World of Warcraft: Forever Boosts Dungeon Experience by 50 Percent
Blizzard has raised the experience points players earn from enemies inside dungeons by 50 percent in World of Warcraft: Forever. The change went live at about 11:05 PST on November 8, according to Blizzard's forum post announcing it.
Experience points, or XP, are the points that move a character up to the next level. Dungeons are instanced areas, separate from the open world, where a small group works through a set route and fights its way to a final boss. Enemies in these areas are often called mobs, short for mobile units.
Community manager Kaivax said the increase was made "so it feels better to go back in for more runs." A run is one full trip through a dungeon, and many players repeat them to gear up or to level.
The change reverses an earlier decision. Developers had reduced dungeon enemy XP to discourage power-leveling, the practice of gaining levels quickly by repeating content, and to encourage players to explore the wider world instead of hopping between instances. Eurogamer reports that even after the 50 percent boost, dungeon mob XP rates remain at 36 percent of the original Classic rate.
Forever launched globally on November 4. It lets players adventure to level 60 across the original continents of the game's world. Eurogamer reports that the launch is the biggest in the franchise's history by concurrent players, meaning the number of people logged in at the same moment, surpassing Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm.
Blizzard has also been adjusting the game in smaller steps. Its news page lists a set of hotfixes for Forever, the quick patches used between larger updates, and a separate set of hotfixes for its other versions of World of Warcraft, including Midnight, several Classic releases and Hardcore. Gamepad support for Forever is available in beta, a testing stage in which features can still change before a full release.
For players, the practical effect is simple. Enemies in dungeons now give more XP than they did before November 8, though still less than the original Classic rate.
