Something stuck out to me about the Patch 11.2 reveal. Specifically, the new Nemesis boss for delves in Season 3. Nexus-Princess Ky’veza. She’s been chosen because ostensibly she has relevance to the story beats of an Ethereal-centric patch. I get that. But you also expect players to remember her as one of the bosses from Nerub’ar Palace.
The problem is…anyone who has only experienced the raids on Story Mode doesn’t, because all we get to do in Story Mode is fight the final boss. Is this something Blizzard might consider re-evaluating in the future? I completely understand that it’s probably too close to 11.3’s launch to expand Story Mode raids in what remains of TWW, but I think it is worth considering for Midnight and beyond.
I love the design intent behind Story Mode raids. It speaks to a problem I’ve felt WoW has had from the very beginning, where players who don’t raid cannot get fully invested in the storyline for an expansion, because they’re not able to participate in the key events and can’t see them without looking up raid cutscenes outside the game. I’m just not sure Story Mode is actually achieving those stated goals, because clearly the storyline of a raid is not limited to a final boss and a cutscene.
I’m not trying to turn Story Mode into some kind of sneaky alternate gearing path or anything. I’d be fine with the mechanics being very minimal and the loot being non-existent, and not awarding weekly vault credit either. I just want to be able to reach that end boss and watch that final cutscene and not feel like I’ve tuned into the last 10 minutes of a movie.