Why bash Cata?

[MoanaLisa]

At this point in time most people bash on Cataclysm--or any other expansion--as an exercise in e-peen stretching. Every iteration of WoW from Vanilla to MoP has had both good and bad. Demonstrating how hostile you can be toward Blizzard/WoW is something of a forum game. That's why people who quit months or years ago are still around doing it. Solidarity and all of that.

The thing about Cataclysm is that there was quite a bit about it not to like. I've always thought it started off rather well although the 5-man heroics were difficult for random groups to handle. That was clear no matter what anyone says. They were fine for guild groups and the like--not even really all that difficult once you worked out what had to be done--but throwing random player groups into all of that was Blizzard overestimating how well their players actually are versus how they say they are. They also completely overestimated how much average players embrace challenging content. The fact is they don't. It was a hard lesson for them. Anyway, heroics were a huge mistake as they made what was a very core piece of the game for many players about as unfun as you could make it. In essence--for many players--there were no playable dungeons at all. So people left. Just a huge mistake. Cannot say it enough. Anyone at this point that generally believes that the general population of WoW wants to be challenged isn't paying attention. Some log on for the challenge; most don't. If it's too hard, frustrating and unfun they leave. And they did. In large numbers. But from the point of view of a player who had a decent guild and was a good player the heroics were quite good. That's simply not the point of view of the vast majority of players in the game.

DS was a lackluster raid which probably looked better on paper than it was in reality; ZA/ZG as the only relevant heroics to do for what seemed like forever was a mistake with Blizzard again completely missing the bus on the fun aspect of doing dungeons as a casual time waster (which is what they are after you've run them a few times); Deathwing himself was handled badly during the expansion as was a lot of the lore.

On the flip side, T11 was great; T12 was OK if a little bit small and the Rag fight was quite good. The 1-60 zone redo was great and I enjoyed the Firelands dailies as much as I enjoy any dailies.

So, good and bad. But probably a bit more bad than other expansions and a lot of what was good (1-60 and T11/12) didn't really much apply to players who were looking for something to do at end game when there was no LFR around.

[Deleted]

Why not? It's not like it's the end of the world...oh...right..

[CptMitta]

Say what you want about Cataclysm but the PvP was pretty balanced most seasons as supposed that is the shit stain called MoP

[Aruhen]

I agree you for the most part...

2. Dailies. Never, never felt like something you HAD to do. And esp those in Hijal were amazingly fun, there were even dailies which were easier to do as healer.

but this part wasn't true for most classes. If you were say a Demonology Warlock like I was then you would want to do the dailies for the Chalice trinket if you wanted to be any decent.

Anyways, I enjoyed Cata quite a bit until Firelands rolled out. The leveling experience near launch when everything was new rivals almost WoTLK for me with zones like Deepholme just being amazing. Tier 11 was really fun also and the same goes for the launch heroic dungeons as I enjoyed running them with a friend or two with Grim Batol and Shadowfang Keep being my favorites. PVP was really fun in Cata compared to the current state. Dailies were also fun for the most part in Cata but am I the only ones who enjoy daiies? Isle of Thunder was some of the best side content ever imo.

Edit: I understand why dungeons are easy again but I just miss doing somewhat challenging 5man content and no I hate challenge modes in its current format with the whole timed stuff.

[Maniac2]

In all threads about new expansion I see lots of pll bashing Cata. Many pll say it was worst expansion ever. I did play since May 2005 and I strongly believe it's second BEST expansion after BC. Why? Everything about Cata was PERFECT. I'll explain now why.

1. Leveling, core of the start = amazing fun because you COULD fly. Wanna not start level in one zone? Choose another. Leveing in Hijal is amazing, I still have a lot of fun lvling there on my alts. Uldum, nice storyline and fun quests. And that quest when you kill 1000 gnomes... PRICELESS . Not only that. They revamped old zones so nicely that it became fun to lvl new toons :P. And they added so many "EPIC FUN" quests. Like Sylvana's one. Or the one in badlands. Without Cata we would still grind old boring quests.
Now to people who say, flying mounts=no pvp. I had tons, TONS of fun world pvp in Vashj'ir and TB. In fact I killed so many people in world pvp during Cata I didn't kill since vanilla.
2. Dailies. Never, never felt like something you HAD to do. And esp those in Hijal were amazingly fun, there were even dailies which were easier to do as healer.
3. Lore. Involving Thrall, one of the main lore characters. Even though I didn't enjoy much doing "Thrall specific quest" on many alts, doing it first time was very inspiring.
4. Raiding. Actually Cata was first time when I started raiding very seriously. Because content was worth it. Remember emotions when you had to jump to lava on Nefarian hc.
5. EPICNESS. Yes. It came to unreal level in Cata. Do I need to explain why?
6. Dungeons. DUNGEONS WERE FUN. You needed some afford to complete stuff and when you finally completed them, you felt so good.

My point is, I see no reason why people hate that expansion.

All you mentioned is fine and I agree with you.
Problem is most people on this board evaluate whole expansion thru quality of raids which is too bad, Cata is much more than DS.

And while I agree Dragon Soul was very bad raid and boss fight quite dissapointing, all other things were great for me.

[Zka]

Cata raids were really bad. It all turned into dexterity and reaction time games, which I dislike and I cannot qualify as 35+. I'm talking about heroic mode raids.
Outside of raids it was bland: daily quests and atrocious LFD, nothing more.

[wariofan1]

The launch content was great. Loved the launch raids and launch heroics. Then came the nerfs. Then came the Troll dungeons. By then everything went to shit. Okay, Firelands was good, but lasted way too long for being so short.

However, the lore was pretty crappy right from the get-go, great setup, poor execution.

[Deleted]

6. Dungeons. DUNGEONS WERE FUN. You needed some afford to complete stuff and when you finally completed them, you felt so good.
.

No. They weren't. Especially at the beginning, with retarded groups full of wrath babies that AOE'd everything.

Fun after the massive nerfs?, bleh, maybe.

[Siberia]

In my experience, Cata was great on release. Every content patch and change they did after release to ease up on the difficulty, Dragon Soul and the ZA/ZG stuff was awful. The actual release content I found really enjoyable, everything afterwards = nope.

[Dormie]

No. They weren't. Especially at the beginning, with retarded groups full of wrath babies that AOE'd everything.

Fun after the massive nerfs?, bleh, maybe.

lol no, the dungeons were perfect before nerfs. People were complaining before they were even out of blues.

[Osmeric]

lol no, the dungeons were perfect before nerfs.

The judgment of the devs is that you are not correct. The dungeon design failed so badly they completely abandoned it.

[High Marshal Sigismund]

This thread is terrible. Full of blanket subjective statements about how Cata is bad, and anyone daring to say Cata is better than MoP is going to inevitably get shit on.

/facepalm

[Deleted]

Personally I just think that the X-Pacs lost quality ever since BC. Cata and MoP being the absolut downside of things. But so far the next one looks very promising.

[Demitrius]

I would personally list it as the second worse, since so far every expansion has been worse to me than the one prior to it.

And yet you still play........

[Dormie]

The judgment of the devs is that you are not correct. The dungeon design failed so badly they completely abandoned it.

Because they had to retard-proof them.

[Whales96]

A lot of your positives are negatives for me

[Osmeric]

Because they had to retard-proof them.

The early Cataclysm design was a serious mismatch to the customer population they actually had, and it poorly served Blizzard's business goals. While I'm sure it makes you feel better to disparage the segment of the customer base that didn't share your preferences, that sort of flaming doesn't serve any real constructive purpose, and isn't something Blizzard can or will pay much attention to.

[Katharine]

The fact that they ignored Quel'Thalas and the Draenei islands really upset me. And some comment some dev made made it even worse. "Would you rather have a new raid or Silvermoon updated?" It was stupid. Which would I prefer: a new raid that I'd only run a few times and never run again or have the place I've come to call home in WoW updated? Which would you choose?

[Deleted]

The early Cataclysm design was a serious mismatch to the customer population they actually had, and it poorly served Blizzard's business goals. While I'm sure it makes you feel better to disparage the segment of the customer base that didn't share your preferences, that sort of flaming doesn't serve any real constructive purpose, and isn't something Blizzard can or will pay much attention to.

People got used to the simple wotlk dungeons you just aoe'd everything, and choked when you actually had to use CC.

Is that Blizzards fault or the players? Its not like they removed CC's in wotlk.

[nekobaka]

The judgment of the devs is that you are not correct. The dungeon design failed so badly they completely abandoned it.

Which was pointed at LFD resulting in players consuming dungeons far faster than ever before. With LFD staying in the game the developers had to find some other way to slow players down. LFD effectively removed daily lockouts and the developers also did not want to return to daily dungeons. Raiding on the other hand would remain on a weekly lockout so that no-lifers couldnt burn themselves out within a few months like they did in Cata.

If you are talking about engaging dungeons then GC has mentioned that they could return, but not in the RDF system which was the root problem and players who are unwilling to accept the risks of their choices. Without the random queue feature the requirement to form your own group has largely been successful in MoP to filter out the disruptive players that plague random queue features and the complaints of those players.

I hope to see more engaging non-raid PVE content options of which players can progress their characters in WoD without having to turn to Normal mode raiding just to use their brain. I would be very delighted if such content was on par with LFR reward level.

Cata raids were really bad. It all turned into dexterity and reaction time games, which I dislike and I cannot qualify as 35+. I'm talking about heroic mode raids.

Did you do heroic raiding in WotLK as there was a bunch of quick reaction based normal and heroic fights?