Delves are HC+ Dungeons and will fail because of it

Community General Discussion
1

A delve should have been single player, but it’s just another group activity cleared by groups already on day 1.

The vast majority of Solo players have been left behind and that solo content was really a bait and switch to push more group content. As long as delves can be grouped they Will design them around grouped and their ever-green solo content is dead.

If you wanted this route, instead of delves you should have designed all the dungeon as solo dungeons as well with these kinds of puzzles and challenges. Using what you’d built for the xpac instead of this mess.

Example using some of their delve mechanics:

Priory of the sacred Flame Dungeon

Solo Dungeon: “Voidlight Descent”

Dungeon Layout & Concept:
Context: When Beledar’s void phase begins, the Sacred Flame’s light in the priory is consumed by void energy, creating shadow-infested versions of the dungeon. This alternate void version is accessible only during Beledar’s void cycle.

Theme: Voidlight has twisted the dungeon creating flame-based puzzles, shadow manipulation challenges, with new void-enhanced enemies lurking within.

Mechanics:
Void Puzzles:
The player now manipulates voidflame braziers, aligning shadows to reveal hidden paths or weaken void-shielded enemies.

Example Puzzle: Instead of igniting sacred flames to proceed, the player must extinguish corrupted voidflames, uncovering void-touched passages.

Solo Combat:

  • Void creatures spawn in darkness, empowered by the voidlight. Combat encounters scale based on the player’s gear.
  • Shadows shift and obscure enemies, forcing the player to manipulate the voidflame braziers to reveal and weaken them.
  • Void versions of original bosses

Final Boss Encounter:
High Voidflame Guardian: Once a protector of the Sacred Flame, the Guardian is now consumed by voidlight. The fight involves dispelling void barriers by aligning the voidflame braziers and surviving waves of void-enhanced mobs.

The boss fight scales in difficulty based on the player’s item level, with the void-corrupted environment introducing new mechanics and phases as the player’s gear improves.

Scaling:
Gear-Scaling: Enemies and puzzles adapt to the player’s power. With better gear, new, more complex void puzzles unlock, adding layers of difficulty to the dungeon.
Rewards: Unique cosmetics, void-infused gear, and special mounts or pets become available with higher completion tiers.

This version of the Priory of the Sacred Flame would offer a new, engaging experience for solo players, seamlessly reusing group content and adding replay ability through the scaling void mechanics.

12 Likes
2

It was also cleared by solo players on day 1.

Lets be clear, the difficulty solo and in a party should have been comparable but its not any less of an option for solo players.

Behind “what”, exactly?

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3

Well two things to this:

  1. If you wanted to stay “ahead” and not be outgeared, you don’t do delves alone, maybe a few delves paired with m+
  2. As mentioned here:

Do you mean gear? The grouped people? The curve of dps? I’m confused as to what you seem to be implying. Please elaborate.

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4

You can’t make solo content that is challenging for all roles without having it adjust according to the role being played. Right now Delves are a one-size fits all, so the tuning feels off for some more than others and there is no way to fix this without making them trivial like questing/world events.

They make it worse by allowing groups in as well, and having to tune for group sizes too, but also they seem to assume a five person group is the traditional tank, healer and 3 dps.

Their new feature, Delves, is showing itself to be half-baked and will probably be forgotten after a few weeks and never return again after this expansion because they’re unwilling or unable to put in the effort to make it shine.

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5

it was billed as solo content it’s not, its group content that you can blast through and solo is added on as an afterthought.

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6

The delves are not an option for any player.
There are only two options: mythic+ and raids. Maybe third option crafting.
Delves dont give you end-game gear.

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7

You want the gear that has been given to group content, but play as a solo player. Well you have this now. Your biggest gripe seems to be that others have more options. Seems very Schadenfreuden and narrow minded to me. You realise that it is mainly because of all the other content that your solo content is available at the cost it is. And by this I don’t just mean PVE raids or M+; it is all the content that players enjoy in wow, including the PvP stuff too.
You really should be happy there is a cross over to reduce the production costs of more stuff. I don’t remember a single complaint when follower dungeons were introduced.

8

Delves will struggle so long as there keeps being a tremendous difference between a DPS, Tank, and a Healer. Giant worlds apart (you feel it in PvP too)

The specs are so apart, it’s really hard to do solo content based off of even self heals of some classes. Basically, try to go in there as an Augvoker, and tell me just how annoying it is to complete rather than a full DPS or a proper Tank.

Same way, the minute you start mixing those together in a run, you start to notice just how unkillable a healer + tank is and how tuned they are for content that one-shots the average DPS.

2 Likes
9

Mythic raiding and mythic plus are a minority activity. The majority of players dont play it, so blizzard are trying to think of ways to get to play the game by introducing delves.
Unfortunately, the delves dont give end-game ilvl, so noone cares.

10

No it’s flex solo content that has been balanced poorly, it includes solo as well as with friends/otherr players.

Depends on your definition of “End-Game-Gear” but for the higherr end players it won’t suffice, but for those looking to replace a weak slot solo it can reward up to a +5 so yknow, not worthless but can be replaced.

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11

This is a minority.

You need to be more specific, high-end keys, yes, low keys, no.

Your logic isn’t checking out, if noone does m+, delves offer high-end gear for sure, it’s either that or I guess heroic which would be the highest possibility outisde of your “minority activities”

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12

Behind who? You’re playing solo, & you can’t be “behind” yourself.

What do you consider to be “Endgame” item Level?
Tier 8 Delves give the same reward as M5 at the end of the run & M7 Vault.

For Solo players (who Delves were aimed at) this is perfect Endgame item Level.

13

They give HC level raid gear opportunity, that a lot for most players. So, all the raiding and M+ people blasted through them day one in group, to get gear thus saying to everyone Delves are group content.

Most clears will be group, solo play will once again fail on the content and solo players will feel robbed.

2 Likes
14

Because delves are not aimed at solo players, they are not solo content. They are just another bait and Switch group content designed around groups.

Most clears will be group clears.
It was designed around groups.
It once again forces solo player to group.

It’s not solo content

4 Likes
15

Just because the high-end players have an effective way to do things doesn’t mean that it will mirror the actual playerbase. The high-end players also dictate best rotations, while I’m over here hoping my beast master knows he needs to stack barbed shot and not pool it for some reason.

Literal skill or balancing issue btw.

16

Delves are not solo content, they are group content, and day one of the season proved it.

2 Likes
17

No, because high-end gear is not relative. High-end gear is the best available gear. If everyone only did world quests, it would not make world quest gear high-end.
If the activity provides high-end gear, it’s an end-game activity.
If it does not, it is mid-game activity.
Delves are mid-game activity therefore, that simple.

Mythic raids/mythic dungeons are a minority activity, regardless of the keys.
I know, that we all live in a forum bubble or our favorite youtube channel bubble or our guild bubble
But thats for more devoted audience.
Most wow players reach max level and go play another game.
If you played Zereth Mortis zone or like Argus zone, that means you are already in minority.
So no, most players dont do mythic

18

Objectively false, please tell me why solo players are unable to experience this content, I’ll be at a different pace.

Too early to say but go on.

Define groups, if you mean a full dung group that’s wrong, but for groups of 1-3 that’s accurate.

No it forces solo players to perform better.

It’s flex content.

Also

I don’t follow, end-game activities are simply activities that are completted and available at the end-game, not relative to rewards they provide, under that logic pvp isn’t an endgame activity.

Again when referring to things as xxx-game, it refers to a point in the games length, not rewards it provides.

If we are incapsulating all keys then I have to disagree, and will only be convinced if I see any form of proof, the mythic raiding however is definettely a minority as it was designed to be such, true.

Random side tangeant and irrelevant but alright.

Again I would love to see a stat on this and would then also gladly change my mind, but this seems like a “my experience” source, and that’s subjective so not applicable for the majority with a single opinion.

I am starting to believe you genuinely think 90% of players only care about hitting max level, in which case we would see a massive spike and dropoff within a day or two of the expansion, which to my knowledge isn’t there, so again I hate to be that guy but source please.

1 Like
19

So are solo players not people to you?

20

Exactly, they can’t be solo content so long as the previous formula exists.
This isn’t new ground-breaking reveal either, even in TF2, you ever tried to take down a Heavy+Medic? They synergize so they become more than the sum of their parts.

And in WoW it’s more disgustingly worse, that even a world boss can take on 50 dps, but it can’t handle 1 tank + 2 heals, it deadlocks while everyone just braindeads the boss.

Same will happen on every content again and again.