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  1. #1

    Dungeons are way too hard for casuals.. Or are they?

    Dungeon difficulty is something that is often brought up, both in threads and in form of threads such as this. More often than not the views are quite simplistic too, such as the demands for more CC.

    Those demands often fail to dig deep into the reasons of why CC was useful in the past and why it's not anymore, with prevalent opinion being "Increase the damage so you must CC! Add more HP so you must CC!" sort of stuff which is inherently wrong and only additivies to the difficulty if paired with real reasons for crowd control that existed.

    Far too many things have changed mechanically to make CC itself interesting enough to spice up dungeon runs as large majority of reasons for it has vanished, few of them which I list later.

    To understand what made dungeons difficult was not the damage necessarily, nor the HP of the mobs but the various mechanics they laid down which do not happen anymore, mostly replaced with clearly marked and EASILY avoided "AVOID THIS STUFF IN THIS HUGE RING OF WARNING" or "INTERRUPT BLOODY NOW!!!" sort of stuff.

    To make dungeons difficult again or atleast mildly challenging, on any sort of level few key things needs to revert and be made.

    To name few, crowd-control itself needs to aggro again so it becomes a reactionary, planned thing, be it as a puller or post-pull mechanic you apply to encounter, not something you can passively hold up almoust indefinitely and just wait about for pull to happen.

    Threat needs to make return so people are more careful with how they play and approach the nuke in the first place. This very much includes healing threat. It'd add extra emphasis on usage of especially short term CC on fly if for example a long term CC target is freed but nothing is done to it.

    Groups of mobs need to have back meaningful abilities that take direct control away from player. This means fears, gouges, sheeps, silences, mind controls and all sort of other stuff. This encourages creative play under unforeseen circumstances and promotes skill. A great example of this was the disarming mobs in BRD prison section. They disarm tank = practically no threat generation to any of them and those packs could be 4-6 mobs large. Demanded participiation from all group members in some form to handle them.

    Mob group placement need to be more aggressive, not pre-chewn and conveniently placed. Packs that are closer together, and have patrols walking between them promote observation and more careful approaches to the pull itself. Stealthed mobs placed on surprising places can add a lot for good design.

    These are few things that would immediatly make dungeons far more interesting to run again and now we're only talking about things that already have existed in some form within the past. Combine them with some of the new mechanics and we'd be facing dungeons of both surprising challenge which require some sensible thought put into them overall. It'd also promote a more hybrid gameplay from 5 mans, something that has practically not existed since vanilla and early TBC.
    Modern gaming apologist: I once tasted diarrhea so shit is fine.

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  2. #2
    Honorary PvM "Mod" Darsithis's Avatar
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    On paper all of it sounds great (I prefer CC and careful pulls) but in practice it fails when you're doing a dungeon for the 50th time.

  3. #3
    Didn't they try this with the heroic Cata dungeons? If I recall correctly, people lashed out because they felt they were too difficult.
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  4. #4
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    I hope they make dungeons hardcore mode and atleast need spend 30 / 45 min a dungeon on hc mode .

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Meillquei View Post
    Didn't they try this with the heroic Cata dungeons? If I recall correctly, people lashed out because they felt they were too difficult.
    And I still say, people lashed out because there was nothing else but dungeons to do at max level. You had dungeons, you had tabards. That was the end-game. It was failure to provide anything else that caused the issue.
    Modern gaming apologist: I once tasted diarrhea so shit is fine.

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  6. #6
    Spam Assassin! MoanaLisa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wilian View Post
    dungeons of both surprising challenge which require some sensible thought
    I hope they do all of this for challenge mode dungeons. For random 5-mans the phrase that I quoted is where it all goes wrong.
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  7. #7
    Immortal Zka's Avatar
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    I miss threat, but it's hard to tune right. I say it was ideal in BC with the exception of lack of scaling.

  8. #8
    if they continue challenge modes i hope invis potions dont work, and mobs can detect stealth better.....

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Wilian View Post
    And I still say, people lashed out because there was nothing else but dungeons to do at max level. You had dungeons, you had tabards. That was the end-game. It was failure to provide anything else that caused the issue.
    This was the big issue, the dungeons were very difficult and fun, but they were not enjoyable when you needed to grind them for starter raid gear with the LFG tool with a player base mostly of really shitty players. The reward was not worth the effort, and there was no other option for pve gear. I dont really like the challenge mode solution but its effective I suppose. Dont think default difficulty should be set to very easy on all in game activities, somethings should be hard and you deal with it or dont

  10. #10
    The Patient Mibzo's Avatar
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    As of MoP the dungeons were TOO easy, sadly. But back in the other expansions, there were some challange in them, which were nice.
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  11. #11
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    Problem is that casuals who started playing during cata/panda or even wotlk dont really know how how to use CC and all they know is just these faceroll LFG dungeons. And people who play let's say couple hours day maybe little more dont have actually any reason why they should learn to play game better. All they do is just LFG or LFR. And in LFR they are being carryed by players who know what to do. Only way to bring these "TBC" dungeons back is to make them own que/dungeon and reward bigger ilvl loot. Sadly there is no way that make just HC dungeons harder. Because players with less skill will start whine, instead of actually learning how to play.
    And i actually never had problem with TBC or start of cata dungeons, because i was in guild who was raiding. Those casuals can go to those guild too because lot's of them take social members there and you dont have to raid. You can do dungeons/events stuff like that with them, and they can help you how to play this game and your class.

    There is also this problem for us who have been playing long time since vanilla/TBC. Game mechanics have changed a lot and we just have more skill. We have been playing so long that is actually hard to bring us back those TBC dungeons. If you go test TBC dungeons in erm.. Those other servers you will see that they are not so hard now actually when you have more skill. Sure they are harder than now but still.

  12. #12
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    I see literally no reason to bring back the CC aspect of TBC or the likes.

    I did tabard grinds with plenty of factions back then - And it's pretty simple.

    Involving CC and Challenge = cool the first time. 50th time with randoms = Pure rage.

    Even Cata HCs were frustrating just because of the sheer difficulty for a PuG to complete them.
    It wasn't fun, cool or justifyable. It was a pain in the butt, because it wasn't a raid, it wasn't a thing MEANT to be challenge.

    it was literally someting you GRINDED. Stuff you grind != Stuff that should be hard

  13. #13
    And that's why I advocate bringing back Heroic Dungeons as pre-form ONLY content, a step between what would be the Random 5-Mans(Normals)and the e-peen polisher versions(Challenge Modes). Keep normals the 'yawn, follow and AoE, just wanna get my daily VP' mode, let heroics be the 'hey, I better be careful or I'll get dead' mode and Challenges the 'min/max speedrun comp' mode.

    Of course, I also advocate doing away with the need for tanks and heals in ALL random-queue PvE content, but that's another matter.

  14. #14
    Bloodsail Admiral Omertocracy's Avatar
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    So they implement Heroic dungeons and Mythic dungeons.

    Heroic dungeons = Mists difficulty.
    Mythic dungeons = Cata start difficulty, for 4-8 ilvls higher, half way between Heroic dungeons and whatever they are renaming Derp mode raids. Queued for with a premade like Heroic Scenarios.

  15. #15
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    The random group element makes things hard. Much like in raiding the difficulty should follow efforts to co-ordinate the group.

    LFG: Lol-easy aoe faceroll, tanks + heals not necessarily required
    Pre-made PUG: Requires roles and careful pulls
    Guild group on voice chat: Requires roles performing well (DPS check/Heal check etc), careful pulls, tank kite mechanics, CC and group CD usage.

    Rewards should also scale accordingly, just like it does in raiding

  16. #16
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    TBC Heroics were not hard. People were not used to SO Much CC and group pulls. It was difficult for tanks which did not have AoE tanking skills, aka everyone but bubbleboys. Having to hit every mob with single target skills repeatedly and not lose aggro was the hard part. Cata dungeons did not have that. All tanks had AoE tanking skills by WotLK. But cata dungeons had interrupts and chain cc, untill people got better gear. That is also the reason why TBC heroics feel so easy now. Try them with heroic strike and sunder armor only.
    We will see how difficult Wildstar will be. From what we have seen untill now, they should feel like Cata heroics, while jumping around all the time. Because some skills NEED to be interrupted by the WHOLE group.
    For WoW, I would bring back threat and make non tank classes hurt more in PvE. So if you pull aggro, you die or at least the second time you pull aggro. Making the tank job more revarding, also.
    And MAYBE make CC rewarding but not neccecary. Put mobs into groups which heal/buff and if you do not cc them the whole group takes longer, but is still doable. So the run of the mill players just steamroll everything with AoE but take at least 50% more time to kill all trash, while those who know what they are doing can do it faster. It would also diminish the need for cc, so you could run without it, but still like it. Some TBC heroic were almost undoable without cc and raid gear.
    People forget that we play for rewards. Some people may think plowing the same field for months feels rewarding. Most will find pulling something a little special more so. Like growing the world biggest pumpkin. Right now tanking is plowing a field, while in Vanilla and TBC it was more like herding a bunch of rabid dogs. And Cata was herding sheep while using rabid dogs...

  17. #17
    High Overlord Eternal Ice's Avatar
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    I've never understood what part of requiring CC is considered difficult or fun, personally I find requiring CC in dungeons to be incredibly boring, maybe the first 2 or 3 times you have to plan your pulls but after 20 or more times of doing the same dungeon the sole idea of having to CC every single trash pack makes me sick. Even in the old times when CC used to aggro the near mobs it didn't require that much skill.

  18. #18
    Immortal FuxieDK's Avatar
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    Dungeons haven't been hard, since TBC.. You could have half of Black Temple on farm, and still have your ass served on a plate in Shadow Labs..
    No, Cata dungeongs wasn't hard, not even at release.. At best, they were mildly challenging..
    Fact (because I say so): TBC > Cata > Legion > ShaLa > MoP > DF > BfA > WoD = WotLK

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  19. #19
    The Unstoppable Force Super Kami Dende's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by FuxieDK View Post
    Dungeons haven't been hard, since TBC.. You could have half of Black Temple on farm, and still have your ass served on a plate in Shadow Labs..
    No, Cata dungeongs wasn't hard, not even at release.. At best, they were mildly challenging..
    Yeah I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on that. TBC heroics were never hard, a lot of people that say they were either were just really new to MMO's and they felt harder while they were learning OR they didn't actually play TBC and just mimic what they have heard other bads say.

    I remember being able to ding fresh level 70 chars, grind out a key or two and go straight into heroics with random guild mates and clear them easily.

    The only "hard" thing about Slabs wasn't actually "hard" it was just annoying and that was playing with people who ignored simple mechanics which in turn caused unnecessary deaths.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Asthreon View Post
    Yeah I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on that. TBC heroics were never hard, a lot of people that say they were either were just really new to MMO's and they felt harder while they were learning OR they didn't actually play TBC and just mimic what they have heard other bads say.

    I remember being able to ding fresh level 70 chars, grind out a key or two and go straight into heroics with random guild mates and clear them easily.

    The only "hard" thing about Slabs wasn't actually "hard" it was just annoying and that was playing with people who ignored simple mechanics which in turn caused unnecessary deaths.
    I'd like to see you do heroic Shattered halls on a Freshly dinged 70 pre-nerf and NOT call it hard. Even if the person you are quoting is excagarating, you are bi-ased and over-exaggerating yourself.

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