Hi all,
We're very excited to be announcing a new addition to the games coming soon: the Raid Boss! The Raid Boss is a co-operative twist on our current Bosses with the chance to earn some sweet loot! The developers have been working very hard on this one and as we get closer to the actual release of the Raid Boss, I wanted to introduce you to the overall concept and break down some of the mechanics. There will be a more in-depth walkthough closer to release, but for now read through this high-level overview and leave your feedback!
Summoning the Raid Boss
To summon the Raid Boss you’ll need to collect four keys from across various Locations within the game. The keys will drop from the quests within the Locations. There are four Locations tied to each instance of Raid Boss, ranging from low-level Locations to high-level Locations. The Raid Boss’ strength is tied to the Location that you earned the keys from, not the player who summons it.
The chance of a key dropping from a quest will be scaled to the Energy cost of quests in a given location, so the highest Energy requirement quest in a Location will have the highest chance of dropping the key.
There will be a new user interface module that will show you how many keys you’ve accumulated and will allow you to travel to the next Location you can earn a key from. Extra keys in your inventory when the Raid Boss event ends can be manually turned in for reimbursement. Keys do not have any uses outside of summoning a Raid Boss.
The Raid Group
Once you have all the requisite keys, you can start a Raid Boss. Raid Bosses work a little differently than our current Co-op or Single Bosses in that you can have up to 30 members in your Raid group.
The makeup of the Raid Boss group is such that you can only have 10 members in each level “tier”, which are divided into (by level): low to mid, mid to high, and high and above. Raid Bosses are private by default and each level tier will have a specific invite code tied to it. Only players that are inside the correct level range can use their tier code to join a Raid Boss. You can refresh invite codes on a per tier basis, which will invalidate any previous codes. There will be a new user interface module on the Raid Boss screen that will show this in more detail.
Raid Bosses can be shared publicly just like regular Bosses, but you are still limited to 30 members with 10 from each level tier.
The Raid group shares a Health pool calculated from the group’s overall Health and Defense skill points. The stats are a snapshot of the individual player’s skill point values when they join the Raid. The Raid group Health pool will update when new members join the Raid. You can replenish lost Raid group health with Energy. Every time you attack a Raid Boss, the Raid group Health pool will be diminished, not personal health, so if the entire Raid group is attacking the Raid Boss simultaneously without healing, it is possible to lose to the Raid Boss.
Fighting the Raid Boss
The Raid Boss interface will be largely similar to our existing Boss fight interface, with a couple notable differences. The main difference is that in addition to the Attack and Power Attack options, there is a “Heal Raid” button which uses Energy.
The Raid Boss will hit back very hard, so it’s worth it for the Raid group to have a balanced party of attack-oriented players and defense-oriented ones. As mentioned above, if the Raid group continues to attack the Raid Boss without dropping some Energy points into replenishing the Health pool, the Raid Boss will “kill” the group.
If the Raid group is wiped out, the Raid Boss’ health resets to full, along with the Raid group’s health.
The Raid Boss has a random chance to drop Energy when you attack it, but it will not drop items on a per attack basis.
Killing the Raid Boss
When a Raid Boss is defeated, each player involved has a chance to earn one of several special new items. This item is unique in that it has purple text which will be displayed when you visit another player’s profile or view it in your inventory (you can also see a tooltip pop-up of the item on the Raid Boss interface). The items dropped by the Raid Boss will be have attributes that are close in power to current Limited items.
There is no limit to the number of Raid Bosses you can summon or participate in over the duration of the event. Once a Raid Boss is killed there is no “cool-down” period and you can immediately start another one if you have the requisite keys. Raid Bosses do not gain a level or grow in strength each time they are killed (trust us, they will be tough enough as it is!).
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