I’ve been thinking about how fun and accessible the new Delve Plus system looks, especially for players who enjoy solo content or can’t always commit to group play. It got me wondering:
Could Blizzard create a similar system for Mythic+ dungeons, solo-friendly with AI followers, scaling difficulty, and meaningful rewards?
This wouldn’t replace traditional group Mythic+, but rather provide an optional solo progression path, letting players push keys and improve their skills without needing a premade group.
It would help solo players feel included in endgame progression.
It could use smart NPCs or custom follower systems that scale with difficulty.
Rewards could be balanced so they don’t compete with standard Mythic+, but still feel worthwhile.
Great way to learn mechanics and routes at your own pace.
Yes, they can, and probably should do so, but only if all of the following are also true:
Any progress in that mode does not translate to progress in any other game modes
It should not reward anything that is not available from other sources (which means and is not limited to: no exclusive achievements, no exclusive mounts, no exclusive pets, no exclusive transmogs available from it, etc.)
Partying up with others should remain a priority. Therefore a group of players that fail to time a +2 key should still be receiving more rewards per minute and simultaneously higher-tier rewards than if clearing the most rewarding tier of that new mode.
Here is the problem. If you check regular followers, they are pretty bad. NPCs are way worse than players, so you will find that this kind of content will have a way lower ceiling than m+.
From my PoV what will that system try to solve? isn’t this just delves transpositioned into dungeon environments? It is not like content like that will give any meaningful progress path different to delves.
The AI would have to get a lot smarter if you wanted to play M+ with them.
An AI Tank would brick every run as M+ is a time challenge and the Tank is in charge of the route and the pace of the dungeon. The bot would have to be very sophisticated to make it work.
An AI Healer is another big issue. If the DPS don’t use kicks, other CC and don’t run out of swirlies (which would happen a lot with bots), the healer has to push some epic numbers to keep the group alive. So again, the bot would have to be very sophisticated to make it work.
And the solution that would put some weight off the healer’s shoulders is to make very sophisticated DPS bots that will not overlap kicks, use their CC properly, meet every DPS check and will quickly move out of avoidable dmg.
Can Blizz do this? Yes, but it’s very likely not worth the gargantuan effort.
Currently, perhaps. Although if the Single Button Assistant can get someone to perform in the top 30th percentile, then this argument becomes a void…as clearly players aren’t that good. Anyways, followers will improve, so don’t get stuck in the “current state” when discussing something that won’t even be introduced till at least the next expansion…that’s just weird man.
The question is more…how do you mimic ‘player’ behavior in followers. As, in theory, a follower can do every single task we can do, but much more efficient and effective. So you need to implement some sort of ‘mistakes’ too…otherwise there is no point in being in a group of followers to begin with.
I see more in a system where you can fill one single M+ group-spot with a follower. In that case you can pretty much instantly, and without any spec/class adjustments, solve the neverending shortage of tanks/healers.
But just adding “M+ meets Delves”…yeah, no, just tweak around Delves in that case till we’re satisfied.
One button rotation and followers have nothing to do with each other. Followers are not players characters that are just piloted by bots, they are npc themed after player classes.
As for NPCs, they have always been way worse than players, not only due to the rotation, but also due to movement, due to awareness, and due to lack of judgement. There is a reason that the pvp event (the name escapes me) that has the bots is as easy as it gets.
For most npc this has not been a problem for blizzard since the solution is just to change the npc stats (like they do with brand in delves), so that it reaches the power level blizzard wants.
This is a recipe for disaster. First of all it is impossible for npcs to mimic player behavior, but even if they could, imagine how frustrating it would be for players to “lose” their run just because blizzard rng decided that they lose (without them being able to do anything).
M+ cannot be made “single player”. It is designed around a full party with players that have different challenges. Even designing a system that offers a progression path with npcs in mind is a headache.
This is the reason they made delves. Because they can actually balance them to offer a meaningful single player progress path that can also have npcs helping and player teams able to co exist.
I did Floodgate with followers yesterday for the weekly dungeon quest. Those followers are worse with pathing then hunter pets they pulled so much extra that I wanted to skip, they will have to improve the followers alot if they do follower m+.
I would love to see that too. A much needed change.
Progression and rewads should align with delves which, I believe, means progression would stop at +7.
That way it would not get in the way of M+, at least at higher keys.
And it would also be an incentive for players to try out M+, particularly for tanks.
Finally it should also be a challenge for DDS, they would have to interrupt for example or otherwise they should fail after a couple of misses. And their damage should really count and make the difference between success and failure.
Edit: This would also be a nice feature for DDs having a hard time getting into a group. Does not help with higher keys though. Well, maybe they pick up tanking for a change.
Coming into the game, having had a fifteen year break or something, I very much appreciated that the Dastardly Duos event.
It let me practice with a team that didn’t go insane if I messed up.
I think that it’s not worth grouping anymore, not for me. For pvp, yes, because I’ll just run it in bgs. There’s always something that goes wrong there, so it’s not a big deal. But in a pve group everyone expects everyone to know the encounters and perform perfectly, they expect the win. And I think I can’t cater to that. It’s not even about me, it’s about a team that can never make such a guarantee since it’s a random team. And with penalties from failure… Well, it’s not worth it and never will be, not for me; so yes, I do think solo dungeons is a good idea and I think that Blizzard thinks so too. They’re just experimenting with exactly how that would look without harming group viability.
It’s imperative to practice.
Ran some heroic groups but… Idk how much I learnt from that. Mostly some 20kk tank pulls everything but there’s nothing to heal cause no one takes any damage.
Sometimes there’s healing to be done but since I don’t really get the routine of healing it’s twitchy, like suddenly someone’s at 20% and I have hardly been watching cause I was trying to help with the damage or whatever. Like I know full well that no one would even take me with if there wasn’t a prerequisite to have a healer, any healer, for the group…
It’s not a useful setting to learn. But Dastardly Duos were. It grew boring though as I managed 50 of those or something, idk. And it’s a limited scenario, and it doesn’t help wider dungeon knowledge and experience.
I also enjoyed the Rookery quest for this reason but it was just a one-timer and I was so fresh that I barely did anything, but at least I got to dip the toe without someone crying heel noob. Npc died once, remarkably. Those guys were buff, just ran straight through.
Truth told. I need an easy entry to Mythic 0. After that I can snail to Mythic +.
I rather not enter M0 without knowing what is going on at all. Something is bound to go wrong and it will be my fault -.-
GW2 has a practice mode for most of the group-content, even raids.
This is a great way to learn and everyone knows it´s practice. Of course there are bad apples but if you queue for practice and start being toxic, maybe you should not queue.
I understand this is something new healers think about a lot but there is no need to stress about it. Nobody has a 100% completion rate. You will inevitably fail at some point just like everybody else.
And when it happens, it will very likely not be your fault. From my experience, Tanks and Healers are the only people who consistently know what’s going on in M0s and low lvl M+. I’ve been in runs where me (as a tank) and the healer were the only people using kicks and CC. If this happens, simply ask the DDs to start kicking and CCing, it usually works on some of them.
Lastly, be mindful of the inverse difficulty healers face in this content. The difficulty of healing is very group dependant. Unskilled players make healing hell, experienced players make it a breeze. Which is why healing is really rough at the start and gets easier as you climb up.
This is a Blizzard making them dumb… In Guild Wars in Nightfall the AI of the heroes where that good lol they had to nerf them 20 years ago… If Blizzard wanted to they could code them to be better than players…
But I want them to go futher than than random NPC’s for team… Let use recruit heroes or use our alt skins, let us gear them set talents ect.
m+2 is also a good way to learn mythic as the key doesnot depletes and there is no lockout so you can try it as many times till you feel comfortable and if you dont feel comfortable with a key that was timed you can always decrease its level.
You know it’s not a half bad idea that, imo either.
What if the warband was 5 characters and we’d gear it to be that team? So we’d grind our own team and equip and talent it all.
That’s good to know. I read some about it but the rules must’ve changed since they updated the page. A lot like that nowadays, things change quickly and information sites lag behind. Gotta do the old thing we always did: ask another or hear it in passing.
they pulled so much extra that I wanted to skip, they will have to improve the followers alot if they do follower m+.