People didn't like hard heroics? A quick study. . .

[Deleted]

Yes MMO champ is a ridiculously elitist community.

Only the intellectually challenged would think the dramatic sub loss soon after Cata's release was due to people actually enjoying the difficulty of the content at the time.

The "dramatic" sub loss in cataclysm was far lower than the sub loss in MoP which has had the easiest content WoW has ever experienced. To me it is far more likely that the reason people quit in Cata was due to the lack of content, not the content that already existed. There simply was not that much to do. Also, old game is old.

[kabrai]

WotLK were all faceroll. The ICC dungeons were HARD, but cake after nerfs and you got ICC gear. Cata's heroics were hard, but more so if you had the wrong comp for a fight you were boned, and certain classes had weaknesses(not enough dps at low gear levels, as a rogue I got annoyed that stuns don't work on bosses). I got turned down for dungeons on heroic early on not due to my ability to play but due to the fights being easier with a certain comp.

[Deleted]

I asked my best friend and my cousin and they both said the heroics were too hard so there's my evidence. You can't prove otherwise, I have statistical information to back me up.

[Deleted]

yes taking mmoc threads gives a picture of what all wow players want or dont as the 0.23% wow players on mmoc count for the full 100%..... not!

[Thyrial]

Two simple words, sample bias.

The type of people that come to forums like this are people that want more out of the game in the first place. They are willing to learn and to go out and FIND information they need. The official forums would be a much better representation but even then you miss the fact that the vast majority of players just log into the game and play, they don't even POST on forums never mind create topics.

No matter what we may think, at the end of the day Blizz has WAY more information about this stuff than we do, they have analytical tools that give them far more information than we will ever have. They can see how many heroic runs failed as opposed to succeeded, they can see what bosses are wiping groups, and they can see how many people just flat out gave up on running dungeons during that time. That information is FAR more accurate a measurement when it comes to whether that difficulty was right or wrong for the game.

[MoanaLisa]

If tons and tons of people really enjoyed high levels of difficulty you wouldn't see what you have seen forever in pugs: requirements that are way over the minimum. When I start to see a lot of pug groups that specifically want to do difficult raiding modes with ilevel requirements that are minimalistic to get the thing done, I'll reconsider the idea. At this point in time I've never seen that so I find the idea that most people want high difficulty content suspect. Most people want their random or pug to either be faceroll or think they'll be carried.

[CaptainV]

Debatable in that regard, Cataclysm had several major faults with its difficulty curve.

Lets look at what made Cata fail to explain why people disliked its design?

Cataclysm wanted to give players a hardcore heavy experience making even normal mode dungeons pretty punishing to people who had just come FRESH out of WOTLK heroics which by contrast, were a face roll cake walk.

Cata Heroics punished people in ways that WOTLK did not, WOTLK never taught players how to stand out of the fire because if you had good enough gear the fire would never kill you. It came too quickly and too suddenly for a target audience that was not ready for change.

They went back to WOTLK style in MOP and it worked more positively to the player base at first, but quickly degenerated into what has essentially become an UN-challenging and quite boring experience.

The fact is, Blizzard needs to find a way to help teach newcomers tactics without punishing them too severely.

Normal mode WOD should be designed around the idea of giving people the tutorial, make it easy, accessible and doable for all, while heroic mode should feel like a progressively harder experience rather than one that is downright hard.

To be honest, the real end game is in raiding, and that will have its own new "I wanna be the guy" difficulty that caters for hard cores in the form of mythic, so complaining about this is pointless if your a hard core, you get what you want.

The people complaining about not having hard mode content at this point are elitists, that don't want hard mode content, they want content that only THEY can access which is the problem.

WoW was never meant to be EXCLUSIVE for anyone, so if you don't "LIKE" that, then maybe you need to find another game that caters around that kind of mind set.

Personally I feel that with the introduction of challenge mode, heroic mode should be redesigned to be the casual friendly version of challenge mode, while challenge mode should be the "I wanna be the guy" mode for people that want the best loot and the most difficult experience.

If WoW wants to bring back its lost subs, it needs to find a way to win over as many people as possible, I fail to see how having two end game modes would be a bad thing if both audiences get what they want, the hard cores get content that casuals cant access without upping to their game and casuals get content they can do without feeling alienated from hard cores.

Again, only the elitist looses out in this kind of system.

[Netherspark]

I enjoyed the early Cataclysm heroics, and tbh I never noticed them being "too hard", even in LFD groups. They weren't a pushover like Wrath heroics had been, but they were far from being difficult. I actually thought the tuning was in a very good place, and I think Blizzard may have overreacted in nerfing them.

Rather than the dungeons being simply "too hard to beat", as was claimed, I think it was more the case that wiping in a dungeon even once had become so unacceptable to players who were used to easy Wrath heroics that they felt they needed to complain to have it "fixed". So I don't think they really complained that the dungeons were "too hard" per-say, just that they weren't "easy enough".

To be honest, the real end game is in raiding, and that will have its own new "I wanna be the guy" difficulty that caters for hard cores in the form of mythic, so complaining about this is pointless if your a hard core, you get what you want.

The people complaining about not having hard mode content at this point are elitists, that don't want hard mode content, they want content that only THEY can access which is the problem.

That's a rather insulting (and very untrue) generalization.

[Ahhdurr]

The prenerf Cata heroics were not hard. They required a minimum amount of coordination and skill which all the garbage scrubs could not handle.

The high level BC heroics were much harder and, in my opinion, much more fun and rewarding.

This change to 'lol faceroll' difficulty is sad. I wish I had that Ghostcrawler quote where he basically said players don't get better they cry for nerfs.

[Ryuda]

The problem with this analysis is that, although it might not be "cutting edge", the community here is far more "serious" than most of the community. For the most part, even if they're not people who are 14/14H, the community here consists, for the most part, of raiders, if anything, the official forums would be a better sample, although still highly biased, almost impossible to get a non-biased sample for this, honestly.

That said, it wasn't so much that the cata heroics were hard (And I think Blizz/GC have said the following a few times now), It's that they were frustrating when mixed with (1)LFD, and (2) No other real form of character progression on way to raiding. And while LFD is still a problem, the fact that we will have open world content à la Timeless Isle/some dailies/rep gear/scenarios/crafting/garrisons(pretty sure they announced these had the potential to offer gear) to also progress your character pre-/alongside LFR means they can go back to harder heroics again (I believe they said already that launch should be similar in difficulty to the "easier" cata heroics, BRC/VP/etc.

[Tierbook]

The prenerf Cata heroics were not hard. They required a minimum amount of coordination and skill which all the garbage scrubs could not handle.

The high level BC heroics were much harder and, in my opinion, much more fun and rewarding.

This change to 'lol faceroll' difficulty is sad. I wish I had that Ghostcrawler quote where he basically said players don't get better they cry for nerfs.

I can't imagine many bosses harder than the rock guy in stonecore

[Ahhdurr]

Rather than the dungeons being simply "too hard to beat", as was claimed, I think it was more the case that wiping in a dungeon even once had become so unacceptable to players who were used to easy Wrath heroics that they felt they needed to complain to have it "fixed". So I don't think they really complained that the dungeons were "too hard" per-say, just that they weren't "easy enough".

I can agree with that last part, but it's a matter of opinion. I remember in BC when heroic Arcatraz was like a five man raid. We would honestly spend two hours wiping our way through it to get people their attunements. And you know what? Finishing that heroic felt more rewarding than finishing all the dungeons and senarios of MoP combined.

My guild has been wiping on Garrosh for a month now, but as frustrating as that may be, it is going to be awesome when we down him. Some people want to raise themselves above the bar and others just want the bar taken away.

[Invictus9001]

wotlk bred a generation of players that were too damn stupid to even use simple cc, this is why they were nerfed into oblivion by Blizzard, [...]

The only thing Wrath did was end up popularizing "chainpull + AOE kill clears" once gear surpassed what was available in the heroics.

Honestly, I LOVED the CC need in the Cata heroics. Made people have to stop, think, coordinate - or bite the pillow of death. MoP heroics? Almost zergable from the onset.

[clevin]

The problem with the hard heroics at the start of Cata was several things:

First, the Wrath heroics were mechanically simple and didn't need CC so you a) had some loss of the vanilla and TBC players for whom being good was more than just DPSing etc and b) you had new people for whom heroics were what Wrath presented.

Second, the heroics varied WIDELY in how hard they were. BRC was pretty good... Grim Batol was a pain in the ass. LFG rewards were high enough that people wanted to do the daily random and for whatever reason I got Grim Batol a LOT... and it was not PUG friendly for players who didn't outgear it.

Third, people were just barely geared for the harder heroics, especially healers. Sure, the better players raided and so quickly gained enough gear that this wasn't a big deal to them, but it was to more casual players who weren't raiding or were raiding but weren't progressing fast. Keep in mind that there wasnt really any way to get top gear aside from heroics and raids. Crafted? nah.

Take all of that together, add in that there was no heroic barrier like TBC had (where you needed REvered rep to get the key initially) and you had marginally geared players some of who weren't used to this style of 5 man LFGing into some tough instances (H Stonecore, H Grim Batol). Is it any wonder the more mainstream and casual people didn't like this?

[Ahhdurr]

I can't imagine many bosses harder than the rock guy in stonecore

For me, that wasn't even memorable enough to retain. That's the rock giant who had the freeze/stun? I think it was like two wipes to figure out the mechanics.

[pvrwizard]

I honestly always thought the 4.0 heroic were too hard is an opinion not shared by the masses to be honest. Whenever I talk with anyone about heroics, I have heard nothing but love about them, 4.0 is probably the heroics I heard the most good things about, atleast on-par with tbc heroics. I never heard anyone praise MoP heroics even once.

I enjoyed the difficulty. I did not enjoy trying to clear those dungeons with people who lacked the skill to do them

[potatoe]

The prenerf Cata heroics were not hard. They required a minimum amount of coordination and skill which all the garbage scrubs could not handle.

The popular opinion seems to be that they weren't that hard. I disagree.

tldr: one shot mechanics and hard trash packs all over the place, so yes Cataclysm 5-mans were hard.

I tanked and healed these dungeons a ton because I like 5-mans.

They were hard, partly because of the random curveballs provided by Blizzard's matchmaking system, but partly just because they were hard.

If you got a good group they were easier, but if you got a group who didn't know what they were doing they were impossible.

With time/knowledge, gear, and nerfs, their difficulty decreased.

**throne of tides**

* first trash pack: I went into Throne of Tides on launch day with a casual guild group and we could not get past the first trash pack with 2 healers because people didn't know how to keep them interrupted/CCd long enough to kill them. Healer mana drained fast in crap gear and the enemy healers were powerful at healing each other.

**Blackrock Caverns**

* The easy boss Rom'ogg Bonecrusher had a one-shot mechanic and had several adds that spawned on top of the dps/healer.

* Trash leading to the second boss had a platform where you could jump down to skip a bunch. There was always a huntard whose pet pulled the whole room and wiped us.

* The second boss was three-beam Corla, Herald of Twilight, and every group seemed to have that one person who failed at their job and caused a wipe.

* The third boss Karsh Steelbender had a huge AOE component. A tank that did it wrong could easily wipe the group with AOE. If the tank failed and let the stacks reset on the boss adds spawned (since removed in a later nerf).

**Stonecore**

* the opening trash pack has an add that transforms and does aoe damage to everyone. Did random groups target and kill it first, or maybe they interrupted it to keep it from transforming? No, so it was a wipe.

* The first boss Corborus had a one-shot mechanic if you were standing where it resurfaced.

* The second boss Slabhide had a 2-shot mechanic where if you weren't behind a pillar you would 1) notice you are taking heavy damage and 2) notice you are dead.

* The trash leading up to Ozruk had patrolling scouts who had to be killed quickly or they would run and call the whole room to attack your party. Many wipes in this room. The room had trash all around the edges that could be skipped, unless someone got within their aggro range. The room also had 2 adds that did a knockback on your group (possibly into the trash along the edge if you weren't careful). There was a skippable group of trash on the right side of the room near the boss that always got pulled by healer/rdps DURING THE BOSS ENCOUNTER as they were trying to keep maximum distance from the boss.

* The third boss Ozruk had a hard to see graphic for Shatter (a later patch addressed the visibility of the mechanic) where he would one shot anyone within his circle of death (including poorly geared tanks). There was also a mechanic that could threaten ranged. After acquiring knowledge of the encounter, good tanks would turn Ozruk away from the ranged to avoid this, but Ground Slam aimed at range was a one shot.

* The last boss High Priestess Azil was "easy" but still had a one-shot mechanic where the falling rocks could kill you.

**Deadmines**

* trash was dense. it got nerfed pretty fast. I never saw "before" but "after" still seems like a lot of trash to me.

* Admiral Ripsnarl was a dps check with lots of target switching. With crap gear this was impossible. Wiped for hours on him in a guild group. Here are some "research" links I compiled at the time to try to figure out what we were doing wrong.

> its a dps race ... are youre dps doing 5 k, youre screwed...make sure your dps is at least like 7k each, otherwise you'll have problems. (source)

> Many groups wipes at Admiral Ripsnarl . It's because it's a gear check . If you haven't the DPS , tanking or healing required for him , you'll never kill him . ...kick the too low dps in your group ...8k dps per DPS is fine. (source)

> dps should be in the 7-9k dps range... If they're down around the 4-6k, that could be why you're struggling. Particularly the classes that relied heavily on crit/haste for their dps are struggling as their ratings plummet. (source)

**Shadowfang Keep**


* First boss was nerfed because it did too much damage.

* Commander Springvale got skipped because groups couldn't kill the adds fast enough while also avoiding the death and decay and fire breath thing. Also, the boss would face away from the tank and do the fire breath cleave toward the rest of the party if the tank happened to stand in the wrong spot (i.e. on top of one of the many benches in the room).

**Grim Batol**


Many groups skipped Drahga Shadowburner because PUGs couldn't focus the spawned adds before they reached their target and...one-shotted it.

* Flame shield boss = instant death if you get hit.

* Erunaxx adds always lived and healed him. Don't stand in the eye of the storm (kind of hard to see) you die.

**Zul'Aman**

* patrols always got pulled by mistake. As a tank I would even mark them with a raid marker and people would still pull them.

* scouts weren't killed so they gathered extra trash

* There was an add with a huge AOE fire damage spell that liked to wipe the party. One pack of them in particular before Jan'alai had TWO of these dudes. Lord help you if your priest decided to Mind Control them and use the AOE. It would pull packs of adds that were totally skppable otherwise and wipe your group.

* kiss your bear mount goodbye

**Zul'Gurub**

* High Priest Venoxis had a poison maze that could not be seen at the lowest settings. I think you had to turn ground effects to Good and Particle Density to Good to see it. He also had a spew that would one shot any melee/range dps unlucky to be there if the tank turned him the wrong way quickly.

* Zanzil fire was a one shot.

* Jin'do the Godbreaker was very hard for PUGs because they had so much target switching. So many wipes happened because people weren't standing near the chains. I wiped in there for over an hour on that single boss on more than one occasion.

I could go into more detail, but this is already a mammoth post.

**tldr: one shot mechanics and hard trash packs all over the place, so yes Cataclysm 5-mans were hard.**

reference links:

* http://wowpedia.org/Dungeon_Finder#C...eroic_dungeons

* http://wowpedia.org/Cataclysm_instances_by_level

(source)

[Nigawatts]

Honestly I think they should have their cake and eat it too.

Have regular 5-mans for leveling.

Then have Heroic 5-mans at max level that offer blue items necessary to get into LFR.

Finally have Mythic 5-mans that you must enter in as group (like Heroic Scenario), that offers loot on par with LFR just in smaller doses (also offers those really rare epics at the end like the MoP 5-man Heroics).

[Itisamuh]

This is a fairly elitist community, actually. Most casual players never bother with forums at all; those are typically reserved for people who either take the game seriously now, or once did. I would say the overwhelming majority of the players felt they were too difficult. Many may like a personal challenge, but when that challenge requires your group to always be good, rather than depending on you and you alone, people tend to get frustrated more easily. I think they made the right call with more difficulty levels.

[Deleted]

If tons and tons of people really enjoyed high levels of difficulty you wouldn't see what you have seen forever in pugs: requirements that are way over the minimum. When I start to see a lot of pug groups that specifically want to do difficult raiding modes with ilevel requirements that are minimalistic to get the thing done, I'll reconsider the idea. At this point in time I've never seen that so I find the idea that most people want high difficulty content suspect. Most people want their random or pug to either be faceroll or think they'll be carried.

The reason the requirements are way over the minimum is because everyone and their grandmother got gear higher than the minimum for most content, any player that does not have higher item level then the content requires is highly likely to be ungemmed, unenchanted and how no clue what he is doing. Say I am making a heroic scenario group, it takes me less than 30 seconds to find two people with 550+ item level on my realm. Why would I take in anyone with less? If I asked for 480+, it would probably take longer time to fill out the group, as all geared players, which are the majority of players interested in a heroic scenario, would likely not join as they would assume they have to carry the group.

I think it is fairly short sighted to say item level requirement set by random groups is based on the difficulty of the activity. People ask for 560+ on my realm for elegon mount runs. How high requirements players have for content is based on supply and demand and entirely depends on the supply of players with gear. Which can be further extended to two factors.
1: How easy it is to get gear, if 90% of the players searching for a heroic scenario got 550+ item level or if 10% of the players searching got 550+ will affect what players ask for.
2: The rewards for a player overgearing the content to run the content, if there were no reason for as in the previous example, 550+ geared players to run heroic scenario, then they wouldnt.

The issue simply boils down to that the intended target audience of the content becomes the minority. The group of players that wants to run heroic scenarios that are raid geared is simply a larger group than the amount of players that are appropriately geared for the content.

- - - Updated - - -

-snip-

Didnt really read past Deadmines. But everything you wrote earlier seems to be extremely simple things that can be solved by one player in the group pressing one button, or bosses having one simple mechanic that needs to be performed by 1-3 people.

People ninjapulling mobs with pets because they try to skip trash? How does that even qualify as difficulty?

Everything you mentioned seems to be a result of a random group where half of the players have no clue what they are doing.
People playing like complete idiots and failing on the simplest things like ninja pulling trash =/= hard in my opinion.