To the Devs.
You have done an amazing job. The game is engaging, the story line stellar, the play of the various classes are really enjoyable, the cutscenes and voice overs top notch, OH and the music is amazing… BUT
You have completely lost sight of the game with the World Boss. You have made it close to impossible to defeat and not because of the boss. The boss was great but then I am a WoW raider so I like mechanics.
Observed issues:
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Mandatory Kill requirement for specialized materials needed for progression as many players can and will be blocked from acquiring this with the current design. Just takes a couple level 10’s to show up and screw any chance of, 1.) getting the tag so you are counted as one of the 12 and, 2.) are unable to generate the DPS, survivability, or game play to kill the boss.
This should NOT be part of the game as a mandatory kill requirement. Most casual players are just not able to play at this level and to expect the rest of the group to carry those players with an extremely limited number allowed is unreasonable at best. -
Spawn times/frequency are just not reasonable. The morning spawns are overcrowded and the late spawns are WAY too late for about half the country (not counting other countries).
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Player limits. Where the heck did you come up with 12?
How is that calculated? By who tags it first? What if one of the 12 die and someone else tags it while they are running back? Yes I got the message “you are now participating in” but so did the other 30 or so people there. -
Level requirements: Anyone can tag the boss regardless of level which locks out the high level folks who want to do the boss.
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Difficulty: Not difficult for people who actually do group content, REALLY hard for players who are not used to raiding, simple boss mechanics or working as a group.
Suggestions
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Limit the number of players who can enter the combat area to your proscribed number of players. This prevents an overload of players who may or may not get the “tag” If it is YOUR intent to only allow a group of 12 to do it, then make it 12, period. Not oh hey there are 30 people here, but only 12 get the reward.
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Limit the player entering the combat area by Level preventing lowbie characters from consuming one of the spots (and wasting every else’s time, gold and effort).
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Limit ANY player who already has a “kill” for that week.
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Increase the number of players who can participate (12 is just not doable for the average casual player).
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Increase the spawn time to every 3 hours around the clock. This allows people from ALL time zones to participate and stops the overload of people who aren’t going to get the credit anyway. This also makes this reasonable for people who have a life outside of gaming.
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Force a kill limit. If your intent is that you can only kill the boss ONCE PER WEEK, then prevent any player with a kill flag from entering the combat area. Think of it like the Challenge Rift. The kill flag resets every Tuesday for example
The Rant Part
At this point I will never attempt the wb again in D4. If that blocks me from progression, I will just stop playing. I REFUSE to be hamstrung by players who don’t care, who are NOT level appropriate, who are greedy and by incredibly poor game design/concept which forces me to play group content on a required boss kill with players who don’t know, don’t care or don’t understand group play. Diablo 4 is NOT an MMO with the attendant expectations for group play and it shows.
The Attempts
When I got there yesterday morning and hour early, there were 8 people all level 25. Turns out, 5 of them already had a boss kill but “their friends didn’t” so they were going to kill it again. This turned out to be a giant cluster since “their friends” were all below level 15 which basically locked a bunch of us out and ended up with the boss not dead. There is no reason why ANY level 5 should be standing at the WB.
By the time the boss spawned the area was packed with lowbies. What did they do? Die and then just lay there. That left 5 of us trying to kill the boss and I have NO CLUE if I even got a “tag” on the boss as the boss didn’t die.
ADD to that, NOT ONE of those players had bothered to watch a vid or read a boss guide or even understand the basic mechanics even after dying to them, in some cases, multiple times. It became rapidly apparent that most of the players I have seen in boss fight attempts do not know how group content works.
This has happened on every world boss spawn. Bunch of lowbies show up, take the spots, die and just stay dead. I waited until AFTER MIDNIGHT on, what is for me, a work night to try again and BOOM same issue. Players who shouldn’t be there, who already have a kill and level 12’s and LOWER taking up the spots. Heck we had some level 5 hit the boss first on the midnight try.
It is an absolutely terrible concept for Diablo. It is absolutely unforgivable that it is limited to 12 players. It is absolutely poorly conceived that this is a required source of materials for progression given the game design in it’s current state and noted above.
The only way I see to get this boss down at this point is to find a pre-made group (which doesn’t exist with a 4 man party limit) and just try and be the first to tag so that we can actually kill it or get the kill credit.
But at this point, I won’t participate again in this idiocy until Bliz blocks low level characters from showing up AND blocks more than 12 from being involved so that I don’t waste my time and still get no rewards.
Many games manage this just fine so there is really no excuse at this point for what is going on. Yes many have managed to kill the WB, however many more of us have not due to the poor spawn times, low level players showing up, player limits, and player limitations.