Leveling Quick Fixes: Elite Subzones

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

Some of my early experiences of playing World of Warcraft involved wandering into areas crawling with elite mobs that more often than not were beyond what I was able to defeat. They often congregated around the entrance to instances but there were also subzones dedicated entirely to them such as Pyrewood Village and Jintha'Alor. The novelty of them was nerfed shortly after I started playing the game however since in patch 2.3, elites in many of these areas were changed to non-elites in an attempt to improve the game's leveling experience. I can understand the reasoning of the nerf since grouping up to quest in one or more of the areas was often necessary to ensure a smooth leveling experience due to a lack of non-grindy leveling content.

Elite areas were then rarely utilized in a meaningful way for a few expansions until Isle of Giants was released in 5.2, which was a zone full of elite mobs that were able to be farmed solo or in a group. Timeless Isle expounded on the idea and featured elite mobs that could be farmed for benefits such as Emperor Shaohao reputation and Lesser Charms of Excessive Good Fortune. Warlords of Draenor also featured some elite zones that the player entered as part of daily quests. Finally, Legion had a quest chain for the Nightfallen that involved entering an area full of elites and featured many elite World Quests that players could attempt solo if they wanted a bit of a challenge.

The reason I bring this all up is because it seems Blizzard is comfortable with making their overworld dangerous to players again by making use of elite areas or what I'll call what I consider to be the more appropriate term of "subzones." In fact, I think it's possible to return elite subzones to lower level zones while maintaining the idea behind the leveling improvements made in patch 2.3. If done well, such areas will provide a place for players to challenge themselves without disrupting other leveling content such as questing like elite subzones in the past did.

Elite Subzones as Leveling Content

To accomplish the aforementioned objective of implementing elite subzones without disrupting other content, it's best to utilize areas that don't have much content to begin with such as the following:

The entrances to the Ahn'Qiraj raids (heck, many instance entrances in general)

The Ruins of Feathermoon

The Uplands and possibly the Ruins of Alterac

Seradane

As one many have noticed, some of the mentioned areas are the ones from the elite areas list and it's a pretty good resource to use in general for determining good elite subzone candidates.

However, more areas can be used as long as they're somewhat out of the way and phasing is used. This is because even if the area happens to be one used for questing, players would enter the questing version of the area if they happen to have the quest. In fact, some elite subzones could be locked behind quests and change to a phase full of elite mobs once specific quest chains are completed as a sort of reward.

To further ensure players don't unnecessarily fall victim to the elite subzones, there could be some significant telegraphing prior to entering such areas such as danger signs, skeletons, dead NPCs, and so on. Elite subzones could also be marked with World Quests or bonus objective area marker which serve as both as a danger symbol and issue a challenge for players who wish to partake in it.

As for the difficulty of enemies in elite subzones, "trash mob" health should be at around 4 to 5 times greater than non-elite counterparts to make them longer to kill, but without turning mobs into enormous damage sponges. Autoattack damage should only be increased by up to twice as much compared to non-elite mobs since the challenge of elites should emphasize mechanics. To this end, the guidelines listed in the mechanical learning expectations article can be violated as long as the challenge remains reasonable. Specifically, it would help if abilities still had some sort of counterplay even if it's not traditional counterplay such as interrupts and crowd control.

There should also be boss enemies with even greater stats, mostly in the form of health, that spawn periodically and show up on map to further encourage leveling players to seek out a challenge. These are meant to be a step up from rare spawns and are intended to be fought with a group. However, depending on the abilities the boss has, a clever player may find ways to solo them and I would strongly encourage meticulously designing bosses to be on the cutting edge of challenging potential solo players.

Finally, the area should be littered with chests that contain some of the loot-based rewards found in elite subzones. This helps to mitigate excessive group farming for loot and potentially allows for a stealth minigame to loot the chests if the player desires.

Rewards

Grinding on mobs in elite subzones should provide experience rates that are close to that of questing, with the difference being that the rates are more consistent and require the player be skilled enough to take on challenging content. Mobs would also drop a greater amount of Justice Points (if they exist), specifically up to double the amount dropped by normal mobs as stated in my article on the topic. They would also occasionally drop gear tokens that can be used to produce suitable BoP gear of the player's level. Beyond that, the mobs themselves would have a relatively standard drop table compared to non-elite counterparts.

Chests found in elite subzones may contain a significant amount of Justice Points and money. They also have quadruple the chance to award uncommon or higher quality BoE gear, which makes them a good source of world drops. Finally, chests contain a several consumable items suitable for the level range of the elite subzone, which is meant to encourage liberal consumable usage to make encounters in the area slightly easier.

Completing the bonus objective or World Quest would provide experience comparable to that of about two quests at the player's level. They would also award a little money and Justice Points (again, if they exist). Note that these benefits are greatly limited since it can either be completed once or players have to wait hours for the World Quest to respawn. This means the rewards from completion would only have a significant impact on rates if the player spends a little time in the area.

Bosses in elite subzones would award roughly the same amount of experience as the other mobs, but their loot would be the equivalent of looting up to three chests in the area. The loot is diminished to the equivalent of looting a single chest in the area if the player significantly outlevels the boss. This is to give leveling players an opportunity to build wealth without making every elite subzone in existence a good money-making method for higher level or level-capped players.

Implementation Logistics

This suggestion initially confused others when I pitched it since they thought it wasn't a "quick fix" at all. Therefore, I'll start by saying it is because adding an elite subzone is as simple as placing mob and object spawns in relatively unused areas like the ones I mentioned above. Even when accounting for designing the mobs themselves and setting up drop tables, the amount of work required shouldn't be all that much and comparable to adding multiple rare spawns to existing areas. As I mentioned previously, this is something Blizzard has already done before as a side addition for a major patch.

More elaborately designed elite subzones can be added over time. For example, areas could have new terrain and structures to improve immersion. Mobs could also be given more appropriate abilities and new movement patterns such as enemies that patrol to add to the aforementioned stealth minigame. Tuning passes would likely be needed as players give feedback. Finally, entirely new areas can be added to existing zones if elite subzones as content are in high demand for some reason.

Goals This Feature Accomplishes

Elite subzones are primarily meant to accomplish one of the three goals, but can accomplish all three goals to a degree.

In terms of tutoring, some newer players may want a harsher environment to learn in than others. While some options are already in the game such as dungeons and certain suggestions arguably may be a better fit, having more overworld options doesn't hurt. Note that this would likely satisfy a small number of players though.

Elite subzones would not serve as immersive content initially but over time each area could potentially become another exciting place to explore with its own subtextual lore and the like. This is aided by the addition of treasure in the areas, meaning players who don't want to fight the mobs may find the areas rewarding to explore.

The primary goal accomplished by this feature is that with the right balancing of experience gain rates, it helps leveling feel less like a chore. This is largely because elite subzones offer an environment comparable to dungeon soloing since the 7.3.5 patch, but with potentially greater accessibility. Much like with soloing dungeons, I could see this challenge appealing to players who need it most: veterans leveling up alts who might be a little tired of the other leveling content. It also helps that elite subzones are not quite as structured as some of my other suggestions, which allows for more strategic options. Finally, if implemented ideally, elite subzones are likely the one place where even with heirlooms, an experienced player may find themselves dying or near death. Personally, I find that prospect to be exciting.