Leveling Quick Fixes: Proving Grounds Rejuvenation

This article is part of a series. Click here to go to the intro article where a table of contents is available.

The Proving Grounds were added in patch 5.4 as a feature intended to test a player's ability to perform in one of the three roles in the game. When it was added, it came with some achievements, including one with a title reward for completing a fairly challenging 30 waves in Endless Mode. In addition to the plethora of other content was added in that patch such as everything involving the Timeless Isle, the Proving Grounds made for a nice distraction where one can practice without judgement. Even if in-game rewards were limited, the content was new and therefore it could at least last for the 5.4 patch series. Later on, the Proving Grounds became more about performing exceptionally well, which entitled a player to bragging rights.

The Proving Grounds saw a little more use going into Warlords of Draenor and while the idea sounded great on paper, in practice it was poorly implemented. This is because in order to do Heroic dungeons, one had to complete the Silver trial in the Proving Grounds for the role they wished to queue as. In addition to failing to respect class and spec balance, this relatively stringent requirement that encouraged players to improve their skills fell apart the moment LFR Highmaul came out since it had no Proving Grounds-related requirements whatsoever. In fact, only Heroic dungeons ever had a requirement that was eventually dropped later on.

In Legion, the Proving Grounds may as well not exist since it's gotten no notable updates. While it's possible to enter them from one's Order Hall, there's other challenging solo content that better test one's ability and have more up to date rewards. For example, the Mage Tower challenges offer a fairly prestigious reward and are tuned based on a player's specialization and better test a player's ability to handle various mechanics even if said mechanics can be a little punishing sometimes. Add in various Elite World Quests, an updated Brawler's Guild, and some unforgiving, yet lucrative overworld zones and it becomes increasingly apparent that the Proving Grounds is simply outdated.

I find the current state of the Proving Grounds to be a shame since it could provide an endless amount of content through the mode that shares that name. Given that it can be entered as low as level 15, it can also serve as a practical self-help tool for newer players with the proper exposure. The content is also not that rewarding which means it can't stand up to other content that does reward players for their time and effort. Therefore, this article will propose suggestions to improve the Proving Grounds in an attempt to make it exemplary evergreen content in addition to making it a useful feature for leveling players.

Proving Grounds As (Leveling) Content

As I mentioned, the Proving Grounds can be entered at a low level which means that it already has level scaling implemented. While this may need to be tweaked a bit to account for more recent changes to leveling content, refinement isn't entirely necessary for the Proving Grounds to fulfill its purpose. That is because, as I also mentioned, exposure of the feature needs to be increased more to lower level players.

Initially, I'd strongly recommend pushing Proving Grounds when a player reaches level 15. To this end, there should be a breadcrumb quest to the class trainer who already provides easy access to the Proving Grounds. In addition, since the Proving Grounds is meant to represent a dungeon environment, players would be recommended to finish the Bronze trial the first time they attempt to queue for a dungeon. Much like with the current implementation of the Proving Grounds, Bronze would be the only accessible trial for lower level players and the mechanics would be fairly simple but enough to provide a challenge. For example, if mechanics were reworked, Bronze trials could have some harmful ground effect mechanics that occur periodically (aka "the fire") since it's commonly seen at all levels of play.

As the player level increases to higher brackets, more levels of the Proving Grounds would open. Specifically, players can attempt Silver trials at level 60, Gold trials at level 80, and Endless at level 90. Based on scaling mechanics, I consider these levels the best points to expose players to more mechanics and other forms of enhanced challenge. However, reworking mechanics to suit what I consider to be a good learning curve would take a lot of time unlike with Bronze trials, so the current iteration of the Proving Grounds will have to do in terms of these tiers. Listing the mechanics to learn at each level bracket would also likely be too extensive for this article, though I may publish an article on such expectations in the future.

For players seeking a challenge, rapid advancement to higher tiers of the Proving Grounds could also be made available. For example, players with achievements for completing the Proving Grounds at higher tier levels for a specific role could allow players to do the trials on any character. Players who excel could also be rewarded with early tier unlocks. For example, someone who only uses half the time allotted for a Damage Dealing trial could advance to the next tier. Note that higher tier trials may be nearly impossible due to a lack of abilities, but that might be part of the fun for some players, so it doesn't hurt to provide the option if they're experienced enough.

Finally, while the Pandaria theme is nice and this would need to be implemented much later, the Proving Grounds could use a reskin. NPC variety, for example, could stand to be increased beyond Sha, Pandaren, etc. There could also be more settings such as various capital city arenas and the like.

Rewards

Aside from titles and bragging rights, there's not a lot in the way of rewards from Proving Grounds. One thing that immediately comes to mind as a possible reward is the Justice Points I suggested in my previous (serious) article. Another, since Proving Grounds are a feature for players of all levels, is experience points since time spent in the Proving Grounds is time that could've been spent doing other leveling content. I'd also argue players are likely to learn more doing the Proving Grounds than doing other content like questing, which further justifies an appropriate experience reward.

In terms of Justice Point and experience rewards, they should directly scale with the difficulty level of the trial itself outside of Endless. To this end, I would set a base reward with some aspects, such as experience, scaling with level. I would then assign a multiplier bonus to each trial tier with Bronze set at 1.0, Silver set at 1.25, and Gold set at 1.5. For example, completing a Bronze trial at level 80 could award 20,000 experience and 100 Justice Points, but doing so at Gold would award 30,000 experience and 150 Justice Points. For Endless, each wave could provide up to 15% of the base reward when completed, scaling infinitely. Furthermore, there could be a bonus reward at specific milestones. For example, completing 10 waves earns an additional 30% of the base reward.

It is also worth mentioning that the mobs themselves would award experience. I consider this reward appropriate since experience is earned from killing mobs for other content such as quests and dungeons. To balance the fact the Proving Grounds is a highly accessible source of mobs, experience gain should be reduced by as much as 25% compared to equivalent mobs.

Furthermore, since Justice Point (or whatever analogue(s) Blizzard implements in Battle For Azeroth) rewards may not necessarily be possible but I want Proving Grounds to be relevant for endgame play, completing any trial in the Proving Grounds should also reward a satchel of various useful goods. It would always have some money and consumables and would also have a chance to contain gear and reagents. Quantity, quality, and chance of reward would all scale with player level and the difficulty of the trial or progression into Endless. For example, a level 80 player could earn 8 gold and 4 consumables from a Bronze trial along with a 40% chance for a piece of level 80 rare gear and a separate 40% chance to earn a stack of Cataclysm or Pandaria reagents. To further entice max level players to do Proving Grounds, gear rewards at max level would be based on item level rewards of other entry level content. In addition, every 10 waves completed in an Endless run would upgrade the item level of the first gear piece rewarded as if it Warforged, stacking to the item level cap.

Speaking of consumables, the Proving Grounds could allow for the usage of exclusive consumables that can either be purchased, much like with buff foods from the vendor inside, or earned from aforementioned satchels in such a way they are at most half of the satchel's consumable-based rewards. Some could save money by providing low to moderate quality food and flask buffs. Others could be advantageous and take the form of items such as a potion that provide significant damage reduction to all friendly characters for a short time.

Finally, while this is not a tangible reward, the Endless Proving Grounds should have a leaderboard so that a player's accomplishment is visible for everyone in the region to see. It might encourage friendly competition as players fight through hundreds of waves to best each other. These leaderboards would be split between max level players and lower level players to account for balance to a degree. In the case of the latter, character level would also be listed to provide players and Blizzard with information of potential low level imbalance.

Implementation Logistics

Initially I thought implementation would be a little difficult because the Proving Grounds would need level scaling tech added to it. It's not particularly demanding to do considering Blizzard has been adding it to other instanced content such as holiday events, but it would be a bit more time-consuming considering tuning would need to be more carefully done and more NPC stats would need to be adjusted. Fortunately, Proving Grounds already has level scaling tech in place, which goes to show how much I've done the Proving Grounds since early Warlords of Draenor.

The first step would be to add rewards. They could be rudimentary at first and primarily consist of experience to appeal to lower level players. Other rewards could be added shortly after to appeal to higher level players. The leaderboard would be the last reward-based feature to be added since that's the feature I'm least certain about in terms of the time it would take to implement especially since I want it to be region-wide.

The second step of increasing exposure of the Proving Grounds should be a fairly simple task. Aside from advertising a rejuvenation of the Proving Grounds on the client, adding a breadcrumb quest should not take much time at all. Easy entry into the Proving Grounds has already been integrated into the game through class trainers, so there's not much that needs to be added there.

Finally, major tweaks could happen over a series of patches. This takes the form of reskinning the setting and NPCs, reworking mechanics, and so on. Reskinning is a fairly simple affair to explain since new additions could be added gradually without being all that disruptive. Reworking the Proving Grounds from a gameplay standpoint to be more suitable to today's standards would be a major untaking split into two stages. The first stage would rework all difficulties besides Endless to provide a cohesive experience from the three more standard difficulties. Endless, which I believe may hold up a bit better for the time being, can be reworked afterwards to feature an even wider array of mechanics than before and the mode can even draw inspiration from similar "endless modes" such as affixes from Mythic+.

Goals This Feature Accomplishes

Aside from providing more endgame content for players, rejuvenating the Proving Grounds primarily serves one role for leveling players and that is to help tutor them. It is a feature designed to test a player's skills by having them experience the meat of WoW's gameplay. In a way the time limits and other forms of adversity make for a merciless environment but in truth it's merciful since there's no other players around to berate one's failures and the player can always try again. It is ultimately because of the solo accessibility without judgement and the rewards that I think players will be more willing to give the Proving Grounds a shot if they're given the opportunity.

To close, if there's one point this article is trying to make, it's that the Proving Grounds shouldn't be allowed to languish in its current state. Adding consistently useful rewards instantly turns the Proving Grounds into somewhat worthwhile evergreen content, so the least that could be done is to make that change.