Has the game become harder than TBC?

[Daffan]

Comparing 5mans now to 5mans then is also rediculous. Do you actually consider challenge modes to be easier than TBC heroics? Because if you're going to compare 5man to 5man, use the highest difficulty settings, not the highest vs the middle to make an argument to your favor. I played my friends warrior, did SHIT dps with it since I hadn't touched warriors before, but we still made it very easily. This was on a char that didn't raid, mind you.

Raids back then were a joke, there were very few mechanics and the reason you wiped was because there was some idiot standing in fire or healers not being able to heal properly.

using invis and diving archer packs, too bad nobody ever does CM's because its vanity.

I wonder if it was possible to smash out a dungeon like Magisters Terrace with crappy gear.

It's very amusing to see how many people claim "u had to cc" was some form of mental challenge...it's a click of a button. If you failed at that, then yes TBC was surely hard for you. That was about the pinnacle of difficulty back then, pull the mobs out of rooms and "omg cc!". There was nothing like the complex movement mechanics u often get now, or overlapping, annoying abilities u have to react to in split seconds.

Yes the game was hard back then, because people were BAD for the most part. Players that nowadays end up in LFR, you would often see in low-mid range raids in Classic and TBC - that's how bad. As impressively demontrated by all the "u had to use Polymorph man, it was badass".

Yeah the best is ranged dps get to turret now and maybe move while melee dps are still jumping hoops (implying ranged did cc compared to turret now)

Even without CC the mobs were tougher leading to a better use of abilities for tanks and healers, and maybe some stuns and other kiting for other classes. Right now it's much worse than TBC in anything other than raid content (as i quoted someone else saying the same above) AOE AOE AOE makes the game a grindfest in dungeons, press X for chain lightning on queue.

With all the QQ threads about noobs not getting their fix of raid content they should be also be upset that the other content is so meaningless (Every day is some new thread on mmo-champ about how they cant raid)

[Deleted]

I'd say the mechanics (in general) have got harder, but the gear checks and requirements have become more relaxed.

So many times in Vanilla/TBC I remember wiping because quite simply either our tank, healer or DPS didn't have good enough gear so we had to keep hitting our heads against it until we got everything perfect or had to wipe for a couple weeks until our raid got better gear.

Now raiding seems to be more about the execution of the boss as opposed to gear checks (in general).

I do feel like the player base is more skilled in general now too, I guess they're used to mechanics more now.

This designed on a few bosses, but very much intented. They were called gearcheck bosses for a reason. Bloodboil was one in TBC...I can't remember the other gearcheck bosses I'm afraid.

[Deleted]

I'd say challenge modes are on part with TBC heroics...and then I'm obviously not talking about Slave Pens or the lower end heroics. :P Challenge modes were a fun design, but the reward isn't enough to draw me in. Prob because I play a shaman and the set sucks ass for a shaman. I'd have jumped right in as a paladin for example.
.

Not if you're orc or troll shaman : P I did cms twice as mage and as shaman, and I'd say your comparison is true (apart from the time pressure obviously) I also remember ZA and ZG revamped being almost a 4 hour adventure with some pugs when they were "fresh". But I dont think they were hard or demanding, players wo need gear from heroics just usually (not always!) fit a certain stereotype.

[Deleted]

And you actually had to learn your class, what you could and couldn't do. Plan ahead and feel the power of your character. There were bad players but not nearly as many as today, because in todays world you succeed by failing (afk, white hitting, auto follow, free epics, free loot).

Shadow Labs Mind control boss, and add rooms. Shattered Halls speeding...

Arcatraz...hoooly

Nightmares! But fun, played a spriest and got to do some mind controlling for extra power (What is mind control these days?)

Thats really true. The game should punish the bad plays a bit more. Cleaning Shattered halls for the first time without overgear was hard, but man you feel great .
when you conquered it.

I played till wrath and i resubbed right after the SOO path. Leveled a warr to 90. Some changes are nice but the supression of the threat and the stance dance are a bit sad.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Obviously. Just need to check raid mechanics now vs then to figure that out. Challenge has moved away from areas where it wasn't needed/popular to begin with. Saying it was more difficult in TBC is like claiming Legend of Zelda for nintendo was more challenging than Zelda for Wii. Outdated mechanics and overly extended gameplay for the sake of it taking time does not equal difficulty.

Also the people claiming you had to learn your class more back then than you do today...just, get over it. That's just stupid thinking. The game evolves together with the classes, and you believe it took more back then even though there were fewer abilities to consider?

Newsflash for you then. NOBODY can afk or badplay their way to top performance today, no matter how much you want to think so.

[miffy23]

If that is the case then you were just in a shit guild sorry.

Leaders not competent enough to expand to 25 man and push their raiders into reading class/encounter guides and raiders not intelligent enough to do it themselves

You realize you just described 90% of the community? Most guilds raiding normal and maybe just doing a few heroic encounters at the end of the tier (which is already a TINY minority of the community) is exactly like this. TBC nostalgia is always based on ignoring that fact.

Everyone keeps basing their answers off the bleeding edge progress guilds, when it fact what was accurate for the vast majority is what counts. It doesn't matter if a fight was harder or easier for the first 100 people or so that fought an encounter, when the 100.000 that came after had a different experience. Heck, it was openly known that many fights in TBC weren't even properly done or tested by the time the top guilds reached them, and so had to contend with major bugs half the time. That hardly compares to the average raid guild that reaches the boss in the proper overall gear, when the boss is working as intended. The same is still accurate today.

The MMO Champ community seems to speak purely from the biased perspective of a hardcore raider, which is highly evident once more. The funny thing is many just regurgitate these opinions as facts without having either experienced these aspects themselves or having actual knowledge themselves.

[Daffan]

You realize you just described 90% of the community? Most guilds raiding normal and maybe just doing a few heroic encounters at the end of the tier (which is already a TINY minority of the community) is exactly like this. TBC nostalgia is always based on ignoring that fact.

Everyone keeps basing their answers off the bleeding edge progress guilds, when it fact what was accurate for the vast majority is what counts. It doesn't matter if a fight was harder or easier for the first 100 people or so that fought an encounter, when the 100.000 that came after had a different experience. Heck, it was openly known that many fights in TBC weren't even properly done or tested by the time the top guilds reached them, and so had to contend with major bugs half the time. That hardly compares to the average raid guild that reaches the boss in the proper overall gear, when the boss is working as intended. The same is still accurate today.

The MMO Champ community seems to speak purely from the biased perspective of a hardcore raider, which is highly evident once more. The funny thing is many just regurgitate these opinions as facts without having either experienced these aspects themselves or having actual knowledge themselves.

Well i wrote

"Right now it's much worse than TBC in anything other than raid content (as i quoted someone else saying the same above) AOE AOE AOE makes the game a grindfest in dungeons, press X for chain lightning on queue.

With all the QQ threads about noobs not getting their fix of raid content they should be also be upset that the other content is so meaningless (Every day is some new thread on mmo-champ about how they cant raid)"

[worsthitmanNa]

using invis and diving archer packs, too bad nobody ever does CM's because its vanity.

I wonder if it was possible to smash out a dungeon like Magisters Terrace with crappy gear.




Yeah the best is ranged dps get to turret now and maybe move while melee dps are still jumping hoops (implying ranged did cc compared to turret now)

Even without CC the mobs were tougher leading to a better use of abilities for tanks and healers, and maybe some stuns and other kiting for other classes. Right now it's much worse than TBC in anything other than raid content (as i quoted someone else saying the same above) AOE AOE AOE makes the game a grindfest in dungeons, press X for chain lightning on queue.

With all the QQ threads about noobs not getting their fix of raid content they should be also be upset that the other content is so meaningless (Every day is some new thread on mmo-champ about how they cant raid)

Challenge modes require you to kill a certain amount of mobs and you need to time your defensive cool downs correctly as well. Compare bc heroics to challenge modes btw mop heroics are suppose to be the new normal.

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Thats really true. The game should punish the bad plays a bit more. Cleaning Shattered halls for the first time without overgear was hard, but man you feel great .
when you conquered it.

I played till wrath and i resubbed right after the SOO path. Leveled a warr to 90. Some changes are nice but the supression of the threat and the stance dance are a bit sad.

It still does bad players are stuck in Lfr and normal mode.

[miffy23]

using invis and diving archer packs, too bad nobody ever does CM's because its vanity.

I wonder if it was possible to smash out a dungeon like Magisters Terrace with crappy gear.




Yeah the best is ranged dps get to turret now and maybe move while melee dps are still jumping hoops (implying ranged did cc compared to turret now)

Even without CC the mobs were tougher leading to a better use of abilities for tanks and healers, and maybe some stuns and other kiting for other classes. Right now it's much worse than TBC in anything other than raid content (as i quoted someone else saying the same above) AOE AOE AOE makes the game a grindfest in dungeons, press X for chain lightning on queue.

With all the QQ threads about noobs not getting their fix of raid content they should be also be upset that the other content is so meaningless (Every day is some new thread on mmo-champ about how they cant raid)

I do not consider having to CC half a group you pull because u couldn't heal through the damage otherwise difficult, i don't think anyone should. It was a simple matter of controlling your pulls, nothing more. If you overpull now you still have the same issue. Apart from the fact that I would never compare 5 mans or any other content than raiding. What's the point?

Again, the mobs being tuned tighter for CC and controlled pulls does not a hard fight make. Was it harder for the average player back then? Yes, definitely, mostly due to the insane amount of time involved in getting the gear necessary to actually do basic things, and gating. Were the raids harder? By god no, in no way, exactly the opposite.

Also, Challenge Modes are exactly this. Challenge Mode is arguably as hard, if not way harder (keeping the timer to beat in mind) than TBC heroics ever were. A fact conveniently ignored by the majority of haters. The answer never changes - the difficult content is there - it's harder than ever before.

[wych]

You realize you just described 90% of the community? Most guilds raiding normal and maybe just doing a few heroic encounters at the end of the tier (which is already a TINY minority of the community) is exactly like this. TBC nostalgia is always based on ignoring that fact.

Everyone keeps basing their answers off the bleeding edge progress guilds, when it fact what was accurate for the vast majority is what counts. It doesn't matter if a fight was harder or easier for the first 100 people or so that fought an encounter, when the 100.000 that came after had a different experience. Heck, it was openly known that many fights in TBC weren't even properly done or tested by the time the top guilds reached them, and so had to contend with major bugs half the time. That hardly compares to the average raid guild that reaches the boss in the proper overall gear, when the boss is working as intended. The same is still accurate today.

The MMO Champ community seems to speak purely from the biased perspective of a hardcore raider, which is highly evident once more. The funny thing is many just regurgitate these opinions as facts without having either experienced these aspects themselves or having actual knowledge themselves.

That's a great diatribe and all except i've never been a hardcore raider and most of it doesn't respond to my post at all.

[Daffan]

I do not consider having to CC half a group you pull because u couldn't heal through the damage otherwise difficult, i don't think anyone should. It was a simple matter of controlling your pulls, nothing more. If you overpull now you still have the same issue. Apart from the fact that I would never compare 5 mans or any other content than raiding. What's the point?

Again, the mobs being tuned tighter for CC and controlled pulls does not a hard fight make. Was it harder for the average player back then? Yes, definitely, mostly due to the insane amount of time involved in getting the gear necessary to actually do basic things, and gating. Were the raids harder? By god no, in no way, exactly the opposite.

Even without CC the mobs were tougher leading to a better use of abilities for tanks and healers, and maybe some stuns and other kiting for other classes. Right now it's much worse than TBC in anything other than raid content AOE AOE AOE makes the game a grindfest in dungeons, press X for chain lightning on queue.

With all the QQ threads about noobs not getting their fix of raid content they should be also be upset that the other content is so meaningless (Every day is some new thread on mmo-champ about how they cant raid)


by the way, if you overpull you just pop damage cds and continue aoeing, cuz now there is all these mega cooldowns


I dont think i've ever seen 1 interrupt in a dungeon or scenario, outside of raiding

[prwraith]

I do not consider having to CC half a group you pull because u couldn't heal through the damage otherwise difficult, i don't think anyone should. It was a simple matter of controlling your pulls, nothing more. If you overpull now you still have the same issue. Apart from the fact that I would never compare 5 mans or any other content than raiding. What's the point?

Again, the mobs being tuned tighter for CC and controlled pulls does not a hard fight make. Was it harder for the average player back then? Yes, definitely, mostly due to the insane amount of time involved in getting the gear necessary to actually do basic things, and gating. Were the raids harder? By god no, in no way, exactly the opposite.

THIS is the way to go though.

The more complex and difficult that raids get the less people do them or have the ability to do them.

I'd rather have more prep time / farming gear to be able to do a raid

Then throwing my head at a wall for a month, finishing the heroics and sitting on my thumbs for the next 8 months.

[Deleted]

Raids back then were a joke, there were very few mechanics and the reason you wiped was because there was some idiot standing in fire or healers not being able to heal properly.

So i expect from you to have killed KJ if you think the raids were a joke. The mechanics doesnt make a boss harder. Fallen protectors have a lot of mechanics and its a joke encounter.
The players are as bad now than then. The game is easier to play actually now, no agro, mana, tons of movility, defensive cooldowns etc. Normal modes are much much easier than raids back then.

[wych]

THIS is the way to go though.

The more complex and difficult that raids get the less people do them or have the ability to do them.

I'd rather have more prep time / farming gear to be able to do a raid

Then throwing my head at a wall for a month, finishing the heroics and sitting on my thumbs for the next 8 months.

But that doesn't agree with the statistics, more people than ever are now raiding.

You can still brute force bosses by overgearing them (in general), just like you could in TBC

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So i expect from you to have killed KJ if you think the raids were a joke. The mechanics doesnt make a boss harder. Fallen protectors have a lot of mechanics and its a joke encounter.
The players are as bad now than then. The game is easier to play actually now, no agro, mana, tons of movility, defensive cooldowns etc. Normal modes are much much easier than raids back then.

Why are you comparing the hardest difficulty back then to the "medium" difficulty right now? It serves no purpose

[miffy23]

THIS is the way to go though.

The more complex and difficult that raids get the less people do them or have the ability to do them.

I'd rather have more prep time / farming gear to be able to do a raid

Then throwing my head at a wall for a month, finishing the heroics and sitting on my thumbs for the next 8 months.

You are arguing for that which the majority of this community rants again over again. More filler content, and easier raids.
I would personally not wish to return to that model. I love that now there is a ton of content to do for EVERYONE regardless of time or even skill sometimes, yet if you choose to there is content available that is harder than anything before in the game.

[Soulwind]

Even without CC the mobs were tougher leading to a better use of abilities for tanks and healers, and maybe some stuns and other kiting for other classes. Right now it's much worse than TBC in anything other than raid content AOE AOE AOE makes the game a grindfest in dungeons, press X for chain lightning on queue.

With all the QQ threads about noobs not getting their fix of raid content they should be also be upset that the other content is so meaningless (Every day is some new thread on mmo-champ about how they cant raid)

The problem with hard heroics is that LFD wouldn't exist or be used, only guild groups or very strict (as in asking for 3x the ilvl needed for them) pugs would do them and be ready for raiding. There are many more players now, and leaving many of them out of the PvE content would lead to huge sub drops.

Face it, heroic dungeons are the first step of the gearing process, if they are too challenging, then the rest of the content won't be seen enough to justify its creation.

[Deleted]

I do not consider having to CC half a group you pull because u couldn't heal through the damage otherwise difficult, i don't think anyone should. It was a simple matter of controlling your pulls, nothing more. If you overpull now you still have the same issue. Apart from the fact that I would never compare 5 mans or any other content than raiding. What's the point?

But it is harder. Compare push your aoe button without risk of wiping with sync 3 CC dps fast the others the tank maintaining the aggro of all mobs, and if you fail you would die. How can you dont see its harder????

[Deleted]

U must be blind if u create such thread. This raid is one of the easiest final raids ever. Just look how fast the guilds rushed through this "heroic" content.

[Hyve]

It wasn't time consuming nor expensive. Were those very few rare bosses annoying to get resistance gear for? That depends from person to person, I liked it when everyone had to do it like with Mother in BT. When only tanks or warlock/mage had to get it, it becomes a lame mechanic.

I never understood where people get the time consuming part..

Gathering different items, sometimes and entire different set of gear to use on just one or two bosses per tier, and reworking all of your rotation based on the lose or increase of certain stats is not time consuming?

[wych]

U must be blind if u create such thread. This raid is one of the easiest final raids ever. Just look how fast the guilds rushed through this "heroic" content.

With such a username i'm sure your opinion is incredibly balanced and not bias at all.

The point people are making in this thread is that back then lots of bosses were more reliant on getting gear to beat them.