Unique content vs. a high amount of difficulty levels

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the issues that evolve when a lack of unique content is compensated with a high amount of difficulty levels.

World of Warcraft (WoW) provides players with a broad variety of different activities they can perform in the virtual world while playing the game. Most of these activities are designed to keep players busy once they have reached the maximum level with their avatars. Until this point, the probably most important goal for the majority of the players is to solve quests or complete dungeons for the purpose of gaining experience points that ultimately allow their characters to reach a new level which often also unlocks new skills or provides access to new regions. However, as soon as a player has reached the maximum level, the main incentive to continue playing the game is lost and must be replaced with other goals that keep the player interested in the game.

One of the key game mechanics that keep players active are the group and raid dungeons where players can find powerful armor and weapons that ultimately increase the power of their avatars. As there is no guarantee that a particular item drops, players repetitively have to complete the dungeons to slowly collect their equipment, and, as a result of this, players are playing the game for a longer period of time.

Depending on the skill level and composition of the group, the dungeons can be tackled on various difficulties thus providing a challenge for every player while still allowing all players to at least enjoy the special regions without being required to join a permanent group. In addition, as the items also become more powerful with a higher difficulty, this system provides an incentive for players to tackle the dungeon on the next higher difficulty to even further improve their avatars. Since the release of the Legion expansion, group dungeons can also be completed on a so-called mythic+ difficulty which ultimately provides 15 additional difficulty levels for the same dungeon.

While changing a dungeon’s difficulty significantly raises the challenge for the players by increasing the enemies damage as well as health and providing them with more abilities, it does not change the environment itself. As a result of this, players are seeing the same environment over and over again while progressing through the various difficulty levels. Although this is a cheap and very effective method to keep players interested in the game, it can also cause a reduced interest in the game as, despite the higher challenges, it does not result in exciting new content.

Personally, I especially started to notice a lack of interest in those mythic+ dungeons as they are relatively short and hence can be repeated in a quick succession. Normally, I am quite motivated when it comes to an increased difficulty that puts my skills to a test, but due to the high amount of different mythic+ levels, the feeling of doing the same thing over and over again greatly overshadows the motivating aspects of tackling a difficult challenge.

In conclusion, providing different difficulty levels for the same content can result in an increased effect of the connected retention mechanisms while allowing every player to enjoy the virtual environments, but, at the same time, it can also reduce the motivation of players who prefer to explore new environments. It would be very interesting to see more unique content that has only a single difficulty level again.