Are Bosses actually getting "better"?

[RapBreon]

A lot of people have come to the same conclusion, it's a largely subjective experience.

So then, I pose the question, how do you we come to the conclusion that fights are better than they used be? It's a claim I see quite often.

More mechanics is the most obvious argument and I agree that too few mechanics makes things sparse, but I do not necessarily equate more with better.

To be honest objective analysis seems impossible and that the only standard is experience (or 'fun'). That would require a large amount of data gathering however. I wonder if Blizzard has a social research team.

[rinleezwins]

Yup, that is what I was thinking too. People keep claiming that the bosses have become easier or harder, but that too should be only a subjective matter.

There is just a lot more going on compared to classic/tbc. More mechanics, classes require more focus, the pace is much faster. The game became dynamic. Go watch some molten core Ragnaros kill video for example. Most of healers/casters never even move and spam 1 or 2 spells. How was that challenging? The challenge was actually getting all 40 people in the instance and spot the town AFKers, rather than having good players.

[Varabently]

I think they are getting a bit complicated in some cases. But that's been the trend since Cata. I'd prefer the bosses rely more on DPS/Healing/Tank throughput (tank throughput is dps + reducing damage I guess?), i.e. player skill/gearing than their ability to memorize boss mechanics.

But maybe that's just because I played for too long and remember the old bosses that were less complicated. That being said, even back to level 60 there were relatively complicated fights, but most of them had one or two real "mechanics" and the rest was a gear check. What I'd like to see is a comparison of each raid tier to see the average number of mechanics per fight over WoW's duration. I'd wager it spikes here or there, but generally goes up up up.

[RapBreon]

There is just a lot more going on compared to classic/tbc. More mechanics, classes require more focus, the pace is much faster. The game became dynamic. Go watch some molten core Ragnaros kill video for example. Most of healers/casters never even move and spam 1 or 2 spells. How was that challenging? The challenge was actually getting all 40 people in the instance and spot the town AFKers, rather than having good players.

I don't think many people dispute the actual boss fights in Vanilla were worse in terms of mechanical demands. But we have multiple expansions between Vanilla and MoP. Additionally, pace doesn't necessarily mean good (FF14:ARR was a slow game but had great fights) and neither does quantity of mechanics.

As for classes I find that hard to comment on, I remember enjoying the older classes more, I dislike the designing a class around a rotation. They don't feel more complex just more homogenized.

[Deleted]

Simple answer is no. You as a player are just better at the game then you was when it started.

[Warlord Booty]

Am I really the only one that liked faction champions?

Not at all, in fact it is one of the most favorite "boss" encounters for a lot of people, but it is probably the #1 "boss" encounter as far as "really liked" vs "really hated" with no a ton of people in the middle.

I loved it, so many PVE heroes that HATED PVP (you know the type, the ones that bitch and complain so hard during childrens week or the legendary chain cuz they HAVE to PVP) would die early on or bitch that there wasn't an agro table etc. I remember one raid night, the RLs were talking on vent about you can easily tell which people in the raid were PVPers given the tiny little nuances (my using natures grasp and then taking 2 steps to being out of range of the melee and effectively CCing him), especially those of us that would do things like Wintersgrasp together.

[Deleted]

Not at all, in fact it is one of the most favorite "boss" encounters for a lot of people, but it is probably the #1 "boss" encounter as far as "really liked" vs "really hated" with no a ton of people in the middle.

I loved it, so many PVE heroes that HATED PVP (you know the type, the ones that bitch and complain so hard during childrens week or the legendary chain cuz they HAVE to PVP) would die early on or bitch that there wasn't an agro table etc. I remember one raid night, the RLs were talking on vent about you can easily tell which people in the raid were PVPers given the tiny little nuances (my using natures grasp and then taking 2 steps to being out of range of the melee and effectively CCing him), especially those of us that would do things like Wintersgrasp together.

Haha definitely this! Brings back memories of Mages crying, mages of all people on ventrilo asking "How can i live? How can i survive when boss is on me?"

Not like you have a giant repertoire of control or escapism at your command or anything.

[mercychan]

So basically you're asking us to discuss your opinion?

no
/10char

[Orangetai420]

You're right, it's impossible to have an opinion based discussion. oh wait (it's not)

its impossible to have an objective discussion on something based on opinion. try not to be a toolbag when you respond to someone.

As soon as we talk about fights getting "better" its subjective and there's no point. However if we talk about our favorite fights and why they are our favorite we might get somewhere.

[TheEaterofSouls]

Dark Shaman is a horrendous fight for any melee class. F*ck that fight, and I hope Blizzard never does something like it again. The expansion in general seems to favor ranged classes, hopefully they balance it in WoD.

[Deleted]

To simplify, let's talk only about gameplay. Let's forget social and immersion stuff.

First off all, I think that raiding will never have the potential in term of pure gameplay pvp or pve in small group have. That's mainly because in raids you don't have to worry that much about your own life. I thought this during Vanilla and I still think it now.
However Blizzard decided to invest PVE HL and develop classes around the fact that they should be fun to play in raids.
So, most of the bosses in Vanilla and BC had few ability. Obviously that doesn't means these bosses were easy. Because one mistake could easily lead to a wipe. That's a huge difference with current heroic raiding. Anyway, that's how the difficulty was set and it's all gone with WOTLK.
So Wrath came and they have made big changes :


• They have made the rotations more complex while adding cooldowns and procs.

• They have made threat easy to build so it's no longer a problem. As well they made tank healing easy so we rarely wipe due to a tank death. As a more general state, the mistakes of players rarely leads immediately to a wipe (LK is a notable exception).

• They have given bosses many deadly ability who involve every players : if you fail you die but it doesn't lead immediately to a raid wipe.

I have to admit that I prefer the WOTLK system, ie dying because I failed instead of because the tank died, or a fellow failed at something. I feel more involved and it push me to play better.

During T13 and T14 the design shifted a bit :

• As a general state, T13 and T14 bosses have less mechanics than bosses had in previous cataclysm or WOTLK raids (beside T7 obviously). But these mechanics were more devastating.

• The DPS and so in some extend HPS mattered more, so optimization and gimmicks played the major part of success. It put the difficulty into maxing H/DPS (checking procs and CD, finding tricks etc).
I think having a lot of room to improve his DPS is great - but I don't think that most of the difficulty should be set there. Anyway, a bit before 5.2 release they announced that T14 DPS checks aren't what players expect and they have done something else, closer than what we had in wrath and early cata, perhaps with even more mechanics.

But - at least in 25 man - there is a fundamental difference which comes from class mechanics. With MOP, everyone have various defensive. There are tons of raid CD's. Smart heals and absorb represent 80% of the total healing done. It leads to such situations : for example I get hurt by a blade from Blackfuse, then I drop at 15% and a second later I'm at full HP, ready to fail once again. In other worlds, avoidable mechanics no longer matter and can kill only when everything align. For me this is terrible design. I feel that the game is constantly trolling us "you failed but nevermind, smart healing kept you alive". At very rare times a guy get globalled.

I think that at some point the game have to tell us "well you failed and so you're dead, head on the dust for few minutes". Actually the games only tells you that you sucks at rotating stuff and so you're behind your mates in term of stats (and maybe it leads to a wipe). The objectives should be more obvious.
Ultimately, my favorite bosses have always been the bosses where surviving is hard, and when mechanics can overlap to create some unexpected situation. For exemple I enjoyed Ragnaros v2 (or even Lei Shen) but my favorite bosses remain Al'akir P1 pre lightning strike nerf or Ascendant council or Firefighter. For Klaxxi, I enjoy the mechanics of this boss, sure. But I think it should have been even better if he had less. You don't need more than a couple of well designed ability to create complex situation. For example if you just keep aim, whirling, amber, dance, and death from above (just for haywire) at the same time and increase the rhythm a bit it could create a lot of various situations for soaking). It should be way easier to understand what to do but also harder to execute.

[Jester Joe]

MOP:

Well done: Elegon, Durumu, Lei Shen, , Garrosh, Will of the Emperor,Tortos, Animus,

Good: Vizier, Garalon, Ji-Kun, Sha of Pride, Thok, Nazgrim, Paragons, Horridon,

Ok: Siegecrafter

Bad: Sha of Fear, AmberShaper, Lei Shi, Immerseus, Galakras


Cata:

Well done: Ascendent Council, Atramedes, Sinestra, Al'akir, Nef 2.0, Alysrazor, Ragnaros 2.0, Conclave, Cho'gal,

Good: Chimeron, Hagara, Madness,

Bad: Slime Dude, Spine, Zonozz

That's how I would put it personally. *shrug* It's missing quite a few bosses though to be an actual "Are they getting better" comparison, overall I greatly enjoyed MoP raiding.

[Traveler Voltin]

mechanics wise yes.

[nakabeast]

Cataclysm, while I feel had the worst raid zones of any expansion, was an experimentation of a boss design that was further developed in MoP: the idea that every boss has that one defining mechanic.

I think back to Blackwing Descent...a super boring raid zone, but had bosses where you say, "Oh, this is the sound boss (Atramedes)" or "this is the potion boss (Malorak)." Prior to Cata, bosses may have had interesting mechanics, but there wasn't that one feature that you could point to that defines that boss and that boss only.

Siegecrafter Blackfuse = conveyor belt boss. Nazgrim = rage meter boss. Durumu = beam/cone boss. Megaera = three head boss.

In terms of pure, rich design, boss encounters are evolving in a phenomenal direction. In terms of actual enjoyment, that's completely subjective.

Now actual raid zone level design...that's a WHOLE different story.

[Deleted]

Stopped reading after you said Spine was bad, it's possibly the best fight ever.

[hulkgor]

Yea, i disagree with a lot of your choices, so yea, opinions.

[nakabeast]

Stopped reading after you said Spine was bad, it's possibly the best fight ever.

Agree. Spine was the only good fight from DS.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Agree. Spine was the only good fight from DS.

I remember my first time doing it on LFR(Yeah yeah LFR was bad). It freaked me out.

[Jester Joe]

Agree. Spine was the only good fight from DS.

Eh, I would disagree. I preferred Madness even over Spine. Difficulty wise, yeah, heroic spine was a lot harder, but for fun to me? Meh. I liked Ultraxion the best personally, the boat fight wasn't too bad either.

[nakabeast]

Eh, I would disagree. I preferred Madness even over Spine. Difficulty wise, yeah, heroic spine was a lot harder, but for fun to me? Meh. I liked Ultraxion the best personally, the boat fight wasn't too bad either.

Y'know, if Madness wasn't the absolute final encounter of the entire expansion, it would have been a decent fight. The issue was that the build-up to this encounter was tremendous, as any end-expansion fight is. You were expecting something amazing out of the battle with Deathwing, and I don't feel it delivered. Ragnaros was a more climactic fight than Madness was. Again, all completely subjective.