Optional boss modes making a comeback in Mists of Pandaria?
by Mathew McCurley 
Jan 26th 2012 at 4:30PM
Rather than selecting a normal or hard mode toggle before pulling an encounter, Ulduar raid groups were tasked with completing different objectives during the encounter or defeating the boss mechanics in a different order to activate hard mode. Famously, players would press a large red button behind Mimiron labelled "DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON," activating the encounter and a rather angry Titanic watcher. Other fights during Wrath of the Lich King such as Freya and Sartharion featured a "choose your own difficulty" mechanic wherein the player's choices before the encounter increased or decreased the boss' overall difficulty. Harder combinations of abilities would yield more impressive items.
Will Mists of Pandaria bring back our beloved "choose your difficulty" encounters and in-fight hard mode triggers? I know I'd like to get another Sartharion-style encounter, especially with mount rewards like the original provided.
Read the full blue post behind the break below.
Optional Boss Modes Making a Return in MoP?
What a coincidence! We happened to talk about raid design and results with Ghostcrawler and Mumper yesterday, and everyone looked back fondly on Ulduar, among others.
Yes, the same designers and artists who worked on Ulduar are still working on raids.
Here's the thing -- Ulduar is an example of a raid where lots of players got to enjoy the first few bosses, and very few players ever saw the last few. Yogg Saron and Algalon were among the least-killed bosses ever, and not because they were exceedingly difficult. Rather, clearing the dungeon all the way to Yogg took up a big chunk of a raiding week (and you only had an hour to kill Algalon), and the ability to extend raid lockouts came later in 3.2.0 (but extending raid lockouts means getting less loot overall). Raid Finder partially resolves the length-of-raid problem, so we can consider designing longer raids, but that's not always an easy call. Long raids mean longer development time, and while some players might be willing to wait, we understand why others might get impatient.
Of course, having multiple raids in a tier (like the combination of Bastion of Twilight and Blackwing Descent) has the advantage of giving players different environments to play in while potentially making scheduling and logistics easier.
Pushing a big red button for Mimiron was very cool, and again is fondly remembered. We have created something like 40 raid bosses since the creation of those encounters however, and we cant help but think that it would start to feel really gimmicky and forced if every raid encounter had its difficulty set by pushing a button, (or not killing adds, or changing the order you kill the bosses, or the other mechanics we used in Ulduar). We think Mimiron would feel less special if there were six more bosses in the game with big red buttons, and we're just not sure the design space is there to have a near infinite variety of means by which players launch a heroic mode in game.
Nonetheless, because there are so many requests for those style mechanics, we are considering doing a few bosses with optional modes (in the same way Mimiron, Freya or Sartharion had them) in Mists of Pandaria.
Yes, the same designers and artists who worked on Ulduar are still working on raids.
Here's the thing -- Ulduar is an example of a raid where lots of players got to enjoy the first few bosses, and very few players ever saw the last few. Yogg Saron and Algalon were among the least-killed bosses ever, and not because they were exceedingly difficult. Rather, clearing the dungeon all the way to Yogg took up a big chunk of a raiding week (and you only had an hour to kill Algalon), and the ability to extend raid lockouts came later in 3.2.0 (but extending raid lockouts means getting less loot overall). Raid Finder partially resolves the length-of-raid problem, so we can consider designing longer raids, but that's not always an easy call. Long raids mean longer development time, and while some players might be willing to wait, we understand why others might get impatient.
Of course, having multiple raids in a tier (like the combination of Bastion of Twilight and Blackwing Descent) has the advantage of giving players different environments to play in while potentially making scheduling and logistics easier.
Pushing a big red button for Mimiron was very cool, and again is fondly remembered. We have created something like 40 raid bosses since the creation of those encounters however, and we cant help but think that it would start to feel really gimmicky and forced if every raid encounter had its difficulty set by pushing a button, (or not killing adds, or changing the order you kill the bosses, or the other mechanics we used in Ulduar). We think Mimiron would feel less special if there were six more bosses in the game with big red buttons, and we're just not sure the design space is there to have a near infinite variety of means by which players launch a heroic mode in game.
Nonetheless, because there are so many requests for those style mechanics, we are considering doing a few bosses with optional modes (in the same way Mimiron, Freya or Sartharion had them) in Mists of Pandaria.
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Filed under: Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King, Mists of Pandaria
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Azizrael Jan 26th 2012 4:59PM
I've always wondered why it would have to be an either/or. For example, a council-style fight where the difficulty varies depending on which boss you kill could still have the hard-coded normal/heroic switch.
The trouble is if there's no additional reward, 99% of guilds will do it the easiest possible way and move on to the next one.
Azizrael Jan 26th 2012 5:04PM
Further idea: extra tier tokens. In Cata, for example, you could have every boss in DS drop a guaranteed shoulder token on top of its usual loot table if you did it the harder way, like not killing any oozes on Yor'sahj.
Homeschool Jan 26th 2012 5:12PM
It probably doesn't have to be either/or! Sartharion is a great example of this. While different approaches offered different loot (something which is now handled by difficulty setting), there was also the mount, which only dropped when successfully downing him with three drakes.
It's an ideal approach (when combined with the new difficulty setting.) Offering the same loot means that a guild that goes the easy way isn't punished, while the opportunity to have some fun and get a bonus prize is still there for those who care.
Perhaps it will also mean that we won't have to run Heroic difficulty in order to have access to the fun stuff...
Omegan01 Jan 26th 2012 5:11PM
One the one hand, I understand why Blizzard did not continue with Ulduar-style hardmodes. Heroic toggling is easier to implement and plan for, rather than designing boss-by-boss with some having only one fight type while others (Flame Leviathan and Yogg-Saron) had as many as 5.
On the other hand, hitting a switch on your UI just seems...so...soullless, I guess, for want of a better term. Doing things like pushing the big red button or Leeroying Sartharion with all his bros up was a more immersive, fun way of activating tough boss fights.
If Blizzard brings back the in-game method of boss toggles, even if it's still just a heroic/nonheroic swap, I think I would be happy with that. Especially if it means more boss dialogue.
"DIDN'T YOU SEE THE SIGN THAT SAYS 'DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON'? HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CONTINUE TESTING WITH THE SELF-DESTRUCT MECHANSIM ACTIVE?!"
Ninerva Jan 26th 2012 5:12PM
Designing triggered hard modes is essentially a matter of asking two questions:
1. What makes the boss harder on hard mode, and what is the reason this happens?
2. What can the raid do to cause this to happen or prevent it from happening?
If you can't answer the first question, the boss does not need a hard mode. ICC's gunship battle, for example, didn't need its NORMAL mode.
For an example of how this could be applied to a Cataclysm raid boss in a unique manner, look at Halfus Wyrmbreaker. On normal you have two inactive drakes each week, while they're all active on heroic. To make it into a trigger, keep the two random inactive drakes, but allow you to resurrect them before pulling the boss. Conveniently, this also gives you multiple difficulty levels. Rez one drake for medium difficulty, rez both for the full hard mode.
Just apply this thinking to each encounter, and you have an almost surefire way of keeping the triggers varied.
Matt Feb 12th 2012 6:00PM
I agree with this so much. Them saying "We're afraid we'll run out of ways to do unique hardmodes!" is exactly like them saying "We're afraid we'll run out of unique achievements!". Any mechanical difference between hard and normal can somehow be implemented by the players. The times you run into problems, is when the Hard mode version is basically the same fight despite the mechanical changes. There were quite a lot of those this tier - though Yor'sahj is notable as being more different on Hard mode.
Naryn Jan 26th 2012 5:19PM
I don't think every boss should have a hard mode, nor should there be a whole tier of extra raid gear from it, similar to Ulduar being able to get those certain bits of gear that were from Hard Modes made it feel much better, for instance weapons and trinkets could be done especially well like this I think.
Tyler Caraway Jan 26th 2012 6:23PM
Yes, for those of us that already find Heroic raiding too easy, let's make it even easier by removing half the Hard Mode content.
I'm all for everyone being capable of raiding, I have nothing against casual raiders, but I want to be challenged. I want to waste my hours banging my head against a boss, pushing myself to the limits to get a kill. Current Normal Modes -- which are still too difficult for most players -- put me to sleep. Raid Finder? Can't even stand it, not even on alts, it's that boring to me. So to suggest removing the one difficult part of the game? I don't think so.
Scorfula Jan 27th 2012 1:06AM
Not really sure why Tyler is downvoted into oblivion here, if he'd been saying the same thing the other way around ie 'Raiding is too hard and or/time intensive for most people, I like my LFR difficultly because it's right for me' I'm quite sure this post would be bluer than the sky.
But when he'd like to keep the part of the game that directly appeals to the opposite sort of people that the Raid Finder is for? Oh no. Those people don't count as real people, they're robots and do not deserve a raid difficuly befitting them.
karatesmashunhurt Jan 27th 2012 6:08AM
Tyler may not have said what he did in the most measured tones - but he's right.
I am not a really great raider and quite quickly our group got to 7/8. People who are much better than me, would have given up out of boredom by now if it wasn't for hard modes.
Zanathos Jan 27th 2012 3:49PM
200,000 people have cleared normal dragon soul. You may not think you're a great raider for getting 7/8 cleared right away, but you're ahead almost everyone else.
Matt Feb 12th 2012 6:13PM
I agree with both Tyler and Scorfula. I myself also love love banging my head against a boss for hours on head, night after night, working hard to improve and achieve a goal with my fellow guild members. I don't Raid for the gear, I don't Raid for the achievements, I don't even raid for the boss kills. I Raid because I like logging on and being challenged 3 or 4 nights a week with my guild.
While I understand that this is not a massive majority, we are a large crowd none the less, and I think Scorfula's point is well put. Each boss fight that doesn't have a Hard mode is likely to be a boss fight I wont be doing for long.
It also bothers me this trend of applying debuffs to the Hard mode encounters as well. I love the idea of nerfing the content slowly over time to allow more people to see it - however, Hard modes have never been about "seeing" the content. Hard modes are where the players who want to test themselves and compete with others go to get their fix, and each time the content sees a nerf, it really mucks around with that aspect of the game. Our guild just downed Yor'sahj on Hard mode after the nerf - A one shot. We'll always wonder if we could have had it that week without the nerf or not; but of course, we can't undo the buff, because none of the other guilds will either, so we're inevitably forced to use it anyway.
Titusx Jan 26th 2012 5:21PM
As someone who didn't get far into Ulduar I have no fond memories of it. In a way Ulduar had a very traditional old school design: time consuming, multiple hard modes and one shot 1 hour timed boss that is exclusive to those who did the hard stuff.
Hard mode lovers loved it, of course, it was made for them but the rest... skipped. If you ask me going all the way back to this design method would go against Blizz current philosophy.
Elitist will ask for it forever anyway.
cguest89 Jan 26th 2012 5:41PM
I consider myself a casual raider and I loved Ulduar. Rants about elitist/casuals really just need to stop.
Pyromelter Jan 26th 2012 5:57PM
The problem with a more casual person seeing all of ulduar is that it was so big and long, it took a long time just to walk through the whole thing. Hence the smaller, more modular raids of cataclysm.
Blizzard can implement the hard-mode by encounter design into a modular raid system, so we get the best of both worlds. It has nothing to do with being "elitist," and everything to do with being about fun, interesting, and creating a challenge that is more logical than toggling a setting on your UI.
Angus Jan 26th 2012 7:33PM
My guild is by no means elite (STILL working on Ragnaros...) and we had a huge explosion during Ulduar that killed us for 25 mans permanently and even Ulduar 10 was almost impossible.
We had 3 of the watchers down anyway. Even after all that. No lock outs, just slam in and do it.
It wasn't too hard. Hell, if anything it was awesome because it was tweaked a lot and the hard modes weren't something you had to beat the thing to do. We were consistently doing 2-3 towers up on Flame Leviathan and had gotten him down with all 4 once or twice.
I think all Hard Modes should be toggles and they should NOT hand out better gear. They should hand out MORE gear. Let the folks that want to do it harder get stuff faster.
karatesmashunhurt Jan 27th 2012 6:18AM
@Angus
I hope you guys have moved into Dragon Soul. There a lot of bosses in DS which are easier than Raggy is. I got a bit demoralised in FL going 6/7 very quickly then spending the rest of our time wiping on Raggy.
I don't know cause you didn't say, but I suspect the point you guys are falling down on is dealing with the adds that spawn during a transition phase (that was what drove us insane for ages). Gear from Dragon soul may help you a little on that - but the thing that helped us most was explicit assignments to the different adds, and making sure the dps were assigned to suitable adds (melee dps with stuns/good burst damage get assigned to adds near the hammer, ranged dps (esp if they're dotty) assigned to further away adds).
Anyway - wherever you're stuck good luck on it, and I hope you're having fun in DS.
Talsenar Jan 26th 2012 5:25PM
On the subject of 'long raids' and everything one thing I'm very disappointed didn't pan out in cata that Blizz said they would do is having multiple raids per tier. For one thing multiple raids alleviates that problem of reaching the end boss taking a whole reset (since if you so desire you can focus on a progression kill of the smaller raid's end boss) but I think it just adds much needed variety to raiding. Getting stuck in one place week in, week out gets very repetitive, firelands being a particularly notable example where a raider could go months without seeing any colours other than browns/oranges/reds and yellows.
One thing I would quite like Blizzard to consider is that each subsequent raid does not have to be a tier higher, talking about why so few saw Yogg and Algalon one major reason has to be that the content was only out for a little over 3.5 months before they released TOC with gear that made Ulduar irrelevant. If TOC had had the same ilvl gear as Ulduar I think the raid would have gone down a lot better with players since it would have offered them choice, a total of 19 bosses instead of 5.
As long as they signposted it well enough I think it would go down well (i.e. we're starting with a 6 boss raid in this tier, expect a 3 boss raid in a couple months) and would allow more frequent content without making older content immediately irrelevant or making casual raiding guilds feel too pressured to 'keep up'
Kurly Jan 26th 2012 5:33PM
Fewer people killed Yogg Saron and Algalon because they released that crappy TOC too soon. We were moving slowly but steadily through Ulduar, but as soon as TOC came out no one wanted to run Ulduar because the better gear was in TOC.
Imnick Jan 26th 2012 5:45PM
Don't you realise that's an argument nobody can win? People whine if content is released too late but release it sooner and people whine it was too soon. They can't wait until everyone has killed the end boss before releasing the next tier.