World of Warcraft: Forever received its first post-launch updates over the weekend, giving players a good reason to run each dungeon more than once alongside upcoming class tweaks.
On November 8, developer Blizzard issued a hotfix that increased kill experience while in dungeons by 50%. According to the forum post, Blizzard said this is so it “feels better to go back for more runs,” and made reference to a Wailing Caverns dungeon quest to collect Deviate Hides that often requires more than one run.
It previously outlined upcoming class changes that will go live on November 10. Those changes will make it so Hunter and Warlock pets are sturdier, improve Affliction Warlock’s damage-over-time spells, and make it so Enhancement Shamans will want to pursue strength and attack power items instead of intellect and spell power ones.
The debate on how much experience dungeons should grant in Forever has been an ongoing back and forth since the game’s beta. Initially, dungeons were particularly lucrative, with massive experience rewards from dungeon quests.
That changed about halfway through the beta due to concerns that players were leveling too quickly while doing dungeons. Blizzard axed dungeon quest experience as a result. While dungeons were still worthwhile to do once thanks to potent item rewards, doing them multiple times proved to be less valuable. With no quests to do, kill experience earned in dungeons was lackluster.
Forever’s launch on November 4 carried that philosophy forward, but it quickly became apparent dungeons were simply not worth doing after one quest-focused run. It was even more of an issue considering that many dungeons have item-collection quests that are difficult to complete in a single run when all five members of the group are trying to do it at once. However, because doing a dungeon a second time was so inefficient when it came to earning experience, going back in to try and complete that quest felt like a waste of time.
In an episode of the WoW: Forever podcast from October 8, Blizzard said it doesn’t want dungeons to be a “one and done” experience while leveling, but also doesn’t want them to be so rewarding that they become the most “efficient” way to level up. This latest tweak then seems to be Blizzard making good on that philosophy.
The class changes are smaller but still significant, particularly since Blizzard previously said not to expect major class changes prior to the arrival of Forever’s endgame raids on December 9. They specifically address a key pain point for Enhancement Shamans, who have complained about their specialization’s need for intellect and spell power gear despite being a melee-focused spec. Ahead of Forever’s launch, the WoW Classic Shaman Discord shutdown in protest of the state of the class, and now Blizzard has made good on at least one of the Discord server’s list of complaints.
Forever’s launch went surprisingly smooth, despite being the biggest concurrent-player launch in WoW’s 22-year history. On the eve of launch, Blizzard revealed Forever’s first new legendary weapon, Taldramir, the Whispering Wood.