Hardcore introduces a cool ‘higher stakes’ element to gameplay. But I don’t think it has a lot of longevity when it comes to an end game, playing at level 60. There are no appeals (and that’s a good thing), but the game obviously was never designed with ‘hardcore’ in mind - some boss mechanics are basically designed to kill you, disconnects that will erase progress are basically inevitable etc. People get around the former with petri flasks, but that doesn’t seem like satisfying, interesting gameplay to me, it seems to make the whole idea of hardcore pretty cheesy.
So, with all that said… some ideas.
Remove petri flasks from the game
Grant 1 “revive” to a character every time it full clears a 40 man raid; i.e. if you kill Ragnaros, you can then be revived once; clear it again, and you can revive your character twice etc. - maybe it caps out at a certain lowish number of banked revives.
Only the current raid tier + previous tier grant the revives; once Naxx is out, you only get the ‘revives’ from killing C’thun or Kel’thuzad? Or maybe Rag or Nef give you 1 token and you need to turn in 4 to be granted another ‘revive,’ something like that.
Everyone starts with 1 ‘revive’ available as they lvl/gear up to do MC, providing a buffer against disconnects, bugs and general BS
Make deaths not matter in BGs… this seems obvious.
This removes the silly petri flask meta and provides a buffer for random disconnect deaths, while still making deaths matter. It also makes old raids/content relevant, ensuring they would still be raids for newer players to join later down the road. I think some sort of system like this would keep the feeling of deaths mattering in HC while allowing for there to be a real end game and longevity for the game/community.
As it stands, leveling on HC is fun… but I don’t think there will end up being more than a couple end game guilds actually playing at 60, with many people just waiting on the bench hoping they get a spot after somebody in the raid messes up and dies.
p.s. I don’t view these as proposals for changes to the current HC servers, but more… I think some version of this might make a ‘fresh’ or ‘SOM 2’ more interesting. Keep some elements that made HC interesting and high stakes, but not so ‘high stakes’ that anything but a small end game community is impossible.
I agree that alternative “challenge” type rulesets for others servers would be interesting. I know I’d resubscribe for an interesting one.
For instance, I’d be more interested in a New Game+ mode or a rogue-like mode. But I’ll also never play classic again, in any form, unless they balance out the classes/specs. Every class should be able to competently compete in end game content in the role the spec was designed for. I’m someone who likes Ret/Prot Paladin in TBC/Wrath, Blood DK DPS in,Wrath, and titangrip Fury in all expansions. If I can’t main any of those in end game content with any classic game mode, I won’t resubscribe for it.
My goal is to get a char to 60 and if I die then or at a high level I can do the endgame in era, which is doing fine right now BTW. If I die early I’ll go again.
The endgame of hardcore servers is a niche within a niche but there is nothing wrong with that. I’m not sure what the demand would be for “semi hardcore”, how it is better than normal raiding?
Okay, you might not like his ideas and that is fine. But what else is there to do in HC wow at max level lol. Classic has very little end game outside of pvp(disable) dungeons farming preraid bis then raid. Only other thing you can do is just professions which you will max out really quickly and is more of a support thing for RAIDING. You’re acting like this is retail or something.
Petri flasks are indeed cheesy. The proposed “revive” thing doesn’t have to be tied to raids, but as far as viewing raids as the be-all end-all point of WoW… well, it’s referred to as the “end game” for a reason.
The point is just to keep the feeling of deaths mattering, but provide a buffer against disconnects etc. being inevitable and keeping people from trying to play the end game, forming more raiding guilds and so on.
If you don’t want to raid, perhaps the “revive” thing could be a weekly dungeon quest instead. The dungeon, the raid, whatever - complete enough of those quests and you get to bank a “revive” to guard against disconnects, griefing and whatever else.
If you don’t want ‘death protection,’ why do you balk at the idea of removing petri flasks?
You’d think somebody who REALLY wants hardcore and says death protection shouldn’t be a thing wouldn’t want some cheesy cheat death mechanic like a petri flask.
Bandages have always been a part of dueling and wow pvp.
If you’re blocking potions then you need to block engineering and other professions also. But that’s silly. Consumes and trinkets have always been on the table, and now people are incentivized to use them since losing is bad.
Yeah, that is why I am playing normal hardcore servers. This is very much a non issue if they wanted to add SOM servers with some death protection. As long as the main servers aren’t changed. You are just gate keeping for 0 reason.
Making a SOM does not equal changing normal HC servers. I very much welcome the idea of multiple HC games modes. Add true ironman for the people who want that. Add fail protection SOM servers for people who want that. Gatekeeping Just to gatekeep is ridiculous. If it doesn’t affect you.