WoW’s different difficulties have successfully made dungeons and raids cater to different player types with challenges appropriate to their skill…
…but there is one end game game system that lacks this feature and almost everyone seems dissatisfied with it in Shadowlands: World Quests.
With only one difficulty setting, world quests are set to ridiculously easy mode. Realizing how easy world quests are, Blizz this expansion has added more steps to world quests to make them last longer than a few seconds but that’s just annoyed everyone.
So I propose an option to increase the difficulty of world quests and get greater rewards in return.
At its hardest difficulty, it would be impossible to solo the outside world and you would need a balanced group to succeed.
A warmode type setting could separate players out so you don’t have hard mode and normal mode players playing together.
As for the rewards? I know this is where there would be controversy. So just throwing out some ideas here. I do think the key is no one should feel forced to do hard mode world quests but this should be there for folks who like questing.
Possible rewards:
Better gear that has increased ilevel when world questing (similar to pvp gear in season 2).
A bunch of players who chose an MMO and want it to be something else…good riddance. This game is in the state it’s in now because it’s been catering to everyone, but their intended audience. If you wanted a solo game there are plenty out there.
While I agree with you on principle, it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t sell. Forced old school group MMO play is extremely niche and every MMO that tried that and isn’t named EQ1 (Vanguard, Wildstar) failed spectacularly. Even little experiments with the idea like ESO’s first implementation of Craglorn failed.
People just won’t do it and would rather handicap themselves on what little solo content there is in those games.
I love the difficulty in classic, because sometimes I have to group. But I’m grouping with people I’ll see again in the world. Sometimes I group with the same people down the line for different quests, or I see them killing something solo and struggling and I jump in to help, even though I get nothing from it.
Seeing the same players in the world is what makes overworld grouping interesting. Retail took that away a long time ago. Now you’re seeing randos from other servers most of the time, or different shards of your realm, or whatever…
Retail is simultaneously trying to be a game that encourages groups, but also discourages things like server communities and reputations. You either have a guild for your community, or the community feature itself, or you’re just in a sea of strangers that you’ll never form a lasting bond with.
Hell, most of the time you won’t see anyone in your guild or community in the world either.
Everything about retail feels like a dungeon crawler pretending to be a MMO.
But it would feel forced. There’s a WQ out there that requires a group but drops 210 item level gear or whatever – players who don’t do dungeons or raids or rated PVP are going to want the items, so they’ll feel forced to complete those WQs.
BTW this system would cap at 210, because Blizzard isn’t going to offer higher item level rewards from a WQ than they do from an end-of-dungeon M+ chest.
By this logic, players are forced to do mythic raids because it’s the only way to get the best loot in the game.
I was thinking maybe 207 standard gear but with a bonus to make it 216 gear while world questing. Maybe loot only drops if you do a whole calling. Maybe a badge system with purchasable loot. Lot of different things you could do.
WQs will never reward items higher than M+ dungeons, even if it’s the end-of-dungeon chest and not the Vault reward. The point of WQs is to give players a stepping point from which to start gearing up in dungeons and then eventually raids – that’s why there’s a clear “ceiling” between when WQs max out and when M+ dungeon loot (or raids) starts. Even the normal CN loot is higher than WQ max loot (outside the rare Calling items) even though it’s only a few item levels.
If you want to attach rare xmogs or pets/mounts to these “hard-mode WQs” that’s a different argument, but progressive gear? That won’t happen.
After 3 expansions of world quests and emissaries, it’s time for something completely different.
Or if we keep them…
Why are these limited to Shadowlands? We are saving souls in the maw, what if our daily callings sent us back to all previous expansions to save lives, limiting the amount of souls the jailer can steal.
Keep the gear from these rewards equal to current, but in the style of the expansion the reward comes from filling out our mog closet while obtaining current level gear.
Bring back the whistle and make it functional in every expansion. This QoL addition shouldn’t have been removed, but expanded upon. Leveling with one from the start would be a good addition.
We have been level squished, why can’t the entire world have a purpose for us again? We’ve saved it, now the inhabitants afterlives are in danger and we only go back to use the AH?
With different difficulty options we could add a LFR world quests mode where world quests are so easy so they make the current world quests difficulty look like Mythic Stone Legion Generals.
I think the issue I’m having with SL world quests is not the difficulty, but that they are tedious. Simply making a task take longer to raise time played is not making it more fun.
Making it harder in addition to tedious would probably make a lot of folks give up doing them, and since some of those same folks are also the ones who don’t do M+ or raids either, it would likely drive them off the game.
Worst idea ever.
Wow became as successful as it did BECAUSE it catered to everyone. It’s suffering now because they seem to be narrowing their “intended audience” FROM everyone, to a smaller percentage.
NOWHERE in the definition of MMO does it suggest that grouping should be required.