Cow Clicking

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

What most people don't seem to realize is that it wasn't the casuals who demanded access to raids. It was Blizzard who thought that it wasn't worth designing content for 1% of the player base. They made LFR without any big cries of the casuals about not being able to raid. Blizzard wanted to create content for everyone and not just the top elite players (who still get some love with heroic-only bosses/phases).

I don't think anyone at all has said LFR shouldn't exist at all, or that they think players shouldn't have access to raids at all.

How I feel at least, and the jist of what others seem to be saying, is they think you SHOULD have to do work to get there. Be responsible for yourself. What happens in LFR and even "Heroics" now, and don't even pretend like you haven't noticed, is afking on bosses-dying on purpose on bosses-being waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less than optimal or efficient-just folling the boss and auto attacking.

The way Blizzard originally sold LFR, and the outlook I too was simple: Use LFR as a stepping stone for real raids, and to practice on a weaker version of those raids. I expected the loot to be worse than the normal versions, you know, maybe blues, but instead it was just a few points about normal gear. I expected the bosses to be easier, but most of them were tank and spank, and you could pretty much ignore many many many of the boss mechanics. At first you could tell people tried hard. You had 17 DPS, and to my experience, at first it was pretty close. After a few months though, you would notice people seemed to die on purpose. Lets not pretend like you didn't notice. Or you would look at recount and see that DK who was below tanks, hitting maybe 9k DPS when others were doing 5 times that easily. Then you check the top 3 damage abilities and 90% of it was his melee AA.

Also, you are lying to yourself if you think "They made LFR without any big cries of the casuals about not being able to raid." You can check these forums right not, and I am sure you will find many posts from those very same casuals bitching about how Blizzard only caters to the "hardcores"

[Buu]

That's just stupid argument. You do know that a big part of players want to stand out?

And the game still have this opportunity, it already reward those which stand out, and soon will this reward will be even more visible.

Didactic is right, people want to wall others to feel superior.
Too bad they aren't, because if they were so superior they could be financially responsible for their own MMO, where they could wall anyone they want. They are as "crappy" as anyone else, and deserve to be treat the same way.

[alturic]

That's just stupid argument. You do know that a big part of players want to stand out?

I actually disagree, and reading responses on here, the WoW forums or really people who remember the BC days but quit, all disagree too.

People most definitely don't want to stand out, they don't want to have to work for anything, they don't want things to be "hard". They all expect everything to be handed to them, within a 30 minute play session and call it a day.

Only (myself included) the "real" gamers (see: the non-console FPS generation) want to stand out and actually work towards a goal instead of having things handed to you within 30 minutes of logging on.

I swear to god, if Blizzard put a poll up asking whether or not people would want to kill a boss and once per week they can just go into a raid and collect loot from a chest, I can guarantee you the response to actually put effort into killing a boss would be much lower than those who just want to collect loot.

[teddytous]

I think the problem is that there is 2 very different fundamental types of players. Not casual vs hardcore, but rather story vs challenge.

Story plays the game for just that - cause its warcraft - cause they love the epic struggle - cause they want to know how Sargeas finally get kicked to the curb.
Challenge plays for the high score - they might listen to the vids - but that fucking highscores really the only thing they care about. In wow - highscore means top Ilvl - highest raid completion.

Both should get what they want - and they do imo. People just get upset because of how close they look. The scale has changed - being on top is still as its always been.

[Whiskra]

People who play for story and no challenge... Did you use cheat codes to get through WC3 campaigns, because they sure as hell weren't pushovers.

[Vyrd]

crawford, i hate to say it, but you and i and the few others are the last of a dying breed. the playerbase that you and i know and came to associate with in (vanilla) TBC and wrath are long gone, or converted to casuals. hell im even guilty of it, but that is because i frankly just do not care to raid in an organized guild anymore. LK was the peak of my caring with this game, its all been downhill since then.

i agree with everything you say, and cata was the worst expansion for a very basic reason. the developers clearly had a drastic change of game direction halfway through the expansion and it tanked hard. blizzard made it clear that the bulk number of subscribers, being casual, hardcore, whatever, kept paying for the game by adding in effortless appeasement. i loved cata launch heroics. i hadnt felt that sense of challenge since doing ulduar hardmodes, and before that, TBC heroics. i loved the idea that if you complete hard content, you are rewarded for it, and those who didnt complete it received nothing. the best tier of cataclysm was its first tier.

when blizzard noticed that player subs were dropping, they assumed that their content was 'too hard'. that was not the case at all. their playerbase bulk was just in general, terrible players. its a fact. from ToC onward, the game started to reward those who put the minimal effort the same as those who put maximum effort. what was the difference between regular and heroic gear? people in heroic gear just got to deal more damage, have more life, and heal for more. the puggability of content led to the dissolving of guilds because there was no need for them. people could just pug a raid, go in and clear it. those who couldnt even do that, the easiest of subhuman tasks in this game, went and cried on the forums. blizzard dropped the ball again with ICC. the only thing it had going for it was arthas, and the story around him. now take a moment and put yourself in the shoes of a new player who started during ICC. leveling consisted of sitting in a city and queuing LFD till 80. raiding then consisted of finding a ToC group, get lucky with a few drops and start building 'gearscore'. driven by 'gearscore' this player could then buy the high ilevel trinkets to boost their 'gearscore' even higher. eventually, they would get into ICC pugs. by this time, ICC had been long cleared by organized guilds and they were working on heroic mode. id imagine that the ICC buff was in the 15-25%. these players never had to shine to receive loot and see content, they could just rely on an addon to pat them on the back and the game was designed for speed, ease and those with minimal time. gearscore was the worst addon ever created and it spread like a virus amongst the stupid and uninformed.
now taking that player, who was fed content through a swirly straw while riding the short bus, and throw them into cata heroics. we all saw that happened there. blizzard conditioned and raised this new playerbase that were horrible players. they never had to put forth extra effort to be rewarded, and gear was thrown at them like confetti. the players never had the chance to even get better at the game, because it was never required of them. that is the world of warcraft of today, and LFR only took the easiest thing to do, pugging raids but i guess that was too hard, and warped it into this massive AFK party that is reminiscent of 40 man raids.

[Syferite]

TLDR: "I am a special snowflake and demand the ability to wall the general population off from what I believe is my content."

The fact of the matter is that the game only became popular once the system was relaxed to permit more casual playstyles and see a democratization of the content. The average player is not patient and/or competent enough to spend time on challenge modes, early Cata heroics, etc.

You are looking for competence in places that were designed to be as permissive as possible.

Typical Blizzard defender. Nothing to see here.

[Mawnix]

That's just stupid argument. You do know that a big part of players want to stand out?

And a stupid argument against a stupid argument is to assume that.

Some players just wanna play the game and enjoy themselves, regardless of achievements or other items.

[checking facts]

People need to learn that not EVERYTHING in the game is for them, both casual and "hardcore"

I would agree with that if there were a proportionality of resources. for instance: if only 1% of the WoW population will ever kill kil'jaeden before the expansion is over, than only 1% of the available resources should have been poured into making sunwell.

more resources should go to where the most of the playerbase is playing. after all, the hardcore doesn't pay anymore of a sub than casuals do. why should casual money pay for the making of hardcore-only content?

this issue is less of an issue now with LFR, though, but it's still present. for instance, hardcores will be the only ones who will ever see ra-den. that means there's more hardcore content than casual content, even though the casual are more numerous.

[Mexa]

I agree completely with the OP. There was once a wipe for perfection mentality in wow, especially in raiding.

The reason Ulduar was so popular is because so few ppl have actually completed it, very few ppl who agree that it is one of the best raids in the game have even seen yogg saron.

And one of the worst things about the new mentality is that is follows the players to other games aswell. Take diablo 3 for example, i've seen so many ppl say its a bad game with too much dungeon crawling and stupid RNG messing up your loot. I played through the entire game without dungeon crawling, i only entered the side dungeons max 1 time, if i entered them at all, and i didnt buy anything on the AH. And yes, it was hard to play through inferno with 14k HP and 14k damage, but it was amazing aswell, especially when i killed diablo, it was one of those feelings you have when you have wiped on a boss for days in wow and finally down him.

And instead of playing diablo like that i see fuckloads of threads on forums complaining about RNG being stupid and stuff because you dont get everything spoon fed to you.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

crawford, i hate to say it, but you and i and the few others are the last of a dying breed. the playerbase that you and i know and came to associate with in (vanilla) TBC and wrath are long gone, or converted to casuals. hell im even guilty of it, but that is because i frankly just do not care to raid in an organized guild anymore. LK was the peak of my caring with this game, its all been downhill since then.

I agree. I am 25. When I was much younger, most of the games around didn't give purples. You played them because many of them had good stories, but mostly because they challenged you in some way. You wanted to beat them. You wanted to get better, and beat the shit out of skull man in mega man 4. You wanted to perfect timing and beat Bowser. You wanted to learn all the moves and beat M. Bison. You wanted to work on your reflexes and save the world in Goldeneye 64. Part of it was the prestige, the pride, the adrenaline and stories between you and your friends.

Call me a special snowflake, but I think the difference between hardcore/casual is less about time played, or even skill, its about your attitude. Like you said, you have the guy who is obsessed with gearscore, and then they guys who want to work at it for challenge.

You guys that disagree or think I am a special snowflake should go read some articles about WHY games like Farmville even got popular. The attitudes involved, the reaosn why people would want to play these games. Do you think Super Mario World for the SNES would have been a great game if you had to turn it on every few hours, click a few think and turn it off?

People that enjoyed older expansions of WoW aren't special snowflakes, we aren't elitists who want barriers set for casuals... We just had things we liked with a story we liked and the genre/game got changed, warped, and shat on so that Blizzard could sell out.

Log in on your lunch break, click a few things, get stuff. That sounds just like farmville to me.

[Flaks]

They already made one mistake by adding grind back into a game that they'd gone out of their way to take it out of for the past 4 years to accommodate "hardcores" who preferred gating/grindiness.

Anyways, if you want to feel like a special snowflake, know that normal mode raiding is at an all time low let alone heroic raiding.

[LazarusLong]

I agree. I am 25. When I was much younger, most of the games around didn't give purples. You played them because many of them had good stories, but mostly because they challenged you in some way. You wanted to beat them. You wanted to get better, and beat the shit out of skull man in mega man 4. You wanted to perfect timing and beat Bowser. You wanted to learn all the moves and beat M. Bison. You wanted to work on your reflexes and save the world in Goldeneye 64. Part of it was the prestige, the pride, the adrenaline and stories between you and your friends.

Call me a special snowflake, but I think the difference between hardcore/casual is less about time played, or even skill, its about your attitude. Like you said, you have the guy who is obsessed with gearscore, and then they guys who want to work at it for challenge.

You guys that disagree or think I am a special snowflake should go read some articles about WHY games like Farmville even got popular. The attitudes involved, the reaosn why people would want to play these games. Do you think Super Mario World for the SNES would have been a great game if you had to turn it on every few hours, click a few think and turn it off?

People that enjoyed older expansions of WoW aren't special snowflakes, we aren't elitists who want barriers set for casuals... We just had things we liked with a story we liked and the genre/game got changed, warped, and shat on so that Blizzard could sell out.

Log in on your lunch break, click a few things, get stuff. That sounds just like farmville to me.

Rated PVP, Challenge modes, Heroic Raids.

But no, you want to change game for everyone. Hence, special snowflake.

I cleared Sunwell in TBC. I raid LFR now - I have job and life. Lets see if you will be playing MMO in 5 years.

[Deleted]

The window lickers cried them a river for 5 years... they where jealous of ppl in T3.

Fair enough, that's not how I remember it at least.

I mean, there were those who you describe as "window lickers". My point was more that the casuals didn't complain in a huge portion of them like some of the "hardcores" (more like the special snowflakes - I don't consider wanting to be special as something bad, heck, sometimes I wish I could go back to Vanilla/TBC) did about LFR.

Restricting content from people does indeed make it special. It does feel more of an accomplishment if only say 5 guilds on your server have even seen the boss you just downed, imo at least. The only thing that's wrong with this is that nowadays, it isn't only impossible to go back there anymore (the game and its players have changed too much) but also that the developers themselves didn't really feel well that the major things, the main end-game content, their biggest works weren't really admired/appreciated and/or even seen at all by the biggest part of the players. It felt frustrating for the devs to work for just a few thousand people when there were millions who wanted to see said content.

[Servasus]

Dungeons and raids were never designed to be permissive until Hour of Twilight and LFR.

The game was as popular in BC as it is now, and it was more popular in Wrath and Cata. Blizzard counts its global playerbase, which probably masks North American and EU subscriber declines with growth in China, where the game is still peaking, but guilds have really crumbled on my server since 4.3, and I absolutely blame LFR for taking the motivation out of raid progression. It's really hard to get psyched up to spend a night wiping on the raid version of a boss that is a speed bump in LFR, and drops similar loot.

And, yes, I want to be a special snowflake? Why would I invest time, effort and monthly subscription fees in a persistent character, if I'm just going to be the same as everyone else. I could just play Call of Duty.

You lose ALL credibility with that sentence alone.

WotLK Heroics and ICC say, "Hello."

[Deleted]

Rated PVP, Challenge modes, Heroic Raids.

But no, you want to change game for everyone. Hence, special snowflake.

I cleared Sunwell in TBC. I raid LFR now - I have job and life. Lets see if you will be playing MMO in 5 years.

You're right. Many people just don't want to accept that they have to look for the challenge nowadays. The challenge doesn't get thrown into your face anymore. Furthermore, people don't get recognized/admired anymore like people in full T3 did when they /flexed in IF. I can understand this issue. But that's not Blizzard's fault. The playerbase changed. And Blizzard had to adept to that.

People that enjoyed older expansions of WoW aren't special snowflakes, we aren't elitists who want barriers set for casuals... We just had things we liked with a story we liked and the genre/game got changed, warped, and shat on so that Blizzard could sell out.

Log in on your lunch break, click a few things, get stuff. That sounds just like farmville to me.

Yes, you are. Most people don't want challenge back. The challenge is right there. You just have to look for it. The game got so much harder than it was back in Vanilla. I'd argue that some TBC bosses were indeed hard (if you didn't have enough resto shamans...), but classic WoW wasn't hard at all. It was time consuming and tiring. Try getting world/server firsts if you want the challenge, the prestige or w/e you miss about WoW. Try getting gladiator titels.

The thing is, the challenge got shifted from "either invest a fuckton of time or gtfo" to "either invest a fuckton of time and l2p or invest less time and get lesser rewards". Most people complaining about how they miss the challenge of older WoW expacs are either 1) sepcial snowflakes or 2) baddies who did accomplish something in Vanilla/TBC because they had the time (time =/= skill) to do so and don't have the time/skill to accomplish something nowadays.

[Arbs]

Sometimes I miss Vanilla dearly.

[Elegiac]

Typical Blizzard defender. Nothing to see here.

You obviously haven't read a lot of my posts, then.

[Raiju]

Yes, the ever massing amount of daily quests where if you want to follow the story you have to dump in hours per day (instead of per week) is SO casual friendly.

A few in my guild quit due to dailies alone. They want to unlock the content but don't want to be spending all their possible-wow-time each day doing dailies to see it. I'm not quite sure how anyone can claim this is more casual friendly than LFR (since you have to be max level regardless) for story progression. Sure you can maybe argue next expansion, but then noones going to sit at a level for 4months and rising to do all the dailies before they think about moving on.

[Deleted]

TLDR: "I am a special snowflake and demand the ability to wall the general population off from what I believe is my content."

The fact of the matter is that the game only became popular once the system was relaxed to permit more casual playstyles and see a democratization of the content. The average player is not patient and/or competent enough to spend time on challenge modes, early Cata heroics, etc.

You are looking for competence in places that were designed to be as permissive as possible.

I will never understand this argument of special snowflakes
I dont have any time now to play, and definitly not enough time to raid, but i would rather play wow in full blue gear in vanila/tbc times
It is not tinted rosed glasses, it is the fact that people that commit just be stand out and be revered for their dedication