The 10-man raid adaptation of Blackfathom Deeps has been the centerpiece PvE activity in World of Warcraft: Season of Discovery but, as the game exits its first phase, the future of BFD is in doubt.
For those who are unaware, Season of Discovery has a staggered leveling system. Though set within the world of Vanilla Azeroth, players are not able to climb all the way to Level 60 in the first instance. Phase One is capped at Level 25, with later phases set to increase this to 40, 50 & the original 60.
To ensure players had plenty of content to sink their teeth into during the first phase, Blizzard released a raid version of the BFD dungeon. This offered some of the best gear in the game and has occupied much of the community’s time.
The expectation upon the level cap being increased is that BFD will slowly fade to irrelevance, though new comments by a senior developer working on the game suggest this may not be the case.
BFD could allow players to level up in Season of Discovery
In a recent tweet as part of a response to a player, Senior Game Producer Josh Greenfield suggested that players should “stay tuned” for more news on what role BFD will play moving forward.
The tweet does not go into much detail, but it seems that BFD will play a part in the leveling process in Phase Two and beyond. Though Gnomeregan is set to take center stage as the new raid activity, it’s nice to know that BFD will likely remain important as the game progresses.
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Stay tuned for more info! We did call them level-up raids for a reason.
— Josh Greenfield (@AggrendWoW) January 18, 2024
Though this was intriguing news to many, some feared that raids and dungeons might level with the player, as they do in Retail WoW.
One said: “Please don’t make the raids level up with the player. I can’t imagine doing BFD every three days for the next year to refarm scaled-up items. One of the best things about Classic is there’s an endpoint. That’s the worst part of Retail.”
Others saw this potential move as a distinct positive, with one adding: “Oh my. This means the raids are going to ‘level up’ with the players (assuming they’d go from 25 straight to 40 instead of scaling, then to 50, 60, etc), permanently increasing the amount of ‘end game’ content available in each phase. Actually, it sounds amazing. Y’all are cooking!”
With Phase Two of Season of Discovery set to arrive on February 8, players won’t have long to wait to see exactly what Greenfield is referring to. Whether they will all be happy with the chosen direction when they do is another thing entirely.