Did TBC ever get any complaints in its time?

[Tyrgannus]

Every age of WoW has received a myriad of complaints as negativity seems louder than the complacency of contentment.

[Alvito]

They were lackluster, yeah - they were about 10 to 20 % below the good spec.
And my point is, that's also the case today.

Also, they weren't "locked into PvP". As usual on the forums, people tend to look at what the bleeding edge guilds did, and project it on the playerbase at large. Reality is, plenty of high-level guilds actually had said "viable but not optimal" spec in their roster.
Also, BM hunters were absolutely not in the low-damage group. They were pretty good (not the best, but totally viable, like affli warlock or mages in general).

They were bad enough that they didn't raid at all unless it was some group farming Kara weekly until the end of time.

[Leonora]

If something would kill this game, it is the massive criticism from what I suspect is a small but vocal group.

TBC was pretty challenging, we got heroics for the first time, which you had to unlock; there was a massive unlocking questline to get to Illidan.
There were a ton of 5 men instances, which you got to do on heroic all over again. Heroics were actually challenging till you got gear from Black Temple - else crowd control was much wanted. There were a ton of new quests, and some quests could be quite challenging.

Criticism? Sure. If you were not in a solid group, you would experience only small parts of the unlocking quests. If you were not well trained in teamplay, heroics were a tough nut to crack. Blizzard got so fed up by all the complaints that they decided for Wrath to make all 5 men content aoe-tankable and the first raid in Wrath, the remade Naxxramas, was clearable and cleared extremely fast. (Though, getting Naxxramas done without any deaths on 25 men, and Ulduar, were some of the best experiences ever ).

Nevertheless, TBC was great. In fact, every expansion has been great. The newness and first naive enjoyment have been wearing off a long time ago by now, but the game is still superb. I show that by still playing. In fact, each person who is still playing testifies by their action that they still like this game.

[Lollis]

It received many, yes. From profound hatred of Shadow Labyrinth, to the bizarre and seemingly endless attunement process for Karazhan and other raids, and reputation grinds that truly emphasized the word "grind."

Shadow Labs? Are you sure? Arcatraz & Shattered Halls were a level above in difficulty.

[Akka]

They were bad enough that they didn't raid at all unless it was some group farming Kara weekly until the end of time.

=> "That's when reality (people who actually played TBC and have a functionning memory) clashes with forum wanking (people who either didn't play TBC or were in the parrot population, who just repeated and applied mindlessly directives derived from perfect theorycrafting into their arguments about actual raids)."

Your post is 100 % BS. Bleeding edge guilds didn't use them because they always need to extract every ounce of performance they can, just like today they only use the spec which have the best output.
Every other guilds could totally use them - and many of them did. Just like today, you have people playing non-optimal spec in every guild but the absolute most competitive.

[Aucald]

Shadow Labs? Are you sure? Arcatraz & Shattered Halls were a level above in difficulty.

I agree, but the bulk of complaints I always heard about were for Shadow Labs (I actually never considered it that hard, either). Arcatraz wasn't too bad, either; except for those Eredar mobs in the open room before the two demon bosses - their debuff was the cause of many a wipe. Shattered Halls was always an exercise in terror for me - especially the bloody speed run you had to do for "Hand of A'dal."

[Sylvaeres]

I loved to tank it. Put on some block value/block rating gear and I was avoiding or fully blocking majority of attacks. We barely used any CC at all. Threat on big pulls was an issue, but I could handle it.

Ya you would occasionally find the kind of tank that could handle it adequately, I was speaking more about generally. The ability to handle all those mobs as a warrior was the definition of skill for tanks

[bufferunderrun]

guild hopping was a big thing I remember ton of drama essays written on forums oh and welfare epics, lfr qq nowadays is nothing compared to some of those old thread

[Alvito]

=> "That's when reality (people who actually played TBC and have a functionning memory) clashes with forum wanking (people who either didn't play TBC or were in the parrot population, who just repeated and applied mindlessly directives derived from perfect theorycrafting into their arguments about actual raids)."

Your post is 100 % BS. Bleeding edge guilds didn't use them because they always need to extract every ounce of performance they can, just like today they only use the spec which has the best output.
Every other guilds could totally use them - and many of them did. Just like today, you have people playing non-optimal spec in every guild but the absolute most competitive.

They were all but blacklisted as raid options on my server and that wasn't a super competitive one. I have to imagine on some of the higher progressed servers they didn't exist. Feral cats didn't raid, bears sure. Ret only happened if groups wanted their buff for a melee party. Maybe your server was this magical all inclusive place, but each pure class had a spec that was the prefered pvp spec and not seen in pve. It isn't just cutting edge raids that excluded this specs, many did because they were so much worse. Keep fighting that good fight for the under played specs so people might believe they were better and more played then they were.

[Sylvaeres]

That reminds me that I tanked that place as a warrior tank aswell, it was indeed a nightmare. Especially if you lacked CC. You had so many mobs to take their threats, and warrior tanks lacked proper AoE threat abilities.

The AOE threat generation for Protection Warriors was one of the major upgrades they got for WOLK. It was tough for sure

[Deleted]

I remember my paladin tank alt... at taunt jobs like bear boss in ZA - "uhh resisted, soorrry~"
The game was a lot more chaotic and imbalanced in any perspective. But more importantly your server decided what game you play. It was loosen up with vanillas final days but it kept the PVE halfway together in TBC - then WotlK became a great upheaval.

Numbers during TBC started to count more and more, addons and macros became bigger and bigger... and after you became free in wotlk you could finally even leave the server slum alone.

[Rioo]

Even though there were like 1/10000 of the number of pug groups there are today the number of master looters who ninja looted was still higher somehow. Every night the general chat in Shattrath was filled with drama of people accusing each other. If the item I wanted dropped and I actually won the roll I was still surprised if I actually got the item.

Overall though I think people complained less. Gamers today feel more entitled for sure.

[Akka]

They were all but blacklisted as raid options on my server and that wasn't a super competitive one. I have to imagine on some of the higher progressed servers they didn't exist. Feral cats didn't raid, bears sure. Ret only happened if groups wanted their buff for a melee party. Maybe your server was this magical all inclusive place, but each pure class had a spec that was the prefered pvp spec and not seen in pve. It isn't just cutting edge raids that excluded this specs, many did because they were so much worse. Keep fighting that good fight for the under played specs so people might believe they were better and more played then they were.

Just like today people ignore anyone who isn't tons of ilvl above what the instance drops, just to ensure the easiest ride. Doesn't mean people under the ilvl of the instances can't or don't play.

Also, I'd like to remind you : my original point was that today's class balance is actually not really much better than TBC's one. Popularity contest has little to do with actual performance, and even if players in TBC were all brainwashed by forums to do like you claim and blacklist these classes (which is at best a gross exagerration), it wouldn't change their real viability.

As for their presence in raids, I can at the very least take my own guild (far from cutting edge, we just nearly killed Teron and Archimonde before the patch 3.0 hit, but for the time it was pretty good for non-hardcore guilds), we had, as I said above, several of these "blacklisted" people in ours.

[Dug]

Every single version of the game has received complaints. Even the oh so "perfect" vanilla.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Pretty much the same, but it didn't seem to be as often, I guess because it was the first expansion. The complaints and arguments were the same as now.. thats why its so eye rolly when people make complain threads, or threaten to quit.

[HealTree]

snip

Nevertheless, TBC was great. In fact, every expansion has been great. The newness and first naive enjoyment have been wearing off a long time ago by now, but the game is still superb. I show that by still playing. In fact, each person who is still playing testifies by their action that they still like this game.

^ this is so true.

so many ppl are complaining about the state of the game just for the sake of it.

[Alvito]

Just like today people ignore anyone who isn't tons of ilvl above what the instance drops, just to ensure the easiest ride. Doesn't mean people under the ilvl of the instances can't or don't play.

Also, I'd like to remind you : my original point was that today's class balance is actually not really much better than TBC's one. Popularity contest has little to do with actual performance, and even if players in TBC were all brainwashed by forums to do like you claim and blacklist these classes (which is at best a gross exagerration), it wouldn't change their real viability.

As for their presence in raids, I can at the very least take my own guild (far from cutting edge, we just nearly killed Teron and Archimonde before the patch 3.0 hit, but for the time it was pretty good for non-hardcore guilds), we had, as I said above, several of these "blacklisted" people in ours.

If you are going to compare it to item level it would be more accurate to compare it to somebody in gear that is stated poorly for them. They could use the gear that would help them more, but they choose to stack something that doesn't get the job done the same way. As for people being brain washed by forums that wasn't it certainly classes were just much worse. You have also said only bleeding edge progression groups care about specs/comps but the lower end raids filled with lower skilled players should care even more, because they absolutely need ever drop of damage, healing or survival they can get.

[Ellerain]

Sure. From what I remember:
- Specs being nonviable in PVE. And not today's 10% less damage 'nonviable' but 30-50%+ less DPS/HPS or lacking core abilities or having a terrible gameplay.
E.g.: Ret pallies not having the threat drop. Warrior tanks not having a reliable aoe aggro generator. Druid tanks not having a boss -damage debuff. Disc healers not having..anything?
Solution: Was fixed in WotLK with 'Bring the player not the class' initiative.

- On the same note, PVP balance complaints.
E.g. Rogue infinite stunlocks. Warr+Druid unkillable.
Solution: Was partially fixed with CC diminishing returns (in WotLK?). In general not sure if ever be fixed but things seem better nowadays.

- Talent tree builds problems. Making you spend points in places you don't want. Capstone talents being lackluster. Being locked into a specific off-tree.
E.g. Holy priest Lightwell and CoH 31/41 talent points were mathematically shown to be so bad nobody took them. Kings for paladin locked everyone into the prot sub-tree.
Solution: Was fixed with the new talent system but stopped being such a huge problem by Cata.

- Mats farming time required. Rep farming time required. Attunement runs required. Everything took more time which was awesome the first time you did it, horrible the fiftieth time.
E.g. To start running heroics you needed to rep up on normals. To get to the first raids you needed basically heroic achievements (timed runs). To get to the next raids you needed the previous raids cleared on what essentially was a heroic/mythic difficulty. Every time you needed to replace a raid member you had to either find someone who did all this or to run them through that.
Solution (kinda): In the quest to remove the horrible Blizz removed the awesome which they are trying to get back through other means since.

- LFG by macros spamming in Trade in Shatt for EVERY SINGLE DUNGEON RUN
Solution (kinda): LFG queues (WotLK) LFR (Cata) / LFG tool (WOD). It turned out that this solution also killed the server community and organic 'reputation' system.

Those were the constructive complaints. The usual bitching about anything and everything was also there of course.

[Banquetto]

There was a huge amount of hate for Outland as a setting.

There was a huge amount of hate for "Space Goats" as the new Alliance race.

There was a huge amount of hate for "Sexy Elves" as the new Horde race.

Most smaller servers saw their raid scene completely die as a result of the difficulty. I don't think a single guild completed a 25-man raid beyond Gruul and Magtheridon on my server, while it was current bleeding-edge content.

Heroics were derided as "Tank + Heals + 3 Mages" by all other DPS classes.

[johntrolbota]

I remember I was a noob at MMO at that time, and I remember VERY VERY well killing mobs in Nagrand to get to level 70. Too damn well. I have no idea why people today claim legion is grindy =/.

I did not raid that much until the very end of the expansion. Nor was I good at it, but I do remember the M'uru fight as well as rogues and warriors rolling need or ninjalooting the legendary bow from KJ.

Good times though.