When Blizzard Entertainment first introduced Mythic+ dungeons back in Legion, no one would have guessed they would become a core feature in World of Warcraft, let alone an esport. Along the way, the devs have made mistakes, and here are the lessons they learned when designing Mythic+ dungeons.
In an interview with WoW content creator and streamer Naguura on Jan. 16, lead encounter designer Matt Villers explains the central philosophy of all dungeons telling a story with vivid characters and layouts didn’t change. Still, over the years, there’s a handful of lessons they had to learn and the first one was planning ahead for Mythic+ dungeons. In other words, the devs originally didn’t consider boss fights in Mythic+ environments, leading to your floor entirely becoming lava and impossible to complete.
Another big takeaway is that the encounters team are now designing dungeons with player choice in mind to leave more room for decision-making and skill expression with routes. When it comes to RP, Blizzard did cut out longer scenes that would slow a run.
To give players more control over timing their runs and planning their routes, the WoW team reduced the randomness in dungeons to a minimum. With bosses like Fenryr, for example, the boss will be on a specific side and not switch around.
Although the lead encounter designer didn’t tackle the topic of balancing Dragonflight’s Mythic+ dungeons, there’s a lesson there to be learned with Shadowmoon Burial Grounds and Court of Stars being a piece of cake for hardcore players and Dragonflight’s dungeons, Ruby Life Pools namely, being overwhelmingly difficult to complete in time. Fingers crossed we hear back from Blizzard on this.
Published: Jan 17, 2023 09:59 am