New raid structure for difficulty and rewards

Lol again trying to make things up (either purposefully lying it delusional. Can’t really tell these days with you). But I’m sure I’m your fantasy world everything you say is 100% backed by the devs even when they don’t lol

What I find even more funny is that I haven’t even said what I thought about OC. You just made an assumption out of thin air with absolutely no insight whatsoever and then ran with it like you always do. I’m more laughing at how you “view data” (or lack there of).

No, because you're then assuming who does or doesn't like Bizarro and then locking them out of the experience.

It wouldn't matter what boss it was that's the end result of your plan, my example of adding was realistically just as bad in many respects, just slightly less obvious.

If you actually look in game at a similar example in ultimate soldier, you can get the extra boss with the OP back, the boss is just some benign soldier guy who doesn't really add to the story, I believe it's done like that on purpose to make its addition far more optional, but the option is still there nonetheless.

Unfortunately you just can't be locking people out of content based on skill level the way you're doing it, that's why the devs currently have the system they do because it allows them to have skill lanes and if someone complains about not being able to get in to a skill lane they can be told to move back in to another with less pressure to adjust the lane itself.

I think with your structure there would be even more pressure to drop difficulty settings when people start complaining they can't
experience boss 4 but want too, they'll see your plan as blocking their ability to experience the end of the story.

For f**k sake.

Just don't make the "Bonus" boss fights relevant to the story in any way. There are ways to make this system work even if it isn't my favorite either. That's why I said stop shutting people down and offer better ways to facilitate progress, to facilitate more challenging content.

Here's one example off of the top of my head:
Once the raid is over (and I do mean all over, wrapped up story wise and the boss and end-cutscene is done and down), have an interaction button on the knocked out boss. If you press it you get a msg saying some random nonsense like "You find a vial of venom/exobyte/insert meme near *insert boss name*, do you give it back to them?", If you hit Yes you fight the same boss "Empowered" by whatever nonsense you just fed it. No cutscene, no continuation of the story.. just that same boss that is now more difficult in any way the Devs see fit (i.e more mechanics, hits harder, higher CR.. etc). When it is defeated there's an option to get a rare cosmetic drop but that is it, nothing else - not even another ending cutscene.

Honestly I don't think you even need to incentivize with a drop, ppl who want the challenge will play regardless.

This was one example I got off of the top of my head without even trying much, I'm sure that if you all decide to be productive and not negative we can get something rolling.

Edit: You can even improve on this by a lot by making this a comedic relief thing, maybe it's just the Hero/Villain making a "yo momma" joke in that boss' ear and the msg will include some warning about starting another pointless fight.. The possibilities are endless. Knowing Mepps' sense of humor it would probably be something like you engaging with the rick-roll emote.

At this point, I would love to get some Dev input on this topic.

1. Is this something you would take into consideration with all the positive and negative aspects laid out until now?
2. Is it something you would enjoy working on, considering it's a bit more restrictive than the current system?
3. Could this lead to more overall content in an episode release? (Mainly having an extra solo or duo in mind)
4. Would fewer challenging encounters make a big difference in terms of balancing each difficulty to cater to its targeted audience?