The New Shatter Meta Event - My Thoughts and a Question

[Fury.6281]

This is one of the highlights of the patch for me, outside of the story. Being able to face off against the new world boss design was awesome and provided a decent challenge. The fight itself has had quite a few elements changed from the original shatter fight, while borrowing from some of it's similarities. The healing mechanic, while present in the original shatter fight, now comes with the challenge of quickly dispersing 3 champion level mobs before they can heal the boss too much. I found that groups struggled with this at first, but the timer was forgiving enough to allow them to still finish, despite the boss healing almost back to full. Overall, I think the fight was enjoyable enough to bring some excitement to the map and replay-ability, while also providing a spectacularly visual dragon fight.

 

Now for a question for the team that brought this fight to life! When designing world bosses like all of the dragons, we have had these giant (mostly) stationary creatures to fight. I have always wanted to see these dragons walk around and do more than the somewhat stationary nature of the fight allows. For example, what if the new Shatter fight was a Bounty instead? Something to the effect of that the dragon would roam the map until players engaged it in combat and triggered an event. I understand the logistics of this may make it impossible, but have ideas like this one where the dragons are more mobile on the ground been brought up or considered internally?

 

Thank you!

[Matthew Pennebaker.7921]

I didn't work on this specific encounter, so I can't give you too much insight into it's specifics, but I can tell you about the system at large. Get ready for one of those "how the sausage is made" moments. The Shatterer(s) are what we call internally, Prop Bosses. They are not technically creatures in the sense of how our engine works, more like very (very very) elaborate turrets. Most of the really large, really complex looking bosses are this way, and none of them move around (Claw of Jormag cheats a little). Having them be stationary is actually required for attaching targeting circles to them, if they are creatures (which would allow them to move) your only targeting would be on the center of mass (it's a little more complex than that, but close enough). There's another advantage to having them be stationary, we can be much more deliberate with the encounter design. All of the Shatterers' skills are built with the space they exist in mind, if they were marching about those skills could be firing off anywhere, and the landscape is no longer part of the design. The Legendary Sand Giant and the Legendary Ley-line Anomaly work this way, and because of that have to have simpler skill sets (or bug out some times).

Hope that answers some of your questions!

[Fury.6281]

> @"Matthew Pennebaker.7921" said:

> I didn't work on this specific encounter, so I can't give you too much insight into it's specifics, but I can tell you about the system at large. Get ready for one of those "how the sausage is made" moments. The Shatterer(s) are what we call internally, Prop Bosses. They are not technically creatures in the sense of how our engine works, more like very (very very) elaborate turrets. Most of the really large, really complex looking bosses are this way, and none of them move around (Claw of Jormag cheats a little). Having them be stationary is actually required for attaching targeting circles to them, if they are creatures (which would allow them to move) your only targeting would be on the center of mass (it's a little more complex than that, but close enough). There's another advantage to having them be stationary, we can be much more deliberate with the encounter design. All of the Shatterers' skills are built with the space they exist in mind, if they were marching about those skills could be firing off anywhere, and the landscape is no longer part of the design. The Legendary Sand Giant and the Legendary Ley-line Anomaly work this way, and because of that have to have simpler skill sets (or bug out some times).

> Hope that answers some of your questions!

 

It definitely does! Thank you very much for your insight. Perhaps I will just have to save my dreams of a moving dragon for a Living World map that is dedicated to such an event and the tech is created. Maybe along the lines of Stop the Dragon from Reaching (Insert important City / Area Here), where you fight the dragon as it marches on.

 

But again, thank you for your reply!