Guild Wars 2

1. Instead of just using timers as main and basic mechanic in your boss fights (Wurm, Teq), you could make it enrage timers. When time is up boss’s going into enrage mode and starts slaughtering ppl. Now, technically, the result, in most cases, will be the same, but this way it will feel and look more natural, than the simple, time’s up, you failed, pack your things and go home. And another, more important, thing, this will create opportunities for some amazing situations. Imagine, boss is at 5% hp left and he goes into enrage, starts slaughtering ppl, and remaining players manage to finish him, throwing hats and boots at him in last, desperate attempt to finish him, or fail in doing so and last one dies, leaving boss with 0,5% of hp. How cool is that? Imo, much more exciting than it is now.

2. There’s a topic, where ppl ask AN to extend timer on second Wurm phase. There’s a bug where wurm’s head is invulnerable for some period of time and AN’s gonna fix it. However, i believe, the main reason for such request from players, is that second phase have strong RNG element in it. Like in which pattern boss will move: if you get lucky, then it won’t move to far corners of the area and you will have enough dps time on him, and, if all is good, you will kill him, but if not, if he does go too far, and then again, and again, then you will be pretty much screwed. And there are 3 fight like that, happening simultaneously on the map. Now, i think most ppl will agree that such strong RNG factor in a challenging encounter like the Wurm one is not cool. It’s not cool to spend 2-3+ hours on organizing and stuff only to get “unlucky” in the end, and then again, and again. Because, remember, there are 3 fights needs to get “lucky” all at the same time, after all. I believe extending the timer can somewhat trivialize the encounter, like if you get lucky you will burn it to the ground no matter what etc. Instead, AN could limit the maximum distance each head can travel in one go, so it won’t get away that easily from your zerg to the other, far, side of the area, and so on, effectively leaving you with little to no chances to do enough dps on boss, just because you didn’t have enough dps time on him.

3. Overall, the way timers are implemented in Teq and Wurm fights is ok. However, in general, i dislike such mechanic and i hope AN won’t abuse it in future fights, it’s sort of a lazy way to do one. Like, for example, Wurm fight uses 3(!) timers during it’s course. There are more creative ways to design an encounter, as an example you can look at how Mari fight designed.

My 2 cents.