Dungeons in World of Warcraft have lost some of their magic, and that is due to Mythic+. But something new is supposed to fill this gap.
Dungeons in World of Warcraft are no longer what they once were – for better or worse. Especially in the endgame, “Mythic+” is mainly about performance, skill, and speed. The dungeons are quite linear and designed exactly for that. But this doesn’t have to last forever, as not everyone likes this e-sport aspect of the dungeons. A gap that Labyrinths are soon to fill.
What are Labyrinths? Labyrinths are a new type of content coming in Patch 12.1.5 – that is, later in the course of Midnight. They are basically “Mega-Depths” that are divided into many large areas and are not reset between visits within a week. Anyone who wants can play through a labyrinth continuously, but that will likely take several hours. Those who prefer a different approach can tackle the labyrinth piece by piece alone or with friends. That’s exactly what should bring back a feeling that has long been lost in WoW.
Labyrinths are supposed to bring back the old dungeon feeling from Classic
What was said? In an interview with PCGamer, Blizzard talked about what the upcoming “Labyrinths” are supposed to be and how they are meant to bring back something that may have been lost over the years. Dylan Barker from the WoW team (Encounter Designer) explained:
Depths have shown us that there is a great hunger for them. Not just for something that fills small time slots, but something you can go into alone, where you press the buttons, feel your class, fight a few real monsters, and be rewarded with real loot.
Paul Kubit notes that there used to be something similar in dungeons back in the day.
If you remember back in Classic, we had dungeons like Maraudon, Blackrock Spire, and Blackrock Depths, where we had around 20 bosses in a dungeon. That’s not something that happens now – dungeons mostly have 3 or 4 bosses and maybe we have lost something in the process. (…)
Perhaps, with the aim of the specific ‘Mythic+’ mode, we no longer have those ‘weekend projects’ where you just get lost in a cave with a few friends and clear it completely.’
However, it should be noted that these huge dungeons from Vanilla WoW were also so large because the developers designed them with the expectation that all players would only play them once.
Nevertheless, this is a feeling that they want to bring back in the future:
This fantasy RPG feeling of getting lost in a big dungeon no longer exists in the dungeons – but it could come back to life in Depths when you look at something like the Labyrinths. So this is something that Labyrinths are supposed to achieve on an emotional level.
Is it really Mythic’s fault? Basically, one has to say: No. Because large, confusing dungeons where you could lose yourself for hours have not existed long before the introduction of Mythic+ either. Already in the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, many dungeons were divided into “wings” that represented their own dungeons. Just think of the 3 instances in Zangarmarsh or the dungeons in Hellfire Citadel on the Hellfire Peninsula. So Dungeons were already reduced to smaller areas with only a handful of bosses in The Burning Crusade.
At the same time, Mythic+ now also makes it difficult for developers to deviate from this system again. Because now every dungeon is developed directly with “Mythic+” in mind, so large dungeons with a confusing design almost never occur anymore. The only exception here are the “Mega-Dungeons” that come into the game from time to time – but even they have become more linear.
New players, meanwhile, have entirely different problems in World of Warcraft that will become even more apparent in a few weeks. Because if Blizzard does not drastically revamp the early game, returning and new players could be massively deterred: “They will think the game is a joke”
