Wow has become far to complex.

[Stir]

Absolutely agreed with you.

Ladies....... Get your heads out of your geeky ass, and use the brain in that head for a moment. I hope there is some in there though

The OP does have a very valid point. You just have to stop looking at the game with your eyes. With the eyes of someone who plays it for some time. Then of course, you probably can't see what he is talking about. But, start counting the buttons you got out nowadays. the key binds, the macros. That adds up.
And now try to see it with the eyes of a complete new player. Not another geek like you and most of us, because the game cannot survive with us. I am talking about the complete "innocent" casual player that knows nothing about the game at all. For them, the handling of the toons has become too complex.

The parts where people say WoW has become too easy, I am one of them who say that, are the parts that don't correspond with the character handling.

I disagree. The way levelling works ensures that, if you are new and therefore have no experience buffs from heirlooms and guild things, you have time to get to know and learn to use all of your abilities.
Furthermore, the add-ons that track timers, proccs and windows of execute/opportunity are largely convenience. I've got bloodshield tracker... I don't need it; I just like to keep track of how much Blood Shield I've got. On my shamans, I use no add-ons other than group performance meters (recount), Deadly Boss Mods and a threat meter (Omen). I don't need anything else in order to do well. Same for all my other characters. And even then, those add-ons are strictly for convenience. Everything is easy to track.

It becomes a problem with RAF and SOR, where you are instantly bumped to a higher character level, and didn't get much of the progression, but as long as you experience the progression, it's a fine and mellow learning curve. Honestly.

Also: You don't have to be really good. You can get away with a poor rotation. Just so long as you don't mind playing at questing, some heroics, and maybe some LFR or more. And if you play more, you'll get better.

[Lomppa]

Am not sure if this is right, but from my point of view it looks like sarcasm.

[Ihnasir]

I'll admit some of the boss mechanics are complex, it's just stacking up old mechanics on top of one another for the sake of making it difficult, which is why I hardly played in Cataclysm. It was quite stale to me.

Rotations are very easy, and I usually figure them out without reading up online or now in the spellbook. With the amount of resources now available to us, we just copy and paste it in-game and hope we do well.

[Wazooty]

It has become both more complex and simpler.

Simpler because they've trimmed all the flavor out of it. Removed most of the stuff that made it an "rpg", and turned in basically into an arcade game.

If you pve, you kill raid bosses, if you pvp, you do rated pvp stuff.

Sure, there's a storyline attached, but long gone are the days of adventure and/or exploration. No more weapon skills, quivers, etc etc. Yes they are all "fat" that has been trimmed, but thats what made it an rpg, a living world you had a role in. Now you're funneled into some extremely linear progression systems, and that is the entire game. You choose a class, a role, and work your way down the same path as everyone else.

[Deleted]

It's not complex for me because I played Feral in Wrath.
John fucking Madden.

[Ehrenpanzer]

I think people are jumping on the OPs words, not the idea/concept they are trying to get across.

Difficult could mean various things.

Could just mean tedious and/or becoming less forgiving of mistakes.

Would you call the overload of trash difficult or tedious (trash can be fun if designed right)? or sometimes the tedious and necessity to be perfect over many continuous hours can become difficult for some?

Perfect pulls every time. 25 people performing flawlessly. Fights that have you jumping through hoops (sometimes literally) for 10-20 minutes. Priorities/rotations that need precision execution to perform at the top, with a game with variable latency. Fights designed around the assumption you'll have boss mods, even if top end players don't need them; hell, even class buffs/debuffs/priorities/procs nearly needing addons to be at your best. Macros and many, many keybinds.

None of it is truly difficult ... compared to real life stuff ... but it adds up to a large intertwined set of complexities that is actually against the roots of WoW. It was the simpler, less grindy EverQuest. Now, it is becoming very complex, and very grindy. Some love it, some hate it ... each are right for their own opinion.


Comes down to, if you are having fun, then great, if not, you unsub. The OP is theorizing that the ones leaving, a decent % is because of the increase in intensity and dedication required to perform even menial tasks.

I agree challenge should be there. Things shouldn't necessarily be as simple as arcane mages were somewhere in wrath and BC locks; 1-2 button heroes. The fights shouldn't be patchwerk either ... Maybe it is some just getting tired and worn out from the intensity, and need to take a step back, let new blood take over.

I know I burned myself out on dailies. Probably around the 6 week mark. None of the rares I encountered were hard, though soloing the one in Dread Wastes with all the adds by the water at 89 was both fun and challenging. But I was also tired of the changes to classes, even some for the better. Two of my favorite classes and the specific specs I loved to play were redesigned, one from the healing homogenization in cata, and another, just because the other two specs were getting love, I guess they figured they screw with it. That killed the love for my main ... and my main alt. With that, my love for the game.

I'm happy others are enjoying all the changes ... but it isn't the complexity that drove me away, it was the narrow paths, all the limitations, restrictions, my freedom of choice to have fun how I want, in the xpac touted for being about choice, was it. Once they switched to LFD and farmable tokens ... I can't go back to these artificial caps. If I want to play the hell out of the game this week, and not play next, then I should be able to farm 10k VP this week if I want. If I want to grind out a single rep in a few days, I should have that choice ... not have a gated, Ogri'la style rep system. If I want to kite a world boss somewhere, like in tanaris, it shouldn't be tethered ... let us create a dynamic environment, even if they don't have the passion to any longer. GMs should be in game, dropping bosses on capitals wiping out people. Don't take away group quests and class quests. Class quests are perfect for those wanting to go deeper into the lore, and gives you more attachment to your toon, especially if done at proper levels. All that stuff gives the game character and personalization.

The current game isn't bad ... but it has lots its flavor for me ... not because it is hard or complex ... but because it is tedious and simple with other systems over done (like tons of trash) just to make it appear there is more there than it is.

Except for the bolded bits I agree totally....

Kiteable bosses...while I have very fond memories of kiting fel reaver to shatt, and watching him level everyone and everything until they reset the server to fix it, I understand that this can be considered griefing by a lot of players and understand why they leashed stuff..
Gms shouldnt be appearing in capitals for the sole purpose of wiping people out, but if you are stupid enough to attack one..........

[ringpriest]

I kinda agree. Watching for procs, dots, procs from dots, procs from trinkets, abilities that can/can't be cast on move, while trying to spot graphics of boss's abilities among huge amount of spell animations. It did become too complex.

Its a single player game of numbers now instead of MMO adventure.

Beautifully put. Agree 100%.

[DechCJC]

WoW isn't complex, it's a game, not rocket science.

Sure, rotations can be difficult if you're trying to squeeze literally every bit of DPS that you can put out, but you can do fine using just the bog-standard rotation and ignoring all of your procs etc. Unless you're working on heroic modes (which would also suggest that you enjoy and care about your dps/healing/tanking abilities), you don't need to worry about anything that makes your rotation complex. On an individual skill level, boss mechanics aren't very difficult either - It's mostly about co-ordinating your group properly, the actual execution of a good plan isn't that hard to pull off.

I honestly can't think of a game that's SO hard that there are people who are incapable of beating it with a bit of time put in. Games are designed to be accessible to large amounts of people; If they wanted to make it ridiculously hard they could - But they can't do that because nobody would even participate. Even games that are designed to be unfair or ridiculously difficult aren't that bad, take I wanna be the guy (Or any of its fangames) or Dark Souls - Compare it to an extremely high level Maths course; It comes absolutely nowhere near in regards to difficulty and time investment required. Anybody, and I mean anybody (unless they're literally mentally handicapped) can learn how to play these games at a high level, if they so desire.

It's only complex if you want it to be, you can do most content without knowing every single thing there is to know about your class; If you want to do harder content then it's to be expected that you'll have to do more complex tactics/rotations, that's not a bad thing.

[Deleted]

Yeh back in Vanilla, spamming frost bolt as a mage and only frost bolt was really fun.

[Deleted]

Depends on what you like about WoW.
I look at my warlock atm...then think back how it was to play him in vanilla raiding. Then look at the current state again.
The playstyle has become so much more fluent, so much more active. So much more fun.

[Zenko]

Want facts?

Feral dps, all Warlock specs, Survival/BM Hunter, Shadowpriest all have simpler rotations than they did in Cataclysm. I do not play any other class, so I wouldn't know about the rest.
Tanking has become extremely easier than what it was in Classic/TBC due to changes in threat-generation
Healing has become extremely easier than what it was in previous expansions due to healing addons

-snip-

/sigh

Maximize a DoC feral dps and tell me how simple it is compared to Cata/WotLK/TBC. Clearly you play your feral in ezmode, because if I didnt have a naga mouse and extra keys on my keyboard I wouldnt be able to play as DoC efficiently.

Tanking has always been faceroll. MoP actually added depth to it, at least for rage tanks.

Healing has also been expanded to counter the dominance of addons. Every xpac gets new spells for healers that need to be rotated in.

I respect your right to an opinion, but that doesnt make your opinion a 'fact.'

[ringpriest]

It has become both more complex and simpler.

Simpler because they've trimmed all the flavor out of it. Removed most of the stuff that made it an "rpg", and turned in basically into an arcade game.

If you pve, you kill raid bosses, if you pvp, you do rated pvp stuff.

Sure, there's a storyline attached, but long gone are the days of adventure and/or exploration. No more weapon skills, quivers, etc etc. Yes they are all "fat" that has been trimmed, but thats what made it an rpg, a living world you had a role in. Now you're funneled into some extremely linear progression systems, and that is the entire game. You choose a class, a role, and work your way down the same path as everyone else.

Excellent post. I agree with you about WoW's direction - it's a completely different game from what it was in vanilla. WoW's current incarnation makes me feel like I'm playing a fantasy-themed version of Halo, with lots of bells and whistles. Sure, it's pretty good looking and the gameplay can be fun, but it doesn't feel like an RPG anymore.

From wikitionary: 2. roleplaying game(video games) A type of computer game where the player takes the role of a character or party, normally lacking tests of physical skill and including more story-telling and narrative aspects than traditional action games.

I'm happy others are enjoying all the changes ... but it isn't the complexity that drove me away, it was the narrow paths, all the limitations, restrictions, my freedom of choice to have fun how I want, in the xpac touted for being about choice, was it. Once they switched to LFD and farmable tokens ... I can't go back to these artificial caps. If I want to play the hell out of the game this week, and not play next, then I should be able to farm 10k VP this week if I want. If I want to grind out a single rep in a few days, I should have that choice ... not have a gated, Ogri'la style rep system. If I want to kite a world boss somewhere, like in tanaris, it shouldn't be tethered ... let us create a dynamic environment, even if they don't have the passion to any longer. GMs should be in game, dropping bosses on capitals wiping out people. Don't take away group quests and class quests. Class quests are perfect for those wanting to go deeper into the lore, and gives you more attachment to your toon, especially if done at proper levels. All that stuff gives the game character and personalization.

Ogri'la was the one BC rep I never got to exalted with. My preferred playstyle was always hitting the game hard a couple weekends a month, and then just playing for a few hours weekly, sometimes just making raids in between spending full days playing every couple weeks.

"Back in the day" players used to create the dynamic environment - combined with elite mobs and the occassional elite (or harder) rares and a world that had less "space" per active player, it actually felt like you were in a "real" place. That's gone, not just because of the community, but because Blizzard has killed it. Group quests were everywhere back in Vanilla. Doing them, and just looking for people to do them with was a great push towards meeting other players.

Current WoW feels more like an amusement park ride. Blizzard seems to hate players doing anything that they aren't "intended" to do. Classic always felt like Blizzard was focused on world-building, and left you to experience the world however you pleased. But now it's more like you're strapped into a ride with other players (and you just get to hope they don't puke on you ). What was once a "secondary world" is now just background to, as Wazooty says above, an arcade game.

The class quests are a perfect example of what's been done to the game. Sure, they were long, sometimes difficult, and required co-operation, but they made you feel like you'd accomplished something, and there were some incredibly unique and awesome rewards that, while nice, weren't horribly game-breaking. But now stuff like the Fire Ruby or Whisperwalk Boots are history. With the exceptions of a couple things per expansion, all the gear is generic beyond belief. It's like they're afraid of adding any sort of flavor or uniqueness back into the game.

[Deleted]

Want facts?

Feral dps, all Warlock specs, Survival/BM Hunter, Shadowpriest all have simpler rotations than they did in Cataclysm. I do not play any other class, so I wouldn't know about the rest.

Feral DPS was easier then both MoP and Wrath in cataclysm, don't know about hunters since i do not play that class but i would agree on shadow priests being more simple once you get the dot and mind flay clipping under control.

[Klingers]

I don't think that WoW's necessarily too complex in and of itself... None of these are deal-breakers or something that can't be learned with patience, but there are a couple of things I don't think are the best long term:

- Increased rotational complexity, plus new resource systems, plus more things to keep an eye on: My eyes are flying all over the screen. Numbers and debuffs flying everywhere. I find it ruins immersion.

- Leading on from the above point, all that and some herculean new level of situational awareness that seems to be mandated for everything these days. More complex boss encounters, more varied trash mobs, active damage mitigation for tanks. I used to find enough challenge and enjoyment just having to set a pace for a group in a dungeon and watch for overzealous DPS. Now I still have to do that plus watch the timing on my own abilities.

- Too many systems and things. I don't just get a piece of gear anymore, I have to save points to upgrade its ilvl. I have to gem it. I have to reforge it. I have to enchant it. I may or may not have to complete profession progression or faction rep to gain said enchants. The gear might come from a faction vendor I need to get rep for. Shear logistics and man-hours aren't dauntingly impossible, but they can lead to buyers remorse.

- "Optional" dailies. Heavily incentivised (stick more than carrot), interdependent, gated dailies and factions leaving me feeling crappy or l like I've been lazy if I opt not to do them. That's good game design in the sense of repeat-customers, but it's bad design in the sense that you're leaving some players feeling like they have an unhealthy relationship your game.

TFUTRTOAF (Too fucking useless to read text on a forum); OP is right. Lots of stuff going on. Unnecessarily (if not admittedly unwelcome) rotational complexity combined with a far higher level of situational awareness. Myriad other nebulous livable but in all honesty functionally pointless mechanics and issues.

[Slant]

Complex - or rather complicated, as I believe that is what the OP meant - as a word implies information that cannot be processed properly. I think this is true for the original Interface. But clever use of addons can turn this game from complicated to ridiculously easy quickly. CLCRet being only the most obvious and extreme example. All the outside information sites (just like MMO-C, Icy Veins - to a lesser extent EJ, because honestly, that site is not half as active as it used to be) are helping you with various tasks to be done in WoW. It's only as complicated as you let it be.

What I'll agree with is that WoW has turned from a big MMO into a humongous monster of an MMO. It can be daunting. My personal approach is to take it one step at a time. It works.

[Puupi]

I don't think that WoW's necessarily too complex in and of itself... None of these are deal-breakers or something that can't be learned with patience, but there are a couple of things I don't think are the best long term:

- Increased rotational complexity, plus new resource systems, plus more things to keep an eye on: My eyes are flying all over the screen. Numbers and debuffs flying everywhere. I find it ruins immersion.

- Leading on from the above point, all that and some herculean new level of situational awareness that seems to be mandated for everything these days. More complex boss encounters, more varied trash mobs, active damage mitigation for tanks. I used to find enough challenge and enjoyment just having to set a pace for a group in a dungeon and watch for overzealous DPS. Now I still have to do that plus watch the timing on my own abilities.

- Too many systems and things. I don't just get a piece of gear anymore, I have to save points to upgrade its ilvl. I have to gem it. I have to reforge it. I have to enchant it. I may or may not have to complete profession progression or faction rep to gain said enchants. The gear might come from a faction vendor I need to get rep for. Shear logistics and man-hours aren't dauntingly impossible, but they can lead to buyers remorse.

- "Optional" dailies. Heavily incentivised (stick more than carrot), interdependent, gated dailies and factions leaving me feeling crappy or l like I've been lazy if I opt not to do them. That's good game design in the sense of repeat-customers, but it's bad design in the sense that you're leaving some players feeling like they have an unhealthy relationship your game.

TFUTRTOAF (Too fucking useless to read text on a forum); OP is right. Lots of stuff going on. Unnecessarily (if not admittedly unwelcome) rotational complexity combined with a far higher level of situational awareness. Myriad other nebulous livable but in all honesty functionally pointless mechanics and issues.

QFT, except for the first part "increased rotational complexity". All classes/specs had their "rotations" dumbed down in MoP, which is a good thing. You used some rich language there (immersion, herculean, awareness, mandated, overzealous, shear, dauntingly, incentivised, interdependent, gated, myriad, nebulous)

[Shifthappens]

This thread is a joke, WoW right now at its simplest its ever been. If you disagree then you're either just got into wow or never were any good at it.

[Deleted]

Good thing PQR and Lazyraider exists then!

[Deleted]

For me its not complicated after 8 years, but im sure that if new player would jump to hc raiding, it would be pretty overhelming for him.

[Bonkura]

They dumbed down most specs with the release of MoP so it certainly hasn't gotten worse compared to last 3-4 years.