I wanted to share some ideas for potential enhancements to Cataclysm Classic that I and a fair few others, believe could add some excitement to the game.
Now that item appearances are becoming account-wide and mounts/pets already enjoy this feature, I think incorporating account-wide achievements similar to those in Retail could greatly boost players’ motivation to dive into a variety of content. Like many others, I find myself playing with multiple characters, and the prospect of sharing rewards across them all would be a huge incentive to revisit older content and dive into new adventures, especially now that older content already gets more relevant, with the introduction of transmogs.
I specifically want to exclude Gladiator titles or mounts from this suggestion because their rarity should reflect the challenge of obtaining them.
When it comes to dungeons, while XX-Rune dungeons from Wrath of the Lich King Classic did increase their relevance throughout the expansion, I can’t help but feel their mechanics were somewhat out of place. For Cataclysm Classic, I think borrowing a feature from Mists of Pandaria and implementing it in Cata, would be exciting – namely, Challenge-mode dungeons.
If Blizzard could replicate these Challenge-mode dungeons, scaling all character items down to the appropriate ilvl (believe it’s 346 for Cata Heroics), and introducing a leaderboard. Players could then compete for the best completion times and strive for rewards like mounts and cosmetic class-sets. I truly believe this approach would provide a much more engaging incentive for endgame content compared to simply adding raid items and increasing mob health.
Many of us find joy in attempting to set speed records or simply just completing dungeons within time constraints. As content progresses, I’ve noticed that a lot of players tend to log in solely for raid-logging due to a lack of engaging content elsewhere or interest. I think these proposed features could broaden the field of endgame activities, encouraging more play-time, and fostering collaboration among players, both friends and new acquaintances.
Furthermore, Challenge-mode dungeons would remain relevant throughout the expansion by resetting leaderboards with each phase and possibly introducing new class-sets/weapon sets or mounts for each phase. Best of all, no alterations to the dungeons themselves would be needed, as all items would scale down accordingly.
These ideas aren’t new, and a lot of people have already discussed them, I simply couldn’t find a forum post discussing them.
Thank you for reading this far, I’m eagerly looking forward to seeing how Cataclysm Classic evolves.