Dungeon ideas

[Akos1896]

Hey!

Below article is subjective and is based on my personal experience. Wanna share with you what I liked regarding the current dungeons, what I did not and what I felt lacking.

1. Lack of symmetry at early game

Horde can go to dungeons from level 13, alliance has to wait until Deadmines. I'd consider adding an early dungeon to alliance, too. Personally I'd put it to Redridge since that area can currently be skipped altogether (Westfall, spamming some Deadmines, Duskwood). An early dungeon in Redridge against for example some rebellious gnolls would feel awesome. Let's say the boss is Hogger's brother and loots and level requirement mostly mirror Ragefire Chasm.

2. Deadmines - Mamma mia

One of my favourite dungeons of all time. I think it is perfectly designed. Length is just right, difficulty is there, there are some interesting mechanics people have to be aware of, without being overly complex. Loot is fire. My only regret is regarding some quests leading to the Deadmines. Defias Messenger is a form of torture. A slight revamp of some quests would make DM perfect.

3. Wailing Caverns - Overdoing a good thing

One remark at the beginning - getting into the cave for quests as a new player can be a bit challenging. The dungeon itself is good, but has some problems in my opinion. It is more complex mechanics-wise than Deadmines. Can be a bit harsh on new players (I use this argument for early dungeons, considering them as intoductory ones because TWOW somehow lures in many people who didn't play WOW before). Same with the map. Deadmines is mostly linear. At Wailing Caverns, it can become a maze unless there is one experienced guy in the party. Also the length. It feels like a Mini-Maraudon. Would consider adding a quest which let's you insta-port to a certain point of the dungeon, just like with Maraudon Princess. Also, tauren at the end walks WAY too slowly. Give the guy some energy drinks. Overall a good dungeon, but in my opinion a bit too much compared to the level requirement (in each sense).

4. Ragefire Chasm and Stockade - Cross faction entrance

I'd consider a quest chain similar to the Gnomeregan one which allows players from the different faction to visit these dungeons. Would also apply this to the Redridge dungeon I fantasized about earlier.

5. Scarlet Monastery - Yes and no

Alliance definitely needs a better way to get there. Either a friendly NPC which ports them to East Tirisfal Glades or some kind outpost at North-Tirisfal with a boat or a quest allowing them to port near the monastery.
Graveyard is mostly fine I guess. Favors casters but it's totally fine. Library and Armory though... The idea is nice but 1) the dungeons are very monotonous, fighting against the same packs over and over again. Some more variety (like some mobs from Stratholme Living - seriously downscaled) would be nice. Library has 2 bosses but realistically only the last boss drops anything interesting, if we don't count the dog trinket. Library favors casters that heavily that melee has no real motivation to go there. Same with Armory but the other way around. Plus it indeed has only one boss. Would add to the Houndmaster some interesting melee and tanking loot and would insert a crazed mage boss to Armory, who drops some caster and healer loot. Cathedral is fine, I think.

6. Gnomeregan - I'm not sure how to salvage it

Currently, if you wanna have the coolest mount in the game, you are forced to spam the least popular dungeon in the game. Gnomeregan is very unique, flavorwise it feels like a different game and it also represents gnomish culture pretty well. But those are the only positives I can think about. The place is a maze, an updated and better map would be needed. Enemies and bosses are just weird. I don't know what to change here (maybe reducing the length a bit) but I can totally see why so many people hate Gnomeregan.

7. Crescent Grove - Cool one but needs a hint

For the second boss, to be precise. A team of first-timers wipe when the treefolks are called and in my opinion it is not a good design. The first boss, once defeated could warn about this mechanic so the thing is more fair. Saying something like: 'If you want to defeat the Keeper, you have to take care of the nearby trees first'. Very cool dungeon otherwise, liking it.

8. Uldaman - Refreshingly challenging but unrewarding

Uldaman is another unpopular dungeon. Personally I like it but I can see why people avoid it. It is hard. Pulling is easy, mechanics are challenging, endboss is really hard for the level. Problems are even greater since Gilneas dungeon was released. They are roughly for the same level range but Gilneas is way more rewarding loot-wise. You wanna gear up, you go to Gilneas which, in my opinion is easier, too plus it's more generous with XP. I'd buff the Uldaman loots to be on par with Gilneas, would leave a fashion coin here and there and would introduce some very rarely dropping epics, just like Gilneas did. If you're up for the challenge to go to Uldaman, at least you should feel rewarded in my opinion.

9. Zul'Farrak - Prime dungeon, underwhelming epic

The epic weapon needs a slight buff in my opinion. It is a reward after spamming the dungeon many times and putting the item together. But let's say you do it, you feel awesome having a purple at level 53 then you go to BRD soon and immediately upgrade it to a blue 2H item. People laugh at you if you wanna use it at pre-raid level 60. Other than that, really cool dungeon, one of my favourites.

10. Maraudon - Excellently done

Excellent dungeon. A huge one but you can enter at any preferred part of the three options. Big like.

11. Hinterlands Elites - Why isn't it a dungeon?

It basically is one. Perfect length and Hinterlands doesn't have a dungeon anyway. It only lacks an instace portal, a loot table and some bosses here and there. It could be converted into a very cool dungeon with minimal effort. Would also make the horde boat more useful.

12. Temple of Atal'Hakkar - Has the potential but it's flawed

ES attunement. Thematically it matches but forcing a bunch of raid-geared level 60s to run through it feels weird, the dungeon was mostly designed for early lvl 50s. I'd change the ES attunement quest item into a rare drop from the mobs before the dungeon. That way the random lvl 50 guys wanting to experience the challenge of the Temple won't be autocarried by BWL-geared people who are only here to finally be able to go ES.
The dungeon itself is very flavorful but could be 2 dungeons based on size and theme. We have the stairs filled with zombie trolls (?), we activate ledgers and jump for a boss. That's one part. Then we have a bunch of dragons (and a troll priest. to be fair). Besides the troll priest boss, it is thematically different and the dungeon is big enough anyway. I'd either split it up into two dungeons with different instance portals or would add a quest to insta-port to the dragon part. Also, loots are a bit underwhelming, people are mostly interested in the dungeon for the class quests. Hateforge powercrept it. Would consider buffing some loots from this dungeon to be on par with Hateforge.

13. Level 48-54 - A missing dungeon slot

Maraudon and Zul'Farrak are responsible for this niche aongside with Temple and Hateforge for early 50s. In practice it works differently though, specially if you are a tank. Maraudon and Zul'Farrak are easy, people usually farm it with ease by the time they reach the end of 40s. Temple is flooded with level 60s wanting to go to ES while Hateforge has some very cool items; druid prebis, purple caster trinket, rare mount etc because of which many level 60s are farming it. If you are a tank, it means the following: by the time you reach late 40s, Zul'Farrak and Maraudon are no challenge to you. You barely get XP and you've already got most of the loots (specially if you were lucky with the ring at Princess). You stall until lvl 50 to have a new challenge. Temple and Hateforge are available. You wanna go there but you pull everything from miles away and you have no hope of keeping threat because those 1-2 level 60 guys always outthreat you. You feel useless as a tank. You respec as a DPS to reach level 53-54 where you can more or less keep threat from over-eager DPS several levels above you while mobs don't consider you a magnet anymore. The game lacks a dungeon which gives good XP after Maraudon and Zul'Farrak became trivial while further gears you until you reach level 53-54 and you can confidently tank these two dungeons. This slot is mostly missing for tanks - had the experience and played as a DPS for several levels because of this. Also, Azshara is a beautiful region within this level range which currently lacks a dungeon. Famous for fishing and satyr farming, however, satyr farmers mostly went to Hyjal. This region needs something spicy (in my opinion it is the most beautiful place in Azeroth). Why not having a level 48-54 dungeon there to fill up a missing slot? This dungeon should contain no pre-BIS or raid-valid epics to avoid level 60s flocking it. But should contain item upgrades compared to Maraudon and Zul'Farrak. The main idea is to have a rewarding dungeon experience at this level range (good XP at level 50 unlike Maraudon and Zul'Farrak) without level 60s trivializing everything.

14. Dire Maul, LBRS - Personal note

I consider them mostly optimal dungeons but I inexplicably hate them. All of their instances. It's personal though. For LBRS it's even more amplified, only setting foot there if I really want to help out a friend. LBRS is challenging. Easy pulls, easy falling down, interesting mechanics. A bit like Uldaman but with more rewarding loot. Only thing I can objectively have against LBRS is its monotonity. You spend around 30 minutes fighting against the same orc packs over and over again. No variety there.

15. BRD - The best dungeon, really needs some ports though

It has an 'almost-port' meaning the lava run. But really, the dungeon is so huge, it cannot be compared to anything else in the game. If there is a dungeon which needs some Scarlet Monastery-like instance distibution or some Maraudon-like teleport, it is BRD. Besides that, it is perfection.

16. Scholo - Give some love to Jandice

Scholo is mostly awesome. But the fact that people usually totally skip a boss is not a good design. Jandice should either drop more desirable loot or the path to her should be shorter or there should be a custom boss added near Jandice.

17. Stratholme - Hopping right back

Would add one thing to Stratholme. Many people wanna do full Strat and once you finish a wing, getting back is a bit of a chore. Would add a port to the last boss' room at each side allowing you to insta-port back to the entrance to save some time not needing to walk back.

18. Karazhan Crypt - Adding some difficulty

Cool design! Mostly liking it, but I think the actual Crypt part is a bit monotonous. Would change some things, though. Currently the underwater part is not really challenging, it is rather annoying. Would add some mechanics to the corpses we fight with underwater. Let's say they can stun you for some seconds and curse party members making the air dwindling away twice as fast. This would make that part of the dungeon more challenging (and giving underwater breathing or decurses more utility there).
Besides, the dungeon is mostly built around stealth. Mobs appear out of the blue, move carefully type of things. I'd consider a buff to some mob types which adds to their melee damage for some seconds if they started an attack stealthed. Would give additional utility to classes which can de-stealth and would add a bit more challenge to the dungeon.

19. Black Morass - Some more challenges, some more reputation rewards

I mostly like Black Morass but I think that in the dragon phase, mobs are a bit one-dimensional. Big-hitter, big-hitter which resist taunt, big-hitter with aoe. Would add a bit of challenge and variety by adding some abilities to these mobs. For example big-hitter caster dragon having mana drain, big-hitter having enrage and fear, big hitter aoe dragon having a silence effect. Would also think about some added difficulty at pulls. Now you can see easily how pulls work out and how to avoid additional pulls (there are 1-2 pats but that's all). Above-mentioned fear can help with unintended pulls, and I'd also consider adding some Eye of naxxramas-like mobs with a very slow reaction time which, if not handled in time, would summon enemies upon the party.
Bosses are mostly interesting. First one punishes casters but can be beaten down easily by melee. Would consider adding some phsyscal damage to it. Whelp boss could DOT a bit more while giant whirlwind elemental is currently too easy in my opinion. One addition could help though: right now it disorients melee at the end of the fight which is a cool idea but it's too few, too late. Giving it a disorient ability when its HP reached 75%, 50% and 25% would add more challenge while also forcing some strategy on the group (Do they need to OT? Should OT get out of melee range at certain boss HP? Etc.). Big Drake is very cool though. At the second phase (the jungle) I'd punish mob pulling a bit more, giving the mobs more potent poison, disease and maybe curse effects.
In exchange I'd add some new reputation loots. Getting to exalted is a chore and once you do it, if you are decently geared from raids, all you can get is a dragon mount. It is a cool but I, personally like my mount. So after getting all those sands I can maybe upgrade an OS temporarily or do nothing with the rep. Some enchants or some T2-like items or some consumables would be nice after all that work. Most people getting to exalted in BM have high-raid tiered gears and they currently only profit from a dragon mount which is just a reskin if we think about that.
Also, I'm unsure if hex interactions were intended. Currently you can turn most dragons into a frog. You can do the same with the mob the dragon boss summons, too. Echo of the Lich King? Echo of the frog.
Regarding the Kara stealth buff I threorycrafted right above: would consider the same for Mossheart.

20. SWV - cool idea, underwhelming loot

SWV can only be compared to Black Morass since these are the two level 60-only dungeons. While Black Morass gives you reputation and has some potent epic drops, SWV has one epic drop altogether and it is not that good. Would add/boost some items and made them purple with a low droprate so that SWV had the same role as Black Morass. 1-2 purple trinkets plus an epic shield for example. Would consider a bit of loot-overcreep compared to Black Morass, too, since BM also gives rep. Also, warlocks feel like a cheat code to this dungeon. Would consider changing the creature type of the elementals the final boss summons so that they can't be banished. Would give them a type which cannot be CCd anyway or would make them 'typeless' just to avoid those CCs.

21. UBRS - Loot update

The only reason I'd mess with UBRS is that it's a semi-dungeon, semi-raid, meaning it should scale above dungeons loot-wise. It actually does (somewhat) at the moment, maybe with the exception of Black Morass. However, if SWV changes the above-mentioned way, UBRS becomes 'way too lacking'. Some rare epics would also motivate raid-geared people to go there every now and then. Now UBRS feels like filling four roles: ONY/BWL attunement, new level 60s learning how raids are different from dungeons, flask of the titans, having tier set items for collectors. Raid drops powercreep those items really bad though. UBRS could become aan almost-raid which is alluring enough that raids consider going there if they wanna do something and raid IDs are in use. Now guilds usually go there if a guildie needs an attunement.

[Imonobor]

Really good feedback there, I agree with most of the suggestions and observations.

One thing about Stormwind Vault though - it really needs a visual resesign. It is really disappointing as custom content, because it is just a shabby copy of the Stockades assets, and neither looks, nor feels like a Vault - there are no treasures, no big vault doors, only weird spiders and weirder prisoners (wasn't it supposed to be a vault, not a prison...? Who keeps their prisoners in a vault?).
The layout could also use some more variety, with bigger rooms, alternate paths etc. It's a bit linear currently.
And for the love of god, fix boss loot that comes in a chest! It's way too easy to ninja it.

[Ishilu]

Note that the cross faction entrance for RFC would solve your addresse problem #1.

I've suggested a short questline to provide a direct port to RFC for alliance players. Something like the guys from the Stormwind basement wanting an artefact from Bazzalan and a few trogg brains and a prequest would involve the preparation of the portal spell. However, adding portals into capital cities would impact city raids, so maybe this is not such a great idea after all.


I personally think that Wailing Caverns are fine as they are. Yes, it can be harsh and confusing to newbies, but that's just one way of teaching them a few things like "stick to the group", "kill mobs with manabars first" and "use interrupt mechanics".

I mostly agree about Scarlet Monastery:
1) it's monotonous, but that might be me disliking generic european medieval fantasy.
2) Loot in Lib and Arms leads to melee types and casters each wanting to enter one wing while ignoring the other. This could be changed by adding some loot (maybe even additional bosses?) to keep each wing interesting. Lib and arms are also irrelevant for hunters, rogues and feral druids when it comes to loot, so these classes might run through these once for their quests and that's it.

Uldaman:
Don't allies get a questline for which they can summon their questgiver from a bowl inside the dungeon? The horde counterpart is a bit more tedious with picking up the quest in Org, getting the necklace, returning to Org (remember when there was no Kargath Zep?), entering and finding the dead guy, returning to Kargath and then finally doing an actual dungeon run including killing Archaedas. I'm not a huge fan of casualization, but this amount of back and forth for a leveling dungeon around lvl 40-45 is a bit too much.

Maraudon:
Finally, somebody gets it, I love the place .

Temple: Please keep it as it is. They split it up in WotLK or retail and even closed the hole in the dragon area, preventing people from goodnatured pranks. WotLK and retail were no longer real WoW.

BRD:
All right, at this point the game might be old enough for most players to have a family or even (gasp!) a job so the portal thing might be worth considering in my opinion, but I'm not saying that we really need it. At least don't split the place up into different wings like SM but rather let players rip their Grim Guzzler membership card with included tunneler ticket out of the cold dead hands of Ribbly or so.

[Ninjerk]

I agree with much of what's in the OP. I think BRD is great the way it is, maybe you add something appealling to Baelgar so people who don't need the hit shoulders from the B. Steppes would want to go there, too.

LBRS just straight up sucks. Make a follow up quest to the ogre event to allow players to drop a portal to somewhere near that point so people who need the attunement don't have to drag up to 4 other people through that entire hellhole to Wyrmthalak. Were you to do that, I think you could potentially see more people doing Mara/BRD-style limited runs for boss loot and to complete UBRS key.