Can we agree, multiple raid difficulties killed some of the epicness of raiding?

[emilylorange]

Things don't stay hard for very long though with the insane power creep we have today.

Power creep doesn't explain LFR's decline into a grey slurry of boredom, tho.

[thatmikeguy]

For HFC:

1. Much higher ilevel gear
2. Title
3. Achievements
4. Garrison monument (monuments will be in Legion, too--they're in the class halls, so this will probably continue)
5. Mount
6. Unique gear models from LFR, recolored from N/H
7. N/H/M get dozens of ilevel upgrades for legendary
8. Heirlooms

I'm just sick of the elitism. If you're a real raider, the reward is overcoming challenges. But that can't be enough. You get the best gear in the game, a title, achievements, a monument, a mount. But that's not enough. LFR has to feel like the scum they are, as we saw in constant whining last expansion. OK, give LFR shitty looking gear. No, that's not enough. The mounts aren't good enough--really? Felsteel Annihilator is AWESOME.

Like... what? What would be enough? Do we need Blizzard employees to herald your arrival on zone entry? Do you need a custom in-game mansion?

It's always something.

Back in the day, achievements were fine to gloat. Or a title. Now kids need so much more.

This!

The title of this thread is in no way explained. "epicness of raiding" ? In Wrath, much of the epicness was the story that everything had pointed to over a long period of time. What is "epic", is it only something few can accomplish, or is it something that many can accomplish if they put in the time?

Back then, epic was just completing it. The gear alone would help progression back then, and the gear/achievements/title were everything.

[theostrichsays]

Like... what? What would be enough? Do we need Blizzard employees to herald your arrival on zone entry? Do you need a custom in-game mansion?

To be fair, when we got realm first Heroic Rag during Cataclysm, I would have appreciated having wolf riders accompany me, and telling everybody to stand at attention as one of the Firelords, has entered Orgrimmar.

[Deleted]

ZA was do-able with Karazhan gear. AQ 20 was do-able with blues. ZG was do-able with greens and blues. You mis-remember or were around sub-par players.

MC was THE entry-level 40 man raid.

I don't look back and scoff at it, as I progressed through it with a guild over many weeks. 4+ hour raid nights.

Or the fact both ZA and ZG was released much later than launch of either Vanilla or TBC.

[Allenseiei]

I prefer they go back to Normal/Heroic, ditch the rest, didnt even touch Mythic in WoD, lack of interest and sick of guild jumping.

Old Heroic is current mythic. If you didn't touch mythic now why did you touch it before? If it's because raid size, it's another thing completely.

Unlockable hardmodes were the best. Sart3d/ulduar ftw, glory days of raiding and lasted the shortest of all..

Also giving the meta mount to all difficulties killed the longevity of raiding, you can faceroll that achievement now.

Hard Mode is nothing else than any other difficulty. You first did Sartharion without adds, and then you did it with it. Same with ulduar. It's not that hard to understand. The only difference is the achievements, which would be similar that they could only be done in mythic.

[emilylorange]

ZA was do-able with Karazhan gear. AQ 20 was do-able with blues. ZG was do-able with greens and blues. You mis-remember or were around sub-par players.

MC was THE entry-level 40 man raid.

I don't look back and scoff at it, as I progressed through it with a guild over many weeks. 4+ hour raid nights.

I mean there's a reason I said 'average' raiders. I'll even agree it was 'doable' for certain people with shit gear. Just not the average person who walked in.

Saying AQ20 was 'doable in blues' is kind of dishonest. Yes, but blue were common raid rewards during that era. So yeah, they were blues, but they weren't exactly easy to get.

I mean, if it were so eeeaaaaasy to do ZA no one would have been able to sell bear mounts.

You can be a jerk and say 'sub-par' but what I witnessed is likely to be closer to what the actual experience was for a larger group of people. I'm glad you're a great player. Good job. You are above the norm. Yay!

Expecting your experience to be everyone's is dumb.

MC was THE entry-level 40 man raid.

I don't look back and scoff at it, as I progressed through it with a guild over many weeks. 4+ hour raid nights.

You're not going to sell a lot of people on the idea that stacking fire resistance and mashing decursive for 4 hours is a fun time or 'entry level'.

Nor does the time you spent refute that, yeah, the first raid for everyone was more likely to be UBRS.

In conclusion:

Don't be a jerk.

[Djriff]

For HFC:

1. Much higher ilevel gear
2. Title
3. Achievements
4. Garrison monument (monuments will be in Legion, too--they're in the class halls, so this will probably continue)
5. Mount
6. Unique gear models from LFR, recolored from N/H
7. N/H/M get dozens of ilevel upgrades for legendary
8. Heirlooms

What heirlooms?

I'm just sick of the elitism. If you're a real raider, the reward is overcoming challenges. But that can't be enough. You get the best gear in the game, a title, achievements, a monument, a mount. But that's not enough. LFR has to feel like the scum they are, as we saw in constant whining last expansion. OK, give LFR shitty looking gear. No, that's not enough. The mounts aren't good enough--really? Felsteel Annihilator is AWESOME.

Like... what? What would be enough? Do we need Blizzard employees to herald your arrival on zone entry? Do you need a custom in-game mansion?

It's always something.

Back in the day, achievements were fine to gloat. Or a title. Now kids need so much more.

I agree, I raid for the challenge, to push my DPS even higher, I take pride in it. I love the mount (forgot about the monument tbh). It's not that its not enough it just doesn't feel like it's an accomplishment now. I know it is, but yeah I can't really explain it.

I'm happy with it overall, but OT the # of difficulties is way to many IMO.

[Daffan]

Skip and Catchup mechanics + difficulties killed the epicness really. You don't even do the raids anymore, just zerg through them with OP gear and then wonder why there is no content left in 2 weeks. The only people who actually get the most out of the game are the people who raid Mythic.

[thatmikeguy]

Old Heroic is current mythic. If you didn't touch mythic now why did you touch it before? If it's because raid size, it's another thing completely.



Hard Mode is nothing else than any other difficulty. You first did Sartharion without adds, and then you did it with it. Same with ulduar. It's not that hard to understand. The only difference is the achievements, which would be similar that they could only be done in mythic.

It's because of them wanting to make the difficulty much higher, and they did. The problem is Blizz can't scale things from that set 20man mythic point without changing mechanics that would cause that much more problems. So if you were a 10man normal raider back then, and many were, it could be problematic getting steady gear for progression with bosses tuned for 20man that had most of the same mechanics for 10man. The VP upgrades help this some, but can't fix all the scaling problems.

[Fenixhart]

Old Heroic is current mythic. If you didn't touch mythic now why did you touch it before? If it's because raid size, it's another thing completely..

Guilds that were smaller could touch Heroic before Mythic's 20 man or bust came into play.

Heroic 10 man guilds were a thing.

Mythic was a failure of epic proportions in terms of usability. Guilds that could manage older Heroic now had that content locked out to them via roster troubles.

Now we're stuck with a market of people have to leave guilds to do mythic and is that really the sort of environment one wants to raid in?

[Lei]

I don't see why you are confused. I said why do you need raid gear to do stuff in the world. You gave an example of 650 item level. I noted that you can get 695, while still not raiding. Why are you so confused?

This is your original quote:

I'll never understand why people who don't raid are obsessed with item level. How powerful do you really need to be to kill random bunnies in the world? Is it really a big deal if they take two hits, instead of one?

and then you dropped this:

The 695 gear from baleful tokens seems sufficient to do all that. /shrug

Do I really have to explain why this 2 statement goes against each other?

[Echo of Soul]

The thing is a lot of people crave for that TBC balance of difficulty, where it was a few easy, few medium and maybe 1 hard boss in a raid and overall nowhere near the difficulty of a current Mythic.

Maybe not in terms of mechanics but the fights were so tightly tuned that your average guild couldn't really beat them until they had the gear for it.
Figure skating is difficult. So is weight lifting at a competative level. Is figure skating better and more difficult because it's mechanically more complicated?

[TheWorkingTitle]

I mean there's a reason I said 'average' raiders. I'll even agree it was 'doable' for certain people with shit gear. Just not the average person who walked in.

Saying AQ20 was 'doable in blues' is kind of dishonest. Yes, but blue were common raid rewards during that era. So yeah, they were blues, but they weren't exactly easy to get.

I mean, if it were so eeeaaaaasy to do ZA no one would have been able to sell bear mounts.

You can be a jerk and say 'sub-par' but what I witnessed is likely to be closer to what the actual experience was for a larger group of people. I'm glad you're a great player. Good job. You are above the norm. Yay!

Expecting your experience to be everyone's is dumb.



You're not going to sell a lot of people on the idea that stacking fire resistance and mashing decursive for 4 hours is a fun time or 'entry level'.

Nor does the time you spent refute that, yeah, the first raid for everyone was more likely to be UBRS.

In conclusion:

Don't be a jerk.

Can you talk to someone without calling them names or putting words in their mouth? Take a moment longer next time to really comprehend what people write please.

AQ 20 dropped blues, so of course it was do-able in blues.

I never said ZA was "eeeaaaaasy". I said it was do-able in Karazhan gear, which it was. Nothing more. Also you're misrepresenting what I said. Completing ZA after the timer was completely possible for shit geared people. Doing it within the timer? Of course not.

I was in an absolutely terrible Friends and Family guild and we destroyed ZG in greens and blues. ZG was as entry level as a raid has ever been.

And about MC, read what I wrote. "Entry level 40 Man raid". That's fact. It was THE entry level 40 man raid. If you wanted to test out 40 man raids, MC was where you did that.

[thatmikeguy]

Guilds that were smaller could touch Heroic before Mythic's 20 man or bust came into play.

Heroic 10 man guilds were a thing.

Mythic was a failure of epic proportions in terms of usability. Guilds that could manage older Heroic now had that content locked out to them via roster troubles.

Now we're stuck with a market of people have to leave guilds to do mythic and is that really the sort of environment one wants to raid in?

Exactly, and many people just quit because they did not want to start over in another guild.

[Hotmail]

Seriously considering a WOTLK private server just to experience Ulduar as current content again. Masterpiece of design, that place was.

And LFR being easier in WoD is likely a consequence of having Mythic difficulty. Mythic being anathema to most of the playerbase, those numbers probably need to be made up elsewhere... it's a sad day for WoW.

[Tijuana]

This is your original quote:


and then you dropped this:


Do I really have to explain why this 2 statement goes against each other?

I mean, if you can't see that there is a common greater theme, I don't think we will get anywhere. The point remains the same. Raid gear is for raiding.

[emilylorange]

Can you talk to someone without calling them names

I'm sorry, it's okay to outright call someone 'sub-par' to dismiss them, but not point out that's pretty jerky behavior?

Wait no, I'm not sorry. Stop being a jerk.

AQ 20 dropped blues, so of course it was do-able in blues.

I never said ZG was "eeeaaaaasy". I said it was do-able in blues, which it was. Nothing more.

I was in an absolutely terrible Friends and Family guild and we destroyed ZG in greens and blues. ZG was as entry level as a raid has ever been.

And about MC, read what I wrote. "Entry level 40 Man raid". That's fact. It was THE entry level 40 man raid. If you wanted to test out 40 man raids, MC was where you did that.

So how far are you going to move these goal posts?

Because your original statement said none of these things, you amended them after the fact when you realized you were being called out on misrepresenting and oversimplifying.

[Deleted]

Skip and Catchup mechanics + difficulties killed the epicness really. You don't even do the raids anymore, just zerg through them with OP gear and then wonder why there is no content left in 2 weeks. The only people who actually get the most out of the game are the people who raid Mythic.

Actuly Mythic raider dont get almost anything. I really wonder where they get their motiavtion to progress in Mythic since there is nothing epic and amazing killing bosses what millions of others killed absolutly nothing. Those in game pixels (mounts, achievements, toys) means nothing to player they have 0 value. Acomplishment comes from beating or doing things what many cant do or didnt do.

[Tharkkun]

Now hear me out on this.

Can we all agree that having multiple raid difficulties (we now have 4), killed some of the epicness that raiding originally provided the players?

I mean, back in WoTLK, and TBC, there was 1 difficulty. In WoTLK, fights started to have different ways to defeat the encounters that made them harder, but still, there was 1 difficulty.

When you entered Karazhan for the first time, it was epic, because 1) you had to have a key to get in, 2) there was only one difficutly, so you know when you beat a boss, you beat it. There was no higher difficulty to have to go kill. You didnt have this do it on LFR, then do it on Normal, then do it on Heroic, then Do the EXACT SAME FUCKING BOSS on Mythic.

I think having 4 difficulties takes away from the epicness that the raids once provided. It diminishes the grand scale and epic feeling that only one difficulty mode had. Does that make sense? Do you feel this way? Does completing a boss on a higher difficulty that you already killed on a lower difficulty feel as rewarding as it did in TBC when you killed the boss once and it was done? You passed that challenge, you killed that boss. Done.

Discuss.

<armory link snipped>
You really have no business discussing difficulty if you don't even participate in raiding in it's entirety. You have yet to clear a single difficulty outside of LFR in 1 tier, since Cataclysm.

Infracted: Don't post armories of other site users. [MoanaLisa]

[Mercane]

Not it wasnt always thing. It all started after huge gear inflation back in WOTLK.

Nice nostalgia post, seriously- there's been 2 eras of WoW, the much over-hyped Vanilla/TBC Time then WotLK and everything following.

Class stacking has been a thing for 8 years of WoW's almost 12 years of existence... yep totally not the majority of the games life. Well played, sir!