So as not to take over Quinn's plurk sometimes I still want Yoship to reveal who was the head designer on the Shadows of Mhach 24 man trilogy.

Because I just wanna talk.

I'm curious.

Even years out now, i have questions.

Mark, do you usually take baseball bats to people you want to talk to?

Idle question.

I mean we might hit up a batting cage or something, possibly, and I want to be prepared.

It goes with my eyepatch anyways.

But seriously as rough as some of the 24 mans since have been I remember Weeping City of Mhach and Dun Scaithe legitimately in the first few weeks had people honestly asking "okay what killed me?"

If you have that many mechanics at once going off in the casual raid that people are actually confused which one of your "think fast or die" mechanics was the one that did it.

You didn't design it right.

Also think fast or die isn't a great design.

Especially not in a 24 man where there's 23 other people casually exploding particle effects around you at all times.

Like I'm not ecstatic about Copied Factory's think fast or vuln up stacks? But outside of the final fight they're all mostly pretty well telegraphed and it's not likely to kill you unless you eat two back to back when only happens mostly in Engels.

Also the problem with those was the raidwides were just the same amount of damage you took for failing a mechanic.

Which was typically like 75-80% max HP.

So there were a couple of fights (or in Weeping City, all of the fights) where if you did die since Weakness/BoD reduced your max HP, it would just fucking kill you.

And then you got shit like Ozma where it did that and punished you for having people on the floor.

Basically yeah looking back like 3 years or so later the raid design for Heavensward was fucking garbage.

The 24 mans are boring, terrible, and a fun hot mess respectively.

And the 8 mans had at least one stinker per set, even in the casual mode.

Dunskies is fun but it's a hot mess, yeah.

I would say it's a good primer for hell tanking if only because I think even now Dunskies is fuckin rough on tanks.

My favorite fight in Dunskies is Proto-Ultima.

Because after all these absolutely fucking miserable mechanics it's just so straight forward.

Doomgaze is the impossible made possible; it's the d20 save or suck effect encounter converted to a video game format.

games that think more gameplay mechanics equals more...

Basically this video is Heavensward raid design.

"Oh man my class feels really good, I can't wait to fight this goblin dude-"
"NOPE YOU HAVE TO MANAGE HIS POTIONS"
"what? well, that was weird but the lead-"
"OH NO NOW YOU HAVE TO SPEND THE RAID BABYSITTING HIS KITTY"
"jesus christ okay that asshole's dead and his cat's gone, maybe the next fight will be straightfor-"
"DON'T STEP ON THE FLOOR BUTTONS BITCH"

"THE SHAPES SECTION IS NEXT"

I remember my favorite fight in Dun Scaith, mechanically, being Forgall. Even with the Who's On First of the element pools, most of his stuff felt fairly well-telegraphed

also: yes you must babysit the kitty and kill its love. To defeat the raid boss you must become the monster.

(Also I had completely forgotten all the details in how to run those fights holy crap raid roulette is a thing)

Ferdiad.

Forgall was Yunalesca in Wiping City.

Also Quickthinks would have been fine if he didn’t have the cat and the spike balls and the jail and the spike floors and his own set of boss mechanics.

All at once.

...the sad part is that Ferdiad himself was so unmemorable as a character for me that I mixed him up with the first Wiping City hellfight