WoW's World Has NEVER Felt Like This Before

[00:02] Warcraft has been basically meaningless in terms of difficulty. So much of that feeling of danger and exploration that we used to have back in the day has been Until now, because heroic world here is up on the public test realm. And after

[00:17] spending time testing it, there is something extremely obvious. Blizzard are close to finally cracking the grounded classic-like gameplay experience that WoW has been missing. And instead of just copying Legion

[00:30] they've actually went a few steps further. And better yet still, they've totally designed this version of it around patch 12.0.7's two new zones. Yeah, there's two new

[00:43] really cool. And this could genuinely be a turning point for future WoW gameplay. But of course, the monkey's paw curls. This is Blizzard and there are a dozen

[00:57] rakes that they might and probably will step on. So here's everything great about heroic world here, why we've enjoyed the minute-to-minute gameplay experience, but the pitfalls Blizzard needs to be

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[02:39] Heroic means heroic, and it really does. The I level suggestion is the first it's the first thing that caught us off guard because it is I level 274. That's

[02:51] Mythic Plus since the start of this season, that won't really seem like much of an I level. If you've been doing mostly solo content though, then 274 is a heavy ask because that's almost fully

[03:05] heroic geared. Now, obviously, the Null Hammer and the Void Cores make gearing a bit faster now, but that still is a fair amount of time and effort just to be ready to take on this new thing in wow. And asking for this much gear feels like

[03:18] a direct response to complaints about players instantly out-gearing all the parade, they're good for my alts, but useless for my main. This kind of solves that. And this means that we're now getting mid-season

[03:31] content designed for mid-season players and not just the regular catch-up content that's totally mind-numbing and easy to breeze through. And to be clear, they're definitely asking for that heroic gear. Heroic really means heroic.

[03:46] Cuz it turns out it's really hard. World of Warcraft, prepare to die this right now. You'll die a lot. So, of the two worlds, I'm going to start with Val. Val has such an oppressive climate. The Legion

[04:03] basically transported prisoners to this world because the sheer cold alone helped with their interrogations. And the designers clearly had that in mind zone. Imagine the most packed cave or camp in

[04:16] classic and you've basically got the right idea here. Just that it's for a full zone. When you can AoE enemies down in normal, that's fairly fun. But on heroic, you are constantly in danger of pulling just one or two mobs extra and

[04:31] getting yourself killed. Just like it was back in the day. And as per usual, you can get around the place with careful pathing, with some hard CCs, maybe using stealth. So, rogues will actually feel like their

[04:44] roguishness is useful for roguish reasons. And of course, by just pulling properly. And the thing is, whenever you pull mobs alone, they're really not that much of an issue, even though they do have juiced up damage and health.

[04:57] But that's only normally because you got to watch out for affixes. [clears throat] Now, Legion Remix launched with a few basic ones. They were exploding on death, calling in ads, and buffing allies. But this real heroic

[05:10] and buffing allies. But this real heroic world tier has a ton more. Some mobs use tethers that are real punishing forms of area denial. There's a rotating orb loved throwing into their games since Diablo. And those are just two of a long

[05:24] list of movement and damage heavy ones. The area denial is usually fun anyway, that much room. And that means that pulling individual mobs is a lot harder than usual. It actually taxes your wild playing skills. And against groups or

[05:39] against elites, you may have to fight for your life. Now, the huge white damage and the amount of casts is a problem. But, when you use your crowd cooldowns, you can get through things, but you

[05:53] you'll die. Now, there's other affixes that turn the screw further. One particularly nasty one stacks a slow whenever mobs hit you. almost guarantee your death because,

[06:08] well, you'll be hit by [\h__\h] Now, CC'ing or kiting that mob is basically your only way to survive. And it's funny cuz that's a skill I developed as, I don't know, a young teenager playing WoW in the early days, but that I've really not

[06:22] needed much since. Another one then is a healing reduction, which you may not notice until it's too late. There are explosions on death. There's extra aggro radius. Add spawns. There's a look away mechanic, and that's just to name a few.

[06:36] And so far, most of them are actually fun to play around, or of course, if necessary, to avoid. You're basically forced to scan for affixes before you pull and figure out how to attack. And there's a world where you hear me say

[06:49] forced to, and it almost feels like, "Oh my god, Blizzard are forcing me to be and horribleness." issue, really, because is the game forcing you to, or is this just the game

[07:03] that they are presenting you with, where it's a challenge for you to overcome? That's two different ways of looking at something, and I think both of them are worth considering when we're making a game as big as World of Warcraft.

[07:16] Though, make no mistake, there's loads of people who this feature is not for, and I think that's a good thing. I do. We should be making features that are decidedly not for some people. Because that means they actually will be

[07:29] for some other people. Because designing one thing that's fit for absolutely everybody basically just means you're going to be making slop, and nobody likes slop. So, So, good that this exists. And what I mean by that is,

[07:42] yeah, you scan for affixes, you figure out how you're going to do your pull. Maybe you figure out your CC. You might want to wait for a particularly bad enemy to patrol away or use something like, say, a freezing trap to keep them

[07:55] out of the fight. That's the kind of thing that I remember really loving back in the day with Cataclysm heroic dungeons, but that even in today's dungeons, you just don't really need to do anymore. I guess because the dungeons

[08:07] not to say that playing carefully will always keep you safe. Heroic world tier adds zone-wide patrols. This is really cool. On the world Val, this means the

[08:20] rather awesomely named Blackstar Legion. Yeah. They're a group of named elite you aren't watching your surroundings, they will ruin your carefully laid plans

[08:32] and leave you with a bit of a repair bill. Now, of course, if this was hard but not well-crafted, it would be quite horrible. But, I think actually doing a good job of giving these guys a real sense of identity. You see, each of them

[08:46] has a class, a name, unique dialogue, and their own mechanics. And that means that the Blackstar Legion actually feels like a real elite unit that you should be afraid of. And what's cool is that patrolling isn't the only way they'll

[09:00] put an end to you, either. Blizzard have repurposed the ambush mechanic from Because, yes, you can now actually be hunted by certain elites. The way it works is once you've got the hunted debuff, well, you'll be attacked by an

[09:14] elite assassin the next time you enter combat. Now, this assassin might even taunt you such that you deal 90% reduced damage to other enemies. If this happens mid-pack and you haven't really thought about it or prepared for

[09:29] it, it's GG. And this adds up to a real oppressive environment on heroic world tier. The added elites throw all kinds of mechanics at you to dodge, and the affixes will punish sloppiness. You will

[09:42] rack up a repair bill unless you're careful, deliberate, and actually know how to play your class. Basically, Blizzard has successfully designed a hard open-world experience that literally exists nowhere else

[09:56] within World of Warcraft. And thus far, there's an easy way to read this, right? This could simply be content that's not made for you, and that's completely okay. Because there's loads of content in the game that could be made for you,

[10:09] interested in. And that's totally fine. Wow I think wins by being a really big game, a really big world, where it offers experiences that do appeal to loads of different people. But even with that being said,

[10:23] we all know the monkey's paw curls. We all know that this is a game made by the small independent developer Blizzard Entertainment. They have three developers and a budget of $50 a month. And that does mean

[10:37] there's areas where this could go wrong. And I'm not even talking about the bugs. Testing this in PTR is one thing, but actually playing it on live servers is a different story entirely. Most of our time here was spent alone playing havoc

[10:51] in a zone with zero other players, and that led to a pretty excellent overall experience and a lot of hype. But it's not at all clear how this will work for everyone, and how it'll work when player populations are pretty big. Tanks, I

[11:05] guess we'll have a more relaxing time because, hey, they're tanks, they're tanky. They can actually make mistakes and not immediately be killed. Clothies, oh dear. I mean, clothies that can't

[11:17] survive white damage will struggle without having lots of room to kite. Ret paladins and other self-sufficient DPS specs will have a blast here as per well, that's because they're built different. Now, to be fair, that's

[11:31] but Blizzard have done a good job designing the mobs and affixes so that you've got multiple ways to manage them. In that way, it's pretty naturally designed as a world, just like older World of Warcraft places were.

[11:46] players. Now, if Blizzard lets too many people into each world instance, then all of that scary mob density will, of course, just hit the AoE blender and turn into paste. Now, for some people, that could be cool. That could be a

[12:01] really cool MMO thing where you truly do need a shitload of other people to achieve goals in the hardest zone in the game, and that can be really cool. A degree of that is needed for this to work well. Too much could be a problem,

[12:14] but at the same time, Blizzard can't be too conservative because the world boss here needs a serious group to take down, which I guess is really cool. I mean, world bosses have just been boring HP boxes that fall over to give you your,

[12:30] week. It's less like that with the world bosses we find in these heroic world tier zones. Now, just designing the enemies and the zone is really not enough. The systems around them are part of the design as well.

[12:44] And if you've been paying attention when it comes to say pacing out their systems or having them be carefully crafted and tested, record lately. So, here's my warning to you, Blizzard.

[12:56] When you look at your data, remember something. You've made this an optional challenge, one that is more about choosing hard gameplay for its own sake and perhaps getting some unique rewards that are genuinely like bragging rights

[13:09] But you have to be careful with a multiplayer open world. In older expansions, players were way more spread out, which meant you couldn't really rely on having other people around. These zones, while they are literally

[13:23] zones and they have been made bigger since their original appearance in the Argus patch, well, they are small, they are dense, so Blizzard needs to take that into account. If they keep only a small handful of players in each

[13:37] something closer to an old school wow where you find players struggling alone. And of course, because of that, then finding allies in the world to help, ambushes. That's the type of thing that can lead to friendships just forming out

[13:53] of an MMO. If they let too many people into these zones, then many people's first impression of heroic world tier will be nothing more than a zerg fest. If Blizzard sees that and thinks, "Oh,

[14:05] player number go up, very good." then we could risk losing something that actually makes this quite special. But it's not just that because in the first place. And if that's the case, I actually can see why.

[14:22] Blizzard is not giving you a great reason to even do this. And that's a shame because it is so god damn cool, and you can really tell the devs have Now, you may be thinking one thing. Michael, how have you fallen into a

[14:35] black hole? What's going on? Why are you in the void? Honestly, I don't know. I haven't worked out how to escape yet. But the other thing is there's now a good reason to actually engage with the heroic world tier. So, earlier on the

[14:47] PTR, there was almost no reason to bother with heroic world tier. The world boss and the weekly quests just gave you hero warbound gear. Just fine, but not amazing, especially because, well, you need to be wearing almost all hero gear

[15:01] to hold your own in heroic world tier. That meant that it kind of felt like it was purely an alt gearing mode. Now, to try and solve that, Blizzard have added a new quest to give you a single bit of myth gear. Except that getting that bit

[15:14] of myth gear will take you 4 weeks, and it'll give you either a cloak, a belt, or bracers. Those are pieces that most decently geared people will have crafted months ago and they're also the least impactful

[15:27] slots. So, not really the best incentive, lads. Now, to be fair, Blizzard did buff almost all of the other rewards. So, now you can get 30 myth crests a week from the big wrapper quests. And on the cosmetic side, heroic

[15:42] world tour drops a ton more field accolades than normal, but with the does take a hell of a lot longer because it's heroic world tour. Stuff's really rewards that are achievement locked, you

[15:56] those on normal. And of course, if you want field accolades to buy all the new stuff, it's probably still easiest to just farm out ritual sites from the last patch. So, to put it simply, if you're in heroic world tour,

[16:10] you're probably only there because you actually want to be. Now, that sounds awesome, but if you're already prepared for how hard the content will be, then you're kind of like just not going to be rewarded for your time or effort really

[16:25] that much at all. So, what could they actually give you? Well, Blizzard are obviously on the cusp of offering myth gear progression to non-instance content not happy to fully pull the trigger on that. And I guess rightly so, because

[16:41] that has a domino effect in mythic plus and mythic rating. And so, when we put promising, but it does leave heroic world tour in a weird, weird place. Now, I think Blizzard's fear of having a cool reward

[16:56] behind this has basically meant that they haven't really put appropriately cool rewards behind it. Like cool bragging rights style stuff that just "I'm the most badass [\h__\h] around. Just look at me."

[17:10] That's what you want. And that type of reward is only possible when the content is hard, because if anyone can get the I'm a real badass just look at me reward then obviously nobody actually feels that and your game has just lost

[17:25] something huge. So, I'm worried then that between that a season where activity is generally a bit lower that that could mean that heroic world tier could struggle a bit for the numbers. I mean it's not even

[17:37] available until you kill the world boss and that's locked behind a quest line. People will have seen everything in normal first and that can kill the feeling of first time exploration on heroic that at least for us in our play

[17:50] testing felt amazing. On the bright side is doing follow up quest in heroic has been a lot of fun as well so I just think denying that initially feels like a wee bit of a wasted opportunity and it's just the case that there's loads of

[18:02] little paper cuts here that threaten heroic world tiers future and we can only hope Blizzard are able to avoid these by the time this goes live. But I'll tell you what if this works well and even if this

[18:17] real valuable lessons for the next heroic world tier it could change wow forever and I really mean that. But for the sake of this patch heroic world tier combined with these two new

[18:30] world tier combined with these two new zones is a glimpse into what could be an amazing future for World of Warcraft an open world that should you opt into it forces you to pay attention approach problems carefully and actually know

[18:43] your class. One where you can be good not just by the DPS meter but you can be good by the way you conduct yourself conduct yourself in the world in every way. Your damage,

[18:57] your rotation, your utility, your pathfinding, your problem solving. That's the kind of thing that really could separate out the brilliant players and they could inspire people to find genuine mastery in this game.

[19:12] That's awesome. And an entire patch zone with a layer of this on top or maybe a full expansion that would have a heroic world tier. Well, that would fill a hole in the World of Warcraft that we've really all felt for at least a decade,

[19:27] if not longer. It's not quite classic given our modern class design and creature comforts like the recuperate button, but a proper hard world built with current-day WoW in mind

[19:40] is an exciting thing. It's not classic, but I guess it's giving modern WoW some of what people love in classic. But, it's just up to Blizzard to nail But, it's just up to Blizzard to nail maybe the hardest parts. Player access,

[19:54] player framing, how people expect to engage with this feature, and if people feel, you know what, this isn't for me and that's okay. And of course, reward Those are hard, but get these down and heroic world tier could genuinely be a

[20:10] game-changer. Look, it's been years and years since I plastered this changes everything in everything. This time, this actually could genuinely change everything, at least for a certain type of WoW player

[20:23] who's probably felt underserved for many, many years indeed. So, firm handshakes to the designers involved. Well done. This has real yourselves. Just um yeah, you know,

[20:36] you. That being said, you may be wondering about the undead. Does that seem like a random segue? Yes, and that's because it is. But, I think this is a really cool lore video. It's about the goddamn

[20:50] Scourge. That's peak Warcraft. How there's undead like right now in the game and how Northrend is actually full of undead, which does have big implications for the last titan. Watch it here next.