It would be interesting to expand the "boss steps" to feature more aspects, though there would have to be some sort of well planned scoring system to make sure nothing has too big of an advantage (the first two non-battling things that I can think of to score points would be RSing and some game). Then again, servers may have to be improved to handle something like that.

Granted, there probably should be some sort of planned cutoff for even the top prizes. Maybe it is just me, but for boss fights, it does put a strain on the players themselves when the top prizes are competitive to the point where a set number of them are given out to the top damage dealers. It doesn't make sense as to how theoretically, a prize could only be given out to the top 25 damage dealers where you could have deal 4,000,005 damage while does 4,000,003 damage, yet ends up in the same prize bracket as # 27 that dealt less than 3M damage.

Actually, now that I think of it, they could have it so that the prizes for the categories are mostly the same, but maybe perhaps have the top few prizes exclusive to just one category (as to fit the "no weapons outside of battle events" rule, and to keep things interesting).

[edit]I accidentally pinged a group. It is even more embarrassing that it is a group I am part of.

I AM SO SORRY, I LAUGHED TOO MUCH AT THIS. SORRY MRCOOL

btdubs you can only ping groups you are a part of :)

I don't mind that the prizes are determined by rank, the amount that they choose as the cut off would be based on rank anyways in order to make sure the prizes are awarded in appropriate quantities.

The timing was bad for this boss for not just me but for a lot of players by what I was reading in the forums. Should have been 2 bosses that last less than 24 hrs.

The lag was insane

For those of us battling, how do you think we can have fun when there is so much lag giving us site down pages, error pages and ages to load. That is no fun for anyone.

Yes I agree with whoever suggested it that Staff need to review Boss challengers, let alone the length of there group battle as its going to basically create lag.

I feel like there's always going to be complaining from sides of this. Not that I'm saying I'm above this, because I think it's totally justified from both sides. From top battlers, you see things like released on a weekday (which means hey good luck being on the site at the right time, hope you hate sleep) and progressively gets harder and then at the end easier (which really makes this a you have to be lucky to be on the site when they DO release the boss because 2 hours of battling or 200 battles are not comparable when anti-freeze blessing is activated like not even close). So anyone insinuating a person with a good enough pet has it easy... they certainly don't. It's not magical where they fight the boss once or twice and call it a night. It's very, very competitive and requires so many hours of time where lag is horrendous that tbh idk how any of the top battlers do it, because I'd be like fuck it, I'm lazy. D8

I also get where the we don't battle camp is coming from. It seems like you need a good battle pet to get decent plot prizes, because how else are you going to differentiate players when it's likely most people setting out to complete the plot steps managed to do this? It's frustrating, I get that. Though if you really, really want a semi-decent battle pet, you CAN manually train one pet. It will take years, but hey, no extra csc or stat boosters required. I would know, my battle pet hit tier 7 recently and I manually trained 99% of the time with a regular account. It's doable.

I don't think we should get rid of boss battles by any means, but I think plots would certainly be more interesting if there was another activity besides battling everyone else could do for plot points. Maybe not for the same set of prizes because it really wouldn't make sense to award a tier 11 weapon to someone who doesn't battle at all, but some nice wearables or something for a separate, quantifiable activity. Games or quests make the most sense. :) This would really draw in more people to participate, because I'm guessing a good chunk of folks just tune out when they see boss battle. Idk how the issue with lag would solve itself - probably best to separate the two activities. Have boss battle before or after the other activity and voila. The plot lasts a bit longer, but hey, everyone can try to amass some sort of points. Win-win right? :)

Not entirely related...

but i would love to see global bosses in some sort of 2 team/faction plot/war. And each boss be split up into two part battles. That way only 1/4 of the battlers battling at a time, hopefully that might reduce the lag issues. Also, in a war, those not interested in battling can help the team out by other events (games/rs/quests/etc) cough cough, islander vs pirate part II ?

TEEHEE ilu mcs ^__^

islander vs pirate part II Oh please!!

I'd just like to add that my favourite aspect of boss battles is that you can literally battle for 24 hours straight and get awesomely rewarded for it. I'd be upset if something where to change that.