We have some big news out of the gamescom interviews! MarcelianOnline had a big interview with Lead Combat Systems Designer Jade Martin and Associate Game Director Paul Kubit, revealing some key information on Midnights three raids!
Not All Raids Open on Launch
When talking about the difficulty tuning of the three raids, Paul Kubit mentioned a staggered raid release. Specifically, March on Quel’danas, the two-boss raid with major story implications, will be released “a couple of weeks” after Voidspire. Both raids are linked to the story, but will release at after different campaign chapters. The Dreamrift is positioned as part of the Voidspire difficulty curve and will also be released on launch.
So what does that mean for the actual schedule? Well, unless something dramatic changes from what recent expansion launches have looked like:
- Week 1: No raids.
- Week 2: Voidspire and the Dreamrift launch with Normal and Heroic Difficulty (aka Heroic week)
- Week 3: Voidspire and the Dreamrift Mythic difficulty and the Race to World First start.
- Week 4/5*: March on Quel Danas launches. It’s unclear whether it will get a Heroic week or not, but it most likely won’t.
Tier, Loot, and Difficulty
All three raids will be part of the same tier, however, they will be spaced out in terms of difficulty. Voidspire is the “main” raid of the tier, with 6 bosses comprising the majority for the launch. The Dreamrift’s single boss will be somewhere in the middle of Voidspire’s difficulty. It won’t any harder than the hardest Voidspire boss, and will probably be around the middle bosses. March on Qual’danas will be harder than Voidspire. And so the three raids seem to be following a typical 9-boss single raid structure, just spaced out over three. The loot will follow suit.
It will be very interesting to see how this affects the Race to World First. If Voidspire and Dreamrift combined are the equivalent of the first 7 bosses of a regular raid, the first part of the race in the regular timing slot might just be over extremely quickly. We’ve seen the first 7 bosses go down in around two days in races so far, excluding the split loot farming. And even that won’t be present as much due to Heroic week existing on expansion launches!
You can check out the full interview segment here:
Do you like this staggered release structure? And which raid are you most looking forward to?
