Goes Against Stated Encounter GoalIon Hazzikostas had an interview with Raider.ioemphasis mineIn Sepulcher, there were multiple wall bosses as we all know, and the instance was also more difficult than intended on other difficulties. There were plenty of guilds that struggled on Heroic despite having a past history of comfortably getting Ahead of the Curve and heading into Mythic. We made a lot of nerfs, etc. But anyway, that led to a lot of conversations internally about not only our tuning goals, but also our philosophies. For example, when is it okay to wipe the raid instantly for a mistake? Honestly, the answer should be “almost never” — at least when it’s more like a single person’s twitch reaction mistake of, “you fail if you do this mechanic incorrectly” or whatever. It’s totally reasonable on Mythic to kill the player for doing that; but to say the entire raid is over because someone was one yard out of position is not our aim. Yes that’s difficult, yes that will get us three-digit wipe counts and get the boss on the MMO Champion’s list of hardest bosses, but that’s not actually our goal as encounter designers. Our goal is to make a fun, challenging experience, so I think the design of Vault of the Incarnates and our raids going forward should be very directly the product of those lessons. We still want a stern test for the best guilds in the world, and we still want nerd screams and a real sense of accomplishment when someone gets the world first title with two or three other guilds hot on their tail. But also, we’d rather not have to nerf things 20 times for the rank 100 / rank 1,000 / rank 5,000 guilds to be able to blaze that same trail afterwards.

Double Soaking seeds is fairly common giving the time constraint of 5 seconds and how fast mechanics are on this fight. This feels like one of the "twitch movements' that Ion is talking about above. There should be no reason that this mechanic wipes the entire raid for one person accidently tripping on a seed, especially when it's hard to see the seeds sometimes when they're under the melee camp. Killing the player sure, killing the entire raid seems extremely punishing.

Missing a Flare Bomb also seems overly punishing. You're already missing out on the damage when the player lands on the roots, why does missing a Flare Bomb have to also instantly wipe the entire raid. If the Flare Bomb didn't wipe the raid it would be possible to struggle through that section of the fight, rather than just instantly wiping.

For how hard the Intermission assignments are, and how the community felt the need to solve it with a weakaura, there shouldn't be as harsh of a punishment for missing a single Orb. Should it be harder, absolutely, but instantly wiping the raid is just overly punishing.

The healer adds in Phase 2 are also so tightly tuned in the amount that you heal the tree that you really can't afford to Blaze the healer adds at all. You already use Grips and Rescues to supplement minor healing losses but if even one add is transformed, it's extremely punishing and almost certainly a wipe.

The Shadow Cages on the Colossus adds are also extremely punishing. One person missing their break means that players are permanently stunned for an infinite duration. Why doesn't this have a cap of say 10 seconds so you lose some throughput but don't instantly wipe due to lack of healing / damage.

And of course, the seeds in the final phase. If this was the only mechanic where one person messing up can wipe the raid, I think this mechanic would be okay for a final boss. But this mechanic alongside all the other ones in the earlier phases and earlier bosses just adds more difficulty in a frustrating way.

Conclusion

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Comment by TOMRUSOneshots is a result of Blizzard developers incompetence and they should be ashamed of such a bad game design that makes players suffer instead of having fun.

This equally applies to M+ as well.

TLDR: oneshots are bad and anti fun.Comment by SanitarLesaOneshots is a result of Blizzard developers incompetence and they should be ashamed of such a bad game design that makes players suffer instead of having fun.Comment by Swalshy4Blizzard is out of their minds. 400+ average pull count to down Tindral and still not nerfed?Comment by funkichickenThis is a great article. Thanks for the data to back up the conclusions!Comment by StopImWhiteI said it years ago, they need to tone down boss difficulty. The peak for difficulty to me was probably Mop-Wod era raiding. It was hard enough to not be a push over, but easy enough that with a solid team you can easily reclear every week and not hate your life every reset week. I know they can do it because bosses in the raid are challenging, but not borderline impossible, but for whatever reason they always overtune a select few bosses each tier that are beyond cancer.Comment by OutdatedOneshots is a result of Blizzard developers incompetence and they should be ashamed of such a bad game design that makes players suffer instead of having fun.Comment by GwildorrWhen does Cross Realm open up? This is the most idiotic system to block cross realm mythic even now at Week 9. RTWF is over...Comment by sabocanBlizzard is honestly killing Mythic raiding as a game mode, the spike in difficulty on the last 2 bosses is insane. People want to play the game but no one wants to wipe 500 times to a boss, its just not fun. You'd think they'd learned from Sepulcher but here we are again with the same BS mechanics. Once the RWF is over the bosses should be nerfed substantially. Let people enjoy playing the game.Comment by AsherrTheRedI am glad someone is talking about thisComment by AzzkikrTerrible game design really.

No suprise that Aberrus is easily the best raid this expansion, by a big margin.Comment by kpiaumThis "one person fail wipe" is a cancer in other games, ppl on Lost Ark call out this type of mechanic always and Blizzard are adapting this type of mechanic to wow.Comment by BecaTVFully agree to the previous comments.

The trend going towards those oneshots is so god damn not fun. Please reconsider this in the war within.Comment by glassleoWhen does Cross Realm open up? This is the most idiotic system to block cross realm mythic even now at Week 9. RTWF is over...Comment by KanegasiJust don't make mistakes and you won't wipe.Comment by dd614The average M raider doesn't want fights that are 10+ minutes long and 1 mistake 7-8 minutes in can cause a wipe.Comment by pghcrewFixing this: Around 47% of guilds who have achieved 6/9M have subsequently killed Smolderon.

Also raid walls like Tindral don't belong in the game.Comment by MythicRaidRMTBoo1 person messing up wiping the entire raid mechanics are terrible and need to go away forever.Comment by Karashote1 mistake = raid wipe is good

just play better lolComment by MythicRaidRMTBoo1 mistake = raid wipe is good

just play better lolComment by imainlockTerrible game design really.

No suprise that Aberrus is easily the best raid this expansion, by a big margin.

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