The War Within's mini-dungeons are destroying solo players, while groups sleepwalk their way through them to get 'free' loot

Delves are World of Warcraft’s new mini-dungeons, which can be completed solo. They reward some of The War Within’s best loot. Players have found they are much harder to complete alone than in a group. This has shattered the hope that Delves would be an alternative to other endgame activities such as raids and Mythic+ Dungeons.

The problem is the way Delves scales enemy difficulty for solo versus group players. Many players claim that they are a maze of environmental hazards and brutal enemy attacks when you're solo, but a breeze when you're in a group. Brann Bronzebeard - the NPC who joins you on solo runs - struggles to heal from normal enemy attacks in the high level Delves, let alone bosses. Bronzebeard can't resurrect solo players.

Many players claim that even a single person can alleviate most of these issues and make some Delves seem trivial compared to the rewards. Sloot, a WoW raider, did the math to find that solo players are required to fight enemies who have more health. This makes no sense. I'm not a game designer, but it doesn't make any sense to me. You'd expect enemy health to increase with each additional player.

The WoW subreddit has been compared to the Elden Ring subreddit earlier this year, when players were angry about Shadow of the Erdtree. Some posts beg Blizzard to not nerf the difficulties while others say that "it's almost absurd to consider them as solo content."

Reddit user Kyuuki_Kitsune stated that "right now, duo delves offer free gear and solo is almost impossible for certain classes."

Most people believe that the problem is not a skill issue but rather a balancing one. The enemies are too powerful and have too many attacks to be handled by one person. Reddit user Lpunit wrote: "I think that the difficulty is where the problem lies." "Every time I've died, it was because of unavoidable and very highly tuned damage."

I was not a big fan of Delves, but I could see their potential as a way for players to level up characters in what is essentially a Diablo dungeon embedded within WoW. They're theoretically of a piece with all the ways WoW's becoming a more singleplayer-friendly MMO. The first raid will include a 'Story Mode" version, so that solo players can experience the end of the campaign. This is a feature that people have been requesting for years.

Delves lack an identity and this is reflected in the mixed reactions from players. I can understand the desire for a challenge. But in a game that is all about gaining strength on a seasonal basis, it's not fun to feel forced to play a particular way to keep up. Especially when Blizzard marketed them as solo-friendly, challenging dungeons. Delves are better for loot than dungeons as they are right now. This doesn't make sense for a game that wasn't meant to be a replacement.
Blizzard already changed the difficulty of enemies when you level up, so I'm confident it can fix Delves too. Idealistically, they should be preferred for solo players and optional in groups. This way, people who play both ways can have a nice loop of things to accomplish. Blizzard needs to fix these issues quickly before Delves mar the first season of the expansion that has paved the way for a promising future.