World of Warcraft Boss Design Workshop

[Stoy]

World of Warcraft Boss Design Workshop
The boss design team came up with the mechanics for the first boss for Shrine of the Storms right on stage!

Giant Water Elemental Boss

• Boss starts as full water elemental but descends into shadow.
• Boss has 3 abilities in A phase then moves to B phase and splits into smaller adds (2 or more)
• Killing Adds hurts his health bar as well
• Will add spawn locations be RNG based? Is this fight mean to melee?
• Dungeon as a whole is considered. Different bosses in dungeons test the different members of the party.
• Some sort of party damage to test healer: maybe a tank crush mechanic or a raid wide dot? Something shadow based!
• Impossible to design a fight that caters to every role. Make sure certain abilities aren't mandatory.
• Court of Stars is used as a reference for dungeons in Battle for Azeroth.
• Potential mechanic that absorbs a random party member into his body who needs to be dpsed out.
• Shadow pools on the ground will either help you from getting pushed off the platform or hinder you.
• Some boss designs focus on visually stunning mechanics and events.

[Bathory]

This was such a weird panel...

[Adam552]

I'm no longer surprised at why ToS bosses were 'generally' so badly designed

[Freeasacar]

The dungeon environment design looks great, but the water elemental boss is just Wrath of Azshara with a tentacle face. How utterly uninspired.

[Mhyroth]

Please no Court of Stars-esque Dungeons.
I loathe that Dungeon...

[Corroc]

This panel looked like a mess, it seems that they would just brainstorm "cool stuff" and not think much of anything else.

[Lolsteak]

Honestly it just sounded like they were describing the first boss of Siege of Orgrimmar

[Corroc]

Honestly it just sounded like they were describing the first boss of Siege of Orgrimmar

I thought so too. Boss submerges, kill adds to reduce health. lmao.

edit. Its actually bit embarrassing that they come out to stage and then dont even realise they are making copy of boss from mop.

[tanksin the enhance shamy]

sooo first boss of seige?

[Logwyn]

This panel looked like a mess, it seems that they would just brainstorm "cool stuff" and not think much of anything else.

Just remember!! "There are no bad ideas!"

[Lionhearte0]

People in this thread obviously have no idea what the definition of brainstorming is

[Varitok]

This panel looked like a mess, it seems that they would just brainstorm "cool stuff" and not think much of anything else.

Thats basically the whole point of it. Its how it was last year too except it wasn't streamed.

[hulkgor]

I understand what they were trying to do, like a 'inside look' at how the early brainstorming for boss encounters go, but it was awkward as hell, and even worse, they completely went in the direction of an already developed boss - Immerseus - in Siege of Orgrimmar. The model can't go very different as a water elemental, but the shadow (sha corruption), the small adds\goblets, the water jet (push away), ugh. They should have just went crazy on the ideas for the fun of it.

So yea, it wasn't that 'polished' since it probably was entirely improv'd (was it?), but i guess it served its purpose, even if not that entertaining to watch. And i guess we'll have a completely different result when the expansion is released.

[Sithalos]

So these are the people that put 50 different soaking mechanics in ToS?

Oh, their first rule is "there are no bad ideas". That explains a lot.

[SnowBlood]

Court of Stars is used as a reference for dungeons in Battle for Azeroth.

Ug, this is THE worst dungeon this expansion

[Grimo]

My God, these comments prove the old adage that those with no imagination are the ones most offended by it.

[Tarx]

I don't know but that boss in the photo looks like cthulhu . H.P. Lovecraft reserved <3

[Cab]

Well, they keep convincing each other that w/e they do it never is a bad idea... which tells A LOT. So whatever poop they produce anyone in the team is cheering - awesome. What a mess...and explains everything.
Soaking someone in who needs to be dps'ed out for example is a bad idea a really really bad idea. Soaking something in general isnt a "great" mechanic and was way overused in ToS.

[Jabbiz]

I really thought this panel was about designing a boss, not a boss fight, like showing sketches and drawings from the actual boss design. But apparently no, misleading title of a panel.

[Eazy]

Giant Water elemental boss that splits...



Wow, such innovative, very new, much fascinating, many claps for that panel.