Mod Chris L was the mastermind behind all of RuneScape's best content, and the content he made was done well enough to stay relevant long after release.
Few things that Chris made:
OG Nex, Vorago, Araxxor, Overloads & extremes, High level agility, Raids
As an added bonus, he's super cute. Unfortunately he left Jagex for PlayFusion with all the best developers.
As an added bonus, he's super cute
:)
Just want to give a shoutout to the devs who came up with this amazing concept. Let's see if I can list everything about this boss that I believe revolutionized bossing in RS3
- The glow. Graphically, the continuity between the glow of Araxxor/i and the unique weapons you create from their parts is stunning. The noxious weapons are the most recognizable and likely the most used (at a high level) weapons in the game.
- Multiple rotating paths. Giving players the option to choose from 2 of 3 paths that rotate tridaily keeps the action interesting and challenging, especially for newly "inaugurated" high level players, struggling to enter the high-level bossing scene. Encouraging players to try all 3 paths to gain the different unique items is nothing short of a feat of brilliance.
- Enrage. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the first boss to employ an enrage meter, making the boss scale and become more challenging as you find early success. I'm maxed with tier 85 augmented stuff and I can barely make it past 120% enrage. It really motivates me to further upgrade my gear, train invention, gain auras, etc. (although there is a catch 22 for getting tier 90 weaponry if ya know what i mean (; )
I'm sure I've missed some things, but I just wanted to rain praise on Jagex for this amazing feat. Not only is it the gateway to the highest tiers of combat in the game, but it's become an RS3 icon.
My fave gif of all time... https://i.imgur.com/4Gh6Dc0.gif
Everything Chris L designed is somehow still relevant to the game today and very much appreciated.
Take Vorago for example, he:
saw what we had with EoC at the time and managed to require the player to master two distinct tank roles on top of having sufficient dps to defeat him.
weekly/daily rotations (which you see in araxxor and rots) keeps bosses from becoming mundane and boring. Entices the player to adapt to different mechanics.
very supportive of bigger challenges (hard mode) and developing on top of existing content (green bomb, teamsplit, purple bomb) and rewarding players appropriately (defeater, omens outfit, bombi).
And perhaps the most important one
- knowing that players over time would master Vorago's mechanics + new gear/abilities that enabled him to be defeated with less players and rewarding them further for doing so up to the point where the very best can duo hard mode vorago.
I wish he'd still be around to see the reception his content still gets. /u/jagexramen it's been 6 months and I'd love to read your review on how Solak has turned out. Have you ever considered weekly rotation mechanics for Solak? I personally enjoy the boss and would like to see more from him.
/u/jagexramen it's been 6 months and I'd love to read your review on how Solak has turned out. Have you ever considered weekly rotation mechanics for Solak? I personally enjoy the boss and would like to see more from him.
Let me first say that I am happy with the Solak release and I'll break down my own learnings from it later in this reply.
I still consider myself a very new developer having only been a developer for a year and a half full time, tackling the boss/PvM genre has always been a challenge as you're compared against the titans being Mod Chris L, Pi, Deg, Ollie and Daze who have all released solid bosses over the years. I regret jumping in the deep end on my first TAPP project which was Nex: Angel of Death, I came into that project with my own vision and blinkers on, I wanted to do MY thing which was a mistake. I completely underestimated the capability of RuneScape players and upon launch they absolutely steamrolled her, but at this point I wasn't a developer and I had a LOT to learn ahead of me.
I took as much learning as I could from the first release and when I began my second TAPP project; Solak, I went into it with a greater idea of how I want the players to deal with mechanics whilst applying the things I learnt from AoD.
It's important to build mechanics in a way where there is an obvious way to deal with it but also leave room for players to deal with it in a way that doesn't seem intended, it gives players that choice, room to make decisions and learn strategy.
Let's talk about Solak, Solak is my pride and joy and to this day I'm very happy with how he launched and what I've learnt from that release, for one I wasn't working with a character that already existed which held back being able to creative narrative driven content like it did with Nex. I was able to create 3 strong characters that are able to be used in the future for various other pieces of content whilst also being able to do what enjoy most, making bosses.
The aim for Solak was to appeal to the really high level players, they'd been grinding Telos for a while and needed something new at the very top end to throw themselves at. There is also the point of an end goal or something to work towards as a lower level player. With this in mind the reason I think a lot of players don't feel it did well was because they didn't see a massive amount of players doing it after launch but I feel this was down to the rewards/GP per hour being fairly lackluster upon release. Once these issues were addressed with the grimoire change and the pages being a consistent money maker the engagement with him rose by a fair bit.
Another issue is part of what I've just said above is the fact that players don't tend to do bosses for fun much anymore, it's all about monetary gain. If it's not the best GP/H then they'll just fall back to whatever is, in this case Telos/Aod(Muny bird).
My biggest regret with Solak is the fact I designed it for 7 players when the perfect group boss size is around 3 to 4, u/Jagexorion has kinda nailed this with Elite dungeons much like Chris did with Vorago and ROTS and I don't see us making the decision to go as high as that again in the future as it's a real roadblock for making teams.
What will I carry forward into my future bosses if I do any more?
What do I feel I did right?
As for weekly rotations, probably not for Solak but something I'll 100% dabble with in the future.
I have a lot to learn and an awful lot I want to bring to RuneScape.
As an added bonus, he's super cute
:)
So Solak is "done"? No changes or fixes coming?
Got about 5 fixes that are being copied into the Release build this week or next week.
Anything to address the random aggro on p2? Any changes to p4?
No changes to P4 besides Instakills actually being instakills so there will be no more cheesing the boss.
Sign of lifes won't be used on Solak instakills anymore.
Fixed the chance of a player not being rewarded loot.
P2 aggro is still being investigated, seems like I'm always saying that but it's not an easy clear fix. Here is proof of last weeks debug on it: https://gfycat.com/MildDaringFairybluebird
Another possible fix would be to make Solak stationary and just attack everyone with ranged for the first part of p2 until all four eruptions are killed. That would eliminate the possibility of random aggro when falling back down. But I guess that could be even more difficult than just remembering the tank.
And you also mentioned Solak solo mode, what happened to that?
I've tried that, it just didn't feel right sadly.
I'm really close, I'll get it! We've got solid debug runs as you can see from the video, he was only targeting ramen1 when both ramen1 and ramen2 came down. So in that video the reaggro is actually fixed... But I want to just insure there are no edge cases that I'm missing... better safe than sorry.
Yeah, it looks correct. I guess players will check it in practice.
Also any chance players could be dropped back down on the edges of the arena instead of the middle into the purple stuff? Pretty please?
Them being dropped in the middle is intended, I want players to think fast and utilize movement abilities :D Sorry!
Are AOD changes coming this month? Or likely to be next year
Likely next year, beta yielded a ton of good feedback which needs to be acted upon, I go on holiday from the 17th until next year so won't find time until then.
You mention vorago as being the perfect group size vs. Solak 7 man being to large despite vorago also being up to 7 man (for non mass at least)
I think the key issue here is that Vorago used to be a 7man boss (and hard mode still is for many people) but going to smaller teams at vorago comes with INCREASED DIFFICULTY and INCREASED REWARDS.
Vorago NM is now still very good money in the duo/trio size and and hardmode is not great money but very challenging and fun in the 2/3/4/5 man sizes.
With Solak/AoD we are fully capable of going with smaller team sizes and INCREASED DIFFICULTY but instead are penalized by DECREASED REWARDS.
I think this is the most significant aspect of ensuring the life of a group boss is allowing the encounter to naturally progress as players get better and having a set number of drops rewarded regardless of team size is a great way to implement this.
If you could get a 7mans worth of loot from trio solak/aod we would have continued to push the skill ceilings and engage the best pvmers monetarily and in fun challenging ways while still allowing 7mans to exist for learners.
Vorago NM is now still very good money in the duo/trio size and and hardmode is not great money but very challenging and fun in the 2/3/4/5 man sizes.
With Solak/AoD we are fully capable of going with smaller team sizes and INCREASED DIFFICULTY but instead are penalized by DECREASED REWARDS.
I think this is the most significant aspect of ensuring the life of a group boss is allowing the encounter to naturally progress as players get better and having a set number of drops rewarded regardless of team size is a great way to implement this.
I fully agree with you and something I should definitely add to both bosses to give them the life they deserve!
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LOL
I hope that you know that even though some people are unnecessarily rude like him, we (the silent majority) love you!
Doesn't phase me, can't win with everyone and i've been doing this job long enough to realize that.
But thank you <3
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