting November 18 at 12:00 Noon PST, seasonal content and all tiers of Delves can be tested on the Beta endgame realm: Xalatath’s Endgame.

Areas of Feedback

Of primary concern will be feedback relating to:

  • The new Delves companion, Valeera Sangiunar
  • Overall tier difficulty of Delves
    • Both grouped and solo play
  • Length of Delves
  • Clarity of objectives
  • Bosses and non-boss enemy encounters

How to submit feedback

Please post your feedback in this thread. When possible, include:

  • Which Delve was attempted
  • Whether this was a solo or a group run
  • How long it took
  • Any specific moments that stood out (positive or negative).
  • Any suggestions or other critical feedback.

In your opinion, what would you change, or what would clarify the experience or make it more fun?

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First feedback: she isn’t a Windrunner.

2 Likes
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she’s extremely squishy compared to Brann. half of the delves bug out and you can’t exit the game without force closing then waiting 10 mins for your toon to log out of the world server. also, shadow enclave whenever you exit sends you to hillsbrad foothills..which isn’t ideal.

4 Likes
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Twilight Crypts (T11)

Solo

About 15 minutes, and several minutes were lost due to:

  1. Not knowing where I was going and how to open the gates
  2. Tank Valeera wouldn’t get out of the boss’s ground stuff. Playing Feral, I would die in that stuff pretty fast so I had to go out and heal and/or wait for cooldowns to max damage while I could stand in the bad.

I feel like having to pick up an item at the beginning of a delve needs to be EXTREMELY obvious. I’m not much for preamble so I just want to get going, and I ran right past this one.

On one pull, Valeera failed to tank anything. I think it’s because Lil’ Loa actually pulled (I was stealthed, and I don’t this this lil’ guy stealths).

Edit: Oh, when I zoned out, it put me near Tarren Mill in aggro range of PvP guards that wrecked me. That seems wrong.

6 Likes
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Here is a slightly long, rambling post I made in a different thread about Valeera’s companion abilities interface panel being replaced with Brann’s after the 11/18 patch. I know it is more in the area of “bugs”, but maybe the information is helpful:

When I first logged into my level 90 shaman on the Beta yesterday (11/18) after the patch, it appeared Valeera didn’t have a spec selected. I play heals, so I have set my companion to tank. When I opened the interface to make sure she was still set as tank, the interface for Brann and his abilities came up instead. I selected tank for him. The character was copied from my shaman on live, so the panel showed Brann at level 100. Both of the curio slots had the same curios as on live. During the delve (I believe it was Shadowguard Point in Voidstorm), Valeera didn’t use any of her abilities, and instead was clearly using Brann’s abilities. I even occasionally heard Brann say his voice line, “I’m gonna go all out!”

After doing the delve, I noticed I was no longer receiving any coffer key shards, from any source at all (and I’m not capped for the week, I’m at 102/600). I also noticed none of the delves showed as bountiful.

Moreover, another bug appeared after I re-copied my account data (I did this because my character did not have access to most of the transmog I have on live). This re-copying of account data reset all of my flight points and a bunch of quests, and it apparently got rid of all companion curios. The next delve I did (I forget which one), when I opened the companion abilities pane, it still showed Brann, but he had no curios at all, and both slots now show as “locked.” When I received “new” curios at the end of the delve, the quests I’d already completed to install my “first” curious popped up again (quest names: (1) Ancient Curiosity: Utility & (2) Ancient Curiosity: Combat), but I cannot complete them because Brann’s curio interfaces are locked.

I tested another character, and it appears the above-listed bugs are warbound-wide. One last note: looking at my “Journeys” tab, when I click on “Delves: Season 1”, it gives me a “Journey Locked” message, and when I hover over the greyed-out “Configure” button where it looks like my companion’s portrait should be, there is a message in red text that reads, “Unlocks with the quest ‘Delve into the Earth’ in the Isle of Dorn campaign.” (I completed that quest during TWW.

Ancient Curiousity: Combat - delve quest cannot be completed
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First bit of feedback (will likely come back and add more): When testing Delves, perhaps make it so that you don’t have to load in and run like an olympic runner to click the delve and activate it before getting teleported back to Org/SW…."

Seems like every delve (or, at least, every delve that I’ve done thus far)… I get trapped between “barriers” or what have you for a few minutes. Eventually, it transitions and lets me in to do the delve.

Healing Valeera is horrible. Her orbs spawn where mobs are not where the player is. This results in orbs that float in the sky…. "

6 Likes
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General feedback: Valeera red healing balls should drop around the player not mobs at it seems to currently work. Playing hunter/warlock I have to run to mobs to get healing balls which doesnt make sense at all.

6 Likes
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I dont remember the name of the delves, but my first delve was the one at the SMC docks. It worked fine. Was easy as it was tier 1, and Vereesa worked seamlessly. I do second other commnters that she grunts too often.

The second one was the one using the old suramar underground structure. It was working fine until the shutdown, when I came back to it, when I right clicked the utility curio, it equipped it to BRANN, not Vereesa, and the quest did not update. I could not even access Vereesa’s toolkit with the menu, only Branns, but I could only summon Vereesa. I did submit a bug report when it happened.

1 Like
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I am also experiencing the bug that lists the Delve journey as locked. When i check my companion it appears to be a level 1 Brann that has no specialization or equipment. Attempting to change it causes repeated Lua errors.

Vareesa is in the delves alongside me, though she does not have a specialization, and nothing can be changed. The quest “Delve into the Earth” from The War Within is already completed, though the bug seems to have removed the credit for it.

In addition, any curios used do not appear to be added and the quest to equip a utility curio is not possible. I have tried multiple characters and have only managed to have one have slightly better luck as it can change Vareesa’s specialization, though every other facet of the bug persists.

I have also been getting stuck when entering or exiting The Shadow Enclave delve in between the delve and the open world. When i am stuck there a fog wall is on both sides of the cavern, and i can see other players running in place. If i manage to exit the delve, the game seems to believe I am in Hillsbrad Foothills, though I am still in Eversong Woods.

1 Like
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These delves need to be fixed asap. Almost all of them I get stuck in between two barriers and just have to exit the delve.

5 Likes
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(basically copying from another thread to put it in the official thread)

Parhelion Plaza T11, solo

It took about 10 minutes, after abandoning a couple attempts due to bugs. It’s probably a little too fast for stealthers.

They layout is nice and simple. The “training” objective at the beginning is good.

There are a few serious bugs:

I had one instance where I used the Void Portal to go in and destroy the [whatever the thing is called] and when I used the Void Portal to get back out, I must have moved or something during the channel, because it consumed the Void Portal, but I remained stuck inside with no options other than to exit the delve.

If you go inside the Void Portal and die to something in there, sometimes, when you rez, there won’t be any mobs or NPCs in the “regular” world. Seems like this could be a “feature” not a “bug”. But this was particularly problematic for me because I needed to change Valeera’s role to get around a different bug (see Terrifying Voidscythe thing below). But when it makes it to Retail, this would be bad in the event you needed to repair or something.

On another occasion, I was fighting a Controlled Slaughterclaw outside a Void Portal, and another one spawned right on top of it mid-fight.

Lastly, not specific to this delve, but when you have Valeera as a healer, and you’re fighting a Terrifying Voidscythe (which flies), the healing orbs all get placed in the air and you can’t reach them. This makes this mob effectively impossible, at least for a Feral druid, as self-heals just can’t keep up.

2 Likes
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They feel too hard right now - and not in a good way.

The risk of dying to attrition is just too high. It’s not about mechanics - it’s about “am I going to kill this pack of stuff before I run out of def CDs”. IDK maybe there’s a really strong focus (for DPS) to space out Valeera’s healing orbs so you constantly have the hot? That seems possible/reasonable, but is a pretty strict expectation, and may not easily align with mob damage output profiles.

Overall though, when I compare to retail, there’s a big difference. On Beta, we’re using gear that is scaled to the “recommended” ilvl. On Retail, if you’re at the “recommended” ilvl, you are mostly breezing through delves. In this Beta, killing many of the higher-HP mobs feels dangerous. I don’t have the damage to kill it quickly, and it puts out dangerous levels of damage. Edit: I just want to clarify that I don’t think they’re objectively too hard. I prefer them hard (maybe harder than they are now). I’m just comparing them to Retail, and they’re harder than retail.

5 Likes
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  • What Valeera? After last patch window shows Brann. I can’t setup Valeera as a healer - no conf window! Hence she does not drop healing balls anymore. But when she did, they were somewhere away from me or even high in the air…
  • Way too much trash. Delves are boring and annoying since most of them are trash fights, nothing interesting.
  • Takes way too long to finish for such small rewards. I can run 2 dungeons for the same amount of time I can solo one delve.
  • Sorry, my gear is for healing hence I don’t have good DPS stats and soloing delve as a healer is even worse.
2 Likes
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I’m having this exact same issue.

2 Likes
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I’ve only done one, the shadow one with the mirrors , at lvl 4 (can’t remember the name).

Disclaimer: I am slow and stupid and run these as tank.

This delve took me over an hour, partly because it took so long to kill things and mostly because of the mirror mechanic. I was never in danger of dying. I hate these type of puzzle mechanics, personally. I find them to be a gimmick and there specifically for the purpose of being a time sink. Very tedious. And my experience with Valeera was not great. I had her set as heals, which was fine. I didn’t have too much trouble with her placement of healing orbs, but it would be nice if she placed them similarly to Brann’s placement.

However, I really think you need to have her AI adjusted for her role. A healer should never intentionally run ahead and aggro the world. When Valeera is tank, go for it. As dps, face pull to her heart’s content…go get those resource nodes, its expected. But as heals, she should be either beside me or 10 steps behind me, if I’m a tank. She can grab resources when I walk within melee range of them, if she likes. (I had no professions selected, so I don’t know if there were any nodes at all). But she pulled more mobs more often than I did, it seemed.

She talked just as much as Brann (which is very annoying) but at least her voice grates on my nerves less than Brann. At least, so far. I’m sure that will change over time. I would just like a Blizzard approved method of shutting her up.

Frankly, with the number of delves out there, I would actively avoid this delve whenever the mirror mechanic shows up, bountiful or not. I’m hoping the other delves are better. I’ve never been one to enjoy speed running anything (except M+, where I have no choice). I like to be slow and careful and explore the space a few times before I speed things up. But I hate tedium. I hate things being introduced for the sole purpose of wasting my time. It doesn’t make things more challenging, it makes them more annoying.

1 Like
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The Darkway T8 Solo

The scenario where you have to pick up 6 crystals and place them all.

It took over 20 mins as a Fury Warrior, but was overall easier than being Feral.

The most dangerous thing is the pack of 3 nemesis mobs, I forget what they’re called, but they each put a physical dot on you, at the same time.

The objectives are pretty clear, but it’s annoying that you can complete the first task (get 6 of the crystals), die, lose all your crystals, and then not be able to do the second task unless you go back and get more crystals, even though the first task is still complete. Honestly not sure how this works… if it’s dying that makes you lose your crystals, or whether you lose all of them, but I had completed the 6/6 obtaining crystals, and then when I was placing them, I apparently only had 5. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. I thought it was just bugged.

I also think the pathing is a little weird… you walk right past the first room, which is where you have to go back to later to activate the crystals, and then you have to walk again through half the delve to get to the boss on the other side. This walking back through half the delve to get to the boss is a moment that “stood out” negatively.

The boss is fine. I don’t think anybody particularly likes being slowed by 40%, but it’s interruptable so whatever. I hope you named him after Gul Dukat.

I still feel like the delves are taking a bit too long. I’m not doing enough damage. “encounters” like the random 4M HP mobs are very straightforward and just take a long time.

1 Like
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im not understanding the 30s ish wait to open the 2nd gate in the delve as soon as you press the hand to enter the delve in the 1st place

what is this for?

i was confused and thoughy the delves were broken

also

get rid of the companion aggroing mobs for no reason

i need her to tank mob i aggro, not go out and actively hunt mobs putting me in combat when im not ready or i am trying to avoid

7 Likes
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I did the first two leveling delves at tier 1 today and yesterday. Shadow Enclave and Gulf of Memory.
They were solo runs on arcane mage.

On the first one, I ran Valeera as a healer and she died three times including during the final fight. On the second one, I used her for damage and she was fine, although wow did her health go down a lot–I started waiting for her to heal herself between pulls.
I kinda like her personality over Brann, although it is mostly her saying some version of “not this way”–reminds me of “not today Satan” which is funny. And her sighing is hilarious.
I did not like Shadow Enclave. I thought it was dark, boring, and irritating. Hated the eyes that pitch you around. I did enjoy the Gulf of Memory more, although I had a hell of a time finding the final boss room. Took me about ten minutes to figure it out, but truthfully I am slow with things like that. Maybe there is a way to make it a bit more intuitive.

3 Likes
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I’m unable to even attempt a delve while leveling. The quest Void Walk With Me to do the Shadow Enclave just leaves me stuck between both walls, which inherently means I can’t actually continue the main story.

3 Likes