Thoughts of the world bosses:

I overall dislike it. But I like the idea of multiple strong bosses spawning across multiple zones / biomes. The most annoying issue is the ridged spawn timer creates too much waiting after the initial spawn. And the death-touching monsters are particularly annoying. See George and the skulls in the desert. I can stomach sitting around and George until it comes to Claudia, then it feels like, “why am I wasting my time on this?” Dedicating an hour+ to 6 chests is not the biggest issue, it’s dedicating the time to the entire event which I dislike. Like how much is just sitting around, or trying not to fight? I can accept each individual fight, but all together it just feels bad, and the infinite monster waves built into the world boss (and turkey event) doesn’t feel rewarding (guess the turkey one helps people get turkey meat, but I’m not happy about how it works). I really hope you avoid this mechanic in the future! I find fighting/avoiding endless hoards for trash as torturous. People liked the faces in the first version of the world bosses because they dropped vervadium and scrolls. It was actually worth it to farm them.

When players fight the bosses it’s generally in unstructured groups. It’s either people just invite whoever into a group, or they solo and I don’t think the event should fight against that. I’d really recommend players never engage in fighting any trash and wait for the bosses because the last 3 bosses (and the tons of turkeys) can kill anyone in seconds and if a player doesn’t have recall beginnings they’re likely going to miss the kill. So, it is less risky to watch others fight. Actually, even in an organized group the gargoyles are very difficult to engage. You essentially should not engage them all with one full group and you need the luck of the masses to fight them.

Here is what I would change it if I had free reign: One world boss every 4 hours. A world-wide message going out about where to go. Before the boss spawns, there is a pre-event fight to give people travel time AND act as a fail safe to avoid curses to overzealous players. The pre-spawn for Claudia can be a giant golem, once killed faces spawn and a minute later Claudia+skulls shows up. Zuke could have maybe 3 super Mutter Necro you need to get through first. And once they’re dead the gargoyles+ Zuke shows up. Hotfeather could just have some super droach and then the 2 named phoenix + Hotfeather spawn as the actual event.

I’m sure people enjoy the event, and I’d love to hear why. I find the pro-world boss event crowd would be satisfied with a giant piñata monster that reports everyone’s damage every 5 minutes. There are things in how it works today that makes me not want to do the event, and I want to like the event.

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Originally Posted by Mbaums

I’m sure people enjoy the event, and I’d love to hear why

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For one thing it's different than the day-to-day soloing or grouping. There is also a chance at using smart tactics, as it's been demonstrated with Claudia (and George and Zukelmux). People can't really see it when there are many players of course.

The two things that are not really fun and could be improved are, in my opinion:

• The Fairy death mechanism. I tested as a Fairy at high level, and while I could participate with no problem, it felt like I could not really contribute. Particularly on George and Claudia. It's just too dangerous to not wait until the last moment before joining the crowd.
• The time waiting for a boss to respawn. After one slow run, for example during Aussie time, every repop gets delayed, and, starting the second day of the event, you have this huge group of people just waiting at chests for respawn.

I am a bit confused that guides are donning their titles and telling people in global chat not to fight George in the water.

George is a Water boss. He spawns in the water, and even gives a water curse. He has the least HP of all of the bosses, and his rage attack of death is far more forgiving than Claudia's skulls.

Fighting George in the water makes him at best the 3rd hardest world boss.

I specifically made a water combat build to fight George for the world boss cycle, as the existing water content is tailored towards level 30. I'm disheartened that I am risking a kick or a ban if I deal enough agro in the water to bring George to me.

If George is not intended to be fought in the water, I suggest having him spawn east of Serbule Keep, instead of in the middle of the ocean in the north of the map.

Absolute trash of an event, logged in for one run and have since reloaded Crowfall and not even considered logging into PG. The faces in Ilmari are annoying to say the least and having to just rely on TAB and hope you got the one chasing you needs improvement. In FR whoever thought spawning the wasps on top of the entry portal so that players are dead before they load needs their event content ideas ability revoked.

This event and the civil service crap one are purely form a zerg and collect the loot then go back to whatever it was you were originally doing.

I have to admit I don't like the event either.

I am in the EU timezone so I get both the experience of the low player times and the high player times and neither are particularly enjoyable.

When the population is low, every boss feels like a grind that takes forever and you die over and over. When the population is high you end up waiting 20 mins for the spawn because of the delay during the low population times, just for the boss to die in under 1 min to a few ice/fire nukers.

None of the bosses feel particularly fun either, especially if you're a melee player. While ranged players just stand outside the aoe and spam their buttons, melees get abilities disabled by empusa, insta killed by George, turned into a deer by ciervos and spend half the fight chasing after the boss as it gets relentlessly knocked back and pulled around. Infinitely spawning super speed faces of deaths are not fun and are completely worthless to kill. The only solution to them is luring them away, meaning that whoever does the luring has a lot of work to do and may end up missing the kill.

Tanking is basically useless against all of the bosses, either because their damage is too low and they just get nuked down, or because they have insta kills which can't be tanked. Zuke is maybe the only one where it is useful and even then, only in low player situations. Hotflash's adds just deal far too much damage to even be worth trying to tank and if you ever take aggro vs George or empusa, have fun being chain stunned and knocked back or having your abilities disabled until someone else takes the aggro.

Honestly, I don't think an event like this can ever be properly balanced because the number of players attending will always change. There could be some sort of solution like the druid events where they scale based on number of people online, perhaps they already do?

More importantly though I would just like the bosses to maybe spawn at set times, so that you don't end up waiting 20 mins for the boss spawn, because somebody in 1 run at 2 am pulled all the faces of death towards spawn when fighting Claudia.

I'd like to chime in too on this subject

- Empusa, I had no issues with this boss. As a Fire/Ice it wasn't so bad, but on anything remotely melee orientated the fight became dull and annoying.
- George, Why? Instant death, constant pushbacks and regeneration. What are you guys thinking?
- Chievos, really? Not the DC boss -- or the former Duke instead? Being turned into a Deer is not fun. You choose that or you avoid it. Massive no no.
- Claudia. Faces of death - all I need to say on this subject. They aren't funny, they aren't fun, they are purely annoying. How are you meant to contribute if melee vs something that just outright kills you?
- Zuke. The double load. I have no issues with the Gargoyles, but you could've put the portal ontop of the keep spawn. So much lost time.
- Hotfeather. No issues with the boss selection. The wasps. WHAT IS THEIR TARGETTING RANGE? You can be 200m away, not fighting ... and they will come and murder you. You're literally doing nothing. Not even within 100m of the spawn zone, you've gone towards WT area. What is this? This isn't funny or fun in the slightest. The boss is already lethal enough. Stop.

If you enjoy death so much, to the person who set up this selection. Please. Try being the player. For a week. Some of us do not enjoy dying 20 times on 1 boss due to poor design on your end. This is said with the hopes' future bosses are given more thought with how when and why accompanies them.

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Originally Posted by ProfessorCat

I am a bit confused that guides are donning their titles and telling people in global chat not to fight George in the water.

George is a Water boss. He spawns in the water, and even gives a water curse. He has the least HP of all of the bosses, and his rage attack of death is far more forgiving than Claudia's skulls.

Fighting George in the water makes him at best the 3rd hardest world boss.

I specifically made a water combat build to fight George for the world boss cycle, as the existing water content is tailored towards level 30. I'm disheartened that I am risking a kick or a ban if I deal enough agro in the water to bring George to me.

If George is not intended to be fought in the water, I suggest having him spawn east of Serbule Keep, instead of in the middle of the ocean in the north of the map.

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You're not confused, you just don't like it. You absolutely know why it was done: Keeping George out in the water cuts out people from engaging with George. Some skills don't work in water, and no one but you made "A water build".

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Originally Posted by Mikhaila

You're not confused, you just don't like it. You absolutely know why it was done: Keeping George out in the water cuts out people from engaging with George. Some skills don't work in water, and no one but you made "A water build".

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Zuke is immune to physical, which easily cuts more skills out than being in water does. This indicates that limitations to the world boss battles are intentional, and furthers the notion that there is not any "one build fits all" path to Project Gorgon.

These fights are meant to be more dynamic than that. George is a specialty boss with a curse that is completely pointless when you fight him on land. I am actually confused that time went in to give him a boss curse at all if the intention was to never fight him in water. Surely the time taken to program a curse on George, years after his creation, was with the idea to fight him on land during his quarterly appearance for the world bosses.

You will literally get George's curse, and cure it without ever knowing you had it. Look at every other boss' curse in the event. They are made to make the fights more difficult against that boss. Fighting George in the water, while having his curse, is about as bad as Hotflash popping a 20% fire damage intake when you're immolated 2 or 3 times. Let's also throw in that George has no minions.

You don't have to like my ideas or playstyles, however when you post criticizes my opinion without furthering the discussion in a meaningful way, I'm inclined to return the favor. But hey, you might even get to cheer if I got kicked for my underwater George nuke build.

I'm kind of on the fence about this event. Some of the fights could have been set up better, but I dont really understand a lot of the gripes people have. The players who came prepared to fight in the water against a water boss who spawns in a lake aren't the bad guy for attempting to fight a boss the way it was (seemingly) intended to be fought. There are plenty of skills that can be used in water that anyone who just wants to get a hit in and be done with it can switch to for the duration of the fight. Or instead you can plan ahead, adapt, and come prepared if you want to make more of an impact. Its nice to see people trying to adapt the fights to be suitable for as many people as possible, but instead of an interesting fight you get a zerg nuking a buff training dummy, and that just isnt very fun.

I like the idea of the bosses having a wave of adds in theory, but the fact that they spawn infinitely until the boss is down makes attempting to fight them pointless, and anyone who came anticipating a huge fight gets yelled at for trying to fight things during an event about fighting things. Instead of infinitely spawning, maybe have all of the adds spawn just once a bit ahead of the boss itself? If the adds are a part of the actual boss fight instead of just a glorified environmental hazard, people would be more motivated to actually fight them, and anyone who is a lower level than the fight is intended for can at least know that they are contributing, instead of spending their time staring at a respawn timer for nothing.

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Originally Posted by Zacty

I dont really understand a lot of the gripes people have.

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At least within this thread, most of the people complaining are longtime players that have gone through several iterations of this event. It honestly sucks seeing something that used to be entertaining become a chore that you have to tolerate for the event tokens. It used to just be an epeen measuring contest, but now most of the mobs have a way to guarantee that you die once or twice if you try to legitimately participate at all and that's just frustrating. An instagib mechanic without a way to remedy it just isn't a fun way to play. Similarly, whenever Jack randomly spawns George in Serb, there aren't a whole lot of old players that say "yippee, George, let's go fight him".

Quadruple their HP and get rid of the infinite spawns. Infinite spawns with no discernible loot are not fun. I would prefer only doing one round and getting 2-3 tokens rather than having to do it 3x for 5.

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Originally Posted by ProfessorCat

I am a bit confused that guides are donning their titles and telling people in global chat not to fight George in the water.

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It's important to remember that you are currently testing Project: Gorgon as it's currently in the beta phase of development. If a guide tells players to do (or not to do) something, it could be for testing purposes or it could be done to deter people from taking advantage of an unintended game mechanic.

Just keep in mind, there's many reasons why a guide could say or do something. If you think it's something nefarious, you can send us an email at support(@) projectgorgon.com.

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Originally Posted by ProfessorCat

Zuke is immune to physical, which easily cuts more skills out than being in water does. This indicates that limitations to the world boss battles are intentional, and furthers the notion that there is not any "one build fits all" path to Project Gorgon.

These fights are meant to be more dynamic than that. George is a specialty boss with a curse that is completely pointless when you fight him on land. I am actually confused that time went in to give him a boss curse at all if the intention was to never fight him in water. Surely the time taken to program a curse on George, years after his creation, was with the idea to fight him on land during his quarterly appearance for the world bosses.

You will literally get George's curse, and cure it without ever knowing you had it. Look at every other boss' curse in the event. They are made to make the fights more difficult against that boss. Fighting George in the water, while having his curse, is about as bad as Hotflash popping a 20% fire damage intake when you're immolated 2 or 3 times. Let's also throw in that George has no minions.

You don't have to like my ideas or playstyles, however when you post criticizes my opinion without furthering the discussion in a meaningful way, I'm inclined to return the favor. But hey, you might even get to cheer if I got kicked for my underwater George nuke build.

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You couldn't kill George on your own. So your idea of a fight is to drag him out in the water, make some people swim to him, get a curse, and not be able to get to him anymore because of the curse? Doesn't sound like a great strategy. Sounds like a way to much up the encounter. Similar to grabbing all of claudia's minions and dragging them back to the group.

These events already had a lot of complaining: Too few people, too many people, people dragging mobs to the raids, waiting time, fae death problems....no need to make George a worse fight by dragging him off into the water.

The first time they ran this event I was in my 50s-60s skill wise and they didn't have portals to take you to the next event. I remember missing bosses and unable to get to Zuke. You would actually respawn at the regular respawn spots and have to run back to the boss if you died. If the boss died before you got there, you were SOL. I remember getting SOOOOO pissed being stuck with a curse or missing a boss because they died while I was schlepping back to the fight. After the first event I was determined to not let that happen again. I created a speed build and even learned Priest to ignore stuns (I had zuke curse). The next world boss invasion I was much more prepared and I got a lot more loot (still missed a few due to deaths) and I felt SO accomplished. I was so proud of how I was able to problem solve and participate in the full event. However, when they first launched the World Bosses they didnt have the event tokens or rewards for completing each world boss 3 times so I didnt really care if I missed a boss.

I am not saying this as a "back in the day so stop complaining" anecdote but rather giving some perspective and evolution of the event. Sometimes things seem over the top frustrating in the moment but problem solving the issue can also be really rewarding. For example, maybe some groups need to communicate with each other more and approach bosses with more tactics. I remember one event Zuke didnt even die, players just waited for the next go around to attack him haha.

With that said, nothing is perfect and Citan is always looking for ways to make things better (like when the portals where implemented). I do feel like the faces of death are a little over the top. Kiting them is a solution but then it turns into watching a couple players kite while waiting for claudia to spawn. I also think that the hornets spawn a little too fast and their aggro needs tweaking. I would also like a "world timer" countdown for each boss spawn in the quest window or a lore recipe that you could learn to tell you when they will respawn. Finally, give meaningful loot on the adds. This way killing the massive amounts of adds feels rewarding.

Re-spawn time suggestion from me:

- Empusa 240 min (4h)
- George 235 min (3h 55min)
- Chievos, 230 min (3h 50min)
- Claudia. 220 min (3h40 min)
- Zuke. 210 min (3h30 min)
- Hotfeather. 210 min (3h30min)

Just throwing out a suggestion that I think might be worth a long term investment:

How about having a new map dedicated to world events? That way instead of having to worry about moving players around maps, worrying about deaths, awkward enemies and placement, loading screens, map lag, etc, It can all happen in one single map. When the world event starts, portals that teleport players to said map can appear in towns, so that way people can hop in easily. It would also make it easier for players to join in late, or for fairy players to rejoin after death if there's a portal in the Fae Realm town.

The map in question could be pretty simple, basically just serving as a giant arena to fight the bosses in, but it could have specialized areas to match certain bosses (Ex. There could be a watery section for bosses like George). Since this is all on one map however, it might be a good idea to separate the bosses in a way where you can't pull all of them at once, or have them spawn in order (Ex. George only spawns after Empusa is defeated).

I understand that respawn times for the bosses are kind of a problem, but if the bosses are restricted to their own map and schedule then it makes the issue a lot simpler. My suggestion would be to have the portals that teleport players to the boss arena appear in towns on a strict schedule (Ex. Every 3 or 4 hours). Then the bosses can respawn only when said portals appear, meaning that it doesn't matter how late the last group killed a boss, they'll repsawn on the same schedule. An alternative would be to give players a limited amount of time in the area (Ex. 1 hour) before being forced out and then have the boss respawn timer be the same amount of time, meaning they'll be available once the next wave starts.

The reason why I say this could be a good investment is that said map could also be multipurpose, and could be used for other events as well if needed. A giant open space could be useful for all sorts of silly events and parties and would be perfect for brewing up some creative ideas.

I didn't do this event this year because of the time investment needed to complete it (3 times...UGH!), the scheduling, and because of my own lack of interest in it.

I do remember enjoying one part last year, the Zuke fight, when Mbaums was able to keep most of the aggro and I could keep him healed/buffed. The anatomy on the trash mobs was nice too! That type of organization seems difficult/annoying in PG in large groups. You almost have to have a group prepared ahead of time with a strategy and hope others will follow it.

Yaffy's idea for a map seems ideal.

Even with a new map, I would far prefer the summoning method for bosses, as used in the Halloween event, with a party size group of players. It's difficult to feel like you have contributed anything to these boss fights because they are a bit chaotic and large scale. For me, the fun in any fight in PG in the ability to contribute to its success. A small group addresses that problem. The downside is a less epic fight with the same old set up of 6 people in a party. However, the event would be something that can be completed on people's own time. People won't have to keep track of timers on discord or follow any kind of schedule. Would it be possible to double the size of parties in the new map idea? A party of 12 would make things feel a bit more epic.

I dont mind the bosses as they are today - they require teamwork and a little more than simply pushing buttons. The game is already easy enough as is, no need to dumb down events.
My biggest gripe is with the endless waiting for bosses to spawn. I would strongly be in favor of fixed spawn times no matter how fast the group before you managed to kill it. Especially since in this beta, with certain timezones having little to no players around, its already hard enough to get any group going.

And not related to this event but in general, i would be strongly in favor of getting rid of any forced waiting, like:
- waiting for nightfall to be able to hand in work orders in fae realm
- waiting for the right trade to finally be able to get sand dollars in sun vale
I mean, i already did the hard work of aquiring the items by trade or crafting, no need to have me wait for another 30 mins......It will make me want to go read a book or simply log out, and that cant be what you are aiming for.

My thoughts on the World Boss Event:

It's fun. It's chaotic, but it's supposed to be chaotic.

The boss timers is annoying. There's always some group that takes forever on one boss and then the rest of us have to drum our fingers for 20 minutes waiting. It would seem to make more sense to just spawn the bosses on a schedule all 5 minutes apart. It gets worse and worse as the weekend goes on, plus the well geared players tend to finish early in the weekend and don't want to risk the curse towards the end.

The curses are too intense for an event that may pick up level 20-30 characters. We had a wipe on Hot Flash and people in spider web gear got cursed. That would be incredibly frustrating and as Minor Panaceas are pretty rare, they are pretty expensive. You can't even go kill the boss for many of them because they are specific to the World Boss event. There should be some mechanism to get uncursed in the weeks afterwards that requires either community support or less money.

We had some well run fights towards the end that were absolutely incredible. Especially the last Hot Flash, it was a marginal group and we ran a big risk taking on a tough boss with no cure in sight for the curse if we failed. It was a victory that was barely eeked out and it was a lot of fun. What made those last runs great was a mostly well managed group that didn't wander from the portal in Fae Realm. Once somebody drags in the Guardian Wasps, it's a kill fest even before Hot Flash shows up. That last victory was quite a thrill.

That brings up another point though - it shouldn't be possible for one player's actions to make it terrible for the whole group. That opens the door to griefing. Now I know this game gives us problems that require social solutions - name and shame is about the only solution there is to being intentionally griefed on a world boss. Plus at times new players just make an honest mistake because they don't see the messages, it's unfair to put a new player in the sort of situation that gets everyone pissed at them. If the game gets bigger and more people participate, it's just going to up the odds that one person finds it funny to bring death on the whole group.

So I'm fine with the dynamic of dying a lot and Guardian Wasps and Claudia's Minons killing people, but maybe make it wait until the boss spawns at least? Putting the bosses on fixed timers would reduce the amount of time spent waiting which would help with this issue.

Anyways for the rest of us - strategy. Honestly it would be best to just keep the entire group for both Claudia and Hot Flash at the portal in and tell everyone to just wait there for the boss. If the bees get pulled on Hot Flash, just wait on the other side of the portal until the pullers bring Hot Flash in. We did Claudia once with no heads and Hot Flash twice with no bees until Hot Flash was pulled and it makes things easier.

I think there's some good criticism here particularly on the timer. I like Vish's idea of shorter timers on the later bosses as a solution and I think the idea of multi-layer fights like the random invasions could be a fun element though not necessary on an already long event. I also think mbaums OP idea of one boss every x hours and a different boss each time could be fun, b/c particularly as we get further into development with more zones I think the format will become a bit unsustainable.

I sat this one out in part b/c its over an hour a run which is just a little too long esp. when a lot of that time is waiting for claudia to spawn. This also came on the tail of a very event heavy November and I'm not sure such an intensive event fits well late into a calendar like this. Though speeding it up with altered timers could change my mind on that. I also don't know if I would put it so close to Gobblejack event since thematically they're quite similar. Gobblejack runs on the same timer, is a world boss fight worth doing 3 times (per char), and opens up with an infinite enemies fight. The issue of putting them side by side is GJ is so quick and straight forward that it makes the WB event feel very drawn out by comparison. Alternatively the last time this event came through I feel like I hadn't been a part of a community event for a while and I did it 3 runs happily.

I think the current pain points are Zuke and Claudia for opposite reasons. The zuke fight can go incredibly fast and involves two load screens so you gotta hustle. That stress of "will I get the credit I need or will slow loading lock me out" even if its unlikely to happen pulls me out of the event. The claudia fight with the faces of death (though a fun fight when its happening) ends up dragging on so that there tends to be a large amount of down time in the desert waiting for her to respawn from the previous fight.

I do still like the event though, I like the chaos, the whole server coming together, newer players getting jettisoned to areas they won't end up exploring for a long time and interesting boss fights. As the world gets bigger one thing I might suggest is having different "circuits" so in the spring we might fight Empus, Ciervos, Hotflash, and some new boss and in the Winter it could be George, Claudia, and some new bosses. That would also keep the runs a little shorter while making it feel fresher as it repeats throughout the year.

Empusa probably does demand a longer fight. Possibly her first 30 seconds she can take only 25% of the damage done? No One should have trouble targeting her since it's just one boss. Hit tab and shoot something. It can be a bit challenging for an all melee build though, to get through a large scrum.

Some people do have bad zoning times. CC has a known issue, for whatever reason, and it does take him and a few other people time to zone. (But how did you miss HF?The portal stays up an hour and it's long, long fight.

Too much loot I'll argue is just poor planning. You know how much you can get if you take all gems. Unload before bosses start.

The adds are problems on two fights: Claudia and HF. You can avoid a lot of the problems by simply avoiding the adds. On Claudia, don't run up the hill, and stay away until Claudia spawns. On HF, die and stay in town until HF spawns. If having difficulty tagging a boss with melee, load a ranged skill no matter how lame. I've used Cold Ball with one character. And if you die after that, you can usually reload skills before the boss dies.

I expect that as we get more optimization done, there will be less need to turn down graphics. People with bad computers and connections will still have problems with that many people, but I expect things to get better. I don't see a hell of a lot that can be done about this by the programmers just to fix an event. We just have to live with it, it's beta.