Raid bosses - change or do not change?

[Soisoisoi]

Then what? Do you think everytime a world top guild clears content, the game ends for all raiders? Raiders play just to get the first kill, and after kill is made, everyone quits?

I mean...I never saw that happen in over a decade of playing.

In short: completely irrelevant what world top guilds do or don't. It affects no one.

I'm not disagreeing with you here, to be clear, but it's not just going to be top guilds clearing all the raids in one night. Pretty much any guild who can clear normal current raids will stomp on all the Vanilla raids, assuming they can play a Vanilla char to a similar level as the current characters. Which... should be fairly simply considering how easy all the classes were then, too.

The only thing that will slow this down is the grind before the raids and gathering 30-40 people. I actually imagine a lot of guilds will go with less than 40 since most people aren't playing on potatoes now and you won't need 40 to make up for the people lagging/DCing/AFKing etc.

OT: No. If you change things, it's not Vanilla. People want Vanilla, not a "remastered" Vanilla. Even the very basic QoL changes (mass looting, for example) would be frowned upon and as much as I'd want them, I'd still say no. Big changes, as in, different bosses - hell no.

[Daggot Ur]

When Vanilla came out everything was new, the raids were hard and we saw some of bosses being alive for a long period of time(sometimes due to them being unkillable before nerf). Now that we're going back into vanilla on official wow servers, would it be a good idea to update boss fights to make them more challening for todays playerbase? Before you say "fuck that" just hear me out.

I realize that it could still be considered hard for some people but in all honestly every tactic is already out there and one of the best things about vanilla progression was figuring out how to beat a boss.
Content in legion is beaten at a fast pace, only mythic have a chance of being uncleared for a while, especially for the avg player. With that in mind, would it be a good idea for Blizzard to redesign boss fights and add mechanics to reflect the 2017 era of wow players rather than 2004-07 era? With this ensuring that these large raids feel as epic as they did back in the good old days.

No.
First - it's not Vanilla any more. Second, updated boss mechanics will be unkillable with original Vanilla game design. They were hard already with what we had in our arsenal. So no you need to change everything. Third - who cares if Method or another top guild will clear MC or BWL or AQ or Nax in the first day/week/month. WHO CARES? WE go there to experience this content ourselves. Did you clear AQ40 or Vanilla Nax on retail - good for you if you did, but for the rest 98% of us we didn't and we want to experience it just the way it was initially built by Blizz. Remember, the chase is better than the catch.

[Drefan]

No.
First - it's not Vanilla any more. Second, updated boss mechanics will be unkillable with original Vanilla game design. They were hard already with what we had in our arsenal. So no you need to change everything. Third - who cares if Method or another top guild will clear MC or BWL or AQ or Nax in the first day/week/month. WHO CARES? WE go there to experience this content ourselves. Did you clear AQ40 or Vanilla Nax on retail - good for you if you did, but for the rest 98% of us we didn't and we want to experience it just the way it was initially built by Blizz. Remember, the chase is better than the catch.

How would diffrent mechanics make them unkillable if designed around vanilla tools?
I'm just implying that bosses designed more around current player skill would make it a better experience even if it deviates from some of the "classic design". Because then it would be hard again and not roll-over content you just run through to experience it one more time.

[s_bushido]

It's funny how the announcement that they're going to be releasing a classic server has drawn all of the "well, on second thought, I don't actually want to play vanilla WoW" people out of the woodwork. I am of the opinion that people have been pissing and moaning about vanilla WoW for so long that vanilla WoW is exactly what they should get. Zero QoL changes, zero rebalancing, zero improvements. Well...except for maybe a graphical update, since that has nothing to do with gameplay.

I do, however, understand that the people who express this opinion are those smart enough to realize that there have been a ton of improvements to the game since vanilla. So kudos for that, at least. But asking for changes defeats the purpose. People will play the handful of raid viable specs against bosses with one or two mechanics and they will like it. Or they'll realize that maybe, just maybe, vanilla WoW wasn't as great as their nostalgia insists that it was and the server will be a ghost town months later.

[gkai]

I'm all for keeping things the same in vanilla, but in terms of difficulty you need to change it up. Vanilla raiding will be way to easy to the point where most people are going to ask for an increase in difficulty.

[Daggot Ur]

How would diffrent mechanics make them unkillable if designed around vanilla tools?
I'm just implying that bosses designed more around current player skill would make it a better experience even if it deviates from some of the "classic design". Because then it would be hard again and not roll-over content you just run through to experience it one more time.

To answer your question - it was difficult to move in the raid back then because of almost no instant casts, weak aoe heals. Holding threat was a problem and tank was standing, imagine him constantly moving. Melee had hard time with dragons because of cleave, tail swipes etc. Add modern mechanics on top of that and it would be too extreme. Yes modern mechanic is more sophisticated, but introducing it will require chages to the classic game design. Let's not reinvent the wheel please - it was fine just the way Blizz designed it. That's what we want.

[Drefan]

To answer your question - it was difficult to move in the raid back then because of almost no instant casts, weak aoe heals. Holding threat was a problem and tank was standing, imagine him constantly moving. Melee had hard time with dragons because of cleave, tail swipes etc. Add modern mechanics on top of that and it would be too extreme. Yes modern mechanic is more sophisticated, but introducing it will require chages to the classic game design. Let's not reinvent the wheel please - it was fine just the way Blizz designed it. That's what we want.

I assume you're now discussing Nefarian. And let's be honest the hardest part about that fight these days is remembering to equip your cloak.
I'm not saying you would need reinvent the wheel because you're introducing mechanics that doesnt fit vanilla gameplay, I'm saying you introduce other/new/more mechancis that increases the difficulty of fights without stepping outside whats possible for a vanilla raid.

Dont get me wrong, I will still play vanilla regardless since every content becomes a loot pinata after a certain time anyways, but I think the game would benefit from an increased level of difficulty since vanilla was hard back then and will not be now.

[Daggot Ur]

I assume you're now discussing Nefarian. And let's be honest the hardest part about that fight these days is remembering to equip your cloak.
I'm not saying you would need reinvent the wheel because you're introducing mechanics that doesnt fit vanilla gameplay, I'm saying you introduce other/new/more mechancis that increases the difficulty of fights without stepping outside whats possible for a vanilla raid.

Dont get me wrong, I will still play vanilla regardless since every content becomes a loot pinata after a certain time anyways, but I think the game would benefit from an increased level of difficulty since vanilla was hard back then and will not be now.

I refer to pretty much every fight in there. Ony - threat problems (wand dps only ), no space problems, not enought dps at flight phase problems. Add a simple mechanic like cave in in there or even Wotlk ony version with a big mob running in there and you will have a wipefest like never before.
Ragnaros - hard as it is. Add another aoe mechanic in there durin any phase and you got a wipefest. Even as simple as Luci - add another aoe mechanic to the fight and you will have tons of wipes because people will just run out of mana (first boss, crap gear, no hp). These bosses were hard with the arsenal we got. More stuff added in there can make them even worth.

[Drefan]

I refer to pretty much every fight in there. Ony - threat problems (wand dps only ), no space problems, not enought dps at flight phase problems. Add a simple mechanic like cave in in there or even Wotlk ony version with a big mob running in there and you will have a wipefest like never before.
Ragnaros - hard as it is. Add another aoe mechanic in there durin any phase and you got a wipefest. Even as simple as Luci - add another aoe mechanic to the fight and you will have tons of wipes because people will just run out of mana (first boss, crap gear, no hp). These bosses were hard with the arsenal we got. More stuff added in there can make them even worth.

Having a cluster fuck of mechanics to make the fights challenging was not my point. My point was that if you've more modern mechanics in these fights, maybe improving on the old ones/removing them make room for new ones (that still fit the vanilla gameplay) would make the classic experience better.

I know 99.99% just want classic on blizzard official servers I get that and I want that too. However, the whole point of this thread is to argue that perhaps increasing the difficulty of PvE would be better than keeping the current difficulty. Since all other aspects of vanilla is still "pretty hard", but raids are still simple.