Ny'alotha, The Waking City World First Race

[Simmias]

it's kinda embarrassing for all involved when raids are not tuned properly. The desire to stream is there but.... you won't get viewers if you can't do the fight.

[Onikaroshi]

it's kinda embarrassing for all involved when raids are not tuned properly. The desire to stream is there but.... you won't get viewers if you can't do the fight.

Thousands of people watch hundreds upon hundreds of wipes, so yea, you do get viewers even if the the fight is taking a long time.

[-aiko-]

Pieces is 11/12 I'd love for them to come up and take it by surprise.

Boss seems kinda overtuned. I'm not sure if another reset's worth of gear will make enough of a difference...
Also kind of disappointed with the mythic only phase. Maybe there's more to it, though. The only sub 50% pull was when the boss bugged and Blizzard reset it, right?

[Onikaroshi]

Pieces is 11/12 I'd love for them to come up and take it by surprise.

Boss seems kinda overtuned. I'm not sure if another reset's worth of gear will make enough of a difference...
Also kind of disappointed with the mythic only phase. Maybe there's more to it, though. The only sub 50% pull was when the boss bugged and Blizzard reset it, right?

Nah, they hit 50 again and nothing happened I guess, so now maybe 40%? There has got to be more

[Xath]

They have one clear worth of mythic gear. 468 is also inflated by the cloak, which isn't all that powerful without its' proc, as well as the neck piece. And "optimal corruption" is one thing, but "optimal corruption on mythic gear" is another. Also, another few points of corruption resistance, which might let them use some different item combination. Also, mythic carapace gear being 485.

Also, lack of titanforging works against your argument, not for it. It means there will be 15ilvl difference between heroic and mythic stuff - and they don't really have a lot of the latter. Even raw stamina can help to remove some random deaths from miniscule overkills. Not to mention that any fight with a lot of adds basically double dips from gear upgrades - not only you do more damage to the boss, you also have higher uptime since adds die faster.

You aren't taking into account the nzoth and carapace splits. They also already have a bunch of mythic azerite. I'm not saying it won't help but their old strats are pretty much dead with the adds moving while casting.

- - - Updated - - -

Pieces is 11/12 I'd love for them to come up and take it by surprise.

Boss seems kinda overtuned. I'm not sure if another reset's worth of gear will make enough of a difference...
Also kind of disappointed with the mythic only phase. Maybe there's more to it, though. The only sub 50% pull was when the boss bugged and Blizzard reset it, right?

They hit 49.5 next likely breakpoint would likely be 40.

[-aiko-]

They hit 49.5 next likely breakpoint would likely be 40.

Ah. I'm not going to get my hopes up, then. I remember Argus too well. "The next Mythic only phase will be at 40%! No actually 30%! Uhhh 20%? .....10%? Please?" *boss dies*

[WhatIsLegion]

Ah. I'm not going to get my hopes up, then. I remember Argus too well. "The next Mythic only phase will be at 40%! No actually 30%! Uhhh 20%? .....10%? Please?" *boss dies*

Something will happen at 25%, when Limit ignored the first chamber Nzoth went immune at 25%. 25% is most likely the next Mythic phase. Probably something in the chamber with Magni and Mother that will give the damage amp needed to finish the boss.

[Zarvel]

I mean.....Back in any other tier the world first race was never streamed. So yeah , welcome to the world first, tons of bugs appeared to every world first guild , on top of my mind is Sinestra that took 28 days to kill which had tons of bugs , that boss was bugged as fuck . This is not even about EU or US or Limit or Method , is just about Activision-Blizzards incompetency .
Also , any guild beeing in contact with Blizzard telling them how to fix the fight or shit like that is again just showing how incompetent they are when it comes to design. It's a fucking race why would someone who's participating in a race solving a puzzle tell you how to fix the puzzle :-??. After the whole bfa fiasco , the Reforged fiasco and etc my personal credibility in this Activision-Blizzard company has gone very low.

This is what I never got with blizzard and WoW in general, in recent expansions. Any other game out there, any RPG, be it multiplayer or singleplayer, has bosses designed with a set theme and difficulty in mind and released as is. As long as the bosses have a theme to their fight and have some engaging mechanics, they were good to go. And people have been ok with this for ages, and play the shit out of such RPGs regardless of issues with said fights (Dark Souls and FF say hello). What never changes here is the fact that the initial idea of the fight remains intact, bug fixes and such notwithstanding.

Coming to blizzard and WoW however, they constantly fail to design fights with their own game's mechanics and tricks in mind. They almost always end up reacting to players and their approach to fights rather than let fights be as they are and only step in to prevent blatant exploits or fix a boss that is literally unkillable mathematically. We never really get to see what designers intended from the get go in the final version of most "tough" boss encounters. They're almost always a reflection of the playerbase's sentiments or ability to tackle a boss. Encounter designers usually pride themselves on delivering a complete and fun encounter, but I think it's fair to say that isn't the case for some fights in every single raid.

I work in QA for AAA titles and have been for about 5 years now and i can never seem to fathom just how blizzard's QA department constantly fails to catch major gameplay issues in almost every aspect of the game. It's just baffling to say the least. It's quite clear they don't encourage their QA testers to specialize in a class each so they can provide accurate perspective from each class/spec's standpoint in every aspect of the game, Raids included.

Back on topic though, the race is amusing because of those screw ups by blizzard however strats constantly changing, class compositions in the raids too. I'm really curious to see if method can actually catch up to Limit. Their struggle to get past the 75% mark consistently has me pessimistic about their chances to progress past limit. Limit just seems to do it with a lot more ease and get to sub 55% with only about 40-ish more pulls between the 2 and that is with method having access to limit's stream and comms. Limit's world first would be well deserved this tier. inb4 EU hate, i'm a method supporter, but i just respect limit's efforts this tier.

[KaPe]

I work in QA for AAA titles and have been for about 5 years now and i can never seem to fathom just how blizzard's QA department constantly fails to catch major gameplay issues in almost every aspect of the game. It's just baffling to say the least. It's quite clear they don't encourage their QA testers to specialize in a class each so they can provide accurate perspective from each class/spec's standpoint in every aspect of the game, Raids included.

You claim to work on AAA titles QA, but don't understand how bugs happen - especially in MMOs? Are you serious? Even only the most recent years and just "mmo'ish" games, we had Fallout76 and Anthem, both of them huge messes far worse than anything WoW have done. That's not getting into far more debatable stuff, like older FFs and their "yeah, we totally want you to fight this boss for 10+ hours without a break", or having to basically re-release entire game because it was a flop.

But here, one boss has some issues and it's "baffling" to you, a self-claimed industry expert.

[Onikaroshi]

You claim to work on AAA titles QA, but don't understand how bugs happen - especially in MMOs? Are you serious? Even only the most recent years and just "mmo'ish" games, we had Fallout76 and Anthem, both of them huge messes far worse than anything WoW have done. That's not getting into far more debatable stuff, like older FFs and their "yeah, we totally want you to fight this boss for 10+ hours without a break", or having to basically re-release entire game because it was a flop.

But here, one boss has some issues and it's "baffling" to you, a self-claimed industry expert.

And when it comes to players finding ways outside of what the devs expected, there's such a huge number of players in this game that thing in thousands and thousands of different ways, someone is going to find a way to do a boss outside of the intended way.

Shit, speedrunning is built off that concept.

[Tech614]

Ah. I'm not going to get my hopes up, then. I remember Argus too well. "The next Mythic only phase will be at 40%! No actually 30%! Uhhh 20%? .....10%? Please?" *boss dies*

I mean, something is gonna happen and it won't require getting boss down to 1% like on other difficulties because they are already reaching the point of double lust. There has to be a gimmick to finish the last hump because boss is no where close to being dead and they're up against enrage after using a double lust. I'm guessing at 25% you get another phase with some kind of damage boost from Magni/Mother, and a free win(or something that significantly speeds up boss dps) assuming you can beat enrage based on what happened when boss was bugged out.

[Gref]

@KaPe are you for real? if fallout 76, anthem is buggy, is it ok for blizzard to release this without testing? You look at your own product not others. Others did it so I can too .what kind of retarded logic is that? the situation baffles me. It is blizzard ffs. the situation also baffled me with fall out, anthem, no mans sky etc. it is ridiculous.

One boss has some issues.

no. it is not just some extra boss, or something mid way. It is the boss of the whole fucking expansion. last boss. years of building him. After, normal,hc kills with that epic fail ending scene, people are looking forward to the real fight. even if it is just one boss, it is unacceptable. it is blizzard's job to assure it is bug ridden, smooth fight. Limit or method or anyone who is not paid by the blizz should not be testing it.

yeah, we totally want you to fight this boss for 10+ hours without a break

ummm excuse me? what is the job description for QA? what the fuck?

My hardcore wow days are over with wife and work and all but I did and would pre-order anything that has blizzard name on it.
Tomorrow Blizzard can put a box of shit on their store setting a release date 10 months. I would pre-order it as I know it will be good quality shit.

this is me saying this 2 years ago. Not anymore. There is nothing to defend when it comes to blizzards poor performance these days. Nothing. stop with blind white knighting.

[Onikaroshi]

@KaPe are you for real? if fallout 76, anthem is buggy, is it ok for blizzard to release this without testing? You look at your own product not others. Others did it so I can too .what kind of retarded logic is that? the situation baffles me. It is blizzard ffs. the situation also baffled me with fall out, anthem, no mans sky etc. it is ridiculous.

no. it is not just some extra boss, or something mid way. It is the boss of the whole fucking expansion. last boss. years of building him. After, normal,hc kills with that epic fail ending scene, people are looking forward to the real fight. even if it is just one boss, it is unacceptable. it is blizzard's job to assure it is bug ridden, smooth fight. Limit or method or anyone who is not paid by the blizz should not be testing it.


ummm excuse me? what is the job description for QA? what the fuck?



this is me saying this 2 years ago. Not anymore. There is nothing to defend when it comes to blizzards poor performance these days. Nothing. stop with blind white knighting.

Bugs happen every raid, all the time in this game, it's far too large and complex to test every situation. Plus, sometimes bugs will happen live that never did in a test environment

[glszino]

I have to wonder, can they not just their new AI mobs to test bosses? Just give them double stats than normal players and have one person watch them go

AI mobs are only trained for a specific scenario but it takes a long time and resources for training. Unless you have a shit ton of resources (hardware, time, skilled ML engineers), it is probably not worth it to even try that kind of development.

[Zarvel]

You claim to work on AAA titles QA, but don't understand how bugs happen - especially in MMOs? Are you serious? Even only the most recent years and just "mmo'ish" games, we had Fallout76 and Anthem, both of them huge messes far worse than anything WoW have done. That's not getting into far more debatable stuff, like older FFs and their "yeah, we totally want you to fight this boss for 10+ hours without a break", or having to basically re-release entire game because it was a flop.

But here, one boss has some issues and it's "baffling" to you, a self-claimed industry expert.

Whoa, calm your tits a little.

Bugs like these don't just "happen". As QA testers you have access to development cheats and such that let you spawn and run each mechanic to see it works correctly. And then there's the concept of "natural progression" where you let the fight play out in it's full course to see if the flow and feel are right. As QA, you absolutely need to make use of both methods so you get an all round picture of what can be expected when the fight ends in players hands.
It is the job of the QA team to request the devs for cheats that help them achieve this. Devs will never volunteer to create cheats for QA, that's just how it is in the industry. That tells me the QA team is massively inexperienced or has a lot of rotations which means the experienced testers are let go while newer ones are hired, which is a very common practice in the States for any AAA company. Their QA employees run on short 1 year contracts that may or may not be renewed. That's how expendable QA is portrayed as to the higher ups. So what does that mean for testing? Well, it means that the sort of calls you expect QA to make on a consistent basis might not end up happening simply because the personnel doing so once before may just not be part of the team anymore.
But, let's say blizzard works differently to EA and they hire QA on a fulltime basis, then that's even more worrisome as that tells me their QA team lacks proper direction. I don't doubt the individual QA employees themselves, as chances are there's at least 5-10 enthusiastic folks like you and me who actively want to test everything to a T and release the best gameplay patch, but their higher ups, the folks who don't do the day-to-day testing but still call the shots on the testing direction/plan for a patch or a quarter can still hold back the quality of work being done. That's an unfortunate truth that we in QA deal with on a day-to-day basis and it's frustrating as fuck every time.

Idk about fallout 76 but I can speak for Anthem because I knew it was doomed from the very start. As you would've guessed we as EA employees already had access to the early alpha and beta testing and we provided feedback directly to the designers themselves. Unfortunately, we spent more time convincing them that their core systems did not feel good to play rather than report bugs, which is why you saw bugs like missing animations when entering a javelin or getting solo queue'd into a mission intended to be done as a group, whereas the classes felt good to play even without the best weapons in game. It's unfortunate that the tuning was so god awful in the end that Ranger and Storm completely fell off the map in GM3 until the first major patch came out 6 months into the game. Anthem being a huge mess was more Bioware's fault than it was EA's, if you can believe that.
The "fight a boss for 10+ hours" example you mentioned, seems like a tuning bug more than a gameplay thing. It is commonplace for it to occur because of what I mentioned earlier where QA has to perform natural progression, but in the case you mentioned, they probably never got around to doing it because of the cost of doing so with the amount of testing hours invested into a single fight. Their call in that particular situation may have been to test individual mechanics out with custom dev tuning and then upscale it based on their predictions and let players have at it.

That is not even remotely the case with WoW. With wow it feels more often than not that the mechanics themselves are not well thought out sometimes. The tuning part comes later anyway. Like Nzoth not doing anything during the second secret phase because players did not enter the room - that is not tuning, that is a major functionality bug which meant they did not bother to check phase transitions internally regardless of the final tuning numbers and how players got to that point of the fight. That is a fundamental failure on their QA's part when testing out actual raid encounters that were not available on the PTR for player feedback.
Heck, take hivemind as an example on normal/heroic even - that fight is literally just stack everything under the boss and nuke everything with AoE skills until you're arbitrarily forced to separate them because blizzard said so, nothing on that fight remotely matters as long as you bother to tab-target relevant adds. That is eerily similar to Orgozoa from eternal palace, and they could've learned their lessons as encounter designers from there.

TL;DR - Major functionality bugs don't just "happen" and can be easily caught by a well planned QA cycle. Tuning bugs are part and parcel of MMOs and nobody is critiquing blizzard for those, at least nobody sane is. Blizzard has serious directional issues with its QA department in terms of qualitative feedback over quantitative feedback.

But sure, you can still take digs at me without any context whatsoever to support your generalized statements about "bugs just happen". I can refute them all day.

[Onikaroshi]

AI mobs are only trained for a specific scenario but it takes a long time and resources for training. Unless you have a shit ton of resources (hardware, time, skilled ML engineers), it is probably not worth it to even try that kind of development.

And would still miss things, ai isn't at human thought level

[Simmias]

AI mobs are only trained for a specific scenario but it takes a long time and resources for training. Unless you have a shit ton of resources (hardware, time, skilled ML engineers), it is probably not worth it to even try that kind of development.

small indy company

[glszino]

small indy company

Even for Blizzard, this is an extremely hard task to have quality AI that can play the game in a raid environment, even in normal mode.

There are plenty of videos of Deep Reinforcement Learning with the Mario game.
At the beginning, the model doesn't do anything and it takes a lot of iterations of this training to get it to move and not die to easy things. Mario is a really simple game.

To be able to achieve that kind of thing against a boss in a normal raid, the difficulty explodes because we have a lot more variables : positioning, tank swapping, healing, dps requirements of multiple classes, survival, boss abilities and countless others.

[Nite92]

small indy company

Oh come on. There is a reason why companies use alphas/betas to identfy problems. Finding bugs is a random process, so it would be nigh impossible to identify bugs with an internal testing team. That is also why there is PTR testing of raids. So they deliberately accept some bugs at the mythic endboss because they rather keep these things secret from the public.

The small indie company joke stopped being funny in like 2018 btw.

[Zarvel]

small indy company

While that joke usually works, you'd be surprised at actual development costs for tools and tech. If you cannot justify sinking costs and development time with proper and solid reasoning into tech, especially something as niche as AI at that, then production and technical directors will never greenlight it.

Human beings are still the best judges of feelcraft and functionality. Big difference between 'Does it work?' and 'Should it work this way?'.

There's no excuse here really. Internal QA should have caught phase transition issues before nzoth ever went live on mythic. Otherwise you just keep moving goal posts for the raid teams currently on the fight, and that's a no-no.