Nighthold, a step backwards in terms of encounter design?

[Aggrophobic]

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.

The WoD raids have always been regarded as well designed and to be fair, compared to Legion, WoD was pretty great.
That does not mean it was a good expantion though.

[munkeyinorbit]

Thread went from 0 to TRUMP real quick huh.

I know right. I bet netherflame justs looks for new ways to fir his trump hate into each of his posts.

[Deleted]

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.

Are you saying that you decides whats tier 1-2-3 in a game?
Think that it is the developer, but hey i got no evidence of that.
Just that they themselves (Blizzard) have said it.

But maybe your grade school teacher is like jesus.

[Gasparde]

Because the 3 BRF bosses you listed were so awesome.

Hans/Franz and Thogar were basically just covering parts of the room with voidzones. Yes, they did that in a neat theme, but basically it was just voidzones.
Blackhand didn't do much either. He sent you from a circular room into another circular room... and then another room. Like, yea, there were visual differences...
but that's it. Garrosh had 17 different boss rooms too, guess that must have been a good fight, right?

Do you expect every other boss to have a changing scenery from now on? Pretty much every boss being Star Augur?

Visuals are neat, but it's mechanics that matter. And while Thogar had some of the best visuals/theme ever it basically was just dodge the sequence of 300 voidzones.

[Soulfròst]

Glad to know I'm not the only one who sees it the right way.

[hablix]

Nighthold fights are my kinds of fights. Movement, dodging, stacking here now, stacking there later, avoid this, DO stand in this, etc. I like fights that are about playing my character and casting spells as opposed to coordinated puzzle solving.

[Deleted]

Thread went from 0 to TRUMP real quick huh.

What do you expect from a thread where the OP has this avatar?

[Okacz]

You can hate WoD all you want. But how can you hate BRF as a raid?

Well, it just was not that great. Most encounters were kind of lackluster, only a few were memorable (Kromog and Blackhand for encounter design, Train guy because trains). I mean, what was fun about going to the right? Gruul is meh, Oregorger sucks ass, Foundry is somehow worse than Oregorger. And in comparison to, for instance, Nighthold, everything around you has the same shade and color, making it a boring raid to look at. Hell, most of the bosses in Highmaul were better, Mar'Gok in particular.

[Daevelian]

I.... do not know what to say. People actually thought BRF was a good raid?

Man, people must have some pretty low standards nowadays.

[Alltat]

I.... do not know what to say. People actually thought BRF was a good raid?

Man, people must have some pretty low standards nowadays.

It had a strong theme, varied encounters, and actually used the rooms for something other than backdrops. I'd argue it's the best raid tier ever, and I've raided every single one when it was relevant.

[Leih]

It had a strong theme, varied encounters, and actually used the rooms for something other than backdrops. I'd argue it's the best raid tier ever, and I've raided every single one when it was relevant.

I wouldn't say it's the very best, but I definitely rate it somewhere in the top 5 for sure. It had some very cool, creative encounters and a great environment. The layout was nice and actually felt like a coherent intertwined place instead of a linear series of rooms and corridors with bosses in the middle as many raids do. I rate it highly, alongside my other favourites such as ToT, Sunwell, Ulduar and Siege.

[Nefarious Tea]

Fun facts:

Mechanically there is no difference between Thogar's trains and Krosus' Fel beam.

Mechanically there is no difference between Hanz'gar and Franz'ok's crushers and any other void zone.

Mechanically there is no difference between Blackhand's room changes and Elisandre's.

You're not wrong that BRF had some serious industrial theme and Blizzard rolled with it really hardcore, but the themes in Nighthold are quite a bit different.

My one disappointment with NH is that there should be demons everywhere. We see Fel-nightborne all over the place questing in Suramar, but the only place we see them in Nighthold are adds during the Tichondrius encounter. On the other hand, I also understand why Blizzard didn't really do that, which is because the next two raid tiers are going to be nothing but demons and people would get sick of them just as we did with orcs in WoD, or the monochromatic color palettes of BRF and HFC.

[Bryntrollian]

Thread went from 0 to TRUMP real quick huh.

Well the original poster does have our glorious Emperor as his avatar picture.

[Deleted]

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.

People always praised the raids in WoD, that's not what made WoD shit.

[cuafpr]

the thing i love about Krosus is that the "enrage" timer is him destroying every section of the bridge, i hate bosses that are just like ok after X minutes i'm tired of you BAM one shot. Krosus is so good in that regards vs the other fights.

[BadguyNotBadGuy]

Because the 3 BRF bosses you listed were so awesome.

Hans/Franz and Thogar were basically just covering parts of the room with voidzones. Yes, they did that in a neat theme, but basically it was just voidzones.
Blackhand didn't do much either. He sent you from a circular room into another circular room... and then another room. Like, yea, there were visual differences...
but that's it. Garrosh had 17 different boss rooms too, guess that must have been a good fight, right?

Do you expect every other boss to have a changing scenery from now on? Pretty much every boss being Star Augur?

Visuals are neat, but it's mechanics that matter. And while Thogar had some of the best visuals/theme ever it basically was just dodge the sequence of 300 voidzones.

I didnt like BRF, but i gotta say, the complexity created in the Garrosh fight simply by having a buncha little things to keep track of, was one of the reasons i really liked that fight.
It was awful in pugs, but mechanically, its probably one of my favourite fights in the game.

- - - Updated - - -

the thing i love about Krosus is that the "enrage" timer is him destroying every section of the bridge, i hate bosses that are just like ok after X minutes i'm tired of you BAM one shot. Krosus is so good in that regards vs the other fights.

so you like "soft" enrage timers then

Quite a few of those throughout the years :P

[Manabomb]

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.

It's almost as if they took design effort out of raiding and put it back into the rest of the world.

And gee, would you look at that. Legion is a better expansion on the whole!

Encounter design wise I actually enjoy Gul'dan far more than Blackhand. Blackhands phase changes were always so damn clunky. Looked cool, but clunky as shit.

[Lady Dragonheart]

I'd have to say that I really enjoyed BRF as a raid as well, especially regarding its mechanics and themed boss fights really tying in well with them. Night hold is decent, though, considering the premise which isn't very strong to begin with. It was limiting material considering other dungeon and solo campaign bosses that are based on the same themes.

[Soulfròst]

Gonna get lynched for this, but I actually really, really liked HFC. Granted, I didn't have to continuously raid it week after week for 10 months straight like a lot of people. This was during a time in the game where I'd been on an extended break, only logging in for garrison (lol) missions. I only cleared it less than 10 times while it was current.

It had a great sense of apocalyptic risk once you got to the upper reaches of the citadel. It was very clear that the Legion was coming back to fuck us up. The different colored, tri-wing layout also reminded me of ICC, so that's always welcome.

That said, I really like Nighthold as well. The art team has really outdone themselves on the visuals of Suramar City and Nighthold, they're absolutely gorgeous. In addition, they got creative with the mechanics of some of the fights (Trilliax cake and roombas, and the time mechanics that both Elisande and Chronomatic Anomaly use come to mind). I've got hella ants in the pants to see what they've got up their sleeve for Tomb of Sargeras and Argus.

[shaunika123]

and then you have trilliax who's the most hilarious boss in the game

but i think you're kinda wrong about NH

a: it introduced a totally new mechanic (time dilation)
b: aesthetically it's beautiful (star augur's room is gorgeous for example)
c: it has krosus (which youve mentioned too) which is a really cool idea
d: plus we finally get to kill that Ahole guldan

dont get me wrong, BRF was for the most part a really well designed raid, and operator is one of my favourite bosses
but NH has a lot of cool stuff in it as well, and BRF had blast furnace