WoW Has Never Been Harder, Players Have Never Been Better

[Deleted]

From personal observations it seems like the top end of wow players get better and better while the rest remain mostly unchanged through simplification of the game.

If they did something like add tbc threat management back into the game I am not convinced that many newer player would cope well at all.

TBC threat management wasnt even a big issue for the most part.

Now vanilla on the other hand...

[Soluna]

They do deserve gear, but way lower ilvl. You cant possibly tell me a person who never stepped into HC(which drops 945 ilvl) deserves 965 equipped. Yes, I have seen that

Also, I did raid back in HFC and every time I joined for Archimonde lfr on an alt, grp had 5-6 Determination stacks, aka 5-6 wipes. Every time i've been coven lfr is 1 shot. Ofc a lot die to the flames and so but still 1 shot

Well, for every person who hasn't stepped into HC and has 965 equipped, there are 10 people who have been doing HC since week one on 4-5 different alts, and m+ weekly and still haven't gotten a single char of them into 965 ilvl, all my alt characters are 960-962. My main is the only exception, who has cutting edge and is 980. The thing is, people like you are silly enough to take the odd guy as an example of what everyone gets, when you need some luck to push over 960 if you want to gear properly, even by doing HC. And that's the case for me and most of my guildes, and we got like 35+ active raiders who do HC at least every week and m+15 on 2-3 alts.

And sure, a 35 people sample isn't that big of a deal, but its 35 times your sample, even if we only take into account one of their alts, else that sample is doubled or tripled.

[Thetruth1400]

You can only believe that if you think that people who don't do Mythic don't deserve gear.

If the goal is: Funnel players up through the ranks of raiding into Mythic guilds, creating long-term health in the game, than Legion has done so.

Let's be honest, it isn't the game design to funnel players up through the ranks of raiding into Mythic guilds, it's to get all people to see the content and achieve gear levels for entitlement and pseudo achievements of "look I did it!". LFR is not a funnel to getting better, it's a funnel for the players looking to say they've done it all while not having to actually put in any of the time or effort to try to accomplish anything.

I believe that players should have to do all of an expansions content to get to the high end of things. That means, normal dungeons, then heroics, then raid 1, 2, and then be at the end game raid level, where they can then go up through the raids to mythic level if they so choose. That means pathetically easy world quests or vendors granting the same ilvl gear as the last raid tier's normal mode, which is exactly what we have in game now. There is only a 30 ilvl difference between the vendor items and the highest raid tier on the hardest difficulty. That's not even counting those items having a chance to proc better stats.

If you don't see the problem of a vendor or world quest giving gear that's on near par with the most difficult difficult raid's gear, then you're part of the problem. It's not about entitlement, it's not about "getting something others don't" it's about actually having to play the game at a level that shows you have progressed, gotten better, and put in some modicum of effort to playing the game vs just sitting back and accepting your handouts.

[Akka]

have you done any mythic plus? HC dungeons were a faceroll at the end of expansion. But mythic+ can always go higher, harder.

To me it shows more a problem with excessive power growth than anything else.

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From personal observations it seems like the top end of wow players get better and better while the rest remain mostly unchanged through simplification of the game.

If they did something like add tbc threat management back into the game I am not convinced that many newer player would cope well at all.

I'd say even veteran players would take some time to adjust. I remember the threat game from TBC, and it might not be as flashy as the dozens of different abilities from each boss we have today, but it was a permanent gameplay mechanic that was ever present and tailored all the fights.

[Rakoth]

Well... it was the easiest in the market, so it won by default.
If Blizzard didn't make WoW, we would have a really thriving market of good MMOs. WoW killed almost all aspects of why we loved the classic era MMOs.
Unfortunately *those* aspects were not fleshed out properly hence wasn't too marketable, and WoW successfully made the "MMO=diablo but bigger world and more players" equation true.
MMOs were not like that back in the day.

I'm pretty sure some people "hear" that I say WoW sucks. Nope, it is a great game, just not like any classic MMO. Which were freakin brutal compared to classic WoW.

This was disproven by Wildstar. Wildstar tried to go this path, and it failed. Also, do not confused difficulty with grind. Vanilla wow was not hard, it was grindy and had a ton of time syncs. I was a server first raider, we had to spend our non-raiding days farming consumables, because you could chain potions and tubers and had to have specific resist gear.

Naxx was the first "hard" raid where you needed 40 players to play properly, MC, BWL and AQ was always the story of 20 good raiders carrying 20 bad ones. From a dev stand point, Naxx was also a failure. Content no one consumed except the top 5%.

To me it shows more a problem with excessive power growth than anything else.

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I'd say even veteran players would take some time to adjust. I remember the threat game from TBC, and it might not be as flashy as the dozens of different abilities from each boss we have today, but it was a permanent gameplay mechanic that was ever present and tailored all the fights.

Threat was NOT FUN. As a DPS in BWL, it was a frustrating that I needed to throttle myself, and use feint and Vanish on Cooldown. Being horde, we also didn't have the same level of threat reduction without paladins. It was either windfury, or the threat reduction totem. Being a DPS was about learning to do the most damage possible, then learning to throttle that back just so that your Omen threat meter didn't exceed the tanks.

Think about that. You would master your class, figure out the rotation, the timing, the stats you needed just so you could then artificially slow yourself down so you didn't out threat the tanks. YAY! I would watch the threat meters and call out which DPS had to slow down... or Vanish... It wasn't fun.

[Direpenguin]

today wow is harder because you mostly have to react fast and even if you are oneshot on tyrannic m+

You mean you have to react faster to the 100s of mods you have popping up, telling you everything that did/is currently/and will shortly happen in the encounter? Yeah, SO HARD (tm).

Excuse me while I wait for the next round of I waste too much time on this game, let me make a post telling everyone how more awesomer am I than anyone before me posts...

[ID811717]

That means pathetically easy world quests or vendors granting the same ilvl gear as the last raid tier's normal mode, which is exactly what we have in game now. There is only a 30 ilvl difference between the vendor items and the highest raid tier on the hardest difficulty. That's not even counting those items having a chance to proc better stats.

Which vendor sells ilvl 930 gear?

[Zyky]

What nerfs?
1 less chain + cannot inmune so you don't have to stack an almost full inmunity group (more like bad design and not a nerf)
After 3-4 months (can't remember) the usual 5% hp nerf so guilds can kill it even if they have 1-2 backpacks.
¿And that's about it? KJ got more nerfs on week 1.

The only reason Method (and top guilds) took "so long"to kill Argus is because it is a hard DPS/HPS check on 960ish gear, and they needed to big balls 3 heal it and pray RNGesus to get 1chain 2 at max (as said earlier, bad design). By the point most guilds reach M Argus they are 970+ (avg ilvl on my guild was 967 when we killed him, world 89, week 8, one week before chain changes) and can afford to go 4 healers (with 5% hp nerf i even saw some 5 healers kills). Nowadays with guilds at 975+ avg ilvl is just a matter of skill, it isn't and it wasn't overtuned at all.

They stealth nerfed Argus the same way they stealth nerfed KJ. Don't quote me 2 weeks later to get my to say thing same exact thing I said pages ago.

[Thetruth1400]

Which vendor sells ilvl 930 gear?

None, but as I said and you just glazed over, there is a vendor that sells 910 gear, which is the ilvl of gear dropped in normal Tomb of Sargeras. But I do have to thank you, because your pedantic attitude did show me an error I made, the ilvl difference between the vendor gear, which again, can also proc Warforged or Titanforged being even higher ilvl, is only 20 ilvls lower than Mythic level Tomb, showing just how little you have to actually try to have gear almost equal to the best gear in the game. Talk to a vendor and you're pretty much on par.

[Akka]

Threat was NOT FUN.

Yes it was.

As a DPS in BWL, it was a frustrating that I needed to throttle myself, and use feint and Vanish on Cooldown.

I don't see the problem with having to use your abilities to get better results. It's just a more varied way to optimize damage in fact.

Think about that. You would master your class, figure out the rotation, the timing, the stats you needed just so you could then artificially slow yourself down so you didn't out threat the tanks. YAY! I would watch the threat meters and call out which DPS had to slow down... or Vanish... It wasn't fun.

I don't see how being able to manage threat isn't a way to play your class just like being able to do your rotation.

[ID811717]

None, but as I said and you just glazed over, there is a vendor that sells 910 gear, which is the ilvl of gear dropped in normal Tomb of Sargeras. But I do have to thank you, because your pedantic attitude did show me an error I made, the ilvl difference between the vendor gear, which again, can also proc Warforged or Titanforged being even higher ilvl, is only 20 ilvls lower than Mythic level Tomb, showing just how little you have to actually try to have gear almost equal to the best gear in the game. Talk to a vendor and you're pretty much on par.

My main character was ilvl 937 equipped 2 days before the 7.3.0 patch went live (which introduced the vendors). I could not care less about ilvl 910 gear, even if it could titanforge. My lowest non-tier slot was ilvl 925 gloves. Why do you care?

If you don't see the problem of a vendor or world quest giving gear that's on near par with the most difficult difficult raid's gear, then you're part of the problem. It's not about entitlement, it's not about "getting something others don't" it's about actually having to play the game at a level that shows you have progressed, gotten better, and put in some modicum of effort to playing the game vs just sitting back and accepting your handouts.

My alt was ilvl 902 equipped at the time. I played it once every several weeks, to do low M+ or run LFR. This is the type of characters that benefits from vendor gear. But you can bet that since I did not bother doing weekly M+ chest or pug heroic at the time, neither I could be bothered to farm the vendor gear. And I don't see a problem if anyone else bothered to do it.

For me, this game is about doing hard content for fun, not about collecting high ilvl gear to get anyone's respect. If gear catch-up mechanics help anyone to actually catch up and prove they are a better player than me (get my raid spot, etc) - I'm happy with that.

[Rakoth]

Yes it was.

I don't see the problem with having to use your abilities to get better results. It's just a more varied way to optimize damage in fact.

I don't see how being able to manage threat isn't a way to play your class just like being able to do your rotation.

I don't like that my damage, is limited by the skill of the tank. It's outside of my control. It also creates a huge disparity between classes. Rogues could drop threat very easily, and hunters never had to manage threat, since Fein death was even better. Shaman could not drop threat.

So, a rogue could go 100k DPS without pulling threat, a hunter could do 150k because he had a 30 second reset and a shaman could do 50k because all the tank was able to do is produce 55k threat.

[Chaelexi]

https://www.method.gg/raid-history/legion

Considering XAVIUS world first took less than 48 hours and Argus took less than 2 weeks. Raiding is definitely easier. Yogg, Lich king, and even bc raids such as the eye and ssc took longer ....

The op is obviously troll. The flame rend is easily handled with 2 tanks that can turn toward a raid

Link provided shows world first timelines

From WotLK time to know we have real simming, serious min maxing, better addons, better timers, guilds running multiple runs a week to feed gear to main raiders after the first week, TF gear and in general players are more accustom to handing these individual responsibility mechanics that exist. The other big thing is Blizzard has become significantly better at releasing fights that have been tested and close to bug free, they also on the fly bug fix where as before they would wait for a server tuesday reboot cycle or longer. If Blizz were to release raids like the Eye, SSC, Ulduar, etc now they would be cleared in no time now because there was not many mechanics that were overly difficult beyond stand here and don't stand there.

[yjmark]

I don't like that my damage, is limited by the skill of the tank. It's outside of my control. It also creates a huge disparity between classes. Rogues could drop threat very easily, and hunters never had to manage threat, since Fein death was even better. Shaman could not drop threat.

So, a rogue could go 100k DPS without pulling threat, a hunter could do 150k because he had a 30 second reset and a shaman could do 50k because all the tank was able to do is produce 55k threat.

Wasn't this one of the reasons that Blizz seemed to move away from threat meaning anything? I thought I remember them saying that "having to throttle back DPS was not fun".

[Egregious]

Yeah, no. Only the good ones are better than the good ones were back in the day. Example: all sports.

[Deleted]

Yeah, no. Only the good ones are better than the good ones were back in the day. Example: all sports.

Well with such a statement as OP... are you gonna judge the people that actually push to be better or the average playerbase?
I'd say the first so the statement isnt that far off.

[Sunnydruid]

This whole topic is literally subjective. Most people who have a gripe with this game will say that the content is catered to a more casual player, which is partially true.

You can also say that raiding itself should be very easy, no matter the level. It is a program developed with only X number of variations. Study and memorize the variations of abilities and how they act with your raid team and you win. Easier said then done though, considering you can be the best at memorization but if your team sucks then that is a whole other battle to conquer, which is usually the case to some degree. That's why most people who bash the PVE scene are barely into mythics, or if they are they didn't finish the raid off until later in the expansion.

Yes, WoW is harder (in SOME aspects). Players seem to be more adaptable lately. There also seems to be a bit more dedication to the raid scene. New guilds battling for top spots (aside from a few of the vet guilds). It's really nice to see a new generation of raiders coming through.

This is all IMHO only.

[Daethz]

Depends on what you mean harder, there's far more mechanics than ever, more thinking behind them.
But theres alot of give in the mechanics now, you can accidentally stand in the fire and live to tell the tale.
A few expansions ago not leaving it immediately, you would die, you can screw up alot more mechanics now and still succeed.

As for leveling content, its not really harder, it just takes longer to kill a mob. Most mob spells are still very weak and not very mechanical, or no way to counter them and they have no way to counter you, its more of just a longer button smashing event.
if they wanted to make leveling harder they would make the enemies spells far more deadly, require you to actually use dispells, interrupts, or die if you don't.

[theyanger]

Depends on what you mean harder, there's far more mechanics than ever, more thinking behind them.
But theres alot of give in the mechanics now, you can accidentally stand in the fire and live to tell the tale.
A few expansions ago not leaving it immediately, you would die, you can screw up alot more mechanics now and still succeed.

As for leveling content, its not really harder, it just takes longer to kill a mob. Most mob spells are still very weak and not very mechanical, or no way to counter them and they have no way to counter you, its more of just a longer button smashing event.
if they wanted to make leveling harder they would make the enemies spells far more deadly, require you to actually use dispells, interrupts, or die if you don't.

What? this is the opposite. Like, completely the opposite.

[kamuimac]

To me it shows more a problem with excessive power growth than anything else.

.

i disagree - since mythic + difficulty scales much faster then the gear its dropping - in legion the difficulty curve towards itlv of drops was ok till around 6-7 maaaybe 8-9 tops last patch and then it was going up crazy fast compared to the drops it was giving. the diffculty of +15 was compeltly out of what compared to what it was dropping - and blizzard seems to aknowledge it.

unless they change something before launch +10 will be dropping gear of better quality then current +15 inside the dungeon. (imagine if in legion mythic +10 would be dropping 945 - people would have much better incentive to do them .

unless they plan is to tune bfa +10 on level of legions +15