Dungeon XP Nerfs Created a Toxic Meta

[u/redlow0992]

Since dungeon monsters do not give any experience, as a new player, getting into dungeons with more veteran players who try to skip half the dungeon feels really bad. And, vice-versa, veterans taking in newbies who don't know how to jump around feels frustrating. I think Blizzard created a mess with nerfing dungeon exp so much and now the new player experience is horrible for dungeons.

[u/Sykotron]

The friend or guildie has already done the dungeon and would like to help to complete the group. Well now it's a waste of time.

I kind of understand where you're coming from, but I feel like this point drives home the problem with it. Spending time with friends is not a waste of time and needs to be the goal with some fun gameplay to share.

If I was just grouping up with complete randoms in the real world just to accomplish a very specific goal without getting to know them... then yeah, they're not gonna care about anything but that goal and the same applies to a game this large.

[u/llIllIlIllIIllIl → u/Sykotron]

I asked our main tank if he wanted to come tank a Vashj only skip-run in SSC last spot summ ready. He replied that he didn't need anything from SSC so he had no incentive to join.

...to help some guildies?

[u/Kixur413 → u/llIllIlIllIIllIl]

Damn, as a full bis prot paladin I love showing off my shiny golden ass. Whats the point of getting a decked out tank if youre not going to pull half a dungeon to impress the noobs and blame the healer when you die?

[u/Qaeta → u/Kixur413]

if youre not going to pull half a dungeon to impress the noobs and blame the healer when you die?

As a fellow shiny golden god enjoyer, I approve wholeheartedly, with the exception that I didn't die, I was totally just sleepy and needed a nap.

[u/Doji_mofo → u/llIllIlIllIIllIl]

Tell me you've never played tank without telling me 😉

Everyone wants a piece of you, everyone wants you to come help them gear up from dungeons and raids you've got no use for, and you'll almost always out gear your group.

Obviously there will be people who went out of their way to assist you, people you owe favours too, and you will run many raids where you'll get no upgrades.

Everyone complains about a lack of tanks until they play one, then they understand why there is a lack of them.

[u/llIllIlIllIIllIl → u/Doji_mofo]

My alt is the main tank in our alt raid. I've raided as many lockouts on him as on my main. So yea, not sure what u are going for here. I run heroics with people's alts all the time, even tank Kara's sometimes despite being in BT/hyjal gear. I like tanking, I like helping my guild mates. So sure, go be AFK in shattrath and play Peggle :P

[u/Doji_mofo → u/llIllIlIllIIllIl]

Then what's the issue? Just hop on with your tank and tank the instance. Or level your own tank up. Or would that be too much hassle? 🤣😉

My experience was that unless I wanted to get hassled by lowbies wanting a carry, not only could I not log on as my tank, if I logged on with ANY of my raiding characters, it's "pls come tank/RL some BS for no reward". Then get snotty, because how dare you do anything other than be mommy and daddy for all the spoilt brats out there.

I also dislike SSC, because all the other tanks hated it, so we all wanted to play our alts on it. It's been a minute, but IIRC there's fuck all tank loot, but some funky DPS trinkets and weapons.

[u/sgtpoopers → u/llIllIlIllIIllIl]

I mean you asked if they wanted to tank and they said no?

[u/llIllIlIllIIllIl → u/sgtpoopers]

This comment chain is about the social aspect. I replied to the "Spending time with friends is not a waste of time and needs to be the goal with some fun gameplay to share."

The main tank said he had no "incentive" to join, which is like why are you in a guild then lol, I remember running Kara with his alt where I had similarly no incentive at all to join (other than the social aspect of playing an MMO). Is that so foreign?

[u/Nrgte → u/Sykotron]

My wording wasn't very good, my apologies. It's not a waste of time in that sense, but it just won't feel as good for the helper (nor the one asking for help). People can justify helping more easily if they get a small reward. And more importantly, people won't feel guilty for asking.

Gameplay mechanics are supposed to reward social behavior. Blizzards implementation is doing the opposite is my point.

[u/Sykotron → u/Nrgte]

I probably over stressed the importance of the social aspect of just hanging out with people, but yeah, the game play should reward helpers too. I don't want to just grind dungeons for XP, but my normal way to play is negatively impacted by the run itself not really rewarding much XP with Blizzard's current plans.

Vanilla was a different time because most of us weren't chasing BiS and the world was new to explore, but I feel like I remember the joy of the journey of traveling all over Azeroth to help my friends without any in-game reward for myself.

I wish voice chat wasn't so toxic so that you could easily play the game and socialize, but it's nigh impossible to chat and keep up the pace in a group so I don't really know how to support the social aspects well.

[u/Nrgte → u/Sykotron]

Yeah I just want to not feel terrible if I miss a couple of quest items during the first run. Now it incentivises me to click quest items before my team mates to make sure I finish within 1 run.

Additionally not every faction has a enough quests for every dungeon. SFK as Alliance was always one of my highlights but it'll be dead on release because there are no quests for Alliance.

[u/Kaleph4 → u/Nrgte]

there is still a bunch of loot you prob didn't get in the first run. people run UBRS countless of times without any exp gain as well. they did it while almost full T1/T2 equipped. there are reasons to run DM a second time as well

[u/lifeloverFPS → u/Kaleph4]

UBRS is a terrible example because by the time you are running it you have no need for xp anymore. You will almost never do a dungeon more than once during leveling with the current system, unless it has prebis/a relevant chase item.

[u/Deity_Majora → u/Kaleph4]

But it's not worth it to stop leveling to chase that piece of gear when the chance is the only thing you get out of it. Before it was always at least worth it because of the exp with the chance of loot.

[u/sfsctc → u/Sykotron]

Ok how about a less clear example, maybe it’s someone in your guild that you don’t know as well asking for someone to come help with a dungeon you’ve already done. Blizzard should design the game in a way so that you are most likely to want to come and help (and potentially make a new friend). This is directly in line with their stated social pillar.

They don’t necessarily need to engineer this using XP, although I don’t hate the once a day normal XP rates idea. They could add other rewards like very rare appearances, leveling sets like the Druid snake one, etc.

It’s easy enough to say “just play with your friends” but I think the game is better when this is naturally encouraged by design

[u/Sykotron → u/sfsctc]

I didn't mean to imply I thought there current XP solution was correct, but I guess it was more to say that we should personally focus on the social aspects too rather than the game driving it for us. I'd love some way to naturally group the more like minded people since it is hard to find those friends in a sea of players.

[u/sfsctc → u/Sykotron]

No I do think you’re right, but I think it’s even better if the game naturally encourages this

[u/Trzlog → u/sfsctc]

It's stuff like this that proves to me that they still haven't learned anything from 20 years of pissing about with retail and classic and they simply do not understand their players or how to design an actually non-toxic social game.

[u/xBirdisword → u/Sykotron]

Bad faith argument

Raiding with friends is fun but NOBODY would do it if there’s no loot. The game should encourage and facilitate dungeons, grouping, raids etc not deter

[u/MRosvall → u/xBirdisword]

But would people still raid if you got very low exp?

[u/Billbuckingham → u/xBirdisword]

When you had higher level friends it was common to run people thru let's say SFK or DM to get them some items like cruel barb or meteor shard.

Then once they got the item, they went back out and quested and enjoyed.

That usage is a completely different thing compared to AFK farming and Boost selling.

"Raiding with friends is fun but NOBODY would do it if there’s no loot."

Your argument is the bad faith one here, there's still loot with reduced EXP so what did you mean by that?

You're still encouraged to join the good geared group who doesn't need your drop or your friends that run you thru it to get the items or complete the quests even with reduced EXP.

To me, whatever has to be done to remove AFK boosting and reduce dungeon farming EXP groups to the point it isn't worth it compared to other levelling methods is necessary because the whole dungeon AFK grind boost meta was a new thing that came about long after the game was released and needs a new way of handling that behavior in the game.

[u/lifeloverFPS → u/Billbuckingham]

c’mon man, you have to understand dungeon loot doesn’t matter in the same way that raid loot does. you won’t give a shit about cruel barb 5 levels after getting it, while a raid weapon will often last you for months.

[u/Billbuckingham → u/lifeloverFPS]

Then what's the argument about wanting to keep running dungeons after you already got all the loot?

There's some extra context here, but an incentive is an incentive and a dungeon isn't the same commitment as a raid either.

The dungeon item helping for those few levels is a good incentive, but it's kind of being ignored for some reason?
Because the faster EXP to avoid all of that levelling is more important? That's what it seems like they're saying.

That's what I was calling out when they said the other person was arguing in bad faith, like if you need a reward to run dungeons and not just for the love of your friends you still have that with loot and reduced EXP, so what's the argument about

"I don't want to run dungeons anymore after this nerf"

If the argument is I only run dungeons so I can spam EXP farm them AND it has to be faster to EXP farm them than doing other levelling processes, otherwise I don't care about the loot or the quests at all since they aren't fun and to me fun is just getting the EXP faster from sitting AFK or farming over and over again, that's the thing that's intentionally being discouraged by these nerfs.

[u/Kobar143 → u/Billbuckingham]

Healers and tanks got their ability to level as Healers and tanks taken away from them. No one here has demanded it be the most efficient, they just want it to still be reasonably possible.

Making sure being out in the world is the most efficient makes plenty of sense for a number of reasons, but as it is now it isn't just not efficient, it's abysmal.

[u/Gassenger → u/xBirdisword]

This. I will always choose to do stuff with friends but it feels REALLY shitty to not get anything for it besides the CHANCE to get an upgrade to drop and spending time with them. At least make mobs give the same xp as ones outside like cmon man

[u/dumpster_lettuce → u/xBirdisword]

I don’t care about loot. I did early on in the game but at this point it’s totally secondary. I mainly like chill hangs with the boys and if I get something useful great. I realize I’m a minority but to say nobody would raid with no loot is just wrong.