Is "casual engagement" really to blame?

[Crashdummy]

apologize for the typos, i don't spell check often enough forums post, i meant "normal raiding is indeed more challenging"

how would you go to decrease difficulty of normal raiding

- removing a mechanic is tricky. you will surely need a period of beta testing, balancing and tuning. I could also make the fight lose its flavor, what if ragnaros never smash the ground with sulfuras? modifying mechanic when applicable so they are less damaging, occur less often.
- remove kickable cast, so failing to kick a cast is no longer a problem? Remove purgeable debuff, so failling to cleance is no longer a problem.
- reduce globally incoming raid damage, so failling on mechanic no longer lethal, can be recovered by healing.
- simply reduce HP of bosses so enrage timer isn't a problem anymore and people may be able to pay more attention to their surrounding if they pay less attention to their rotation (hum, that will never work)

Depends on the fight. Talking about T14 for example, Garalon would be simply more time on enrage, maybe a little less aoe damage.
Wind lord would be by removing the wind bomb mechanic.
Amber shaper reducing the explosion damage
etc, etc

as a side note, rather than nerfing raid, i always thought teaching player be a better approach.
To my knowledge the game does not have raiding tutorial. Like training exercise that let you focus on one aspect. Avoiding damage, dps race, movement, positioning, situational awareness.

And this is the part you dont understand. For heroic that works, for normal, it doesnt, because most raiders (and therefore the average raiders) doesnt want to push to the limit. Also, no matter how much someone tries, most players cant get even near their class limits.

So no, it wouldnt be a better approach to "teach" for a NORMAL raiding content.

[Leare315]

I feel like this expansion set out to do a few things and missed its mark.

1) Make Dailies and Factions more relevant.

2) Extend raiding to the masses via LFR

3) Maintain a level of challenge for Normal mode raiders and beyond.

However, i feel they've missed those marks for a few key reasons.

1) Daily rewards are tied to valor - Requiring an valor investment means your reputation gains aren't enough, just a gating process to valor gear. Invariably this makes the daily experience itself less rewarding, as it's just a vehicle through which we grind valor gear.

2) Factions really need to be about a little bit more than dailies. If we really wanted them to feel important they'd need to branch into other parts of the game. The most obvious direction is dungeons.

3) While the move to equal 10 and 25 mans leveled the playing field in cataclysm and was initially praised, It caused several issues this expansion. (Opinions incoming) 25 man guilds are basically fueled by tradition at this point, and with the addition of LFR, even if you don't need to be lfr geared to participate in these normal modes, makes the entry level difficulties too high for many guilds.

So what sorts of solutions do I feel would remedy a whole lot of this?

Dailies: Randomized, incentivised dailies are wonderful. I'm totally happy with the way the quests themselves are structured. Staggered lore heavy quest chains are an absolute hit with the community. The reward structure and rep gains outside of dailies are limited, however. In addition, faction reward structures feel way off. Right now, rewards are as follows:
Friendly - Flavor Junk
Honored - Valor items
Revered - Important Valor items
Exalted - Cool Flavor Junk
The main issue here is that over half of the rewards and incentives for faction grinding are tied to valor, and in turn, the valor cap. This can be an acceptable strategy, however there is no character progression granted for completing a faction outside of valor. An alternative would be valor unlocks, but also gold-Epics, ideally with a unique model and an attracive slot in each faction.(2 socket boots, etc) Mounts are wonderful rewards, but one other attraction to factions might be a transmog armor set, rewarded either for getting each exalted achievement, or handed out piece by piece as exalted rewards. This way you get min-maxers, moggers and casuals all interested without forcing them to do these to progress.

In addition, factions should have a dungeon component. Dailies are a great story vehicle, but those people wanting tabards back want a some more concentrated grinding. I would want to add boss rep gains in specific dungeons where a faction may have interests. In addition to boss rep gains, there should be quest drops, like scryer tomes back in BC. This way you're not getting transparent, unafilliated rep gains, but people still get something they want. In addtion to the option of campaign specific quest chains, related to the dungeons themselves.

Finally i feel 10 man and 25 man separation needs to make a comeback. Serious raiding guilds will up-man to 25's if they want the prestige. 10 man guilds can return as the entry levels raid, and 10 man heroics, couple with 10 man elite boss kills could make that gear and difficulty desire for smaller guilds available. Finally LFR, whose current difficulty with t15 seems right on the money, can fill the gap for unafilliated or bored raiders. And finally, dungeons need tiers too. LFR has its place, but it shouldn't replace dungeon updates. 5 man "raids" are another neat idea, i'd think. 3 day lock outs with gear comparable to previous tier raid items on the last boss, and blue upgrades on the others, and a difficulty to match. It's supplemental content, and not replacer content that we ran into in wrath.

What all this really buys players is an attitude adjustment. There's no rewards hidden behind a grind, there's no impossible feats of raiding, and 25 man players can feel less like the last Dodo, all while enriching the game world.

[Aliessil]

how would you go to decrease difficulty of normal raiding

- removing a mechanic is tricky. you will surely need a period of beta testing, balancing and tuning. I could also make the fight lose its flavor, what if ragnaros never smash the ground with sulfuras? modifying mechanic when applicable so they are less damaging, occur less often.
- remove kickable cast, so failing to kick a cast is no longer a problem? Remove purgeable debuff, so failling to cleance is no longer a problem.
- reduce globally incoming raid damage, so failling on mechanic no longer lethal, can be recovered by healing.
- simply reduce HP of bosses so enrage timer isn't a problem anymore and people may be able to pay more attention to their surrounding if they pay less attention to their rotation (hum, that will never work)

I'd hate to see Blizzard removing mechanics as a general rule. I think I'd start by reducing damage by 10% and increasing enrage timers by 20%, and see how that felt. Then I'd look at tweaking those numbers in whichever directions seemed appropriate.

Someone else was talking about the gap between normal raids and heroic ones; personally I'd leave heroics exactly where they are. There should be a step up from normals to heroic, definitely. The first boss in heroic should be at least as hard as the last boss on normal, imo.

[panterarules]

As a casual I find that the real challenge is to find a challenge. Finding a server side PuG for anything is a nightmare. I found more groups playing an arms warrior in TBC and that's after i'd been declined by 10 groups for not being prot. Can't even go out into the world to find any sort of challenge. I can agro as many mobs as i want and not die. Ahh well, i'll pass the reigns on to new players, i'll go play....oh wait.. just about every MMO is like this now.