All these difficulties... Right, or wrong?

[Sansnom]

Or, a single instance can scale in difficulty. The first four bosses are 'normal', while the second four are 'Heroic'. Given the participation (or completion), there isn't much requirement for Mythic at all. My view, which could be wrong, is that it exists almost solely to retain long-term players that would otherwise depart.

Personally, I think it would be good if they departed.

Is that not still four different difficulties? Just put together differently?

[Logwyn]

Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to base all instances being flex. So your "5 mans" are really all raids that flex between 5 and 25 (hell make it 40 if you want). So if you have 7 on for Waycrest Manor then take all 7 and the dungeon scales. Only have 8 for Uldir then go for it!

You need 2 tanks, 2 heals, and four dps minium then scale it up from there.

[exochaft]

Putting the poll aside, the number of difficulties when it comes to content is a multi-faceted issue. If anything, Blizz has positioned themselves into a corner when it comes to design philosophies and the product they put out, and that's likely the source of many issues.

I'll start by saying a downside (in my opinion) is that all the difficulties present encourage having to clear all difficulties in a world of WF/TF gear as currently implemented. We already know from the post-BlizzCon interviews that WF/TF is here to stay, and that in itself isn't a bad thing, however I think the question asked was wrong. In fact, it's obvious we need WF/TF in the game just for Mythic+ loot systems to work. I think a more appropriate question would've been if Blizz plans to adjust the WF/TF system to have a more concrete limit on when a person is 'done' with content and can move on to other things. For example, I'm not completely against the older version of WF/TF system where the amount of ilvl increase is capped to 10/15 above the content in which said item is obtained. As implemented, the current system feels more like D3 in terms of gearing, except in much longer content chunks. There are many more aspects of this system I'd love to delve into, but it would fill up pages so another time.

I think a nice draw of classic WoW and several older expansion was this concept of being 'done' with the game at certain points during the week or in general, as well as the pacing of said expansions. You could play a couple hours a day or just one day a week and be perfectly fine and not feel left behind. My wife loved playing WoW back in the early years but absolutely loathes it currently, because she never feels caught up if she misses a day or a week of playing. Over time, she's just stopped playing because she doesn't feel like she can ever catch up again despite really wanting to play. Honesty, I rather agree with her. Since the implementation of the Achievement system, I've had my completionist mode activated to getting every achievement, which I did every expansion (I have most server first achievements until they removed most of them)... until the speed of the content increased and the volume of achievements increased at the same time. My personal breaking point was WoD and those insanely awful archaeology achievements, although the Bigger Bag achievement from MoP was pretty close before it was account-wide (too little, too late for me unfortunately). Now, I have little motivation to do said achievements because it takes a lot more time, and that's just one aspect of the game.

The same sentiment extends to PvE/PvP content, as well. Again, WoD didn't help in this manner with Ashran and the insanely stupid group-only PvP garrison building quests. Also, iirc, once mythic Highmaul unlocked, the next raid (BRF) came out about one month after... granted my guild cleared mythic Highmaul in time, but most guilds probably didn't, and felt rushed to go into BRF... honestly, this might've been the trigger for "Hey, we need a higher WF/TF system so people who can't keep up with our content release schedule can still get good loot!" amongst other reasons. When it comes to the power of some items (especially in a WF/TF system), we feel pressured into repeating content that should probably just stop being played after a while once you reach a certain point. Anyways, I feel like I'm derailing a bit, so I'll just say this: I truly want to play every aspect of this game, but the current design of the game makes it insanely hard to play at that level again and insanely hard to enjoy it like I once did. Multiple difficulties aren't necessarily the problem on their own, neither is the WF/TF system on its own: the composite of all these systems and design goals are the cause of many players' issues.

[Tomana]

Right, stockholders are clearly the corner stone of great design. I knew EA, Activison, and all the others were on to something. Quality is going to sky rocket with thinking like this.

Dude, you don't even have to bring stockholders into that (although they do play a part).
Imagine this: you're a mayor of a city. Everyone pays a fixed amount local taxes into this city's budget.
Now, as a mayor, you want your city to become more attractive. So, you will probably construct something that will benefit every citizen: roads, schools/libraries (no, this is not a US city *trollface*) and so on. If you blow half of your city's budget on an expensive golf field while only 5% of your population is playing golf, it is a retarded move and you're a rather craptastic mayor.

Well, it's the same thing with Blizzard and raids. Everyone pays a fixed fee (sub), but rather than develop something that would benefit to all players (world events, open world immersion, dungeons, crafting etc.) you blow a metric crapton of resources into content that only a handful of players will see (hi2u, Sunwell and Naxxramas). How do you call a team of devs like this? That's right, craptastic.

[Sansnom]

For design reasons, it's easy to work out why an additional seven difficulties for identical content has been put in; but that's not all. The achievement system is now ludicrously bloated, the profession skills have been gutted, quests have been turned into single-player easy completions and gearing has been expanded to a fundamentally broken extent.

Quests has always been single player easy completions. Why is it a problem now and not back then? I played during BC and I have not noticed the quest being any harder. It is more streamline now than in the past.

Do you think this is right?

Do you think there should be heaps of difficulties in order to 'encourage' more people to do certain content while others are degenerated, or should this be properly reviewed to make content completion an achievement, rather than entitlement?

Lets look at this another way. Do you this one level only can work in other areas? Such as sports. No one can play sport unless they can play the top level.

[Trapped]

Its "everybody gets a trophy" syndrome. Can't complete a dungeon or raid? Do it at a lower level until you CAN beat it. Yeah, I don't want a participation trophy.

Also, casuals who can't complete harder content don't quit. They do other stuff because they love and/or are addicted to the game.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Dude, you don't even have to bring stockholders into that (although they do play a part).
Imagine this: you're a mayor of a city. Everyone pays a fixed amount local taxes into this city's budget.
Now, as a mayor, you want your city to become more attractive. So, you will probably construct something that will benefit every citizen: roads, schools/libraries (no, this is not a US city *trollface*) and so on. If you blow half of your city's budget on an expensive golf field while only 5% of your population is playing golf, it is a retarded move and you're a rather craptastic mayor.

Well, it's the same thing with Blizzard and raids. Everyone pays a fixed fee (sub), but rather than develop something that would benefit to all players (world events, open world immersion, dungeons, crafting etc.) you blow a metric crapton of resources into content that only a handful of players will see (hi2u, Sunwell and Naxxramas). How do you call a team of devs like this? That's right, craptastic.

You prove to be very nieve. That is actually how the world works.

[Powerogue]

Some things need to require harder difficulties to nudge players to try harder stuff (requiring a mythic dungeon to finish the jaina questline for example) and I do think there should be content outside of the loop of "getting higher gear" that requires higher gear (like those challenge mode appearances in Legion). But I do think having lower difficulties of raids is good because it kind of sucked to only ever get 1/3 into Ulduar the entire expansion because the difficulty spike was so huge.

[Flurryfang]

The odd thing is, that i really see no problem with the 5 man content having many difficulties, but i am a huge opponent of the 4 tier difficulty in raids. It maybe have something to do with experiencing dungeons very early on in an expansion and having raids be the big focus point of my WoW experience, but it is still wierd that a concept of diffculty can be such a win-lose thing in my mind.

[Gratlim]

I prefer content rather than multiple difficulties of the same. So no.

[Cyanu]

I was thinking about this recently, given that I'm looking forward to the Classic development. Classic, and mainly The Burning Crusade, didn't have multiple difficulties in order to capture as many people as possible, irrespective of their achievement intent or general skill/ability. Classic, for example, had a series of five-man dungeons of a single difficulty, and multiple raids (which differed only in person size).

This is how we now look:

Leveling 5-man dungeons.
Level cap 5-man dungeons.
Heroic 5-man dungeons.
Mythic 5-man dungeons.
Mythic+ 5-man dungeons.

As far as raids are concerned, we're here:

Looking For Raid multiple-man difficulty.
Normal multiple-man difficulty.
Heroic multiple-man difficulty.
Mythic 20-man difficulty.

For design reasons, it's easy to work out why an additional seven difficulties for identical content has been put in; but that's not all. The achievement system is now ludicrously bloated, the profession skills have been gutted, quests have been turned into single-player easy completions and gearing has been expanded to a fundamentally broken extent. In order to expand this point, gear items that you pick up from Mythic dungeons are doubled in strength from those picked up from level cap, and it's a similar deal in the raid system. Hell, due to random enhancement, it could technically be more.

So the question is simple, really.

Do you think this is right?

Do you think there should be heaps of difficulties in order to 'encourage' more people to do certain content while others are degenerated, or should this be properly reviewed to make content completion an achievement, rather than entitlement?

your poll is highly biased as is your post

in order to say that i believe there should be multiple difficulties i also have to say that skill doesn't matter?... ridiculous...

so to answer your question the multiple difficulty layers is the right thing and there's a reason we got here, considering that the skill gap between players and guilds is ENORMOUS there's absolutely no way that we can create content that's either: a)not steamrolled by hardcores b)only accessible to some small elite

in tbc dungeons were way too easy after you got your kara epics meaning there hardly was any 5man content to do for a raider and sunwell was only seen by a small group of people and it's truly a shame such a good job to be enjoyed by so few people, for the record i was one of them, i cleared it pre-nerf

besides why should a hardcore raider care if some scrub does LFR or clears hc 5 man?... it doesn't affect him any more than the inflatable version of thunderfury affects those who actually had the real thing

[huth]

I was thinking about this recently, given that I'm looking forward to the Classic development. Classic, and mainly The Burning Crusade, didn't have multiple difficulties

Wrong. They were just assigned to different instances instead of having multiple difficulties for the same instance. 5 mans and raids respectively were quite far from being on par in difficulty.

Ultimately, doing it the current way is more cost efficient and allows Blizzard to provide us with more content. The perceived gains from changing it do not in any way measure up to the increased effort required.

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I prefer content rather than multiple difficulties of the same. So no.

Then you misvoted. No difficulties means less content, as they have to waste more time on making appropriate content for vastly differently skilled players.

[Noxina]

I'd love if we could go back to the progression model of Vanilla/BC, but that ship has sailed already and unfortunately, there is no turning back.

You mean heavy gear checks and boss fights that doesn't take much skill? Nah, I rather stick to todays Mythic, tyvm.

[Deleted]

Wrong. They were just assigned to different instances instead of having multiple difficulties for the same instance. 5 mans and raids respectively were quite far from being on par in difficulty.

Ultimately, doing it the current way is more cost efficient and allows Blizzard to provide us with more content. The perceived gains from changing it do not in any way measure up to the increased effort required.

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Then you misvoted. No difficulties means less content, as they have to waste more time on making appropriate content for vastly differently skilled players.

New difficulty isnt new content.

[Marrilaife]

Also, casuals who can't complete harder content don't quit. They do other stuff because they love and/or are addicted to the game.

Dropping sub numbers prove that people do, in fact, quit, and aren't "addicted" enough to stay in a game that doesn't provide them the type of content they're interested in.

[Deleted]

You mean heavy gear checks and boss fights that doesn't take much skill? Nah, I rather stick to todays Mythic, tyvm.

This is RPG. Not compettive game. Gear should have far highet value or atleast same as skill. If you want game based around skill go play League of Legends.

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Dropping sub numbers prove that people do, in fact, quit, and aren't "addicted" enough to stay in a game that doesn't provide them the type of content they're interested in.

Becouse current game can be finished in about 1 week including leveling. Thanks to easy mods.

[Tomana]

Also, casuals who can't complete harder content don't quit. They do other stuff because they love and/or are addicted to the game.

What are you even talking about? If people don't get their fix out of the game, they quit. Churn in WoW was high from the start (I think only 50% of people made it out of the first zone in BC), but the total growth of playerbase masked that.

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You prove to be very nieve. That is actually how the world works.

Please reread your two sentences, because I can't make neither heads or tails out of what you wrote.

[Kyr]

I've seen this argument so many times and it comes down to two different view points people just refuse to see the other side.

Group 1 sees going higher in difficulty levels in the same content as progression.

Group 2 sees going through content so that they can get to the later, harder content as progression.

It is the line in bold that seems to be lost on many people from group 1. multiple difficulty levels is not more content, it's the same content again with a new mechanic or higher numbers slapped on top. Group 1 wants to progress through difficulty levels. Group 2 wants to progress through content.

That is how it used to be in classic and burning crusade and is what those of us in the second group miss. That is what disappeared starting in wrath with the 10/25 man raids and then to the extreme with the garbage tournament that started going into multiple raid sizes and difficulties.

This has resulted in a game where if you wanted to progress you had to push and get better to get through and see it all, to what it is now where the bulk of the players get everything handed to them and they just play at the level where they are comfortable instead of pushing forward.

[shadowmatrix]

TOC was the last time each raid version had its own lockout. They changed it because players didn't control themselves, ran everything, and then complained about it with the I feel forced argument.

[huth]

It is the line in bold that seems to be lost on many people from group 1. multiple difficulty levels is not more content, it's the same content again with a new mechanic or higher numbers slapped on top. Group 1 wants to progress through difficulty levels. Group 2 wants to progress through content.

It goes both ways. More difficulties also means more content by Group 2's definition.