The latest raid of World of Warcraft has been adjusted over two dozen times. Can Blizzard simply not balance? Or is this intentional?
Raids are still the king’s discipline of content in World of Warcraft. Even across other MMORPGs, the raids in Blizzard’s MMORPG are considered quite good and are often used as a benchmark for really strong group content. But as cool as the raids may be, a familiar pattern emerges with each new raid. The developers are forced to nerf a new raid numerous times.
The current raid, the Mausoleum of the First, is a particularly impressive example. A whopping 25 times the developers have announced and implemented nerfs.
But why is that? Are players ‘too weak’ for the raids? Is Blizzard unable to balance raids properly? We dare a little analysis.
What has happened in the latest raid? The currently newest raid in World of Warcraft is the “Mausoleum of the First”, which concludes the story of Shadowlands. A total of 11 bosses are waiting to be beaten by the players – in difficulty levels from LFR to Mythic, all of which pose different demands on the players.
However, the raid today is quite different from its release. This is mainly due to Blizzard frequently adjusting and making changes. A whopping 25 times Blizzard announced and implemented adjustments between March 1 and June 17 (via wowhead).
Why does Blizzard nerf a single raid so often?
This has a multitude of reasons, all interconnected. The most obvious and well-known reason is probably the “World First” race. Here, the best guilds in the world compete against each other in an unofficial competition and try to defeat the final boss as the very first worldwide at the highest difficulty (mythic).
That this race is exciting benefits everyone. The community can cheer on their favorite guilds, which also earn ad revenue through the streams. Blizzard itself benefits from World of Warcraft being on everyone’s lips for several days, generating attention.
However, balancing bosses is quite difficult, especially when you have to create them in such a way that elite players can only “barely” defeat them. There is only a very small window in which bosses have just the right level of difficulty. Even minor deviations could lead to bosses being completely unbeatable or being defeated by professionals not after 100 attempts, but after 10.
However, if a boss is defeated, it would immediately mean the end of the race, and subsequently strengthening the bosses could negatively affect all other players, which is why Blizzard initially made them a little too strong rather than a little too weak.
Weakening something afterwards is easy – buffing something later on could lead to an outcry. Because how “unfair” would it be if one guild defeats the Jailer quite easily while all others have a harder boss fight?
Another reason is Blizzard’s limited ability to test content in advance. The last bosses in the Mausoleum of the First were not even accessible to players on the test realm. After all, they didn’t want to reveal all the secrets in advance.
This means, however, that Blizzard relies on its own internal testers when testing these bosses. And even if they are certainly competent players with a lot of experience, they probably do not play on a global level and therefore cannot experience all eventualities as professional guilds would.
Also, the number of internal testers is limited. One gets entirely different data sets when perhaps 20 to 100 internal players try something than when tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of players flood the bosses in a live environment.
Last but not least, one must not forget that World of Warcraft is a quite complex game – at least in terms of interwoven systems. Not only are the raw stats of a character crucial, but also different systems such as legendary items, tier set bonuses, soulbinds and their conduits, covenants, and talent choices are key. Additionally, there are various interactions between player classes. For example, a Demon Hunter in a raid increases the magical damage all other players deal to the enemy by 5%.
Bosses must remain reachable: That not all players can defeat all bosses is certainly intentional by Blizzard – otherwise, the level of difficulty would not significantly increase throughout a raid. However, if it becomes apparent that certain bosses, especially in the earlier parts of the raid, are such a significant hurdle that many guilds struggle with them, Blizzard is virtually forced to act. Because dying to the same boss for weeks or even months is something that only a fraction of players truly enjoys.
A particularly prominent example here is Anduin Wrynn, the 9th boss, who was very difficult even on normal difficulty and posed huge problems for many guilds in the first weeks. Even players who usually participate in heroic raids have had a tough time defeating Anduin Wrynn for a while – and that despite having 3 bosses left after him. Accordingly, few bosses have been adjusted as often as Anduin until he lost some of his challenge. He is still one of the more challenging enemies in the Mausoleum, but he has lost much of his former terror.
Critics see “waste of resources”: While many players are certainly pleased that raids become easier over time, allowing groups to defeat bosses they couldn’t handle before, there is also much criticism of this system. Not only do some feel that their achievements are “devalued”, but a second argument is also repeatedly mentioned: it consumes many of the developers’ resources.
If bosses are developed in such a way at the beginning that only the best 0.1% of players have a chance at the kill in the first weeks, it is an exciting race, but it requires a lot of fine-tuning afterwards. This, in turn, means that developers will still have to deal with the bosses and their balancing long after a patch’s release. These bosses also consume development time that could be directed into new content.
How much time does balancing really require? Whether the necessary effort in adjusting bosses afterwards is actually so great is difficult to determine. Blizzard does not provide any figures for this. If it is merely about minor adjustments in numbers, such as reducing the damage of a particular ability, the effort may only take a few minutes. However, if mechanics change or the timing windows of boss abilities shift, this would entail a larger testing effort that would require more resources.
It is clear that Blizzard can guarantee a relatively exciting “World First” race with this approach, in which they initially make bosses nearly unbeatable hard and later adjust them to the level of a larger number of players. Whether one sees this as “casualization” or a planned process where bosses are intentionally “too hard” at first is probably left to personal interpretation.
What do you think about this type of balancing? Is it good that so much is adjusted afterwards? Or should Blizzard make bosses somewhat easier from the outset, even if that makes the World-First race less exciting?
