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ADDS in Dungeons - Example Dev Convo
zalathorm7
Member Posts: 128 Arc User
Dungeon A:
Dev1: How should we make this boss fight difficult?
Dev2: Big adds?
Dev1: We did big adds last time... any other suggestions?
Dev3: Lots of small adds!
Dev 1: Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
Dungeon B:
Dev1: How should we make this boss fight difficult? We already big adds, and lots of small adds.
Dev2: How about spider adds? Cause last time, there were wolf adds.
Dev1: Yes, that will work.
Dev3: Guys off topic here, I've been thinking about big red lines sometimes, instead of circles...
Dungeon C:
Dev1: Now guys, most games that use adds intend for you to kill them and go back to the boss. I want to mix it up a bit. How about, unkillable adds?
Dev2: Unkillable? What about infinite spawn?
Dev1: Lets do both...
ETC. Some variation of
Timed adds
% based adds
big adds
small adds
inanimate objects that shoot at you adds
melee adds
magic adds
archer adds
Dev1; Anyone got any ideas besides adds?
<room silence>
EDIT: There are lots of ideas in this thread for adding flavor and variation to encounters besides adds. You can read the posts, or read this summary:
Disables: Someone gets affected by a bind (frozen, chains, web, etc). You must break contact with the boss to free your comrade
Affliction: Someone gets afflicted by poison, quick isolate that teammate so it doesn’t spread
Timed Dodge: There’s a red circle that covers the whole room. Better learn dodge timing, and not just distance
Aggro Wipe: Every 25%, the boss has an agro wipe and attacks whoever is closest, or whoever is wearing the most blue, or whatever you want.
DPS check: Kill it quick, or else you lose
Defense Check – whoa this boss hits you hard no matter what, better have a tanky tank tanking
Heal check – whoa check out dem missing HPs. Better be sure to have dem heals rolling
Control: Let CW’s control bosses, or interrupt. BAM – role fulfilled on single targets
Anti DPS check – gotta take this one slow, or his aoe’s come too fast
Anti Tank check – no one can tank this guy, everyone for themselves
Anti heal check – every time you use a pot or are healed, someone else takes that much damage (WUT)
Boss Position: make fights about how they are positioned. Quick, duck behind that mirror so his hit is reflected back onto himself
"When boss bellows, run to a spot on the arena floor and beat on a thing that appears - boss is untargetable and quickly regenerating until the thing is destroyed."
"for 10 seconds every 60 seconds, the boss is raging, putting out so much damage the cleric can hope to heal through it. Tank has to run away and kite while this is happening. but, boss is extra vulnerable to damage, so the dps output is double ... make sure you don't pick up agro"
"Boss has a huge build up to a huge aoe, when he signals the start of his build up, everyone has to run to spots behind cover or get one shot killed."
boss spawns healer/buffer mobs, these have to be taken out very fast because they channel heals/buffs inot the boss. best when mixed with trashy mobs."
How about a GWF boss who uses Avalanche of Steel to dive-bomb the tank and anyone near him? During that attack you cannot fight the boss while it is in the air, whatsoever, and must flee the shrinking circle of doom before impact.
Or a boss with a lower overall health pool that retreats from combat to recover 1/6th of their health bar the first time they reach 75%, 50%, and 25% leaving the party to deal with their minions and lieutenants for a short while.
Or a boss which has only slow constant DPS applied to the entire party with EXTREME burst DPS phases that can wipe an unwary Defender. Something like Tonberry from Final Fantasy.
Or a New Boss which routinely destroys sections of the battlefield making it a smaller and smaller field of play to dodge and avoid red circles within (That one sounds like a nailbiter!)
The Exile gambit
As players fight the boss he will exile one of them to a random predetermined position from where they will have to make their way back to the group. There could be adds on the way. Distance back to the group is random so in some cases the fight turns into a survival exercise until the other members get back.
The Exorcist
Initially the boss does not fight back but mocks the characters. A half health he disappears and one of the characters gets full health and grows to the size of the boss. The game AI takes over the character until their party mates get them to half life. Then another party member is chosen and taken over until all characters have been possessed forcing the boss back out where he is now fighting back.
The Planeswalker
The fight with the boss is pretty standard but the scenery and terrain changes as the boss drags them through planes of existence offering the opportunity for different kinds of adds as they go as well as environmental hazards.
The Mavis Beacon monster
Two bosses, the singer, untargetable and standing in a single place, the monster rampaging around. The singer either says certain nonsense words one character at a time or lights up some symbols corresponding to numbers on the keyboard and buffs the monster outrageously. A party member has to stand in an opposing position to the singer and either mimics her words in chat or triggers the same symbols at the same time to nullify them allowing the party to fight the monster unbuffed.
Catch the bouquet
The boss does massive damage but there is an artifact that will reduce the damage it does to very little. However the boss can knock it from the hands of its holder and it flies out to land on the floor. Anyone can pick it up and become the defacto tank.
1) you don't have to make the boss harder or increase the adds to increase difficulty, you can alter the path to get there to force party diversity.
a) make it so you have to have an inherent, not kit, "skill" aka, religion, or arcane, or trap detection to even get past certain points
b) have some areas that can only be reached by ranged attacks to kill the creatures
c) require NPC interactions that will only get the favor of that NPC by being a certain race or class
d) require a collection of certain unique items from other dungeons to unlock higher dungeons each time you enter
e) have boss fights that include environmental challenges like darkness, getting stuck, weakness, fear.
f) have bosses on random weaknesses to certain elemental types from instance to instance
g) have bosses on random resistances to certain elemental types from instance to instance
h) use the old blunt/pierce/slash weakness/resistance scale for certain bosses
i) actually include an rare equipable jewelry item that may gain certain bonuses or resistances to said bosses for the fight if equipped, from quests or dungeon drops.
j) include the completion of side quests, or optional mini boss kills that reduce or eliminate the "called upon" adds the bosses have available
k) include the completion of side quests, or optional npc favor that allows you to gain assistance during the boss fight
a) npc being present for the fight could cast a special spell to weaken the boss
b) npc being present could distract the boss, aka arch nemisis type relationship with npc
c) npc being present could assist the party and be required to survive to gain assistance during the fight
Dev1: How should we make this boss fight difficult?
Dev2: Big adds?
Dev1: We did big adds last time... any other suggestions?
Dev3: Lots of small adds!
Dev 1: Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
Dungeon B:
Dev1: How should we make this boss fight difficult? We already big adds, and lots of small adds.
Dev2: How about spider adds? Cause last time, there were wolf adds.
Dev1: Yes, that will work.
Dev3: Guys off topic here, I've been thinking about big red lines sometimes, instead of circles...
Dungeon C:
Dev1: Now guys, most games that use adds intend for you to kill them and go back to the boss. I want to mix it up a bit. How about, unkillable adds?
Dev2: Unkillable? What about infinite spawn?
Dev1: Lets do both...
ETC. Some variation of
Timed adds
% based adds
big adds
small adds
inanimate objects that shoot at you adds
melee adds
magic adds
archer adds
Dev1; Anyone got any ideas besides adds?
<room silence>
EDIT: There are lots of ideas in this thread for adding flavor and variation to encounters besides adds. You can read the posts, or read this summary:
Disables: Someone gets affected by a bind (frozen, chains, web, etc). You must break contact with the boss to free your comrade
Affliction: Someone gets afflicted by poison, quick isolate that teammate so it doesn’t spread
Timed Dodge: There’s a red circle that covers the whole room. Better learn dodge timing, and not just distance
Aggro Wipe: Every 25%, the boss has an agro wipe and attacks whoever is closest, or whoever is wearing the most blue, or whatever you want.
DPS check: Kill it quick, or else you lose
Defense Check – whoa this boss hits you hard no matter what, better have a tanky tank tanking
Heal check – whoa check out dem missing HPs. Better be sure to have dem heals rolling
Control: Let CW’s control bosses, or interrupt. BAM – role fulfilled on single targets
Anti DPS check – gotta take this one slow, or his aoe’s come too fast
Anti Tank check – no one can tank this guy, everyone for themselves
Anti heal check – every time you use a pot or are healed, someone else takes that much damage (WUT)
Boss Position: make fights about how they are positioned. Quick, duck behind that mirror so his hit is reflected back onto himself
"When boss bellows, run to a spot on the arena floor and beat on a thing that appears - boss is untargetable and quickly regenerating until the thing is destroyed."
"for 10 seconds every 60 seconds, the boss is raging, putting out so much damage the cleric can hope to heal through it. Tank has to run away and kite while this is happening. but, boss is extra vulnerable to damage, so the dps output is double ... make sure you don't pick up agro"
"Boss has a huge build up to a huge aoe, when he signals the start of his build up, everyone has to run to spots behind cover or get one shot killed."
boss spawns healer/buffer mobs, these have to be taken out very fast because they channel heals/buffs inot the boss. best when mixed with trashy mobs."
How about a GWF boss who uses Avalanche of Steel to dive-bomb the tank and anyone near him? During that attack you cannot fight the boss while it is in the air, whatsoever, and must flee the shrinking circle of doom before impact.
Or a boss with a lower overall health pool that retreats from combat to recover 1/6th of their health bar the first time they reach 75%, 50%, and 25% leaving the party to deal with their minions and lieutenants for a short while.
Or a boss which has only slow constant DPS applied to the entire party with EXTREME burst DPS phases that can wipe an unwary Defender. Something like Tonberry from Final Fantasy.
Or a New Boss which routinely destroys sections of the battlefield making it a smaller and smaller field of play to dodge and avoid red circles within (That one sounds like a nailbiter!)
The Exile gambit
As players fight the boss he will exile one of them to a random predetermined position from where they will have to make their way back to the group. There could be adds on the way. Distance back to the group is random so in some cases the fight turns into a survival exercise until the other members get back.
The Exorcist
Initially the boss does not fight back but mocks the characters. A half health he disappears and one of the characters gets full health and grows to the size of the boss. The game AI takes over the character until their party mates get them to half life. Then another party member is chosen and taken over until all characters have been possessed forcing the boss back out where he is now fighting back.
The Planeswalker
The fight with the boss is pretty standard but the scenery and terrain changes as the boss drags them through planes of existence offering the opportunity for different kinds of adds as they go as well as environmental hazards.
The Mavis Beacon monster
Two bosses, the singer, untargetable and standing in a single place, the monster rampaging around. The singer either says certain nonsense words one character at a time or lights up some symbols corresponding to numbers on the keyboard and buffs the monster outrageously. A party member has to stand in an opposing position to the singer and either mimics her words in chat or triggers the same symbols at the same time to nullify them allowing the party to fight the monster unbuffed.
Catch the bouquet
The boss does massive damage but there is an artifact that will reduce the damage it does to very little. However the boss can knock it from the hands of its holder and it flies out to land on the floor. Anyone can pick it up and become the defacto tank.
1) you don't have to make the boss harder or increase the adds to increase difficulty, you can alter the path to get there to force party diversity.
a) make it so you have to have an inherent, not kit, "skill" aka, religion, or arcane, or trap detection to even get past certain points
b) have some areas that can only be reached by ranged attacks to kill the creatures
c) require NPC interactions that will only get the favor of that NPC by being a certain race or class
d) require a collection of certain unique items from other dungeons to unlock higher dungeons each time you enter
e) have boss fights that include environmental challenges like darkness, getting stuck, weakness, fear.
f) have bosses on random weaknesses to certain elemental types from instance to instance
g) have bosses on random resistances to certain elemental types from instance to instance
h) use the old blunt/pierce/slash weakness/resistance scale for certain bosses
i) actually include an rare equipable jewelry item that may gain certain bonuses or resistances to said bosses for the fight if equipped, from quests or dungeon drops.
j) include the completion of side quests, or optional mini boss kills that reduce or eliminate the "called upon" adds the bosses have available
k) include the completion of side quests, or optional npc favor that allows you to gain assistance during the boss fight
a) npc being present for the fight could cast a special spell to weaken the boss
b) npc being present could distract the boss, aka arch nemisis type relationship with npc
c) npc being present could assist the party and be required to survive to gain assistance during the fight
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by zalathorm7 on
0
Comments
Smoke@stonedbill - Mindflayer - 60 Rogue
And your suggestion is?
Ability Scores || All Attribute Roll Combinations || My Cleric Stream \o/
Leader: Heals and some AoE DPS
Controller: AoE Damage and Crowd Control
Striker: Single Target and -some- AoE DPS with Survival Tools
Defender: Tanky with some nice AoE Attacks for fighting multiple targets
These were handed down to them from WotC. They didn't decide on these roles or design their function in D&D 4E. They're just translating them into the MMO.
Looking through the 4E DMG you'll find entries on encounter building to ensure EVERY CHARACTER has a role to play. The defender gets in the face of the big bad while the controller wipes out the 1 hit minions and the striker backstabs enemy casters while the Leader keeps everyone on their feet while pushing back the enemy strikers attacking them.
Why are there so many adds? So that everyone on the team has a role beyond Attack the Boss, Heal the Tank, and Keep the boss's Aggro.
What would you do differently to ensure each role is fulfilled?
-Rachel-
My suggestion would be making the boss hard itself, with autohealing, rage after a while, knockbacks and heal.... Make the boss have some cool special abilities that makes it hard to kill him. Not a thousand adds per minute... There could be some adds but don't put them in all bosses all the time...
Stop being anal. It's great comedy.
the problem is when 1 or more classes can be negated to completed a boss encounter. There are some T2 bosses that are better done w/o a Defender. Some fights can be done w/o a Cleric. It is possible to have boss encounters that dont involved adds for each one.
Ability Scores || All Attribute Roll Combinations || My Cleric Stream \o/
LOL, must not have had coffee and doughnuts in the conference room that morning.
Be respectful, remember, you PLAY the game at your convenience, they WORK at no ones."
Here is what I would do differently:
1. Not make every fight a copy from the last
2. Realize that making a few fights about the BOSS, and not about adds, does not threaten control wizards or gwfs. Why? Because OTHER fights in THAT DUNGEON, will require their skills.
3. I'm a rogue. There are times in the dungeon where there aren't add elites for me to burst, instead, its waves of little dudes. WHERE IS MY ROLE? I'm supposed to be striking high HP targets. Am I suddenly worthless as a class because my role is not perfect for that encounter? Nope, because the next fight, I'll be needed. It should be about tradeoff, give and take, some classes shining in one fight, with another class shining in a different fight. That's where variation comes from.
In my experience, eq2 had a good balance of PVE group content. Not every fight was about the adds. Not every fight was about a single boss. Not every fight was about the DPS. Not every fight was about the tank. They had some of each.
There are hidden and locked rooms in dungeons, but if you don't do optional rooms, don't read, don't watch, don't try anything, you'll likely miss them.
To OP: DPS dealt by the boss itself or by adds makes no difference to me, and adds are a good way to finely balance an encounter. Variety comes from the designs of the NPCs, not from the design of the boss fight. If you want bosses having one shot abilities (because you want to challenge the tank and then you end up OSing the cleric/dps) then it's not the right game.
1. Not constructive.
2. Constructive!
3. No more constructive than 2, but still helpful.
So. We should make the dungeons and the bosses more varied to ensure everyone has something to do -some- of the time, but not always.
I don't know that I fully agree that boss fights should be completely addless. I do think they should have adds the GWF and Control Wizard can handle without a lot of fuss and muss so that the ST Specialist and Defender can focus on the boss during Add Phases, and the Leader has some measure of danger from addswarm that gives these other characters a good placement in the fight.
Would that make it better? Lowering the HP of the Adds, maybe bunching them up a bit to make them more attractive to the CW and GWF for short distracting burst that make them feel like they're integral to the overall fight structure without making the whole of the battle feel like add management?
And putting in more lieutenants throughout the dungeon, not quite minibosses with loot, but fairly hard targets that are decidedly burstable?
-Rachel-
For the same reason the Secret World kind of sucks. You wind up getting the puzzle and having a eureka moment if everyone has time, or someone impatient hits the internet to get the answer and steals all the interest from everyone.
If it's a physical puzzle after the first or second run it feels less like a puzzle and more like a chore.
-Rachel-
Also for rachel:
Ok, here was 30 seconds of brainstorming.
Disables: Someone gets affected by a bind (frozen, chains, web, etc). You must break contact with the boss to free your comrade
Affliction: Someone gets afflicted by poison, quick isolate that teammate so it doesn’t spread
Timed Dodge: There’s a red circle that covers the whole room. Better learn dodge timing, and not just distance
Aggro Wipe: Every 25%, the boss has an agro wipe and attacks whoever is closest, or whoever is wearing the most blue, or whatever you want.
DPS check: Kill it quick, or else you lose
Defense Check – whoa this boss hits you hard no matter what, better have a tanky tank tanking
Heal check – whoa check out dem missing HPs. Better be sure to have dem heals rolling
Control: Let CW’s control bosses, or interrupt. BAM – role fulfilled on single targets
Anti DPS check – gotta take this one slow, or his aoe’s come too fast
Anti Tank check – no one can tank this guy, everyone for themselves
Anti heal check – every time you use a pot or are healed, someone else takes that much damage (WUT)
Boss Position: make fights about how they are positioned. Quick, duck behind that mirror so his hit is reflected back onto himself
Let there be phases!
Phase 1 and 2 = boss is on a platform, Phase 3 and 4 = boss on the ground floor with you
Phase 1: the boss gets pissed off that you entered his throne room and releases poisonous gas from floor vents. He sends his henchmen after you (adds, ok fine), but the only way to weaken/kill them is to kite them over the gas vents. Some henchmen are ranged mobs, so you have to use things in the room for line of sight to make them move, or class abilities to pull them over.
Phase 2: Henchmen are dead, so now you face his lightning storm! This is a coordinated group puzzle and the team must stack up to disperse the lightning damage or risk getting one-shot. The gas vents are still going, but now they're alternating all over the floor. The team must move together away from the gas vents, but still staying close together to disperse the lightning damage.
Phase 3: Boss descends from his platform and wants to face off with you personally. He is static in the middle of the room and will summon slow moving healing orbs from the edges of the room. It's up to the team to intercept these healing orbs before they get to the boss. This phase until boss is at 50% health.
Phase 4: From 50% health until dead: Last phase, boss is enraged and hits harder. Healing orbs still come, but now he has an aoe move. He will say something and have a long casting animation. The team will need to hide behind pillars/objects in the room to avoid the boss aoe move, which will debuff a player to reduce the amount of healing received by 75%.
THAT's the kind of epic boss fights I love. They require a game plan.
Most of theese suggestions makes boss fights boring. I've seen that in other games, dps races or random wipes aren't fun at all. Adds make encounters less predictable. It's not perfect but definitely not as flawed as in other cryptic games, where boss fights are a disaster and are exactly what you suggested. That's just repetitive and unfun after the 10th time you do it.
That's just a couple I can think of off the top of my head.
They require that you learn an encounter, execute a plan as a team, and that you stay on your game.
You say adds make encounters less predictable? WHAT!? I know EXACTLY how each fight in this game will play out. It's the same, just as rachel pointed out, because "each role needs to be fulfilled every fight," therefore, you know what to expect every fight.
Also, its not like any of the ideas I posted are broadcasted to you before the encounter. You'd need to figure it out. That's the point and why THEY are less predictable, than say, adds.
And the more adds are so you have to bring an AoE guy , currently the GWF . But cleric and control wizard will both get paragons to be AoE guys later .
1 is constructive. It means don't create 1 boss encounter and copy/paste it 32 other times. Be creative with bosses, a theme can exist for a specific dungeon. The Spider/Wolf Den can be packed with adds, but a pirate on a ship would have limited crew on board.
Remember that we had a lot of trash prior to each boss. everyone has a roll but what if the Queue doesn't include a roll? I've been in groups where we didn't have 1 of the 5 rolls. I've been in some groups with 2 rolls missing.
My group and I are getting really bored with the same ADD mechanic for every boss. It isnt fun.
Ability Scores || All Attribute Roll Combinations || My Cleric Stream \o/
I thought Secret World had some of the best dungeon encounter's I've ever seen in a game, especially considering the development challenge of letting your players "design their own class/role". So I find your opinion a little subjective here. I had many happy hours defeating the encounters. Both figuring out how (the group I roll with doesn't look up answers, sorry if yours does), and then getting execution down to perfection. (because something always goes wrong).
That's my idea of fun. I'll understand if it's not yours, but why is your's more valid than mine?
Raids are going to be where you have bosses with different phases to get down I reckon. Give it a few months, you'll see.
Dev1: Lets do raids, guys!
Dev2: Awesome! I've got the perfect idea for an encounter....one trillion adds!
Dev3: Why make a trillion when we could make....millions?
Dev1: A million adds it is!
Anyway, I do hope raids are as you suggest banicks
Some of those are really interesting. Control locking a boss, on the other hand, is damned hard game design.
All combat is a function of damage over time. Sure there are a lot of different variables but that's what it boils down to. All actor functions either deal damage over a certain amount of time (recharge or animation) or mitigate damage to avoid death.
Dealing damage has different categories, of course. You have burst damage, level damage, single target, and AoE. AoE and Burst damage will shorten the length of time that adds deal damage to a party, extending the period of time they can remain in the fight to outlast the boss. Single Target and level or steady damage are the baseline of the combat, and determine it's initial duration modified by any burst. By a similar method, enemy actor damage upon the party has the same purpose. With burst DPS capable of eliminating weaker players while the "Level" damage output places an unofficial timer on the maximum time the players can maintain the fight.
Damage mitigation, on the other hand, is all about extending the duration of the combat. Healing. Passive Mitigation. Active Mitigation. And Absolute Mitigation all have the function of extending the combat considerably. With a good healer you can mitigate the effects of an enemy burst phase on your squishier characters and reinforce your primary tank considerably. The primary tank will often have high amounts of passive mitigation in the form of defense and damage resistance which the player has no input on and active mitigation in the form of self-healing or "Cooldowns" which temporarily increase their damage mitigation.
Absolute Mitigation, on the other hand, is as it says: Absolute. All other forms of damage mitigation are relative. A percentage of damage dealt is mitigated. A percentage of the player's health is returned. Absolute Mitigation completely stops any damage from occurring whatsoever, effectively pausing the casters's "Encounter Clock" while the target's "Encounter Clock" continues to tick.
The target is prevented from dealing damage to lower their attacker's combat duration sustainability and also prevented from extending their own combat duration. To put it into a simple analogy, it's tripping the competition in a race.
Controlling a Boss gives the Leader time to get everyone up. The tank time to relax and wait on cooldowns and other active mitigation for additional uses within the combat. It gives the striker ample burst-time without needing to avoid harmful effects. In order to retain any semblance of balance, such a boss would need -massive- amounts of increased HP, to offset the targeted burst and it's timing, or large amounts of overall passive mitigation, or active mitigation, which bossses rarely if ever get due to AI limitations, or absolute mitigation.
I'm not strictly against it, mind you. I just think it's really hard to maintain any sort of combat challenge if the players are allowed to reset their encounter clock, more or less, while whittling down the enemy's encounter clock.
-Rachel-
Not true at all. Both Rift, and Secret World did raid style encounters with 5 man groups. Both did them exceptionally well. WoW is not the gold standard for dungeon mechanics (more like -- the minimum standard, imho).
I don't think you fully understand what everyone in this thread is talking about. The adds are not entirely the issue here. It's the adds health pools being so large, that ever geared groups with full T2 cannot kill them before more spawn.
In tier 1, or even before that. The adds would normally enter the room at a % of the boss's health hitting a point that would trigger the adds to enter. Most fight, you burn them down and continue fighting the bosses that have pretty much 1 basic attack and 1 "red circle aoe" attack that pretty much nobody ever gets hit with because they're stupid mechanics and easy to avoid.
Now, with that said. Going into T2. Let's take Pirate as an example. He spawns 3 archers and 2 melee (I think) addes every 8-10 seconds or in and around there. These adds on their own, would not be a problem. But combined they have an insane amount of health.
Now, assuming you have a normal group. 1 Cleric, 1 Great Weapon Fights, 1 Control Wizard, 1 Guardian Fighter and 1 Rogue. This is normally how most groups attempt this boss.
Guardian Fighter Tanks the Boss and holds him on one side of the ship.
Rogue stays on the boss and doesn't leave it.
Control Wizard + Great Weapon Fighter, they both kite adds around the room attempting to kill them off as they go.
Cleric, stand in the middle between the kiting and the boss to heal both groups.
Now, with that said. Remember, adds spawn every 8-10 seconds. Here is the outcome of this fight.
Cleric pulls agro on the adds due to the amount of healing that happening everyone dies.
Great Weapon Fights and Control wizard get overrun by adds because they're spawning so fast and due to their health pools being so large they cannot be killed in time before the next wave of adds spawn.
Rogue doesn't solo DPS the boss fast enough and the room gets overun by adds.
This is, pretty much 99% of all end game T2 final boss fights. These are NOT boss mechanics, this is a bull**** attempt at end game content from a company that has no idea what's really needed to make interesting fights.
Look at Rift, or World of Warcraft.. **** even SW:TOR did it right for the most part. Everyquest 1 and 2, Secret World.. **** the list goes on for awhile. For you to say this game is the way it is to have "everyone feel like they have a role" is complete and utterly stupid.