Thoughts of the world bosses:

[Mbaums]

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.

[Niph]

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

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.

[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.

[Silkt]

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.

[Celerity]

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.

[Ivini]

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.

[Mikhaila]

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.

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".

[ProfessorCat]

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".

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.

[Zacty]

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.

[Ranperre]

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

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.