"[Dungeon] XP gain is not going to be what it was in [WoW Classic], but it should feel significantly better now. We understand that some of you want to dungeon cleave to 60, but this is another one of those things that has to pass muster with our core pillars. That playstyle being the optimal way to level does not pass that muster and we need to hold firm on these balance adjustments," via X.
World of Warcraft: Forever players have a lot of intense feelings about the role dungeons play in the leveling experience. Some want dungeons to be an alternative way to level up, a reason to play a tank or healer before hitting max level. Others want dungeons to be on par with questing so they don't feel like they're wasting their time in the open world.
In a podcast released earlier today, Blizzard addressed this debate and announced some tweaks to how dungeon XP will work. Basically, the XP you get from killing monsters in dungeons is going up a little bit, but not to the level it was in the original MMO. The developers explained that this is because they want the world of Azeroth to be the "main character" and don't want everyone spending their entire leveling experience in caves.
This is one of those moments where the fuzzy definition of WoW: Forever is starting to come into focus. I am one of those players who likes to spam dungeons as a break from the questing grind. I'm a little disappointed that I won't be able to do that, but I also respect Blizzard for taking a stance on the kinds of things it doesn't want to bring back from the old MMO. WoW Classic is still playable right now; it's OK if WoW: Forever takes a different approach.
I still wonder if there will be limited-time events that encourage players to run dungeons. Season of Discovery, a proto-WoW: Forever that Blizzard ran for a while, had a lot of experimental things that changed how you interacted with the world, like items that altered the functionality of your abilities or gave bonuses to certain crafting professions. Blizzard left some SoD items in WoW: Forever, which suggests it's open to making more like them. Maybe that's how it will give players a reason to create new characters just for dungeons.
We still don't really know how much Blizzard is going to bend the rules of classic WoW as WoW: Forever continues. The blue elves are one thing, but will all the most impactful new stuff only matter to max-level players? Even though Blizzard says this won't be the case, we don't know how it's going to play out in a game that will have to keep everyone entertained without the benefit of expansions to shake everything up every few years.
