The only reason why people hat Cata and love woltk is because of the release order

[ArenaDk]

OP, you do realize that you can change the title of threads so that it says *hate* instead of *hat* right?

Well i won’t.

[Armourboy]

Actually you may have a point to a certain extent as a big reason it's hated is that they completely destroyed the 10 man casual raiding scene they created in Wrath, which then forced them to make LFR to compensate for a huge gap in end game content for that group. That reason alone basically destroyed my guild that had existed since Vanilla. They still play some, but Cata is the point where everyone started looking for other games, and that was long before Dragon Soul came out.

That reason combined with spending so much time on the new leveling experience really did a number on Cata. That said they weren't released that way, so Cata will always been seen as part 2 of WoW, and the point where everything went to crap by a ton of people.

[Wries]

WoTLK, like TBC, still had a steady stream of new players arriving and getting the same feel and vibes as any vanilla player. They still had to level through old content which took time and felt like something fresh and different for a lot of people. That WoTLK end-game was about as developed as Cata or WoD didn't have as much of an impact when the rest of the game was still relevant for so many.

End of WoTLK sank it a lot for me. 3.1 was in my eyes a pinnacle and I then considered it to be a steep decline in game design with 3.2 already, thinning out viable things to do at max level to just one thing: a 5 boss raid on four lockouts, as gear in Ulduar and Naxx was irrelevant even for the freshly dinged lvl 80. You stopped having the trinity in heroic dungeons as they could simply be steamrolled with 4 DPS and a healer or even just 5 DPS, and grinding badges for hours upon end was the go-to strategy for any alt. And come 3.3 Blizzard made it so that your badge farming wouldn't be interrupted by petty human interaction and socialisation, with the introduction of LFD making the dungeons feel even cheaper.

Thematically, raid design wise and aesthetically, I think they've done a good job most of the time. The only expansion so far that got even close to rectifying some of the mistakes has been Legion.

[Demithio]

Although wotlk did create a number of 'wrath babies', this wasn't the only reason why people preferred wotlk over cataclysm. Wotlk was just a well designed, and overall epic expansion, regardless of being dumbed down from TBC or not. Even us TBC hardcore types still enjoyed it.

Cataclysm on the other hand, started out ok, but then quickly sank due to, yes the nerfs, and other poor design choices that bloomed over its patch development cycle. Cataclysm could have been decent, but had too many factors corrupting it, besides being very short on content and scope compared to wotlk.

[Kyphael]

Cataclysm was fun and challenging in the beginning. Even the re-used raids-turned-dungeons were cool as I never experienced ZG and ZA in Classic and BC since I started playing in Wrath.

It was Blizzard turning Deathwing into a 2-dimensional mindless fire-breathing beast and his awful accompanying raids, not to mention the overall terrible story of time-traveling to get the Dragon Soul and Thrall becoming green Jesus that dragged it all down.

[Sencha]

Agree with you OP. I prefered (early-)Cata to Wrath

[Demithio]

WoTLK, like TBC, still had a steady stream of new players arriving and getting the same feel and vibes as any vanilla player. They still had to level through old content which took time and felt like something fresh and different for a lot of people. That WoTLK end-game was about as developed as Cata or WoD didn't have as much of an impact when the rest of the game was still relevant for so many.

End of WoTLK sank it a lot for me. 3.1 was in my eyes a pinnacle and I then considered it to be a steep decline in game design with 3.2 already, thinning out viable things to do at max level to just one thing: a 5 boss raid on four lockouts, as gear in Ulduar and Naxx was irrelevant even for the freshly dinged lvl 80. You stopped having the trinity in heroic dungeons as they could simply be steamrolled with 4 DPS and a healer or even just 5 DPS, and grinding badges for hours upon end was the go-to strategy for any alt. And come 3.3 Blizzard made it so that your badge farming wouldn't be interrupted by petty human interaction and socialisation, with the introduction of LFD making the dungeons feel even cheaper.

Thematically, raid design wise and aesthetically, I think they've done a good job most of the time. The only expansion so far that got even close to rectifying some of the mistakes has been Legion.

Yes, I have to agree. There became a time when wotlk got a bit silly with the simplifying. They should have cut that off at 3.1 is right. Early wrath was pretty damn good, and even coming off my TBC white knuckle raid high, it still worked. The end of wotlk was the beginning of the end for WoW overall in terms of keeping its core intact. Everything just went downhill from there with a short spike in hopes at cataclysm initial launch.

[grandgato]

Cataclysm destroyed my F&F guild during it's initial launch phase. So for me, it will always be the worst expansion Blizzard kicked out.

[Baroclinic]

In Cata:
The story was crap. Bleh, giant dragon wrecking everything. It was a crappy dragon and b-list villians of twilight hammer. And trolls, they had to throw trolls in again. Heck, they recycled the trolls which made it worse

Removal of classic content forever. Including the Zandalar and Shen'dralar repair. This makes no #$@ing sense when you realize Argent Crusade does not exist, but you can grind rep in the back yard through a ghost!

Only good things I remember we're early flying and being easy to get a group together.

[Realitytrembles]

Cataclysm was fun and challenging

Lol, mutually exclusive for lots of people. Remember this nugget?

"There is a pervasive myth that by making content harder, players will rise to the challenge. We find the opposite." --- Ghostcrawler

WotLK was fun beginning to end. Cata was a crapfest of long queues and ragequitting until the the last 1/3.

[Kyphael]

Lol, mutually exclusive for lots of people. Remember this nugget?

"There is a pervasive myth that by making content harder, players will rise to the challenge. We find the opposite." --- Ghostcrawler

WotLK was fun beginning to end. Cata was a crapfest of long queues and ragequitting until the the last 1/3.

That really can't be a blanket statement. I agree with you and disagree because there are two types of players in WoW. Those who have the time to commit to engage in really challenging content, and the more general laid back player base that don't. When Cataclysm was out, I was still in college and only worked part-time, so I had the time to commit to real raiding and hard ass BC-style dungeons like Cata featured in the beginning. I realize many players didn't, and they quit causing long queues, but I had fun myself. Long queues did suck and yeah, I get it, but it didn't effect me much because I was in a guild so we ran on pre-mades.

8 years later and I work full time and no longer have the that time, nor am I in a raiding guild and haven't been since Dragon Soul, so yeah, I'd fall into the latter group and agree with you and Ghostcrawler just based on what kind of player I can be now. Back then it just didn't bother me how hard it was so I enjoyed Cataclysm until Dragon Soul.

[Chemii]

Cata was for men, still some of the hardest shit ever in game and some of the best class design. The game jumped into a downhill spiral after that.

[Nomads]

Most Vanilla and TBC players didnt like Wrath. I distinctly remembering my guild complaining about the noobification of the game and all the "wrath babies" who didn't know how to play.

The best thing about Wrath was Ulduar... with the built in hard-modes.

I much preferred Cata. But I had to quit halfway through Firelands progression for real life stuff. So I missed Dragon Soul, which most people seem to complain about..

[Paladin885]

Cata was great till Dragon Soul, imo.

this.

I actually started hating wotlk right around the time my guild was #1 on the server doing H LK simply because of how well players were doing hps/dps wise mashing 1-2 buttons. The skill cap in wotlk was set so low anyone could match a veteran player and you couldnt tell one from the other.

I'll always believe that how wotlk did so well was becuase TBC brought in so many new players, but wotlk brought in the rando casuals who wanted to be part of the hype and the mechanics were easy enough they too could experience what the hardcore players were experiencing. I also will always believe that CATA fixed this and brought skill back into the mix... and the casuals tried to brute force it to lvl 85 and couldnt grip their minds around it. Example: I was a holy paladin, around lvl 83-84 at launch and used to heal dungeons as I leveled when I got board of questing to switch it up. Generally I'd get dps standing in fire expecting me to heal through it; mechanics at the time wouldnt allow that cause tank would die and I'd oom before boss died. I remember once doing HoO with a tank in lvl 80 pvp gear. We never beat the very first wave of trash at the entrance before people left party because tank had no defensive stats and got demolished... and didnt know why. I, on the other hand, loved having skill again. I dont miss doing H ICC with my elbows and and forehead. Fingers and macros so much better in CATA....

[redwolfrain]

Lets step back and break down everything you found wrong with Wrath, keep in mind this is 100% my opinion as an old school BC player.

"Free epics" Okay as someone who started in BC and had to grind heroics/raids for gear, yes it did feel free. However it made having decently geared alts much more accessible, which leads to people spending more time playing because they are not locked to content on their main.

"LFD" Depending on who you ask you will either find this the greatest or the worst thing possible. Not having to spam trade all day to find your heroic group was amazing. As a geared pally tank in Wrath I loved these, ten second queue times and enough gear to carry the party. As a dps it was not the best experience because of wait times. Healers had it rougher because it exposed a problem most higher end players had never experienced... Casuals who stand in fire, can't hold aggro and generally do little to no dps.

"Reused content" Naxx 40 was a real sour point of Vanilla, most people never made it into Naxx which is why I loved them bringing it back. The fights felt amazing and all in all it was a great starter Wrath raid. Ony was weird, I give you that one.

"Time gating" Time gating in any progression focused game feels terrible and slow. ICC was not the first raid to have time gating though, we have to go back to your praised BC and look at Sunwell for that one.

Cata did a lot right and a lot wrong. Dungeons at the start felt GREAT with a guild group, bringing pugs into the mix was a recipe for disaster. The problem was raids, they tried to make fights the same in 10 and 25 which lead to 10 man fights being broken. Personally the worst part of Cata for me was the talent tree redesign and Dragon Soul. Giving players less choice in an RPG is a terrible design flaw, sure most people used cookie cutter builds in Vanilla/BC/Wrath but with some creativity you got amazing things. "Countless rogue/mage builds, Prot warrior Unrelenting Assault"

[Realitytrembles]

That really can't be a blanket statement. I agree with you and disagree because there are two types of players in WoW. Those who have the time to commit to engage in really challenging content, and the more general laid back player base that don't. When Cataclysm was out, I was still in college and only worked part-time, so I had the time to commit to real raiding and hard ass BC-style dungeons like Cata featured in the beginning. I realize many players didn't, and they quit causing long queues, but I had fun myself. Long queues did suck and yeah, I get it, but it didn't effect me much because I was in a guild so we ran on pre-mades.

8 years later and I work full time and no longer have the that time, nor am I in a raiding guild and haven't been since Dragon Soul, so yeah, I'd fall into the latter group and agree with you and Ghostcrawler just based on what kind of player I can be now. Back then it just didn't bother me how hard it was so I enjoyed Cataclysm until Dragon Soul.

The problem is: how does Blizz thread that needle? I imagine that's a lot of their internal discussion: How do we keep players that have lots of time and those who don't?

[Otimus]

I love WOTLK because of the theme/setting, the story, and the general cohesiveness of the thing coupled with a lot of really casual content that I both could do, did do, and wanted to do.

I didn't like Cata because it felt like after leveling, I had almost nothing I wanted to do and leveling was over mega super ultra quick. After getting what I wanted out of heroics, I felt like anything else was not within the reach of doing at the level of play I was committed to doing. Really casual play was essentially nerfed into the damned ground. When I came back for LFR (Which wasn't all that great, because Dragon Soul sucked, what it was in general as a commitment going forward really pleased me.) after I got all I wanted out of that, all I was left with was leveling alts and or grinding random battlegrounds. It was very unfun.

To be perfectly honest, the only two expansions that really fit my style of play were WOTLK and MoP. I love those to death. Legion was close, but it had the problem that BFA still has, which is if you're a turbo casual, you pretty much run out of anything worth doing after the first few weeks, and you outgear LFR before LFR comes out. So, since LFD was mostly useless, and LFR isn't worth doing more than once (Unless you're history's most unlucky person or you're so casual you play like 1 hour a week or something)... almost none of the casual content is worth bothering with outside of that small window. (This would all be easily fixed by just adding a badge system like WOTLK and MoP and upgrades like MoP, or a long-road type item like the legendary cloak or ring. Artifacts/Heart of Azeroth try to do the same thing those did, but fail at it. I'd say Artifacts kind of started out doing okay at it, but failed in the long run to provide that incentive to keep doing stuff/feeling rewarded/working toward something. Really casual players have pretty much no carrot on the stick anymore... and if there's no carrot on the stick, you really take the wind out of an MMORPG. It's not like WoW's gameplay is something to really write home about and scream to the choir. It pretty much offers nothing unless you're in a group of friends. It's fine that that content is the best content, but every other piece of content shouldn't by dissociation be worthless and pointless)

[The Anax]

You never gave your hypothesis on why people made hats from Cataclysm.

[grandgato]

To be perfectly honest, the only two expansions that really fit my style of play were WOTLK and MoP. I love those to death. Legion was close, but it had the problem that BFA still has, which is if you're a turbo casual, you pretty much run out of anything worth doing after the first few weeks, and you outgear LFR before LFR comes out.

The CTA bag makes LFR still somewhat lucrative imo. But they made WQ's and Warfronts gear way too powerful for their challenge level, and kinda ruined the incentive to run LFR for gear upgrades.

[Deleted]

cata had the worst raiding in the history of wow, the first tier was awfully tuned and bugged, firelands was "meh" only raggy being rememberable, dragon soul was just bad and deathwing fights were anti climatic.
world content was close to non exsistent.
dungeons were good untill they got nerfed.
every aspect of the expac was mediocore at best.
oh and the introduction of lfr.