Genuine Suggestion about the Future PvE Content of WoW Retail

Community General Discussion
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To start: This is another “look at FFXIV and steal ideas from them” post. But I think many people have some wrong ideas about FFXIV and think it’s some wildly different game when it’s not. And, on some level, a lot of the differences in terms of content are designed around the fact that FFXIV is a story-driven game first and an MMO second. Still, I think there are some things to be taken here with the story focus that WoW is trying to do heading forward.

  1. Dungeons should have two versions, a “normal” story mode, which is done while leveling and used as the “capstone” of a zone or smaller storyline, and a “hard mode” which is a mechanically different dungeon using the same assets designed for endgame that is made with M+ in mind. I think they should use the same assets or at least most of the same assets would negate some of the development stress it might cause, but it would be easier for Blizzard to not have to try and make these big expansive dungeons with many different mechanics (looking at you, basically every new dungeon in TWW) also work within a time limit.

  2. Raids should have fewer difficulties overall. Normal and LFR should be merged into one difficulty, with the difficulty of normal but queued through the normal LFR interface that is scaled for 10-25 people. A lot of the issue with LFR right now is people slack off because it’s “too easy” and they ignore mechanics and throw good pulls because they think they don’t have to do anything. The major issue here would be once again, guilds should be able to do master looter if they choose to do that, or have some way to queue without automatically finding additional players (say if you just want to run as 10 players or go back after the expansion ends to solo it) but as I don’t understand how the code works, that may not be possible.

In addition to merging LFR and Normal, Heroic should be the hardest difficulty available, maybe with Ulduar-esque hard modes for an extra level of challenge for those who enjoy it. Having three different full difficulties of the same raid is mildly silly and (in my opinion) the Race to World First would be significantly more fun to watch if the raiders were doing the same raid we were doing rather than something that >5% of players will ever see.

Next point, between each major patch we should get a new “story raid”. An easier queueable raid that is a side story of some importance in the WoW universe, but isn’t related to the main plot of the expansion. (in this example I’ll steal 1:1 from FFXIV, each expansion has 5 major patches, with new “heroic raids” dropping on the “0, 2, 4” patches and new “story raids” dropping on patches “1, 3, 5”.) The “story raids” here as an example could be like the Goblin raid people think is coming in 11.1, or more Caverns of Time raids, or setting up future expansion stories, or… wrapping up past expansion stories that were left unfinished due to budget reasons. These would be easier raids made for the general public that are primarily to drive the narrative forward.

Finally, on the topic of ffxiv “ultimate” content and trials - These are really good. If they don’t want to separate normal dungeons and heroic/M+ dungeons, trials would just be single boss fights that are used for big story moments. No adds, the story for the trial is largely leading up to the fight and a cutscene before/after, the fight itself would just be beating up a large monster with some cool mechanics and a neat theme song.

Ultimates are a neat thing, though, that probably would never be taken seriously as a concept by Blizzard, are really hard instances that are self-contained, usually a rush of 3-5 bosses, but aren’t entirely new. These are small collections of notable bosses that are directly related and are pumped up to the hardest possible content available, and are kept at a similar power level over time because they cap your effective IL to an equivalent of that Ultimate’s current tier (so say they released an Ultimate raid during Shadowlands, that was an update of Molten Core, “Ultimate Molten Core” would be a 3 boss raid that you could only do with stats equivalent to the Shadowlands raids. These wouldn’t be for top tier gear, the rewards for these would be cosmetic items with unique models to show off that go “yeah, I did this cool content”.

TL;DR: PvE content is getting better with each expansion that comes out in WoW, but it could be better. Looking at and mimicking FFXIV’s style of content would help WoW course correct itself if it is interested in making its story a priority. Obviously, it’s not possible for Blizzard to very suddenly shift their content creation pipeline to make it exactly like FFXIV’s, but any steps we can take towards that could help.

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Ultimates are barely content for an expansion for people that want harder content than heroic, if you’re excuse is mostly that difficulties looks silly to remove some of them then let’s not. If the race would be racing about heroic it would last less than a day and way less people would care about it (arguably some people would prefer that because they dislike the race).

Each wow raid is a story raid, hence why there’s multiple difficulties so people can go through it. But sure make more raids.

FF14 is also trying out to push in the next patch for the first time a 24m raid with a heroic mode, so I wouldn’t say they’re the one leading.

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I think the game would be fine not catering content around WF raiders.

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With the attention and care some people seem to have about it (which I was even surprised recently) I’m not sure it would be better, but sure it could be fine. There’s definitely some negative impact when it comes to tuning for the other mythic guilds but generally as a whole? I don’t see why not as it gathers a lot of people.

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Smart suggestions, but I got to give WOW props for giving the players more choice in systems. Delves 2.0 might just bring WOW back to it’s glory days.

Story mode for Solo is excellent, even the 90 year old grandpa can enjoy that.

TWW is not perfect there is a lot to complain about, but I feel we are heading to a great place in WOW history.

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It’s kinda funny that you say Blizz should do away with mythic raids because ‘only 5% of players see it’, but then in the next breath say that WoW should have ‘ultimate’ raids that are essentially mythic but only award cosmetics. Seems like a bit of a confused suggestion to me.

But in any case, WoW’s never been a story-focused game. Blizz has always prioritized gameplay above story, with varying degrees of success. And it’s fine for WoW and FF14 to have different design goals. Why would we want them to essentially be the same thing instead of having two different games for players with different preferences?

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Coming back to this after more than a day away- Sorry. Didn’t realize people would actually respond to my 6 am ramblings.

Blizzard has already stated they want to move to be more story-focused, it’s part of the “gimmick” behind the current World Soul Saga. I’m not saying Blizzard should be more story focused, I’m saying Blizzard has said they want to do this and this is how I think it could be improved.

Maybe you’re correct, Ultimates aren’t necessarily important for a story focus I just think they’re neat, that’s the easiest one to drop. You’re right that a heroic Race wouldn’t be exciting, I just don’t see a reason for an entire raid difficulty that is designed for such a small amount of players, overall. I’d also agree that every WoW raid is a story raid, but I think that the current way of getting that story across to people isn’t the greatest. Many people care about the story that either can’t or don’t raid because there’s still a weirdness around LFR/Normal.

I still think overall that fewer difficulties would be better, I think that trying to balance/manage 4 different difficulties is a lot, and my thought behind having “Ultimate WoW raids” would be that they’d be less work due to being an excuse for them to reuse assets and make them tougher, as opposed to making entirely new raids.

didn’t say they were leading, was just saying that we could use their content structure to adjust raid content. TWW is fine, I just think that it could be better and I’d rather start suggesting things now rather than when beta comes out in 16 months and it’s too late to make these kinds of suggestions.

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I was a FFXIV player first and have finished Dawntrail. (Ish Ale on Ravana).

  1. I don’t think FFXIV’s linear levelling system wins it many fans. Some existing expansions provide a capstone dungeon in the fashion you describe each with a leveling dungeon. BfA Alliance and Horde levelling journey have 3 capstone dungeons that round out the quests.

  2. Big disagree on this one. Losing/combining content, WoW already has the upgrade system in place to have a gear set pretty competitive if you keep at the content. LFR has its place as ‘rollover’ content and normal is a great starting ground for getting a feel for mechs.

I definitely feel the community and player mod aspect of FFXIV is far ahead of WoW. There are meaningful hangout spots and a strong sense of belonging. But the raid design which in a combat sense is FFXIV’s saving grace is below that of WoW. Unless you do savage, content at the moment is get daily roulette currency, do arcadion 4n. It is an incredibly dry game.

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I’d also like to add, for funsies, that while WoW is objectively ahead of FFXIV in every gameplay pillar? This includes class design, and having freshly returned so that I can play an actual game?

Literally everything feels so diverse and distinct. Disc and Holy feel nothing alike to one another outside of a couple of shared buttons. It’s refreshing. It’s great to see classes that aren’t all builder-spenders and have unique gimmicks if they are.

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Right? I’ve been through the last three expansions. Have attended the fan fest and the orchestral performance for FFXIV here, I’d like it to succeed.

But why is it not? Because of what you say; even within a spec you have diversity of hero talents, of class and spec talents and gameplay of a class.

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It’s almost like stripping away every secondary and tertiary mechanic, boiling healers down to “Dot → Nuke → Spend OGCD heals as necessary” as a priority list and making almost every other class a Build → Spend nightmare creature in a 2.5s GCD game

Is bad. I want FFXIV to succeed, too, but good god it needs to go in reverse on its classes.

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It’s weird to read the convo above, talking as though FF14 isn’t successful. It and WoW aren’t carbon copies of one another, but that’s not indicative of one being better or worse than the other or whether or not either is ‘successful’. Maybe on a personal level, but commercially they’ve both done quite well.

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Not really sure it’s silly.

It makes sense because mythic raids, while challenging, often gatekeep the best gear behind content most players don’t experience. By shifting “ultimate” raids to be about cosmetics, you keep that difficulty for the hardcore crowd without creating a power gap between them and the rest of the player base.

With some effort everyone is able to experience the content if they choose to easily go back to collect gear to run ultimates that scales.

Borrowing ideas that work (like ultimate raids) doesn’t mean WoW loses its identity. It just gives more options for different types of players.

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Saying WoW is “objectively ahead” in every gameplay pillar, including class design, is pretty subjective. WoW’s classes may feel different within the same role (e.g., Disc vs. Holy), but WoW is also guilty of making many specs feel cookie-cutter. Almost every DPS spec, for instance, revolves around cooldowns, builders, and spenders, with limited deviation. Class design may have variety, but a lot of gameplay boils down to the same routine of “hit X to build, then Y to spend.”

FFXIV may be more streamlined, but it offers depth in its simplicity—players who enjoy its design appreciate the balance of accessibility and complexity. Both games have pros and cons in their class design, but to claim WoW is objectively more diverse is an oversimplification.

At the core it’s a tab targeted mmo game it’s just how they all roll.

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