Opinion Thread: Has WoW gotten too hard?

[Bartumus22]

Hi guys and girls. I'm making this thread because I have been a player since 2005 and I have noticed a sharp climb in the difficulty of encounters. I'm not talking about Pve single player questing. But I honestly started out in BC with a guild that happily raided. We weren't very good, but it was fun, and not migraine inducingly difficult.

Now over the years, players have been clamoring for challenges and raising of difficulty, up to the point of insult if you are not up to their level. To quote a book I enjoy, it's like playing chess, while knitting, while playing jeopardy, while driving a car. This is a game people. NOT a physics/calculus/Latin course. And I have a frikking degree! I was reading a thread about min/maxing using a certain trinket, when I realized I couldn't understand what I was reading. And I'm considered a mathematician.


So what's the point? Can we please not lock all the cool rewards behind Olympic level difficulty? I can't even raid at this point outside LFR, and we all know the wonderful rewards from there. I understand some few enjoy beating their heads against a keyboard after the 316th time wiping, but I am not one of them. Please. Lower the difficulty for us mortals.

[Deleted]

It's like an armour race. Blizzard creates encounters, the community comes up with guides, add-ons, theorycrafting, Mr. Robot etc.

All this addional help simplifies the game for the gamers, so Blizzard has to create more difficult encounters to provide a challenge. But this challenge is again nullified by all the support. And of course, gamers also learn. If you have similar encounters, than you can re-use a strategy to some degree. Again, simplification - which is typical for humans, because this kind of behaviour ensures that we are able to act in a shorter time-frame and need not evaluate a complex pattern.

The game would be a different one if there would be no addons, no videos, no theorycrafting. But unfortunately, we cannot go back to the starting days. And Blizzard ensures that theorycrafting is needed by their stupid gear complexity which is increasing more and more, despite them saying otherwise.

[Leih]

Ultimately I feel if you're wiping 316 times per encounter in normal mode I'm not sure raiding is for you.

From reading your posts it sounds like you're not happy with LFR because it doesn't offer cool rewards, but you're not willing to go up to normal because it doesn't offer 100% success rate? I know it's a bit cliché to say this at this point, but there has to be some work towards earning the rewards else it's not really much of a game as such.

[Nintolak]

The encounters are really not that difficult to understand in my opinion. The biggest challenge in raiding is communication. If everyone is on the same page, the encounter goes smoothly. The difficult part is getting everyone on that page.

[Deleted]

You honestly can't progress into normal HFC? Not at all? Nothing? Niente? Nada? Not even the first few bosses? Not even in 710+ gear?

I'm not an elitist, I play for fun, I don't give a rat's ass about logs etc but I call bs on that. To not be able to kill even the first few bosses on normal difficulty despite having current gear (from boxes, 5-man mythic, upgrades...) is just perplexing.

You don't need to min-max to play normal (to an extent, same goes for hc I'd argue, esp. at this point). You don't need to use SimC (which you'd very easily understand as a mathematician). You just need some bare minimum of gear + tactics, which are available in easy-to-digest form from simple guides like Icy Veins or Fatboss videos.

[Deleted]

Is this a joke or a troll post?
The mechanics of the the bosses in the last 4 expansions are easy. I cleared HFC normal on my alt in 3 hours with pugs and guildies alts.... and im not one of those top 100 guilds member with cleared mythic content... i only have few mythic kills on the first 3 bosses
Once you wipe several times or kill a boss several times, it becomes really really easy. You dont need to do 10 things and dps a boss... as each role has something to do: avoid stuff, dps/heal/tank, and switch targets...
You want the difficulty to be lowered? why? isnt it easy enough? If you dont want to learn few mechanics for a boss because lazy or want to be carried then its your problem. I dont want to sound like a jerk or an elitist but maybe you are one of those guys that does only LFR and doesnt understand or wants to understand simple mechanics such as get out of fire, stop dps-ing boss (Nazgrim encounter.. oh god) and asks for a nerf until the boss becomes a target dummy with 1dmg swings every 10 seconds.
In conclusion - its not hard... its hard and overwhelming at the start but there will always be guides on the webs and other players that can you an advice or two about an encounters or two... dont find excuses when you are not even trying.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Ultimately I feel if you're wiping 316 times per encounter in normal mode I'm not sure raiding is for you.

From reading your posts it sounds like you're not happy with LFR because it doesn't offer cool rewards, but you're not willing to go up to normal because it doesn't offer 100% success rate? I know it's a bit cliché to say this at this point, but there has to be some work towards earning the rewards else it's not really much of a game as such.

This ^

Normal = perfect level for the people that are too cool for LFR but don't want to commit to a Heroic/Mythic raiding team. All raiding above LFR requires teamwork though, there's just no way around it.

Also, lol @ the person above saying that guides and stuff "nullifies" the challenge...*ahem*. Method, best raiding guild in the world with extremely prepared and experienced raiders wiped over 700 times on Archimonde Mythic alone. They knew all the mechanics inside out, yet it's the teamwork and execution that needs to be right. The people that are so helped by guides that the challenge is "nullified" are probably not raiding the highest level of content when it's current. Or maybe they use bots. I just recently learned (during the bot ban) that some people actually use rotation bots...dafudge?

[Itisamuh]

The argument is there, considering so many people cheat with rotation bots and whatnot in order to succeed.

[Gheld]

You honestly can't progress into normal HFC? Not at all? Nothing? Niente? Nada? Not even the first few bosses? Not even in 710+ gear?

I'm not an elitist, I play for fun, I don't give a rat's ass about logs etc but I call bs on that. To not be able to kill even the first few bosses on normal difficulty despite having current gear (from boxes, 5-man mythic, upgrades...) is just perplexing.

"I'm not an elitist, but if you aren't good at the same things I'm good at you're a flawed human being."

Right. Got you chief.

[Kakera]

The argument is there, considering so many people cheat with rotation bots and whatnot in order to succeed.

I know this is a troll but feel like being helpful for whatever reason today. For the lesser informed that might believe this nonsense... at the top 1% there aren't such things as rotation bots. This is because they can never be programmed to perform as well as a player can adapting to situations that happen randomly throughout an encounter. It's a coding limitation.

"I'm not an elitist, but if you aren't good at the same things I'm good at you're a flawed human being."

Right. Got you chief.

He's right though. Stay mega salted.

[Tokas]

I think there should be something for everyone, that's what makes games successful with big communities, right?
However raiding - I think the game should be balanced around NOT having addons, and those addons that do help out too much on boss fights should be banned. Heck if it was up to me, even DeadlyBossMod would be banned. I would very much like to hear boss say - AND NOW YOU DIE! Which would basically mean new phase, or shitstorm is coming... nowadays addons do all the work, we can play with WoW sounds off...
Such a fun killer for me.

[Thelxi]

But, like, that is really not what is going on. You say that cool rewards are locked behind olympic level difficulties, but in actuality "normal" raiding is more accessible and easy than normal raiding has ever been, being pretty much flex level difficulty. Dungeons are faceroll and if you want a high ilvl you can get there by doing non raiding stuff. You can even get legendaries nowadays by simply investing time in doing LFR every week. Also very few things are gated behind actually challenging content such as mythic bosses and gold challenge modes, most things you can get by doing lower difficulties.

[Gheld]

The argument is there, considering so many people cheat with rotation bots and whatnot in order to succeed.

Yeah. Take a fight like Iskar. On normal you could theoretically do the fight without addons. Heroic and above; there's no way in hell a human being could pass the orb fast enough without at the very least a mouseover macro.

There's nothing about that that makes for interesting or engaging gameplay.

[muwatallis]

The only thing that is absurdly difficult is the mythic encounters, and not all of them. I personally enjoyed the Vanilla/TBC system where there was no difficulty variation and if you killed a boss, it was counted as a " progression kill". Now progression doesn't count when its normal or HC(to a degree) and in order to considered progressive, guilds must raid into Mythic which is only designed for bloody high end lifeless raiders whose right arm biceps is thicker than the left one for ominous reasons. So yeah, difficulty in raiding has been increased in order to serve 0.01% who compete for world firsts.

[Bartumus22]

Ultimately I feel if you're wiping 316 times per encounter in normal mode I'm not sure raiding is for you.

From reading your posts it sounds like you're not happy with LFR because it doesn't offer cool rewards, but you're not willing to go up to normal because it doesn't offer 100% success rate? I know it's a bit cliché to say this at this point, but there has to be some work towards earning the rewards else it's not really much of a game as such.

316 times is mythic. But no, I get kicked out of the normal leg due to me not having a hundred add-ons. And not-min-maxing. I just feel the fantasy of swinging a sword or casting a spell got left behind in the dust of a whole bunch of numbers. And yeah, Lfr rewards bite.

[Deleted]

The argument is there, considering so many people cheat with rotation bots and whatnot in order to succeed.

But you DON'T NEED to cheat to succeed. I mean sure, to rank, maybe. But to kill normal bosses? C'mon. Normal is tuned in a way that allows you a lot of room for error. I know, because I raid it myself. Hc as well. I make fucktons of errors, mess my postioning, let dots drop because I was doing something... and the people I play with don't outplay me too much, they're on par, more or less. For each fight there is just a couple of really important mechanics that WILL wipe you if you mess up. You don't have to be a prodigy with incredible unerring micro and perfect focus, you just need to not mess the critical mechanics up TOO often.

"I'm not an elitist, but if you aren't good at the same things I'm good at you're a flawed human being."

My entire point is you don't need to be all that good. I'm fucking not. Hell, people with disabilities raid in WoW!

All it really takes is patience and at least some communication + basic knowledge of the tactics. I posit that if the OP honestly CAN'T progress into normal despite actually trying, it is very unusual and probably some problem with him, not with the game. I don't know, character, attitude, expectations, I can't and won't judge.

[Gheld]

But you DON'T NEED to cheat to succeed. I mean sure, to rank, maybe. But to kill normal bosses? C'mon. Normal is tuned in a way that allows you a lot of room for error. I know, because I raid it myself. Hc as well. I make fucktons of errors, mess my postioning, let dots drop because I was doing something... and the people I play with don't outplay me too much, they're on par, more or less. For each fight there is just a couple of really important mechanics that WILL wipe you if you mess up. You don't have to be a prodigy with incredible unerring micro and perfect focus, you just need to not mess the critical mechanics up TOO often.

I think the point is that it has become world of addon craft. There's nothing interesting and engaging about downloading 'mandatory' addons.

[Kapha]

I think the biggest problem atm is the giant gap between people who raided/pvped for up to 11 years and new players.
A lot of things that might be easy/laughable for a veteran might still be new for someone else.

There are a lot of mechanics in WoW that most people just handle passively while new players will not even realise that they exist if they don't watch very carefully.

The hardest part I see about the current content is getting into the respective communities.

PS: it really doesn't help that the leveling experience is so easy.

[Queen of Hamsters]

"I'm not an elitist, but if you aren't good at the same things I'm good at you're a flawed human being."

Right. Got you chief.

Did he REALLY call the OP a flawed human being, or is that something you read into his post...? I can't find where he made such a claim.

- - - Updated - - -

I think the point is that it has become world of addon craft. There's nothing interesting and engaging about downloading 'mandatory' addons.

You're right, there's nothing "engaging" about addons, that's what the GAME is for...no addon, unless you blatantly cheat, is going to down a boss for you and your team. Case in point: Iskar.

Afaik when addons have become too intrusive, Blizzard has poot their foot down and stopped said addon from working. My memory of such an addon was on Heroic Sindragosa.

[Deleted]

I think the point is that it has become world of addon craft. There's nothing interesting and engaging about downloading 'mandatory' addons.

I raid heroics, up to and including regularly killing Archimonde. I use the default WoW UI, which in 2015 has really ALL you need to raid. I do have Big Wigs, but I feel really you can just pay attention to the screen and boss emotes and do fine. The ball on Iskar, you can make a macro for passing. You need NONE of that to kill normal bosses. All the addons help ofc, so most people use them, and honestly, is the argument now that raiding is gated behind the ability of an adult human to learn about and download a raid warning addon? Because that's a ridiculous argument to make and OP did not make it.