Should raids remain the main PvE pillar of the game, or should all PVE pillars provide more or less equal opportunities? Just thinking out loud. This is more about gear and difficulty of challenges that can be achieved in different content and playstyles. Playing Lemix now, seeing the heroic difficulty of the world, I think about other games, thinking about what WoW could be, where players could do the content they enjoy, at your own pace, getting as many challenges and rewards as they want, without feeling like they’re missing out some things completely, be it a shiny new mount, sets, or gear. Well, maybe gearing speed could be different, to motivate raid groups somehow.
For me personally, raids stopped being suitable content a long time ago, I can no longer play on a strict schedule. And looking at the game now, I think it could be great even without raids being core PvE content. But that’s just me, what do you think?
Edited: Thanks for sharing, everyone! I can only speak from my own perspective. I agree with those who say raids are an important part of WoW, and I’m not sure they need to be changed much. However, for players who no longer want to raid or simply can’t, I think the PvE content could really use more love and innovation — maybe a Heroic or Mythic difficulty for open-world content, or something like that.
PvP folks: stay strong! I can only comment as an outsider, but it really seems like Blizzard is putting almost no resources into PvP content, but hey, there will be a PvP zone.
I think raids have its place on end game content but sure there could be also more challenging pve stuff for solo play in game. Delves solo mode or solo mythics something like that gauntlet type things
I think they should keep raids as they are currently, but develop the open world to have the HC and maybe even Mythic world tier. Obviously it may be a bit of a pain in the butt to balance simply because tanks would be king. But there is ways to fix that.
Would be nice if they expanded it to the entirety of Azeroth so I can go do world quests in Duskwood at max level and it be actually rewarding and challenging.
I think raids and M+ should have their place, but there should be other pve activities with the same equal opportunities (difficulty, gear) for solo and 2-3 players. While it’s nice to gather in a large group for social and challenging experiences, a lot of the playerbase can no longer play on schedule or have more hours to play per day as they had in the past. Still, they might want some challenge, offered in a way that is suitable for them.
IMO one of the biggest downside of current raiding is the need to find a stable group (static group) which is reliable enough, if not, then one has to play with pugs. Playing difficult content and pugs…we all know this doesn’t go together.
But I already have a group, it’s just that we’re 3 people. Give us a version of the raid for 3 :))
I also agree about the heroic world tier. But the rewards should be worth it. For adult players time is money, and if something takes a lot of time (like more time to kill mobs in such tier compared to one-shotting on normal tier), then the reward should be worth it.
Delves are IMO a great step toward such content. I’d like them to be more challenging in the future, with adequate rewards for the challenge.
Depends on how you would define a main pve pillar, most people don’t even see it that way anymore.
If you mean with main pillars, the thing the other pillars are derivatives of; as long as the only other choices are delves and m+ yes please keep raiding as the main staple.
Yeah, Blizzard’s increasingly frantic attempts to cajole people into raiding (Story mode, raid renowns, Dinars) can attest to there being some… issues with raid participation.
Blizzard know, that if they equate rewards from other pve content with raids, people will stop raiding, so thats why mythic+ and delves, and other pve activities are artificially kept down.
I dont think, there is a big chance of this changing, because blizzard use raids for retention, and also a lot of decision making is linked to raiders, so the game is essentially by the raiders for the raiders.
Good idea tho
Perhaps the real issue with raids is their length. Eight to Ten bosses requiring 10-30 people, 20 if mythic, to organise two or three nights a week on encounters that are designed to be challenging and require multiple attempts? Can lead to burnout.
Perhaps the real answer is to break tiers up into two or three smaller raids that can be tackled in smaller chunks?
The Final Fantasy 14 approach. I am not so sure, trash is meant to provide spacing and contribute to the atmosphere of the environment and one thing I have learned over the years is that we can be too quick to dismiss things that feel like inconveniences but whose absence can be glaring.
I still remember the Trial of Valor, the experimental no trash raid. It…was not great. There were multiple reasons it was not great but the lack of trash contributed. Now, having said that, they can go overboard on trash. I think Manaforge Omega has too much, and I feel it has too much to make the reward of nerfing them from rep feeling meaningful, which is design I don’t agree with.
True. But the 10-man raid formula has proven as good enough as well. It’s just that raids aren’t that attractive atm compared to other sources of progression.
I personally say Raids should have less bosses, drop more loot per boss kill and especially make those bosses more memorable in visuals, gameplay and all. An entire raid takes, depending on group, between 1-3 hours. It should take with a good group just 45 minuts and with an average group at worst 1,5 hours. Too many run-ways, too many adds, too many bosses. From everything too much.
Make the adds/trash a bit stronger, make the run-ways shorter, cut the boss count in half and just increase the amount of drops by 2x.
I mean, comparing WoW to Destiny, what Boss sticks more in ones memory just from the appearance alone? Dimensius? Or Oryx or even Crota? Personally I think Destiny 1 Aksis still beats most bosses in any online game, especially Phase 2 transition. And Rhulk never gets old as well.
Regarding Singleplayer/Coop games I think that the avatar fight of Ketheric Thorm in Baldur’s Gate 3 still has one of the best boss introductions and themes.
