Improving existing raids with only numerical adjustments

[Lizardguard.2860]

I'm relatively sure that all of this had been said before, somewhere, at some point of time.
But with W8 on its way, there is an ever so slight chance that anet is willing to look at existing wings as well.
These changes are aimed to increase fun, while decreasing tedious sections, where possible. Or at least making them more interesting.

W1:
- VG: Increase the split Champions healthbars by 10%.
- Spirit Run: Decrease the amount of circles that need to be collected in the capture the flag by 33% or even 50%.
- Gorse: Increase the boss healthbar by 20%. Increase retaliation damage during breakbar phases by 20%.
- Sab: Increase the Flak Cannon strike damage by 10%. Increase the substitute Champions healthbars by 10%
W3:
Escort: Reduce the cooldown of the 'Call Glenna' Special Action Key skill by 1 second.
KC: Increase the boss healthbar in cm by 10%.
Xera: Increase the crystals healthbar during the gliding by 50%. Increase the boss healthbar by 5%.
W4:
Cairn: Increase armor of boss slightly to favour condition builds even more.
MO: Increase healthbar of NM by 10%.
Sammy: Increase healthbars and breakbars of spears in NM by 20%.
W5:
SH: Increase healthbar of boss in CM by 10%.
Road: Increase ticking strike damage by 10%.
Statues: Increase the healthbar of the mouth of Zhaitan by 10%.
W7:
Sabir: Increase healthbar of boss in CM by 5%.

It is my belief that simple changes along those lines would help both experienced and new players to have more enjoyment in raids.
Yes, some of the bosses would get slightly harder to kill. But it would also put the raid wings a tiny bit more in line with each other, while also allowing newer players to experience more intended boss behaviors, such as updraft in gorse.
Currently, many things are skipped even in training runs, which leads to those things barely getting explained to new people.
Furthermore, some of the bosses CMs can provide a slightly better challenge, to allow for a better feeling when achieving a kill.

The above proposals are coming from a person who is running trainings for new people frequently.
They are not meant to lock anyone out of the game. Everything would still be very killable even for newer players.
And despite what it looks like, I'm not a fan of massive healthbars, either.

But I've seen trainees ask about mechanics, just because one or two experienced dps players demolished stuff so fast, the mechanics happened only once.
I've seen groups rather wipe 10 times than going updraft on gorse, because it is so unusual for people to do those that the mechanic might just not exist.
I've seen groups force kc cm, failing nm mechanics, then blaming cm for their fails, all because cm there is too close to nm.
These things happen frequently.

It is my firm believe that all of the above would be positive and very easy to implement changes, that many players would welcome.
@Rubi Bayer.8493 
(Sry for the ping, but maybe you could show these to someone involved, that would be appreciated.)

I doubt anything will come of it, but the chance is never zero, I guess.

Edited August 25 by Lizardguard.2860

[landlord.8710]

I'd like to add, while at it, please make a pass to squash some nasty bugs, that have crept in over the years - probably the most annoying of them being:

• W5: Statues mount bug (after being frozen by BK, your mount won't move until you leave the instance and rejoin)
• W7: QtP invisible Force of Havoc (still pulsing dmg to those running through)

[Vinceman.4572]

No thank you in relation to hp addition or making boss mechanics harder. Bosses of the past are fine and should stay like they are. Make newer encounters a challenge with the actual power creep but we don't need older content to be adjusted. That's something that cost development time even in minor changes and it will cause a lot of trouble in the "only-mediocre" raid groups which will then lead to fewer players go raiding and that will overall harm the whole raiding community.
I'm all in for bug fixes and such stuff but please: adding more hp to encounters is the worst you can do. It doesn't make any fight more interesting or funnier.

[hotaruchan.7568]

yeah padding hp to force people to "do mechanics"  is the wrong way to go about things.  and is never a good design direction.  even with the best intentions the most  likely outcome is just people stop bothering with them entirely and shrinking the base of people interacting with raids.

Edited August 25 by hotaruchan.7568

[daw.4923]

I fail to see how adding 10-20% hp to bosses will make them more fun.

[Aaron Forestman.4758]

On 8/24/2024 at 11:32 PM, Lizardguard.2860 said:

Cairn: Increase armor of boss slightly to favour condition builds even more.

That sounds like someone salty about getting beaten by a power build. Have you raided with me on my power soulbeast, by chance?

[TexZero.7910]

Changing HP doesn't make the mechanics any more threatening.
Ex. You could add 400% hp to the champions at VG, that's not the issue. The issue is that the greens mechanic gets largely ignored because of healing and barrier. If you want to fix that you either have to change the HP% per person not in the green from 20 to 25% or more, or change that mechanic to be more punishing by adding something like exposed and debilitiated stacks to players for failing it that persists multiple instances of that mechanic.

[Cyninja.2954]

I am unclear what this is supppsed to accomplish.

The power creep present has just about doubled the possible dps output of classes since HoT.

Not only that, boon generation and easy access to them has both changed the composition to favor more dps players as well as allowed for easier role compression.

Your measily 10-20% adjustments would barely affect anything for veteran raiders while just piling on for newer raiders.

If you want mechanics to be required, those mechanics need to be designed in a way that they need doing. Going the dps route means you'd have to adjust hitpoints to a similar amount as the power creep (good luck with that).

If VG green is an issue, make it give a damage debuff for example (instead of just making it nuke everyone more).

If Gorseval updrafts are supposed to be done, hardcode his world ender to always happen at set hitpoints.

All of this assumes the developers even want to adjust this content. The entire approach since EoD (and before) has been to power creep professions to make this content easier to begin with.

Edited August 27 by Cyninja.2954

[Antioche.7034]

Just scale everything according with the mean DPS we're given ... Or alternatively start balancing DPS a bit more, which's a better solution, it only went up since HoT and it's an issue in raids. 

I'm all in for reduction in the number of areas to capture in Spirit Woods, but I don't believe for a second that it'll happen.

[abandoned.5073]

I am in favor of adding CMs to raids which currently have none which "bring back" the intended mechanics by making them unskippable by high DPS.

So for example Gorse CM: World Ender always happens, you gotta glide out etc.

[daw.4923]

It would take little more work. Lets take VG... now he has 50 000 000 hp. to green you add blue and red circle and only ppl which got attuned to that color during phase can do that mechanic.(encounter starts with pillar phase) so now you have 3 groups doing circles for each successful "circle" mechanic those ppl will get +5% dmg (stackable to 100%) failing circles gives +10% dmg reduction to VG (up to 90%)

orbs are replaced by ONE orb which will move at medium speed around arena in random pattern, anyone hit by orb is instantly downed and ORB splits into 2/3/4/5 pieces for every other played it hits.

at 20% HP all PILLARS are destroyed and all players get white attune increasing their dps by 20% while VG gets +10% dmg and speed for every failed circle till that point.

[Firebeard.1746]

On 8/25/2024 at 6:47 AM, Vinceman.4572 said:

No thank you in relation to hp addition or making boss mechanics harder. Bosses of the past are fine and should stay like they are. Make newer encounters a challenge with the actual power creep but we don't need older content to be adjusted. That's something that cost development time even in minor changes and it will cause a lot of trouble in the "only-mediocre" raid groups which will then lead to fewer players go raiding and that will overall harm the whole raiding community.
I'm all in for bug fixes and such stuff but please: adding more hp to encounters is the worst you can do. It doesn't make any fight more interesting or funnier.

Buffing difficulty in old content also has the nasty side effect of making the older content harder for new players to the mode. People have been moaning about "power creep" for years, so everyone clearing it in that state will have had it easier than new players if they make it harder, which isn’t fair. It's like how blizzard just made leveling harder after tww ea ended XD. 

Edited August 28 by Firebeard.1746

[Dibit.6259]

I propose we have a scrittvasion where one wing boss gets replaced with a skitt skin (no change to boss mechanics) and we get some extra shinies as reward.

Tbh the most fun I've had in raids is where my friends and I have done some dumb stuff like 10 mech raid group when mechanist was op.

The problem isn't that raids aren't interesting but more that people get bored repeating then over and over but still do them for the rewards. It's the same with any content in this game.

Edited August 28 by Dibit.6259
Typos

[BatelGeuce.3591]

On 8/25/2024 at 3:47 PM, Vinceman.4572 said:

Make newer encounters a challenge with the actual power creep but we don't need older content to be adjusted.

I concur when it comes to raids but outside of raids it should still be addressed.

On 8/26/2024 at 5:33 PM, Aaron Forestman.4758 said:

That sounds like someone salty about getting beaten by a power build. Have you raided with me on my power soulbeast, by chance?

Sounds like the opposite to me. Weird flex either way.

 

[maxwelgm.4315]

Why not stop/control the power creep with each expansion instead of balancing bosses that were perfectly fine when they were released? Which of the two aspects is actually at fault? Besides, the bosses ought to be playable with up to the builds/equipment you may have up to that point in release, or at least what is available to players who also have the content unlocked. This still may include even players with suboptimal relics/no weaponmaster tranining so we shouldn't even think about balancing past bosses up to current content. Plus the fact that bosses actually do get harder over newer releases is a nice progression ladder for newer players, whereas they would simply be stumped if everything was made to be uniformly difficult.

[Katary.7096]

On 8/25/2024 at 5:51 PM, hotaruchan.7568 said:

yeah padding hp to force people to "do mechanics"  is the wrong way to go about things.  and is never a good design direction.  even with the best intentions the most  likely outcome is just people stop bothering with them entirely and shrinking the base of people interacting with raids.

If it is never a good design direction to make players engage with the mechanics of an encounter, why should devs spend time coming up with mechanics for boss fights in the first place?