FL nerfs - I just need a worthy explanation to get closure

[Deleted]

Mod warning: keep your cool. - Herecius

Up until this point I've been convinced that Blizzard were going to change their mind concerning the nerfs, as this hasn't happened, I'm turning to you for possible answers.

Let me also add that I'm focusing on the hardmode nerfs, the normal mode nerfs I'm fine with.

Now before I get into this, even though I know this topic has been discussed to death already, I still don't feel like I've gotten a good enough explanation. I'm just posting what I've gathered as the possible scenarios/reasons for this nerf is coming, while at the same time explaining why I don't feel they make sense. What I'm looking for is a logical explanation, presented in an orderly manner. I know I sound like your 4th-grade teacher, just let's not turn this in to the all-out flamewar as some of the other threads have become.


Explanations I've read in threads here and there:

"All players should have a chance to see the firelands-content."
This isn't a reason to also nerf the hardmodes as well as there is very little in the hard mode encounters (compared to normals) that can be considered "content". We have the 4th phase in rag (which very few will get to see in any case), as well as a couple of new small adds in various fights. As such, there isn't really any reason to nerf normals AND hardmodes just to allow every1 to see the content, is there?

"If you haven't cleared 6/7HC yet, you're not good enough and it shouldn't matter for you."
Well, it does matter. Ask any person who's currently working on his/hers 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th kill in FL if they are looking forward to this change. The reason they're doing it at the hard mode level is that they enjoy the added challenge, right? I have a hard time seeing how anybody currently working on hard modes will find these nerfs improving their enjoyment of the game.

This isn't supposed to be a "omg, I'm so l33t I hate blizz nref my hardmode game so all the baddies can come get l00t"-thread, I'm a relatively new player and don't consider myself to be better than anyone else. However, my guild has been working on heroic baleroc 25MHC (5/7HC) for quite a while, and it would just be such a huge downer to see him topple over solely due to the nerfs and not actual improvements from our side.

"Since so few people have managed to down ragnaros normal, blizzard wants as many as possible to be geared with 391 loot so they can stand a better chance to take down deathwing in 4.3"
This is the main reason I've heard, and for the most part the most convincing one. However, isn't another solution just to tone down deathwing normal mode and allow more people to down him through that way? Surely they are still switching numbers in 4.3, seeing as it's not yet on PTR.

Again, none of these explanations quite "cut it" for me. If someone was to explain any possible, logical, reasoning on why these nerfs are necessary for the hard modes as well, I would greatly appriciate it!

EDIT - Typo

[zephurwitch]

what I am really hoping is that they are toning it down because the deathwing raid is actually going to be hard...even on normal...meaning that everyone is going to need as much gear as they can get. If any of the deathwing fights are easy, I will have lost faith in Blizzard's reasoning

[Summer]

"If you haven't cleared 6/7HC yet, you're not good enough and it shouldn't matter for you."
Ask any person who's currently working on his/hers 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th kill in FL if they are looking forward to this change. The reason they're doing it at the hard mode level is that they enjoy the added challenge, right? I have a hard time seeing how anybody currently working on hard modes will find these nerfs improving their enjoyment of the game.

EDIT - Typo

We're working on our 4th HM kill and I'm pretty happy with the changes. Mostly because recruitment on our server is currently impossible and some good players quitting has us in a difficult place in terms of finding replacements.

That's just me, but there you go, one example of a person working on HM's who does not mind. I do enjoy the challenge, but not bashing my head for weeks on end on relatively simple bosses because I had to bring in another ZA/ZG geared newbie...

[notbob]

The reason is that some people are beyond logic. In this case it really isn't blizzard, but rather the people that QQ about the hard modes being hard. Blizzard doesn't have to cave to the people, sure, but they want to keep their casuals that feel entitled to hard mode gear.

I agree with you, I haven't heard a reasonable reason for them to nerf hard modes and if I was progressing in the hard modes I'd be sorely disappointed too.

[Deleted]

Because blizzard said so.

Take it or leave it, or don't and quit, or don't quit and keep raiding, or quit raiding and pvp or who gives a fuck a really its just a game, if you havn't killed rag heroic by now you or your guild have missed the progression train by a month or so, people are now just farming shit for T13, if you can farm heroic gear, great you have an edge in T13, if not, sucks to be you.

Are you gonna qq in 3 months when T13 comes out and you're still on 6/7 heroic that its being released too early and the new gear will make all your hard work worthless and a waste of time? probably so I guess this post is wasted on you.

PS. 2/7 heroic 25m, guild isn't good enough to kill anything else atm and living on a dead server so yea, bring on the nerfs, I want my easy mode gear so I can do more dps on normal Deathwing.

[blacki84]

on the other hand i think that blizz is nerfing Fl cuz most players who did not finish this tier on nh or hc CAN be annoyed of the "difficulty".
as a reaction they could quit playing wow...so blizz is losing more and more suscribers...losing suscribers is losing lots of money.
so MAYBE they don't care about those who are whining cuz everything gets more and more easier....money > all

my thoughts about those retarded nerfs -.-

[Judge Malthred]

Ever considered that when Blizz designed FL heroic content that said "We want X% groups able to clear this content, make that your goal when you are adjusting difficulty." Well FL been out a while now, they have all their info collected and X% has not been met, that means the difficulty needs to be tuned down so that the number of people clearing the heroic content is more in line with what Blizz wants.

If anyone wants to nerdrage about the nerfs, or Blizz's ideal player base percentage able to clear their content, then quit the game, go design your own game where only the elite few groups from around the WORLD have a chance at clearing anything, and see how well that goes for you.

[Deleted]

Summerwind "We're working on our 4th HM kill and I'm pretty happy with the changes. Mostly because recruitment on our server is currently impossible and some good players quitting has us in a difficult place in terms of finding replacements.

That's just me, but there you go, one example of a person working on HM's who does not mind. I do enjoy the challenge, but not bashing my head for weeks on end on relatively simple bosses because I had to bring in another ZA/ZG geared newbie... "

That's one very specific example where it's actually benificial for hard mode raiding. It does not make up for all the other servers where recruitment isn't dead and bringing za/zg geared noobs isn't on the map.

[Thickasabrick31]

The reason is that some people are beyond logic. In this case it really isn't blizzard, but rather the people that QQ about the hard modes being hard. Blizzard doesn't have to cave to the people, sure, but they want to keep their casuals that feel entitled to hard mode gear.

I agree with you, I haven't heard a reasonable reason for them to nerf hard modes and if I was progressing in the hard modes I'd be sorely disappointed too.

I've not seen anyone complain about the difficulty of hardmodes (other than people complaining about lolRNG on Rhyo). If anything, I've seen people say they are too easy. As a raid leader, I don't think they're too hard. You won't be able to kill them the first night you attempt them, but meh who expects that anyways?

At first I was kind of sad that they were nerfing hardmodes, but then I realized, I actually don't care. Rag is the only fight that matters; everything else is just gearing up for it.

Edit: Ontopic: Why is blizzard nerfing hardmodes? I don't know. They say they like to nerf them after the world firsts have been gotten to make them a little bit more accessible, but we're still waiting to see how much they nerf them by. I honestly, don't think they'll nerf them as much as they did to normals last tier (even though the blue quote implies they will do as such). Nerfing the hardmodes defeats their purpose.

[tennesseej]

I think Blizzard is somewhat in a "wrap up Cataclysm" mode. That is why there are only 3 raid tiers and 3 arena seasons this expansion. I think there is a negativity associated with Cataclysm and they are realizing that even if they deliver exactly what the community wants, the community flips out.

They wouldn't introduce this nerf if 4.3 were still a long way off, so we know 4.3 is on the horizon. After 4.3, there is some time for it to soak, and then it's time for the next expansion.

The nerfs to me are for 2 reasons:
1) The content isn't very puggable, so nerfing normal is to get more people into the raid to see the content at a post nerf level.
2) To speed up Heroic progression. Given how long FL has been out, the fact that it is 7 bosses, and guilds in almost BiS can't down Heroic Rag without hundreds of attempts, it's time to tone it down a bit. The nerfs will give guilds a chance to make their last ditch progression before 4.3.

They gave us warning about these nerfs, so if your guild was close to a 3rd/4th/5th/6th Heroic kill, then you had your week to push and get it.


On the subject of people complained about nerfing content they have already done:
The community talks all the time about "we got X kill pre nerf" with Vanilla/BC content, and now that we have achievements that have dates on them, I don't see what the big fuss is about for nerfing content you have already downed, because you have your proof in your achievement that you downed it pre-nerf. If you are playing this game not because it's fun/challenging/social and because you want nerds to drool over your gear that you got doing things that nobody else can do for whatever reason, then I would argue you are playing for the wrong reasons. Your reward for downing the content before everyone else is the fun/challenge of downing it before everyone else, the epeen for a few weeks before everyone else gets to it, and knowing you will do it again in the next patch, it's not eternally being the only person with gear/mounts/titles.

[brown]

I'm not currently raiding FL but I can see both sides of the arguement. Some raiders are close to clearing it without the nerfs and would like to do so but Blizzard would like as much people as possible to see all of FL and that requires nerfs. I think both are valid arguements and could be solved by just using ICC style buff. Blizz could just gradually increase the buff so the content is more accessible to all but the hardcores could turn the buff off.

Since they are just reducing boss hp and damage, everyone is affected. I wouldn't sweat it too much since its not the last raid and FL has been out for some time.

[Whoopsa]

I do find it funny that, in a world where new tiers only come out every 6 months, they're trying so hard to make raiding like the PvP seasons. They want everyone to be on the same page when a new patch comes out, with the less skilled players messing around with the previously nerfed tier while the rest of the raiders are forced to move on to the new one because their progress in the previous tier was artificially sped up. That method ensures that the only progression possible is in the current tier. Normally that wouldn't be a problem except that this tier had 7 bosses. With 10-15 bosses, that might actually work, but I hope that if they didn't learn the lesson back in ToC that they've learned now that abysmally short raid tiers are BORING, especially when you don't plan to come out with the next one for 6 months.

[Iyarashii]

I am just going to quote blizz on this one as it sums it up.


"Before patch 4.3 is released, we want groups who are working on Heroic-difficulty content to be able to get as close to Ragnaros as possible, and we want players who are tackling normal progression to be able to experience as many of the encounters as they can. To achieve these goals, we’ll be toning down the difficulty of both normal and Heroic raids through hotfixes in the coming weeks."

[mrwingtipshoes]

We're working on our 4th HM kill and I'm pretty happy with the changes. Mostly because recruitment on our server is currently impossible and some good players quitting has us in a difficult place in terms of finding replacements.

That's just me, but there you go, one example of a person working on HM's who does not mind. I do enjoy the challenge, but not bashing my head for weeks on end on relatively simple bosses because I had to bring in another ZA/ZG geared newbie...

^^ I love the last part here.

[Nyghtfall]

Theres nerfing something, and then there is nerfing something to the extent of how they did tier 11 normals. Half of the mechanics have been made irrelevent.

[tennesseej]

Go design your own game where only the elite few groups from around the WORLD have a chance at clearing anything, and see how well that goes for you.

I agree 100% with this statement. Even if money wasn't a concern, see who would actually care about a game that only a small percentage of people can participate in.

[rofltroll]

In my own opinion, meaning I don't have facts to back it up, just what I'm seeing...

I think some of the Heroic fights have a little to much rng in them, or are based around being able to bring a certain class in order to defeat it, and I think that's it's hurting guilds. It's not so much that they are to hard, it's just that it doesn't promote progress in a constructive way. I personally don't think they need to be nerfed, but I do think most of the fights to need to be slightly retuned. The fight can and should be hard overall without needing to make drastic changes to your setup/playstyle to account for 1 retardedly difficult mechanic.

I say this from a 10 man perspective that is 4/7 heroic.

[Shadobanex]

Did you kno that guilds are actually disbanding bcs of how hard progression is this tier? a 10/13 t11 guild actually couldn't get past 2/7 this tier. And they've been around since BC and they just disbanded like 2 weeks ago. The guild was Mediocre at Best on stormscale (US). That was definitely not what Blizz was looking for. That's just 1 example but i've heard of a lot more disbanding.

Also, even if they nerf the hardmodes by 20% or w/e they did in t11 it's not like the bosses are gonna just become faceroll. (maybe on normal, but not heroic) You're still gonna have to do your job and the mechanics during the fight. You're not gonna just be able to send everyone but 1 person up on beth or something crazy like that. Sure it may not be as hard or w/e but the fights will still be a difficult. Theres a pretty solid 3-4/7 wall that a lot of groups are hitting.

[Yunru]

I see a good thing in this nerf:
A- Alt friendly
B- Posible to run in lower dps spec and have fun
C- More pugs than usualy and less gold-dkp ones

[tennesseej]

I do find it funny that, in a world where new tiers only come out every 6 months, they're trying so hard to make raiding like the PvP seasons. They want everyone to be on the same page when a new patch comes out, with the less skilled players messing around with the previously nerfed tier while the rest of the raiders are forced to move on to the new one because their progress in the previous tier was artificially sped up. That method ensures that the only progression possible is in the current tier. Normally that wouldn't be a problem except that this tier had 7 bosses. With 10-15 bosses, that might actually work, but I hope that if they didn't learn the lesson back in ToC that they've learned now that abysmally short raid tiers are BORING, especially when you don't plan to come out with the next one for 6 months.

Whats wrong with having the raiding race start from a balanced field of gear? It prevents what happened in Vanilla when Nihilum was the only guild geared enough to even be in some raids and thus there wasn't a race at all, it was more, oh hey, this guild put in more time than anyone and thus are an entire tier ahead of everyone else, whoop de doo big exciting race going on here.