"Hazards" are reason I don't do delves more often

Community General Discussion
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I was sitting here trying to figure out why I don’t do delves more often. I logged into a character that I want to level and I thought about going into a delve. My reaction felt like I was asking the teenage me to do their chores.
“ugh, do I have to?”

I realized that I would rather spend an hour farming Radiant Remnants than go into a delve, let alone more than one. I would rather single-handedly relight all of the main torch thingies at 20 Remants a piece than spend my night doing delves.

Why did I feel that way? The answer popped right into my head after a moment of thought: the hazards. I hate them. I hate having to constantly light my way with torches or having to drop those air totem things. I hate having to go from air bubble to air bubble. I don’t mind those spore things, since they don’t really get in your way and are just small obstacles instead of big speed bumps. But I wouldn’t complain about their removal, nor would I complain about the removal of the other hazards I don’t find too annoying. None of these hazards are actually dangerous or challenging. They’re just in the way.

IMO, hazards need to be either redone or removed. Make them optional if you want, so they give extra chests at the end depending on the number of hazards and the type.

Honestly, I’ll probably just run follower dungeons instead of doing delves unless the delves get changed. Which, now that I think about how this game tends to work, means follower dungeons are going to be “fixed” soon.

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It doesn’t help that every hazard is just “here’s why it sucks to be in this location”.

I will say they do their job very well. They make me not want to be in those places.

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I don’t do delves because my main outgears them, and my alts just do world content and don’t need the gear from them. Which I guess is a roundabout way of saying delves are more boring than open world content given that’s what i spend my time doing.

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The hazards were way better last season. They were more of a tactical challenge and you could even use them to your advantage, they’re a lot more boring now.

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I agree that they are not fun, purely an annoyance.

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Delves were supposed to be “open world content” but they are just another dungeon/instance with a different name.

From what I have seen of delves, the mobs are just huge damage sponges with barely any abilities too?

We were sold short I guess. Also how Brann is like a camera surveiling me and my keystrokes lol.

Feels like

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For the underwater ones, use water breathing potions. No need to use air bubbles.

The Mr. DELVER ones, I just run over the electricity except for using it to clear the last boss room.

The spore change was great. I was constantly harried by those things in Season 1.

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A lot of them have frontals and enrages, and there are a couple of stand outs like the shield that certain shadow cultists give their allies or the Kolbyss Trickster ability to spawn a lookalike and hide its health bar. Outside of that there’s not much variation.

Contrasting delves to Horrific Visions is not very favorable for the former. Visions are just much better designed solo content.

Delves have potential but it feels like Blizzard is pulling their punches.

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Yupe. I pretty much avoid the torch/purifer ones and the spore ones.

The former is just annoying. The latter is frustrating - they do so much damage and constantly get in your way.

The underwater ones are OK if you have some form of underwater breathing but they unfortunately have some of the most annoying mobs in the game so they are kind of a last resort.

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Which is a good thing imo.

Maybe in groups. But solo? Not really.

Can’t speak for you but doesn’t feel that way to me.

Yeah, don’t think I agree with this lol.

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More variations would be cool, both in terms of hazards, but also what those hazards mean.

For example if a monster was able to invert the candle or an upgrade from one of those chests/monsters, like if one made it so monsters within the candle took significant damage but you lost sanity (and outside you gained sanity, no change to monsters).

Monsters can grab and chuck them, etc. Not all at once of course, but just mixing it up.

Water could also be a helpful mechanic, in a differently made zone- where like raising it allowed you to reach higher points or lowering it debuffed water based enemies. I can say I’ve dashed myself off the cliff as a DH though …

Definitely am too used to them now, and so its like “oh the candles” and I just carry them all and toss them around like free candy from a sketch van.

Also just in general more mechanically interesting spells, less “if you don’t interrupt me I will hurt you so much and you can’t dodge it after that”. By that I mean like the mechanics you might see in a raid, spiral dodge-ables, make me stack with the dwarf that wont stop talking, have me pick a tether from him (or hand a tether to him), a beam attack that wont damage you if you’re in the candle but will shrink the candle, etc.

(I am enjoying delves over all though).

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Care to illustrate why?

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This is why I enjoy them. I hate dungeons now. They’re boring. It’s just “kill this, kill that.”

At least Delves have some interaction. I love the spores. And the mole machine.

And I want more.

More puzzles, more treasures to find. I want to dig stuff up to find cool things. I want to solve little mysteries and use those to make my way through and fight against stuff.

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Delves have different stories, a companion that’s designed to support roles(Soridormi isn’t as enjoyable as tank brann), curio customization, the fact I can go at my own pace, seasonal nemesis that can invade time from time, and the environment is just more my vibe. Don’t care for the creepy cthulu nonsense with visions so delves like Earthcrawl, Fungal, Underkeep, Spiral, KR, Nightfall, and Skittering I enjoy WAY more over visions.

On top of that, masks covering my character’s face. :-1:

Oh and the fact Visions is also interrupt heavy which penalizes my playstyle much more since I don’t have a kick just makes me not care about it at all. I’m sure it’ll get better next week but I prefer delves over visions. I get to feel like a healer in the former, but the latter…? Not so much.

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I still entertain myself in the Earthcrawl Mines with the bombs on the bridge. Get a train of mobs running at me and blow them all up!

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Yeah, I don’t like the visions much, either. I didn’t like them the first time around. The sanity bar makes my anxiety go stupid.

And I do prefer delves to them as well, except for a few that has my Disc Priest run screaming from because she can’t interrupt and Brann is too busy drooling to interrupt for me (Please Blizz, give Disc a kick/interrupt, or give us a pet bar for Brann to make him do it.)

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I’m not sure if it’s a case of me not liking visions, I intend on giving it a fair shake next week.

But so far it’s not really selling me on the mode. Like okay, I go to Old Town, kill Shaw’s two leaders, and kill him. Now I’m doing that over and over again but with more masks.

In Delves, okay Precious Ores is up and carts now moving across the tracks allowing me to use that to my advantage. Next day it’s Bugs and Grubs, now I get to use explosive barrels on trash. The day after that I’m doing the story with the dark iron dwarf where it sends me to the end and I have a mole machine I can use on enemies.

Like, I have variety that spices that one delve up lol.

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This comment made my brain go off so uh… lol:

Solving mysteries and dig up stuff made me think of delve specific evolution, which could then tie into the system as a whole.

Lets say for example there is a delve in a lava environment (coming with all the lava hazards and gimmicks), there are some ancient devices there and you can interact with them to open and close giant maws that will divert lava. Creating opportunities for combat and exploration. As you interact with these devices you gain knowledge and language skills with their constructs, gaining new features (more complex instructions, and as a result better combat and exploration advantages). Like platforms (elevators) and conveyors start to activate, which you can use as part of puzzles and general navigation (so some lead to puzzles, but others are short cuts and other uses).

Later you might be able to fix the city being bombarded with lava, switching it to water, gaining a beautiful restored vibe (and new opportunities, though you can turn lava back if you want), or unlock a special delve (if say the ancient city lifted off into the air, Laputa castle in the sky style).

After a certain point you can also start to invest in special missions that mix up the challenge more as you bring in an expedition that builds up outposts and other things, these can help provide buffs and services as you go through in normal delve fashion (and can help reach higher tiers).

Once the expedition is established enough you gain new expansion buffs (could be delve specific, that apply to other delves, and across your warbands, from simple stuff like faster movement speed, to more complex like molten powered candles which have damage auras and trinkets that have a chance to drop them on attacks). At the home base you might have a war table to gain resources from your new mine/foundry, and as you unlock other delve benefits could combine together for unlocking new missions, upgrades, and items.

Could be interesting with housing as well, take those resources to create housing items (which then directly relate to some of the locations, like being able to build an Ancient Ruins, like Laputa, Castle in the Sky vibes, after you master the language and build up the infrastructure, also unlocking special crafts like delve specific engineer teleport upgrades or as you master the language your ancient trinket becomes more powerful (rank is upgraded not by tokens but by your mastery of the language)).

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This sounds fun!

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I’ll even add in I like being able to take breaks during delves, you can get up in the middle go help the kids with something and come back 20 minutes later no problems

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