// PC GAMER — GAMING
WoW's changing how world bosses work because they've 'really been a little bit lackluster' in recent years, says dev
"A lot of players just cluster into a boss. It drops in a few moments."
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World bosses have been a part of the World of Warcraft player's diet since classic—in case you haven't played the game, what separates a world boss from any other raid encounter is the fact that it's (self-explanatorily) out in the world, something you need to party up to defeat without going into a cave somewhere.
That's changing with WoW's next patch, Curse of Ula'tek, as world bosses are shifting to a "lair" format. Essentially, they'll function like one-boss delves with larger groups—that also gives them the benefit of having scaling difficulties, all the way up to 15-25 man Mythic. You can queue up for them like you would any other dungeon.
I got to speak with lead encounter designer Taylor Sanders about plans for patch 12.1 about why Blizzard's chosen to experiment with world bosses in particular: "So historically, world bosses go all the way back, right, to like the green dragons and the Lord Kazzaks and stuff that many players know and love from Classic and beyond.
"Lately, we found in recent updates and recent expansions that these experiences have really been a little bit lackluster… A lot of players just cluster into a boss. It drops in a few moments. In the worst case, you might have to hop between servers to find a group where maybe the boss is up or the boss is attackable."
I can't say I disagree with Sanders, here—while there's a simple joy in joining an ongoing zerg rush, it's not as though I'm engaging with the games' systems beyond just pushing my buttons when I'm whacking one of these things. There might, on occasion, be an AoE I need to dodge or something, but I couldn't tell you one modern world bosses' mechanics from another.
That's mostly because of changing assumptions about difficulty. Some of those classic world bosses are iconic because they were allowed to be tough, or have punishing mechanics that required coordination to avoid—but because world content in WoW has now become part of casual play, those mechanics just wouldn't work for folks trying to get their dailies.
Imagine if, for instance, a world boss in retail had Lord Kazzak's "Capture Soul" ability, wherein if he kills anybody he heals for 70,000 HP—around 10% of his health. You'd never kill the dang thing.
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