Streamlined Dungeons

[AeneasBK]

If you are going to tell me that TBC heroics back in the day were easy I will sit here and tell you that you never even played back then, heck even normals were a pain in the ass in some of them.

*shrug* WotLK dungeons were tough until everyone outgeared them, which for the raiding population was a few months into Naxx, and for everyone else was when they released Ulduar and rewarded Naxx lvl loot from emblems of .. I want to say "Valor" but w/e it was anyway.

For 80%+ of WotLK lifespan the majority of the playerbase massively outgeared the dungeons and heroics which is why people remember them as AoE spamfests; but on release, and things like the ToC 5 man on release and the ICC 5 mans on release, were plenty tough enough to break groups, or cause multiple wipes.

[Seefer]

*shrug* WotLK dungeons were tough until everyone outgeared them, which for the raiding population was a few months into Naxx, and for everyone else was when they released Ulduar and rewarded Naxx lvl loot from emblems of .. I want to say "Valor" but w/e it was anyway.

For 80%+ of WotLK lifespan the majority of the playerbase massively outgeared the dungeons and heroics which is why people remember them as AoE spamfests; but on release, and things like the ToC 5 man on release and the ICC 5 mans on release, were plenty tough enough to break groups, or cause multiple wipes.

No they weren't lol it was always "Gather up big mob, AoE them down", the only one that was a challenge was Occ and that was only because people had a tough time on the dragons.

[AeneasBK]

No the challenge is to create mechanics on a very high level (compare mechanics pre and post t11 with each other, the time windows for reaction, the sheer amount of different mechanics, the genius thought to challenge players as a group/organization) which does not interrupt but support the flow of playing your class on the highest possible level. The game-design from vanilla-WotlK mostly was about numbers (min/max dps, heal and damage taken, avoid damage taken) but it got on a complete new level after WotlK. Its that paradigm change that throws up people who love "tactical" play - like planning ccs/planning all situations. Bosses got so many mechanics and things to worry about that while playing on the highest level that the term "skill" shifted into something that highly taxes the player as individual to function within the group. As new mechanics require perfect individual play and aim to challenge the organization of the group.

You cannot make 5man dungeons hard for the current top guilds because the challenge Ion has to come up with will aim to throw perfect individual players off by mechanics aimed at a 20man organization. One player mastering one man content is easy, 5 players mastering five man content is harder and 20 players playing 20m content allows Ion to challenge them no matter how good they are. This is the focus, the competition and the challenge of WoW. This is the eSport-aspect in PVE.
And for that certain mechanics are just not as good as others. Requiring CC is in that aspect a very boring, easy and annoying mechanic that was mainly used when it was all about numbers and the game was very easy to master.

Fair enough I agree with what you're writing in theory, although I was a raid leader throughout TBC WotLK Cata and MoP, and I have to admit it wasn't often that a fight couldn't be described in terms of older fights (mechanics wise) except for what came to be called "the gimmick"; and I'm not sure how that ties in with what you're describing re: supporting the flow of your class.

I can't comment on Mythic as I never raid lead any mythic raids, I understand that "outside-of-the-encounter-management aside" mythic has provided the greatest raiding challenge to date

I think an example (hopefully) of what you're talking about was the Horridon fight; in which excecution was faar more important than output, in terms of getting that big debuff on the boss as early as possible, interrupting the Dinomancers and getting the orb to drop ASAP, and keeping on top of the adds management so the right classes/players were handling the right jobs. Is that more the design you mean (I don't recall any actual CC used, but silence/interrupts yes) - testing the execution of the mechanics, rather than relying on sheer output?

[Deleted]

No they weren't lol it was always "Gather up big mob, AoE them down", the only one that was a challenge was Occ and that was only because people had a tough time on the dragons.

ToC 5-man and ICC 5-mans were definitely able to kick your ass. And when hcs started, below ilvl 200, in 187 etc. blues, you couldn't really "gather and AoE", because your tank wasn't even defense capped in all likelihood ;P

[AeneasBK]

No they weren't lol it was always "Gather up big mob, AoE them down", the only one that was a challenge was Occ and that was only because people had a tough time on the dragons.

Fair enough, it must have been my backward ass server I recall groups wiping all the time in Halls of Lightning (in particular) and Utgarde Pinnacle (as well as Occulus), and again in half of the heroics too. When people weren't wearing mostly 200iLvl purples, and the loot was part of the reward...

Conversely, I played Paladin tank in TBC and to this day do not understand what people are moaning about when they talk about Shattered Halls Heroic being hard, it was the easiest snoozefest AoE heroic in TBC... Because 90% of the mobs were melee in largish packs, and paladins rocked at tanking that sort of thing...

[effs]

ToC 5-man and ICC 5-mans were definitely able to kick your ass. And when hcs started, below ilvl 200, in 187 etc. blues, you couldn't really "gather and AoE", because your tank wasn't even defense capped in all likelihood ;P

The normal versions still can at level 78-79 and even for fresh 80s who blindly run into the trash before second boss will get slaughtered unless you pull each group one by one, or two if your healer can manage. Heck even the first boss after dismounting will wreck you if you're unaware of what they do.

[grexly75]

No they weren't lol it was always "Gather up big mob, AoE them down", the only one that was a challenge was Occ and that was only because people had a tough time on the dragons.

lol That never happened until late in WoTLK when you out geared the dungeons.. And certainly not with the ICC ones even with good gear you could still get your ass handed to you.. Pit of Saron was a rather nasty one with the first and last boss being particularly nasty if you didn't follow mechanics.. Even now with the timewalking version it still is a dungeon to be reckoned with..

[sykoex]

I think people wouldn't mind big non-linear dungeons if they only had to run it once or twice, but the gameplay of WoW involves repeatedly running dungeons over and over again.

[Deleted]

No they weren't lol it was always "Gather up big mob, AoE them down", the only one that was a challenge was Occ and that was only because people had a tough time on the dragons.

Some people think we can't remember back to 2008 - 09 and try to make the WoTLK dungeons out to be anything but faceroll. There's not a single soul on this planet that should be able to say "WoTLK dungeons were hard" with a good conscious. It's the same shit as saying that WoD hc were hard at the start of expansion, when they really were not.

There's only been like 3 periods where dungeons were difficult. Vanilla where pulling too much meant your imminent death due to the numerical difficulty, TBC heroics with a mesh of both mechanical and numerical difficulty and lastly Cata hc launch dungeons which is in the same vein as TBC, but shorter dungeons.

WoTLK, late Cata, MoP and WoD had pretty fucking faceroll dungeons at any given moment in their lifetime. That shouldn't even be up for debate, but it is because WoTLK is a long while ago, and some users make WoTLK out to be the perfect expansion albeit it wasn't, but it did a lot right. Dungeons not really being one up until 3.3.

[thilicen]

The old ways were fun in groups where you knew everyone, holy fuck were they a disaster with a PuG where player X wants to go one way, tank does not want to kill the bonus boss and what have you.

[AeneasBK]

Some people think we can't remember back to 2008 - 09 and try to make the WoTLK dungeons out to be anything but faceroll. There's not a single soul on this planet that should be able to say "WoTLK dungeons were hard" with a good conscious. It's the same shit as saying that WoD hc were hard at the start of expansion, when they really were not.

Okay, I'll replace "hard" with "you sometimes wiped, sometimes more than once in a run, you would maybe feel the need to take precautions against wiping before they occured". I agree, that isn't hard. But yeah, if you never wiped during WotLK dungeons then bully for you sir, but that wasn't the case for most people in the early stages of the expansion, or shortly after the relevant patch they were released in.

[Cæli]

As long as ALL dungeons are not streamlined, I'm perfectly fine. I have great memories of very streamlined dungeons in early TBC.
I saw Blizzard talking about linearity in raids, and having like tweets saying that a given raid is less linear so they're aware of the issue, BRF was perfectly good (even though the theme was not quite my cup of tea).
I don't know how Legion dungeons and raids are. But I assume if they know about raids, they automatically applies the problem to dungeons.

For me it's fine, no action to take as a player, just see what happens.

[Seefer]

Okay, I'll replace "hard" with "you sometimes wiped, sometimes more than once in a run, you would maybe feel the need to take precautions against wiping before they occured". I agree, that isn't hard. But yeah, if you never wiped during WotLK dungeons then bully for you sir, but that wasn't the case for most people in the early stages of the expansion, or shortly after the relevant patch they were released in.

You wiped sometimes in MoP dungeons, they weren't difficult by any means it just meant usually someone did something stupid, Vanilla and TBC could actually whip your ass.

[AeneasBK]

You wiped sometimes in MoP dungeons, they weren't difficult by any means it just meant usually someone did something stupid, Vanilla and TBC could actually whip your ass.

Fair enough. I think my point was mostly I don't remember thinking "Gosh these are easy" when I started doing dungeons and heroics after hitting 80 in Wrath, even with the months of experience at end game in TBC (started in TBC). I wasn't until a few months later, mostly after you started getting part-Ulduar geared tanks more commonly when you looked for a group that I found people saying "Just AoE and keep up".. Whereas after the cataclysm nerf (which came with 4.1 or before I cant remember) every 5 man has been almost "tourist mode" difficulty. Certainly I would say WotLK 5 man heroics were harder than MoP ones were on release. That might just be due to personal levels of experience with the game, by MoP I had been raiding and doing Arena for a few years (Arena being the main thing that made me get better )

[Kahmal]

They just need to create Winged dungeons again. It allowed to tell a larger narrative to a zone, while not inconveniencing the rest of the group to go off on a mission for one boss way out of the way in BRD for one person's quest. They could also reuse art assets therefore we got more dungeons.

[Deleted]

*shrug* WotLK dungeons were tough until everyone outgeared them, which for the raiding population was a few months into Naxx, and for everyone else was when they released Ulduar and rewarded Naxx lvl loot from emblems of .. I want to say "Valor" but w/e it was anyway.

For 80%+ of WotLK lifespan the majority of the playerbase massively outgeared the dungeons and heroics which is why people remember them as AoE spamfests; but on release, and things like the ToC 5 man on release and the ICC 5 mans on release, were plenty tough enough to break groups, or cause multiple wipes.

Nah, just recently played wotlk on a private server and we aoed all the heroics down with green/blue gear, it was very easy. If they give me tbc/early cata hcs in legion i will be very happy..

[Tackhisis]

All that whine for 2 (TWO) cut out rooms? People should get real.

[Mlz]

And maybe a timewalking raid finder?

And then you get shit like this


It was tolerable for the first time and then it got really tiresome because the bigger the group of random people, the less responsibility each one of the participants feels. AFKing or leeching in 5man timewalking will most likely get you kicked, whereas it's not really a case in LFR (can just put someone on follow and autoattack, noone will notice anyway). Maybe it was just me but the impression I got from MC LFR was that even people who usually like LFR, didn't generally enjoy that particular event.

[dope_danny]

Because if you arent playing the game in a mad dash to one raid instances gear treadmill you are apparently playing an mmorpg for the wrong reasons.

Yayyyy...

[ShiyoKozuki]

Dungeons were the LFR of vanilla. simple as that.

Vanilla dungeons gave sets.
Vanilla dungeons took a while to do, and gearing through them took a long enough time that by the time you were done with your gear more came out.
By the time they stopped releasing new 5 mans, they added a way to upgrade your 5 man set to epic.

Vanilla had 5 man progression, TBC had 5 man progression, worse than vanilal but still had it. I have NO FUCKING IDEA why this went away as we went further into WOW's life line.