Did people get better or content easier?

[Lilly32]

When I played during TBC hardly anyone PuGed anything unless it was Kara or ZA. Mt Hyjal, BT, and Sunwell were pretty much a no go. Then during Wrath it seems like pug raids took off more. People were always doing Maly and Sarth during Tier 7. Saw a few Ulduar ones getting started but usually only did first 4. ToC was pugged often but usually most of them fell apart at Faction Champs for some reason. By the end of Wrath the PuG I ran with was 10/12 for HMs, 25 man of course, which was better than some entire servers. Also lots of other PuGs doing 2 or 3 HMs but everything was at least a full clear. When Cata launched I was seeing BWD and BoT pug raids going after the first week. Havent paid much attention during MoP but Im sure it was the same. So have players gotten better or has content just gotten easier?

[Deleted]

Raiders have improved.
Raids are technically more challenging nowadays and aren't pugged as much because they require a level of competence and communication.
Flex raiding next patch will (hopefully) bring back some of that "10man ICC" feel.

[durrtygoodz]

When I played during TBC hardly anyone PuGed anything unless it was Kara or ZA. Mt Hyjal, BT, and Sunwell were pretty much a no go. Then during Wrath it seems like pug raids took off more. People were always doing Maly and Sarth during Tier 7. Saw a few Ulduar ones getting started but usually only did first 4. ToC was pugged often but usually most of them fell apart at Faction Champs for some reason. By the end of Wrath the PuG I ran with was 10/12 for HMs, 25 man of course, which was better than some entire servers. Also lots of other PuGs doing 2 or 3 HMs but everything was at least a full clear. When Cata launched I was seeing BWD and BoT pug raids going after the first week. Havent paid much attention during MoP but Im sure it was the same. So have players gotten better or has content just gotten easier?

In tier 7 people went for Maly/OS because they were one boss raids. It's quick to do.
Same goes for ToC. It was a 5 boss instance and it's easier to get a PuG group for shorter raids. Most players in a PuG get bored after an hour so because they are not there for progress, just a quick clear.
ICC was nerfed to fuck so I'm not surprised you could do 10 hardmodes by the time the 30% nerf was out. Or did it hit 35 eventually?
I can't say anything for BWD/BoT the first weeks of Cata because I personally never saw it. Same for MoP really. Didn't see much MSV until it had been out a while and it was mostly alt runs.

Also maybe I have the raid model wrong for BC but T6 raids and Sunwell were pretty much out of reach for anyone who wasnt in a guild progressing at that level anyway, right? Now, whenever a patch hits, the new raid is current content and the old is obsolete. That's a pretty big reason.

Quick edit: Wanted to add LFR in here as well. LFR shows people the bosses and gives people gear so the normal modes are more accessible.

[Haywire5714]

When Cata launched I was seeing BWD and BoT pug raids going after the first week.

I never saw anything close to this happening; the pugs I ran couldn't make it passed Magmaw/Omnitron until at least a month or two into the tier. I play on a decently populated server so ya, idk.

So have players gotten better or has content just gotten easier?

I think the normal/heroic mode raiding community has improved because of their experience raiding and their time spent playing the game; Blizzard releasing harder and harder raid content is a testament to this. However I don't think the skill of casual guilds and/or pugs has improved or diminished in any way; they still struggle with clearing normal mode content just as they did with tier 11 and 12, along with any difficult tiers before them. It's worth noting that there are still plenty of bad players that continue to be bad.

[Aquamonkey]

There are also better catchup mechanisms now. It's easier to get raid-viable gear.

[Tziva]

Raiders are better. We're building off of eight years of experience.

I think encounters overall have gone more complicated, not easier.

[nekobaka]

The players are generally more experienced and the tools and resources are better. New players who are willing to use the resources and want to get better can do such with the plethora of quality information out there compared to BC. Sadly the pre-raid experience and test of skills for the basics of raiding are severely lacking this expansions so it leaves more up to imagination.

Once upon a time, dispelling a debuff on all raid members was the only mechanic to a raid boss, and that was actually semi hard. Now that's just something that's normal in many encounters along with moving, dodging, switching, interrupting, dispelling. Each of those used to be an entire encounter or one of two to three mechanics to a fight.

Coordination of more healers in a 40 man along with more players to dispel along with less available mana and time wasted dispelling the wrong person or too early could end up getting the player with the debuff dead or even killing the raid. Most guilds now are ten man which makes dispelling fairly trivial to coordinate along with better UI which makes a huge difference from the way the UI worked back in Classic.

[Griffter]

Most bosses of recent tiers require WAY more memorization and coordination than even a couple expansions ago. When I started raiding (ICC), you could explain most boss fights to a new raider in just a few sentences. Now it's "Okay take a 5 minute raid break while I explain this 5 phase fight to the new guy" on every single fight.

[Asics]

By and large people have gotten better and there is much more information. In addition, classes are designed better and more "efficient" if you will.

[Durandro]

Most bosses of recent tiers require WAY more memorization and coordination than even a couple expansions ago.

Very true. Even a simple fight like Heroic Jin'rokh requires people to pay attention (mostly during the Lightning Storm). Enrage timers are nearly always something to be concerned about during progression.

Going back just to Dragon Soul, one of the harder bosses to learn was Heroic Yor'sahj - and basically the whole fight was dependant solely on the healers. The job of the tanks and dps were extremely simple. Yet it was still a hard fight because of the sheer pressure on the healers. Though Zon'ozz was a lot worse, and again was reliant on the healers being able to keep everyone alive. Come to think of it, Dragon Soul was nearly all about the healers...

[Sentinel]

There are also better catchup mechanisms now. It's easier to get raid-viable gear.

This especially. Back when tokens were once-a-day from dungeons instead of the many ways you can get VP and even JP today. With enough heroic dungeon runs you can get enough gear to get into ToT LFR in a single day (through JP>Honor conversion and LFR luck), then it's just a matter of farming for a few weeks for both VP gear/upgrades and LFR drops to get into raiding, and you can also do this any time of the week instead of missing a day and being S O L.

[Deleted]

Imo a bit of both. The raiders have gotten better and that could be down to making it easier to catch up to the current content.

[reckoner04]

- players got better
- content got harder
- addons got better
- raids got less buggy
- gearing up got easier
- itemisation got better
- information on the web about raids/encounters got better
- information on the web about classes/specs got better

Everything but the seconds bullet point result in raids getting cleared faster/by pugs.

[Thimagryn]

Raiders are getting better, but the content has gotten easier in some areas as well. I would say the game is still just as difficult for someone completely new to the game/genre as it would have been for us when we started. The difference is there is a wealth of information and tools available to point us in the right direction, where before we would have to rely on external sources and word of mouth to figure out the best way to do anything.