WoW Dragonflight Mythic raid race won’t be “unhealthy”

pcgamesn.com:

The World of Warcraft Dragonflight Mythic raid race won’t be “unhealthy, frustrating” or generally unenjoyable for “participants and the spectators alike”, promises Blizzard – after the Sepulcher of the First Ones race took a gruelling 18 days to complete.

Races to complete new raids in World of Warcraft are a big part of the MMORPG game but they can be tests of endurance rather than skill for the teams that compete in them. Last month’s Mythic race through Sepulcher of the First Ones took more than two weeks to finish and cost one team over $93,000 USD – and they had to pause their progress because it was “pretty damaging” to the team’s health.

PCGamesN spoke to World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas about this, and how Blizzard plans to improve things for players and teams with the new Dragonflight raid – set in “the ancient prison of the Primal Incarnates”, according to the website, which Hazzikostas calls “an exciting raid zone that will be the capstone of our launch Dragonflight expansion”.

The director admits there has been “a bit of an arms race” as teams try to “one-up each other”, and Blizzard wants to “make sure that it’s not getting to a place that’s unhealthy, frustrating, or really saps the enjoyment for the participants and the spectators alike”.

Hazzikostas says that Sepulcher of the First Ones “lasted a bit longer than we would prefer” and that “the ideal length is probably something around ten-to-11 days” – which is the “sweet spot” the studio is aiming for with Dragonflight’s first raid. However, that’s easier said than done. “Trying to hit that mark from a tuning perspective”, the director says, “over creating encounters that are hard enough to challenge the best guilds and not fall over