So now that we've seen all of Cata...

[wariofan1]

Tier 11 was the best state the game has ever been in, it simply had some of the best raids in WoW's history and the best fights that they have ever released. It was so promising, if they had made atleast 1 raid of the release raids' quality every major patch this would definately, undoubtly have been the best expansion ever. Firelands was good though, but they missed a raid in a major patch and threw Dragon Soul in our heads as a big 'FUCK U' to us. No tier for me was, is, or will ever be as enjoyable as tier 11, it's simply that memorable, not to mention the good heroics that accompanied it, fights like Throngus and Altairus were simply some of the best 5-man fights ever, atleast it was on release. Sadly, they followed the Wrath figure and dumped it all down, was so much fun until then. Fights in raiding? Nefarian, nuff said.

what´s up with these false nostalgia, t11 normal modes weren´t any harder than dragonsoul normal

I think he was more talking about the heroics. Also, there was a lot more stuff to watch out for for every role in tier 11, now it's like 'I'm melee dps, gotta kill slime on this guy, gotta press button on this one, zon'ozz? lol'. Also, these fights were fun, Dragon Soul is not, and I'm not the guy who usually get's hit by nostalgia like that, I rather fight it, which have given me many false views on good old games until I tried them again (vanilla included).

[Maleric]

And thats why it was so good. Because it was HARD. Now everything is easy and people are mass quiting.

Subscriber loss was 600k in Q1, 300k in Q2, 800k in Q3, and 100k in Q4, meaning that fully half of the people who quit in Cata quit during tier eleven. And most of the remainder quit during the first few months of Firelands, before the 20% nerfs. So the mass quitting happened when everything was hard.

That said, I doubt there's a causal connection between subscriber loss during a given raid tier and that tier's difficulty. But if there were such a connection, then the last year would indicate that people quit when the game is too hard, and not when it's too easy.

Also, while I agree that hard encounters are generally good, the problem with tier eleven wasn't that it had hard encounters. The problem was the amount of encounters. Many guilds, even decent ones, had little hope of getting to the end, due to the number of encounters. Maybe this was fine for the members of said guilds who were raiding solely for the challenge, but it wasn't fine for the members who were also raiding for the thrill of "beating" the tier.

[Deleted]

Agreed. Tier 11 heroic, personally, for me, felt like TBC. I liked the zones and the uniqueness of the bosses and I loved the difficulty. Tied with Ulduar.

Tier 12 was actually quite nice as well. Liked Alysrazor and Ragnaros a lot especially. Majordomo had potential but was eventually cheesed to death.

Tier 13 caused me to quit just like ToC did. Major disappointment. Worthy of tears in terms of intensity, but I dont cry over games.

what´s up with these false nostalgia, t11 normal modes weren´t any harder than dragonsoul normal

edit: this caused me to burst into tears from laughter

[Foxtails]

Eh i thought tier 12 was the worst, 11 was Meh and tier 13 the best

[pakoa]

My only gripe with t11 is the lack of visuals and epicness. The raids were some of the most bland, ugly, nonsensical layouts I've seen.

Throne was ok for a two boss raid I suppose but bot and bwd... ugh.

---------- Post added 2012-02-18 at 05:58 PM ----------

Eh i thought tier 12 was the worst, 11 was Meh and tier 13 the best

May I ask why you believe t13 is the best? Not trying to attack you, I'm truly just curious.

[Olianda]

I actually hated T11. It tore my guild apart. We went from raiding four nights a week in HICC10 (we managed to down HLK10 two months before 4.X) , to trying four nights a week in BWD, we never even did BoT. My guild leader (and raid leader,) his girlfriend (and our main healer,) and our top three dps all quit, and the rest of the guild just left over a month or so.

I loved Firelands, because after the nightmare that was T11, it was a breeze.

I LOVED Archeology, because it gave me an excuse to see if any of my closest friends, who all quit, ever logged in. I could be on all day doing it, and hoping they logged on. They never did.

[Battleoxs]

Cata Sucked...
Thats it.

[Foxtails]

---------- Post added 2012-02-18 at 05:58 PM ----------



May I ask why you believe t13 is the best? Not trying to attack you, I'm truly just curious.

Just enjoyed the boss fights, Spine was probably my fav out of them all. just my opinion x D

[lunchbox2042]

My only gripe with tier 12 was the length compared to tier 11. I did enjoy tier 11 the most this expansion though.

[Desdonde]

T11 was buggy as hell and very anti-melee

Can you guys take off the rose tinted goggles? The new expansion isnt even out yet

[jtkohl]

Cata Sucked...
Thats it.

I've seen this comment about basically every expansion.

I played t11. loved it. But I had to leave game for a bit in the middle of it, but the difficulty and the fun reminded me alot of TBC. Night 1 of WOTLK we got to KT. which made it STUPID. But at least in cata we had to spend time downing bosses, which made it that much better when trying to progress.
I did not play for t12, but I wanna jump into a pug sometime just to experience it once. t13...how do we put this...well someone already mentioned ToC and that is about as accurate as you can get. it just doesn't feel complete to me. I was expecting something stinking awesome for it. The first few bosses I feel like you just sit there and whack em...and then you get to a second loot ship, and then you reach DW...which really was a let down for me. IDK what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.

All in all, I prefer t11. Had a lot of good times.

[Mongoose19]

what´s up with these false nostalgia, t11 normal modes weren´t any harder than dragonsoul normal

Cmon playing nostalgia card for 1 year old content? If I liked movie I watched YESTERDAY is it also nostalgia? Gimme a break. But anyway normal modes were actually much harder than DS normals, same for heroics. Not to mention very hard but still not as hard as TBC 5 mans which was just awesome.

---------- Post added 2012-02-19 at 03:11 AM ----------

Subscriber loss was 600k in Q1, 300k in Q2, 800k in Q3, and 100k in Q4, meaning that fully half of the people who quit in Cata quit during tier eleven. And most of the remainder quit during the first few months of Firelands, before the 20% nerfs. So the mass quitting happened when everything was hard.

That said, I doubt there's a causal connection between subscriber loss during a given raid tier and that tier's difficulty. But if there were such a connection, then the last year would indicate that people quit when the game is too hard, and not when it's too easy.

Also, while I agree that hard encounters are generally good, the problem with tier eleven wasn't that it had hard encounters. The problem was the amount of encounters. Many guilds, even decent ones, had little hope of getting to the end, due to the number of encounters. Maybe this was fine for the members of said guilds who were raiding solely for the challenge, but it wasn't fine for the members who were also raiding for the thrill of "beating" the tier.

You couldn't be more wrong sir. If you wanna see real T11 numbers check Q4 reports for 2010. The Q1 loss in 2011 happened after 5 man heroics were nerfed to the ground and after it turned out there is nothing to do than raids and pvp, because at that point nerfed 5 mans were useless. T11 as whole wasn't good, it was brilliant for 1 month.

Also "beating" the tier is what makes this game so boring so fast. OMG I need to beat this tier till next patch comes in or I suck. Thats basicly what Blizz made us think with the nerf comming 1-2 months after the freakin release of patch. So it's either do it now or lose. The constantly upgraded gear from valor points is also not helping. Back in the day I didn't care if I cleared raid in first months of the release because I had whole expansion to do it. There was always a guild doing at my level of progress that I could join. The word here is progress which is no longer in game.

[Pachycrocuta]

Cmon playing nostalgia card for 1 year old content? If I liked movie I watched YESTERDAY is it also nostalgia? Gimme a break. But anyway normal modes were actually much harder than DS normals, same for heroics. Not to mention very hard but still not as hard as TBC 5 mans which was just awesome.

---------- Post added 2012-02-19 at 03:11 AM ----------



You couldn't be more wrong sir. If you wanna see real T11 numbers check Q4 reports for 2010. The Q1 loss in 2011 happened after 5 man heroics were nerfed to the ground and after it turned out there is nothing to do than raids and pvp, because at that point nerfed 5 mans were useless. T11 as whole wasn't good, it was brilliant for 1 month.

Also "beating" the tier is what makes this game so boring so fast. OMG I need to beat this tier till next patch comes in or I suck. Thats basicly what Blizz made us think with the nerf comming 1-2 months after the freakin release of patch. So it's either do it now or lose. The constantly upgraded gear from valor points is also not helping. Back in the day I didn't care if I cleared raid in first months of the release because I had whole expansion to do it. There was always a guild doing at my level of progress that I could join. The word here is progress which is no longer in game.

You can't judge the success of T11 by the Q4 2010 numbers, as T11 didn't happen until December 7th, and didn't have a full month in Q4 2010. The numbers are inflated from the over-hype of the release of Cataclysm, with the pre-event in October, and then 4.0 dropping in November, for the Cata changes to talents and spells. Q4 numbers are for the over-hype of Cataclysm for the first 2 months of it, and then everyone and their brothers getting to 85 for the last month of the quarter. Real cataclysm numbers start January 2011, in which case people were running away from the game because of the increased difficult and the massive headaches that came from doing the cata heroic 5-mans with 4 other completely random morons.

[Deleted]

It was fun for ranged, nothing special to do. For melee, well, it's wasn't that fun ...

[gibbie99]

Meh, i was excited for cata when it came out; our guild was in a good place & active, but then we got to 85 and heroics were so freaking hard and long compared to Wraith, most of just said 'screw it', and rolled alts or quit. For casuals wanting some sort of end-game, cata really sucked ass until 4.3 and the return of lore, story, and fairly (well really) easy heroics. At that point there wasn't any point since getting the gear just meant the heroics were easier and you could do LFR.

[Volitar]

Meh, i was excited for cata when it came out; our guild was in a good place & active, but then we got to 85 and heroics were so freaking hard and long compared to Wraith, most of just said 'screw it', and rolled alts or quit. For casuals wanting some sort of end-game, cata really sucked ass until 4.3 and the return of lore, story, and fairly (well really) easy heroics. At that point there wasn't any point since getting the gear just meant the heroics were easier and you could do LFR.

I'm sorry but not being able to do heroics doesn't make you a casual it just makes you bad (I'm not trying to insult you). If the heroics were crazy easy for people not so great than the good players would just roll over them and be bored to tears.

[GeordieMagpie]

Cata started awesome, 1 month after 4.2 is when all went down.

---------- Post added 2012-02-19 at 03:24 AM ----------

Meh, i was excited for cata when it came out; our guild was in a good place & active, but then we got to 85 and heroics were so freaking hard and long compared to Wraith, most of just said 'screw it', and rolled alts or quit. For casuals wanting some sort of end-game, cata really sucked ass until 4.3 and the return of lore, story, and fairly (well really) easy heroics. At that point there wasn't any point since getting the gear just meant the heroics were easier and you could do LFR.

They were challenging because of all the CC/concentration/focus/and we all just dinged 85..But honestly, in difficulty of heroics.

BC-->Cata-->Wotlk.

Wotlk started off just a bit hard (Halls of Lightning/Stone anyone?) but a few months after that, it was all faceroll, Cata still needs a little bit concentration atleast.

[Mongoose19]

You can't judge the success of T11 by the Q4 2010 numbers, as T11 didn't happen until December 7th, and didn't have a full month in Q4 2010. The numbers are inflated from the over-hype of the release of Cataclysm, with the pre-event in October, and then 4.0 dropping in November, for the Cata changes to talents and spells. Q4 numbers are for the over-hype of Cataclysm for the first 2 months of it, and then everyone and their brothers getting to 85 for the last month of the quarter. Real cataclysm numbers start January 2011, in which case people were running away from the game because of the increased difficult and the massive headaches that came from doing the cata heroic 5-mans with 4 other completely random morons.

Again wrong, they run away from game because there was nothing to do after you finshed your raid/arena not because game was hard, the hard aspect was thing that didn't make more people leave.

[KCguy]

Because they made Cata so casual, everyone flew through it and were sitting in their respective capitals only a few months after release. Blizz needs to put some challenge back in the game to stretch some content. People might bitch and complain, but it's the only thing they can do. What's been happening though is people bitch and Blizz caves and nerfs something or makes things too casual and easy and people finish it so fast there's nothing to do. Then people bitch that there's nothing to do. haha. That's why I loved BC. Heroics were actually tough and required some cooperation and to get things you had to grind away. Those days are more than gone though. Let's just hope Blizz can find a different way to stretch some content out this time around. No flying mounts till max is a good start. Bring back group quests might help as well.

[Maleric]

You couldn't be more wrong sir. If you wanna see real T11 numbers check Q4 reports for 2010. The Q1 loss in 2011 happened after 5 man heroics were nerfed to the ground and after it turned out there is nothing to do than raids and pvp, because at that point nerfed 5 mans were useless. T11 as whole wasn't good, it was brilliant for 1 month.

Also "beating" the tier is what makes this game so boring so fast. OMG I need to beat this tier till next patch comes in or I suck. Thats basicly what Blizz made us think with the nerf comming 1-2 months after the freakin release of patch. So it's either do it now or lose. The constantly upgraded gear from valor points is also not helping. Back in the day I didn't care if I cleared raid in first months of the release because I had whole expansion to do it. There was always a guild doing at my level of progress that I could join. The word here is progress which is no longer in game.

Again, I don't think the subscriber numbers, "real" or otherwise, reflect players' satisfaction with tier eleven raiding. But if they did, the game lost a lot of players during Q1 and Q2 2011, which included almost all of tier eleven. While three weeks of tier eleven technically happened in Q4 2010, players spent a big chunk of those three weeks leveling and gearing up. It's unlikely that the Q4 2010 subscriber increase had anything to do with the week or two that players spent in tier eleven's raids in December 2010, as it was such a short period of time. More likely, the bump was attributable to the release of the expansion in general.

On your other point, it would be nice if earlier tiers could be progression content even after later tiers are released, but that's not how the game is designed. Content patches now come with gear resets and nerfs to the prior tier, which puts an expiration date on when a tier can be considered progression and puts pressure on guilds to finish the content when it's still relevant.