The Mystery of Boss Fights

Boss fights have puzzled me for quite some time now, and nobody I ask seems to be able to come up with a satisfactory explanation.

I don't mean how they work or anything; we all know that. Heck, they're ridiculously easy these days; BM frequently 3-mans Vlad (which may or may not be due to the rest of the pack being too lazy to show up).

No, what I mean is how everyone seems to want them.

Go look through old recruitment posts. Every major pack advertises daily boss fights. And every experienced player who puts up a 'looking for pack' ad requests that applying packs have daily boss fights as well.

My question is, why?

Right now, with Vlad the only boss due to the hack, boss fights are far from profitable. 90% of the time you lose DP off him, and I seem to usually get the low point rewards, though that's probably luck.

The thing is, the participating players themselves get absolutely nothing. Which, on an off note, is one of the failings of the boss system, in my opinion.

There's literally no reason for a player to even line up for a boss fight. They get nothing. It's not economical to pay members for lining up - DP is worthless, and Vlad doesn't drop enough points to pay in them. Art and any other non-currency reward doesn't work either, due to the number of players and the frequency of boss fights.

In the past, when we had no 24 hour limit, it was technically possible to reward people; just grab a group of 3-4 high levels, spam attack Vlad, pay them a percentage of the points. I may have done that myself once or twice. But nowadays, there's just no way to make that work.

Packs may differ considerably in how they dole out points, but the fact remains - the majority of a pack is never going to see those points from the boss fights, and, honestly, they're a rather small reward when divided among 31 people anyway. You'd have to spend over a month fighting Vlad just for everyone to get 1 point, assuming you got lucky with drops.

In fact, lining up for Vlad is more of a chore than anything else. Sure, for those lazy people who don't level anymore (myself included), all it is is going to the map and clicking Vlad, since they probably never moved from the spot, but for people who are actually leveling (yes, people still do that... I think), it's inconvenient to head over from the desert, especially during high lag times.

So, there's absolutely no reason a player would want their pack to have daily boss fights. Why do they ask for it? I'm not entirely sure.

My personal theory is that, for whatever reason, around the start of the boss fight feature people began looking for packs who could beat bosses. Hence, packs started advertising frequent boss fights. Packs with the capability to down Vlad were considered 'good' packs, so people looking for packs started asking for regular boss fights. Which, of course, means packs would keep advertising them.

As for why people still ask today... I think it's just reflex by now. Everyone does it.

But seriously, there's no point in it. Downing Vlad is not an accomplishment anymore. Heck, if your pack is older than 2 days and CAN'T down Vlad, you're failing miserably.

Stop clinging to tradition, people. Daily boss fights aren't actually a pro in a pack. And that means packs should stop advertising them as a reason to join, as well. Heck, our pack recruitment methods could all use some refining (Do you smell a future blog topic?)...

And, for the love of bacon... if you insist on asking for daily boss fights, I expect you to be in line for them. Every day. *glares at certain members*