I am sick of the "swirly" mechanics every single fight has: an essay

Community General Discussion
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This isn’t a new observation by any means, but I’ve noticed since Shadowlands in particular, a lot of dungeon and raid mechanics have essentially just devolved to swirls on the ground to indicate to players “don’t stand here.”

I feel like these mechanics have become a total crutch for the dungeon team, in particular, and it’s literally draining my interest in the game, dungeon anfter dungeon.

I understand Blizzard wants the game to be more “engaging” moment to moment so dungeons don’t devolve into hours upon hours of just tank and spank mobs, but I personally feel like the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction.

I play primarily melee, mostly as DPS, sometimes as Tank, and I’ve noticed more now than ever, there’s numerous area of denial mechaincs in dungeons that make the game a waiting room as melee, to the point where I feel like I spend more time some fights doing literally nothing due to these mechanics, than actually participating.

The Nokhund Offensive stood out to me as all of the important targets throughout the entire dungeon have a mechanic like this in some way shape or form. There isn’t a trash pack in the dungeons where I don’t feel locked-out from participating because of a stupid swirl on the ground saying “if you stand here you die.”

While these sort of mechanics have value and the visal indicators are way better than just guessing like we would have in older expansions, the juxtaposition of modern dungeon design compared to what I’m experiencing leveling for Cata has created such a severe dissonance that I am ready to give up Modern for Cata Classic all together.

Some people may read this and think “then just do it, and don’t complain on the forums” but I contend that if people like me don’t provide this feedback, then the problem will just continue to get worse.

Fundamentally, my problem is that these area of denial “swirly” mechanics are just the most barebones sort of mechanics Blizzard can impliment and don’t require that much effort to design, but it comes with the heavy price of just being uninspired and over-used.

Not every trash mob needs some sort of mechanic to deal with.

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yea give us more donuts or pizza slice mechanics then at least there is variety.

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The biggest problem, for me at least, with the “swirly” mechanics is that they don’t have a very defined edge - it sort of fades out at the sides to the point where it’s hard to tell whether you’re JUST outside or just inside the damaging area. This is especially an issue for me as someone with a vision-based disability but I know several people who see perfectly fine and also feel the same way.

If we could have a more defined border between “harmful” and “safe” with the ground swirls, it would help out a lot. Even as an Accessibility option. Circles that DO have a defined border, like soak circles or other damaging abilities are so much better - as a melee I can sit on the very edge and sometimes still attack at the very limit of melee range and as a caster I know that I only have to run out a certain amount before I’m safe to start hard-casting again. With an ill-defined swirl, sometimes I think that I’ve run out far enough only to die because I was on the imperceptible border of the effect.

It seems particularly bad in a lot of the Dragonflight dungeons, especially Nok’hud (which I’ve run nearly 20 times this season alone for that damn Warglaive and still don’t have it)

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This is one of the things I think FFXIV does better. There’s a greater variety of AoE patterns and nearly all AoE has very clear and well-defined boundaries.

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This is especially bad when the big AOE areas require melee to make a hasty exit and then close the distance quickly to return to attack. And my radius is not well defined for engagement. I have to wait for the red to turn white on avatar

I don’t always have enough of a rapid escape/mobility to evade the areas or enough in a sequence where I end up eating a bad pool. DMZ sometimes saves me but often these are like insta kill areas that are on short timers and poorly relate to my escape CDs as a DK

Obviously with warlock portals, it’s great but it’s not a guarantee to have them

:dragon: :ocean: :dragon: :ocean:

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I do agree with this. My vision is excellet and there are times where I’m obliterated by mechanics I was certain I was well away from. Im not sure if this is an indicator issue, or if not all indicators are accurate, which is a mkre substantial logistics issue in itself.

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It’s weird because they have made content where boundaries are clearly defined. Most recently they did it in Plunderstorm. They just choose not to (generally) in retail for some reason.

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This is an underlying issue with DKs in general. I am maining DK currently and this could be an underlying factor in why they infuriate me now compared to Season 1 when I was on my DH, zipping around casually. This really made me more aware of the design layers at play here.

PS- Those emojis make me terrified.

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Ya it is like this for dps start a rotation abandon it to run away from something start it again only to abandon it again to run away from something else.

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Be nice if they didn’t seem to always make the swirlies from the same colors as the dungeons they are in. Transparent bronze swirlies in DotI, red swirlies in vault, transparent grey swirlies in Algethar.

Pretty sure they keep it undefined intentionally.

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I really enjoy tank and spank bosses.

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You should offer examples of new mechanics that you would like to see instead.

Coming up with a mechanic that doesn’t fall into the typical tropes of Ground abilities, lasers, spreads, soaks, frontals, dodge orb, collect orb, run away, run in, knockback . What would be something new?

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:cry:

Don’t mean to upset anyone. Just a Shadowlands joke before we knew about going to the dragon isles

:ocean: :dragon: :ocean: :dragon:

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Ahhhh hahaha! I thought this was a reference to the final gauntlet in Halls of Infusion!

Those waves are my nightmares realized as a slow moving DK.

#MakeSoulshapeBaseline

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Something that benefits to the melee crowd. An up close manifestation on the boss itself like in the old mega man days.

Destroying limbs or guns. Destroying the ground or having objects fall on the boss. Things that don’t necessarily require my visualization of the boss from 100 yards like a hunter or mage would have

The emphasis is too strong on ranged and benefits them the most. Has been since BFA more often than not

:dragon: :ocean: :dragon: :ocean:

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I really dislike them also. All those spots that drop randomly and keep you running around so you can’t actually do any damage. But I accept as part of the game. So I rolled a Monk and am able to get out of most things.

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I have to wonder if you played ranged at all in DF. The raids have been brutal for ranged because there are so many movement mechanics and mechanics that specifically target them.

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Very clear well defined boundaries, sure.

But variety of AOE patterns, what? It has the same cleaves and circles as WoW does. Maybe I just haven’t encountered any others yet, I’m only halfway through so far, but it doesn’t seem different to me.

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While I do agree that there can be sensory overload, especially with things how they are now.

I wouldn’t call them ‘crutches’, but rather re-use of learned behaviors.

These “Swirlies” exist for at least 1 important reason: Knowledge transmission.

If you see:
Swirl on the ground, spinning “inwards”, with no border
You know:
Get out of that. It’s bad and is targeted at the ground

If you see:
Swirl on the ground, spinning “inwards”, with a border.
You know:
Stay in that, your friend needs your help soaking that.

If you see:
Swirl on the ground, spinning “outward”, with a border border.
You know:
Get out of that. It’s gonna hurt, and is targeting your friend.
Bonus:
If you are the center you know you might need to use a defensive or healing item.

If you see:
Circle on the ground, centered on you, and more on friends.
You know:
Don’t overlap each other with the circles.

etc.

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I think managed kicks is always a good place to start. I knkw there are kicks in DF, but I feel like there aren’t a lot of instances where you need a prepared, coordinated kick rotation. Just interrupt what you can to prevent a little damage. This is still engaging for players and provides a natural target priority.

I also think they could use more separate/stack mechanics. IE getting a debuff to manage your distance from other players to prevent spreading ticks or AoE damage to the rest of the party.

I know it’s a side-step, but I also enjoy mechanics where one player has to soak some sort of bomb to prevent AoE damage.

Frontal cleaves are also a good compromise, since they put on preassure but don’t require melee to just stand around and do nothing in the meantime.

I know DF does include some of these mechanics, but compared to the super generic “don’t stand in swirl” they are finctionally more compelling, to me, at least, then the only solution being “move out of range and wait like a jackass.”

1 Like