What the hell is going on with Blizzard's encounter design?

[SupBrah]

Because Activision Blizzard tried to cut costs as much as humanly possible, and interesting raid mechanics take to long.

This is why I don't need to know 95% of fights as a tank in anything under mythic because 95% of the time all I have to worry about is a tank swap (which DBM will tell me when to do it)

[Deleted]

Because Activision Blizzard tried to cut costs as much as humanly possible, and interesting raid mechanics take to long.

This is why I don't need to know 95% of fights as a tank in anything under mythic because 95% of the time all I have to worry about is a tank swap (which DBM will tell me when to do it)

All of those fights in the past that were complicated for tanks.

[Danvash]

You mean, you want them to add more of the bosses that there were always six threads on forums/MMO Champ complaining about for the entire tier? Every boss you reduced to an add cluster has something unique about it. This is one of the most fun raid tiers we've ever had. I'd say only Blackrock Foundry and Throne of Thunder top it in terms of encounter design overall.

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The gunship fight in Dragon Soul was just a standard boss that you happened to fight on top of a gunship. Or did you mean Spine, because everyone hated that?

[thilicen]

You mean, you want them to add more of the bosses that there were always six threads on forums/MMO Champ complaining about for the entire tier? Every boss you reduced to an add cluster has something unique about it. This is one of the most fun raid tiers we've ever had. I'd say only Blackrock Foundry and Throne of Thunder top it in terms of encounter design overall.

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The gunship fight in Dragon Soul was just a standard boss that you happened to fight on top of a gunship. Or did you mean Spine, because everyone hated that?

It would seem that OP thinks the only thing that can add diversity and make encounters interesting is the environment. So gunship / augur are bestest superfunest fights ever because flashy, the rest suck massive balls because mechanics don't mean shit.

[Drefanator]

Marrowgar: Add fight (gotta kill those bones), Circular room
Lady Deathwhisper: Add fight, square room
Gunship: Add fight on 2 moving square rooms
Deathbringer saurfang: Add fight: Square room
BloodPrince Council: Circular room- Council fight, so essentially adds amiright?
Blood Queen: circular room
Festergut: Circular room
Rotface: Circular room
Professor putricide: Add fight: circular room
Valithra: Add fight, Rectangle room. Healers heal the boss!
Syndragosa: Add fight, moon shaped room
Lich King: Add fight, Circle room.



See you can really do that with almost any instance. I could do another if you'd like.

[Stardrift]

lol you think you know what add fights are.

[Alvito]

The Lich King fight actually had other things going for it except being an add cluster$%!* in a circular room. You had debuff management, the platform breaking and the Frostmourne room. The only notable thing about these new fights is that they are add cluster$%!* in circular rooms.

Yup not a single debuff to deal with in all of Nighthold. Thank goodness you pointed this selective memory nonsense out.

[Tojara]

Haha I love how people like to reminisce of the past and claim that early iterations of tanking were somehow complex, or had tanks do something other than just standing there.

Tanking is still probably one of the easier jobs to do in raids, but they occasionally make it a lot harder than it was during the beginning of this game. Molten Core was literally no tank swaps, just tanks tanked different things. BWL had a couple tank swaps but they were forced base on threat or actually dying, otherwise, no tank swaps. AQ didn't have tank swaps either, you just tanked different things. Naxx had you tank different things, stand there to soak with four horsemen being the first time the 'revolutionary' tank swap mechanic popped up. Note there were some more tank swaps in Vanilla, I just don't really want to go through every single one.

I mean I could go on and it's not really fair to encounter design, but just like this thread, it's very easy to simplify and make anything in this game seem well, uh simple.

People just don't understand that encounters that you once cherished and love are mostly complete dog shit by today's standards, and have very little mechanics compared to bosses we actually kill today. Adds are a way of 'complicating' bosses so to speak, but it's not like the adds detract from the value of the encounter. The shear fact the OP listed Trilliax as an add encounter raises eyebrows to me, considering you don't really do much with them aside from click on them to stop them from exploding.

You guys can turn blue in the face trying to convince me otherwise, but almost every encounter in this game has adds. To me it just seems like people want a fight without adds for the sake of the fight not having adds? I loved Ulduar, but every single encounter sans Hodir had adds in it if you want to be technical (and considering you had to break NPCs out of ice on Hodir, technically I guess those count as adds?). Personally I think the LK was a really shit fight, but what made the encounter difficult was the adds in every single phase. I think people want bosses to be strong on their own account and not 'taint' their image by having adds help them, which wouldn't really make sense mechanically or lore wise with most of these bosses. Why wouldn't the "LICH" King have adds? Why wouldn't Ragnaros, lord of fire not have adds?

This whole thread is basically nothing lol. There are a lot of circular rooms though, I guess that's fair. But is that really that big of a hang up? Maybe they just need to add more squares?

[Jastall]

You can reduce any fight to ''clusterfuck with adds'' if you are overly reductive, even the beloved ones such as Yogg and Ragnaros. And lo and behold, these two are also in circular rooms to boot.

[Onikaroshi]

Technically spellblade is an add fight wherever you want cause she doesn't leash, you could fight her in another bosses room if you really wanted to lol.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Your use of words like "cluster$%!*" and "mongocleave" discredits you in many ways.

.

This.

Glad to know that boss encounters aren't designed by people boiling them down to such terms.
Hell, the OP could call most boss encounters "clusterfucks with mongocleave" since TBC forward if he'd be so inclined.

[Jazzhands]

Most bosses without adds are incredibly boring. And I've literally never even thought about room shapes, because they rarely contribute anything to an encounter. And in this case we're fighting in buildings and such, so of course the rooms are going to be actual rooms. When was the last time you saw a house or building with a trapezoid room that isn't some weird sort of fun house?

But you really simplify each encounter. What the adda do and how they interact with the fight are different from encounter to encounter. It sounds like you want every boss to be tank and spank.

[Queen of Hamsters]

All of those fights in the past that were complicated for tanks.

Ah yes, I remember them well... wait... ;D

And the usual "Activison Blizzard"-card is still as moronic as always I must say.

[micwini]

Yeah this is what the game needs more of.

Love that he said that. Although Ulduar is the greatest raid of all time according to a lot of people, the vehicle fight was actually the worst of them all eventhough it was fun and innovative at the time.

[Queen of Hamsters]

But you really simplify each encounter. What the adda do and how they interact with the fight are different from encounter to encounter. It sounds like you want every boss to be tank and spank.

... You have a point there! Maybe that's the idea of these people? They pretend that they don't like current mechanics because they're "mongocleave" and whatnot when in reality they'd like to see encounters simplified in order to be able to overcome the content whilst current...?

[Tyrean]

I like the star augur fight and how the room changes throughout the fight. Other than that mechanically it's very simple. That one and krosus are my favorites.

I like the way that fight looks too, but it is just looks. You should be able to fall off the edge.

[FelPlague]

... You have a point there! Maybe that's the idea of these people? They pretend that they don't like current mechanics because they're "mongocleave" and whatnot when in reality they'd like to see encounters simplified in order to be able to overcome the content whilst current...?

like how the bosses in vanilla where

kill adds then boss, wait for curse to be removed
kill boss from max range, move out of fire
kill adds kill boss, move out of rain of fire
kill adds kill boss banish an add till it needs to be killed
kill boss stand max range
kill boss stand max range
kill adds kill boss
kill boss
kill adds
kill boss, kill some adds if your slow

that is legit (as a warlock) your job in molten core

[Tyrean]

@FelPlague you are a fairly toxic person. I am not surprised that you are attacking everyone in the thread though, posting 400+ times a day must mean you don't have time for much socialization. (or work for that matter).

Just take a step back and think about how people are bored with the raiding scene because it has not been innovating for a while. While the specific points may not be totally valid, that sentiment definitely is and that is where you should focus your energy.

Infracted

[FelPlague]

@FelPlague you are a fairly toxic person. I am not surprised that you are attacking everyone in the thread though, posting 400+ times a day must mean you don't have time for much socialization. (or work for that matter).

Just take a step back and think about how people are bored with the raiding scene because it has not been innovating for a while. While the specific points may not be totally valid, that sentiment definitely is and that is where you should focus your energy.

what?
attacking everyone in the thread? i wouldent call it attacking, but the only person in this entire thread i disagree with is the op, so i dont get your point
400 times a day? i guess i have only been on here for 16 days...
its not like there is such a thing as time when you dont work when you could post... pfft thats stupid that doesent exist

no, because it hasent

[Deleted]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1YLx62dih4

This video highlights an issue that yesterday´s Q&A completely marginalized. Matt Hoss tells the players that Titanforging is a bonus and content isn't balanced around it yet we already know that with 54 traits guilds aren't able to brute force fights at all. Technically Matt Hoss wasn't incorrect but he also completely ignored the fact that they designed fights to be almost reverse cheesy by making gear not influence player power in fights!

This seems to be a worrying trend where Blizzard doesn't realize that RNG things like titanforging are causing their development to become extremely disconnected from the fun aspect of raiding and instead forcing them to balance without gear in mind because you have to either

1) balance for titanforging and make fights way too difficult, like currently in NH and ToV pre-nerf, or
2) balance for it not existing making fights too easy, like in Emerald Nightmare

This problem is going to continue getting worse because Blizzard has created such a varying level of player power based purely on luck instead of effort and trust me, it will start to affect all levels of content and will backfire hard.