Raiding against user controlled raidbosses, a poll...

[TooMuch]

That actually only sounds 'dynamic' and 'interesting', but what you're going to end up with is a standard raid boss.

Take Jin'rokh for example. You can throw the tank at a pillar (maybe this is not a good idea since you're giving the raid more dps but let's just play along), create lightning to follow someone, ionize the raid and call a storm. All of those abilities will have to have some sort of cooldown and the best way to use them will be on cooldown almost all the time. You can't change aggro mechanic or everyone would go for the healers and if you can't change aggro mechanic, you as a boss can't move either since you're practically leashed to the tank (or whoever has the most aggro on you). Best what you can do is to use mechanics on the worst player and hope they will play bad and cause a wipe. Rest is pretty much the same as what Jin'rokh does, except maybe in a different order.

What if the total set of abilities is bigger than that of Jin'Rokh? The thing is raidbosses use their abilities in a fixed order, this way there is more randomness to the fight. People really have to adapt to what's happening, instead of watching their DBM clues (which even is hard for a big part of the playerbase).

[laplacedemon]

What if the total set of abilities is bigger than that of Jin'Rokh? The thing is raidbosses use their abilities in a fixed order, this way there is more randomness to the fight. People really have to adapt to what's happening, instead of watching their DBM clues (which even is hard for a big part of the playerbase).

Number of abilities don't matter, what those abilities do are more important.

Take Lei Shen transitions for example. When Diffusion Chain, Overcharge, Static Shock, Bouncing Bolts and Helm of Command are going to happen is known. Just five abilities, yet it's complicated to deal with, because for one, all of them are possibly deadly abilities and you don't know who's going to get what so you have to deal with the situation in a quick manner. It doesn't have to be random in terms of order to be complicated, but you also can't make it any more random than this, at least without nerfing those abilities.

Heroic fights are already complicated (not all of course) and random-ish. You have to have a plan to survive, execute it while reaching the benchmark dps/hps and react to things going wrong. While the boss abilities are scripted, people aren't...

[ripponesan]

Well i like the idea. Really!

But i am 100% sure that i wouldnt like what the players would make of it.
When you then play a boss, it doesnt differ much from playing your character, you just got other skills and abilities. So in the end there will be players that are able to play the boss good, to the full extent of his abilities. And there will be the bad ones and lots of players somewhere in between.

So the difficulty it takes to bring down that boss sure relys on the abilities the boss has at hand, but even more on the player who plays the boss.
Which means there might be huge differences in difficulty to bring down that boss, depending which player plays it and with what in mind.
Imagine a really skilled player, maybe even a heroic raider (who knows what makes raids struggle), plays said boss and is highly motivated to show the raid what that boss is actually able to.

Pair that up with a half casual raid, or not that good players, or even players that are good but just wanted to go slow for an afternoon, and you will get crying, name calling, flaming and shaming and lots of drama.

And i am talking just of player abilities here, not of the will to grief others. That just comes on top of this.
So in the end, yeah i LOVE the IDEA, but i am sure i would HATE the IMPLEMENTATION.

I already see it in my head, where the boss sees that the raids healers have used their raid CD assuming a STOMP or <insert ability that needs a raid CD to come over it>, while he didnt do it. And he then just goes for it right after the raid CD vanished.

[Deleted]

What the fuck are you people talking about? Player bosses would try to wipe the raid?

Of course they would! Its their fucking goal. But it complicates things when players have their own abilities and tactics aswell. And tactics do not mean rigid plan in how to kill boss, tactics mean that you have certain reactions and learned patters what you do if X happens etc. Like in RTS game.

It would probably work way that boss has certain set of abilities and players know them aswell, and player can use this abilities as he wishes. At some point there would be certain viable tactics for boss players and raiders will tweak their tactics according.

Completely viable and doable in wow, but i doubt blizzard will ever introduce that.

[Inval1d]

This has no place in WoW and is an incredibly bad idea.

[Ator]

It's possible.

Adding some mechanics to ensure players uses the bosses abilities against their raid.
If you don't use abilities, the boss will start AoEing with heavy damage.

Boss abilities:
- Mortal Strike
- AoE
- Void zones

[Spiralphoenix]

If such a thing was to be implemented, there would obviously still have to be restrictions on what player controlled bosses could do. They wouldn't just "go kill all of the healers" because obviously, that wouldn't be fun, or even remotely possible for the non-boss characters, and would never be implemented. If you're going to consider a new idea, you need to consider it within a framework that it actually makes sense, not within the current game.

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but people are so damn shortsighted when considering an idea that's largely different from the way it is now. Obviously something like this could not work in the current design of the game (or rather, the current design of the raid bosses), so the design of the game would have to change. It could definitely be done, it's just a question of whether or not it'd be worth doing, how much developer time it would take, whether people would actually enjoy it... etc. etc...

I think it might be interesting on a Proving Grounds sort of scale, but I think it's a bit too big of a jump from standard WoW raiding to fit within the current game.

[Deleted]

This sounds to my ears as de facto Superman -PvP.

[Forgettable]

It would be fun to do, but it obviously could not reward loot. My raid group always wants to "Kill the Forgettable boss" so this would be a good opportunity to do so without going to the Nagrand arena to have them all try to beat me up on my Blood DK :P

[DrStiglit]

Mmm, you think very negative about the playerbase

That's because it's true.. If you give the players control of anything they will find a way to abuse it..

[LeperHerring]

Awesome idea to replace world bosses. These bosses would spawn randomly in the world and a player, or a group of players could take control. Then let the controllers to post in a global chat to taunt players to come and try to kill them. One player could control movement, others could have control over special abilities, spawning adds, changing "phases" (=different sets of abilities), etc. etc. Obviously some mechanics like threat wouldn't be in there, but for a world boss that hardly matters.

[Marston]

As a sort of minigame, maybe a special scenario, that might work.

Basically, the player get more rewards if they last longer/kill the boss/do something special, where as the "dungeon master" could use various abilites and place them in RTS style on the ground to kill/hinder the players. He could get rewards for killed players, damage done, monster summoned etc. pp.

Basically like the game Dungeonland as a Scenario. Would probably work better then a single boss fight.