Project Lore

Sure, holiday bosses (and the potential for their phat lootz) are one of the biggest draws for many of us to world events. But up until now, a lot of drama has come with them - the potential for players not being "fresh" for their daily kill, the difficulty in forming groups late in the day, and of course QQ over rolls on loot.

Patch 3.3.3 aims to bring closure to some of those issues by bringing in the LFG system that we so love here at Project Lore. And now we also have a bit of clarification from blue poster Zarhym on exactly how it will be implemented (at least as of now).

Buried within the Patch Notes for 3.3.3 on the PTR, we have this little morsel:

• World Event bosses (such as Ahune for the Fire Festival) will now be accessible through the Dungeon Finder. Players must use the Dungeon Finder to access these bosses.

And here's what Zarhym said to bring a bit more clarity to the matter:

Just to clarify some misconceptions about this new functionality, the summoning of holiday bosses is going away. Players can queue for these bosses via the Dungeon Finder or special holiday NPCs found in the world. Once the party is finalized, the group will be ported directly to the area where the holiday boss resides. Players can kill the holiday bosses as often as they want for standard loot (epic rings, trinkets, etc.), however, they will only drop one holiday-themed loot trove per player per day. These loot troves will have a chance of containing rare holiday items such as The Horseman's Reins.

The way players were grandfathering in alt characters, scamming others by not having a summon available, and continually soft-resetting dungeons -- creating a major load on instance capacity -- was never intended.

The change has some positive and some negative consequences, however, we feel it's the best way to make this a better system and more in-line with our original plans for World Event bosses.

...Having less people in your party isn't going to affect your chances of obtaining special rewards by any means. If three people are in the party and kill the boss, one holiday-themed loot trove will drop for each person, a total of three. Those three players will not be able to get another trove until the next day.

I, for one, welcome these changes, and I think they'll go a long way in making the world bosses what Blizzard intended them to be -- a fun and special encounter with a small possibility for loot. The extra rare drops (like that Love Rocket that I wanted but never saw) might be even rarer since you'll get only one shot at them dropping each day, instead of five (or more if you had some alt-friendly friends). But we haven't heard whether the drop rate might be somewhat adjusted since we'll only have one shot per day - maybe that will be looked into, as well.

Regardless, if you want to continue queing for a shot at the other loot (or to DE them), you'll still be able to. It also means you'll be able to queue with people who aren't "fresh" and not have to worry about a ninja of that mount you want when they can't even summon the boss. Remember iTZKooPA's lament that we needed a lie detector for the Brewfest boss? That will no longer be an issue. And if something goes wrong and you wipe, you don't lose your shot at the loot trove as long as you can bring the boss down at least once that day.

And the automatic port to the dungeon - well that's just an added bonus.

A couple of potential downsides for some groups - you can't decide in advance who to give loot to (which I've never really done in the past, but know others who have), and your chances of getting a rare drop won't increase if others in your group already have the item or don't want the rare. Overall from my point of view, the good outweighs the bad. But others may see it differently.

Of course, all these changes are still on the PTR and are subject to not be implemented, but the blue post makes it sound like this is a change that likely will be here to stay. I think we'll probably see it in place for Ahune in the Midsummer Fire Festival. How does everyone else like the proposed changes?