4th raid difficulty, Easy Mode, should it happen?

[Ielenia]

Again about getting outside of your own view. It's a funny world we live in speaking of which you wanna know how I got these scars?

And you're not getting outside your own view. Normal mode IS 'easy mode'. You can say it's both 'normal' AND 'easy'. The first four bosses (Jin'rokh, Horridon, Council and Tortos) are very, very easy bosses. Megaera, Ji-kun and Durumu are 'average' in difficulty. You can even put Primordius in that list, if you want. The rest of the bosses, though, present some challenge. (I didn't say hard. Just more challenging.)

And you know what? I'm just FINE with challenging fights. If I want to faceroll content, I'll go do LFR. Simple as that.

[Blayze]

two people vs an entire thread of people. Sounds like Osmer and glorious are the minority.

Doesn't mean you can't be correct.

[Osmeric]

two people vs an entire thread of people. Sounds like Osmer and glorious are the minority.

Well, 1.3 M is much larger than the entire normal/heroic raiding community. At least G and I are still subbed...

[anaxie]

It's sufficiently satisfying to me personally for me to playing it now. It wasn't during Cataclysm. I think Blizzard isn't going to take that as enough, though, so I expect serious changes. Their design clearly isn't working very well.

I know they took a huge drop in asian subs. Game should be made more difficult to appeal to that market that likes insanely difficult gaming 5.3 got the grinding part for gear down in battlefield barrens. We are halfway there 5.4 just needs to be a little harder then ToT and more mechanic intensive.

[Moradim]

LFR is trivial. normals now are harder than in the past. why? LFR of course.

see, the issue is making it challenging, but not too easy. I think things were better in wrath, ICC for example wasnt too bad on normal, while heroic still presented a good challenge (and a very difficult one in LK, without zone buffs). it needs to be tuned for *average* guilds.

to be honest, im surprised normals even have one shot mechanics like tortos breath/eye sores. and it's pretty silly how horridon requires more coordination than twin consorts, and they drop a helm token. im not saying make it faceroll, but at least tune instances a little better.

[Osmeric]

I know they took a huge drop in asian subs. Game should be made more difficult to appeal to that market that likes insanely difficult gaming 5.3 got the grinding part for gear down in battlefield barrens. We are halfway there 5.4 just needs to be a little harder then ToT and more mechanic intensive.

What (aside from the voices in your head) makes you think making the game harder would help? A tiny and rapidly declining number of players are completing even normal mode raids.

[Odina]

It's sufficiently satisfying to me personally for me to playing it now. It wasn't during Cataclysm. I think Blizzard isn't going to take that as enough, though, so I expect serious changes. Their design clearly isn't working very well.

I can agree with the design not working as intended but I do not believe it is the raid design I believe it's the daily grinding and the gating behind reputations that bit them in the ass. The grind burned out many months faster than ever before due to the constant need to log on > choosing when they could log on to do there weekly grinds IE: Random dung give bonus only 1 per day rather than 7 a week so you have to log on each day to get it.

What I find the most mind boggeling however is that if people put as much effort into looking up there class, and going over logs or asking others that are better for help as they did Bitching and complaining about raid diffuculty they would see that they can "nerf" the content themselves by getting better and using all the tools at there raids disposal!

[anaxie]

Well, 1.3 M is much larger than the entire normal/heroic raiding community. At least G and I are still subbed...

You don't seem to understand. Most of the subs in WoW are from the Asian Market. They had a majority of the 1.3 million as an Asian sub drop a market that likes challenging gameplay. I will almost guarantee the MAJORITY of western losses came from those who felt daily and reputations are mandatory <they really aren't>. Or they are overly bored with LFR and have no desire for organized gameplay / Doing dallies for coins burned them out.

Thats ok though. People don't play the same forever. NOT EVEN OMG! Heroic raiders.

Also *GASP* Another huge drop could be from the PVP changes coming which are significant to say the least allowing anyone and everyone to get the best gear and having it all normalized in PVP instances but trivial in World PVP.

[Celarent]

BC was the most successful XP in terms of total subs added to the game, by a wide margin.

The Burning Crusade came out 6 years ago. Three years before that, not 1 million people had ever played an MMO; suddenly 7 times that experiencing the genre for the first time.

Remember when you couldn't keep a guitar/band game on the shelves? Now you can't get one on. Novelty.

On the eve of Cataclysm, after the 2-year ICC run, WoW hit its all-time subscription peak. First content became harder, then players could just queue and quit, and here we are at 8 million.

[Banzhe]

Okay, I saw this idea the official forums a week or so again, and was really interested in it.

Everyone knows that Blizzard releases a raid, makes normal mode semi-difficult, then nerfs the raid by 10-20% at the next tier, so casuals and less experienced guilds can pug/run them. But how about, instead of doing this nerf, Blizzard releases a fourth raid difficulty alongside there raids, an easy mode.

Easy mode will essentially be the instance after its nerfed 20%, but released alongside normal and heroic. This ensures two things:
1) Raids don't have to be nerfed
2) Pugs can happen as the raid is relevant.

The gear could be in between LFR and Normal gear. The difficulty will be above LFR and below Normal (Obv). It is pretty much normal mode, but you can do it with worse gear/slightly less coordination.

I can't see what problem people would have with this, as it takes almost no time to implement. TBH, I miss the days of Wrath pugging the first half of Uld and ICC. Same thing doesn't happen now a days with ToT, or even MSV. Pugs are there, but they are rarer. There needs to be a middle ground for people who legitimately don't have enough time to follow a raid schedule, but wan't more to raiding than the botfest that is LFR.

Pugs are there, but the players are sheep mostly with no logic or independent thought processing capability, top that off with the breeding culture blizzard have done with the game, everything for nothing = pugs fail on a wast scale!
Not because raids are harder then ever before, because their not.., but because the cultivation of the playerbase have turned them into morons, don't believe me?- take a tour on the official forums

The Burning Crusade came out 6 years ago. Three years before that, not 1 million people had ever played an MMO; suddenly 7 times that experiencing the genre for the first time.

Remember when you couldn't keep a guitar/band game on the shelves? Now you can't get one on. Novelty.

On the eve of Cataclysm, after the 2-year ICC run, WoW hit its all-time subscription peak. First content became harder, then players could just queue and quit, and here we are at 8 million.

Quoted for an example of today's typical player...

[CrusaderNerò87]

What (aside from the voices in your head) makes you think making the game harder would help? A tiny and rapidly declining number of players are completing even normal mode raids.

I beg to differ. With the addition of LFR, seeing the content and getting gear is very easy. So people run it for several weeks and gets bored. Its way more boring just snoring through LFR with half raid bad or afk, than working on challenging fights.

I bet there are alot of people who refuse to raid now just because LFR is there. They wait for new raid, clear it a couple of times and then ubsub. Wait for next raid.

[Osmeric]

I beg to differ. With the addition of LFR, seeing the content and getting gear is very easy. So people run it for several weeks and gets bored. Its way more boring just snoring through LFR with half raid bad or afk, than working on challenging fights.

Wait, so you think making LFR HARDER is going to improve player retention?

Excuse me while I roll on the floor laughing at this idea.

[bvheide]

I'll admit that as I first started reading this thread, I was prepared to think that this idea was stupid. Particularly when I read the opinion that normal modes were over-tuned nightmares, I was ready to just leave.

But then I started to think, there actually may be something to this argument. I don't think we need to nerf normal modes any more. They're already nerfed into the ground. However, I DO think that 10 man difficulties could, viably, turn back into the "easier" version that they were in Wrath. Of course, I also think, then, that they should drop lower iLvL gear like they did in wrath, etc. I'm not saying that heroics shouldn't be hard. They should still be challenging. But tune them back to the way they were in Wrath. If you want the glory of being the best (best gear, best drop rates, etc), and completing the hardest, go 25man.

However, I think that you should still have to choose your lockout. If you want to be in a 25 be in a 25, don't use 10 mans to gear up for a 25. Keep separate rankings and just acknowledge that 25s are harder than 10s.

[refire]

Come on.. Normal is not THAT hard. We know that if normal was to easy, threads would be made here saying "Nerf heroic mode, to hard".

This boils down to people wanting it easy. We got LFR - normal - hc. 3 different settings for raiding in a MMO is really good. Adding another difficulty would only add more work for the devs.

Normal isn't that hard but I think it's to hard, especially with the gear gap between people that breezed through it and people who haven't been able to clear it yet.

Look at a boss like Iron Qon for example. The mechanics are relatively simple for handling spears, debuffs, and tornadoes. You get punished severely if you position wrong which is fair for something that isn't LFR. The problem is that he has 1.2 billion health. The mechanics of the fight are fine but asking them to be executed well or you wipe, on a 12 minute fight is what doesn't make sense. Compare that to something like Dark Animus. Mechanics that completely wipe the raid if you don't execute them properly, yet if you do the fight is over in less than five minutes. So similar execution of mechanics required, but you're forced into doing it for double the time? That's the current problem with normal modes and I think those are two good examples. Dark Animus is the perfect normal mode encounter. There are mechanics you have to adhere to, yet if you do them the boss dies.

The ideal fight should be 4-7 minutes, with mechanics that will kill you if executed poorly, but that don't force you to execute them for 10 minutes straight. A long boss for an end boss, like Ragnaros, Nefarion, Lich King, etc. that forces the normal mode player to execute but for longer is how it should be organized. Average fight lengths this tier are just to long in normal and were so much worse even three weeks ago. Three weeks ago the only fights that were less than 8 minutes on average from world of logs (so probably higher as the people that are even worse than that average are also probably not loading to World of Logs) were Jin'rokh, Tortos, Primordius, and Dark Animus.

I would agree that Wrath was the best setting it has been with a horribly bad first tier. Normal 10 man was the go to easy raid and it didn't prevent you from doing a 25 with your guild. There wasn't any secret about balance between 10 and 25, 10 was just considered easier and it provided a good middle ground.

[Bisso]

If you scaled say baron geddon or supremus or hell even good old marrowgar and put them in ToT people would blow through those fights in no time are you kidding me? They'd all be on par with jin rokh.

Aint Jin'Rokh like the easiest boss in this expansion so far? Haven't touched him in Heroic, but went there in normal with 1 LFR run as a preview of what that boss was about, in a pug, cleared him in 1 try, before 3rd water would pop. It really felt under tuned. It's easy to say an old boss like Baron would be on par with Jin'Rokh, Hogger would be.

[CrusaderNerò87]

Wait, so you think making LFR HARDER is going to improve player retention?

Excuse me while I roll on the floor laughing at this idea.

Where did I say that I want LFR to be harder?

Look what the community and playerbase has done with this game. Constant complaints about a difficulty that IS easy. Join a guild, dont STINK, get mumble/ventrilo. Success.

im just saying that alof of people are content with doing LFR and see content. I dont mind that, dont care.

Therefore, alot of them wont bother with normal modes, as normal raiders often dont bother with HC mode.

Then again, ofc there will be less guilds clearing raids. Theres a much smaller pool of players to choose from now, since many is quite happy with LFR.

[Dvaldin]

I don't think it would hurt anything and it'd offer another alternative for players. So, sure. There was, after all, a fairly recent blue post that said as many difficulty levels as there were, it still was not enough.

[anaxie]

Normal isn't that hard but I think it's to hard, especially with the gear gap between people that breezed through it and people who haven't been able to clear it yet.

Look at a boss like Iron Qon for example. The mechanics are relatively simple for handling spears, debuffs, and tornadoes. You get punished severely if you position wrong which is fair for something that isn't LFR. The problem is that he has 1.2 billion health. The mechanics of the fight are fine but asking them to be executed well or you wipe, on a 12 minute fight is what doesn't make sense. Compare that to something like Dark Animus. Mechanics that completely wipe the raid if you don't execute them properly, yet if you do the fight is over in less than five minutes. So similar execution of mechanics required, but you're forced into doing it for double the time? That's the current problem with normal modes and I think those are two good examples. Dark Animus is the perfect normal mode encounter. There are mechanics you have to adhere to, yet if you do them the boss dies.

The ideal fight should be 4-7 minutes, with mechanics that will kill you if executed poorly, but that don't force you to execute them for 10 minutes straight. A long boss for an end boss, like Ragnaros, Nefarion, Lich King, etc. that forces the normal mode player to execute but for longer is how it should be organized. Average fight lengths this tier are just to long in normal and were so much worse even three weeks ago. Three weeks ago the only fights that were less than 8 minutes on average from world of logs (so probably higher as the people that are even worse than that average are also probably not loading to World of Logs) were Jin'rokh, Tortos, Primordius, and Dark Animus.

I would agree that Wrath was the best setting it has been with a horribly bad first tier. Normal 10 man was the go to easy raid and it didn't prevent you from doing a 25 with your guild. There wasn't any secret about balance between 10 and 25, 10 was just considered easier and it provided a good middle ground.

WHY? do they need to breeze through it like heroic raiders did? The normal mode heroes aren't as skilled as them. They aren't going to be competing in Heroics if Normals are challenging. Normal Mode IS their progression path. It may take a month or two or hell three. But that is ther group you CHOOSE to play with moving at their own pace their skill will allow.

[Osmeric]

Where did I say that I want LFR to be harder?

Look what the community and playerbase has done with this game. Constant complaints about a difficulty that IS easy. Join a guild, dont STINK, get mumble/ventrilo. Success.

im just saying that alof of people are content with doing LFR and see content. I dont mind that, dont care.

Therefore, alot of them wont bother with normal modes, as normal raiders often dont bother with HC mode.

Then again, ofc there will be less guilds clearing raids. Theres a much smaller pool of players to choose from now, since many is quite happy with LFR.

So, where in all that is justification for your rejection of my "What (aside from the voices in your head) makes you think making the game harder would help? A tiny and rapidly declining number of players are completing even normal mode raids."

[tangers58]

Okay, I saw this idea the official forums a week or so again, and was really interested in it.

Everyone knows that Blizzard releases a raid, makes normal mode semi-difficult, then nerfs the raid by 10-20% at the next tier, so casuals and less experienced guilds can pug/run them. But how about, instead of doing this nerf, Blizzard releases a fourth raid difficulty alongside there raids, an easy mode.

Easy mode will essentially be the instance after its nerfed 20%, but released alongside normal and heroic. This ensures two things:
1) Raids don't have to be nerfed
2) Pugs can happen as the raid is relevant.

The gear could be in between LFR and Normal gear. The difficulty will be above LFR and below Normal (Obv). It is pretty much normal mode, but you can do it with worse gear/slightly less coordination.

I can't see what problem people would have with this, as it takes almost no time to implement. TBH, I miss the days of Wrath pugging the first half of Uld and ICC. Same thing doesn't happen now a days with ToT, or even MSV. Pugs are there, but they are rarer. There needs to be a middle ground for people who legitimately don't have enough time to follow a raid schedule, but wan't more to raiding than the botfest that is LFR.

Play your garbage LFR and be happy with it. Bad enough that Blizzard introduced that shitfest, the game doesn't need any more dumbing down