What if the LFG existed in TBC?

[wych]

If LFG players today are on par with the average pug in TBC then heroics back then must have had a horrendous completion rate. Having not played tbc for very long do you know if this is true? Because if you took LFG players today and put them into a tbc heroic there is no way in hell that it would get completed; it would be even worse than the beginning of Cataclysm.

There's a distinction between the two, that's why heroic scenarios aren't allowed as random match making but made via trade channel etc..

[nekobaka]

No, but it definitely changed the game, even if it didn't ruin it. Also, "it's cute" how patronising do you want to get?

Several Heroics would probably have to be nerfed, especially trash, as there would be no guarantee of getting enough CC.

On top of this, I think it would create a ripple effect, just like what happened when LFG came out. Back in Vanilla and TBC, most casual players were content with not seeing all of the content. Having to find groups, run to instances and all of that stuff meant that running Heroics and gearing for Raids took longer, which essentially stretched out the content. With the easy access of LFG, the content wouldn't be stretched, so all of these people would outgear and get bored of Heroics, and then look on to 'the next thing'. This would mean they could either start Raiding, whether by PuGs or in a Guild, or they would unsub. Or Blizzard could have introduced a feature to get 25 random players into a Raid, at an easier difficulty so that they could still complete it.

Basically, not much. All of the changes that happened later on in the game's life cycle (such as LFR and heirlooms) would have happened earlier, and if they didn't, Blizzard would have lost subs.

You bring up good points about the ripple effect along with things that was changed prior to the system coming out. Going into WotLK the developers made a number of changes to increase CC availability along with ease of use only to ignore it for PVE and create an additional PVP balance burden on themselves. With the ripple effect WotLK five mans at least might not have been remembered the same along with Cata. WotLK might have seen a larger shift on raids rather than five mans like MoP due to content consumption issue that lead to LFR as a long term grind.

One of GCs responses to the problem with Cata heroics.
(July 2013)https://twitter.com/OccupyGStreet/st...76849881726977

Q: didn't they[heroics] work in BC?
A: Right. That was the problem with Cata -- matchmaking and no alternatives.
A: But hard+organized = loot efficient with easier+matchmaking = less loot efficient could work.

So the difficulty itself wasnt the problem but rather a combination of factors.

Since there were less forums and websites back then, we would have had less QQ and LFD and LFR would have been a much more accepted tool now?

I think there was an overall different mentality particularly given the situation that LFD was introduced in that lead to a mentality and expectation shift. There was less 3rd party resources along with good information in BC compared to WotLK and on. The official forums was still being used and at least in my view point far more than they are used now in MoP and peaking around WotLK and falling off at the end of Cata. There was a lot of "QQ" about difficulty and class mechanics relating to difficulty of dungeons from the days of Classic. The discussions and problems faced in BC and the stances Blizzard made to improve upon things still has an impact in WoW design today.

I think the random queue systems would be more accepted just due to it being introduced earlier which means more players start their experiences with it along with still being apart of the new feel of WoWs early days. I also think that had LFD been introduced when things was harder by way of requiring far more group coordination and working together rather than the WotLK timing where most of the heroics was already out geared and players had learned them a year prior along with other things like some class changes that made healing fights like Loken in HoL easier. The WotLK heroics at launch was not as easy as players like to claim to remember and had a bunch of QQ associated with them with players complaining about multi-hours groups, the difference was the players mentality to such situations.

A years worth of feeling like gods only to be put back in your place as a hero with relevant content hurt a lot of players egos.

[Lime]

If LFG players today are on par with the average pug in TBC then heroics back then must have had a horrendous completion rate. Having not played tbc for very long do you know if this is true? Because if you took LFG players today and put them into a tbc heroic there is no way in hell that it would get completed; it would be even worse than the beginning of Cataclysm.

My completion rate wasn't horrible because after awhile I just stopped pugging and only ran them with friends and guildies. And don't get me wrong, I'm not stating it as a fact. This is all based off of my experiences. I generally see more LFG players who know the basics better than the TBC pugs I use to play with. I saw a lot of TBC players flat out quit because Heroics were too difficult, which is odd because they're nowhere near as hard as people make them out to be. Harder than Wrath? Yeah, but not by a huge amount imo. People like to compare the beginning of TBC to the end of Wrath, which isn't even remotely fair. Comparing late TBC to late Wrath would be far more fair.

The thing is, from my experience, the pug failure rate in TBC was way higher than my LFG failure rate in Wrath. Yeah I could chalk that up to it being more difficult, but not even that covers all of those fails. The reason I always figured players were worse, was because of the lack of media. For example, YouTube was far far more popular in Wrath than it was in TBC. Tbh, I don't think I ever looked up a video on YT during TBC. The reason I bring that up, is because in Wrath, you had a lot more players willing to learn their class than people in TBC, mainly due to how available information was at during it.

And Cata was... different. Not player attitude-wise, but the fact that Blizzard nerfed the dungeons because people were complaining. In early TBC , I saw the same amount of people complaining about how hard heroics were. Bad casuals have always been in this game complaining about every little thing.

[BatteredRose]

No, but it definitely changed the game, even if it didn't ruin it. Also, "it's cute" how patronising do you want to get?

Oops, I struck a nerve with someone loves placing blame on Blizz and not the playerbase.

Well to say that it ruined WoW could we viewed as subjective, but to think that it did absolutely nothing except change the way we form groups is a bit naive.

I said there's nothing to say about it because it would be like when they released it in LK, just earlier.

Blaming a tool that makes forming groups easier for the destruction and poisoning of a community is ignorance at its finest, or worst, however you want to say it. People act as if the community was just peachy-keen before the LF tools were implemented.

Those people are what reality calls nostalgically blind.

The playerbase needs to take some responsibility for once.

[Segadra]

Depends are we talking about BC dungeons becoming the faceroll content that dungeons are now? Or just the system that throws people into the dungeon with 4 other random people? If the difficultly isn't dumbed down then things might not go well.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

It would have made my leveling experience much more enjoyable.

[Auroro]

TBC heroic is good for learning your class but it was also bad as well.

You had to create a group that was CC heavy. My priest had to be Holy to get gears (playing Shadow), the druid (main) took awhile to gear up as a Tank/DPS. Both of those classes did not have enough or good CC for some of the dungeon.

[KCguy]

TBC heroic is good for learning your class but it was also bad as well.

You had to create a group that was CC heavy. My priest had to be Holy to get gears (playing Shadow), the druid (main) took awhile to gear up as a Tank/DPS. Both of those classes did not have enough or good CC for some of the dungeon.

MGT was hell. Absolute hell. I remember the amount of CC needed in that place. lol.

[Mormolyce]

Imagine what happened in Cata but 1000x worse.

-Ooh the queue has popped, Shattered Halls heroic
-HOLY FUCK WE HAVE A FURY WARRIOR AND FERAL DRUID DPS
-WIPES X1000000 AS YOU FACE GROUPS OF 6 MOBS WITH NO RELIABLE CC
-GROUP SPLITS UP

I bet this actually happened a lot in TBC, and all LFG would've done is cut out the hour or whatever you had to spend finding that fail group in the first place.

People would've responded by not queueing unless they had 1-2 mages/rogues/whatever to queue alongside them.

Blizzard would've responded by either nerfing the trash packs or improving CC across the other classes or reducing the necessity of CC. And the game would've been better for it.

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No, but it definitely changed the game, even if it didn't ruin it. Also, "it's cute" how patronising do you want to get?

Several Heroics would probably have to be nerfed, especially trash, as there would be no guarantee of getting enough CC.

You know I even said that myself, but here's the real question: why wasn't that trash/those heroics nerfed anyway?

Were the devs actually okay with stupid class stacking back in TBC? Or did they just not have the time/tools to fix it back then?

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And Cata was... different. Not player attitude-wise, but the fact that Blizzard nerfed the dungeons because people were complaining. In early TBC , I saw the same amount of people complaining about how hard heroics were. Bad casuals have always been in this game complaining about every little thing.

To be fair they kind of had a point. I absolutely loved Cata heroics, I have fond memories of being in Deadmines for 5 hours plus on one run. But like, that's crazy for something people have to do every week for VP.

Several weeks later when everyone was geared up and knew the strats it was a LOT easier than it was at launch though, a lot of people forget that. But the culture shock going from late Wrath heroics where apart from the three ICC dungeons (which also had a massive fail rate, especially HoR) you outgeared everything by like 5 tiers to Cata heroics at launch where you were in greens and blues and the bosses were complex and utterly unforgiving... I can see why people would complain.

[Peso]

I cringe when I read Looking for Gimps and TBC in the same sentence.

[Flutterguy]

It did exist. It just had no UI to support it.

[Socialhealer]

millions would of been owned by the first trash pack, much extra QQ would of been had.

[Nihth]

I said there's nothing to say about it because it would be like when they released it in LK, just earlier.

Blaming a tool that makes forming groups easier for the destruction and poisoning of a community is ignorance at its finest, or worst, however you want to say it. People act as if the community was just peachy-keen before the LF tools were implemented.

Those people are what reality calls nostalgically blind.

The playerbase needs to take some responsibility for once.

The community was not perfect, but it was a lot better. You are right that the LFD didnt transform people to poisonous asshats, but tools such as LFD shapes the the game and the community and the game has to be shaped around the tools.

[Steampunk]

I would have gotten so much more content done.

I wouldn't have spent hours every week spamming Trade and General in Terrokar/Shat for roles we needed. I could have went out and learned to like Dailies, Crafting and do the Skyguard quests.

I would have enjoyed the time spent with my guildies, instead of occasionally (and let's face it childishly) resenting that "X wanted to bring their DPS instead of their healer", which led to wait times.

There would have been a lot less complaints back then; which perhaps would have made WoTLK's development (going on during TBC) a model for the future, instead of an exception to the norm.

Gearing for raids would have been much easier. I could have seen Black Temple, instead of stopping short at TK and SSC.

[Yuyn]

"LF2 CC, Slabs"

There would have needed to be a fourth role listed, CC, of which only mages, hunters, or rogues could fill. Or maybe warlocks, if you got one who didn't mind running Seduction. It's actually, come to think of it, what set the pure DPS apart from the hybrids -- hybrids could tank or heal, but only pures had relatively effective CC.

[Christan]

Imagine what happened in Cata but 1000x worse.

-Ooh the queue has popped, Shattered Halls heroic
-HOLY FUCK WE HAVE A FURY WARRIOR AND FERAL DRUID DPS
-WIPES X1000000 AS YOU FACE GROUPS OF 6 MOBS WITH NO RELIABLE CC
-GROUP SPLITS UP

As much as people deny it too, imo the average Joe was worse at the game in TBC, hence how few mechanics most things had. Now lots of players have been playing for a long time and are used to balacing good DPS/healing/tanking and watching out for fire.

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This, it'd have to be redesigned because having a sub optimal group composition would be fucking dreadful.

kind of reminds me at the end of BC having a ret or arms tank (on purpose) for the daily heroic.
easy content because easier after a while...main wipes i had were from random fears in SV first room, feared ppl pulling adds.

idk if i was just in amazing groups all the time (over hundreds of runs doubtful) people really should get off saying they were so hard... slabs and SH were long(ish)
not hard. (knowing pulls made a huge difference like going to hallway before last boss in slabs, waiting for the mob/summoner between groups to get lasered to death before pulling group)

knowing the pulls > CC > aoe'ing everything (slave pens, kill the flying sperm first since it fears, then healer(can stun / kick holy nova's)
then kill healer...

after cleared T5 never even used CC anymore...much less T6 gear, roflstomped through it without a tank even.


about the few mechanics vs more mechanics nowadays, the mechanics back there were unforgiving if you decided to derp it up.
now ppl can stand in most things and not die.
how many mob healers are there in content right now that will literally bring the enemy group back up if left unchecked? or spam manaburn on heals/prot pala(mana tombs)

after knowing the pulls and outgearing it, BC heroics were barely(if that) harder than today's heroics.
they did require slightly more focus is all.

on topic:
if LFD existed back then, it would of saved a lot of time, although i would(even to this day)
prefer it to be server specific.

[The Glitch]

I imagine Dungeons and Heroics would have been tuned differently if they were going to put LFG in back in TBC.

[Cosmic Janitor]

It would have colided horribly with the bring the class not the player concept of CC back in the day. I remember us doing attunement quests back then and we still could only do so many per run, because the setup would be totally screwed if you overloaded on some "useless" classes.

[Ghostile]

Everything would have been nerfed to the ground due to mentally challenged people being unable to CC or use other tacs besides zerg and pull everything.

[Kebren]

The original version of the Dungeon Finder WAS in Burning Crusade.

It was pretty rough, but it was there. You'd pick a dungeon you wanted to run, and you'd pick a role and it would put in you queue for the dungeon. There was even the option to auto populate the group (although I seem to remember everybody disabled this). You still had to run to the dungeon (with meeting stones), but the system was pretty similar to the Dungeon Finder that came about in WoTLK.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, check out the original version of the Burning Crusade feature page:
http://web.archive.org/web/200908072...gforgroup.html



The reason it wasn't very popular is because the dungeons were just far more difficult than the dungeons of Wrath onwards. If you were to take the current version of Dungeon Finder and put in BC, I honestly don't think much would change. The dungeons would be far too difficult for the average group to attempt.