Harder Content = Better?

[Theendgamelv3]

If you call doing LFR seeing content it's so watered down people afk in it. What happened to doing pugs? You never had to join a guild to do them and it's a lot more of a challenge then LFR.

With pugs, you still didn't see most of the content in earlier expansions. I highly doubt Naxx40 was pugged in Vanilla.

[yuca247]

One more thing. Harder content almost always requires more time. Not only more time but scheduled time at specific times of the day. Time is in limited supply for a lot of people these days.

You have to remember when WoW first came out most of the player base was in their teens and 20s. Fast forward 8 years and most of those people now have school, jobs, families to look after. Now some of those players could very well have the skills to down harder content, but they just don't have the time that's required anymore.

In my opinion the answer to the question is an obvious no, Harder Content ≠ better.

[Trassk]

With pugs, you still didn't see most of the content in earlier expansions. I highly doubt Naxx40 was pugged in Vanilla.

I pugged 25man groups into icc in wrath days on weekends while my guild was focused on 10man content. The 25man guilds never even got past festergut or rotface, and most left after saurfang when he didn't drop there token. Those pugs were a pointless waste.

[mickybrighteyes]

Been awhile since I've seen this one around here. but TLDR, the answer in the topic title is "No" Harder =! better, and no one wants more arbitrary things put in place simply for the sake of making things harder.

[Deleted]

Varied content = better.

There's no reason not to have a range of content now the tech allows it.

It's no coincidence that we're getting two huge raid tiers consecutively after LFR was added.

[Osmeric]

Which says a lot for the average gamer, and perhaps even society as a whole.

It's such a devastating blow to society when we don't take a game seriously!

Wait, what?

[Vladar]

It depends on the type of player you are. Hardcore skilled players will play only if the game offers a sufficient challenge and rewards accordingly. This was the case in vanilla, then they slowly began to make the game more casual prof starting with TBC, 25 man and welfare epics. The trends got worse in every expansion. The next expansion being more casual and simple compared to the previous one.

The result is that most hardcore players left and you are left with the casuals which prefers their simple dumb down content. Hard to say if that strat worked out. WOW was hugely popular in all 8 years of existence but a decline came midway thru WOTLK.

[Enemyz]

I pugged 25man groups into icc in wrath days on weekends while my guild was focused on 10man content. The 25man guilds never even got past festergut or rotface, and most left after saurfang when he didn't drop there token. Those pugs were a pointless waste.

I've seen good pugs and bad pugs it all depends on who leads them.

[Valium104]

You don't understand the video, aren't you? All he's talking is about that seeing entirely new content IS a lot better motivation that doing a lot harder version of LFR for the sake of gear and achievement. "I kill Sha on LFR - ok i saw it" "I kill H Sha - that was great, the gear is nice, but whats now? " In older model, you had new raid to even enter for the first time when you did this H Sha. Remember, Tempest Keep was cleared AFTER Black temple hit the servers. Me, as a casual 11/16 hc raider I would gladly give up my progress to gate content to stupidly minor minority. That motivation was what kept people playing, now people just do LFR once and never log again (the majority you gyus speak off) and subscriptions prove that catering to minority was fine because they were stable.

[Crashdummy]

No. Harder content is ahrder, just that.

There are great examples of content that was better than other while being easier, and a lot of examples of content being better than other and being harder.

Challenge =/= quality
Challenge =/= fun

---------- Post added 2013-02-16 at 10:21 PM ----------

It depends on the type of player you are. Hardcore skilled players will play only if the game offers a sufficient challenge and rewards accordingly. This was the case in vanilla, then they slowly began to make the game more casual prof starting with TBC, 25 man and welfare epics. The trends got worse in every expansion. The next expansion being more casual and simple compared to the previous one.

The result is that most hardcore players left and you are left with the casuals which prefers their simple dumb down content. Hard to say if that strat worked out. WOW was hugely popular in all 8 years of existence but a decline came midway thru WOTLK.

WoW has always being casual friendly.

Vanilla was the most casual friendly MMO on the market, competing agsint a lot more hardcore games like EQ, UO and DAoC.

WotLK was the most sucessful WoW expansion till this day.

[Pann]

Harder content is the dev catering to their own egos, ahead of the interests of their employers and stockholders. It is bad for the game as a business.

I feel that Blizzard do suffer from needing to be loved and that some choices are made on the basis of what will get more cheers at Blizzcon than what will satisfy the majority of players. But I am not so sure this was the case when Cata launched.

Before Cata launched Blizzard were on a high, they could do no wrong. Come 3.2 they saw that players would abandon content that was widely accepted as some of the best ever released for content that still to this day is disliked in the pursuit of gear that was a few ilvl higher. I think that it was becoming clear that WOW was having problems attracting new players and they got caught up in their own hype and believed that difficult dungeons would keep the existing player base occupied whilst the revamped old world would bring in new players to game.

I think that it was a real culture shock when this backfired and that they don't really know what to do in order to reverse the damage caused. The playing to hardcore crowd is hangover from times past and I think that they fear losing them. I think it is becoming more and more apparent that they cannot hold to the LFR majority as well as the hardcore heroic raider without major changes.

Kotick would have dumped the hardcore a long time ago, I am not so sure Morhaime has the desire to do so, but I would not be surprised if this is the last expansion that caters to the elite.

Back in Vanilla and TBC, a new player would see someone that was raiding and think "oh man! i want to be like that guy!"

This might be the mentality of the hardcore raider but the majority of players really did not care about nor want to be like that guy.

[Mancowski]

I'm very curious as to what that video was. Can someone PM me a link, if that's allowed?

[jimakos84]

I never got the appeal of this "There is a boss out there that i will never see, how cool is that..." thing. When i play a computer game i want to see the big things.

was it not up to you whether or not you would see the "big things" though? that is kind of wrong way to think. when you read a book, watch a movie, a series or something, do you skip to the ending? if you do then i dont know..whatever

[Shampro]

Varied content = better.

There's no reason not to have a range of content now the tech allows it.

It's no coincidence that we're getting two huge raid tiers consecutively after LFR was added.

People dont realise how true this is. Now that LFR could be called ''the standard for the public'', Blizzard is putting much much much more effort and quality in the way Raids are presented. Atleast with Mists. I do think DS was pretty much an experiment. They did see that LFR was a huge thing. Now, LFR beeing as popular as it is, it allows them to present things in a way not seen before or atleast seen by a lot of people. This is also part of the reason the Tier is ending prior to the 7 months of dullness that we usually had in prior expaction Tiers. LFR cant last that long, or ppl simply will lost interest.

[Pann]

was it not up to you whether or not you would see the "big things" though? that is kind of wrong way to think. when you read a book, watch a movie, a series or something, do you skip to the ending? if you do then i dont know..whatever

When I read a book or watch a movie seeing the ending is not dependent on the schedule or the ability of 9 or 24 other people.

[Theendgamelv3]

You don't understand the video, aren't you? All he's talking is about that seeing entirely new content IS a lot better motivation that doing a lot harder version of LFR for the sake of gear and achievement. "I kill Sha on LFR - ok i saw it" "I kill H Sha - that was great, the gear is nice, but whats now? " In older model, you had new raid to even enter for the first time when you did this H Sha. Remember, Tempest Keep was cleared AFTER Black temple hit the servers. Me, as a casual 11/16 hc raider I would gladly give up my progress to gate content to stupidly minor minority. That motivation was what kept people playing, now people just do LFR once and never log again (the majority you gyus speak off) and subscriptions prove that catering to minority was fine because they were stable.

That isn't proof. I could say that the decline of WoW subs was to people not having time anymore due to them being older or got bored of the whole raid to get gear rinse and repeat with each tier. While what you say is true that some players played for motivation to get to that next raid, you can't say it is proof that subs are declining just due to that. In your example, if I was a top raider I could also say "I killed Illidan, that is great, now what?". Also not a ton of guilds have down H Sha. There is still something to kill for a majority of raiders. What is funny is that many of the top guilds in the new patch, will have very little to no reason to have their mains due LFR as the gear dropped there wouldn't be worth anything so they shouldn't be going "we killed LFR Thunder King, ok I saw it".

[jimakos84]

you have a point, but i think if you really want, you can find 9 or 24 relatively skilled people. the schedule is relevant, everything takes times. anyway, i get your point but hopefully you get mine as well :P i don't know i don't really care about how the game is atm. it could be better of course, it could be worse too. it surprises me though, that a game that got popular because of what it was and people started playing it for what it was, changed. this is my 'because fuck logic' moment. then again i dont know if it would have survived 8 years, but assumptions are assumptions :P

[Deleted]

Because it was nothing but a massive whine video of someone wanting it all to be about his way, and dam to anyone else.

No. its forbidden because it has been linked about 1000 times past year on every single thread about "decline of wow" or "hard content must have" - not because it has differing opinion to mods or most of the community.


As for hard content? If its done right. ONLY if its done right.
I did like some hard fights where you had to dodge lot of stuff, be creative or use your "class to fullest". I loved Lich King HC a lot. Specially as tank. Got adrenaline pumping.
And same for Yoggie. It was pretty cool fight because I got to use spec I loved and same time be creative about it.
Rest of ulduar? Well its gem already, we know that. Some dodgy heroic modes tho for reason.
Toc? Nothing worthwhile even if there was some hard fights.


But what then?
T11 was not all the exciting - nefarian, sinestra was pretty much only fights I liked in heroic. Maybe Valion too.
Derping souls? No comment really but that whole tier was boring.

Vanilla was hard sometimes because game was new and learning. Huge amount of dodgy mechanics etc and players were like amateur kids league football players due being new to game or game not really allowing to do much with it even if they could be the very best like no one ever was.
Now most players can be "Superbowl level of players" so to speak (while there is still lot of "amateur league players").

If people want hard content - go play Dark Souls. I really recommend to try it out. Hard content thats also somewhat enjoyable is getting more and more hidden in WoW. I wouldnt mind some prestige things - but I guess we just have to get along with the fact that its not all about us anymore. Playerbase has shifted, thats a fact. For better or worse, its more accessible - tho not always easy.


Edit:
I do think LFR made the whole raiding bit more boring now. Hopefully RA-DEN will give some cool stuff to look at.

I think they should leave LFR out of actual raids - make the bosses toc arena type matches. That way at least exploring raid and fighting the boss on the platforms meant to be would feel more intresting than going "yeah I saw all this 100 times now. Trash, bosses, events, loot"

[yuca247]

you have a point, but i think if you really want, you can find 9 or 24 relatively skilled people. the schedule is relevant, everything takes times. anyway, i get your point but hopefully you get mine as well :P i don't know i don't really care about how the game is atm. it could be better of course, it could be worse too. it surprises me though, that a game that got popular because of what it was and people started playing it for what it was, changed. this is my 'because fuck logic' moment. then again i dont know if it would have survived 8 years, but assumptions are assumptions :P

It changes because any game has to evolve to keep up. If WoW would be the exact same way it was back in Vanilla players would be complaining the game was stale and Blizzard lacked innovation.

[Theendgamelv3]

No. its forbidden because it has been linked about 1000 times past year on every single thread about "decline of wow" or "hard content must have" - not because it has differing opinion to mods or most of the community.

That doesn't make sense, who cares if it has been link 1000 times in the past. Might as well close this thread cause subjects like this have been made 1000 times in the past.