Harder Content = Better?

[Tomana]

What the hell? You basically lobbed insults this whole thread, and at MOST, I called you a jackass when you were being a condescending elitist jerk.

The irony is that he doesn't even have the PVE achievements to show for it. I can understand BC nostalgia from top notch raiders, but this is just hilarious. I mean, with a BC system it would be even worse for him, yet he would be happier? I can't understand that kind of logic -_-

---------- Post added 2013-02-25 at 09:50 PM ----------

It is probably not a question of difficulty but more a question of:
Why schould people be bothered with joining raiding guilds, when you still end up having to run LFR anyways when the next patch comes?
½ hour quee for each lfr with 5 lfrs each taking roughly an hour thats 7½hours of my time used to get into and complete mindnumbingly stupid content.

By that logic, why do heroics when you can do normals? Why bother doing Sartha3D when you can do 0 drakes? (besides the mount)?

---------- Post added 2013-02-25 at 09:52 PM ----------

Zero sounds good. That way, Blizzard can stop bothering with normal or heroic mode raiding at all.

Of course, if Blizzard doesn't want to do that, some competitor could come in with an LFR-only MMO. I think it could do very well.

Luckily (or unluckily), the competition mostly shoots itself in the foot at release (or pre-release) stage.

---------- Post added 2013-02-25 at 10:02 PM ----------

Honestly the number should be lower. Normal raids shouldn't be this easy.

So, you're essentially advocating the BC model? Blizzard moved from it, take a wild guess why?

[Deleted]

So, you're essentially advocating the BC model? Blizzard moved from it, take a wild guess why?

Blizzard got greedy, decided to remove real progression from the game in a bid to attract a more casual player?

[Firebert]

Wait Cata heroics were hard? -_- I mean not to sound mean but honestly the first week into Cata the tank/healer and other 2 dps I was playing with at the time started to chain pull Cata Heroics. They were not that hard at all and that's being serious.

You were a pre-formed group, hence the Cataclysm Heroics weren't that difficult for you.

Did you try solo-queuing a Cataclysm Heroic when it was current? Random 5-man PuGs didn't fare so well, so much so that Heroics like Halls of Origination took around 2 hours to complete.

Cata Heroics were hard for the vast majority of players because they solo-queued up for LFD.

---------- Post added 2013-02-25 at 10:31 PM ----------

First, your opinion that the for lack of a less offending term trouble makers in queable content being as low as 4% is laughable but alright.

You admitted that your offensive term for those players was based on the lowest 4%. I'm only using what you've agreed on.

For instance if you are in a group that has six players from a guild their vote is counted as one against the other four players and if they lose the vote which they should if one of theirs is the problem child then they are all removed to stop inevitable trolling.

I'm for that proposal.

Unsure why a full ten man group would need the ability to que unless for the teleport to the instance which blizz seems to think is "bad".

It preserves equality within the hierarchy of raiding. Preventing 10-man raid guilds from queuing would just seem like a targetted exclusion, which queuable raiding shouldn't be at all.

---------- Post added 2013-02-25 at 10:33 PM ----------

I disagree with this. Queue systems have the neccesity if making the content too much easier than coordinated groups.

I don't quite understand this sentence, sorry.

The only thing Normal raiding needs is Blizzard nerfing a couple of bosses that are blocking THOUSANDS of guilds. HoF needs to have its difficulty lowered.

Does nothing to reduce the gap between players that only raid LFR and players that raid Normal or better, that is to say, a community problem.

[Stede]

Cata Heroics were hard for the vast majority of players because they solo-queued up for LFD.

They were hard, in general. CC was necessary on pulls to keep the tank from dying and fears would have to be glyphed and renewed 4-5x on a pull. Threat dumps were part of your rotation, and you marked targets, and synchronized cc. The first boss of Grim Batol was easiest when tanked in the far corner and somebody had to be able to cc the purple add or the boss would enrage and one shot you. The second boss required a disarm-chain or some innovative use of cooldowns to survive the dual-wield phase. The last boss required adds to be slowed and burned ASAP. And that was just one of the heroics.

This tuning wasn't present in wrath and it isn't present in MoP. If you were chain-running these with your buddies in under a week, you are exceptional for both dinging 85, gearing to an average 330 ilvl, and learning the heroic versions of TotT, VP, GB, Stonecore, etc in under a week. To claim they're 'not hard at all' seems very out of touch.

[melodramocracy]

To claim they're 'not hard at all' seems very out of touch.

Not really. They weren't all that hard, they simply required a slower pace, and a bit more coordination than most players were used to coming out of Wrath. Some were definitely easier than others (Tol Vir, HoO), and one or two were more difficult than the rest (parts of Stonecore, parts of GB). Once the majority of players adjusted to this approach, runs were by and large smooth.

Fights in the troll heroics were just as complex, and overall there were fewer complaints about them, because folks were used to that particular difficulty level already. In fact, I'd say that the original 5 mans were one of the few times that an actual stepping stone to raid difficulty was in the the game.

The really issue, at least as far as lfg went, was the tremendous wait times on many servers for a new group... as you'd invariably have groups where the tank or healer would get emo and drop at the first wipe, which in turn made the rest of the group scatter, which would then put you back at the end of the queue. I saw many evenings where 3 hours of game time would pass before a single run was completed.

[HardCoder]

Not really. They weren't all that hard, they simply required a slower pace, and a bit more coordination than most players were used to coming out of Wrath.

No, they were exceptionally hard for random groups. Not just because of the mechanics but because the mixture of obnoxious players and unskilled players was really poisonous when combined with content it was easy to wipe on.

ZA/G were not doable by random groups on release. After a week or two of nerfs most random groups were still failing, especially on Jin'do. It was about a month before random groups started to succeed semi-regularly (by that I mean make it through with about 10 wipes and not too many changes of healer and tank), and runs still occasionally lasted past a trash reset (2 hours). I have about 130 total completed solo queued ZA/ZG. The things I've seen ....

[Seriss]

No, they were exceptionally hard for random groups. Not just because of the mechanics but because the mixture of obnoxious players and unskilled players was really poisonous when combined with content it was easy to wipe on.

ZA/G were not doable by random groups on release. After a week or two of nerfs most random groups were still failing, especially on Jin'do. It was about a month before random groups started to succeed semi-regularly (by that I mean make it through with about 10 wipes and not too many changes of healer and tank), and runs still occasionally lasted past a trash reset (2 hours). I have about 130 total completed solo queued ZA/ZG. The things I've seen ....

I queued randomly very very often for ZA/ZG because of the healer bag. You got half-completed dungeons all the time. Very often, you'd get into a group that stood right before Jin'do. And depending on who had messed up, you either replaced a sucky healer and one-shot the guy, or you wiped there for 2 hours because people just didn't understand how it worked, couldn't do the dps or... no clue what.

When you got a fresh ID, it was not atypical to replace several people until you reached the end. Most of the time, people left on their own, frustrated from dying to crap (poison maze on Venoxis, hello to you! Not clicking on the right cauldron when that other guy would fill his entire area with toxic gas) or frustrated from wiping too often.

But even the old heroics were no laughing stock. Grim Batol was a NIGHTMARE with randoms. It was already a nightmare with guildies that were used to waltzing over stuff by doing crazy AoE-chaos pulls. With the average random people you ended up when queuing solo as a healer, it was like healer boot camp. You were tight on mana, didn't produce much healing (later on, shamans were buffed by 25%!!!), and had to drink after every bloody pull, then heal people to full, then drink again. Because nobody ever brought their own food. CCing just a single mob properly would help tremendously. Interrupting would help tremendously. But unless you as a healer did that stuff yourself, nobody would do it. And CCs would just be broken anyway.

Random heroics just aren't made to be played like a raid, with an organised group, taking its time on pulls. Random heroics are fast food. If you want a menu, if you want to plan your pulls, strategize and all that sort of stuff, you had to raid back then. And now you raid and/or do challenge modes. Random heroics are just a fast way to get your valor. But... seriously, depending on the group you're thrown into, they're not really all that fast. When you as a healer who isn't even a disc priest can out-dps some dps, that dps either still needs gear from that heroic or is just bad, bored or unmotivated. Most of the times, it's one of the latter.

[Betelgeuse]

Honestly, if it wasn't for LFR I wouldn't play at all. I do not have the patience to organize a group anymore.
Aside from that BC reg dungeons gave you gear that helped you into raiding. The heroics were for fleshing out raid sets. Not entry level content. All the item levels were the same in both but an epic dropped at the end in heroics. Now "heroic" dungeons give you a bunch of entry level gear. No epics.

[HardCoder]

But even the old heroics were no laughing stock. Grim Batol was a NIGHTMARE with randoms. It was already a nightmare with guildies that were used to waltzing over stuff by doing crazy AoE-chaos pulls. With the average random people you ended up when queuing solo as a healer, it was like healer boot camp. You were tight on mana, didn't produce much healing (later on, shamans were buffed by 25%!!!), and had to drink after every bloody pull, then heal people to full, then drink again. Because nobody ever brought their own food. CCing just a single mob properly would help tremendously. Interrupting would help tremendously. But unless you as a healer did that stuff yourself, nobody would do it. And CCs would just be broken anyway.

I found healing random 5-mans in early-mid 2011 to be hugely stressful. Anyone who could heal a random group smoothly was performing a task that was much more difficult in many ways than raid healing. You never knew what was going to happen next, or when, except it was probably going to be bad, and at least one irritable player would start raging about it.

And that wasn't helped by the days early in Cataclysm of "Priest, leave."

[judgementofantonidas]

What bothers me about this "exclude everyone from even playing the game so I feel rewarded" comments is that, if they were the before mentioned gold medalist, they would be demanding the removal of both silver and bronze medals, the perpetual exclusion of anyone who didn't win from any further olympics and a worldwide ban on athletic activities for anyone who can't perform at olympic level.

.

Not even close. A close analogy would be the gold medal winner being upset that the guy who finished 5th got a gold medal, and the guy who finished sixth got a gold medal, and the guy who face planted at the starting line tripped over the starting blocks and broke his anckle never finishing the run got a gold medal.

[hyphnos]

Not even close. A close analogy would be the gold medal winner being upset that the guy who finished 5th got a gold medal, and the guy who finished sixth got a gold medal, and the guy who face planted at the starting line tripped over the starting blocks and broke his anckle never finishing the run got a gold medal.

And yet, the person who won, if they actually cared about what they had achieved, would be satisfied knowing they finished the race with the fastest time.

Baubles don't add to or detract from what is important in competition - that of having done your best and being proud of what you have done. What other people do or get ultimately has nothing to do with you unless you are unsatisfied by achievement itself and need adulation along with it.

[Deleted]

The big issue with WoW is, that it never bothered to train it's playerbase for what it threw at them. If you quest right now, you will never be challenged. It's all very streamlined and a breeze. You will not get knocked down, have to get back up and challenge it again head-on with a different tactic. The only reason a lot of the Classic playerbase, as well as a good chunk of the TBC community experience WoW as "too easy" is that this factor has been removed. Before there was a lot of ways to fail at the game, this has been massively reduced. Obviously there are other factors as well, like new enchant systems, gems, talent revamps, class revamps (Paladin Pre-2.0 anyone?) and how the gear scales each expansion.

But the major factor is: If you do not teach a player the game, they will not be able to handle what is thrown at them. The community took this over from Blizzard with Addons and Guides years ago. And now the old players (or those that informed themselves a lot) feel the game is too easy, the new players still think it is too hard and Blizzard has to find a impossible middle ground due to their failure to do the most basic thing of any game ever made.

[Pann]

Not even close. A close analogy would be the gold medal winner being upset that the guy who finished 5th got a gold medal, and the guy who finished sixth got a gold medal, and the guy who face planted at the starting line tripped over the starting blocks and broke his anckle never finishing the run got a gold medal.

You do realise that based on your progress you are that guy that never finished the race, right?!? Perhaps instead of spending your time insulting and declaring yourself superior to those who are not interested in running the race, oh and not to forget, blaming your inability to complete the race on others you should concentrate on enjoying the activity rather than the actual race.

[Deleted]

Well Vanilla bosses arent more harder than current ones like one dude says there we was 40 ppl + much less gear(we raid naxx with tr1 and 2 parts there was very few ppl who get full tr2 and AQ sets and all tr3 goes to tanks and healers first) and imbalanced classes and now ppl have much more gear than need to defeat the encounter.Also endbosses was too buggy for big period of time which was unbreakable wall
Now encounter can be much more easy because of specific grouping of classes in 10 man groups where also chance to made a mistake is 2 and half more less than in 25 and 4 times less than in Old 40 mans.

[Nakkí]

New content goes down so fast nowadays because:
1) The top-end raiding scene has evolved to a higher plateau of average skill and analytical prowess
2) The amount of time/tries top-and guilds put in per day is much larger than in days past

Pushing the focus of endgame from raid prep (attunements, consumable farming, 5man farming) to actual raiding (LFR/N/HC) seems to be mostly a good thing for the game as a whole.** This gets more people to the actual meat of the endgame instead of having to languish in 5man / solo content ad infinitum.


(** Not including grinding dailies for lesser charms / VP since I'm looking at the situation from the PoV of a fresh, casual raider not in a hurry to clear the content.)

[Pann]

New content goes down so fast nowadays because:
1) The top-end raiding scene has evolved to a higher plateau of average skill and analytical prowess
2) The amount of time/tries top-and guilds put in per day is much larger than in days past

Pushing the focus of endgame effort from raid prep to actual raiding seems to be a good thing.
This gets more interested people to the actual juicy stuff (playing raid encounters) instead of having to languish in 5man / solo content ad infinitum.

I am not sure forcing people into raiding is such a good idea, the number of guilds clearing current content suggests that people are simply not interested in organised raid encounters.

[TaurenNinja]

WoW offers and needs both easy and hard content.

Newcomers have an easy time doing questing, dungeons (which are a stepping stone into beginner raiding as well), LFR, farming, whatever.
Experienced players have a challenging time with HC Raids, Challenge Modes, PvP, soloing old content, whatever.

And furthermore, experienced players also can "chill out" and do some fun stuff on the side, like pet battles or farming or playing the AH or whatever.

That's how it is currently in the game, and that's how it makes the most sense actually. Only when you please all groups without exceptions, you'll have the healthy game with ~10 mio. players that we have.

There's just one thing that cannot really be solved, and that is (in PvE) the disparity between top-end raiding guilds and the rest. The top-end guilds also want their challenge, but when Blizzard would design content that is challenging for them, it will become impossible for the rest. So they have to strike a balance.
Most of the challenge the top-end guilds have is from killing the bosses as fast as possible, which automatically means being highly undergeared still. Once they all have ~500 gear like the majority of the HC raiding guilds do have now, they will have no problems at all blazing through the content and having 16/16 HC on farm, while us normal HC raiders still struggle with some bosses.

[Nakkí]

I am not sure forcing people into raiding is such a good idea, the number of guilds clearing current content suggests that people are simply not interested in organised raid encounters.

While i would agree that forced content is not a good thing, I'd be interested in hearing your view on how/why WoW in it's present state forces players to raid in any way, shape or form? Personally feel like there's more to do for the solo player than ever before.

My point - which I might have been fuzzy on - was that it's now more viable for a curious player to try out raiding than previously. You know, just to see if they like the activity before committing to it.

[Tomana]

Blizzard got greedy, decided to remove real progression from the game in a bid to attract a more casual player?

This is so silly and wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to begin. You must be a real expert in economy and business (and yes this is sarcasm).

First of all, there were already, shockingly enough, casual players in BC. In fact, most of them never even set foot past Karazhan. The difference is, they had access to almost NO content for them. Basically, what did they have? 5-mans (and heroics once the sunwell patch gave them a bit of gear), dailies and PVP. Metaphysical question: what they were paying the sub for? Answer is: not much. On the other hand, where did that money go? To finance raids that almost no one, percentage-wise, would enter. Imagine that we have a country where the taxes from 95+% of the population are almost exclusively used to build palaces for the remaining 5%. This would strike a lot of people wrong on so many levels. Actually, such countries existed (e.g. some quite recent dictatorships in Africa), and no one in his right mind would call it as the right state of things.

Now, a lot of people who are not into VG economics ask me at this point: "But Tom, vanilla and BC were gaining subs, why?". The answer is, because a lot of casual players didn't reach the limits of their game in BC and/or didn't arrive at a state of internal saturation. Simply speaking, the casual players were either leveling (and leveling took a long time back then, especially if you were inexperienced) or didn't arrive at a state of boredom within the game. But they found the game new (because it was) and fascinating (especially Outland - which is still my favorite continent so far, albeit tied with Pandaria). Which is why the model worked at some point. Now, the above is missing a critical piece of information: the sub churn rate. Basically, the fact that the game gained 1M subs is not the only thing we need to know. Because it can mean two very different situations: for example gaining 1.1M subs and losing 0.1M versus gaining 2M and losing 1M. The net gain is the same, but in the latter situation, the customers are leaving much more rapidly, which is not a healthy situation, because the target market is, after all, finite so eventually there will be no "new blood" to compensate for the churn.

We don't have that information, only Blizzard does. Now, at this point we enter the guesswork domain, but based on what the developers said and my experience of high-tech sector, I think my guesses are quite accurate. I assume that, on one hand, by end-BC the churn was increasing, and dangerously so. The model was going to explode and was no longer defensible (not that it was morally defensible before). Basically, they realized that most players were just seeing the first trash packs of Kara (to paraphrase a wow dev) and that something had to be done to make content (into which a lot of money was poured) more evenly spread along the player-base. This process started in LK and finished more or less only with 4.3 and 5.0.

On the other hand, it is pretty safe to assume that Blizzard devs were kicked in the booty by their finance controllers at Sunwell stage for pouring millions into a raid no one ever saw (<1% of pop iirc). So yeah, the devs got smacked on the head (and rightfully so) which made them rethink their content philosophy a bit. It wasn't immediate (the first tier of LK is questionable in that respect) but they eventually got it right by using a multi-tiered difficulty system. Unfortunately, there was the early Cata retardation to mess things up.

By the way, to all people who repeat the "greedy" mantra: calculate the inflation rate (what is that? ) from 2004 to 2013 for your country and calculate how much would your $15 sub would cost if Blizzard was just keeping up with inflation to calculate it (after all, your landlord does so). Yet they didn't. Draw your own conclusions.

[Nakkí]

There's just one thing that cannot really be solved, and that is (in PvE) the disparity between top-end raiding guilds and the rest.

This might be due in part to the natural, "upwards" flow of talent in the raiding scene. The best, most progression-oriented players in guilds seem to tend to eventually move on to guilds more suited to their own ambitions if the disparity between their own perceived "level" and that of their guild has grown too wide. This in no way applies to every individual or guild but I think the trend is obvious enough to point out.

The end result of this concentration of valued players is that the disparity between top-end and the rest has grown to its present state.