Stephen worked on the Queen Ansurek encounter as well as some content in Vault of the Incarnates and Amirdrassil.
Difficulty Curve
- For the overall raid, they want to make sure that every raid has a boss they can sink their teeth into.
- Especially on Mythic, the end boss has to be compelling and to be a challenge for the best of the best and it’s a really unique problem.
- Sikran and Rasha’nan were underwhelming from a difficulty perspective. They would’ve liked those to provide more of a challenge for guilds outside the RWF scene.
- There are at least two groups: RWF folks to Hall of Fame, and other Mythic guilds and landing the experience is tough for both audiences. They want to make sure that when you log in there’s something you can achieve.
- They have the Strands buff and they also use nerfs — they can nerf after the race or Hall of Fame is finished to make the challenge more reasonable.
- Some of the metrics they can use are internal data (e.g. how many guilds are on each boss, success rates, difficulty graduation), their own personal experiences in the raid, player feedback.
Ansurek Design
- One of their design goals is “simple is better” and that relates to the difficulty of Web Blades
- Creating readable problems that are individually understandable and simple so that players can come up with solutions when they all get put together is the goal of encounter design.
- The UX team is invaluable in testing those overlaps in finding the most fun, interesting and challenging variations.
- One of the mechanics in Phase 2 on Mythic was removed a week before launch because of this testing. When the Worshipper was killed, a massive meteor had to be soaked by the Tank who then had to swap sides using the portals to remove the Meteor. That mechanic turned out to not be necessary and it didn’t fit with the rhythm of the platform. That overlap just wasn’t fun and the fight was better off without it.
- The test some of the overlaps over and over again, so there’s a lot of confidence that it’s doable.
- Another mechanic that was cut early on was that popping the Froth would force all players to spread out shortly after.
- They knew that Ansurek Phase 3 had a tremendous amount of opportunity for optimization.
Weakauras
- The are cognizant of Weakauras existing.
- The main goal is designing a mechanic that is intuitive and fun at its core that can be solved and is interesting with or without a weakaura.
- They don’t think Weakauras or addons limits compelling encounters.
- They try to keep in mind how a mechanic is supposed to be solved, but sometimes it’s difficult to know.
- Regarding Private Auras, they want players to be able to play their characters in raid and not have to rely on a Weakaura package to find success at the hands of their own skill. They’ve learned a lot from Private Auras.
- Removing Private Auras from Ovinax was due to player feedback.
Visual Clarity
- There’s a new swirly graphic coming in 11.1 for Season 2 dungeons and the new raid! They would love feedback on this.
- They know that Visual clarity is a concern — on Queen Ansurek, they knew that Phase 1 was going to use Venom and Web abilities and the floor color was changed because of that. Phase 3 was Void and the floor color had a much more muted color than what it once had to make sure there was contrast.
Utility and Raid Buffs
- When asked about DK’s not having a raid buff and how to incentivize DKs, they mentioned that they try to make sure that there is a variety of utility problems throughout the raid – different types of dispels, different opportunities where movement abilities are effective.
Designing Encounter
- When designing for Encounters, they start with Heroic.
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