In the Warlords of Draenor expansion there will be several changes to key World of Warcraft features and systems to try and add long-awaited features and quality of life improvements (things like inventory management, account-level storage systems for toys and relics, or new higher quality character models, among others).
That perfectionist approach also applies to PvE content, and that's what we're going to talk about here. All expansions bring improvements to dungeon and raid experiences, and Warlords of Draenor will not be an exception. We'll talk about some of the raid and dungeon content that we plan to release on the day the expansion is available, and then we'll talk about changes designed to bring dungeons back to their roots and to make raids more accessible and flexible than ever before.
Dungeons
- Bloodmaul Mines
- Blackrock Deposit
- auchindoun
- Arakkoa Summits
- Shadowmoon Necropolis
- Iron Barracks
- Upper Blackrock Summit
We will introduce six new dungeons and bring back a classic: Upper Blackrock Summit. This dungeon will play a prominent role in the history of Warlords of Draenor, and we are looking forward to people experiencing this ancient dungeon in a whole new context.
In this expansion we also intend to go back to the roots of the dungeon content, ensuring not only that they are a significant part of the leveling up and story experience, as always, but we also want them to help you equip yourself. and get ready for the bands. With that goal in mind, we're bringing back the "normal" top-tier dungeons that, along with the quests, will help bridge the gap between the level-up quest team and the heroic dungeons. Since heroics won't be the first thing you'll jump to at level 100, it also gives us some headroom to make heroic dungeon content a bit more difficult.
We also plan for our content calendar to include more max-level Heroic dungeons after the expansion's initial launch. One of the comments that came to us from the players during Mists of Pandaria was that they missed having new dungeon content later in the expansion, and our plan is to add new dungeon content back after the expansion's initial launch.
Finally, players looking for an even greater challenge will be able to put their skills to the test in the timed challenge modes of most dungeons.
Bands
- Blackrock Foundry
- high hammer
- World bosses
Mists of Pandaria saw some pretty big changes for bands, including the introduction of the band finder (BB) and the recent addition of a new adjustable difficulty called the flex band (abbreviated as Flex).
More flexible mode
Since its introduction just a couple of months ago, flex mode has become a wildly popular way of dealing with bands, offering a true progression of band experience while also giving you the freedom to band together with a number of bands. variable players. The less stressful environment plays host to a large group of gang adventurers who have a tighter schedule, allows gang leaders to fill in gaps and add more players to add to the fun, allows everyone to team up with friends and guildmates to take on demons and giant ogres, and loot impressive loot from their corpses. We've already learned a lot about flex difficulty… and we believe that we can continue to use its powers for good.
For several years now, we have offered 10 and 25 player side raids with the goal of bringing the same epic raid experiences to as many players as possible, regardless of their guild size. While both raid sizes were intended to offer a similar challenge with similar rewards, we have always faced problems inherent in this system in balancing the content of both (and sure, some sororities and raid teams have struggled with the social tensions that come with a raid size). rigid band). Now, with the flexible system, we can capture and expand the benefits of the existing raid system, while tackling the drawbacks and complexity of the fixed sizes of 10 and 25 players.
With the launch of Warlords of Draenor there will be no separate mode called "flex band" ... because flexibility will be the basis for the operation of the bands. The normal mode will adjust the flexibility to be compatible with groups of between 10 and 25 players, and the same will apply to the heroic. There will no longer be a "normal 10 player" or a "heroic 25 player" mode: there will be only one normal and one heroic mode, both of which will be adjusted to the number of players present. Even the raid finder will benefit from our flexible adjustment technology - no longer need to stare at a boss waiting for the group to fill in again if someone has left.
The only place where Flexible Difficulty doesn't quite suit the gaming experience we are looking for is in the most extreme difficulty of our raid content, where it would be possible to get a millimeter setting if we allowed raid sizes at the same time. increasing for each player. So we're introducing Mythic difficulty with a one size fits all for 20 players that will deliver the top raid experience to the best of the best and allow for higher quality rewards and prestige.
One, two, three, four: thumb war!
One of the main feedback we've received about the current flex system application is the lack of a traditional loot system. Although personal loot has obvious advantages in a world of strangers such as the Raid Finder, most flex mode experiences correspond to a coordinated group of people brought together by a Raid Leader, so it makes sense to have, at the same time, At the very least, the option to offer tradable traditional loot that you take directly from the boss's smoking corpse - and that's what we'll be offering in these flexible new versions of the normal and heroic raids coming with Warlords of Draenor. The number of items will be adjusted to the number of players and the loot can be distributed according to the honorable tradition of your choice: DKP, Suicide Kings (SK), Karma, roll the dice, toss the coin, "rock, paper or scissors »,« Guess what number I'm thinking », nepotism, thumb wars, and so on.
We will also remove the wing-based queuing system currently used in flex mode. While Raid Finder offers consistent difficulty (all raid bosses are roughly equally difficult), the intention is for the normal mode to follow a more standard increasing progression. In The Siege of Orgrimmar we saw quite a bit of frustration with people jumping to the last wings of the flex system upon unlocking them and didn't understand why the bosses were so much more difficult as they expected it to work like the raid finder. With this new structure, only the Raid Finder will have wings to queue for. The new adjustable Normal and Heroic difficulties will still require you to go to the raid entrance, enter the zone, start with the first boss, and progress as much as you can that week.
We have found your keys
Lastly, normal and heroic difficulties will allow groups to be made up of Real ID and BattleTag friends from different realms, and all raid options will be at different time caps; This means that boss kills will not be shared between Raid Finder, Normal, Heroic, and Mythic modes, and you can kill all bosses on each difficulty for multiple loot chances each week.
Stock market crash of bank shares
These changes will provide a clearer and more approachable set of difficulties and options that will allow people to focus more on the excitement, fun, and social aspects of gangs, and less on the logistics of how to even get together.
We are waiting your comments. We will reveal more details as the development progress.