Alternate Progression Idea: Laboratory of the Eternals

Greetings, I come with a suggestion on a new alternate way to play and progress the game, like PVP/Arenas/Raiding and M+, this alternate route aims to provide yet another venue for players to enjoy themselves and progress should they please, like other progression routes, it is a standalone and players can get fully geared from it alone.

This suggestion comes in the form of Laboratory of the Eternals, or LotE for short, players can tackle LotE alone, alongside 2 heavily customizable bodyguards or recruit friends that can join them to a party of up to 2-5 players.

The Lore

The players are asked by the NPCs in Zereth Mortis to investigate a hidden laboratory, it turns out it is an experimenting place that the eternals used to simulate all manners of living creatures they stumbled upon, mimicking their battle capabilities and sometimes even enhancing them to be stronger than their real counterparts.

The Idea, an introduction to what the LotE is

The Laboratory of the eternals consists of endless levels, that the players will have to delve deeper and deeper into, every month it resets, and the players are awarded for their progression, they get gear once they reach certain milestones, and at the end of the month, they get rewards depending on how far they pushed or " delved "

LotE features a vast, unexplored, mapless levels, with randomized enemies and bosses from all over WoW and even new enemies never seen before, each level is as big as a mega dungeon, and the goal is to advance to other levels.

The maps are huge and not linear with many intersections, areas, sub areas, treasures, traps, materials and players have many ways to advance to the next level. The levels are not timed, mobs are not fixed, rather they behave naturally, think like the villages/towns you attack while doing quests for example the village near shadowfang keep, but smarter and more involved, some mobs come in packs, some alone, etc.

Clearing each level should take up to 1-3 hours, but once cleared you are done with it for the rest of the month, you cannot go back to it, anything you didn’t loot, you missed. And once you advance through the finish portal, you are given three options: -

1- Advance
2- Clear another level of the same difficulty
3- Leave

The Gameplay

The gameplay consists of the player(s) delving into massive levels, think of each level as a mega dungeon or even bigger, if players joined solo they are able to recruit two bodyguards which I will talk about later, should they join with friends, they cannot bring their bodyguards with them.

Exploration and survival are the name of the game, players can take their time to advance, explore and interact with each level, and even sometimes they might have to chart them, so they don’t get lost.

Players will need to bring many consumables and utilities to survive, most of which are unique to LotE and can be bought from currency that drops from LotE itself.

Players can advance to the next level once they achieved certain conditions, each unique to the level they joined and they have to find out the conditions themselves, some of examples of the conditions are: -

1- Repair the relay pillars to setup an exit from the level
2- Find the exit
3- Defeat the boss guarding the exit
4- Gather clues that lead to the exit
5- Successfully raid a settlement/fortress

And many more.

The players will have access to a unique to LotE talent tree, and even ascension classes that change their entire gameplay, they gain talents / Ascencion talents by delving deeper and deeper.

The players can loot gear after each level, and while exploring the level they can find treasure chests that give gold, materials, currency etc. the areas may also feature special materials that can be used in professions or even normal profession materials such a mining nodes, herbs, or animals to skin.

The LotE Specific talent tree and ascension classes

Players will gain access to a LotE specific talent tree that is only active in LotE, kind of like the PvP talents but it’s a huge one, the tree is very big and can provide passives, new abilities, utility and many things, usually it makes classes compatible for LotE and lets everyone customize what they want to be while delving through LotE

After fulfilling certain requirements, the players are able to ascend their classes and unlock powerful upgraded versions of their classes and gain access to super powerful talent tree only active in LotE.

For example, an outlaw rogue can ascend into a pistoleer with gameplay focused only on fighting with pistols, A protection warrior can choose to become a gladiator, giving him more offensive options and sword and board fighting style.

And as players delve deeper and achieve more milestones they gain more experience and once a certain point is reached they gain talent points to put into their talent trees and every couple of points reached they gain an extra ascended talent point.

The bodyguards

Should the players choose to play solo they are able to recruit two unique bodyguards, gear them, talent them, spec them and build them into whatever they need or like, they can discuss strategy with them and give them behavioral commands ( be aggressive, defend me, focus on healing, dps until a party member reaches x% hp, save cds until I give the command, use less consumables etc )

The bodyguards are smart companions, and each have their own personality and traits, that will be directly affected by the players actions

Consumables and Currency

Delving the LotE is no easy task and as such, there are many unique to LotE consumables that players can use, be it food, special food, grenades, traps, bombs, potions, trinkets, special weapons, etc.

But players have to be careful, these are limited, and restocking them won’t be an easy task, the idea is to really feel like you are going into a long expedition to discover a vast level, players will need to carefully manage their resources.

The resources aren’t limited to the players themselves; their bodyguards can also use them if allowed to, and they can even automate them, there are many types of consumables and they do many things like boost speed, give invisibility, CC a mob, deal heavy damage etc.

Consumables can be found on enemy corpses, in treasure chests, from unique enemies in the Laboratory or buying them from vendors with currency.

This is just a rough draft, I don’t want to write a wall of text as I am not a developer, but the idea seems like a fun plausible thing to do, the tl;dr is to explore huge area and delve into deeper levels to find better shinnies.

Let me know what you guys think, and if you have any suggestion to add to it, and if you think its a good idea or not, I haven’t written a forum post/suggestion in a while so I might have gone abit too wild in my fantasies or had a lower level of typing, if that’s the case I do apologize, also /hi to everyone in the forums.

Looks fine
But to be honest, anything related to Shadowlands and its 'lore" should be avoided like the Plague :unamused:
Let’s call is “Workshop of the Titans” , go back to our Azerothian roots and it would be ideal

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