WoW News

Encounter Design Aims for More Clarity with Midnight – Pika and Kesslive Interview with Blizzard

Pikatv and Kesslive had the opportunity to interview Encounter Lead Dylan Barker and Quest Designer/Feature Owner for Prey, Noah Smith, about the changes to Encounter Design for Midnight and what to expect from the Prey system.

Watch the full interview:

Below we've highlighted part of the interview. We always recommend watching the whole conversation for context on any highlight.

Raid Design

Many of the encounter comp "requirements" seen in the RWF aren't as much requirements as the best players figuring out optimal comps for fights.

If it happens that raids outside the RWF spectrum are changing comps for fights, then it is something that needs to be dialed back.

The removal of combat addons allows encounter designers to add different puzzles to encounters that before wouldn't be possible without adding a "time stress".

The team is aiming to avoid mechanics that require "second-precise decision making".

Blizzard admits that the clarity of mechanics needs to be improved with the removal of addons.

While the number of mid-range (25 yards) specs has increased, Blizzard doesn't design encounters splitting mechanics/arenas into melee/midranged/ranged sections.

Mythic+ Design

One of the goals with Midnight dungeons is to make sure mechanics that will kill you look like they will kill you.

The team is still fine-tuning the density of these lethal mechanics in dungeons.

" was a mob made with a lot of love and care and attention and... it was a problem. When asked to remove it, the designer did it in a way."

While Blizzard doesn't explicitly plan to make sure every toolkit is used in every dungeon, they always aim to make sure there isn't just one way to deal with a certain mechanic. However, there will be a ceiling on this, as you start scaling the content so high that it eventually develops into a meta for dungeons.

M+ Design usually won't think of class- or spec-specific buffs when designing dungeons or encounters, as that is the area of the Class Balance team.

Within a season, Blizzard tries to have many different target profiles to make sure all different class damage profiles can shine in some capacity.

Diversity in damage profiles for dungeons comes in the form of different routing possibilities.

Eco Dome had a good reception as a "beta" dungeon using the concepts Blizzard is intending to use in a world without addons. More straightforward mechanics and better indicators of what will kill you and how to overcome them.

Prey System

You should only be ambushed when already in combat, so you won't be attacked while flying.

However, you can be ambushed while fighting with the opposite faction in War Mode.

If someone in your group is participating in the Prey System and gets attacked, you won't be affected unless you decide to help them.

Prey is fully multiplayer-friendly up to 5 players in all difficulties. All that changes across difficulties is how the last encounter is phased.

In normal mode, it will be all open, and everyone in the zone can join. On Heroic and Nightmare, you're limited to only having your group to help.

Prey follows the same restrictions as other outdoor activities for cross-faction play.

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