You fall under the assumption that there's only 2 difficulties possible "mind numbingly boring easy content" and "cutting edge heroic", that's not true. They could very well add a new 5 man difficulty of TBC or Cata level difficulty that isn't forced into random match making and isn't mandatory.
Playing things like Brawler's Guild is much more exciting in WoW than it is in a single player game for the simple reason that it's still a multiplayer world you're in with friends, strangers and everything in between.
IMO Blizzard needs to find a way to force socialisation again, that is the main aspect missing from the game, and once socialisation is "required" for players you finally see a community again with people having fun and being willing to work together on difficult content that isn't raiding
Anyways, what I wanted to say, there is enough content for everyone. Unfortunately, if you spend same amount of time as heroic raider in game and not raiding you will not have any content left. That's why it's called casual content - if you log for few hours a week you sure have a lot of stuff to do. As someone said, problem is in difficult content which is not raiding - for people who like challenge but can't afford to raid at given times. I mean, they can make more world bosses, more pet battles, more dungeons - but what's the point when you consume it in few days? If there is no hard content why bother playing? To do dailies every day and have a farm?
It's all about prioritizing. Anyone who is fit to play this game can find at least 5-10 hours a week on average to play it. The average adult works 40 hours a week by regulation, and sleeps 7 hours a night. Account for 1 hour of travelling and you have 6 hours of spare time at home each week day, and 17 hours each weekend. Ofcourse you may have obligations such as cooking, cleaning, family business, other hobbies. But honestly, if you really wanted to play the game you'd be able to find those 5-10 hours. I have raided with many working family men and while they haven't been able to attend every raid they've all kept an attendance over 90% with three 4 hour raids a week.
Now, I myself managed to clear 14 normal and 8 heroic bosses in about 2 months raiding 8 hours a week. I wasn't carried by any means, my entire guild started a month in to the new raid in Tier 14 gear. Don't come with this bullshit that there's no way an adult with a family can find time for the game, it's all about what you prefer to do with your free time. If you'd rather watch TV or have a drink with your mates that's your call, you can't place that on the game or on anyone else.
A lot of this is also taken under the assumption (by the masses) that everyone is trying to kill H Garrosh.
Speaking for myself, I would love a shot at it but, as with most people, I don't have the desire to be involved with a HC raiding guild. It's not that I don't have time, it's more that I don't want to feel like I have to be on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 7:30 pm to 12:00 am every week or I'l lose my spot. I want to log on when I feel like it and do what I feel like doing. I know there is a lot of people out there that feel this way.
People will say they don't have the time yet they spend 3x as long in game as most HC raiders do. t's not really a matter of having the time, I think it's more a matter of feeling like a slave to the guild and people don't like that. Flex fixes a lot of that issue.
I'd be happy with just seeing him on Flex as my server is kind of beat for Normal mode raiding. I would like to if I could find something that was a little more Flexible in terms of attendance and was a good personality fit. For now, I just run my own Flex raids on Saturday nights.
I'm happy with the content that I still have to do (reputation grinds, pets, yet to conquer raid bosses on higher difficulties). Most of the time I just log off though.
None of it should be nerfed. If people want to see it that bad, they will make whatever sacrifices they feel is worthy of it.
History proves you wrong, though. TBC had "brutal" 5 mans, and what did we get in Wrath? Do you remember those 5 mans? Then people complained, like you, that they wanted challenging 5 man content, and that it was too easy in Wrath. Enter Cata launch 5 mans. Remember how those got nerfed 1-2 months in? Now look at Mop 5 mans. It's a repeating cycle, Blizzard release challenging 5 man content, some people enjoy it, most find it too difficult. Next expansion Blizzard releases dumbed down 5 man content, and people complain it's too easy, so next expansion they ramp up the difficulty again and met with complaints that it's too hard.
How does Blizzard win? I stand by my statement that the problem is not the game, but the player.
Of course it's an exaggeration that every family man can't commit to raiding but there's 1 thing you're failing to mention here, and that's schedule time rather than random time.
Many people can quite easily spend 10 hours a week playing WoW, the issue is that a lot of people simply can't commit the SAME 10 hours every week to playing WoW. Especially those with kids and wives or shift work
Game's too easy.
"So my advice is to argue based on the reasons stated, not try to make up or guess at reasons and argue those."
Greg Street, Riot Developer - 12:50 PM - 25 May 2015
and that is the problem with warcraft, 0% of the people that did not accomplish this don't give a shit.
If this game was any form of its past self people would be in shock and awe at the sight of a guild clearing this, cause it would have been raiding, not normal(some tiny relevance of challenge)/heroic(raiding)/flex(LFR without random people)/LFR(even an aborted fetus can clear)
the numbers would naturally be higher if the game development philosophy had not have changed, and heroic might be a little bit easier then it is today comparing this to raiding pre-Wrath, it is more difficult in some ways.
What do you mean? The rewards offered through raiding are generally: 1-2 mounts per tier, 1 title per tier, and 0-4 battle pets. Aside from that, the rewards are gear. I don't understand the mentality of "I have no intention of ever doing any heroic mode SoO boss, but I'll be damned if I don't need 570 ilevel gear" What do you need this gear for, exactly? You get all the other stuff (mounts/pets/titles) from the content Firefly33 mentioned. You get gear from most of them too. You just don't get the best, high end gear, from that content. Why do you need it though?
You're a no win type of person. Challenge modes are a perfect example. Your rewards are transmog items, a mount, and a title. Again I ask, if you have no interest in doing any SoO heroic, why do you need SoO heroic item level gear? Doesn't make any sense beyond "I want it because I do".
Again you're operating under the false assumption that I want players to be pushed into hard heroic 5 mans. You obviously didn't read what I wrote so i'll just repeat it.
You fall under the assumption that there's only 2 difficulties possible "mind numbingly boring easy content" and "cutting edge heroic", that's not true. They could very well add a new 5 man difficulty of TBC or Cata level difficulty that isn't forced into random match making and isn't mandatory.
Allow players to use LFD to do normal or current heroic 5 mans, then add a "mythic" 5 man difficulty that isn't queue-able on LFD, much like how heroic scenarios work today.
Everybody's a winner, especially when you can perhaps intertwine some hard 5 mans into a patch long storyline at some point