Lets say after the world soul saga they announced that for the first expansion of the new saga that the raids would not be as large, lets say more mini-raids instead of the current large raids we have, to focus on strengthening the other 2 pillars of the PvE experience; namely focusing on solo and five-man content like Delves (or whatever that equivilent would be) and dungeons. Making them more cinematic and impactful with better drops, while keeping raiding on the back burner for just that one expansion so that those could get overhauls to bring them up to the same level as raiding in terms of drops, story impact, and the like.
How do you think that expansion would do, and would it be something that might interest you?
There is no reason it should be one or the other.
But in this hypothetical world, it would be to my benefit as I do not raid.
The issue with raiding for me isn’t the raid itself, its the pre-requisites. So it really doesn’t matter if they’re 5 boss, 12 boss, lucrative, complex, easy. If I’m not getting through the door I don’t care what is inside.
I must have found a loophole because I’m able to do Delves solo without having to mass apply to groups for half an hour and then sit around for another 20 minutes while everyone else groups, oh and if I wipe in a Delve the group doesn’t have a chance to disband (because it’s just me).
The social issues are magnified by 5 for M+. It is tedious but manageable.
Those same issues are magnified 10-20x for raids. I can’t afford to spend two thirds of my free time trying to play a video game.
For fun I just applied to seven normal runs on my Warlock 655ilvl and got declined by four. Three are still pending. Keep in mind normal drops 636 - 645.
Oh I also completely forgot that half the listings are boost advertisements.
I don’t think anything would make most people happy. For example, here is what I want from an expansion:
Class hall flavor like we had in Legion WITHOUT Leggo weapons
Class specific stories, lore, and quests (like Legion)
Epic Raids like Naxx, ICC, Ulduar, or Firelands
Epic Dungeons like Blackrock Depths or Dead Mines
Uncapped Trading Post Tenders, just keep playing the game and earning them
Larger than life stories and campaigns that actually grab you and keep you wanting more
Mounts that make sense
A map option for Hearthstones so you can hearth to ANY Inn you have visited and unlocked like a flight path
Lumberjack Profession (gathering wood) and Carpenter Profession to make weapons and furnishing for Player Housing
Top 20 add-ons “borrowed” from Curseforge and rolled into the native UI
A TRUE Horde warchief who is not BS crazy but wants to bring the Horde into power
Anduin to finish his journey and go sit on the throne. He has been the “King” since BfA. He needs to start acting like it.
Move all lockouts to Daily or Weekly (group leader’s choice)
Make Delves based on existing dungeons (micro dungeons with two big encounters)
Anti-mount bubbles within 2 feet of each Mailbox the same way we have for event NPCs but not so HUGE like the one on the Trading Post
Make all REP and Secondary professions account wide (Cooking, Fishing, First Aid, etc)
Have ONE Currency window that is account wide. No more transferring currency. It is already the same on every character and pulls from the same source.
Unlock ALL gear mogs for all classes. If you want a plate wearing priest or a cloth wearing DK so you can RP or battle in it, I don’t care
Remove the Transmog Gold sink and add in a ONE TIME mog fee of 100g to mog that item. Then it is free forever. Bump up repair costs and reduce vendor purchase values to eliminate more gold.
Raiding isn’t too bad for solo players! I worked and grinded to AotC and it was hard, sure was frustrating…
I can still hear, “Jackpot? JACKPOT! DEATH.” in my dreams.
But it can be done, even without addons! Learn the fights, read the adventure guide, listen to raid lead, (really that does a lot of the heavy lifting, listen to the one who think good) and give it your all! Keep logs, not just for invites but for recruitment if you want.
Pugs are always a crapshoot and you will have nightmare ones, but you, technically, have infinite shots due to how pugs work! Raiding is for me a lot more fun than M+. More large in scale and spectacle.
Uh, in regards to OP, I enjoy delves and loathe M+, so I would do my Delve stuff and then plow to AotC I guess?
I never claimed they couldn’t be solved…?
I just stated that they are time consuming pre-requisites.
Guilds aren’t really an option for me, I’m not able to commit to a schedule for a video game. Which yes is a pre-requisite to raiding if that’s the route you wanted to take.
That does not exist for M+/Delves.
I would appreciate the addition (return) of smaller raids, but not at the expense of the larger ones. I do not raid often (and usually only LFR if I do these days), but I would actually ask for larger raids as well.
I understand that 8 bosses seems to be the sweet spot, but I think it would be best if we had one larger raid per expansion. I’d like to see large set pieces become sprawling raids again (Karazhan, Black Temple, Ulduar). A “megaraid”, perhaps.
I do not think dungeons or Delves are hurting. The War Within has 10 new dungeons. Maybe it would be cool if we got 12 or saw some revamped older dungeons, but not at the expense of another part of the game.
I’m not really sure what you are going for here, you don’t explain much about what you think dungeons/delves actually need, it seems like you just want to push down raiding.
You can just ignore raids like most of us, no reason to underdevelope them for those who still do like it.
People say this without realizing it’d force them to make delves non-trivial and that wouldn’t be in the interests of most people who prefer delves.