If you’re playing through game content you don’t enjoy just in hopes of being rewarded with some virtual pixels at the end, you’re doing “entertainment” wrong.
What there is in the Mad King dungeon is… the Mad King dungeon.
If you don’t find the actual gameplay fun, maybe try a different game or a different activity in general (slot machines, perhaps).
I soloed the Mad King on my guardian (not because of any bugs; I just didn’t notice it was a group instance when I went in, and then decided I might as well try to solo it), and had a lot of fun doing it. I didn’t even open the chest at the end (didn’t notice it until my 2nd run). Did I go “doh!” when I saw it? Yes. Did that somehow erase the fun I had doing it the first time? Of course not.
This seems to be a phenomenon exclusive to MMORPGs, especially affecting ex-WoW players. You never see anyone saying “I can’t believe I beat that track in Need for Speed and didn’t get any loot!”, or “I won that TF2 match but there were no drops? This game sucks!”.
The reward for playing a game you enjoy is the enjoyment you get from playing the game. If players start making it about the virtual “loot” at the end, developers stop having any reason to make the actual gameplay any good.
- Al Zheimer