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World of Warcraft: Forever made some changes to how dungeons work—rather than getting a bunch of XP from enemies in dungeons, you predominantly get experience points from the quests surrounding them.
Which is made slightly better for the fact that there are just more dungeons overall—so while you can't sit in dungeons until level 60, you can chain between those dungeons with minimal questing, though some questing is still basically mandatory if you care about being efficient.
This has been a point of consternation. Any brief visit over to the r/classicwow subreddit leads to a raft of complaint threads about dungeon XP, though other communities do vary. It should be mentioned that a singular subreddit isn't reflective of the game's entire population, mind—but it is notable how upset the dungeon-loving slice of WoW's playerbase is.
To try and soothe that ache, Blizzard's gone ahead and buffed the XP gain: "At about 11:05 PST today, we deployed a hotfix that increased kill experience in dungeons by 50%, so it feels better to go back in for more runs," writes community manager Kaivax. "Happy dungeon crawling, and good luck with those Deviate Hides!"
That 50% number isn't actually too much, mind—it's a 50% increase to the current value. So let's say you were getting 40 XP from a mob: You're now getting 60.
For the record, I'm a touch on the fence about this one. I do think that the amount of XP from enemies alone was kind of unhealthy for the game. You do want those repeat runs to give a decent batch of experience, not just for folks who would rather spend their time rinsing dungeons with their mates, but also so healers and tanks have a reason to come back to them and to keep the dungeon-delver's population healthy after the launch week rush.
On the other hand, I'm kind of fine with dungeons giving a huge batch of XP up front and then not being the best way to level thereafter. It's ultimately okay if World of Warcraft: Forever is a videogame about questing or exploring the open world.
But I can see the other side of the coin: The major problem is that Forever's also been pitched as a game about returning to the Azeroth you knew, but with a shinier coat of paint. And for some WoW players, that Azeroth predominantly took place in instanced content with a bunch of their buddies over Teamspeak or Ventrilo. I don't think they're wrong for feeling hard done-by.
If you were to put the balancing in my hands (you shouldn't) I'd say dungeon grinding ought to be just a little behind questing as an XP source, given you get such a massive bump of XP from dungeon quests on your first run. Still worthwhile, but nothing that's going to outpace playing to Forever's strengths.
I just hope this design isn't completely walked back, though, because I think Forever will be a stronger game if it sticks to its guns, even if that's not to everyone's tastes—because games are generally more interesting when they do that.
Best MMOs: Most massive
Best strategy games: Number crunching
Best open world games: Unlimited exploration
Best survival games: Live craft love
Best horror games: Fight or flight
Continue reading...
Which is made slightly better for the fact that there are just more dungeons overall—so while you can't sit in dungeons until level 60, you can chain between those dungeons with minimal questing, though some questing is still basically mandatory if you care about being efficient.
This has been a point of consternation. Any brief visit over to the r/classicwow subreddit leads to a raft of complaint threads about dungeon XP, though other communities do vary. It should be mentioned that a singular subreddit isn't reflective of the game's entire population, mind—but it is notable how upset the dungeon-loving slice of WoW's playerbase is.
To try and soothe that ache, Blizzard's gone ahead and buffed the XP gain: "At about 11:05 PST today, we deployed a hotfix that increased kill experience in dungeons by 50%, so it feels better to go back in for more runs," writes community manager Kaivax. "Happy dungeon crawling, and good luck with those Deviate Hides!"
That 50% number isn't actually too much, mind—it's a 50% increase to the current value. So let's say you were getting 40 XP from a mob: You're now getting 60.
For the record, I'm a touch on the fence about this one. I do think that the amount of XP from enemies alone was kind of unhealthy for the game. You do want those repeat runs to give a decent batch of experience, not just for folks who would rather spend their time rinsing dungeons with their mates, but also so healers and tanks have a reason to come back to them and to keep the dungeon-delver's population healthy after the launch week rush.
On the other hand, I'm kind of fine with dungeons giving a huge batch of XP up front and then not being the best way to level thereafter. It's ultimately okay if World of Warcraft: Forever is a videogame about questing or exploring the open world.
But I can see the other side of the coin: The major problem is that Forever's also been pitched as a game about returning to the Azeroth you knew, but with a shinier coat of paint. And for some WoW players, that Azeroth predominantly took place in instanced content with a bunch of their buddies over Teamspeak or Ventrilo. I don't think they're wrong for feeling hard done-by.
If you were to put the balancing in my hands (you shouldn't) I'd say dungeon grinding ought to be just a little behind questing as an XP source, given you get such a massive bump of XP from dungeon quests on your first run. Still worthwhile, but nothing that's going to outpace playing to Forever's strengths.
I just hope this design isn't completely walked back, though, because I think Forever will be a stronger game if it sticks to its guns, even if that's not to everyone's tastes—because games are generally more interesting when they do that.
Best MMOs: Most massive
Best strategy games: Number crunching
Best open world games: Unlimited exploration
Best survival games: Live craft love
Best horror games: Fight or flight
Continue reading...
