Feedback on World Boss changes from July 19 update

[Adzekul.3104]

I finally had a chance to try the 4 updated, low-level World Boss fights today and thought I should give my feedback, since I have seen no threads on this topic.

Great Jungle Worm

I rather liked this one. It felt like the difficulty scaled rather well, and it was not too long a fight, even in an under-filled map. Call this a successful update. Probably my favourite of the 4.

Svanir Shaman Chief

This fight seemed to scale rather poorly at low population. On my map it took almost the full alloted time (1 minute left, maybe?) to get a kill and lots of (seemingly) newer players were struggling with it. There were no puzzling mechanics, but the hitpoint pool seemed to be absurd. Please consider if this needs to be further tuned. To call this my third favourite of 4 underscores for me how I did not really like these changes. I understand the desire to add mechanics that we will see in end-game and to increase the health pool, but it feels like it was buffed too much, at least for 20 people.

Fire Elemental

This seemed to scale well and was a decent fight. I am not sure I liked some of the meteors spawning behind us, out of sight, but most of them were obvious and avoidable. Might be worth considering the range on these. My second favourite of the 4.

Shadow Behemoth

Did not like this fight. It seemed to take forever to kill, even with what seemed to be a full map participating in the fight. The portal phases just seemed to make the fight super slow and boring. The new animations were puzzling, because the range is very different, and these just seemed to emphasize the annoyance of the difficult-to-see red circles in the shallow water. Overall, this was my least favourite of the 4. Please consider ways to make the red circles more visible and whether or not there are too many intermediate phases where we have to kill the portals. I mean, what do the portals actually do anyways, in a lore or role-play perspective? I am not certain what the point of these is.

Two cents respectfully submitted for discussion and review.

Adzekul

[Labjax.2465]

I agree with much of your assessment. In general, the HP sponge stuff is the biggest concern to me.

Shadow Behemoth seemed like the least modified and the most spongy, and for reasons that aren't clear to me, didn't seem to be doing its "move head to ground level" maneuver as much, so as a melee character, I was getting kind of confused as to when I get much of an opportunity to attack at all. Maybe I missed something, I dunno, I only tried the new version out once so far.

[Chichimec.9364]

The only one I've done since the changes was the Shadow Behemoth and I have to agree with the OP. All the changes seemed to do was to make the fight longer and more tedious without adding anything in the way of visuals or rewards to make the more tedious fight worthwhile. The Shadow Behemoth was the first World Boss I encountered when I began playing. The moment the head came roaring down in my face convinced me that I was going to love this game. That last battle with the Behemoth convinced me not to bother with this Boss anymore and that's too bad.

[Batel.9206]

1 hour ago, Chichimec.9364 said:

The only one I've done since the changes was the Shadow Behemoth and I have to agree with the OP. All the changes seemed to do was to make the fight longer and more tedious without adding anything in the way of visuals or rewards to make the more tedious fight worthwhile. The Shadow Behemoth was the first World Boss I encountered when I began playing. The moment the head came roaring down in my face convinced me that I was going to love this game. That last battle with the Behemoth convinced me not to bother with this Boss anymore and that's too bad.

Same here. I did the Shadow Behemoth a few days ago...I could barely tell where it was. I was playing a Deadeye, so rifle's got a pretty long range, but half the time what I was trying to shoot at was still out of range. I tried to shoot at the claws - they moved around so much that I couldn't hit them. I tried to shoot at the head - I had to sit practically underneath it to get in range, and tilt my camera up and back to even see it...which made me miss the murky, barely-visible red circles right where I was standing...

Maybe I'm just doing it wrong.

Edit: That said, I did appreciate some of the new animations...from what little I could see of them. The Behemoth seems actively malicious and dangerous now, as it should, not just some random blob of darkness sitting on its blobby dark behind. So, kudos to the animation team. 😄

Edited July 30, 2022 by Batel.9206

[Farohna.6247]

I agree with your assessment OP.  Not a fan of the new and improved Shadow Behemoth... it drags on, on, and on.

 

[Lysico.4906]

Why do them too be honest.     There is no gear that is worth it.   Waste of time.    

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I agree with much of your assessment. In general, the HP sponge stuff is the biggest concern to me.

Shadow Behemoth seemed like the least modified and the most spongy, and for reasons that aren't clear to me, didn't seem to be doing its "move head to ground level" maneuver as much, so as a melee character, I was getting kind of confused as to when I get much of an opportunity to attack at all. Maybe I missed something, I dunno, I only tried the new version out once so far.

Yep, the targetting for that world boss is definitely worse now. Nor was the mentioned "better visibility of boss attacks" implemented in this encounter - if anything, most of damage sources seem now even less visible than before - most of the time i had no idea what was damaging me and how should i avoid it.

Not to mention the once clear Portals mechanic was made more confusing. Sure, there is, as before, a portal phase where you need to kill portals to make the boss targettable. Or at least you might have thought so, but then you;d realize that portals can spawn without making the boss untargettable, and that there does not seem to be any purpose in destroying them in this case.

So, apart from the visual upgrade, all the changes for this boss fight seem to have made it worse, not better.

[DexterousGecko.6328]

Aww, I didn't do them for the loot anyways, it was just fun killing a big monster together. It's not fun if it's just HP bloat.

[Labjax.2465]

18 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Yep, the targetting for that world boss is definitely worse now. Nor was the mentioned "better visibility of boss attacks" implemented in this encounter - if anything, most of damage sources seem now even less visible than before - most of the time i had no idea what was damaging me and how should i avoid it.

Not to mention the once clear Portals mechanic was made more confusing. Sure, there is, as before, a portal phase where you need to kill portals to make the boss targettable. Or at least you might have thought so, but then you;d realize that portals can spawn without making the boss untargettable, and that there does not seem to be any purpose in destroying them in this case.

So, apart from the visual upgrade, all the changes for this boss fight seem to have made it worse, not better.

Agreed, well said.

[Batel.9206]

Okay, did Shadow Behemoth again today, playing as a Reaper this time. In melee range...ugh.

So with everyone dropping combo fields - poison, fire, chaos, chill, etc. - right on my feet as I'm in melee, trying in vain to actually get close enough to the Behemoth to hit it, I cannot see the red circles at all underneath all the effects fields. Too many overlapping boundaries and effects and visual noise. I only knew I was standing where I shouldn't when my health started dropping like a stone.

I still couldn't see what I was targeting - thank you, automatic depth-of-field zoom on camera - and wound up switching to axe and telling my poor overworked shadow fiend to go blind...something or other. At least then I could move around a bit and try to hit something a bit more effectively. It worked, but I had to blindly guess where the target was based on skill range indicators.

Overall? I do not like the new Shadow Behemoth. 😞 Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, or I'll get used to the new mechanics with time, but right now it feels clunky and frustrating.

Edited July 31, 2022 by Batel.9206
clarification

[Solitude.2097]

Slap some "inisible" stat reduction for 80 lvl players  around core open World bosses(because they benefit from multiply Burning stacks) and reduce the HP of the bosses , for the rest of the community to enjoy

Edited July 31, 2022 by Solitude.2097

[Farohna.6247]

13 hours ago, Lysico.4906 said:

Why do them too be honest.     There is no gear that is worth it.   Waste of time.    

Because I enjoy doing them, they're fun, the groups are fun.  Sometimes I do them for the dailies.  Sometimes I happen to be on a map and want to help out for players who may be starting out and it's new to them ❤️

[Blude.6812]

Regardless of some new animations, basically Anet took the easy way and  they made them sponges. As for loot- same old .

[Izzy.2951]

One thing you didnt mention, in the fire elemental i like the aura when you get inside and your burning, but isnt it TOO big? to the point which is weird/annoying. same with the floor yellow marker, i think they should make this a little smaller.

[lionlady.1560]

Did Frozen Maw today first time doing any of the new reiterations of the low lvl bosses holy cow that shamans just a massive hp sponge the mechanics seem ok but it just drags on for way too long esp for a low lvl boss , did Jungle wurm not long after and that 1 seemed to have good hp and mechanics .

 

[Zohane.7208]

I'm actually somewhat grateful for these changes; I used to do all 4 starter zone bosses daily, just for the chill and the (slim) chance of getting some nice loot. After trying out the new ones a few time, I'm definitely cured of that addiction, so thanks for that Anet 🙂

[Deepcuts.9740]

My feedback on all world boss changes: YUK

If they've done this to impress future Steam users, I am afraid the impression will not be good.

I have done EoD strikes faster than some of the new "world bosses". 

[Gerebos.1065]

I love the new changes it could have been more but it's poorly optimized and takes ages to finish a boss like Svanir runs to middle in full invulnerability after whirlwinding out of the event area....

The Time=Reward is extremly unbalanced you get nothing improved what the RNG will not filter to the ground...

In a nutshell: the new things are good but more optimization required

[Ashen.2907]

Ive only done the Svanir boss so far. Seems much improved but could probably have its health scaling looked at. After a while it starts feeling tedious. You want to aim for, "Wow! we beat him. Awesome job guys," not, "Thank god its finally over."

Edited August 1, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[notebene.3190]

SB was my least favorite of the four originally, I took to the other 3 just fine (though I have breakbar damage in the 3rd auto-attack of my staff and it doesn't seem to work on the wurm food guys very well). It only took me a few more times to come up with a good rhythm for SB, and now it seems fun. I'm not getting downed much any more. I'm using my group cleanses and heals at better times, finding a good place to stand between his ugly mug and his right hand circles to constantly attack (bursting his head on the green circle), and then rolling out to do portals. 

I love how the Svanir boss moves now and doesn't get 'stuck' with his back to a ledge so you can't stand behind him. I'm all in on melee with him now! It's pretty easy to time the storm drops and his movement.

I don't have much to say about the scaling, as there have been big groups every time I've done it. I wish Fire Elemental would spin up 5 min early (or even just a few), as you get a little pinched for time getting to the next WB (and sneaking in the matrix cube key). 🙂

[Adzekul.3104]

I have an update for Fire Elemental: The scaling at low population is horrible and the fight is impossible when there are only 10 people. This happened in prime time EU Wednesday. I counted. We had exactly 10 people. Why so few in prime time? Maybe nobody likes the fight anymore.

The point is, the timer ran out and the fight failed. 10 random pugs on the map cannot kill it. Please adjust your scaling functionality at the low end, because either the fight should not spawn for 10 people, or 10 random nobodies on the map should be able to kill it.

[Labjax.2465]

2 hours ago, Adzekul.3104 said:

I have an update for Fire Elemental: The scaling at low population is horrible and the fight is impossible when there are only 10 people. This happened in prime time EU Wednesday. I counted. We had exactly 10 people. Why so few in prime time? Maybe nobody likes the fight anymore.

The point is, the timer ran out and the fight failed. 10 random pugs on the map cannot kill it. Please adjust your scaling functionality at the low end, because either the fight should not spawn for 10 people, or 10 random nobodies on the map should be able to kill it.

I wish I had a single clue what Anet wants this game to be.

I mean, if they really want these bosses to be an introduction to how the game is later on, the more I think about it, the more I think they completely missed the mark here. And the only way to actually do what they seem to have wanted to do, is go into these maps in great depth, completely retool the world bosses into a map-wide meta event with AB levels of coordination and give it AB levels of rewards too, so people will show up for it. Then lowbies can maybe get an introduction to what the game is like in higher level open world. I don't see how they're going to get it from watching a world boss fail and dying to some fire waves or whatever.

[Kaliwenda.3428]

On 8/1/2022 at 12:34 PM, Ashen.2907 said:

Ive only done the Svanir boss so far. Seems much improved but could probably have its health scaling looked at. After a while it starts feeling tedious. You want to aim for, "Wow! we beat him. Awesome job guys," not, "Thank god its finally over."

Yeah, today was Wayfairer Hills Events daily which I usually do at Frozen Maw after reset.  Tonight I did the pre-events and got the daily, and noped out of there without doing the boss  It takes way too long now. 

[MrGarlic.1834]

Just failed the Svanir Shaman. There were 20-25 players there and the Shaman kept running out of the area (multiple times) and became invulnerable while he ran back into the middle of his play area. So much time lost while he was invuln and we failed to kill it in enough time.

Really awful situation for what should be a basic world boss.

It is just monotonous and boring.

(Oceanic, SEA peak time)

[chaosmelody.4352]

As someone who just started playing close to 2 months ago. I just started really getting into the boss groove of things. I'll preface by saying I love Tequatl & Triple Wurm. Bosses with mechanics that takes a moment to grasp but you get it, it really taught me to pay attention a lot more to my surroundings and the party-teaching with Triple Wurm was most excellent. Big props to WHAM and Evos for their commandering. I also began to understand CC a bit more as I continued through the story and got into actual Lv 80 zones. I felt this was fine honestly... I've gotten a lot more accustomed to using CC.. etc..

 

What I mean by this is I did not, in ANY way, need newbie-friendly world bosses to be jacked to the nines for me to 'learn' something. I'm about tired of Vets telling newbs they need to 'learn' everything RIGHT now before they are even in places where it matters to actually learn and practice at. You guys have your tricked out places, maybe leave us newbie-casuals alone eh? Fight a boss naked if you feel its too easy.. Literally crying 'TOO EASY' on bosses in easy zones is kinda.. well... dumb?

 

I LOVED how easy it was to get into the beginner zone bosses. Being part of a crowd.. seeing that big scary screaming Behemoth was so cool. It made me really excited to see later stage bosses when I finally make my way INTO that content... i.e fractals/raids/latest expansion... I do NOT like this overtuning of HP and jacked up mechanics. As an actual NEW player, it really sucks. You're basically dragging harder content into newbie-friendly zones.

 

Can't we JUST have some easier bosses? Does everything need to be really jacked up to the max? What is even the point of Svanir Shaman.. he just yeets himself out of his zone, drains the clock.. and its the most boring fight I've done in the game so far. Just because old veterans are tricked to the nines and are so amped up over harder game mechanics doesn't mean they need to be placed on chill zone bosses. The only one that didn't bother me as much was Fire Elemental, but others have reported issues with it so there goes that.

 

FROM AN ACTUAL NEW PLAYER PERSPECTIVE:

 

Jungle Wurm: I get why you put the mechanics but there are so many extra added mobs with this fight ontop of the wurms huge hp pull. Reduce the mobs and HP and keep your 'lrn2cc' Hulks.. It'd be less painful to understand the flow of the battle to the less-skilled and less-skills actually learned players. Remember vets, Lv. 15s may not even have CCs yet depending on what they started to develop first..

 

Svanir: Stop him from Yeeting out of the zone and reduce his HP by like, oh I dunno.. A LOT. Maybe even 33%. Then its fine. I've done this with a massive 40+ people to a piddly maybe 12? They both sucked.. the time with barely enough players it just failed and was a waste of 15 mins cause no one wants to do this damage sponge boss unless they absolutely have to for whatever those achievements are later.

 

Fire Elemental: I can see whats going on, I can keep out of the way of pits as a ranged char.. aside from more aoe on the ground it hasn't been that awful. Its HP seems reasonable but I have only done it with over 30 people. Less amount of players and that HP could be a problem as others have reported.

 

Shadow Behemoth: Losing his screamy face is a bit of a downer. Melee is really hard to understand what to do now. Portals take SO FRIGGIN long to die that is there even a way to get that portal achievement anymore? And those horrible ground markers that are barely visible is harsh. Ontop of him being a bit spongey, just not as bad as Svanir spongey. Overall the boss feels empty compared to before. I like that we have to kill the portals more now, but they could have less HP and make this go by a bit quicker. Otherwise I don't get why to take away screamy face and just make portals spongey.. Yay.. difficulty!

 

TL:DR Spongey bosses are not fun and they're a bandaid of laziness ontop of proper mechanical teaching. Even if you are teaching a NEWBIE late-game mechanics.. a NEWBIE is still going to be going through the NOT LATE parts of the game so that muscle memory ain't really gonna be there for late-game anyway until they are doing it frequently. Over all its a poor excuse from certain vocal crowds that are bored and want everything in PvE scaled to -their- expectations and that is a terrible thing to design around.