Wishful Thinking: Boss Mob Rotation For 5-Man Flavor
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iTZKooPA on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 7 Comments Tags: Instances, boss mob rotation, columns, diversification, dungeons, dynamic encounters, encounters, making instances less repetitive, violet hold, wishful thinking
iTZKooPA on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 7 Comments Tags: Instances, boss mob rotation, columns, diversification, dungeons, dynamic encounters, encounters, making instances less repetitive, violet hold, wishful thinking Wishful Thinking is a column for the theorycrafting behind World of Warcraft. No, not the number crunching madness perfected by the folks at ElitistJerks, but the features, abilities, and design ideas that the Project Lore writers conjure from their squishy pink stuff.
Is Violet Hold The Bastion Of Wrath's 5-Man Content?I love WoW's PvE content, but there's no denying that it can get boring. Doing the same runs over and over for weeks on end do nothing but show us how repetitive things can become. After the first few virgin runs we fight through the monotony mainly for a chance at some glorious rewards. Thanks to hard and heroic modes, and quick content patches, raiding has become less repetitive, but our heroic dungeon farming is no less mind numbing than ever. Considering how much time we now spend in heroics, thanks to the vastly improved badge system, don't you think party-based PvE deserves content diversification? What to do...
We already have heroic and non-heroic versions, so that's out of the picture. Hard modes could be done, but would be placed on farm by anyone who raids in a matter of weeks. Not the best return on one's development investment there. That's out. What else can be done to make five man dungeons a little less stale, a little more enjoyable?
Ignoring our insatiable desire for loot and badges, one way to keep an instance fresh is already implemented by Blizzard in Violet Hold (and later ToC). Boss mob rotation. In VH the party is given a random chance to encounter three of six possible bosses before they tackle Cyanigosa. It's a small change, but the randomness forces players to stay on their toes even after they start to outgear the dungeon. Extend this idea further, apply it to multiple dungeons, and it'd give us a little boost in content.
For the lore and item junkies out there, new bosses can offer both. Many instances can simply have lieutenants written in as taking over a former leaders' position, or perhaps the vacuum left by a leader's demise allows a new faction, race or species to subjugate the rest of the instance's denizens to their will. It's true that in the long run the change would be like Diablo II's "dynamic" map system, where you could easily remember all the map layouts, but the longer we can extend that notion the better.
I've mulled over the problem of the lack of 5-man heterogeneity for ages, with multiple audiences, and outside of making entirely new dungeons more frequently, a dynamic encounter assignment has been the best thing I've come up with. Does anyone have any other bright ideas to make five man content less repetitive likes their big brothers?
Do you agree that that VH offers a bit more play before it becomes repetitive? Everyone likes new encounters right?
Reader Comments (7)
Yes, VH is long before going repetive, it took me over a month until i had cleared all the bosses in VH since the randomize system
@All firsters.
IN YOUR FACE!
Yeah, i do like doing VH because its not the same bosses over and over and over again. It adds a bit to the instance itself. I wouldnt mind seeing the stockades getting a revamp, where there were a few named bosses in it and one by one they started to escape, not the same boss each time, and hell not even the same final boss would be nice too.
Isn't it only 2 bosses before Cyanigosa? Just saying.
Why not re-implement a cross dungeon quest-line similar to what Blizz did for the 'Dungeon 1.5 set'.
Example: you would have to go to DTK and do a timed run for a special quest item drop that would be used in Gundrak to spawn a special (possibly a rotation mob) event. The end result is a class grouping drop used to 'buy/make a dungeon set piece.' Each set piece would/should cost 3 looted drops from three separate cross dungeon quest lines. This is to ensure that not just one or two instance are 'being farmed'.
These scenarios/quest lines can work over the top of the existing dungeons and could be updated with patch/content updates.
Personally, I am not a fan of VH style dungeons. The reason being as the loot you receive depends on the bosses you get. I remember leveling my tank just waiting for the pants and shield to drop. They eventually did, but after several runs. Sure they have a high chance of dropping what you want when you get the boss, however, I would prefer to have a lower chance to get it per boss but have a chance EVERY run. I would prefer if it had 1 loot table for all of the bosses except for Cyanigosa.
Make them more like raids.
Most bosses in heroics are just tank and spank, or easy enough to get away with doing that. After playing Pit of Saron on the PTRs the first 2 bosses have fairly 'raid-esque' components, like the hiding behind rocks, novas and arcane explosion bombs do avoid. The third boss is slightly less so, but you do have to make sure you're not staying in the frost spots.
I really believe that if you HAVE to move or you'll get one -shotted, or at least almost killed, it will not only make it more interesting, but also equip new players to a raiding experience. If certain of these attacks work on % rather than an actual number (eg 50% health rather than 10k damage), then it doesn't become too easy for well geared people or too hard for low geared players.
The Pit of Saron is really a head in the right direction.
Looking forward to see the other dungeons.