How Would You Make WoW Harder?

[Gilian]

I think wow has enough hard modes, especially if you include competing against other players.
Heroic Raids
Race to World/region/realm firsts
PvP Ladders
Brawler's guild
Challenge Modes
Challenge Modes Rankings

To be honest, I think most people don't care about the skill cap, but rather about the low skill floor...or the ease at which everyone can attain the same rewards. I don't see it as an issue...but if you really want to solve it, Blizzard can implement a small change:

With the proving grounds feature coming soon, simply add an achievement (that grants the title 'The Invincible' and nothing else). The achievement would require you to defeat a huge amount of waves in endless mode. Make it something that probably nobody would get for an year...perhaps maybe only 2-3 players would manage it before the next expansion launches. Make it brutal, make it insanely hard.
That's it. Whenever someone then says the game is easy, ask them to link their Invincible title. It's a solo mode instance (so no excuses of I need a hardcore guild for it...or that it requires grinding for a thousand hours). Ideally make that particular mode in such a way that it scales your gear.
Let people bash their heads against the wall. Let people realize that there is something that is extremely tough to achieve and something that they can't blame on lack of guild/time/gear. Don't make it award anything that is critical to progression (just a title is enough imo).

What's to lose? A situation where nobody has 100% achievements? Where there is always one elusive achievement that you just can't seem to get?

This is a big misunderstanding. It's not about how hard one part of the game is, it's the entire game. How the game is set up now makes no sense. You have easy content all the way up to normal raids which are suddenly, compared to the rest of the game, very hard.

Having done some extreme achievement like you mention doesn't change someones opinion on the rest of the game. Heroic dungeons are still very easy, easier than ever before, and that doesn't change when there is an extreme endless mode proving grounds.

[Kamiyomi]

Everything should not be designed assuming a person has never played the game before. It will lose its longevity.

True. But that's not what Im advocating at all. Im simply trying to say that we shouldnt make the 'easy' parts harder, otherwise the game loses longevity by a constantly decreasing player base. I think there should just be more "harder" options.

[Pua]

I disagree with this part here. I truly think this is one of those parts thats "easier" but not necessarily "easy". Some aspects are certainly trivialized, especially when someone with good gear and decent amounts of skill comes along. but Ive found its the knowledge of how to THINK is what it is. We have all trained it, but new players havent. I agree with how you speak of all the extra time required, outside of playing. This is the part that bothers me the most. I read forums because i like the discussion not because i seek the best gearing strategy. I find that information because I enjoy those discussions. But many people cant be asked to READ to play a game. Why do you think the booklets in video game cases have disappeared.

I think that's a valid criticism of what I said, but it still gets back to the difficulty "curve". I recall Kripparrian's commentary on the Iron Man Challenge (he was the first to manage it) and he spoke of the Mount Hyjal mobs in Cataclysm, and how abnormally brutal they were. This is the problem; there isn't a difficulty curve for the new or more casually orientated player, it's a cliff. Yet, Krip's testimony has to be measured against what the developers expect people to be wearing when they hit Mount Hyjal because the IMC was very specific in that regard.

This is where the developers first got it wrong.

Sure, if you run into those mobs in raiding gear from WotLK, then you're not going to have much in the way of trouble. But once you level an alt through, who's wearing levelling rubbish, you find out it's more challenging than you thought.

I suppose I'm trying to say that the subject isn't cut and dried, and that people really need to stop asserting that it is.

[chrisisvacant]

Love it when the people I indirectly refer to in my posts identify themselves.

Just bringing you back to reality. You can beg, pray, plead, and add it into every single post you make if you want.

LFR isn't going anywhere. Nor does it change the difficulty of hard modes. #sorryboutit

[Kamiyomi]

I agree. It does come back to the curve and thats why I want more of this "harder" material. To BUILD the curve. and then to Extend it. This is one reason im looking forward to proving grounds. This is a place, outside of soloing actual content, that lets me push my skills to the limit, regardless of where my skills are. With soloing Content I can try from super easy (deadmines) to as hard as I want (ToT Heroic, though I'd doubtless fail at this). Proving grounds should help build this curve.
Id also like to see more server grouping. Im fine with LFD/LFR pooling from other servers but i'd like it if it had server grouping preferred to build more server community. This stems primarily from my vanilla days when i knew literally every 60 hunter on the server, but the community has grown and the context is different now.

[Keoren]

Im simply trying to say that we shouldnt make the 'easy' parts harder

I could argue one way or the other depending on the part we're talking about, really. There are many inconsistencies and even weird designs.

I think there should just be more "harder" options.

This is the safest way to handle the challenging content. I favour the players having options in general. The sandbox approach is fun.

[Pua]

True. But that's not what Im advocating at all. Im simply trying to say that we shouldnt make the 'easy' parts harder, otherwise the game loses longevity by a constantly decreasing player base. I think there should just be more "harder" options.

I think the game needs to be harder on an increasing scale, rather than simply getting "hard options" when you hit the level cap. Honestly, making the levelling experience largely disposable isn't great for immersion, and that plays a bigger part in enjoyment than many realise.

Look at it like this:

Early on, a class will get to level 10 and get some spec-defining talents - this was a great development move in Cataclysm. Let's take Arms as an example, and Mortal Strike; this attack forms the backbone of an endgame rotation, so learning it early is cool and introduces the player to their priority. Then, in another five levels or so, Overpower is introduced and that forms the next part of the rotation. Give it another bit of time before Slam is introduced, and the building blocks of the Arms rotation are all in place before Colossus Smash is learned.

From there, you want to start tossing in things like Taste for Blood or Sudden Death as these introduce different ways of using the same buttons, and players gradually get used to them. So, relatively early in the game, an entire rotation can be built from a class, as well as a proc that makes the transition to endgame more seamless. Rather than simply overwhelming a player over the course of two to three levels with multiple skills they try to learn all at once (and some classes are really bad for this), we're introducing those abilities relatively early and building upon them.

Finally, important zone quests or class quests can throw in a need to do things like move from void zones, stun/interrupt or kite a mob assuming the class being tested has a means of doing so. These don't have to be brutally difficult, but hard enough that success isn't guaranteed.

Come endgame, I think we'd be surprised just what an average player would end up capable of doing.

[Kamiyomi]

With a purely progressive and teaching leveling design that makes a lot of sense and would breed more skilled players across the board, but like you said, it would need a complete rework. With multiple class quests, interspersed with regular leveling, tuned to level and desired skill, breaking questing story chains and leading to a broken immersion in other ways. I'd LOVE for there to be 90, or i guess 89 different class specific quests per class and thats leveling. Then the rest of the world is tuned to 90. and built around that. But thats not WoW. Its not what WoW should be either. But it would make for a great game. Im trying to think of ways to make WoW better than what it is. I do think more mini-boss type mobs should be available while leveling and almost forced at some points to encourage skillful leveling.

After reading through the statistics portion of your In depth look at normal raiding post and thinking on this thread it scares me to even suggest taking my girlfriend into normal modes. Not because Its too hard for me or my group, but because of how overwhelming it all would be. This really is making me change my stance on the difficult of LFR and pre-LFR materials, mainly Proving Grounds. These need to be harder. Id like to see the damage deltas between normal and LFR, but truly its staggering to see the difference between normals and LFRs. I should be able to solo Stone Guards at my current gear level, but that still puts me ALONE ahead of 96% of the player base, and they get to group. Baffling. The curve is steeper than i thought. and This is making me think that proving grounds should be one of the biggest focuses for blizz right now. Our raids are HARD, like really hard. Let alone heroics. We see so many of people calling raids "easy" here on the forums, but this is less than the 1% that has beaten Lei Shen. Shit. It makes me think the game needs to be easier, but personally thats not what I want. We need learning curves back. I think we all got spoiled here. We got to learn.

And then there is Flex, which might be the perfect accouterment to proving grounds in terms of bridging the gap and smoothing the curve. But we'll see. Im hoping WoW doesnt die but I think if raiding as a whole dies WoW will too; Ill move on but it will be a sad day for me to cancel my sub, considering how much i like WoW right now. Its not like ICC was for me, a time where I got bored. And with so few meeting the "standards" to try and raid even, it seems, that makes me really think we need A LOT more of this "harder" content. But I dont mean make what we have harder. I mean add more that is "harder" and use it to build a bridge from LFR to normal raiding. And beef up guild communities.

[Osmeric]

Why do you hate people so much who do harder content?

What, making people pay for what they get is hating them?

If anything, my proposal would provide those people with more of a game that they'd want, since Blizzard would have a stronger incentive to serve them.

Assuming, of course, that those people really can pay their way. If they can't, then you're objecting to having their free ride on other players' money ended. Perhaps you meant to ask why I dislike freeloaders.

[Kamiyomi]

What, making people pay for what they get is hating them?

then you're objecting to having their free ride on other players' money ended.

The problem comes more from the fact that you are making them pay EXTRA for simply wanting different features. They also arent "freeloading" as they are paying the exact same $15 (or equiv) which would mean anyone playing would be freeloading off others' by your logic

[Deleted]

so if you don't have time to do hard modes but still think normals and other stuff is to easy, what do you say to those people?, You can say a game is to easy withouth beating the hard mode.

Please stop being so arrogant, the game is easy, even hard modes.

I'm sorry but what now?

Under what frame of reference is it possible for you to say that?

The only smart thing you could say without trying them is "I don't know".

In a raid, the difficulty highly depends on your mates. Poorly stuffed mates : impossible challenge ; decently stuffed : easy challenge.
I suppose the fact that it always is either impossible or easy is his point and I wouldn't agree after a thousand wipes on different encounters while we all were approximately geared to succeed on the first try (Tortos nm, Dark Animus HM, Iron Qon HM and Lei Shen HM especially) . I suppose most people that find the game (in PvE) easy either are good players with good stuff and good mates or guilds that don't have the ambition to try an encounter before an overgeared situation. Look at Method's first on Durumu : they actually won after the enrage (ie : OS of the raid) so they all died but still have had the loot. With the stuff they had, not many people would've tryed him, avoiding such a difficulty.

Blizzard just gave the possibility to bypass the hard phases of a progress at the expense of a better stuff as well as at the cost of a weaker progression. People that won't rush the way other great guilds do will find it easier because the difficulty is not absolute but relative. And don't argue that these guilds have a better geared for having cleaned the other raids : they just tend to clear each boss as soon as they mathematically can or so, which is not a question of stuff but mentality.

[Osmeric]

The problem comes more from the fact that you are making them pay EXTRA for simply wanting different features. They also arent "freeloading" as they are paying the exact same $15 (or equiv) which would mean anyone playing would be freeloading off others' by your logic

Restaurants with a la carte menus hate their customers, right?

OMG I have to pay more for dessert!!

Hard mode raids are exactly analogous to optional courses at a meal. Of course it's reasonable to charge more for access to them.

[Deleted]

Keys to enter Heroics, wich may require certain rep status to start of with. (but you can get tabards to run normals to gain rep & gear / do dailys for the rep hub)
Attunements to enter raids, involving epic quest lines people get hyped up to get to the raid as soon as they can.
Certain bosses that require seperate items to summon, also require certain quest lines that you need to progress in the raids for to unlock.
Thats all i can think of atm, man i must miss TBC allot it seems :P

[Kamiyomi]

Restaurants with a la carte menus hate their customers, right?

OMG I have to pay more for dessert!!

Hard mode raids are exactly analogous to optional courses at a meal. Of course it's reasonable to charge more for access to them.

I dont find this to be a particularly compelling argument as the reverse is equally true. "leveling/dungeons/pvp/raiding at all/anything this game has to offer is exactly analogous to optional courses at a meal. Of course it's reasonable to charge more for access to them."

[Deleted]

I'd remove the repair vendor. When your armor is broken, you have to get new gear.

[Osmeric]

I dont find this to be a particularly compelling argument as the reverse is equally true. "leveling/dungeons/pvp/raiding at all/anything this game has to offer is exactly analogous to optional courses at a meal. Of course it's reasonable to charge more for access to them."

Good idea! Let players pay for access to the content they want, and let their dollars vote.

Of course this is the ultimate source of the angst. I doubt very many dollars would vote for hard mode raid content.

[Kamiyomi]

i doubt very many dollars would be voted period. I know mine would not be on that model.

[palamanian]

Keys to enter Heroics, wich may require certain rep status to start of with. (but you can get tabards to run normals to gain rep & gear / do dailys for the rep hub)
Attunements to enter raids, involving epic quest lines people get hyped up to get to the raid as soon as they can.
Certain bosses that require seperate items to summon, also require certain quest lines that you need to progress in the raids for to unlock.
Thats all i can think of atm, man i must miss TBC allot it seems :P

Perhaps you are confusing hard with time consuming, sure certain parts of TBC were hard, but most of what you mentioned just took an absurd amount of time.

OT: The question is kind of vague in my opinion. To be honest, besides making bosses hit harder, MoP is fairly hard at the moment.

[DeadmanWalking]

If you havent beaten Ra-den on Hard mode then obviously the game is not too hard for you.

There already has been a hardcore worldfirst guild that has disbanded after dowining Ra-den because the requirements to stay at the front of the pack are too high for them especially since content drops so fast. Thus its too hard for them to stay at the front of the pack.

The only people that think the game is too easy are people who quit the game because they couldn't handle changes in their environment or are trying to close off the game to people they feel undesirable when their behavior alone is undesirable. To me it is like burning a cross or a church to show that undesirable people will not be tolerated when its the toxic hateful individual whose presence and mindset that is socially undesirable.

[Aventhos]

Create 'hard-mode' servers, or whatever name you want to give them.

Flat 150% increase in mob strength
50% + in required experience per level
No LFG or LFR
No crossrealm features of any kind
Weak, slow spawning guards
Flying mounts have a 10 second cast time and require to be out of pvp combat for 2 minutes
No transfer services of any kind, must level up from beginning if start on server
No badges / points / valor of any kind
Raiding is 25 man only

This isnt harder just more inconvenient, and the server would struggle with low population. Hardcore raiders that only do HM pve wont be there. Hardcore PvPer will only be there long enough to reaise there is no point being there as there is nobody to pick on as no normal soul (aka the majority) is going to level a toon with these limitations.