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BlizzCon 2015: 10 New Dungeons, Expanded Challenge Mode System, Challenger’s Keystones

by - 8 years ago

When Hazzicostas said that dungeons would be at the heart of Legion, he wasn’t playing around. Legion will feature tons of new 5-man content, including 5 level-up dungeons, 5 max-level dungeons, and an expanded challenge mode system designed to keep these instances relevant in a way that Warlords dungeons weren’t.

The Dungeons

The expansion will feature ten all-new dungeons, presumably at launch.

The five level-up dungeons can be completed in any order, have no level requirement (well, probably aside from the minimum for the expansion), and scale up to your character’s power. After the loose connection of Warlords dungeons to its zones, the Legion dungeons will help bring the storylines together. These include:

  1. Eye of Azshara
  2. Neltharion’s Lair, which is the former abode of the Earth Warder, himself
  3. Halls of Valor, home of Odyn, as well as powerful Val’kyr
  4. Darkheart Thicket, which is at the root of a corrupted world tree and borders on the Emerald Nightmare
  5. Violet Hold

In addition to these five, there will be another five max-level dungeons meant for those in the end-game. These include:

  1. Vault of the Wardens, which contained the now-awakened Demon Hunters
  2. Black Rook Hold, an ancient and haunting fortress from old Night Elf lore
  3. Helheim, which mostly consists of a Viking-esque ship much like Warlords’ Grimrail Depot
  4. Suramar Noble District
  5. Suramar Catacombs

Dungeon System Updates

Unlike previous expansions which relied on currencies, dailies, and other mechanics to keep dungeons relevant and bring players together, Legion will make dungeons attractive to all players in new ways.

4First, dungeons will scale up to your character’s level. So, no matter what level your friends are, you can queue up and join in for a variety of different experiences. This will probably also help address dungeon grinding burnout while leveling, since in previous expansions we often had to deal with one or two dungeons for several levels.

Second, upon hitting max level, players will be able to use the new Challenger’s Keystone, a new iteration of the Challenge Mode dungeon system introduced in Mists. Using a fancy new UI element, players will be “pointed” to a random Legion dungeon. Like the old Challenge Mode system, it will have a timer–if beaten, the Keystone will grow in power level, allowing a higher difficult and reward for future dungeon runs. However, failing to beat the timer will deplete the Keystone, although the dungeon will still offer rewards.

Your Keystone will feature new modifiers, which will have effects making each dungeon run challenging in different ways. One discussed modifier was the Raging affix, which will give all creatures in the dungeon that are under 30% health a 100% damage bonus against you.

The new Challenge dungeon system is designed to be an entry point from Heroic dungeons, and from there either replacing raids for many players altogether or bridging their transition into the raiding scene. Hazzicostas mentioned that they will not be impossible for the average player, but they will have challenges which will cause even hardcore players to stumble and struggle.

Darkheart Thicket

Darkheart Thicket is a level-up dungeon based at the foot of a corrupted world tree, one that will be the entry point for the Emerald Nightmare raid. While the raid takes the players fully into the Nightmare, the dungeon borders between our world and the Nightmare, pitting players against Satyrs, corrupted tree guardians, and other twisted creatures.

Halls of Valor

The Halls of Valor five-man is another level-up dungeon that focuses on the power and majesty of the Val’kyr and the god Odyn. Players will traverse its halls and wings to prove their worth to the ancient being. The dungeon is an exploration of Val’kyr lore that hasn’t been seen since Wrath. Hazzicostas called it one of the most impressive dungeons the team has ever created.

Helheim

The inverse of the Halls of Valor, Helheim is a level-up dungeon that works something like Grimrail Depot did in Warlords, only instead of players facing the majority of the encounters on a runaway train, they will be battling their foes on the vaulting, storm-laden decks of an ancient Vrykul ship. The short video clip played during the panel showed off impressive ambience, with an impressive stormy sea that would impress even a Viking god.

Helheim is the dwelling of the cursed and fallen Vrykul, and players will face off against one of their most powerful leaders, fallen Val’kyr Queen Helya. The ship will ferry players to the final area of this dungeon.

Black Rook Hold

A max-level dungeon, Black Rook Hold is an ancient elven fortress that played a pivotal role in the War of the Ancients trilogy. It was here that Kur’Talos Ravencrest strategized against the Legion in the First War, and, depending on how you look at lore, acted as a mentor for Illidan.

Personally, I think this dungeon carries ambient vibes similar to Karazhan in some ways, such as the color scheme, twisting stairs, haunted feeling, and dilapidated furniture.


Seth Harkins

PC gamer and lover of (most) things Blizzard. In his off time, he writes bad fan fiction, tends to his growing number of house plants, and enjoys a love-hate relationship with two cats.


0 responses to “BlizzCon 2015: 10 New Dungeons, Expanded Challenge Mode System, Challenger’s Keystones”

  1. Matthew Kissell says:

    Will this matter with no player to try them. Youll be seeing sub 1 million subscription numbers by the time this releases in nearly a year. So much for “shorter development time” lies, and “we wont do 14+ months of no content again” lies.

    • Seth Harkins says:

      It’s a valid concern. The losses, in my opinion, are probably plateauing for now–we only saw a couple 100k in the last report–so I think those who remain are more or less the hardcores and ones least likely to leave. But with several more months of WoD, yeah, it will be interesting to see what happens.

      We’re still waiting on 6.2.3 to hit, which has some cool changes and mounts and stuff in store, but not much in way of content. Then the pre-patch, which probably won’t come out for several months.

      There’s the closed Legion beta coming out in a couple weeks, but that only applies to the players that get in and the ones that get hyped from seeing those developments.

      As for the time until release, we’re thinking September probably won’t be the release month, but more accurately some time within that fiscal quarter of late summer. I’m guessing maybe July or August but don’t really know.

      TBH, I felt from the tone at Gamescom that the implication was a spring release at latest. I get the feeling that the sub losses you bring up have influenced them to some degree and they added more than they initially planned. For instance, more dungeons than were announced at Gamescom, the addition of tabards to the new mog system (when they previously said they wouldn’t make it into Legion), and some other changes.

      Regardless, I feel very strongly from what we’ve seen that Legion is probably the best (and last) bet we have for the game’s long term survival. Objectively speaking, it has more content at launch than any other, I’m pretty sure, while still using key Warcraft themes (unlike MoP, which I enjoyed as an expansion but it still feels like a different game when I port back to Shrine every now and then).

      Dunno. I buy pretty easily into hype and want to be more conservative this time around. We’ll see.