Why was World of Warcraft dumbed down that much?

[Milmo]

I want a challenge, I want to have to think, I want that excitement back. Because soon i'll feel like i'm playing Farmville, with dragons.

Challenges are there, if you look for them. Raids are harder and more challenging than before, there are way, way more mechanics to be aware of and to master. Any player back in vanilla would have been overwhelmed by today's complexity of encounters. Brawler's guild offers some unique challenges as well. You can also try to solo old raids, e.g Lich King 25 HM is no easy task solo. LFR is supposed to be a pushover, it exists solely for the casual masses.

You, like so many others posting comments about WoW going casual make the fallacy of false dichotomies, i.e assuming that the addition of casual content somehow makes it mutually exclusive from established content. We now merely have more choices as gamers, that is all.

[Ronduwil]

Strangely enough every new expansion WoW is simpler, dumbed down, etc.

There is a difference between "dumbed down" and streamlined. Contrary to what you've said, WoW has not been dumbed down.

A need for class trainers is gone, because now one is magically gifted by a powerful God of some sort with new abilities.

How much intelligence was required to hearth back to your major city of choice and give gold to the class trainer every time you dinged? None. This is not dumbing down. This is allowing players to continue questing without having to unnecessarily break their flow. Do you really miss the trainer that much?

There's no more joy of eagerly awaiting that spell you see in the list several levels ahead.

??? Yes, there is. You still get new spells as you level. The spell is now grayed out in your spellbook instead of on a trainer list. The difference is that you no longer have to trudge back to the city to see it.

The mobs are pathetic, and the classes are overpowered in PvE. A low level character could easily take on 5 or 6 mobs before seeing any sign of difficulty in fighting them. What ever happened to having to be careful, actually working to complete a quest or dungeon? You simply AOE them down now.

Yes, for someone who has been playing the game for 8 years and has had to contend with end-game mechanics the mobs that their umpteenth alt mobs are riduculously easy, especially when the alt in question is decked out in overpowered heirlooms. For a brand new player who is trying to master the basics that is not necessarily the case. This changes when players hit MoP. Once heirlooms are off the table the difficulty is back for everyone. If you want a challenge while levelling roll a brand new character. Don't mail gold to it and don't give it heirlooms. Don't use prior knowledge to make it OP. By this I mean, don't buy good gear off the AH and don't repeatedly queue for dungeons for dungeon gear. Don't visit noxxic or elitist jerks or any of those sites that compile optimal rotations for your class. Let me know if you still feel that way after levelling in greens that way.

Spell tooltips showing you when to use your spells, how to use them and in what kind of scenario.

Seriously? You're complaining that they improved their documentation? WTF?

Talent trees. Seriously, what is this? I feel like I am in a game for 6 year olds when I look at this. Could they have dumbed it down anymore? I feel like the next step is merely choosing what spec you want, and I expect that change to happen in a few months time.

There was no skill involved in going to wowpopular or elitist jerks or noxxic and copying their "best" build to your own interface. Also, even under that system there were very few actual choices because you were always forced to pick a certain number of abilities within the current row of your spec before moving on to the next row. You only had the illusion of choice under that system. This new system does away with all that nonsense and lays the real choices out up front. Besides, it was a one-time thing that had no impact on how you played the game after you allocated those skills. Far from dumbing down the game, the new system actually requires more thought because you are now expected to swap out your current talents to match the mechanics of specific fights. It's no longer set-and-forget.

Dungeons. Why must they show us where each and ever boss is? Heck, even the introduction to instance maps annoyed me a bit. Part of the fun of dungeons was running it a few times before coming across a boss you hadn't seen before, because it's off to the side and new players wouldn't normally know of it. Now we have "Go here for this boss, and this one, and this one, and this one. And don't worry, they're incredibly easy. In a few levels you could probably solo it."

Most players eventually installed an addon that did this for you anyway. Ironically only the the new players were left without this reference. This just levelled the playing field so that new players wouldn't be kicked from groups for not knowing to install the atlas addon.

Raids. The LFR is a great example of this, instant gratification with absolutely no commitment required. No preparation required, no need to know what the bosses do, no nothing. Just go in, spam 3-4 buttons and you're done.

I'm not even going to go there. LFR is not easy. You can get carried in LFR without having any skill, but the run goes much faster and smoother if everyone knows what they're doing. I've had my share of wipes in LFR. Contrary to common "wisdom," it's in players' best interest to improve in order to LFR successfully. If you see someone of your class playing bad in LFR you're better off politely suggesting ways to improve their DPS and/or survival rate than posting rude rants on gaming forums.

Blizzard is trying to make the game appeal to a younger audience to get the new generation interested in the game. And that's a completely fair goal. However, doing it how they are isn't the right way to go about it. They're making this game boring and disappointing to those of a mediocre intelligence level, and underestimating those of the new generation. They're more intelligent than many will give them credit for, and they do not need this level of simplification of it.

When I was a kid we had paper and pencil and imagination. Gaming consoles now graphically lay out entire worlds for you. That's just how it is as you get older. Get used to it. Convenience is not the same as "dumbing down." The fact that players are no longer kept ignorant for 60 levels doesn't mean they can mindlessly coast through the game and succeed. If it did then all level 90 players would be facerolling heroic raid bosses. Lowering the inconvenience of the experience frees developers to ratchet up game difficulty in meaningful ways.

In the end they are losing the quality players. The ones that can make it an amazing community, the ones who do not need their parents money to afford the game. The ones who I love to find in a guild and spend hours and hours playing with.

No they're not. They're losing the crybaby whiners who want to keep new players ignorant so that they can feel superior to them. Ignorance is not the same as stupidity, and knowledge is not the same as intelligence.

I want a challenge, I want to have to think, I want that excitement back. Because soon i'll feel like i'm playing Farmville, with dragons.

Then develop your own rotation instead of taking one from elitist jerks or noxxic. Successfully lead a raid without reading an icy veins guide or looking at tankspot videos beforehand. If the game lacks challenge it's because cheating has become so commonplace that it's now mandatory. They call these guides walkthroughs for a reason. If you don't want to be able to walk through the game then don't read walkthroughs.

The game today feels as though every cheat possible has been turned on. Warriors and Warlocks are vastly different to the one I rolled all those years ago.

That's because today's players use every external cheat imaginable (Elitist Jerks, Noxxic, Deadly Boss Mods, GTFO addon) and still demand challenge from the game. This requires Blizzard to level the playing field by building the cheats into the game and working under the assumption that the game should be challenging in spite of them. They're not "dumbing down" the game so much as levelling the playing field as much as they can for new players.

WoW feels like a game with GODMODE enabled. that is hardly compelling or enticing.

I'm happy for you. When did you get your first Heroic Ra-den kill?

[Ulfhedinn]

I love how doesn't take forever means dumbed down to the wow community.

Do you have all golds, heroic ToT on farm and a high BG/Arena ratting? My guess is nearly every single person that complains about the game being dumbed down doesn't have any of those things done.

[NotValidAnymore]

Because the playerbase wanted it.

When you play a game for years, you'd wish certain things took less time so you could focus on other things more, maybe even outside the game. And then they make it that way, and you have people who always complain no matter what.

If you want a more "hardcore" MMO with chores then you'll have to find one that's not the most popular one.

[skrump]

Challenges are there, if you look for them. Raids are harder and more challenging than before, there are way, way more mechanics to be aware of and to master. Any player back in vanilla would have been overwhelmed by today's complexity of encounters. Brawler's guild offers some unique challenges as well. You can also try to solo old raids, e.g Lich King 25 HM is no easy task solo. LFR is supposed to be a pushover, it exists solely for the casual masses.

You, like so many others posting comments about WoW going casual make the fallacy of false dichotomies, i.e assuming that the addition of casual content somehow makes it mutually exclusive from established content. We now merely have more choices as gamers, that is all.

The content might seem harder these days but the difference is back in Vanilla/TBC you relied on your raid group far more than you do now.

Razorgore being a killer example because it actually required that your entire raid group not only be aware of their surroundings but they also had to know exactly what they were doing because making one minor mistake had a domino effect on the outcome of the raid.

[Mifuyne]

He might have some good "points" but so do the others.
In the end I actually looked at his username; "Swagster"
No need to really get all worked up for this guy, people.

[ParanoiD84]

Always with the HC kills as comeback, cuz time = difficulty, a game can be to easy even if you dont kill the hc bosses, hc bosses require time to kill and thats about it. Lots and lots off time. Everyone with half a brain could kill the HC bosses if they would just drop everything else like job and friends for the time and just go at it. That requires ofc that the other 9 players have half a brain also.

[Deleted]

Strangely enough every new expansion WoW is simpler, dumbed down, etc.

A need for class trainers is gone

"Dumbed down" is a poor choice of words. It's more a convenience. They've made it more convenient.

Spell tooltips showing you when to use your spells, how to use them and in what kind of scenario.

Another convenience. It helps ease new players in. How does this affect your gameplay? It doesn't change the skill ceiling in any way either.

Talent trees. Seriously, what is this? I feel like I am in a game for 6 year olds when I look at this. Could they have dumbed it down anymore?

As opposed to all those passive talents? Besides, the staple cookie cutter builds everyone had? But I'm sure your argument against this would be something along the lines of "at least people had to figure it out or copy it from someone else". I'd rather have a bunch of meaningful talents that do things and change how my character is played, where there isn't always (yes sometimes there's exceptions and some talents are clearly better than other) a clear cut "best" choice.

Dungeons. Why must they show us where each and ever boss is?

Why must you read an optional dungeon journal? No, they mustn't and don't show you where they are because it's optional.

Raids. The LFR is a great example of this, instant gratification with absolutely no commitment required. No preparation required, no need to know what the bosses do, no nothing. Just go in, spam 3-4 buttons and you're done.

What difference does that make to your gameplay? If you want to figure out tactics on your own, prepare, do normal raids. Then heroics. It's not changed.

I want a challenge, I want to have to think, I want that excitement back. Because soon i'll feel like i'm playing Farmville, with dragons.

Have you done all the Brawler's Guild fights? Have you done heroic raiding? Probably not but I'll assume you'll say you have.

"The worlds BEST MMORPG" has turned into "The worlds EASIEST and most accommodating MMORPG".

The game is more challenging now than it has ever been. I'd like to see those Brawler's Guild and heroic raid achievements of yours.
BTW accomodating players is a good thing. Why would it not be?

[Doombringer]

Daetur speaks the truth. For all the challenge the old 40-man raids provided, the rest of the game was a lot more forgiving than the norm at that time. Heck, even when it came to raiding, the hurdle was getting 39 people together with the necessary class/spec balance and gear ("did you bring your resist set? food? pots?")...

I'd argue there is greater, raw challenge in the game today than in the past, with heroic raids and heroic-only bosses like Ra-den. Normals are there for the baseline... LFR is included as a "gimme" for the folks who want to see the raids but can't quite manage the commitment. Everyone wins.

I honestly don't see how anyone can complain about the Easy difficulty when there is Regular and Hard modes available to them.

And talents... please. There was no challenge in the old system. You had so many passive talents, they were no-brainers to sink 5 points into. Today, there are still some "builds" to go with, but there are choices too -- many guides will say "pick whatever you like in this tier" for 2-3 talent tiers in a given class.

[Orange Joe]

ad hominem. just ignore these people.

It's not an ad-hominem. If the game is so easy you should have no problem providing your heroic kills as proof to how easy it is.

[Ulfhedinn]

Then develop your own rotation instead of taking one from elitist jerks or noxxic. Successfully lead a raid without reading an icy veins guide or looking at tankspot videos beforehand. If the game lacks challenge it's because cheating has become so commonplace that it's now mandatory. They call these guides walkthroughs for a reason. If you don't want to be able to walk through the game then don't read walkthroughs.

I have been saying this for some time. "OMG this game is to easy"... always said by people that use addons for everything, read guides before doing any bosses, learn their rotations from everyone else, their stat priorities come from a guide as well. Then they top it all off with voice chat. You want a challenge? turn all that crap off and lets see how you do.

You can't complain that a game is to easy while doing everything in your power to make it easy.

[Orange Joe]

cuz casuals cry like little babies if they dont get what they want



sorry but it is, any aspect of the game is so retard friendly atm

Want me to go get the afk hunter auto shooting at rag video?

[ParanoiD84]

It's not an ad-hominem. If the game is so easy you should have no problem providing your heroic kills as proof to how easy it is.

Not everyone have the time to kill HC bosses, thats all you need time and knowledge off your class and bosses. Time does not equal difficulty.

[Ulfhedinn]

The content might seem harder these days but the difference is back in Vanilla/TBC you relied on your raid group far more than you do now.

Razorgore being a killer example because it actually required that your entire raid group not only be aware of their surroundings but they also had to know exactly what they were doing because making one minor mistake had a domino effect on the outcome of the raid.

One healer got agro.. raid wipe.
One hunter died... raid wipe.
Orb control get smacked... raid wipe.

The awesome part about BWL was that the first two bosses where so hard if you downed them you get several free boss kills after that.

[Orange Joe]

Not everyone have the time to kill HC bosses, thats all you need time and knowledge off your class and bosses. Time does not equal difficulty.

Why does it take time if it is easy? Go in kill it and be done?

[ParanoiD84]

Why does it take time if it is easy? Go in kill it and be done?

If it would require only one person i would, but you need 9 or 24 other people with knowledge to.

[Deleted]

Not everyone have the time to kill HC bosses, thats all you need time and knowledge off your class and bosses. Time does not equal difficulty.

You need time to learn the strategy and perfect it. You don't just need knowledge of your class and the bosses, you need to put that into practice. Many challenges take time to overcome because they take multiple attempts.
Your argument is so flawed.

[Orange Joe]

If it would require only one person i would, but you need 9 or 24 other people with knowledge to.

You aren't making sense. These fights are easy. Grab your guild group and go kill them.

[Duronos]

You know, you could say Vanilla was the easier version of EQ but there is a point where you dumb something down so much it isn't good, that's what WoW is today. WoW when I first played it was something I'd never seen before, literally it was a different "world" where I had a second life so to speak, it immersed me and made me feel like I was someone else. Sounds weird but that was the reason I was so interested with it in the first place. You have to understand that Vanilla was something special, I'm even playing on a private server completely Blizzlike and my god it's amazing, you wouldn't believe me I know but after the first 10 levels (Durotar ugh) it gets much better.

For nostalgia sake, that's the portal to the World... of Warcraft.

[tylenol]

New and amazing thread, OP, link your armory