Season of Discovery gave Blizzard room to experiment with World of Warcraft’s classic raid formula, but some of those experiments pushed the difficulty further than the team intended. Recently, the developers have shared more about their raid philosophy for WoW Forever, explaining why approachable encounters are a priority and teasing the possible return of Scarlet Enclave.
During a recent interview with Joardee, Josh Greenfield (Aggrend) and Tim Jones reflected on some of the lessons learned from Season of Discovery. The developers praised Scarlet Enclave’s creative boss designs and challenging encounters, but they admitted that the raid’s complexity and tuning pushed things a little too far. Notably, the expectation that players would maintain world buffs throughout encounters, reapply them whenever someone died, and rely on resurrection trinkets during fights created a demanding raid environment. It has since been confirmed that world buffs do still exist, but they will not work within Forever Raids and Battlegrounds.
The developers described this as going “off the deep end” towards the end of Season of Discovery, explaining that WoW Forever aims to offer a more approachable experience.
WoW Forever Wants Challenging, But Approachable Raids
Rather than making every encounter a test of complex mechanics and strict preparation, the team wants most raids to sit somewhere around the difficulty of Season of Mastery’s encounters.
They specifically pointed to baseline Naxxramas as a good example of the experience they’re aiming for. Encounters should still give players opportunities to use their utility spells and reward thoughtful play, without making every fight an overwhelming challenge.
This doesn’t mean WoW Forever is abandoning difficult raid content! Instead, the developers want to find a better balance between engaging mechanics and expectations that players can reasonably meet.
Could Scarlet Enclave Return to WoW Forever?
Despite its demanding encounters, Scarlet Enclave clearly left a positive impression on the developers. The team described its boss designs as fun and creative, and even with the difficulty concerns, expressed enthusiasm about bringing the raid back.
During the interview, Lead Game Designer Tim Jones said it would be exciting to “reincorporate it into World of Warcraft Forever down the road”.
They did not confirm how long it would be until we see the raid in Forever, but Jones specifically stated “when” we can incorporate Scarlet Enclave, rather than “if”. This exciting news gives players a reason to keep an eye on the future of the raid, especially if Blizzard revisits its encounters with the lessons from Season of Discovery in mind!
WoW Forever’s raid philosophy seems to mainly be focused on keeping encounters engaging, without demanding the same level of preparation and complexity seen towards the end of Season of Discovery. If you’d like to see more from the interview and learn more about the philosophy behind WoW Forever, then check out the video below.
