As a disclaimer before we begin, this is a huge topic and I'll probably not get all of my ideas down here in this one post, but I thought I'd talk a little about the notion of character progression in WoW.
Though many discount its existence (a large reason why I think Cataclysm will be remembered unfairly, even though it accomplished the Herculean task it set out to,) the first and arguably most formative period of character progression is leveling.
Leveling up a new character - be it your first or the 17th alt - you see your character grow stronger at a very steady rate. Not only that, but assuming you don't just chain dungeon runs, this is the period where you'll actually see most of the world and experience most of the story in the game. Not only that, but this is where you build up the arsenal of abilities that will define your capabilities from then on.
The progression that you experience while leveling up has, actually, taken a slight hit in the Cataclysm and later the Mists talent/spec revamp. It used to be that after hitting level ten, you would get a talent point every level to put into your talent trees. Also, in the era of spell ranks, it was rare to go a level without getting a new ability, or at least a more powerful version of an ability (though I do not miss spell ranks.) Still, each level you will still at least grow a bit more powerful, with your baseline stats going up and your relative power against foes of higher levels growing better (for example, hitting an enemy two levels higher than you is way easier than hitting one three levels higher.)
However, because they need a baseline place for you to be - a playing-field leveler - there is a maximum level, and when you hit that max level, things change considerably.
Other than assigning that last talent point, once you hit level 90, you are in the state that you will be for the rest of the expansion's life cycle. Instead, the focus shifts to gearing (and reputation, though that mostly serves as an avenue to gear.) You cannot grow more powerful except by getting higher-quality armor and weapons (well, and refining your play-style, but that's not in-game progression.)
This is where the realms of PvE and PvP make their big divide. PvPers may go into Battlegrounds and Arenas, and that's where they will remain for the rest of the expansion, building up Honor and Conquest points to purchase all of their gear.
The PvE path (which I understand to be far more popular) has evolved tremendously over the course of WoW's lifespan, but the central avenue has always been running instances. When one hits the cap (perhaps doing a few extra quests to get blue quest rewards,) one begins to step into level-cap dungeons until one is geared enough for heroics (another big change Mists made, which is to skip this step and have level 90 people go straight into heroics.)
Heroics are fun, and actually may be my favorite thing to do in the game, but the reward system is set up so that one uses heroics as a stepping stone to get into raids.
Much of the controversy over LFR is to what degree it is a necessary stepping-stone to get into "real" raids (and despite the quotations, I do think there is a huge difference between LFR and raiding with your guild.)
Raiding has sat as the pinnacle of PvE content ever since Molten Core was the only one that existed. Granted, the design philosophy has shifted to try to make raiding accessible to the masses (maybe it's just my guild's changing roster, but I really think that they did this best in Wrath of the Lich King, as Naxxramas at level 80 was the perfect starter raid,) but this is still the thing that the elite look to when they want to prove themselves.
There is an interesting question to be asked, though, which is whether there ought to be other paths.
The emphasis on daily quests in Mists was, I think, an attempt to create a new path through which people could progress. Technically speaking, with enough time, you could get a full set of (at least at this point) decent epics purely through daily questing. I think that the only reason there's been such an outcry over this is that they took something the instance-runners had (VP gear) and put it behind the wall of dailies. Had they left VP much as they had in Cataclysm, and simply said "and here's a vendor who will sell gear specifically for daily-quest heroes!" I think we'd be hearing far less complaining (some would certainly still cry foul, but they'd have much less of a leg to stand on.)
I, for one, think that non-instanced, non-pvp player progression would be a great thing for the game. The question is what that sort of progress it should entail, and what kind of rewards one would get.
The whole idea of progression in any RPG, MMO or otherwise, is that one grows more powerful the more one does. While cool mounts and transmog gear are enough to motivate a lot of people (and I've even advocated for more transmog sets to be produced as rewards for things,) if we are truly to create a new kind of player progression, we would need a way to increase the player's power. The obvious solution is, of course, better gear. But how do we distinguish this gear from regular PvE gear? Some might say "just make it crappier," which is certainly a solution that I imagine most would jump to, but I think it would do a lot to discourage players from bothering spending time with something like this.
Instead, let's try thinking outside the box: In standard group DPS, the player is supposed to focus entirely on damage-dealing, leaving nothing for defense. An arms warrior with parry gear or a rogue with a dodge trinket is just "doing it wrong." But if we were to create a hardcore soloing progression path - one with real challenges - these sorts of stats may begin to look attractive. However, simply using dodge and parry would leave anyone with a cast-time out in the cold. Sure, ranged classes generally have means to keep their enemies away from themselves, but it may be more interesting, and indeed, would help to differentiate this from standard PvE to create a new stat. Much as PvP gear is defined by PvP Resilience (and Power,) this hardcore questing path would have something like "Questing Defense." It could do things like reduce overall damage taken as well as reducing casting time lost from getting hit or granting crit-reduction.
Questing these days is generally pretty easy, but it's mainly thought of as a means to an end. Daily quests, for example, have very little plot to them, even if the faction has a cool personality to it. However, when I think about some of my favorite quests and quest chains, the ones that often stick out are the "mini-dungeons," like Jaedenar in Felwood (much better post-Cataclysm, as you don't have to run back and forth to talk to the questgiver) or the fight across Darkcloud Pinnacle in Thousand Needles.
Creating content like this that was rich in story and challenging to complete would be very cool. In some ways, this is what scenarios could be. My only problem with scenarios is really that they don't give a very compelling reward. The three-man team for Scenarios is almost as small a group you can put people into, but as Blizzard has said, Scenarios are not exclusively for three people - the tech can support any number from one to forty.
One could imagine creating a batch of these events and scenarios, perhaps even creating a mix of instanced and non-instanced ones. Completing each event the first time would give you a standard quest reward, but subsequent completions would net you a currency with which to purchase pieces of gear that reinforce that type of play.
To make sure this feature was taken seriously, the difficulty would have to be tuned quite high, at least for the hardest challenges (perhaps creating separate difficulties,) while also giving compelling rewards. The presence of "Questing Defense" on the gear would keep those not interested in it from feeling they had to do it to progress while not punishing its adherents by giving them no gear.
In many ways, this is sort of what I think a lot of people were hoping the Brawler's Guild would be. It doesn't seem that will be the case, but Blizzard has also mentioned "Proving Grounds" as a future feature they're working on that would allow one to prove oneself (including skill at tanking and healing.)
The point is, dailies are never going to be the most exciting end-game content, even if they've had some very clever ideas about them. Creating a hardcore quest progression path would take a lot of work, but I think it would be amazing.
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