Why was World of Warcraft dumbed down that much?

[Deleted]

Yes game has been dumbed down, its just a fact.

-Outdoor elite mobs : deleted
-Failsafe talent trees
-Your rotation is in your spellbook
-Boss mechanics are in dungeon journal
-You can solo instances that are at your level or higher than your level depending on class
-Its impossible to die to 2 mobs while you could die to that before
-You dont need to socialize to do stuff, socials skills are only relevant for very high level of gaming
-You get your mounts for a very low price and faster than before
-You can get gold very easily even if you dont understand shit to the AH
-Raids are cleaned faster than before, even on heroic mode
-Dungeons are a faceroll aoe fest even at highest level
-CC is inexistant in dungeons and totally useless
-Being a good or a bad tank is the same thing, just mash aoe button and its ok, whereas tanking was hard when you couldn't AOE

Well the only argument wow fanboys will tell you is
-Heroics and challenge modes are harder

Well let me tell you this
Heroics and challenges modes are a low % of the game content. Basically everything is dumbed down to mentally challenged level except those two things (PVP is another matter). CHallenge isnt that difficult either, you can do it with 4ppl you know.

Well on the heroicraid matter. YOu know players were a lot worse back then right? We had very few theorycrafting, very few boss guides, horrible items, horrible gearing progression (2 loots for 40ppl each boss?). So yea MC was basically very easy mechanics-wise, but it took a LOT more time to clean it than to clean a heroic raid. Hell my memory might be inexact but I have the feeling I raided that instance for 5+months before killing rag. Killing heroic nefa ? Idk i think it was 6 weeks?
Then people always laugh at MC mechanics, but .. you know it wasnt the only pre-bc raid right? Altho bwl had loot pinata bosses (the drakes..), vael, razorgore, chromma or nefa were tough as hell, hence why vael was named the guild breaker. Well anyway you didnt play Vanilla so , too bad for you really, you missed the best video game ever made. But its not my problem.

So, to sum up.
Game has been dumbed down.
Heroic raid or challenge mode dont change that fact.
Game was better during pre-bc and tbc, if you dont agree : 1/you didnt play back then 2/you were one of the guys that didnt raid because you were useless
I still enjoy PVP and running old content with twinks so I still play the game nonetheless.

[Normie]

easier, partying while questing is unneeded, partly also easier

So, you realize that "easier" is not "dumber" right?

[Crookids]

Yes game has been dumbed down, its just a fact.

-Outdoor elite mobs : deleted
-Failsafe talent trees
-Your rotation is in your spellbook
-Boss mechanics are in dungeon journal
-You can solo instances that are at your level or higher than your level depending on class
-Its impossible to die to 2 mobs while you could die to that before
-You dont need to socialize to do stuff, socials skills are only relevant for very high level of gaming
-You get your mounts for a very low price and faster than before
-You can get gold very easily even if you dont understand shit to the AH
-Raids are cleaned faster than before, even on heroic mode
-Dungeons are a faceroll aoe fest even at highest level
-CC is inexistant in dungeons and totally useless
-Being a good or a bad tank is the same thing, just mash aoe button and its ok, whereas tanking was hard when you couldn't AOE

Well the only argument wow fanboys will tell you is
-Heroics and challenge modes are harder

Well let me tell you this
Heroics and challenges modes are a low % of the game content. Basically everything is dumbed down to mentally challenged level except those two things (PVP is another matter). CHallenge isnt that difficult either, you can do it with 4ppl you know.

Well on the heroicraid matter. YOu know players were a lot worse back then right? We had very few theorycrafting, very few boss guides, horrible items, horrible gearing progression (2 loots for 40ppl each boss?). So yea MC was basically very easy mechanics-wise, but it took a LOT more time to clean it than to clean a heroic raid. Hell my memory might be inexact but I have the feeling I raided that instance for 5+months before killing rag. Killing heroic nefa ? Idk i think it was 6 weeks?
Then people always laugh at MC mechanics, but .. you know it wasnt the only pre-bc raid right? Altho bwl had loot pinata bosses (the drakes..), vael, razorgore, chromma or nefa were tough as hell, hence why vael was named the guild breaker. Well anyway you didnt play Vanilla so , too bad for you really, you missed the best video game ever made. But its not my problem.

So, to sum up.
Game has been dumbed down.
Heroic raid or challenge mode dont change that fact.
Game was better during pre-bc and tbc, if you dont agree : 1/you didnt play back then 2/you were one of the guys that didnt raid because you were useless
I still enjoy PVP and running old content with twinks so I still play the game nonetheless.

So basically things more attuned to beginners is easier so the game is dumbed down, but things more attuned for hard core players is more challenging so it doesn't matter? Oh and anyone who objects to your sub-par argument is a fanboy?

Cool logic.

Elite areas of the game are supposed to be a low percentage, unless they wouldn't be considered elite. And socializing is relevant for high levels of game-play so that makes it irrelevant?

/facepalm

[Deleted]

So, you realize that "easier" is not "dumber" right?

Easy : Requiring or indicating little effort, thought, or reflection
Dumb : Lacking intelligence

Wait.. arent those two words REALLY similar ? Oh yes, right, they totally are. THank you, dictionary !

[Aqua]

Easier... Errr no. Broader term of the word 'end game'? Yes.

It was not made easier, it was simplified. No these things are not mutually the same. Busy work is not difficulty. It's an illusion via timewasting that makes you feel as though you are accomplishing something when you're really not accomplishing anything. They've tried really hard, not always succeeding to try and bring 'difficulty' back into the game without pressuring those who feel put off by it. By including tougher rares, challenging pet mode trials, challenge modes, ridiculous hard mode raiding, more proactive pvp. If you're not attempting ANY of this, then really you're not in the position to talk. You don't want challenge, you want more fucking around that others won't attempt to try and make yourself feel like you did more when really you barely did anything. You just knew what to do via google and websites, and can laud it over your everyday newbie who hasn't yet had that epiphany.

And OP, please... even though your friends have moved on and that means you're nostalgia goggling and justifying it to yourself that you have no hopes of reaching the final hardmode end boss anymore does not mean your 'endgame' is too easy. It means there lacks a stepping stone a the moment for you to try and go further. An issue they intend to address with this patch (By no means am I implying they may succeed).

TLDR. WoW is not easier. And if by some bizarre reason you ARE top 100 of PvE or PvP, I dunno how you can possibly make that distinction. You got better then, the game didn't get any easier. You got more efficient. The amount of time a brand new player has to wade through to reach where you are is MUCH more than back in the day.

[Deleted]

Game was better during pre-bc and tbc, if you dont agree : 1/you didnt play back then 2/you were one of the guys that didnt raid because you were useless

Sure, kiddo. Sure.
I'm a warlock raider since vanilla. With the exception of ZG, where bossess actually did somethine (very little, mind you), MC was a girating nightmare of trash over trash over trash. My rotation in Sunwell Plateau consisted of LITTERALLY one button. I could litterally win the dps meters by pressing "1" alone. Complexity, you say?

Then wotlk came and affliction became like playing the piano. I was happy but a little bit upset that arcane mages could do better than me with 3 buttons. But then I remembered the soul-crushing agony of "1111111111111111111".

Bosses are much more complex now, they have been since wrath. Sure, dungeons are easier than Shadow Lab heroic, and thank god for that. I wouldn't have time to run any of them now. If I want challenge, I know where to find it (even if only 3 HC down this tier), if I want casual, I know where to find it. Icying on the cake? Lock class boss.

The game caters my every need, and it's never been better.

[Deleted]

Sure, kiddo. Sure.
I'm a warlock raider since vanilla. With the exception of ZG, where bossess actually did somethine (very little, mind you), MC was a girating nightmare of trash over trash over trash. My rotation in Sunwell Plateau consisted of LITTERALLY one button. I could litterally win the dps meters by pressing "1" alone. Complexity, you say?

Then wotlk came and affliction became like playing the piano. I was happy but a little bit upset that arcane mages could do better than me with 3 buttons. But then I remembered the soul-crushing agony of "1111111111111111111".

Bosses are much more complex now, they have been since wrath. Sure, dungeons are easier than Shadow Lab heroic, and thank god for that. I wouldn't have time to run any of them now. If I want challenge, I know where to find it (even if only 3 HC down this tier), if I want casual, I know where to find it. Icying on the cake? Lock class boss.

The game caters my every need, and it's never been better.

No rotation has ever been "difficult", please dont joke with that. Also maybe warlock got more buttons, but warrior tank (was my role) didnt get more buttons than vanilla, it even lost some. Id even say gameplay wise MOP tanking is by FAR less exciting than vanilla tanking (and I tested a private server recently, so no its not nostalgia or whatever term you haters come up with).

[Blufossa]

One simple answer:

"Meeting market expectations."

The gaming market went from being dominated by a hardcore NES generation to a market where the majority of the customers are average housewives and men who barely know how to install a program on their PC.

Essentially this. I started playing WoW when I was what, 16-17, and now I'm in my mid 20's with a house, puppy, and husband (and a garden to boot this year).

I could devote my time to raiding/farming/etc, but where does that get me? The only things I didn't like about MoP so far has been less Heroics and gated-reps when it first launched. But LFR and other crap has filled me in, especially on alts (I have about 10-11 90's now but not all of them are geared).

[Deletedaccount1]

Dumbed down from a casual standpoint perhaps not in terms of actual raid difficulty or theory crafting.

I will acknowledge however that competitive PvP is very easy with classes like hunters and priests right now but that is nothing new to MoP.

[Durandro]

With the exception of ZG, where bossess actually did somethine (very little, mind you)

To be fair, ZG was grossly overtuned when it was first released. To the point where one guild made a point to attempt ZG without Molten Core gear (since it dropped inferior gear, logic stats ZG was designed for people in blues). It was deemed 'impossible', and eventually got nerfed a bit to actually make it playable.

Still a great instance, and one of the first to have decent mechanics. But back then Blizzard sucked at balancing!

...and yeah, Shadow Labrynth Heroic. I'm so glad I never have to do that place ever again.

(Oh, and being called haters for saying Vanilla had inferior mechanics and class balance? Oh the irony!)

[Toby451]

Yes game has been dumbed down, its just a fact.

-Outdoor elite mobs deleted: Good change. I hated finding groups for a single quest and it was a giant pain in the ass.
-Failsafe talent trees: Everyone used basically the same spec anyways, who cares.
-Your rotation is in your spellbook: huh?
-Boss mechanics are in dungeon journal. Now i can read them in game instead of going to wowhead. Good stuff.
-You can solo instances that are at your level or higher than your level depending on class. I did the same thing in TBC in sunwell gear.
-Its impossible to die to 2 mobs while you could die to that before. Feels about the same to me.
-You dont need to socialize to do stuff, socials skills are only relevant for very high level of gaming. Spamming in trade chat "LF Tank for XXX" is social skills?
-You get your mounts for a very low price and faster than before. Good change. I was never able to afford epic mounts in vanilla, and I absolutely hate buying training on my alts.
-You can get gold very easily even if you dont understand shit to the AH. This is a bad thing? Do you want to spend hours farming gold? I dont.
-Raids are cleaned faster than before, even on heroic mode. Raid teams are so much better and more prepared now than they were back then and its not even comparable.
-Dungeons are a faceroll aoe fest even at highest level. This is true. Your first legit argument.
-CC is inexistant in dungeons and totally useless. Exact same thing as the above point to make your list appear longer.
-Being a good or a bad tank is the same thing, just mash aoe button and its ok, whereas tanking was hard when you couldn't AOE. Very true, but this also ties into dungeons being too easy. Having a bad tank in a raid is night and day compared to a good one. I do not miss tanking on my warrior in heroic shattered halls one bit.

.

You seem to confuse Challenge with Grindyness. You may want to look into some Korean MMORPG's if you want a real "challenge".

[Normie]

Easy : Requiring or indicating little effort, thought, or reflection
Dumb : Lacking intelligence

Wait.. arent those two words REALLY similar ? Oh yes, right, they totally are. THank you, dictionary !

Are you one of those people who thinks that the easy way is the dumb way? Do you find that you have to change employers regularly?

Nice job cherry-picking definitions, also.

[Deleted]

You seem to confuse Challenge with Grindyness. You may want to look into some Korean MMORPG's if you want a real "challenge".

Make my list appear longer ? You know you could give me 5 minutes and I can add you 20 more lines easily. Would it be useful ? Nah not really. Some players played classic and were good enough to enjoy it, some didn't, thats just the way it is. I'm not here to convince some LFR Heroes with crap gems and enchants that the game was better before. How could I ? They didnt play it.

[Durandro]

1. Leveling your weapon skills.

2. Similarly with Lockpicking and Poison Making on a rogue.

3. The original Talent system.

Snipped your post down a bit. Here's an example of someone being nostalgic without looking like an arse.

I will agree there was 'something' about the weapon skills that I apprieciated. It was a bit overkill all in all, but having it come back in a limited fashion wouldn't bother me. Might reducing it to 'one hand' and 'two hand' and cut out all the various weapon types - forcing someone to skill up with every single weapon type they were likely to use was a bit tedious.

Lockpicking was interesting. Also ment there was a reason to not just vendor Lockboxes I get while questing. They should really have let people put them on the AH (even if it seems odd to sell someone a random box of loot). Poison Making should be an alternative to just buying it - being a potentially cheaper method if you take the time to level it up. Perhaps making crafted poisons slightly more effective (but not by enough to make it 'manditory' - if that's even possible).

I like the current talents, but they do have issues. Namely, the huge gap in between choices. Its fine at level 90, but while leveling its underwhelming. Perhaps having non-choosable rewards every level, showing up on the talent tree. Ultimately means you get the same level of choice we used to get with the old trees (a DPS not taking +1% crit/haste/damage? Not going to happen 9/10!), but it makes the tree seem larger and each level up gets a bigger chunk of power. Or do the monsterously difficult thing of giving us muliple and exclusive stat choices (which would become instantly cookie cutter, but hey - people want the illusion of choice!).

But hey. WoW is what it is - ever changing and evolving.

[Toby451]

No rotation has ever been "difficult", please dont joke with that. Also maybe warlock got more buttons, but warrior tank (was my role) didnt get more buttons than vanilla, it even lost some. Id even say gameplay wise MOP tanking is by FAR less exciting than vanilla tanking (and I tested a private server recently, so no its not nostalgia or whatever term you haters come up with).

I remember vanilla tanking perfectly. Spam heroic strike as fast as you can. Shield slam > Revenge> Sunder> Sunder> Keep shield block on CD so you dont get crushed. Change to battle stance to do thunder clap if no one else in the group is doing it. Make a stance dance macro to break fears. Congrats, you just mastered warrior in 2 minutes. All while doing a worthless amount of dps. (probably 50 dps.)

That is more fun? I did that for vanilla, tbc, and the first half of WotLK. Tanking on my monk now is infinitely more fun.

[Durandro]

Make my list appear longer ? You know you could give me 5 minutes and I can add you 20 more lines easily. Would it be useful ? Nah not really. Some players played classic and were good enough to enjoy it, some didn't, thats just the way it is. I'm not here to convince some LFR Heroes with crap gems and enchants that the game was better before. How could I ? They didnt play it.

How could you possibly know that?

Oh yeah, you can't. You're generalising and creating a strawman to attack. Typical.

I played during TBC. It wasn't as special as people make out - it was fun, but no moreso then it still is. People such as yourself have just convinced yourself that it was better to cover up the fact you've grown bored of a game you're unable to quit. Which is rather sad.

[darkwarrior42]

*shrug* Elite mobs outside weren't particularly difficult, assuming they were appropriate level. If they weren't, then... you can still go after stuff above your level if you want more challenge. Talents have been no-brainer choices since Wrath, and I make more changes to my spec on my Brewmaster now then I ever did on my paladin during Wrath/Cata or my Hunter during Cata. Dungeons aren't particularly challenging atm, though that's generally a combination of experienced players and heirloom gear.

Why is having spells give some indication as to how they're used a bad thing? The tooltips generally won't give you the best rotation, merely an acceptable one... and I don't think it hurts the game to give beginners a stronger foundation without needing to resort to fansites.

(I could get on a whole rant about how anyone who uses forums or fansites for ANYTHING, including learning more about your class, has no right to complain about the game being dumbed down... how when I wanted a challenge back in the old console days, it wasn't just "turn up the difficulty", it was "let's see if I can do this entire game, without any upgrades, without any external help or hints.")

Getting gold faster does not equate to the game being dumbed down. It means some vendor items are easier to acquire, but it also leads to inflation... but then, that might be too complex a topic for this thread.

Raids being cleared quickly isn't a measure of difficulty. By that logic, we could gate heroic mode and limit to only 4 hours a week, and that would automatically make them harder and more cerebral (or just more annoying with an arbitrary difficulty.)

... and that's the real kicker. Most of these complaints aren't against things that make the game easier from a skill or intellectual standpoint, only more convenient from a time/gold sink standpoint. I have to wonder how many people still complaining about the game being dumbed down are just annoyed that they can't ascertain an automatic and gigantic advantage through time alone these days.

[Durandro]

I remember vanilla tanking perfectly. Spam heroic strike as fast as you can. Shield slam > Revenge> Sunder> Sunder> Keep shield block on CD so you dont get crushed. Change to battle stance to do thunder clap if no one else in the group is doing it. Make a stance dance macro to break fears. Congrats, you just mastered warrior in 2 minutes. All while doing a worthless amount of dps. (probably 50 dps.)

That is more fun? I did that for vanilla, tbc, and the first half of WotLK. Tanking on my monk now is infinitely more fun.

Oh yeah. A lot of Prot Warriors bound Heroic Strike to the mousewheel and just spammed it constantly. Great game design! I'm sure I wore out keys tanking back then.

[Deleted]

How could you possibly know that?

Oh yeah, you can't. You're generalising and creating a strawman to attack. Typical.

I played during TBC. It wasn't as special as people make out - it was fun, but no moreso then it still is. People such as yourself have just convinced yourself that it was better to cover up the fact you've grown bored of a game you're unable to quit. Which is rather sad.

I still greatly enjoy doing pvp, twinking old content or even playing AH. No reason to quit the game for me. So I fail to understand what is sad about that.

But yeah, every other aspect of the game is crap to me. I quit heroic raiding after DS, one of the worst raid ever made. Oh btw, I used to do it in pugs. Before nerfs.

[Toby451]

Let's take bets on when the OP landed his first Ra-den kill.

Probably around April 23, 2015 in T17 LFR gear "Games too easy guys, 1 shot THE MIGHTY RA-DEN!"