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Microsoft purchased Activision-Blizzard last year, and with it, the legendary Blizzard franchises like World of Warcraft.
So far, I’ve been having an absolute blast with Delves in World of Warcraft.
Blizzard told me that World of Warcraft Delves would be 15-20 minute experiences. Doing a item-level appropriate Delve as a Discipline healer Priest took me over an hour last night — with only one death. The enemies just take 50 hours to die unless you’re a DPS-oriented class.
But there’s a huge caveat here.
Other players have been having an incrediblybadexperience with Delves, owing to their on-going balance issues.
Nailing balance for Delves is going to be incredibly tough.
Blizzard told me that World of Warcraft Delves would be 15-20 minute experiences. Doing a item-level appropriate Delve as a Discipline healer Priest took me over an hour last night — with only one death. The enemies just take 50 hours to die unless you’re a DPS-oriented class.
Balancing challenge with access
World of Warcraft has been designed with group-play in mind for 20 years.
But finding this guild took me literally decades.
For them, Delves are on the edge of being the perfect content.
Delves have been an interesting opportunity for Blizzard to try out experimental gameplay elements. WoW has had underwater gameplay segments before, but never a full dungeon.
The tier 8 Delves are similarly challenging, requiring careful planning, and class skill utilization.
Players who encountered this bug had an easier time in Delves, while others didn’t.
Playing through the tier-8 difficulty Delves with my plate-wearing brother, with item-level recommendation appropriate gear was incredibly fun.
If you’re a class that with a broad toolkit and strong solo capabilities, Delves is incredibly fun. If you’re not … well I have bad news.
This “15-20 minute” experience actually took me roughly 45-60 minutes to get through.
And that wasn’t because I died.
I only died once on the final boss during this run.
Fighting through this Delve as a healing spec player was an absolutely brutal, slow, uphill slog, despite having the recommended item level. It’s not that I was dying, it was simply that enemies had obscene levels of health my class wasn’t equipped to deal with.
The issue was that the monsters simply took that long to kill as a healing specced player.
This wasn’t the “casual” experience I feel Blizzard sold to me during the initial press run.
Other players are hitting the same frustrating walls, depending on their class choices.
The rewards for Delves are incredibly lucrative, if you’re a class that can actually do them effectively.
Many classes don’t have access to short cooldown interrupts, for example.
My warlock by comparison has a far easier time.
Can World of Warcraft get solo Delves right?
Delves have truly infinite potential, but balancing them between challenge and reward is going to be tough.
Brann has interrupts, but they’re painfully random, and often interrupt the “wrong” thing.
We completed it in a reasonable timeframe too, about 20-30 minutes as previously advertised.
You don’t want Delves to be too easy, because it’ll trivialize group content and social play.
