Scourge of the Past raid-along addendum, some stuff about the boss... /1

— Brendan Thorne (@bthorne) February 27, 2019

That's the first tweet in the thread, click through if you want. I'll quote for the lazy:

Scourge of the Past raid-along addendum, some stuff about the boss...

I liked Argos Dps phase because you dont get to just sit there and pew pew. Gotta react to detain nets and squiddy seekers. Wanted to maintain the on-your-toes DPS experience.

As @BfrankTrue noted, Insurrection Prime used the aura/tester mechanic during DPS. I didn’t want players to just sit there and Whisper him down. Wanted players to react and move, then reward them for doing it.

“Why not enforce it? Why not make players do zero dps if they don’t match their auras?” If you have an odd number of players or someone dies, odd player out gets kinda screwed. So made it a reward if you do the mechanic. If you don’t, safer, but fight takes longer.

Also, not everyone has Whisper/sleeper/whatever. Knew that top tier groups would one-round him, but that’s fine. Still requires lots of coordination to get to that point.

The tank was @BfrankTrue ‘s idea. Integrated it into the level design. Originally, you planted a bomb at the boss’ feet. Wasn’t very fun. Shooting with the tank felt MUCH better, even if you only get to use it a little bit.

Goal of the fight was to make a boss that you constantly interact with, hence, breaking the shield generators and interrupting attacks to delay the wipe timer.

The adds are actually more dangerous than the boss, especially snipers. They serve as callout moments to make sure you’re paying attention, assigning roles, making good loadout choices.

Dropship squads that land on the buildings are to make you change position, also serve as ammo/super resource.

“Map dad” was a role we came up early. Some groups park someone there. Some call out berserker/battery locations on the fly. Wanted groups to have flexibility.

Might add more later if I think of other stuff. Loved working on this raid. A LOT of people helped ship this thing and I’m extremely proud of the raid. Special thanks to our Test team. They deserve an enormous amount of credit.

I really like that encounter. It doesn't quite match Mines/Argos, for me, but I do think it's a fun boss. It's nice to get a peak at the thought process behind some of the encounters. Gotta make time to watch the raid-along.