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Group and Raid Bosses...

    • 9115 posts
    April 23, 2020 4:04 AM PDT

    Group and Raid Bosses - What is your favourite all time group or raid boss and why? #MMORPG#CommunityMatters

    • 1315 posts
    April 23, 2020 4:10 AM PDT

    Opera in Karazhan before Wrath level bumps made it trivial (10 man raid dungeon in WoW during the first expansion, Burning Crusade)

    Why?  Everyone could have a meaningful job, it changed every time depending on which characters spawned, it was very much not a static tank and spank.  I also believe it was the first of the second tier bosses that gave better loot.


    This post was edited by Trasak at April 23, 2020 4:12 AM PDT
    • 1584 posts
    April 23, 2020 5:50 AM PDT

    I honestly have to say the Lich King from WoW, and it's for a ton of reasons, the encounter was challenging, especially the Heroic version, and also the lore behind him, it mean the Lich King weas so powerful he even control his own continent all by himself, and no one til it was time they simply couldn't ignore him any longer didn't dare face him.

     

    If i had to choice a Close 2nd though, it would be AoW from EQ, he was simply a hard fight, and was completely overtuned for the expansion he was in, and getting the kill for rewarding. Honestly looking at it now, is that you can technically take what is a simple fight on paper to  be one of the most frustrating fights if you just increase his numbers/ both in max health and his damage output.


    This post was edited by Cealtric at April 23, 2020 5:51 AM PDT
    • 36 posts
    April 23, 2020 6:46 AM PDT

    The beholder in Vanguard.  As a bloodmage it was fun killing your whole group.  Seriously though, I liked the idea that the mob could turn your ability against you.

    • 945 posts
    April 23, 2020 7:24 AM PDT

    Burning Crusade was the 2nd expansion, but I agree that the 10 man raid dungeons were amazing.  Everyone's contributions mattered (therefore everyone felt accomplished).  The large raids (in every MMO I've played) allow for a lot of slop/poor playing/zerging.  With that said, I understand why the large raid sizes are important and appeal to some people too (the encounters can be massive with greater rewards and allows for a lot more people to "contribute").

    On the flip side of that, not having instances or encounter lockouts will be an absolute nightmare for "small raid (10 man)" encounters regardelss of scaling within a year or so after release... you'll eventually have people griefing the encounters by preventing newer players from "truly" experiencing them.  Especially when credit for kills will go to top damage dealt instead of first to tag.  

    There are obviously pros to having non-instanced encounters, but there are more cons in an MMORPG (unless you remove the first "M" and have a community of only a couple hundred simultaneous players, which then just makes the game an ORPG removing the grand social scale of an MMO).  They're combining multiple gaming genres.  EQ got away with this because there was nothing to compare it to, and now the community that still exists there has had to generate a system of sharing that absolutely would not work with the average MMO players of today's age.  The competition of open world encounters is great, but will absolutely breed griefing - regardless of any "programmed" precautions the devs try to implement (GM intervention would be the only sure way to curtail griefing of open encounters).  Players will absolutely find a way to exploit a programmed mechanic (or use it to grief others) if it is intentionally designed to allow some players to receive a reward and simultaneously prevent others for their efforts.  

    With that said, although I personally prefer small raid encounters, I don't see small group raiding being a viable option without tremendous griefing in an non-instanced game...  unless the devs can pull off some kind of miracle within then next couple of years.   :( 

    If the game's focus turns out to be small raid encounter driven (without some magic mechanic to prevent PvE griefing), I will definitely be playing on a PvP server in order to be in a community that can actually prevent player griefing.

    • 945 posts
    April 23, 2020 7:28 AM PDT

    Riahuf22 said:

    I honestly have to say the Lich King from WoW, and it's for a ton of reasons, the encounter was challenging, especially the Heroic version, and also the lore behind him, it mean the Lich King weas so powerful he even control his own continent all by himself, and no one til it was time they simply couldn't ignore him any longer didn't dare face him.

     

    If i had to choice a Close 2nd though, it would be AoW from EQ, he was simply a hard fight, and was completely overtuned for the expansion he was in, and getting the kill for rewarding. Honestly looking at it now, is that you can technically take what is a simple fight on paper to  be one of the most frustrating fights if you just increase his numbers/ both in max health and his damage output.

    I agree Lich King was amazing.  WoW raiding became fun once it dropped from 40 man endurance challenges, down to 10-20 man strategy encounters.  
    My guild in EQ could never take down AoW because we kept getting griefed by another guild.  That was around the time I quit playing.

    • 3852 posts
    April 23, 2020 7:41 AM PDT

    The Princess in the wonderful Darkness Falls dungeon in DAOC.

    • 2419 posts
    April 23, 2020 8:51 AM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    Group and Raid Bosses - What is your favourite all time group or raid boss and why? #MMORPG#CommunityMatters

    Emperor Ssraeshza.  A really tough NPC with a bunch (6 I think) guardians that are immune to all forms of crowd control.  So you need to divide up your raid to deal with everthing simultaneously. Only after Emperor dies can you then deal with the guardians.  I also appreciated that he was behind a keyed portal so you really had to earn your shot to fight him.

    • 1315 posts
    April 23, 2020 9:23 AM PDT

    Kinda funny what different people see as good raid design vs bad or at least lazy raid design.  AoW and Ssraeshza were both pure gear checks which I would file under lazy game design.  Nothing major to the fights once you had tanks that could survive the spikes and enough DPS to burn down the boss before the healers ran out of mana.

    • 36 posts
    April 23, 2020 10:35 AM PDT

    I really liked all the group raid bosses from the Griffon quest line from Vanguard. Probably my favorites because of the camaraderie it built with the group I did them with and the great reward at the end!

    • 2752 posts
    April 23, 2020 11:29 AM PDT

    Trasak said:

    Opera in Karazhan before Wrath level bumps made it trivial (10 man raid dungeon in WoW during the first expansion, Burning Crusade)

    Why?  Everyone could have a meaningful job, it changed every time depending on which characters spawned, it was very much not a static tank and spank.  I also believe it was the first of the second tier bosses that gave better loot.

    Probably this for me too, Karazhan as a whole was top notch when it came out. 


    This post was edited by Iksar at April 23, 2020 11:29 AM PDT
    • 633 posts
    April 23, 2020 2:22 PM PDT

    Trasak said:

    Kinda funny what different people see as good raid design vs bad or at least lazy raid design.  AoW and Ssraeshza were both pure gear checks which I would file under lazy game design.  Nothing major to the fights once you had tanks that could survive the spikes and enough DPS to burn down the boss before the healers ran out of mana.

    While that is true, many raids that require you to do various activities during the raid seem very contrived.  I especially dislike it when the one and only item that can kill a boss is in his room for some reason.  I mean really?  The big bad boss keeps his one Achilles heel in his room so a random group of adventurers can come in and kill him with it?  At least with Emporer Ssraeshza you had to actually get the bane weapons needed to kill him.

    Also, the whole you need to be in specific areas to avoid these random attacks or events that happen seem very contrived to me as well.  Partly for the same reason.  A boss mob that is immune to lava and fills his room with lava as a means of killing his opponents, but he designs his room so that there are a couple of spots for said opponents to safely stand out of the lava to kill him?

    Bosses should have more thought into them than this kind of thing.  Need specific things to kill the bosses?  Maybe you need to kill some of his underlings and create bane weapons (kinda like Ssreashza).  Or maybe you need to kill his immediate underling who keeps a secret weapon to overtake his leader with.

    Need to avoid the lava?  Perhaps you just need your clerics ready to put walls up in strategic locations to redirect the lava flow.  Or perhaps you need to get an item from a group of researchers that have been scouting out the dungeon that hardens his specific form of lava allowing you to stand on it.

    I'm not saying those types of raids are bad.  Just saying they really annoy me with the lack of logic to them.  And perhaps the occasional boss would have his Achilles heel in the room with him, after all he may just be that confident in his abilities that he's not worried.

    • 2001 posts
    April 23, 2020 6:05 PM PDT

    Killing the Olthoi Queen in the Dark Majesty expansion of Asheron's Call.

    I loved hunting Olthoi generally.If you've never seen them, they looked like giant, mutant ants. Taller than any player-character. Dark reddish-brown carapaces. High screechy screams. When dozens were swarming all around you in one of their dark, menacing dungeons it was more terrifying than almost any horror movie I had ever seen.

    To do the quest to kill the Queen took 2 separate groups (there were no real raids in AC). And the planning and teamwork required seemed only slightly less complex than the D-day invasion of Normandy! Even years later, after more expansions and level-cap increases, I never heard of anyone claiming to even come close to soloing the quest. The server-wide announcement of your triumph that brought a flurry of congratulatory PMs from friends and strangers alike was pretty satisfying too :D

    "In the darkest depths of Marescent Plateau on far Marae Lassel, the party of the bold Jothany has slain the young queen of the island's Olthoi brood! As one, the Olthoi swarms recoil from her final burst of terror, and slowly begin to withdraw back into their hives."

    The Good Old Days for sure!

     

    • 1273 posts
    April 23, 2020 7:28 PM PDT

    I'm not saying it's the best encounter but it is my favorite memory.  We were fighting Lady Vox, big raid, I don't even remember how many people were allowed to raid back then...seems like there was no limit.  Whoever wanted to help out would show up and fight, but my memory on that part is fuzzy.  To get to the point, the raid was going pretty rough, it was the early days when people had to figure out strategies as they went (rather than reading about how to do it, etc).  People were dying left and right, but Lady Vox was also getting close to dead.  With corpses all over the area she'd turn and take someone out, turn take out another, the number of living players dwindled to 5, 4, 3, 2, and then I was alone face to face with the dragon.  My health keeps dropping and it comes down to one last hit.  With about 5% health left my last auto attack killed her.  Standing there alone, body shaking in real life, I took a few deep breaths and started to rez the other rezzers.  Amazing memory.  And no, I don't remember what loot she had haha.  

    • 40 posts
    April 23, 2020 7:59 PM PDT

    I really enjoyed Vanguard's initial wave of raid encounters.  The Core Processor and Kotasoth were probably my favourites raids simply due to the challenge.  I prefer smaller raids with real strategy and challenge involved compared to zerg raids where numbers can trump skill and talent.

    • 63 posts
    April 24, 2020 1:38 AM PDT

    My favourite was the Dynamis raids in FFXI Online for a variety of reasons.

    1) These raids were essentially large scale farming of what would be considered today as trash mobs or mini-boss.  These enemies were the the primary reason for going into the raid, this made it a bit less pressure for people, more accessible and more fun.  That isnt to say the bosses were not difficult, some of them certainly were difficult but the bosses only constituted a small % of the time you spend in the raid instead of consuming almost all of it.  It certainly wasn't a replacement for traditional raids but it was a complimentary raid style that everyone could get into and have a hcance of getting some useful gear or gold out of.

    2) The raid took place inside familiar locations (major cities, recognisable zone) all under a shroud of darkness making them familiar to everyone and meaningful because everyone wanted to save their starting city/major trading hub/familiar zone from enemy invasion.

    3) The raid was created in such a way that it could be taken on by a a standard alliance (18) and as high as 64 people.  Depending on the size of your team you could take on additional farming opportunities of enemies for useful resources and gear drops but the bosses themselves (in the early locations) were killable with a standard alliance allowing farming without requiring huge numbers.

    4 The raid was limited to 3 hours maximum, useful for people who need to schedule their time.  You didnt get 3 hours on the clock when you went in certain enemies in the game when you killed them granted you more time so you had to learn where these enemies were and make sure you killed them on your way as some of them were off the beaten path.

    5) The raid was expanded and integrated into new expansion using the new zones and the expanding story lines giving continuity to the raid.

    6) For all its scale the farming of the monsters wasn't difficult in terms of "jumping ropes".  The basic farming model was carefully pull your enemies so you dont get over-whelmed, crown control everything you are not fighting, then in priority order kill the enemies.  Some enemies were not CC-able and required other tactics to handle them (burning down ASAP/precision stunning/kiting/some had to be killed by mages only).  As such amost every enemy was fun to kill without making everyone facing dreadful instant death mechanics mixed with lag and it presented interesting challenges when pulls were too big nad clutch saves of the raid were made.

    7) The gear you got from there lasted a long time, it wasn't simply replaced by the next locations equipment or a different raid.  Each location dropped different gear for different classes so every had something to get from each location.  Some of the gear from this dungeon was even Best In Slot encouraging more serious raiders to "have a bit of stress free fun" in Dynamis but still turn up in their great gear and help everyone.  It also contained a very good weapon for every class that could be upgraded at a huge cost and time and resources over those expansion packs.

    8) The atmosphere was amazing, the darkness shourded cities looked good, the usic was great it created a real sense of forboding and intimidation of the enemy invasion.