What the hell is going on with Blizzard's encounter design?

[Sarevokcz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1YLx62dih4

This video highlights an issue that yesterday´s Q&A completely marginalized. Matt Hoss tells the players that Titanforging is a bonus and content isn't balanced around it yet we already know that with 54 traits guilds aren't able to brute force fights at all. Technically Matt Hoss wasn't incorrect but he also completely ignored the fact that they designed fights to be almost reverse cheesy by making gear not influence player power in fights!

This seems to be a worrying trend where Blizzard doesn't realize that RNG things like titanforging are causing their development to become extremely disconnected from the fun aspect of raiding and instead forcing them to balance without gear in mind because you have to either

1) balance for titanforging and make fights way too difficult, like currently in NH and ToV pre-nerf, or
2) balance for it not existing making fights too easy, like in Emerald Nightmare

This problem is going to continue getting worse because Blizzard has created such a varying level of player power based purely on luck instead of effort and trust me, it will start to affect all levels of content and will backfire hard.

meh, I think WF/TF is fine, but only as long as each tier comes with soft gear reset, it wouldnt even be an issue now, if heroic NH loot started at 895-900 and mythic 15 ilevels higher, with normal being as it is now (as its a cakewalk difficulty anyway,) people would be able to progress their gear above what the raid is tuned for and "brute force" dps checks eventually

[Deleted]

meh, I think WF/TF is fine, but only as long as each tier comes with soft gear reset, it wouldnt even be an issue now, if heroic NH loot started at 895-900 and mythic 15 ilevels higher, with normal being as it is now (as its a cakewalk difficulty anyway,) people would be able to progress their gear above what the raid is tuned for and "brute force" dps checks eventually

The simpler method would be that Mythic raids don't need to warforge or titanforge. They're straight up 925 (iL cap). There's enough RNG in waiting for the drops if you ask me. It would still take a few months for most of your Mythic raiders to gear up fully and by that time the tier of content is likely coming to a close anyway so that seems to be the exact level that it should be at.

Right now, is there anyone who is even close to maximising their gear? Is there any point with 7.2 and ToS so close... ready to trivialise the gear in heroic mode?

Look at wowprogress for the answers. The answer is no and no. Even those people at the top in terms of iL will not be maximising their gear before tomb drops and as an ocd min maxer that grinds my gears more than any complaint about encounter design. I have few complaints about encounter design, the worst part for me is the RP that you can't skip on your 20th run through.

[Allenseiei]

FL and Gunship were boring. That's why the "vast majority" (no idea where this comes from) didn't like it. A lot of players I have noticed, seek to find some unreasonably silly reason to why players didn't like the encounter - like yours: "not getting how they worked". Here's a tidbit for you, most players don't know how any of the encounters work, nor do they endeavour to discover how they work. They read up on someone else's encounter strategy and copy it. I am 99% sure you do the same.

It is boring to people for many reasons the same way some people like WoD, others like TBC etc. People have their own opinions.

The best thing Blizzard could do is shorten those encounters; the great thing with shortening those types of encounters (that tend to split opinion) is that those that don't like it don't have to endure it for so long.

Yes, people had no idea how they worked, from how the flooding of tears in the forums of people failing to do them properly. Gunship battle was far easier to do(all of ICC before HC was boring), but leviathan was a bad experience without a proper organized group. I dont find "ureasonable silly" reason, many people, even today, dislike bosses that they dont understand or just aren't able to do. Here is another tidbit for you, back in WotLK, if you even tried to create a pub raidgroup for ICC or ulduar for your alts(when it was still the current raid) you had a lot of headaches, especially with leviathan because you wouldn't headsmash through it. Gunship battle? If just 1/4 of your raid knew the fight, it died.

No, my guild ranked 11th and we did take a look at From Scratch's video which was leaked, but it gave us no real breaththrough to what we were already trying.

[Deleted]

Yes, people had no idea how they worked, from how the flooding of tears in the forums of people failing to do them properly. Gunship battle was far easier to do(all of ICC before HC was boring), but leviathan was a bad experience without a proper organized group. I dont find "ureasonable silly" reason, many people, even today, dislike bosses that they dont understand or just aren't able to do. Here is another tidbit for you, back in WotLK, if you even tried to create a pub raidgroup for ICC or ulduar for your alts(when it was still the current raid) you had a lot of headaches, especially with leviathan because you wouldn't headsmash through it. Gunship battle? If just 1/4 of your raid knew the fight, it died.

No, my guild ranked 11th and we did take a look at From Scratch's video which was leaked, but it gave us no real breaththrough to what we were already trying.

I don't remember any headaches pugging at any time during wotlk but perhaps that's because I understood that raiding was designed around an organised, familiar group of players and therefore only invited familiar faces. However it is besides the point, most players do not understand the mechanics they are doing. They use other player's/guild's tactics and copy and paste.

If not understanding mechanics was the primary reason for people hating encounters, there would barely be an encounter anyone enjoyed.

[Galaar]

Makes me miss the triangle shaped room of Twin Emps in AQ40. MORE TRIANGLES!

[Deleted]

You have to face it, WoW boss design has already come to its peak.
Theres seriously nothing they can add that has not been done before in some way.

Most bosses in NH feel very lazy because of this. They are not actually "lazy" they just have mechanics that other bosses have thats how it feels like it. They cant just make up stuff anymore.

Verticality on bosses: Done (Malygos, Al'akir etc)
Vehicles/Mounted combat: Done already (since wotlk)
Adds: done since vanilla
"Taunt at X stacks": Done to death its not even funny anymore
Move out of group with debuff: Done
Move IN the group with debuff: Done..
Soak pools: Done
Avoid pools: Done
I could go on forever and list every boss in game but you get the point

Adds
-Aoe: Done
-Singletarget: Done
-Kite: Done
-CC spam: Done
-Tank them: Done
-Dont tank them: Done
-Ignore them: Done
etc


What else can you do without revamping whole combat system and calling it "WoW 2"? Nothing.

Only thing I can think of is "Role reversal" where DPS is tanks, tanks are healers and healersd are dps. That will.. probably never happen. And if it does, people would cry tears it could fill the grand canyon

[shaunika123]

how is trilliax an add clusterfuck >_>

plus it's not like
the whole time manipulation thing is totally new but yeah

[Deleted]

I'd like them to nerf circular rooms slightly please, buff triangular rooms slightly and maybe add more pentagon rooms. Square rooms are fine.

[FelPlague]

I'd like them to nerf circular rooms slightly please, buff triangular rooms slightly and maybe add more pentagon rooms. Square rooms are fine.

there is pentagon rooms though, op just calls them circles cause shapes

[Gasparde]

Obviously having adds in a fight equals clusterfuck.
Obviously having a room being circular or square shaped is uninspired.

We need more fights without adds... in triangular rooms!

[Deleted]

back in my day we fought bosses in doorways where we put our backs into little corners and couldn't see shit and used the doorway to "line of sight" the boss, yeah that's a term you youngsters might not be familiar with. It was tough! we fought barefoot uphill both ways and the graveyard wasn't even in the same zone as the instance!

kids and their "circular rooms" these days. pfff.

[Solial]

back in my day we fought bosses in doorways where we put our backs into little corners and couldn't see shit and used the doorway to "line of sight" the boss, yeah that's a term you youngsters might not be familiar with. It was tough! we fought barefoot uphill both ways and the graveyard wasn't even in the same zone as the instance!

kids and their "circular rooms" these days. pfff.

Sounds like drakes from BWL and Chromaggus.

[TheFirstOnes]

So...basically....

You hate WoW raiding in general? Cause, this isn't the first fucking time WOW has done these raids mate...

- - - Updated - - -

back in my day we fought bosses in doorways where we put our backs into little corners and couldn't see shit and used the doorway to "line of sight" the boss, yeah that's a term you youngsters might not be familiar with. It was tough! we fought barefoot uphill both ways and the graveyard wasn't even in the same zone as the instance!

kids and their "circular rooms" these days. pfff.

HOWEVER, ya have to admit though...

We did have a green stick (A Questing blade), no mount, 4 silver, and shit gear, as well as no title...

So, Both Lore-Wise, as well as Game-Wise, we were quite easy to kill back then, and the bosses did seem like they were tough shit...

Now, we have ALL the mounts, over Thousands (If not, then Millions) of gold, lots of Titles/Achievements, Rep, Amazing Gear, A Weapon of Legend, And Experience in Battle....

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1YLx62dih4

This video highlights an issue that yesterday´s Q&A completely marginalized. Matt Hoss tells the players that Titanforging is a bonus and content isn't balanced around it yet we already know that with 54 traits guilds aren't able to brute force fights at all. Technically Matt Hoss wasn't incorrect but he also completely ignored the fact that they designed fights to be almost reverse cheesy by making gear not influence player power in fights!

This seems to be a worrying trend where Blizzard doesn't realize that RNG things like titanforging are causing their development to become extremely disconnected from the fun aspect of raiding and instead forcing them to balance without gear in mind because you have to either

1) balance for titanforging and make fights way too difficult, like currently in NH and ToV pre-nerf, or
2) balance for it not existing making fights too easy, like in Emerald Nightmare

This problem is going to continue getting worse because Blizzard has created such a varying level of player power based purely on luck instead of effort and trust me, it will start to affect all levels of content and will backfire hard.

Nah. It's fine. Well, my only gripe with the TF/WF system is that the type of upgrades are not "Rare" to get, ya know? They need to be more rare, ya know, just to make people raid even more...

[Deleted]

HOWEVER, ya have to admit though...

We did have a green stick (A Questing blade), no mount, 4 silver, and shit gear, as well as no title...

So, Both Lore-Wise, as well as Game-Wise, we were quite easy to kill back then, and the bosses did seem like they were tough shit...

Now, we have ALL the mounts, over Thousands (If not, then Millions) of gold, lots of Titles/Achievements, Rep, Amazing Gear, A Weapon of Legend, And Experience in Battle....

It was a simpler time. everything was better then. none of those technomological devices the kids use these days. we only had 4:3 resolution and we were happy.

but it was also a shitty time. everything was worse then. you kids would never have survived back then without your portals and summon stones! be happy with all the things you have and take for granted!

[TheFirstOnes]

It was a simpler time. everything was better then. none of those technomological devices the kids use these days. we only had 4:3 resolution and we were happy.

but it was also a shitty time. everything was worse then. you kids would never have survived back then without your portals and summon stones! be happy with all the things you have and take for granted!

Oh, I would know.

Wanna know as to how I know?

I played back then as well....

[derpkitteh]

i much prefer the simpler days of "if you get damaged as a dps, you're bad"

there wasn't much in the way of raid wide damage just to make the healers work more. that was better.

[Sithalos]

Yeah man.. Encounter design was way better in Molten Core.

*Cough*

[trm90]

If we're going to talk about clusterfucks, I think Odyn, Helya, and Botanist are the biggest offenders - there's just too many movement-based mechanics going on all at once, and if you're playing a caster you rarely get a chance to actually turret.

But the rest of the fights are fine IMO, and I would definitely like more fights like Ilgynoth, Cenarius, Spellblade, and Elisande in the future.

[Vargur]

The boss rooms in NH are either too small, like Skorpyron with a million rainbow colours in a dark environment or Tichondrius with it's retarded camera angles due to the ceiling and walls being too close, too big for non-mobile classes, like Anomaly and Gul'dan.
Every other boss room is sort of all right, given the mechanics.
The trash however, it's not. Either way too much of it or with irritating abilities.

[L3fty]

Not directly related but I must say I find Nighthold to be one of the weakest raids Blizz has put out. Infact EN was painfully average too. I think they certainly dropped the ball when compared to BRF / SoO etc. The encounters in NH are just so bland.