Why was World of Warcraft dumbed down that much?

[worsthitmanNa]

While I agree with much of your post, I don't see what the problem with this is. I for one liked being able to figure out, from tooltips, how class abilities intermingled.

But for the most part, the reason that it was dumbed down is part of why I left. Dungeons have no danger to them. AT ALL. Walk in, sneeze, boss is dead. I understand heroics are suppose to be easy, I get that. But these take almost zero effort to complete. There's no danger in questing, even quest bosses are easy to solo. No danger in anything but raiding and PvP. LFR is just a zerg rush.

Try leveling with no heirlooms and mop rares are dangerous. Most have 1 shot mechanics as well. Challenge modes replaced heroics and LFR is a joke but its for people who don't have the time to raid. If you find LFR easy raid normal modes. You haven't even done half of what the game offer and yet you still say it's easy.

---------- Post added 2013-06-26 at 07:22 AM ----------

By destroying the sense of achievement one gets from doing exclusive content and the community that is built around it to accomplish that. Takes the MMO out of MMORPG

What we have now is just an on rails single player game where everyone wins just for participating and it has totally ruined wow

I mean there's a thousand other games that are exactly that; why did they have to make WoW like that

Changes towards this end pretty closely coincide with the drop in subs too

Lfr isn't beating the game and getting a full set of epic pvp gear isn't beating the game. Completing throne of thunder on heroic and achieving gladiator still mean something. Their still is exclusive content mounts, titles, achievements and a special boss.

[Gilian]

You say "dumbed down" I say "accessible" and there's nothing wrong with that.

I say both because I am realistic. You keep fooling yourself.

---------- Post added 2013-06-26 at 02:02 PM ----------

WoW is more complex than ever. The game has more abilities, more content, more competition and a greater range of difficulty than ever before.

Complexity doesn't matter at all when you can ignore all those mechanics and abilities when doing the content. It's still dumbed down, simplified or whatever you want to call it.

[Gilian]

Wow is so easy only 336 guilds have killed Ra-Den, 402 Lei Shen. Less then 1.4%. Six other heroic fights are under 7%.

Dumbed down =/= easy. Heroic raids are only a small part of the game. But I guess it doesn't matter how many times someone says that, we really can't fool you.

[Orange Joe]

Dumbed down =/= easy. Heroic raids are only a small part of the game. But I guess it doesn't matter how many times someone says that, we really can't fool you.

Quality of life changes =/= dumbed down.

The only dumb thing is that they were in the game in the first place.

[Thelin]

Cata t11 raids and heroics were in my eyes one of the best pve moment of wow's history. It was incredibly good.

But yeah. It got destroyed by noobs tears.

Sunwell hands down.. Muru pre nerf = one of the hardest fights ever.

[sanaubia]

more casuals = more money

[panterarules]

It was dumbed down because the demographic of PC gamers has changed. We're not geeks any more, we're just people with a computer ;D Your general facebook app user would have a nightmare if they had to replenish mana after every pull and had to choose between multiple stats and gearing options.

Sometimes it's nice to have quality of life, but there are consequences. For example, the game now totally revolves around filling a priority gcd system now that mana is gone. Mana was a spell balance tool in itself, sad to see it's not used any more.

The removal of talent trees also lead to class uniformity. I don't really care about the 'more choice' debate, when i'm using living bomb on a frost mage something is off. The best thing about the talent trees (vanilla - wotlk) was that you could experiment crossing to other trees. For example Warlocks in BC had about 5 competitive builds to choose between (until blizzard stopped giving gearing options and put haste on all the gear).

[Deleted]

"Oh, but WoW Classic was so good!!!"

Even if I "enjoyed" Classic and TBC, the game was giving TOO MUCH restriction to many players.

Oh! You wanna raid Onyxia? Well you need another 39 people who had also complete the attunement quest, and if you're alliance GET SOME FUCKING DWARF PRIESTS WOULD YA!!!
Oh, you're a paladin and want to go all holy warrior with a 2handed weapon? FUCK YOU, YOUR DAMAGE AIN'T WORTH A SHIT!!!
Oh look! This warrior wants to DPS!!! FUUUUUCK YOUUU!!! YOU'RE THE ONLY CLASS WHO CAN TANK SO GET YOUR FUCKING SHIELD AND TANK!!!
Hey look!!! This Fire Mage wants to go to Molten Core!!! GET YOUR ASS BACK TO THE TRAINER AND GO FROST, DUMMY!!! AND ONCE WE ARE DONE WITH IT GO BACK TO FIRE, BECAUSE WE NEED THAT DPS FOR AQ!!!
And let's not forget all those LOVELY hunters who pressed NEED on EVERY SINGLE MELEE WEAPON THEY FOUND!!!!

WoW right now is as best as it can be. Every class can DPS, tank or heal without the previous mentioned discriminations. The CHALLENGE is still there for those who want to do Challenge modes and heroic raids. And the boss fights itself require actual mechanics than just fucking dispelling a debuff on the TANK!!!

[mipper]

If you just look at number of spells available to each class, the classes/rotations are more complex than ever.

If anything, I'd prefer a general reduction to total number of spells to only include what is useful. Don't love having 30+ abilities hotkeyed. I know pruning abilities would likely cause more harm than good at this point, but just my opinion.

[fangless]

It's been simplified because over 8 years, every small nuisance was complained about by some minority that was loud enough to get everyone nodding their heads in agreement.

If you haven't played for the course of the game, you have no legit opinion on the matter. You haven't see the changes, you can't accurately evaluate the topic.


And we aren't talking "man things are so much harder in XYZ raid now than before", difficulty of the raids is not the same as the overall feel of the game. Name one thing that inconveniences you today? The only things that are time sinks were the daily quests, but no one thinks those were ever integral to the game, myself included. Everything else in this game is made to suit the players, to require low time investment, and provide maximum rewards.

Everything is instant, everything is nice and smooth, everything is evolved to make you smile and relax.



There's a reason people love crazy games like Skyrim or Fallout. The intangible minute details, that make a game feel like a game, and not a chore.

[madokbro]

Some of you spend your valuable hobby-time on researching your class and boss fights, training and getting experience to maximize your performance, searching through endless addons, level raid professions, trying to get used to changing your talents, specs, gemming from fight to fight etc. And when you finally manage to get that hc kill, you see a mediocre player with the same gear that dropped to you from Lei Shen, only it's on LFR colors and he/she brags about raiding just like you do. You get upset, I understand that.

But you need to understand that these stuff you do does not feel "gamey" at all, feels more like work. It might be fun for you, but that frustration is not even close to that for the average gamer, who are much more crowded and let's not argue about that, you are a vocal minority among the online gaming community. Some of you guys may be so experienced in this "hardcore raiding" routine that it's possible none of this process feels hard, yet getting to the point where you stand is almost impossible for a casual gamer in terms of experince, in the game's current state. Nor anyone has the wish to get there, why would we? That's stressful, tiring and not even remotely fun.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to repeat the usual "get a life" speech, I won't generalize anyone for a simple hobby. But you do have heroic raiding, extra bosses, titles, mounts and all that adressing your small community, just suck it up, you won't get to be special in a fucking video game. Share your fun/game with the rest of the online gaming community.

[Seefer]

The post by Daetur more or less sums up my feelings. And personally, I have no qualms about no longer needing to visit Thottbot to learn something, nor do I miss having to completely depend on other people in order to get anything done and have fun. This is supposed to be a game after all, not a community job.

wrong, MMORPGs have always been about the community and helping to achieve common goals, sadly the state of this game is everyone wants to make it a solo game which really pisses me off.

[Orange Joe]

wrong, MMORPGs have always been about the community and helping to achieve common goals, sadly the state of this game is everyone wants to make it a solo game which really pisses me off.

Problem was the community WASN'T helping. So people were stuck and unable to progress because others didn't want to go back and do something they have already done.

BTW that is YOUR opinion on what MMORPGS have been about. It doesn't make it right.

[Deleted]

Problem was the community WASN'T helping. So people were stuck and unable to progress because others didn't want to go back and do something they have already done.

BTW that is YOUR opinion on what MMORPGS have been about. It doesn't make it right.

Pretty much you summed what usually happened with the restrictions that Classic and TBC had. Only the first 40 people who got things done was able to see the content. When others tried to join, they got a BF "DENIED!" in front of their faces because no one who already did the prior content wanted to run it again just for the sake of others.

And tell you what: Why play a game that you PAY MONTHLY if you CAN'T SEE IT ALL???

If WoW was F2P then I would understand partly the circumstances you were thrown at in Classic and TBC, but since it was not it felt unfair for those who couldn't see the content just because the arses on top of it didn't wanted to help!

[TaurenNinja]

Many wrong posts here.

WoW is not the easiest MMO. It is the most *accessible*. I think many people confuse these two. Accessible basically means, easy to learn. But WoW is extremely hard to master. The gap between a casual guild, a normal or even hardcore guild, and a world class guild is insanely large, and it's growing.

And the "dumbing down" did not affect the true difficulty in the game, it only affected some of the more grindy stuff. There is nothing hard about doing some random attunement quest. There is nothing hard about grinding your weapon skill to 400. And so on...

[Glorious Leader]

Pretty much you summed what usually happened with the restrictions that Classic and TBC had. Only the first 40 people who got things done was able to see the content. When others tried to join, they got a BF "DENIED!" in front of their faces because no one who already did the prior content wanted to run it again just for the sake of others.

And tell you what: Why play a game that you PAY MONTHLY if you CAN'T SEE IT ALL???

If WoW was F2P then I would understand partly the circumstances you were thrown at in Classic and TBC, but since it was not it felt unfair for those who couldn't see the content just because the arses on top of it didn't wanted to help!

Basically that's what alot of the nostalgists cry about. They had all that power taken away from them and individual players don't need them anymore so they feel cheated and robbed. That doesn't mean I don't think their shouldn't be some social bonds in the game but the motives for many of the posters and players advocating for vanilla aren't altruistic by any means.

[Seefer]

Pretty much you summed what usually happened with the restrictions that Classic and TBC had. Only the first 40 people who got things done was able to see the content. When others tried to join, they got a BF "DENIED!" in front of their faces because no one who already did the prior content wanted to run it again just for the sake of others.

And tell you what: Why play a game that you PAY MONTHLY if you CAN'T SEE IT ALL???

If WoW was F2P then I would understand partly the circumstances you were thrown at in Classic and TBC, but since it was not it felt unfair for those who couldn't see the content just because the arses on top of it didn't wanted to help!

I must have been playing a different game for the past 8+ years, when I started raiding in BC my guild got me attuned, got me gear, ran stuff with me, showed me how to spec etc.

[Sniperpally]

I must have been playing a different game for the past 8+ years, when I started raiding in BC my guild got me attuned, got me gear, ran stuff with me, showed me how to spec etc.

Thats probably because you're a decent person who was capable of playing nice with others and at a reasonably proficient level, which is unfortunately not most the player base these days hence the popularity of LFR

[jax]

WoW is not the easiest MMO. It is the most *accessible*. I think many people confuse these two. Accessible basically means, easy to learn. But WoW is extremely hard to master. The gap between a casual guild, a normal or even hardcore guild, and a world class guild is insanely large, and it's growing.

This is the only person in the entire thread who has a fucking clue what he is talking about.

And the "dumbing down" did not affect the true difficulty in the game, it only affected some of the more grindy stuff. There is nothing hard about doing some random attunement quest. There is nothing hard about grinding your weapon skill to 400. And so on...

See my above comment...

[Clash the DK]

I got it let me sum it up!

- Luci - > Impending Doom - cure curse - Mind control adds - > Kill adds kill boss cure curse heal YAYYYYYY
- Magmadar - > Enrage - > Must use tranq shot to cure Enrage - > Pref by two hunters - > Tank must use fear break abilities from time to time or use fear ward via ally
- Ghehenas - > cure curse - > Run from rain of fire - > Kill adds - > Kill boss
- Garr - > Set marks for each add - > Set tanks for each add - > Begin via Ice block mage or divine protection pally - > Kill a few adds - > Kill boss - > Don't kill all adds
- Shazrah - > Go in a circle - > Cure curses - > One tank
~~ Set notes np Decursive press 1 button and everything is cleansed ~~
- Baron Geddon ~ Living bomb move from people - > Cleanse magic burning mana thing - > Move from Hellfire thing - > Kill boss
- Harbinger ~ Set tanks for each of the adds ~ Use MS effects via each add ~ Split each add so they don't heal ~ Kill all adds ~ Kill boss
- Golemag ~ Set tanks via the two adds ~ Kill boss ~ Use as many as cool downs when earthquake happens ~
- Executus ~ CC Healing adds ~ Set each tank for each add ~ Set 1 tank to tank Executus ~ Kill adds then healers ~ Loot
- Ragnaros ~ Tank swap ~ Add phase kill adds ~ Repeat ~ Kill boss

Did I miss something :O

Those "boss" mechanics remind me of the "raid trash" mechanics in BWD from Tier11.