Once upon a time WoW had roaming PVE dangers

Keldarien-hellscream · August 20, 2024, 5:51pm

Yasraena:

It somewhat feels like you’re talking about two completely different things.

“Hard” challenges are like the Mage Tower - something that is surmountable with use of your toolkit, and it designed to test you using 80-100% of your allotted powers (class tool kit) to overcome. Also this of course includes group content.

Things like Fel Reavers and Sons of Arugal aren’t really that. The ability to ask in zone chat for a capped player or an army of low levels to fight a monster that just stat checks you, is not a difficult challenge, it’s a roadblock or deliberate deterrent, and it isn’t utilizing a skill. It’s fine though, these things existed to add something else to the world - a sense of danger, which is good, in my opinion. It’s good when there are monstrous, dangerous enemies that exist just to keep you in check and remind you that you are in hostile territory. I personally do not think such things belong in every zone, but certainly belong in a zone that is undeniably enemy territory (e.g. most of the expansion zones where player factions do not have a capital city or a story reason to have a powerful presence in which they have tamed the zone).

Just to elaborate a bit more - I do not consider things like FR or SoA “hard challenges” because they were designed to be stat checks. Elite quests were clearly balanced around challenging you with your tools and perhaps other players and their resources, but monsters like SoA and FR in my opinion were in place to serve as pure deterrents from just carelessly running through their respective zones, which is why they stat check you and just kill you in a couple of hits and have a lot of health - you’re really not meant to win that encounter, even using your whole kit to its maximum, you’re meant to die and know better next time that this is a danger in the zone and you should take care the path you take through that zone.

Whether these are good things or not to your a average player is entirely subjective; clearly, data or surveys and player habits have told blizzard that these sorts of things are less appealing nowadays, and arguably, their inclusion in earlier iterations of the game were because some of the designers of the original game were products of EverQuest and UO and M59, all of which had either insurmountable PvE enemies just roaming around (and far more dire consequences for death) or always-on open-world PvP.

I can’t tell from your post, but my guess is that what you are really saying you miss isn’t “hard” challenges in the open world, because I do not think much of that has existed, but I do think you’re saying you miss when there were truly appreciable dangers out in the world, which I agree with. I know people find such things annoying, and they certainly can be, but for the flavor it adds to the zone, I think it can be worth it when done right. Sons of Arugal and Fel Reavers are two very good examples. The eye of the jailer is a bad example.

This is the best way anyone has described what lurking dangers were really like back in the day. Now, the Mage Tower and even Torghast—both of these, in my honest opinion, are content that can be fun. Torghast could be if it’s fixed and reintegrated as evergreen content, something alongside the Mage Tower for elitists to farm and get unique and special rewards that they have rightfully earned. Hardcore content exists for the people that enjoy it, no doubt. But what needs to be added back are Gatekeepers & Role/Stat checks in the open world.

Not things that are forced, but have these things randomly roam around a zone, like elite mobs requiring parties or guild groups or rare elites that serve as Role/Stat checks. Should anything be forced? Well, I believe it makes you better at the game—having difficulty and failing a few times helps you improve. But in today’s age of hand-holding, make it optional. They can roam along long paths through zones or areas off the beaten path, catching unexpected wanderers. This way, if you want to skip it, you can just avoid it and go on your merry way.

@Yasraena-kelthuzad, I really respect your viewpoint, and I would very much appreciate your opinion on my own post regarding revitalizing guilds in World of Warcraft. Here’s the link: Revitalizing Guilds in World of Warcraft.