The lions sing and the hills take flight
The moon by day, and the sun by night
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool
Let the Lord of Chaos rule!
--From Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan
My Questing Buddy broached the topic again the other day.
She asked me if I was interested in raiding.
"Somehow I don't think your guild is at a loss for raiders," I replied. Her guild may not be at the top of the pyramid, but for the time they raid (evening Pacific Time, so their 8 PM start is 11 PM here) they're likely one of the top guilds on our Anniversary server. In my experience, top guilds have no problems getting recruits.
Well, my Questing Buddy informed me they have three open slots right now: Shaman, Mage, and Paladin. And, ironically enough, all of whom I had gotten to max level.
"Even if I wanted to, it would take a lot to get even one of my toons geared enough to not be a carry, and I absolutely refuse to be carried," I replied to the feeler. "And by the time I got geared enough, you'd be on to the Sunwell."*
"Can you blame me for trying?" she responded.
"No, that's fine. It's also that my toons aren't even close to geared for Karazhan let alone any other raids, and I'd have to get pre-raid gear just to not be a carry in that place."
***
I decided to change the topic, and I at least thought it polite to ask how the new raids went with her guild. Those were the first raids that back in 2022 I'd never participated in, because I had to quit progression raiding a week before those raids were unlocked.
"We're stuck on the same part we were back then," my Questing Buddy replied.
Huh. I wasn't expecting that. "Are you being caught by the same problem that you don't have enough Shamans [in the raid]?"**
"Yes," she replied. She also informed me that people didn't know where to stand and it was becoming impossible for her to heal the tank while everybody else was close by. "We got detailed instructions with [the guild we raided with in 2022] but here it was 'everybody spread out' and people still clumped together."
Oof. Yeah, that hurts. "I figured that since you'd blasted through everything else up to now that this wasn't going to be a problem."
The conversation continued quite a bit, with me hearing some of the same complaints she had back in 2022, and I decided that some things about certain raids never change. Good thing I'm not involved, or it would likely drive me nuts.
***
On reflection, that does bring up an interesting thought about the psychology behind MMO raids and other associated group content: do we all end up falling for the same traps on our first instincts that we then have to overcome by explicit training?
If the idea is to spread out, why do people end up clumping together anyway? Do they all run to the same places?
Do people always have the same initial reaction to specific raid mechanics, and do MMO design teams make use of those psychological tendencies when designing that content?
I have to think that devs do make use of those psychological tendencies, whether explicitly or not, simply because forcing a player to go against their initial reaction is a more powerful mechanic than just about any other actual mechanic you can throw at a person. Sure, add-ons such as Deadly Boss Mods can give you a warning as to an incoming mechanic, which smooths out the initial reaction, but if you're not using DBM (or aren't allowed to, given your specific MMO) you're pretty much on your own to wrestle with your psychological tendencies.
The thing is, you can eventually overcome your tendencies if you work hard at it, in as much the same way you can overcome your biases in other areas. Yeah, it's not easy, and I know I have a hard time overcoming my own biases that I grew up with, but I've found in the end that it's worth it to make the effort. As in real life, overcoming your raiding tendencies makes the victory sweeter.
***
There's still one thing that does make me wonder: if everything in group content is readily available on YouTube or TikTok, how does an encounter designer compensate?
Chaos, that's how.
If a boss gets to a special mechanic portion of the fight, they shouldn't telegraph what mechanic they're going to execute. The boss perform should instead perform the exact the exact same way every time ("Let me show you a taste of my power!" or some other thing) but then randomly pick one of, oh, 12 to 15 mechanics to utilize. If the boss does the same thing every time, the initial reaction can be easily overcome to create new psychological tendencies. If, however, you simply don't know what's coming that wreaks havoc with people who like steady, predictable mechanics. Sure, you can just weather the storm, but you pretty much have to at that point.
Another possibility is to do what's always done, lead with an intro that goes into a specific mechanic as is defined in most boss fights, but have a 30% chance that you get a completely different mechanic instead. "What, you thought you knew me? Guess again!" would make a good tagline to go with that.
These are just starting points, because I doubt that the average player on the Anniversary servers really wants any extra challenges than what's there already. Sure, there are those who push the envelope and there are the speedrunners, but between where my Questing Buddy is and where I am lies the average player, and they really don't need any extra challenges right now.
So, maybe we don't tell my Questing Buddy about these suggestions, okay?
*Sunwell Plateau is the last raid in The Burning Crusade. The second last progression raid tier, with the Battle for Mount Hyjal and Black Temple raids, dropped just the other day.
**Apparently there's a mechanic in a boss fight in the Mount Hyjal raid that pretty much requires you to have a Shaman per 5 person group within the overall raid of 25. For those not in the know, an entire raid is broken down internally into 5 person groups, so a 25 person raid has 5 groups of 5 people each. A 10 person raid has 2 groups of 5 people each. So... a Shaman's totems only work within the group they're part of, not raid-wide. That means that because a shaman's totem is used to counter the boss mechanic, you have to have a shaman per group, so in a 25 person raid you need 5 Shamans.
#Blaugust2026
The received wisdom over the years has been that players hate unpredictability. They say they want it but when they're given it they vote with their feet and stay away in droves. I think that's why you don't see the kinds of semi-random boss behavior you're describing. It would clearly be easy to implement and it has been tried but it's just very unpopular. Players complain about predictability all the time but their actions suggest they strongly prefer it to the alternative.
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