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08 April 2011

Better than tank bribery?

Tobolds asked if there is anything better than bribery.  I started writing a comment on , then realised it was long enough to be it's own post.

Currently blizzard's only requirement for heroics is a gear score. Many dungeons train movement.  I want Blizzard to design 5 man dungeons as training exercises for the way blizzard wants players to behave.

Good behaviour (CC, dont pull agro, tanks keeping agro) are rewarded. I want the heroic entry requirement to reflect 'good' choices.

When we see behavoiurs that we want to encourage, design dungeons with achievements to exercise those behaviours.

Personally, I want to encourage DPS to use their tank assisting abilities. So I create a new 5 man dungeon (normal for practice, heroic for the real deal).

This dungeon has an achievement at the end where:
  • If the only toon to have agro for the whole dungeon is the tank
  • 3 players do more boss damage than the tank
  • No one dies

The dungeon makeup is:

Multiple add trash. If a DPS player pulls agro, then they are stunned for 10 seconds.

First boss : simple tank/spank, to help players feel comforatble.

Two waves of multiple mob trash that periodically stuns everyone - including themselves, mobs disburse, then reset agro.  During the fight they wipe a buff from the player.  Passive buffs If you have no buffs, then you remain stunned, taking extra damage untill you get at least one buff.

Second boss, with multiple add waves, and periodically resets agro.

Trash is 2 bats from Nax that heal each other if too close, but are CC'able or interuptable. These mobs do not agro on a player that CC's or interupt's them

Third boss has 2 phases : 1 normal/1 vehicle (similar to magmaw) :
* You may only enter the vehicle once per boss fight
* If you enter the vehicle and press an interupt button, you stun the boss and it takes extra damage
* If you do not interupt the boss, it instakills a random player.
* Designed so that initially all 5 players will need to enter the vehicle exactly once.

If you make the 'achievement', a chance at nice big shiny loot, plus a title for doing it 10 (or any arbritrary number) times.

The achievement rewards tanks for holding agro, rewards DPS for exercising all of their abilites, and largely ignores the healer.

Another gimick to reward good behaviour : A boss that incrementally removes a number of active buffs, and suspends passive buffs.  If you have no buffs you are stunned and take damage.




I would also like to see a 'reward' for proper gear talents, gear selection, gemming and enchanting. Currently the dungeon finder says you can't queue heroics without a gear score. Personally I would prefer it to say you can't queue without :
  • At least 1/3 of your gear being pve role appropriate
  • You must have a tanking tree (and tanking talents for bears) to queue as tank (off spec talents are OK)
  • You must have basic role appropriate gems and enchants on 1/3 your gear
  • Have appropriate consumables in your bag - including at least 1 appropriate potion, 2 elixirs or 1 flask, and basic buff food.
Some groups will love this dungeon.  Others would hate it.  What gimicks could you include to promote 'good' behaviour.

2 comments:

  1. Ohhh... that is so nice... I love the idea and have considered some things in random passing thoughts, but, yeah.. you really put a new depth to that...

    You have to have the blue and red and green floor stuff... red is dead, blue is for you, and green is for the boss to stand in... ALL IN THE SAME FIGHT... standard 3 second warnings... like the floor is firey for 3-5 seconds then a volcano erupts and you are launched in horible and grafic fashion on to the stalactites on the ceailing where adds will spawn and begin to eat your corpse then join the battle with the remaining group... YEAHHHH... unless you moved in time...

    Blue is a floor zone that when active will increase damage and healing done by 500%, cause zero threat, and regen mana at 300% so you can put the boss in the green are where he takes +100% damagae and does +200% damage...

    Fight recap:
    @ T Engange boss, Phase 1 begins
    T +15 seconds 2 red fire areas spawn under players
    T +20 seconds 3 red fire areas explope launching baddies into the canopy of carnage
    T + 25 Adds spawn from the canopy and after cleaning the corpses join fight in about 10 seconds
    T + 30 Phase 2 begins 2 blue and 2 green areas show up on floor... put the boss in green and all players in blue.. boss takes a TON more damage (~1000% more)and players do can hit harder too. (goal would be to hit 66% or lower or optionally 50% or lower)
    T + 55 phase 2 ends
    T + 60 start phase one, rinse repeat..

    lol, would be nuts to use that as the mantra of more training in quests, to training in dugeons, to training for raids...

    Happy fun day dreams of being an encounter designer/developer...

    ReplyDelete
  2. In the history of WoW, nothing involving "vehicles" was a good idea.

    I am in the group of WoW players who do not want to see all my toon abilities be replaced by some just-for-this-fight abilities.

    ReplyDelete

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