I tend to have a bone to pick with World of Warcraft’s boss fights, which is a bit of an issue when there are a lot of them. My general feeling is that most of them tend to have a rather small list of mechanics to engage with and you just wind up cycling through them for like three or four minutes. That gets boring if your party is capable of engaging and succeeding or if your party isn’t. But I will say that the fights do tend to hit that sweet spot in terms of length. It’s long enough that you know you’re in a fight, but not so lengthy that you feel like getting up and making yourself a sandwich.
Not everyone feels the same way as I do, of course. Some people would prefer mechanically simple fights that only last a few seconds, sort of just a beefed-up normal enemy where failure has a much higher floor. Others prefer even longer fights, weighting things more in the direction of sustainability over execution. So what do you think? How long is an ideal boss fight in an MMORPG?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
