WotLK too easy for Casuals (fine for hardcore)

[SirLancelittle]

I’m a long time Wow player who has played both as a casual player and a hardcore player and I have to say that I believe Wow has become too easy for casual players. This post certainly contains some QQ but I hope also shows what I believe are ways to fix these problems and make the game more fun. Before I begin this long post (consider yourself warned in advance) I would like to define 2 things:
Casual – A casual PvE player is generally a player who does not play as much as a hardcore player (often due to RL commitments). Often they cannot be part of a hardcore guild because they either can’t commit to being on at the same time every day or commit to being on for long length of time. In general they have less gear/experience than hardcore players.
PvE Fun – I believe that there are 2 requirements for an encounter to be fun. The first requirement is that the encounter be challenging. The second requirement is that the encounter has a chance to give a reward. Encounters that don’t meet these two requirements feel like a boring grind (if they are too easy) or a pointless fight (if they provide no reward).
With these things in mind I think it is clear that WotLK is too easy and thus not as much fun for casual players:

1) Heroics are too easy:
Heroics are one of the best encounters for casual players since they often require a shorter time commitment than raids and can be completed at any time of the day. Unfortunately, heroics in WotLK are so extremely easy that they can be run faster than the random heroic timer and without any player’s life dropping below 80%. I would even argue that heroics in WotLK were too easy in 80 blues. This makes these instances feel more like a grind and less like a fun game.

The Solution (for Cataclysm):
The solution to this problem is not simple because heroics fulfill a number of rolls including providing instances for new 80s and badges. My solution is to
a. Greatly increase the difficulty of heroics. People who don’t know the encounters or are unorganized should wipe multiple times on every boss. A well organized and experience group should wipe about once per run.
b. Mob difficulty should increase with player gear level. Since heroics need to last and be fun for the entire expansion they need to stay difficult even as player’s gear level changes dramatically. Heroic should be more about organization/skill/experience than gear.
c. Normal instances should drop badges. Heroics are currently so easy that obtaining badges is simply a matter of time not difficulty. Currently the “hard” heroics keep getting nerfed because people complain they take longer to get badges. Might as well make the normals drop badges so the heroics can be made hard.
d. Heroics need to drop good gear. In order to fulfill the fun requirement the new (actually hard) heroics need to provide rewards to compensate players for running them. They need to be above the value currently obtainable by badges (or everyone would just run for badges) but below the highest tier of raiding. One option would be to have enhancements like BOP gems, enchants, recipes, crafting mats drop from these new heroics.


2) Instances are repetitive due to lack of CC or threat/mana issues:
One of the things that makes heroics (and to a lesser extent some raids) feel boring is the repetitiveness of trash. When heroics came out in BC trash pulls were often extremely difficult due to the Tank having trouble holding aggro (esp off the healer) and CC being required by dps classes. Now that threat is no longer an issue most instances’ trash can be cleared by grouping, AoEing and repeating. When a dps has to cast only one spell (Blizzard, ftw) and the healer doesn’t have to worry about threat or mana, it makes trash extremely boring.

The Solution:
a. Bring back CC and give it to everyone. It was often frustrating in BC when classes without CC made encounters much more difficult so I think that all classes should be given some sort of instance CC. This allows for some pulls to be single target, some to be AoE, some to be controlled CC. Simply put, it gives more variety. And if you have CC you can also have…
b. Bring back threat as a problem for trash. In BC this was unbalanced because certain classes had huge threat advantaged. But as long as all tanks are equal, threat is actually a very interesting mechanic. Skilled tanks can help a group by being able to control more mobs. Skilled dps can help a group with consistent CC and good kiting. And the encounters become more difficult for healers because they have more targets to heal (not just the tank) and a skilled healer can do better by using spells that generate less threat. Quite frankly, my favorite heroics were the ones were threat issues caused the trash pulls to feel hectic.


3) Too many raid encounters are enrage timer based
It seems to me that a large number of the encounters are enrage timer based and consequently are very gear based. Often, fights have an enrage timer like effect (where you must beat a timer or you will be overwhelmed by adds) instead of an actual timer but the effect is the same. The problem with enrage timers is that the difficulty caused by an enrage timer can be easily overcome simply by obtaining a better gear. For example in a 25 man (17 dps) the death of 1 dps can be overcome by the other dps increasing their damage by 6% per person. 6% might seem like a lot until you realize that most people were doing 2k dps when they hit 80 and 5k (or more) dps now. That is a 150% increase over 3 raids (Naxx, ulduar, ToC). This probably means that from your first Ulduar run till ToC came out your dps increased by about 40% and you could therefore overcome the death of 6 dps (that’s almost 1/4 of your raid). The reason this is a problem (for Casuals) is that often Casuals run raids long after they come out. Since by this time many people significantly outgear the instances, the instances often are too easy.
Don’t believe that many encounters are balanced this way? Let’s look at the Keepers in Ulduar (on normal):Hodir has an enrage timer, the difficult part of Freaya is killing the adds fast enough (before the next set spawns), and Thorim is about getting down the corridor fast enough while still keeping up with the adds spawning in the center.
The Solution:
Design more encounters that don’t have timers. Encounters with CC are one way to do this. Also, encounters should have events where a mistake by any player can wipe the raid (regardless of gear). An example of this is the Northrend Beasts. A player getting hit by the yeti’s charge, for example, can wipe the raid as can a person with the fire debuff not dispelling poison off the tank. I’m not saying the Beasts encounter wasn’t relatively easy. It just didn’t get that much easier as gear improved.

The whole reason I bring this up is I recently stopped raiding hardcore and quickly became bored. I think it is ironic that I found the game to be too easy for casuals but decently balanced when I was hardercore (since I cared about the balance of heroic-raids not heroics). I’ve found myself waiting anxiously for Cataclysm because heroics will be much more difficult at the beginning of an expansion than they are now. I remember the time I spent as a casual in BC were much more interesting because heroics were more difficult for casuals. I still love Wow and think that, in general, WotLK was a fun expansion. I just hope some changes can be made to make it more interesting.

[mypally]

i agree with parts, but not with others.

Yes, they are easy, mainly due to current gear level, but partialy because they are in fact easier then most BC heroics were. These places werent hard in 80 blues, and they arent hard now. Scaling bosses with gear seems to defeat the purpose of getting gear though.

Bringing CC kinda sucked in BC. I dont know about you, but I hated having to get at least 1 mage to get MgT done in BC. Some CC is ok, if it just makes it a little easier, but not needed (kind of like a lot of trash pulls in ICC before everyone realised you can just aoe down everything). giving everyone CC isnt the way to go either, because every class just feels the same.

Lastly, enrage's are there so that you cant 2 man instances. there is nothing wrong with an enrage being another mechanic you have to deal with.

[mypally]

forgot to mention, everything has an enrage timer in the game. It is either a hard enrage where the boss goes nuts and 1 shots people, a soft enrage based on constantly increasing damage or adds running rampant, or what you are suggesting, your healers mana will be the enrage timer. So your solution does not solve the issue of enrage timers (which arent really a problem, and I personaly enjoy)

[Larivas]

To your 1a, people leave too quickly for that now. 1-2 wipes and they're gone.
1b, if mob difficulty is going to increase the gear reward should as well, otherwise you're running something that is harder for gear that you no longer need. This would mean blizz making multiple item levels for the same item for heroics. Which in that case, why run anything else at all? Get gear from heros, heros drop better gear, run them for the better gear, etc.
1c, it would still be a time issue instead of a difficulty issue. You would just be able to farm a fast resetable instance for badges instead of having to do randoms.
1d, The BOP gem idea is what they did in BC. It sucked. You would have to run an entire hero for the one gem that you needed and hope that you won the roll when it did finally drop for you. It would bring up the same issue as 1a, they'd have to keep adding stats to the hero gear. I'd prefer that they spend their time on other content.

2a, they've given CC to everone. They've said they wanted to make at least a few pulls in heros un-aoe'able. Yes I made up a word.
2b, threat wasn't always a problem in BC. Ever run with a pally tank back then? Also, trying to tank mobs as a dps is a bad idea, always. It took a lot more coordination to get through pulls back then, yes, but you also didn't have the random tool and at least personally I ran a lot more with people I knew. I'd prefer not to run instances that are equivalent to Slabs with 90% of the people I've gotten through the random tool.

3, if casuals run raids so much later than everyone else, and they out gear it so much that they can make up for the loss of 6 dps on an otherwise tight enrage timer, why are they doing the raid? You can be a casual raider and still do the current content.

[jr06]

The unfortunate thing within all of this (which has been stated by countless people before) is that Blizzard is a company and has an obligation to their shareholders above all. As long as the game is fun enough to keep the masses entertained then they're probably not going to change much... they have more subscribers now than ever.

[Zorafin]

Personally, I'd prefer to see tiered heroics. I loved the inclusion of the icecrown instances simply because of the increased difficulty. What I didn't like was how it didn't matter how long you've been running heroics beforehand, you could still get into icecrown just as easily. What I'd like to see next time is similar to the tier system they have for raids. That is, there are entry level instances for fresh 80s, which provide basic gear. Then come low level heriocs, medium level heroics, and etc. To get to the next one, you must do the lower ones a few times. This gives a sense of progression that you don't get with the system we have now, especially with badges being the same every level.
And that's another thing I want to address. Every difficulty of heroics right now gives the same level of badges. This was done to get everything to ICC level quickly, sure, but it also means it's very basic to gear yourself out now. It severely devalues lower tiers of content. While I believe there should be a near raid level of power a heroic runner can get to, I also believe he should have to work for it just as hard as a raider. Therefore, I think badges should remain static, and require you to get to a specific tier of content to farm.

You're right. While I do love myself my heroics, I also don't like how I can watch a movie while tanking. Tanking, which is supposed to be the most demanding job you can have in a heroic. But also, there is the fact that new players need to learn a bit before being subject to difficulty. Heroics had a nice difficult level when everyone was in blues, so maybe if everyone isn't ToC level, it'd help.

[sd78]

The raid system in WotLK has been a total farce from the outset. Activision have identified Bad Players and drooling retards as their prime demographic and tuned the content accordingly.

After the disastrous first raid tier, they got back on the right track with Uld (which was great, incidently), then completely dropped the ball with a laughably easy two-room raid that was being farmed by random Tard Chat PUGs within a month. Having absolutely ANYONE being able to get free tokens for the 2nd-best tier of gear from farming fucking HEROICS (which were too easy for newly-80s on release) was the final nail in the coffin. I quit back in December, so God knows what IceCrown is like.

The unfortunate thing within all of this (which has been stated by countless people before) is that Blizzard is a company and has an obligation to their shareholders above all. As long as the game is fun enough to keep the masses entertained then they're probably not going to change much... they have more subscribers now than ever.

Incorrect.

Subscriptions plateaued two years ago from what I understand.

[dantian]

Incorrect.
Subscriptions plateaued two years ago from what I understand.

That would actually be a good point if it were true.. sadly, it's not. WoW is growing, Blizzard would not make moves and continue in the exact same direction for such a long time if it wasn't gaining them subscriptions.

Granted, great gear might be a bit too easy to come by these days, but Blizzard is making bank. If you don't like the game and the direction, quit (which you did) and don't come back. Blizzard doesn't give one half of a 747 flying fuck if the hardcores don't get to beat their chests as hard anymore, but they will care if they lose subs instead of gaining them.

[AnotherPaladin]

Some parts are good and others are shaky. As long as blizz is gaining more and more subscriptions, why change what they're doing? We don't know what the Cataclysm is going to be like for sure yet. I'd much rather have it a little easy than way to hard for casuals. As a whole, we don't need another vanilla grind fest where a very small percentage of the people actually get to see and enjoy the content.

[The Core]

It's not the game that's gotten worse, it's the playerbase that's gotten spoiled.

We are constantly spoonfed with everything we should know, the gear we need, what places we should go. Even an automatic LFG system.
Less and less responsability is put on the player, resulting in a lazier and more complacent playerbase that do not appriciate hard work and effort coupled with respect and an understanding of the game gained through experience they no longer need for half of what they're doing.

[Varasalvi]

I agree that WOTLK instances/raids are to easy.
But the answer is not to increase mobs according to gear, they should rather make the fights rely more on tactic than gear. I remember in BC and vanilla, no matter how good geared group i was in we could always whipe becouse someone failed on tactic. Bring that back and we are fine

[Gron]

The raid system in WotLK has been a total farce from the outset. Activision have identified Bad Players and drooling retards as their prime demographic and tuned the content accordingly.

After the disastrous first raid tier, they got back on the right track with Uld (which was great, incidently), then completely dropped the ball with a laughably easy two-room raid that was being farmed by random Tard Chat PUGs within a month. Having absolutely ANYONE being able to get free tokens for the 2nd-best tier of gear from farming fucking HEROICS (which were too easy for newly-80s on release) was the final nail in the coffin. I quit back in December, so God knows what IceCrown is like.

I agree. Lets not forget VOA.

There is likely a drop in subscriber base hence lack of announcements of new tops of WOW players.

[quote]Blizzard,
-a company with a 15 years trackrecord of excellent and successful games
Yes
-singlehandedly brought MMORPGs from a smelly nerdcorner into the spotlight
Yes
-employs 4000 ppl to maintain WoW alone
Yes, out of which 3800 are in Customer Support, 50 HR person, and I think less than 100 work on the product.
-among them professional and well paid game designers, psychologists and whatever you can imagine
Yes
-constantly tracks and surveys every single step your character takes, down to the amount of frostweave bandages created and monsters slain.
Yes, so they tune the game taking into account PVP players, banking characters, gathering alts, etc.

With that information at hand, all these topics do one thing...and that is stress relief for you. You can also pretend they will change something.
Yes likely it wont.

Oh..I am well aware that all my posts will do is: is stress relief for ME. I can also pretend they will change something.
Yes, we all make a change with taking on arguments. Though I fear WOW is now more directed with excel sheet numbers rather than game design.

[blahism]

I quit back in December, so God knows what IceCrown is like.

Its great.

[Doylez]

agreed with the heroic 5mans. they need to make heroics much more difficult or add another difficult mode. 5mans are great because it doesn't take long to find a group and it doesn't take that long. But it is dissapointing how fast everything dies in 5mans, you can barely activate a cooldown and the boss is already dead. Everything dies way too fast, it's not much fun to kill every mobpack in a few seconds.

[Arganis]

Everybody in this thread seems to have a bit of what makes up the global problem.

Even though we are effectively powerless and Blizzard's main interest is money, the money comes from the players and even casuals are starting to wonder if this isn't a little over the top easy. I mean having easy now obviously a must for Blizzard but there's no middle ground and I think Blizzard realizes that so all hopes aren't lost.

As for raiding, well I think they did ok, if you were really hardcore you're not riding around on the ToGC mount otherwise you've got nothing to rave about.

If you want to be hardcore in WoW then go get that "the light of dawn" title while you ride around on Mimi's head otherwise stop moaning just killing Yoggy isn't enough to get you the respect you think you deserve.

[Gron]

agreed with the heroic 5mans. they need to make heroics much more difficult or add another difficult mode.

What "other difficulty mode" to add?
Now there are normal and heroic modes. Both are on the same difficulty level. Why call the easy mode "heroic" in the first place?

[Deleted]

Havnt read ur post or the replys, only when u said heroics are too easy. Well to me they were hard when we were undergeared, same when a new raid comes. Its hard until u outgear it /learn tactics. So after a year, YES i think heroics will become easy, heroics are to gear ppl up, and they cant make them hard for ppl in lvl 245 epics, can they? Or no1 would gear up.

[Xikem]

Playerbase doing BC heroics: "wtf blizz this shit is too hard"

Playerbase doing WotLK heroics: "wtf blizz this shit is too easy"

Devs: "wtf do you people want from us?!"

[Arganaut]

I personally don't agree with the current system. Heroics should be there to gear up and prepare for the next tier of content, or for something to do in your spare time.

Heroics should not be there for the sole purpose of being grinded day in day out to gear you up for the current tier of content.

For me, the current system enables Blizzard to get loads more subscriptions by drip feeding players high quality rewards in exchange for them continuing to pay and play and essentially equates to feeding crack to the kids.

I agree Blizzard cannot win either way when it comes to the difficulty of the heroics it is good that the current system gives everyone an opportunity to obtain superior armor and hopefully sample all the content on hand.

For the regular raider it doesn't matter, the opportunity for extra badges is a nice to have, but for a large player base who play casually, are in smaller guilds, pug etc, I just think the current state of play where it is vital to do your daily in order to get your gear is a sad state of affairs. If you miss your daily fix of frost emblems, you may go to bed and slit your wrists. Good forbid you go on holiday for a week.

[transparent]

For the regular raider it doesn't matter, the opportunity for extra badges is a nice to have, but for a large player base who play casually, are in smaller guilds, pug etc, I just think the current state of play where it is vital to do your daily in order to get your gear is a sad state of affairs. If you miss your daily fix of frost emblems, you may go to bed and slit your wrists. Good forbid you go on holiday for a week.

I don't know man...I'm in a high end guild, having done all the Hard Modes. Since the ICC patch has been released, I've felt that it is my obligation as an end-game raider to obtain the required badges as quickly as possible, especially considering the annoyingly gated system.

I am now at the point where I want to puke having to run Heroics. I will press on, if only because I am a hairline away from my last Tier piece.

Tier 10 has been by far the worst Tier grind, and plain 'grind' I've experienced in this game, and I've done practically all the grinds there is in the game except 'the Insane'.

As most of the other posters have mentioned, tactics really do make the difference for Heroics. At least then each trash pull won't be a mind numbing SoC/Blizzard/W/E spam session, after 5 minutes, 'Oooh boss!', 30s later, next trash pull.