It's not Nostalgia.

[tiporispit]

they can "complete" the game on an easier setting and then complain that the game is too easy is a personal choice and nothing much can be done about that really.

Well, you could remove it and make it like it was. You only see the content when you put in the time and effort to see the content. Replace LFR with spectator mode, so everyone can SEE the content. Gear should be a reward for DOING the content.

End-game content is not more challenging. There's an add-on, or video that tells you exactly what to do these days. Difficulty level: Kindergarten.

[Varabently]

It's partly nostalgia, yes.

[Mormolyce]

But that's the whole problem in the first place, isn't it? Grinding heroic dungeons for points? No one in their right mind would have ever done that with BRD and Karazhan. It's no wonder Cata heroics failed so miserably.

How do you incentivise people to go back otherwise?

Cata heroics were the best times I've ever had in dungeons, no exaggeration.

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Well, you could remove it and make it like it was. You only see the content when you put in the time and effort to see the content. Replace LFR with spectator mode, so everyone can SEE the content. Gear should be a reward for DOING the content.

End-game content is not more challenging. There's an add-on, or video that tells you exactly what to do these days. Difficulty level: Kindergarten.

When you play an FPS, do you put the difficulty on "easy" and then go on the forums to complain that the game is too easy?

And then say "well why would I go back and play on hard? I've seen the content!"?

[worstpvperus]

Well, you could remove it and make it like it was. You only see the content when you put in the time and effort to see the content. Replace LFR with spectator mode, so everyone can SEE the content. Gear should be a reward for DOING the content.

End-game content is not more challenging. There's an add-on, or video that tells you exactly what to do these days. Difficulty level: Kindergarten.

Wouldn't that apply to every expansion but Vanilla. In Bc their were guides and addons. Vanilla had addons and Their was one that played the game for you called decursive not 100% sure on the name but blizzard had to break it.

[namelessone]

So every game should cater to the lowest common denominators, tot he casuals who can't be bothered to learn? To the mainstream? Yeah, no matter how condescending and flippant you are, I don't want to live in a world like that.

No, not every game. WoW is not "every game", it's just one game. There are plenty of other games out there.

Also, you guys have to realize that the more you say that raiding in vanilla was "challenging" the more you prove that you didn't play vanilla.

[Destruktion]

How do you incentivise people to go back otherwise?

Cata heroics were the best times I've ever had in dungeons, no exaggeration.

Cata heroics pre-nerf were solid.
I'll have to brainstorm on incentives since I have none atm. I just hate grinding for points, it's such fking unappealing gameplay.

[namelessone]

Cata heroics pre-nerf were solid.
I'll have to brainstorm on incentives since I have none atm. I just hate grinding for points, it's such fking unappealing gameplay.

Thing is, GEAR is just as boring. The way WoW gear works is that it simply makes some numbers go up. It doesn't provide any interesting options, any new abilities, nothing interesting, it just makes numbers bigger. More DPS, more health, more HPS, more mitigation... It's essentially same "points grinding", just in a slightly different wrapper.

[chezwickcheese]

Thing is, GEAR is just as boring. The way WoW gear works is that it simply makes some numbers go up. It doesn't provide any interesting options, any new abilities, nothing interesting, it just makes numbers bigger. More DPS, more health, more HPS, more mitigation... It's essentially same "points grinding", just in a slightly different wrapper.

Hopefully the new tertiary stats will help add a bit more flavour to the grind. I'd like to see spells change once you reach a certain power level. Or add a rune system like in D3 that changes abilities in some way. Even better make glyphs do this.

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Cata heroics pre-nerf were solid.
I'll have to brainstorm on incentives since I have none atm. I just hate grinding for points, it's such fking unappealing gameplay.

Cata heroics pre-nerf were really fun. Sure they were hard and cc was kinda mandatory but that was fun. Like in BC , Sheep that, Hex this, Sap her. I miss that!

[ringpriest]

No, not every game. WoW is not "every game", it's just one game. There are plenty of other games out there.

Also, you guys have to realize that the more you say that raiding in vanilla was "challenging" the more you prove that you didn't play vanilla.

It was challenging, but much of the challenge was on the social and gearing aspects, organization, preparation, and coordination, rather than trying to make it into a some sort of arcade game.

[Gsara]

No, not every game. WoW is not "every game", it's just one game. There are plenty of other games out there.

Also, you guys have to realize that the more you say that raiding in vanilla was "challenging" the more you prove that you didn't play vanilla.

The difficulty of raids, as far as bosses being hard or not, depends entirely on when you started them. There was a huge difference in a guild killing Ony and MC bosses in the first few months of '05 and a guild killing them in summer of '05. The vast majority of the population never seen prenerf raids just like it is today.
Then you have the whole 40 man prep that was required which was another big factor

[Dormie]

It's possible, but there's no actual gauge for whether or not that has had a factor in declining subscription numbers. Also, good luck pointing out, with any certainty, which design decisions were bad. More often than not, if the decision was bad, they attempt to revert it in some way. Like not allowing flying until the first major content patch. Or only allowing pre-made groups to enter into the hardest small group content.

I agreed at first before I thought about it, Blizzard rarely admits when they make bad design decisions. And they usually try to cover it up with bandaid fixes.

[Deleted]

OP has a fair point and it's fine but my only complaint is that I hope people don't use 'immersion' as a reason to justify removing flying after you hit 100. They can just as easily (in fact do a better job really) make flight 'immersive' without taking it from people. Of course that would take effort so we know it's not going to happen. In fact the majority of changes were probably because it was a lot easier to balance/program/etc not because the majority of people really liked them all. If everyone liked the current game so much, it wouldn't be bleeding away subs so fast. I like convenience but I don't like it just handed to me. I like to earn it with skill but that idea is long gone in pretty much all genre's of video games. I don't mind the removal of the grind, but they just replaced it with a 1 click do all button essentially, instead of something that requires skill, aka requires you to play the game.

Blizz in blue posts and at BlizzCon they couldn't make flying immersive. They tried it various times, but failed. I believe them. If they could do it they wouldn't resort to the current solution.

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I think that Blizzard fails to distinguish between requests for short, fast, OR easy dungeons and requests for short, fast, AND easy dungeons. WotLK had fast and easy, and then Cataclysm went to long and hard. People complained because they either wanted fast and easy or short and fast, but Blizzard responded by putting out dungeons that were short, fast, and easy.

It depends on the goal of the player, the mindset, how persistent they are. WotLK, esp on end, candied people into quick runs for emblems (later VP). Nobody needed the loot anymore. First time you run a dungeon everything is new for you, and you don't mind wiping on a new boss. The random tank who is just there for a quick clear before his raid starts however values his time more and he'll get pissed off if you don't follow the tactics. Worse, he doesn't know you and will never see you again. Queue La Haine.

I also believe Blizz recognized a need for more difficult dungeons hence the introduction of challenge modes. We also have a system to quickly cap VP; heroic scenarios.

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One game says heres a challenge, beat it. The other is predestined to be beat.

Only once outgearing it. And you overestimate the intelligence, dexterity, and quality of the average WoW player. Lets face it, we're not as amazing as we think we are...

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Is the point of Challenge mode to beat a time? Yes? Then that isn't what I am asking for.

Tried some? The time aspect is pretty much irrelevant. You need to follow the tactics and if you do that as a group while you doing your part of the cogwheel then you will succeed.

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Neither does it change the fact that good design decisions are possible, slowing the decline.

this is what Blizzard has been doing. I'm sure their investors know it as well.

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So every game should cater to the lowest common denominators, tot he casuals who can't be bothered to learn? To the mainstream? Yeah, no matter how condescending and flippant you are, I don't want to live in a world like that.

Ideally the game should be able to cater to a most diverse group as possible. The hardcore, the semi hardcore, the casual, the dedicated grinder, the roleplayer, the lorefreak, the half AFK, the baddie, and so on. Games have been able to provide this for ages with different difficulty levels. If Wolfstenstein was able to do it more than 20 years ago why can't WoW nowadays? Cause they do!

I didn't play in TBC and I'm very curious WTF the casual players were doing in TBC (and btw, there are a shitload of them). Cause without any raid available to them what is the point of WoW?

[khalltusk]

I didn't play in TBC and I'm very curious WTF the casual players were doing in TBC (and btw, there are a shitload of them). Cause without any raid available to them what is the point of WoW?

Just like in Vanilla the majority of the player base were simply leveling characters (with a huge amount not even getting to max level) Blizzards stated it a few times.

[Deleted]

Just like in Vanilla the majority of the player base were simply leveling characters (with a huge amount not even getting to max level) Blizzards stated it a few times.

Yeah, and those who reached max level? Cause theres plenty of those around last time I checked. Don't give me that leveling in vanilla or TBC was harder. It took about the same time to do 1-60 or 1-70 as 1-90 but its obviously not linear.

[Aesahaettr]

I didn't play in TBC and I'm very curious WTF the casual players were doing in TBC (and btw, there are a shitload of them). Cause without any raid available to them what is the point of WoW?

I was in a small guild, we cleared Karazhan but then found it impossible to progress any further because there weren't any other 10 man raids. Tried to recruit people, didn't happen. Eventually our tanks and healers moved guild or quit the game. The remainder of us joined a larger guild, but as I couldn't commit to a raiding schedule due to real life, I barely raided.

So I spent the next year or so basically doing dailies of various factions and running heroic dungeons. The latter of which could be particularly annoying: If the tanks / healers in my guild had already done the quest or were busy elsewhere I could easily spend 30+ minutes trying to find tanks / healers. Sometimes it could even be over an hour. Of just standing in Shatt spamming channels. Yeah, fun.

It's why I'm extremely pleased LFD was introduced.

[khalltusk]

Yeah, and those who reached max level? Cause theres plenty of those around last time I checked. Don't give me that leveling in vanilla or TBC was harder. It took about the same time to do 1-60 or 1-70 as 1-90 but its obviously not linear.

Did I say it was harder? You may want to read what I wrote before commenting. The majority of players were simply leveling. Those who reached max level in Vanilla/TBC had a choice of PVP, Dungeons and if they got lucky into pugs for some of the lesser raids or joining a raiding guild/forming their own. Similar to how it was in Wrath, Cata etc.

The leveling in Vanilla and TBC took longer than Wrath Cata and MOP (which all saw the leveling process stream lined and made faster to get people into max level content). I don't think leveling was harder back then (just slower).

[Vaelorian]

Excuse me, but did you actually just say Heroic Scenarios are difficult..? I have never, on any character, even pretended to almost wipe in one, no matter who I pugged it with, no matter how awful our collective gear. We have never communicated, we have never used CC, we have never used our abilities in synergy, we have never stopped to think about what a certain boss/trash pull might do. Don't give me that nonsense.

Difficult would be when you've approached a problem in a certain way, found out that it didn't work, and tried a different way, working as a team to overcome a challenge. Fat chance of that ever happening with your 3 dps zergfests. Fucking thrilling, that.

Oh and yeah, Challenge Modes are difficult enough, I'll grant you that. They're simply not what I and many others are looking for in terms of engaging, interesting 5-man group content. I don't want a time limit on my dungeons, that forces me to skip as much of them as possible, and AoE down as much as possible while running constantly. I want to be able to take it at our own pace, using CC if necessary, joking around with friends, exploring interesting environments like we used to, in the beautiful sprawling dungeons of old.

OMG you just hit the nail on the head with your post on how I feel about this subject

[khalltusk]

OMG you just hit the nail on the head with your post on how I feel about this subject

I found Scenarios fun in general (while kinda easy for most of them only done a couple heroic ones)

But I miss the days of sprawling BRD style dungeons. I really hope they add one into the game hell have it split into 3 wings on LFD and have an option to queue for the whole thing in one sitting!

[Dormie]

Did I say it was harder? You may want to read what I wrote before commenting. The majority of players were simply leveling. Those who reached max level in Vanilla/TBC had a choice of PVP, Dungeons and if they got lucky into pugs for some of the lesser raids or joining a raiding guild/forming their own. Similar to how it was in Wrath, Cata etc.

The leveling in Vanilla and TBC took longer than Wrath Cata and MOP (which all saw the leveling process stream lined and made faster to get people into max level content). I don't think leveling was harder back then (just slower).

It WAS harder relative to today. Not necessarily hard, but harder.

[wdmshmo]

This is the way I remember the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjPqwz-_DQI