This will never go anywhere, but I enjoy the thought experiment of game theory so if you’d like to play “imagine a new video game” with me, read on!
After playing Monster Hunter World lately I was blown away by the fantastic gameplay loop. Fighting monsters, getting loot then fighting bigger monsters. After investing way too many hours into the game it got me thinking of what I would have liked to see more of from the game. Then that made me realize I’d really like to see a Blizzard version of Monster hunter world. (Or MHW as we’ll call it going forward)
Why did Blizzard come to mind? The company has a long history of iterating on game mechanics from other popular games and adding ‘Blizzard polish’ as they call it. That polish added to a relatively bare bones game like MHW would be phenomenal. (IE, every time you break a monster part you can visibly see it broken on the monster, every broken part changes the dynamic of the fight. A tall order for animators, but something Blizzard could accomplish)
The second reason Blizzard came to mind is that MHW is essentially a string of boss fights, playing Retail WoW for the last couple of expansions it definitely feels like the WoW teams passion has been dungeons/boss fights. So why fight that? Lets lean into it and let them make a game squared centered on the mechanics they enjoy!
The Game Concept: With that long lead in, the idea came to me a ‘World of Dungeons’ so to speak. A full game centered on heading into dungeons, murdering a handful of bosses for cool loot and then doing it again. Like Monster Hunter World each boss would be a collection of ‘parts’ bits of the boss that if focused would break and provide loot or the opportunity for rare loot. Unlike Monster Hunter World, where the monster is typically most dangerous at the start before you break their tail or other important part, the monsters in World of Dungeons would/should get more dangerous as you break things.
Mechanically the game should borrow more from MHW than WoW since tab targeting would negate the skill of focusing on certain monster parts. But where the WoW experience comes in would be the ability to craft interesting encounters/dungeon flavors. While this dungeon design would lose the organic nature of MHW having monsters fight each other in the wild, some of dynamism could be maintained by having the dungeons have different paths which are either opened or closed (Think Violet Hold in WoW with different bosses activating on different runs)
Longevity: Now while the game is based on loot, World of Dungeons should avoid planned obsolesce of its content by also adding a “Pure” mode. Each dungeon would have a baseline with fixed gear scores and possibly stats. This is the truest version of the dungeon and the hardest. Think Mythic versions of WoW dungeons from previous games, but one that never becomes easy through gear. This is where the rarest cosmetics drop or cosmetic currencies drop the most often. This keeps them rare and desirable without requiring removing content as Blizzard has run into with previous things (See removing the Black Proto Drake) Becomes players never do well with removing content. It also adds a hard mode. The other mode of dungeons would scale with your gear, this is where you would play the most, this is where you revisit a starter dungeon and flex on the boss that once gave you such a hard time.
As there is a “Pure” dungeon, there should also be no catch up mechanics. WoW has shown it feels bad to grind a dungeon/raid hard for loot only for that loot to be made obsolete a month later by the same content. With a “Pure” dungeon players could jump in there with friends at any time since gear scores are fixed, if they wanted to faceroll the game then they’ll have to grind up their gear.
Dungeon Focus: As the game is also entirely focused on dungeons, there should be modifications made to dungeons from time to time. Ideally seasonal changes to give the game a bit more dynamic feel or even make a dungeon entirely different in an opposing season. In summer the frozen ice dungeon is a swampy bog, in winter the waterfall in another dungeon is frozen and blocks off a path you normally take (But now you can climb the frozen waterfall to a special winter boss)
Again, the idea that a game focused entirely on dungeons could really bring some polish to them. This is a game that doesn’t have to invest thousands of man hours in making a questing world, that time could go into dungeon design/evolution.
Business Model: Now this wouldn’t be Blizzard game if we didn’t also consider the business model it would use. Two models are possible, a monthly subscription like WoW with steady content drops every 2 to 3 months. Or a buy as you go approach, content is dropped in chunks that can be purchased to be accessed (New dungeon comes out, pay $10 to add it to your roster) The monthly subscription option is likely best as it doesn’t fragment the player base, it also removes the pain of decision making for each content drop (“Do I really want to pay $15 for this?”) The downside is that it creates the expectation of steady content since players are paying each month.
With piecemeal content drops you could add a factor that if you join a group with any players who own the content then you could join in, this would sacrifice some profit as it wouldn’t require players to 100% adopt the new content to access it, but it would maintain the cohesion of the player base better. The downside of this is less profit and also creates a slippery slope to intrusive microtransactions.
Flavor: I like the more organic nature of MHW with fighting living creatures, but lets be honest, that probably wouldn’t fly with Blizzard as in this game if you could visibly see each part break you’d be seeing showers of gore frequently. Not something the fairly family friendly company is likely to embrace. So the obvious flavor of this game is sci-fi. You fight giant robots mainly, their parts explode in fiery displays of parts raining down. You harvest those parts and, lets say the players are robots, you graft them directly onto yourself so you end up being a bit of a Frankenstein’s Monster of the things you make.
Closing: World of Dungeons isn’t an idea to replace WoW, it’s just a fun notion I had for a new product that could blend two very entertaining properties to hopefully make something fun. Hope you enjoyed my thought experiment!
