In Cata, at the start I think they got the 5 mans right.

[Deleted]

problem with cataclysm is that player jumped straight from hitting 85 to heroics, without bothering with normal first. And what's worse, often by cheating the LFG system.

But the same is the case for MoP.

[Duronos]

BC heroics being harder, doesn't make Cataclysm heroics too easy. LFG does not "dumb down" the difficulty. That was the problem with the Cata heroics - that they were too hard for LFG.

I said playerbase not difficulty.

[delus]

Why aren't these people running challenge modes if they want a 5 man challenge? Is it because their gear is scaled down and they don't get to see big numbers? Is it because they have to actually organize a group themselves?

[Deleted]

I said playerbase not difficulty.

K, nevermind.

[rayden54]

The simple fact is Blizzard had so many complaints about the difficulty they changed them very fast, which is uncharacteristic of the company. Regardless of your opinions about Blizzard, nerfing the dungeons as much and as quickly as they did when every other change on that magnitude takes them months to implement surely tells you something about the pressure they were under to do it.

Wonder how much of that pressure was because of their "Heroics are hard. L2P blog."

[Duronos]

K, nevermind.

Sorry if that post came off as too harsh, I didn't put an emoticon next to it to keep it more lighthearted... If you think about it playerbase can define difficulty.

[wow2011]

Why aren't these people running challenge modes if they want a 5 man challenge? Is it because their gear is scaled down and they don't get to see big numbers? Is it because they have to actually organize a group themselves?

The main reason is because there is no gear to be gained. CM has no purpose besides getting silver/gold. If CM dropped heroic dungeon level loot on a less RNG basis then I can definitely see people actually gearing up with CM.

[Tziva]

I think Mists got it best.

Burning Crusades were too hard, time-consuming or too finicky on comp (paladin tank, lots of CC), Wrath's were so easy you did nothing but AoE which wasn't especially fun. Cata's were better than either of those, but I think too difficult before we overgeared them. I especially hated them as a healer; the mana changes coupled with the high damage of NPC abilities on fresh 85s meant that we got to be the undeserving scapegoats through a lot of bad groups. Mists were really the best balance for me.

I'm not looking for challenging from five man heroics. I dislike ones that are long or time consuming. I would rather burn through five mans quickly and have a good (but relaxed) time doing it, and move on to the real challenge in raiding. I know it's a delicate balance between brainless zerg and overly difficult but the best example of my preferred balance is this expansion.

[MoanaLisa]

Why aren't these people running challenge modes if they want a 5 man challenge? Is it because their gear is scaled down and they don't get to see big numbers? Is it because they have to actually organize a group themselves?

A lot of people who think that difficult dungeons are the way things should go aren't terribly interested in a challenge simply for its own sake unless there's some loot associated with it. Someone earlier in the thread had the idea to change challenge mode dungeons to drop loot and that's not bad except for a couple of things:

1. Leave the timed runs as they are for anyone that wants to do that. Design them around the timed run in fact.
2. Clone the dungeon exactly, strip off the timed run part and add a loot table of some sort at the end. Loot distributed in the normal way though; not cherry-picked. That just leads to people not running them after the first time or two. You'd still need to have a pre-made group for this.

And there you go: increased difficulty and some sort of reward. No clue whether or not this would catch on. My suspicion is that it wouldn't really unless they updated the loot tables for every new tier. Which I suppose they could do if it was popular enough.

[delus]

The main reason is because there is no gear to be gained. CM has no purpose besides getting silver/gold. If CM dropped heroic dungeon level loot on a less RNG basis then I can definitely see people actually gearing up with CM.

What about the extra valor CM awards?

[Duronos]

I think Mists got it best.

Burning Crusades were too hard, time-consuming or too finicky on comp (paladin tank, lots of CC), Wrath's were so easy you did nothing but AoE which wasn't especially fun. Cata's were better than either of those, but I think too difficult before we overgeared them. I especially hated them as a healer; the mana changes coupled with the high damage of NPC abilities on fresh 85s meant that we got to be the undeserving scapegoats through a lot of bad groups. Mists were really the best balance for me.

I'm not looking for challenging from five man heroics. I dislike ones that are long or time consuming. I would rather burn through five mans quickly and have a good (but relaxed) time doing it, and move on to the real challenge in raiding. I know it's a delicate balance between brainless zerg and overly difficult but the best example of my preferred balance is this expansion.

I honestly feel bored during it, I understand how you could feel relaxed but that kind of stuff is boring to me, I don't feel a sense of adventure/progression. BC hit the nail on the spot with that, heroics were end-game for many (I've state this a couple times) and if you made it past that after a few months or so then you had your next end-game adventure which was raiding etc.

[killidan]

A lot of people who think that difficult dungeons are the way things should go aren't terribly interested in a challenge simply for its own sake unless there's some loot associated with it. Someone earlier in the thread had the idea to change challenge mode dungeons to drop loot and that's not bad except for a couple of things:

1. Leave the timed runs as they are for anyone that wants to do that. Design them around the timed run in fact.
2. Clone the dungeon exactly, strip off the timed run part and add a loot table of some sort at the end. Loot distributed in the normal way though; not cherry-picked. That just leads to people not running them after the first time or two. You'd still need to have a pre-made group for this.

And there you go: increased difficulty and some sort of reward. No clue whether or not this would catch on. My suspicion is that it wouldn't really unless they updated the loot tables for every new tier. Which I suppose they could do if it was popular enough.

That would be good. If it is difficult and if CMs let me to gear from normals into tier 1 raid, then I don't mind not repeating them when moving onto next tiers of raids.

I did not do heroics in BC forever either. Before/during Karazhan/SSC/TK. After two raid tiers heroics were irrelevant to me.

[Grogo]

Yes, let's go back to the BC and/or Cata model, where:

- I never got to do the BC heroics, because my main was a dps warrior at that time, which meant you didn't get in heroic groups since you couldn't CC worth squat.
- As one of two people who dinged 85 quickly that could heal, I would be going OOM on trash pulls fighting to keep people alive. Sure, the new healing model was a factor in this, but at that time people would take so much damage in relation to their health (since we were are all barely geared to get into heroics at the time) that the cheap efficient heals were not enough to keep people alive.

Now I happily CL cleave these 5 mans into oblivion whenever I need to work on VP cap or JP for heirlooms or whatever.

How utterly boring it must be to zerg everything no problem, that is such a disappointing direction I wish Blizzard had never implemented.

[delus]

I believe the CM reward cache will have a chance at 516 items next patch too. I don't believe they should ever offer gear on par with normal mode raids outside of the valor grind though.

[Grogo]

Cata dungeons sucked, they were the main reason why people left that cursed expansion.

MoP dungeons are way better, but Blizzard after fixing 5 mans made the really stupid decision to stop making them.

I want Wrath/MoP dungeon difficulty, with rep tabards and new dungeons in almost every patch with catch up gear, exactly like they did in Wrath, which was where they got them right.

Aren't people leaving MOP at a way faster rate that Cata? MOP dungeons are a disgrace and an insult imo.

[wow2011]

What about the extra valor CM awards?

90 valor isn't enough for people to run on a consistent basis. Blizzard says CM is the fastest way to get VP but that is 100% bogus unless you are doing CM under gold timer. Fact is, if you are simply going for valor, getting 4 ilvl 500+ dps + 1 healer and spam LFG will be much much faster than CM in terms of valor gained (assuming you don't know how to do CM gold run).

If you don't know how to do CM gold then you might be looking at 45min for a tiny 60 valor. What Blizz says about CM being best VP source is really only true for groups that have already done the gold runs.

[Duronos]

Burns down to preferences.

If it is all about raiding for you...I think LK 5 mans got it right. You spend some fun and fast 15 mins to do your daily run and be done with it.
If it is about dungeon crawls for hours, Classic got it right...UBRS, LBRS etc
If it is about tearing your hair out in 5 mans even when you already progress in raids already, the timed runs in TBC probably were your thang...

Oh you forgot the best one, BRD!

[killidan]

I believe the CM reward cache will have a chance at 516 items next patch too. I don't believe they should ever offer gear on par with normal mode raids outside of the valor grind though.

I agree 5man dungeons or cm should never give as good loot as a raid.

But I also think 10mans should neer give as good loot as 25mans.

[delus]

I agree 5man dungeons or cm should never give as good loot as a raid.

But I also think 10mans should neer give as good loot as 25mans.

They are never going to get that genie back in the bottle without pissing off the majority of the playerbase. Thunderforged is the best they could do.

[Maelle]

Most BC heroics were not that hard.

A few were.

People only did the hard ones mostly if someone needed a specific attunement quest there, otherwise almost every group did the same handful of the easier faster ones.

Good luck getting a group if your class (dps) had no proper CC, or "unconventional" CC like shadow priests MC.

Ah yes, the perfect system.