The latest Forever beta build increases experience earned from killing dungeon creatures by approximately 20%, while also fixing a bug that could dramatically reduce XP whenever a higher-level player joined the group. Together, Blizzard says the changes should make repeat dungeon runs considerably more rewarding without returning to a world where sitting inside Scarlet Monastery for several levels is the mathematically correct answer to everything.
It is a notable adjustment because we recently covered Blizzard cutting the bonus XP from dungeon quests by 50%. Before that, ordinary dungeon mob XP had already been heavily reduced to keep players in the open world. At some point, the carrot became suspiciously small.
Dungeon Mob XP Is Going Up by 20%
According to Blizzard’s latest Forever beta development notes, experience from killing creatures inside dungeons has now been increased by roughly 20%.
The more important change may be hidden immediately underneath it. Forever had been calculating XP against lower-level enemies using the highest-level player in the party. So if four level 20 characters entered a dungeon with a level 25 friend, everybody could receive severely reduced experience because the game treated the entire group as though they were level 25.
That calculation has now been reverted to Classic Era behavior, where each character’s own level determines the penalty. Blizzard believes the bug fix combined with the 20% increase will “dramatically” improve dungeon experience for many groups.
Blizzard Does Not Want Dungeons to Be One-and-Done
The change is not an abandonment of Forever’s leveling philosophy. During the latest WoW Forever Podcast, Senior Game Designer Rowan Ryder explained that Blizzard still does not want repeated dungeon grinding to become the optimal leveling route. But the previous tuning had moved too far in the opposite direction, making some instances feel like something players completed once for quests and then abandoned.
That creates an obvious social problem. Forever is adding nine new dungeons across the leveling journey, and those instances need tanks, healers and repeat players if somebody arriving later is supposed to find a group. A dungeon can hardly become a social hub if everyone disappears after collecting the blue quest reward.
The Target Is Now Questing Speed
Josh Greenfield says Blizzard’s current goal is for highly optimized dungeon leveling to land very close to, or roughly equal with, optimized questing. That is a significant distinction from Classic Era, where a strong dungeon-cleave group could comfortably outperform normal outdoor leveling.
It also fits the numbers we have already seen. Blizzard previously revealed that Forever players were reaching level 20 almost exactly as quickly as Classic players, despite Forever adding more quests, stronger classes and substantially more quality-of-life improvements. The goal has never really been to make 1–60 faster. It has been to make more ways of spending those hours enjoyable.
Blizzard May Have Found the Middle Ground
This is what beta testing is supposed to look like. Blizzard nerfed dungeon grinding because it threatened Forever’s “world is the main character” philosophy. Players pushed back because repeat runs stopped feeling worthwhile. Blizzard watched the numbers, found an XP bug and moved the reward back upward.
Dungeons are still not supposed to become an underground motorway to level 60.
But they are allowed to be worth entering more than once.
For a game building enormous new instances like Blackmaw Hold and the newly opened City of Dalaran dungeon, that seems like a fairly important distinction.
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