One of the recent changes to game regarding Finales was the buff to spawned enemies to make them more difficult - that is, to make them more engaging. Some events prior to this patch were boring with little else but routinely tick some boxes.
Playing the weekly event this week has illustrated another way to make them more engaging: don’t hold the players’ hands so tightly. Having to do Fort BB or Blightreaper Finales on Legend with No HUD was far more fun, rewarding, and engaging than just following a giant “GO HERE” sign.
For Fort, we had to move as a group and check every cannonball spawn point. It forced us to stick together, no one got overwhelmed like is typical with Fort BB’s finale-spike, we found the cannonball and slowly brought it back to the cannon. Actually having to look through the level and investigate was a completely new sensation. The normal design leaves almost nothing for you to do except go to Point A (the ball) and back to Point B (the cannon) as quickly as possible.
For Blightreaper - a liiiittle less polished, sure, since it’s very hard to remember where the books are and you can’t tell by looking at them (and they won’t light up), but having to hold the stairs while your designated scout madly looks through books was a blast.
Obviously I don’t think it should be as hard as these cases, but I think instead of saying exactly where the key items are, being more vague can be more fun. Maybe light up all the books and say “oh it’s one of them!” and so you have to check, and each time fewer and fewer books light up. Or for the cannon, indicate the areas the cannonball may be instead of a giant sign “IT’S RIGHT HERE”.