An Intelligent Discussion on Raid Difficulty

[NotValidAnymore]

Just gonna put my opinion in here, from a casual point of view. Though it's probably been said before, by people like Elementium(?):

The difficulty of the raids is not the problem for casuals. The amount of time it takes is the real problem. That's what most casuals who do raids are frustrated over. Casuals who do raids don't want things to be nerfed; people who wants easy-to-get gear wants that. Most casual raiders don't. The thing about casuals isn't that things are too hard to kill, but it's the amount of time it takes, mostly due to the trash. That's why, in the new Coliseum raid, they are moving in a good direction, because there is little(?) to no trash, but some (hopefully) difficult bosses.

So yeah, from my casual point of view, the problem with WoW is that hardcore players feel like they need to blame casuals although it's really not their problem, it's the people who want easy-mode-gear (who could be both hardcore or casual people) who is at fault. Which usually creates some sour arguments, because hardcore people misunderstand casuals. Casuals don't want easy instances. They want instances which doesn't take several hours to complete, or raids that doesn't take several days. That is because casuals' problem is not the difficulty, it's time. Although bosses that takes a long time does sometimes turn hard because of that: the time it takes to defeat that boss.

Anyways, the difference between players in WoW is that:
Hardcore people want encounters that takes time and effort.
Casuals want encounters that takes effort, but not too much time.
Easy-mode-wanters want encounters that takes little to no effort or time.

Anyways, sorry if these things have been said before, or if I'm just rambling like an old, mad man, I'm just throwing my two cents in here.

[Greid]

Only read the first few pages of the thread and will respond on that:

Blizzard has a tough job keeping us happy. As a game, no player base has expanded and evolved as much; WoW has a mind of its own and boss tactics are what the heart of this game should be focuses on. They have introduced side-track ideas since the beginning whether it was professions, pvp, rep grinding, achievments, all of these aspects seek to enhance the core value of the game.

WoW is known for getting a bunch of people together to accomplish something that isn't "real." When outsiders look at the game, they see their *insert relationship here* sitting at their computer with a headset on and their fingers flying in accordance to the insanity on their screen. This is what the game is to other people. Whether its pvp or pve, it looks the same, and blizzard now has to contend with more people looking on and finding their niche.

The Boss Fights in Ulduar, as others have said, are more complex than fights have been in the past. Almost every boss needs to be kited a little, there is always some shit to dodge, and there is usually some gimmick that needs to be exploited. Kara was simple. most fights were stand here, kill this kind of things: think attumen, curator, shade, even prince. yet this was heralded at its conception as innovative ideas for boss fights.

Tactics have evolved and difficulty is now, as it always has been, found in organization and personal consistency.

If you are a dps class that knows how to dps, you can do any fight in ulduar, moving out of runes/fire/clouds/falling ice/exploding trees/lightening/gravity bomb/ is always the same...even the concept of switching tanks and trading adds (think twin emps) is now being used on trash pulls in ulduar...trash pulls have similar strats to lvl60 bosses.

They have made some great encounters, and casuals want to see them too. I would rather get 10 intelligent people who know their shit and not get any loot and have us progress through ulduar with whatever comp we have than stack a 25man and get every drop because we optimized the game out of reach of the developers.