Nighthold, a step backwards in terms of encounter design?

[Jastall]

I don't think so. It has its lot of cool fights; Anomaly, Trilliax (even if they're too easy), Star Augur, Elisande and Gul'dan are pretty great. And there's only 1 fight I outright dislike, Spellblade. Which is more than I can say for BRF where I hated Ore, Furnace and Maidens.

Albeit Nighthold doesn't have a fight that is as cool as Operator. But he's kinda in a league of his own because I love the concept of a boss killing us by having trains ram the raid.

[Alvito]

Would you agree atleast that some encounters in BRF, would be in the top 10 encounters blizzard has designed?

The train isn't great same with Gruul. As I said blast furnace making a class required is piss poor. The others are okay, none of them are amazing or a top tier fight in my mind though. With how brief we were in BRF compared to other raids I do think everything in there would have become very stale and lack luster if they continued further.

- - - Updated - - -

Doesn't really matter though. Blizzard calls it one tier so thats what it is.

At they same time they ask what a tier is and why it matters. Often pointing out things like 2.5 or ZA. Calling each cluster of raids is a player thing much more then it is a developer thing.

[BananaHandsB]

Comparing it to Blackrock Foundry (the second raid of the launch tier) I can't help but feel that the bosses pale in comparison to it. Every boss but Krosus does not interact with the environment at all, they just stand in an empty room and do shit.

Compare that to bosses like Hansgar, the train guy or Blackhand. Maybe it's just me but I really loved BRF, probably the one good thing that came out of WoD.

What do you think??

You raid mythic?

[Alvito]

I don't think so. It has its lot of cool fights; Anomaly, Trilliax (even if they're too easy), Star Augur, Elisande and Gul'dan are pretty great. And there's only 1 fight I outright dislike, Spellblade. Which is more than I can say for BRF where I hated Ore, Furnace and Maidens.

A great example of all of us defining what makes a raid great or bad being different for all of us. For some they just want one mind blowing fight and ideally the last one being that. Others want consistant quality and flow from fight to fight. I personally often judge a raid by it's worst encounters, doing fights I don't care for week after week will turn me off from raiding far faster then the lack of mind blowingly amazing fights. Others just want a raid to fit into the theme and story of the expansion. We all use our own metric when we judge the quality of a raid. For me the biggest knock on Nighthold is some of the trash. To be fair judging boss fights 2 weeks in when I haven't seen all of them in mythic yet and only limited kills in lower difficulties isn't fair either.

[Okacz]

Comparing it to Blackrock Foundry (the second raid of the launch tier) I can't help but feel that the bosses pale in comparison to it. Every boss but Krosus does not interact with the environment at all, they just stand in an empty room and do shit.

Compare that to bosses like Hansgar, the train guy or Blackhand. Maybe it's just me but I really loved BRF, probably the one good thing that came out of WoD.

What do you think??

"Enviroment interaction" doesn't equal great design. Okay, train boss was a pretty fun encounter at first, but it was just a shallow add fight with 4 lines of AoE you had to avoid sometimes. Conveyor Belt boss - how about you test how camera works before you make an encounter, Blizz. Blackhand just shattered the floor, the effect would be the same if he teleported people around the place.

Nighthold? Two bosses that directly affect time - Elisande is amazing design wise, with players having to maniuplate the speed of time to deal with the mechanics. Star Augur being most likely the most visually stunning boss ever. Gul'Dan being one of the most amazing fights ever. And yeah, Krosus shattering the bridge is kinda fun too. More so than train guy, since Krosus manipulating the enviroment actually does something interesting mechanics wise.

Can't really pick a boss from BRF that would be mechanically better than like, half of the fights in Nighthold.

[Spike`]

agree with OP

Whats missing is visual danger

in BRF Hansgar, the train guy or ToV Helya and now in NH Krosus you get that sensation (or immersion) that if you dont avoid something you will die, that we as a player have to be aware all the time on a fight

but almost every encounter resumes to : Healers heal mechanics and dps kill adds, because of this there isn't any immersion of danger that a player as to avoid, so the encounters especially for dps will be bland

[Jastall]

A great example of all of us defining what makes a raid great or bad being different for all of us. For some they just want one mind blowing fight and ideally the last one being that. Others want consistant quality and flow from fight to fight. I personally often judge a raid by it's worst encounters, doing fights I don't care for week after week will turn me off from raiding far faster then the lack of mind blowingly amazing fights. Others just want a raid to fit into the theme and story of the expansion. We all use our own metric when we judge the quality of a raid. For me the biggest knock on Nighthold is some of the trash. To be fair judging boss fights 2 weeks in when I haven't seen all of them in mythic yet and only limited kills in lower difficulties isn't fair either.

Yeah, I usually judge a raid by the number of fights that make me go ''ugh, not this''. It's why I have to rate SoO not that high, even if I actually enjoyed a lot of fights there (Nazgrim, Thok and Garrosh especially). But Immerseus, Galakras, Dark Shaman, Spoils and Blackfuse just tired the hell out of me.

By comparison, HFC had less highs (albeit I liked Gorefiend and Archimonde) but also less lows, only Assault and Tyrant were annoying.

I also thought Gul'dan was relatively underwhelming at first... then we tried Heroic and I changed my mind. Crazy how just adding one significant mechanic and bumping numbers can make for how enjoyable a fight can be.

Also visually, Nighthold is the best raid we've had in a loooong time, since ToT at the very least. Star Augur and Gul'dan are pretty spectacular, the former especially.

[Soulfròst]

So far you've presented no facts, just your anecdotal rambling. I refer to each patch of raiding as a tier, it's not really my problem you don't agree with it.

The word "tier" is an English word. It refers to separate rows or levels. EN was on a different level of raiding than NH. Your opinion, or Blizzard's terminology for that matter, doesn't change the English language.

@Emerald Archer

Don't bother. Some just don't understand.

[Alltat]

Yeah, I don't really get how stampers or moving fire patches is any better designed than moving orbs or patches that spawn on top of players.

Flavor. It's easier to relate to industrial machinery rather than glowing blobs of purpleness. It also makes it very intuitive how it works: conveyor belts push you in a certain direction when active, walls limit the movement of the rolling monster, bombs explode after a certain time, etc.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Not really, whilst I enjoy fights where the rooms are used, I wouldn't say we've "stepped back" in encounter design. I'm sure we'll get those sort of fights again where they fit. And I consider BRF, SoO and ToT to be the best raids of all time thanks to their mechanics. Doesn't mean we can't get tiers in the future that rival those or one up them. Also haven't done Nighthold on Mythic yet...

[Tojara]

Nighthold is fine, I still like BRF better, but not for the reasons listed. Personally I think encounter design gets better every single time they make a raid.

Krosus destroys the bridge, Star Augur has really cool effects going on during the encounter, and Gul'dan destroys the platform as you progress through the encounter. Plenty of interacting with the environment, although two of them really don't effect the encounter at all.

One of the things I like about Nighthold is that the color variation and theme is a lot different than what we have seen in the last several instances.

[Deleted]

To this day, Blackhand is one of the best encounters ever made.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

Nighthold is a very disappointing raid indeed. I'm starting to miss EN and i thought EN wasn't very good neither. WoD was a bad expansion, but the raids were amazing.

[purebalance]

Foundry had the theme to support encounters like that, NH is just a bunch of angry elves who thing they know best and that everyone else is stupid. It actually fits perfectly with whats going on in the united states where we have a group of people telling everyone else how stupid and wrong they are.

The left getting mad about what Trump does and telling everyone he's stupid?

[Alvito]

Yeah, I usually judge a raid by the number of fights that make me go ''ugh, not this''. It's why I have to rate SoO not that high, even if I actually enjoyed a lot of fights there (Nazgrim, Thok and Garrosh especially). But Immerseus, Galakras, Dark Shaman, Spoils and Blackfuse just tired the hell out of me.

By comparison, HFC had less highs (albeit I liked Gorefiend and Archimonde) but also less lows, only Assault and Tyrant were annoying.

I also thought Gul'dan was relatively underwhelming at first... then we tried Heroic and I changed my mind. Crazy how just adding one significant mechanic and bumping numbers can make for how enjoyable a fight can be.

Also visually, Nighthold is the best raid we've had in a loooong time, since ToT at the very least. Star Augur and Gul'dan are pretty spectacular, the former especially.

Yeah HFC started with a thud, that was poor design at all levels of difficulty and at any point of the raid day one or the final day.

[Valech]

I agree. BRF was far better than NH.
I'd say HM was better than EN as well.

WoD might not have been great but at least the raid were well designed in comparison.

Look guys, it started! In 2 more addons, WoD will be amongst the best addons ever. Don´t forget: What we have currently is always the worst in all ways.

[PaladinBash]

Alls I know is this place isn't shit as melee and that's okay with me.

[Emerald Archer]

Are you implying I don't understand? If so, come right out and say it. Don't be a roundabout pussy and just @ someone. I understand perfectly what Emerald Archer was assuming.

Grade school teaches us the difference between "tier" and "Tier 19". I think some don't understand the difference.

The thing is, It's Blizzards game, if they want to call an apple, a dlopsnoppler, it's a damn dlopsnoppler because it is THEIR game, THEIR creation, therefore they dictate the terminology. If Blizzard decide that a tier, is based on tier loot, and this is the first round of tier loot this expansion, It's the first tier.

Honestly, that's common knowledge man, Blizzards creation, Blizzards terminology.. World doesn't revolve around you or your opinions, this is a FaNtAsY game.

[Jaewalk]

Gul'dan fight is very dull aswell.

thats like, your opinion, man

[Deleted]

Comparing it to Blackrock Foundry (the second raid of the launch tier) I can't help but feel that the bosses pale in comparison to it. Every boss but Krosus does not interact with the environment at all, they just stand in an empty room and do shit.

Compare that to bosses like Hansgar, the train guy or Blackhand. Maybe it's just me but I really loved BRF, probably the one good thing that came out of WoD.

What do you think??

Hansgar, Train operator and BH was okay.

All i recall from BRF was the rage at the design of the Blast Furnace. That shit was just straight up bad. 10 man and no priest? Better hope you overperform all up in diiiiiiiiis