Modern raid design: it's a clusterfuck. In a circular room.

[Useful]

ok i ll have to do it.

Vanilla

Onyxia was a CF in a circular room
Baron Gheddon and Garr were a CF in a circular room (but they dropped legendary shit so its ok)
Rangaros was a CF in a circular room (he dropped legendary shit too yay)
Razorgore was a CF in a rectangle room
Vaelstraz was a CF in a rectangle room
Hakkar was a CF on a roof
Nefarian was a CF on a roof too

Seepding up

ALL of AQ 40 bosses were a CF in a circular room
ALL of Naxx bosees were a CF in a circular room

TBC -

Karazhan was an awesome exception with the exception of some clusterfucks in a circular rooms
Tempest keep and Underwater raid (sorry forgot the name) - Clusterfucks in rooms of different shapes, Vajshi and KT being the actual definiton of a clusterfuck encounter
Balck Temple - relatively awesome until the Illidan who was a CF on a roof (again)

Wotlk - thats where the thread started so i stop )

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Nope, there were dull encounters in circular rooms but at least they weren't clustefucks. It wasn't until MoP that Blizzard started to double down and add a gazillion mechanics to every encounter.

Most mop fights were incredibly clear in what to do.

[Woobels]

I think the circular room thing isn't entirely true but there's so much graphical bloat it just looks stupid nowadays.

[Tojara]

I'm not sure how in your initial analysis that you came up with debuff management as what Cabal is focused on, then later are seemingly confused about what the defining mechanic of Cabal is. It's odd to me that you found the answer, but chose to ignore it? Obviously interrupts can cause wipes too, but the debuff is obviously the main mechanic of the encounter. With each stack of the debuff, the other mechanics in the encounter move from trivial raid damage to one shot potential. There are times you absolutely want it cleared (interrupt adds, lightning aura during one of the artifacts), with others pushing you to maximize it's uptime to actively get by certain mechanics (fear adds, void shield artifact, and water shield artifact). Crushing doubt being the mechanic your raid has to make a judgment call on. You have the option to leave it on everybody (using raid CDs), dispel everybody, or keep it on a few people with personals or defensive trinkets.

Some of your complaints about Cabal are really dumb. There are a lot of forgettable raid encounters, but I personally don't think either of the ones in CoS are forgettable. This is even coming from somebody who dislikes the timing of this instance being released and the overall tuning of the encounter in relation to your raid growth each and every week (which is virtually none).

Aside from Molten Core (even then, there are encounters that are essentially stationary), and the drakes in BWL, most encounters take place in a box or a circle, so I don't really get the argument at all.

If your true gripe is that encounters have too rigid of tuning and that earlier raid design or overall raiding philosophy were better, well, I tend to agree to a point. I think claiming that every encounter that's in circular room is forgettable, boring or uninspired is pretty far from the truth though. It would be stupid of me to go through every encounter in the game that had a circular room (or close enough), but just know that they span every expansion in this game (including Vanilla) and that a lot of these encounters are generally the last couple bosses in an instance (and for most people, are by most measures the most memorable). Also why does an encounter have to have a stand out mechanic that defines the encounter? That by the very definition of boring would be just that 'boring' if every single encounter had to have a major mechanic to overcome.

[Dracodraco]

The current raid has no tangential rewards, none

Uber hardcore mythic, that has 0 rewards is hardly enticing

And that's what's most annoying about it. Is just the fact that the hardest(most prestigious) raid mode is now rudimental and just a waste of time.
It will be the rarest Cutting Edge title for sure... that few to no-one cares about.

Sorry but this is just silly to me, honestly. The reward from a hard mythic boss isn't the loot. I'm going to replace all of that in the first month of next tier anyway with stronger gear, because that's how the game works. The reward is the title, hall of fame, and occasionally mount. This being the most exclusive hall of fame yet and probably to happen for a long time is, to me, is plenty of reward. If you need gear to pad your item level or power up your char further to feel the encounter is worth doing, that's just not something I agree with. What rewards could mythic give you that they gave in the past, that they don't do now?

[Osmeric]

Sorry but this is just silly to me, honestly. The reward from a hard mythic boss isn't the loot.

The important point is that most of the players supposedly in the audience for this raid have turned their noses up at it. Whatever the reward was, it has failed in its primary function, which is to create interest in the content.

[Wilfire]

I'm not sure how in your initial analysis that you came up with debuff management as what Cabal is focused on, then later are seemingly confused about what the defining mechanic of Cabal is. It's odd to me that you found the answer, but chose to ignore it? Obviously interrupts can cause wipes too, but the debuff is obviously the main mechanic of the encounter. With each stack of the debuff, the other mechanics in the encounter move from trivial raid damage to one shot potential. There are times you absolutely want it cleared (interrupt adds, lightning aura during one of the artifacts), with others pushing you to maximize it's uptime to actively get by certain mechanics (fear adds, void shield artifact, and water shield artifact). Crushing doubt being the mechanic your raid has to make a judgment call on. You have the option to leave it on everybody (using raid CDs), dispel everybody, or keep it on a few people with personals or defensive trinkets.

Some of your complaints about Cabal are really dumb. There are a lot of forgettable raid encounters, but I personally don't think either of the ones in CoS are forgettable. This is even coming from somebody who dislikes the timing of this instance being released and the overall tuning of the encounter in relation to your raid growth each and every week (which is virtually none).

Aside from Molten Core (even then, there are encounters that are essentially stationary), and the drakes in BWL, most encounters take place in a box or a circle, so I don't really get the argument at all.

If your true gripe is that encounters have too rigid of tuning and that earlier raid design or overall raiding philosophy were better, well, I tend to agree to a point. I think claiming that every encounter that's in circular room is forgettable, boring or uninspired is pretty far from the truth though. It would be stupid of me to go through every encounter in the game that had a circular room (or close enough), but just know that they span every expansion in this game (including Vanilla) and that a lot of these encounters are generally the last couple bosses in an instance (and for most people, are by most measures the most memorable). Also why does an encounter have to have a stand out mechanic that defines the encounter? That by the very definition of boring would be just that 'boring' if every single encounter had to have a major mechanic to overcome.

A defining mechanic that can be safely ignored on 3 of 4 difficulties

[LuminaL]

I mean.. Lich king was a clusterfuck in a circular room.

unless you had really dumb people in your group who actually stayed to dps LK on his winter thing phase where you should have ran back to the edges, I remember 85% of the times groups were wiped because they were standing on defile. the other 25% was when again people wanted to only dps LK for the sake of being #1 dps and refused to dps valkyr who abducted players.

you had to constantly switch to different things to dps like valkyr, adds and frost orbs. god I miss bosses with systematic bossfights, BFA had zul right for that.
so one can say LK was about switching the right target at right time and typical of bossfight.

[RobertMugabe]

Nope, there were dull encounters in circular rooms but at least they weren't clustefucks. It wasn't until MoP that Blizzard started to double down and add a gazillion mechanics to every encounter.

DUDE you serious? Out of all expansions and vanilla, out of all raid encounters... it was ACTUALLY in MoP where the encounters were the most clear and most understandable.

[Huzzaa]

Sorry but this is just silly to me, honestly. The reward from a hard mythic boss isn't the loot. I'm going to replace all of that in the first month of next tier anyway with stronger gear, because that's how the game works. The reward is the title, hall of fame, and occasionally mount. This being the most exclusive hall of fame yet and probably to happen for a long time is, to me, is plenty of reward. If you need gear to pad your item level or power up your char further to feel the encounter is worth doing, that's just not something I agree with. What rewards could mythic give you that they gave in the past, that they don't do now?

In 1 word. Satisfaction.

It used to at least. Nowadays it's more along the lines of relief. "Finally done with this @#$%e". Instead of "Nice, I'm finally BiS, this is awesome." Which happened back in Cata the last time I remember it.
Gone since. I actually miss those days. That and MoP, which was sort of sane but already showing signs of lunacy with thunderforging/titanforging.

It's funny when you think about it. The title is nice but it's 1 component of the whole, of a reward for doing stuff. It's the intangible part, which few really care about showing off. The rest of us, want that power to do you know what. Tangible stuff.

... and for it to last, I mean the gear resets now are actually a massive turnoff for a lot of people I presume.

[D3athsting]

I miss the old days when you had to find your own fight room like with most of bwl bosses, on chromaggus for example my guild tried different tanking spots in different rooms to find the best way to deal with los and mechanics especially time lapse, same goes for firemaw, now you just aggro the boss in his circular room and the room locks...

[Popastique]

What exactly does the Cabal do? I can't really tell you which mechanic is supposed to be the main feature of this encounter.

Boss and Relic interaction, problem solved. Next time try reading dungeon journal or smthing like that and you won't have any questions.

[Dracodraco]

The important point is that most of the players supposedly in the audience for this raid have turned their noses up at it. Whatever the reward was, it has failed in its primary function, which is to create interest in the content.

It failed because of the timing - assuming people will be happy to keep throwing themselves against super hard bosses for weeks on end is silly, because *everyone* needs a break to recharge after they do something as demanding as kill an end-boss. That has nothing to do with the *rewards* being too bad. That there isn't a *ton* of good gear from the raid is just a justification guilds make to take that break that we rightfully should have had to prevent burnout.

In 1 word. Satisfaction.

It used to at least. Nowadays it's more along the lines of relief. "Finally done with this @#$%e". Instead of "Nice, I'm finally BiS, this is awesome." Which happened back in Cata the last time I remember it.
Gone since. I actually miss those days. That and MoP, which was sort of sane but already showing signs of lunacy with thunderforging/titanforging.

It's funny when you think about it. The title is nice but it's 1 component of the whole, of a reward for doing stuff. It's the intangible part, which few really care about showing off. The rest of us, want that power to do you know what. Tangible stuff.

... and for it to last, I mean the gear resets now are actually a massive turnoff for a lot of people I presume.

Emphasis on the last part - "gear resets" between each tier has been a thing since I started raiding in Cataclysm. You'd maybe use a single item from a previous raid tier if it was seriously overpowered (and we had that as recently as Legion with Convergence anyway), but a new raid tier has always signified that all your gear is getting upgraded, more or less. Saying it "lasted" when you got BiS in the past is 100% false.

[SirBeef]

You mean dps checks like like fetid (adds), mythrax (adds), zul (p1), ghuun (p3), rasta (bwonsamdi phase)? Even jaina p3 was a dps check, altho not by fight design but because of the tactic used.

Or do you mean dps checks like patchwerk where you're just standing still hitting a punching bag without mechanics?

Apparently that was a solid fight.

[Osmeric]

It failed because of the timing - assuming people will be happy to keep throwing themselves against super hard bosses for weeks on end is silly, because *everyone* needs a break to recharge after they do something as demanding as kill an end-boss. That has nothing to do with the *rewards* being too bad. That there isn't a *ton* of good gear from the raid is just a justification guilds make to take that break that we rightfully should have had to prevent burnout.

I was speaking of reward in a general sense, not just the in-game items one would get from the bosses. The satisfaction, the sense of pride, the feeling of dominance over others, the glow of teamwork and accomplishment -- for most who have been raiding in mythic, all these failed to motivate them to do this raid. This raid shows that all of those rewards have their limits.

[Soxoffender]

yeah, pretty much, all done to appeal to people who spend more time on forums then in the game.
oh well, it will all be over soon.
either they'll correct after vanilla or the company will go bankrupt as their future projects fail to find the fictitious market that casuals believe they are.

A multi-billion dollar company that's mostly built on PUB shooters and mobile games isn't going to collapse because it's foolishly chasing casual customers. It's not Sekiro speedrunners keeping the company going it's Candy Crush players and people who buy loot boxes for that sweet new skin to show off in their Overwatch skirmish games.

say what every you want to try and justify the dumbing down of the game to your level, just don't act like it's more popular or that it isn't a brain-dead "push the glowing button" for nearly all classes.

enjoy it, for as long as it still lasts.

For the largest part of the first 4 years of WoW the optimal dps rotation for my class was just one button. Early Wrath Affliction and setting up the initial snapshot in MoP are probably the only times I remember thinking about my rotation anywhere near as much as fight mechanics but it's never been hard to do target dummy dps.

Oh i agree, i never said they were hard, but they were a lot more punishing than they are now, not fucking up that rotation over a longer period of time was the ''hard''part.
Thats kinda my issue, before legion/wod(depending on the class) it was about doing both the mechanics and your rotation combined which made the fights difficulty, now its just mechanics. That created a new problem, which is not being able to do fights if 1-2 people are dead(unless you overgear the crap out of them)

Vanilla/TBC rotations were at least as easy as they are now and really only a handful of specs in Wrath/Cata/MoP were appreciably more difficult. Blizzard has moved to a greater emphasis on encounter design and individual responsibility providing the difficulty in the game but I really don't think it's come at the cost of rotation difficulty.

[Huzzaa]

It failed because of the timing - assuming people will be happy to keep throwing themselves against super hard bosses for weeks on end is silly, because *everyone* needs a break to recharge after they do something as demanding as kill an end-boss. That has nothing to do with the *rewards* being too bad. That there isn't a *ton* of good gear from the raid is just a justification guilds make to take that break that we rightfully should have had to prevent burnout.



Emphasis on the last part - "gear resets" between each tier has been a thing since I started raiding in Cataclysm. You'd maybe use a single item from a previous raid tier if it was seriously overpowered (and we had that as recently as Legion with Convergence anyway), but a new raid tier has always signified that all your gear is getting upgraded, more or less. Saying it "lasted" when you got BiS in the past is 100% false.

No, meaning for stuff to last is not false?(What?) How can it even be false, you're twisting my words here. I'm talking about making stuff last meaningfully longer than they last now. You of all people should actually know how much less frequently you replaced your stuff back then, Cata man. (The replacing of gear between tiers is so obvious, I'm actually wondering how you managed to make that a bullet point)

You got your BiS and you were BiS.
There was no titanforge behind the corner. And that's what I mean largely.
You replace the stuff, in The Next Tier and during the last tier, in the next expansion(Gear in the last tier, remained on your character for nearly a year). And you never replaced it with the stuff from the same raid, ooh 5 lvls higher. Now, even when on week 15 in the raid, you do(That is what is stupid, the whole gambling aspect. It should be illegal.)

The loot is so forgettable right now, that you don't really even care what it's called. They can even put an insult into them and par to none would notice.


EDIT: I'm taking these last 2 out that I had here before, because it's a bit too negative. Don't twist my words.

[Soluna]

What do all forgettable, boring and uninspired raid encounters have in common? They're all clusterfucks in circular rooms. What exactly does the Cabal do? I can't really tell you which mechanic is supposed to be the main feature of this encounter.

Is it debuff management? If you screw it up, you get instagibbed by [Crushing Doubt]. But if at least one raider falls asleep and dies to [Void Crash], you might as well wipe it anyway since the timers will be off. Missed interrupts will instagib the whole raid. Someone overaggroing at the start will instagib the whole raid. Sometimes you won't have enough cooldowns to handle the relics and they will instagib you too. The point is, I can't really tell what's supposed to be the defining mechanic of this encounter. It seems like there's just a bazillion instagib mechanics coming in from every direction. Cabal might as well be called "death by a thousand paper cuts: the boss".

Uu'nat has the same problem. It's a clusterfuck in a circular room. Conclave was a clusterfuck in a circular room. Mythrax was a clusterfuck in a circular room. So was Zul. Compare and contrast with encounter like Mekkatorque, Opulence, and Vectis. You know how to describe them in one mechanic. Mekkatorque is the voicecom encounter. Opulence is the gauntlet run encounter. Vectis is the debuff management encounter. How would you describe the Cabal? It's a clusterfuck in a circular room.

Oh look, I was just about to rage, but I won't take the bait, just noticed it's good ol' Wilfire the troll.

[salate]

ToC was cool, ToC in Hearthstone was so heartwarming...

[Vitinariy]

While I agree that 1 mechanic encounters can be unique and interesting. For example, Thaddius or Heigan, it's also extremely difficult to repeat 1-mechanic encounter.
Which is why clusterfucks would always be a thing. And I don't mind that either.