Dungeons today - Do you have fun? (Long post)

[Krypper]

Many people say this: "Blizzard have to cater to the masses", but I have never met anyone who thinks the new AoE zerg is more fun than the vanilla/BC difficulties. Where are these 70-90% that thinks AoE zerging and GOGO MUST BE DONE IN 15 MINS thinks it's fun?

They're not posting on forums.

[KeatsIT]

No epics and badges on heroics. Only place i want some actual epics is HoR.

Yeah cos HoR hero is hard :

[Kickbuttmario]

Yeah cos HoR hero is hard :

Did u ever have a healer with blues heal the tank and still have mana for boss? Did you ever have the dps that can support the amount of damage needed and kil the 3-5 mobs per round.

No I dont think the dungeon is hard, I beat it and got the achievement on my first day first try. I did however had a few pieces of Ulduar and TOGC.

Just saying, should be recommended to have epics.

[Deleted]

dungeons are no fun. gear is what fun is. getting geared is fun....not killing the mobs for it. big numbers based on good gear are fun, not the dungeons itself.

[Alienganja]

I'm currently taking a break currently mostly due to the lack of fun I was having outside of raids and battlegrounds.

I'll break down my personal reasons as to why I'm no longer playing, however I have been considering restarting lately just to see the end of icecrown. I consider myself a hardcore casual, in the sense that when I play I always try to do my best.

About me:
Played Warrior through Vanilla and BC.
Started a Hunter in BC and got S3 Duelist.
Rerolled Priest 2 weeks before BC ended and continued up until a month ago with breaks during Ulduar and ToC.

I've played this game since about patch 1.02, which was always fun for me. I always enjoyed the difficulty of an encounter that was beatable but required a bit of coordination. My favorite part of the game was the 5 man dungeons that used to take anywhere from an hour to 2 hours and a bit.

Now, I used to like the fact that it was somewhat hard to obtain upgrades. I remember running Strathlome and Scholomance for extended periods of time just trying to get everything, getting my friends to help with the already decently hard baron runs, and all in all playing a little more to get a little more.

Blizzard hasn't changed anything significant about the game in my opinion, but they're reduced it's time investment. That is to say, regardless of the amount of time someone plays they always have equal opportunity as someone who has been playing a long time. I don't have a total problem with this, but I PERSONALLY FEEL...and please don't hate me or devalue my opinion for this...that badges are much too easy to obtain and bank.

Now there's no major problem with obtaining easy items, HOWEVER...these items allow people who have not experienced previous raid content and difficulty to immediately walk in to higher level raids and instances. This is where I feel the game has lost face, because it's not the gearing, but the lack of skill people have and then accompanying arrogance they seem to show as if I'm a crazy person.

I enjoyed gearing up new applicants who had skill but not the attunement for places like Onyxia. I mean don't get me wrong, if you weren't in a good guild you were spending a good 30 mins to an hour looking for an UBRS group, but that was some of my favourite time. The time waiting and maybe farming a few mats was well spent because you always had an objective, I don't feel an objective anymore in this game.

I break it down as:
"Log on"
- Queue for daily random heroic
- Do dailies if you're not a healer/tank
- Complete daily random heroic in 20-30 minutes (or cry at T9 people who pull 2k dps)
- Finish dailies
(Log on to alts if you have any and repeat)
- Return to main and raid if you haven't
- If you have completed all raids for that week either grind random heroics, farm mats, or play the AH

Now I'm kind of coming off as a complainer at this point, but I don't think the game has that difficulty that was so fun before. I mean I honestly love hard modes and the idea of them, however this is mostly about dungeons and their value of fun. I currently think that the 5 mans ARE NOT FUN, and people (especially noo(b) people) seem to think that if I want to have fun, or create some difficulty in an instance that I'm the crazy one. "Hey guys lets do the hardmode on this boss", is usually fought with "fuck it, I don't have the gear to do that" with someone in full t9.

This is silly, I'm waiting on Diablo 3 for now...but I probably might make my way back some time just to finish all of ICC. But yeah, I'm not having fun daily...only with the people I raid with do I have fun.

Bring back CC please.
Bring back a few 1-2 1/2 hour dungeons with increased difficulty and maybe 1 epic loot/random epic loot (aka VANILLA) per final boss with the rest ranging in ilevel blues.
Also, IT IS NOT FUN TO SEE EVERYONE RUNNING AROUND IN ilevel 277 gear and going "oh hey, I have GS of blah blah blah, PICK ME".
Just bring back some sort of difficulty...or at least sense of grind. Because IM SO BORED.

[Kickbuttmario]

..

No matter what in any case, people interpret the game in different ways. I know what you are talking about, that was one of the things that made Vanilla and TBC so well done. Back then, people used to call TBC the ruined game and that it ruined WoW. I didn't really understand what they were referring to honestly, but WOTLK is something that I think Blizzard has done something unjust. Thats just my opinion. (Note: If you disagree, prove me wrong with facts)

As for myself, I haven't been playing the game in a while, probably might restart and re-roll in a high-end server (Mag or Mannoroth) just to get into a fast guild and clear stuff, but probably going to an actual re-start when Cataclysm comes out. I have my hopes up for that game and I know Blizzard won't let people down.

Edit: Removed giant quote. --Sunshine

[LeperHerring]

Now there's no major problem with obtaining easy items, HOWEVER...these items allow people who have not experienced previous raid content and difficulty to immediately walk in to higher level raids and instances. This is where I feel the game has lost face, because it's not the gearing, but the lack of skill people have and then accompanying arrogance they seem to show as if I'm a crazy person.

There is really only one or two tiers of raid content in the game at a time. Right now it's ICC while the older content whether it's Ulduar, BT, Kara, AQ or whatever is irrelevant. There simply aren't enough players to fill all WotLK raid tiers with competent guilds. Blizzard has to provide a way for people to gear up enough to be ready for the current raid, which they do by handing out easy epics through heroics and new 5 mans.

[Gron]

With everyone pushed into ICC, Blizzard is surprised "ooh, people are lagging".
Back in TBC guilds were more spread in instances, never saw that lagfest what we see now.

[Garil]

There is really only one or two tiers of raid content in the game at a time. Right now it's ICC while the older content whether it's Ulduar, BT, Kara, AQ or whatever is irrelevant. There simply aren't enough players to fill all WotLK raid tiers with competent guilds. Blizzard has to provide a way for people to gear up enough to be ready for the current raid, which they do by handing out easy epics through heroics and new 5 mans.

I have no problem with allowing people to get caught up. I think that's fine. I'm not one of these people who will say a new 80 has to raid Naxx, Sarth, Maly, Uld, ToC before getting to ICC. It's not feasible for a person to do that because nobody raids those any more, and even if people did, there doesn't seem to be a good reason. Despite it being a good idea in practice, the free gear has gotten out of hand. Between badges, VOA, and a few 5 manners dropping raid quality loot, you can get geared enough to raid ICC without any skill or work whatsoever.

The problem then becomes that they feel entitled to raid invites, and start causing problems in guilds when they don't get invited due to their lack of skill. Have you noticed how many new guilds have formed over the last month? A lot of them are groups of dissatisfied people breaking off from more established guilds, weakening those. Many of them are the welfare gear scrubs, so it's not a huge deal if they leave, but they always manage to talk a few of your better raiders into joining them. Not to mention, if you (like myself for example) are in a ten man guild, and usually pug 25, there are always a few of these scrubs in there that drag the quality of the raid down. Sometimes so much it fails completely. Now granted, an experienced raid leader should be able to inspect a person's gear and know if they're any good, but frankly it can just take too much time for pug leaders so they go off something as simple as gear score. I've seen a remarkable drop in the quality of pug raids lately.

Triumph badges shouldn't be quite as easy to get as they are. Possibly a limit per day would solve it. These 5 man instances should not be dropping raid quality loot. HoR is the only one that's even mildly challenging. The other two are a joke. I to this day have more trouble in Halls of Lightning than I do in FoS or PoS, yet they drop 10 ToC loot for all that lack of effort. VOA should be at least mildly challenging. Toravon doesn't have to be putricide hard, but if he's going to drop putricide loot, a pug full of welfare gear scrubs with little idea of how to play their class should not be able to down him. A decent raid should at least have a chance of wiping once or twice. As it is, I can't for the life of me imagine how a group could be bad enough to not one shot him. The first time I killed him, everyone was laughing over vent because he practically fell over and died when we didn't even bother to execute the fight correctly. I know I didn't move for a single orb. By rights I should be dead, but nope, not on the loot piniata.

TL;DR

Allowing people to get caught up is fine, so long as it requires a modicum of skill and some dedication. Giving out high quality gear for free forces completely incompetent players into a position where they begin interacting with far better players. Some guilds are successful enough that they can completely isolate themselves from this, but not all can. For many of us, free gear to scrubs dilutes player quality which diminishes the experience for people who want to take raiding a bit more seriously.

[Gron]

For many of us, free gear to scrubs dilutes player quality which diminishes the experience for people who want to take raiding a bit more seriously.

This. I don't mind scrubs rampaging Naxxramas, but thats how far they should have gotten anyway. I am against giving badges from 5-man heroics or free loot or free VOA highest tier loot for being AFK in a raid.

Heck, with that in mind, please give me Activision Blizzard CEO's payroll, becuase everyone should be equal.

Back to him, he even said on an investor conference, that "we must cut fun from development" and "game design can improve by instilling a “culture of thrift” and “skepticism, pessimism, and fear" into company culture." No wonder, now I know who cut fun from WOW...

[Wildmoon]

I need more challenge
Wotlk 5man instances are very bad

[Insemin8or]

My old thread back to life

Some of my suggestions in the OP were kind of bad now when I look back at it, scaling mobs for example.

Some more stuff I'd like to see in Cata dungeons:

Dungeon hub like someone in the thread suggested, with daily dungeon quests etc. Something that makes us leave the capitals instead of waiting for the dungeon tool (optional of course, for you "amg I don't wanna spend 5 minutes flying!11" whiners).

Rare Spawns - disappeared for some reason in BC. Gave extra flavours to the dungeons.

Bosses that drop other things than epic X, cash and a badge. Rare recipes, items that starts or involves quests (like the carpace from Glyth in UBRS or the hide from the beast). Something not mandatory that you have to farm, but a nice "bonus". In WOTLK we had this in some sense with the battered hilt. Rare mounts are cool, but make them *really* rare. Hell, even vanity pets and other stuff would be cool. The options are endless.

A massive 5 man with a weekly lockout timer. Think Karazhan size. This would be aimed for guilds and groups of friends rather than pugs. The bosses will become harder for every section of the dungeon. Basically the second part of it should be unbeatable by release. Somewhere to go on off days for people who thinks "click dungeon tool", "click accept", "be out and done 15 minutes later" gets old fast. I realize they will never put alot of design time in this, so maybe making a 5 man version of one of the raids would work.

Have three-four different difficulty levels among the dungeons. With this I don't mean there should be 4 different modes on all dungeons, but have 5 easy dungeons, 4-5 medium ones, 1-2 medium high ones and 1-2 really freaking hard. You can pick which dungeon difficulty you want in the LFD. The loot and emblems will be higher depending on which dungeon you choose. Also, everyone gets what they want: the gogo lol peeps can AoE their way through the easy ones for their dailies, and hang out in Orgrimmar jumping on the bank roof the rest of the day, while the people who wants a harder and longer run can pick the high ones. Alts and new players can start in the easy ones until they have understood how to play and geared up, and then move on to the harder ones / raids.

These are just some ideas to make the gaming more fun, instead of the "oh shit, I have to do my daily for the emblems".

[Gron]

I have to say I like your ideas. I also have to say, likely Blizzard does not care, and will just continue doing the same stuff in Cataclysm - same easy 5-mans, and will make raids easier in Cataclysm.

[quiz]

The feeling of vanilla WoW was when everyone was new to the game.
New to their class.
New to instances.
New to raids.


In short summary, people were more inexperienced with the whole raiding feel and environment, which delivered a more exciting feel back then.

Maybe, still i don't have the feeling i had in TBC and Vanilla. Vanilla was epic, TBC was still good but i don't enjoy WOTLK like i did in TBC and Vanilla. Why? I don't really know because its not the "New to their class", etc anymore. Maybe because its way easyer to get gear buy badges, etc and not the old farming stuff.

[Deleted]

I don't know about you guys, but I remember being really excited about going into UK for the first time at Wrath launch.

I remember thinking it was damn boring, and i litterally fell asleep on the way to Ingvar, everyone in the grp agreed with me.

Anywho, I agree with the main post, i want more challenge aswell, I think wotlk was smashed to the ground when LK was downed in the first 2 days, i mean rly, what the hell just happened, one of the coolest endgame bosses just got raped in 2 days? :s But the problem might be, that many of the fights are repeated from earlier content, it's probably not easy to make new fights all the time.

- But if it really sucks so much, why do we keep playing it? ofc we can do breaks for some time, but we keep coming back.