Everyone in the beta reporting that dungeons are REALLY easy :(

[SirBeef]

/snip

A lot of that goes into the duh category. Self hampering made some encounters more difficult but still, nothing in Vanilla was really hard. Most of the difficulty was what this board would call artificial. Mobs were damage sponges so it took longer. Some bosses required resistance gear and going in with under(300?) Res put you at a sever disadvantage. Monitoring threat was an issue that really could make things hard for today's players, but really was wait 3 sec then go. The length of many dungeons saw groups lose players and have to go back to a city to spam LF1M healer, BRD. Have cookies, punch, and a dental plan.

Not saying dungeons are any more difficult, but if you go in under geared bottom end of the level range today(full group like that), you are going to struggle a bit.

[Elias01]

lol

Way to make yourself feel better.

No it isnt. This is just how most players think about game. Most people after finishing dungeon no matter of difficulty (same for raids) that content is done for them.
It is like asking if Dark Souls games are challenhing/hard. Most people will instanly tell you yes. And asking if God of War is hard. Most people will tell no becouse you can put game on easy mod and finish game without struggle.

Existence of easy mods and easy difficulty levels is what makes retail game easy to finish. You want retail to be actauly hard? Remove difficulty levels and have mythic raid as baseline 1 difficulty same for dungeons. Than you can say retail is actualy pretty hard to finish.

[Flarelaine]

Please try ignoring every single mechanic on normal difficulty or higher in raiding, see how that works out.

Pretty easy actualy i have done normal dungeons. There was nothing punishing. And i have seen only 1 mechanics in LFR what actualy does wipe raid for entire bfa so again no.

Have another go at answering. Maybe read beforehand.

[Hottage]

I'll add that TBC per-nerf heroic dungeons were, imo, the hardest dungeons ever. Nothing like having all melee mobs 360 cleave.

Shattered Halls Heroic pre-nerf as a melee.

* Vietnam-style flashback intensifies *

[SirBeef]

So many supposed vanilla players here saying shit like "vanilla was easy" are harming their credibility. Vanilla was not easy. It wasn't terribly hard, but to say it presented no challenge to the players is a lie. You know how these days you can tag 6+ mobs at once and aoe them down? Nope, couldn't do that in Vanilla. In fact, if you pulled more than 2 at once (for the vast majority of classes) that was a guaranteed death. Yes, even the starting zones and especially next-level zones were much harsher than today. There were areas in Vanilla in the outside world with (usually roaming) elites that if you pulled one, for most classes that was a deathwish. It's ridiculous how people are bending over backwards to say "x and y happened, but it wasn't hard" or "w and z were factors, but it wasn't hard". What exactly do you think determines how difficult something is?

It reall didn't present a challenge. Pulling 6 mobs was not something anyone did. Most that played previous MMOs would never try this since it would have been a guaranteed death in those games. New players to the genre would understand that one move took long enough to kill in the starting areas that pulling 2 or more was not the way to play. I don't say that is harder or difficult. A fresh 110 with boosted or not raid/catchup gear will get slaughtered with more than 2 mons on them now.

Roaming elites were challenging I'll give you that, but they were very easy to avoid and not well populated enough to really be a threat.

And yes, I've been playing since April of 2004 as part of testing. Had a few hour lapse in my subs once in 2006ish when I forgot to update my new card info. I have run everything in this game and it has gotten both easier and more difficult as it goes on. But Vanillas biggest challenge to players was the amount of time it consumed to do most anything, logistics of forming and keeping a group going, and the fact nobody knew anything about anything in the game.

[Kumorii]

This is proof that people easily conflate time consuming with being hard. Especially when it comes to old memories.

[precious]

No it isnt. This is just how most players think about game. Most people after finishing dungeon no matter of difficulty (same for raids) that content is done for them.
It is like asking if Dark Souls games are challenhing/hard. Most people will instanly tell you yes. And asking if God of War is hard. Most people will tell no becouse you can put game on easy mod and finish game without struggle.

Existence of easy mods and easy difficulty levels is what makes retail game easy to finish. You want retail to be actauly hard? Remove difficulty levels and have mythic raid as baseline 1 difficulty same for dungeons. Than you can say retail is actualy pretty hard to finish.

Like mage tower challenges in legion? Like trial challenge dungeons in wod? Like proving grounds? You mean all this single difficulty which 90% of player base was yelling "omg to hard plz nerf "? Guess who was the ones that were yelling for nerfs. Ppl that never did anything above lfr, the same difficulty classic is.

[Nnyco]

So pretty much same as modern wow expect you can ignore every single mechanic. Classic have atlest 1.

When was last time you played? Try ignorin a mechanic on retail and tell me how it gone for ya.

[lortsy12]

They are low level dungeons anyway. They were always easy.

[Celarent]

Same thing with the Cata heroics, people slammed how hard they were, people just didn't want to wait for healers to get mana.

Cataclysm heroics weren't too difficult for players like you and me, but they hit the bell curve like a freight train.

To the thread: who's making the report? Mythic-hardened, 7-days-week semipros? Still, if dungeons are on the easier side, it benefits a larger portion of the player population -- especially those who may come back after years away.

[lortsy12]

This is proof that people easily conflate time consuming with being hard. Especially when it comes to old memories.

Every single thing in classic is harder except mythic.

[Galaar]

The playerbase's average skill level is way higher today then it was back in 04-05. I know as I went through leveling my dwarf hunter on beta it was really easy to plan out rotation (not that I had a ton of stuff to use) and also not pull anything more then I wanted to. When I get to dungeon level soon I'm pretty sure they'll be easier as I have a way better understanding of what I'm doing now compared to then.

[Kumorii]

Every single thing in classic is harder except mythic.

That's just flat out false.

[czarek]

Probably easyer now with 16gb ram than 1gb back in the days and crappy internet provider :P Ofc its obvious that player base now had a lot of bettler knowledge about the game.

[lortsy12]

That's just flat out false.

In retail leveling you can just faceroll and pull tons of mob in the world at the same time without a problem, quests are very streamlined and easy, no need for CC (in dungeons or world) ever, no need for grouping up for world content, professions, lfd and lfr also mount prices and gold. Anyway it doesn't really matter, I think vanilla is just superior game in almost every single aspect than retail.

[Garymorilix]

No it isnt. This is just how most players think about game. Most people after finishing dungeon no matter of difficulty (same for raids) that content is done for them.
It is like asking if Dark Souls games are challenhing/hard. Most people will instanly tell you yes. And asking if God of War is hard. Most people will tell no becouse you can put game on easy mod and finish game without struggle.

Existence of easy mods and easy difficulty levels is what makes retail game easy to finish. You want retail to be actauly hard? Remove difficulty levels and have mythic raid as baseline 1 difficulty same for dungeons. Than you can say retail is actualy pretty hard to finish.

This is a very dumb argument.

I don't think anyone can argue that LFR is easy af. Because it is easy af. That's its function. To let players who otherwise wouldn't engage with raids experience the story and encounters.
Your point is basically: "If the game has an easy mode then the game is default easy. It's fact". Except it is not?
I played God of War 1-2 on ps2 and I can tell you that they are pretty tough games when you choose the right difficulty. Easy mode in games like these are there so people can experience the story. Titan mode is there to make you cry. I still to this day can't beat the boat boss on titan in GoW2.
If someone were to ask me whether GoW 1-2 are hard, I'd tell them "on easy its easy, on hard its hard". This is not rocket science. You would tell the same person that "It's easy because the easiest mode in the game is easy and after you did that why would you wanna tackle it on hard for the challenge, you've already done it, are you stupid or what?".

See the difference?

In WoW you have 4 raid difficulties and infinite M+ difficulty. Any player who actually plays the game will say that difficulty depends on what type of player you are, and what content you aim to complete.
There are players who play LFR and understand why it's easy, and then there are players who think that LFR is the pinnacle of the game and refuse to engage in any other form of difficulty because in their eyes they are "done". These players whine about there not being enough content in the game because they did LFR Jaina in 1,5 hours on Sunday.

Then there is the question how would you rank games like Hearthstone or Leage of Legends or other MOBAS. Those don't have any difficulty setting, it depends on what rank you play at. Would you say that those games are easy because you won a game against bots?

Your view of the world is alarmingly simple. I'm glad no developer thinks like you.

[Overdispersion]

There are a lot of contributing factors to why the dungeons feel so easy on beta:
1. people know what telents to pick for max dps. this wasn't the case in early vanilla since resources were so scarce and the fact that having max level at 30 atm incentivizes picking max dps talents instead of a lot of survivability talents while leveling because you were so scared of dying and having to corpse run for 5 minutes... also no one is meming in shit specs like trying to heal in feral or elemental talents.
2. people playing on beta and being lvl 30 are not first time players and generally know the dungeons, have keybound every ability, can recognise a cc and know not to break it and interrupt abilities that will put a lot of strain on your healers. healers also know damage patterns and won't spam inefficient heal just because people dip to 70% hp.
3. the people playing beta are somewhat hardcore and will generally commit to finishing a dungeon they signed up for so you don't have issues like having to four man SMGY because your dps had to help his mom do the laundry and left in the middle of the dungeon and it would take your alliance buddies two hours to reach the instance,,,

I'm sure there's a lot more that I just can't remember atm.

[Deficineiron]

stealth nerfs to threat mechanics and mob damage (plus changes to hit vs. higher level mobs, e.g. players killing mobs much, much higher than them) are the most obvious place to look for shenanigans. I am not in the beta, so I only know what I read here or on reddit.

I will observe that there is very little discussion about the topic itself and more for of what seems like ideological posturing. A lot of these threads on mmo come down to

" blizzard has the data for 1.12.x, therefore beta is correct" (nevermind the fact A does not have to imply B at all)

"players are better, therefore they smash through dungeons and chain-pull at level"

"no player has the data so therefore all (negative) comparisons are either faulty memory or PS comparisons"

Dungeons were pretty much untouched from 1.12 as as group until 2.3 iirc at which point levels were rationalized within dungeons and they were moderately nerfed. I certainly don't remember seeing groups breeze through any dungeon at level pre-2.3.

It is no secret I expect blizzard to sneak in stealth nerfs to key mechanics of the game. We will see. I hope I am wrong. if they have made nerfed elite mobs, it is almost certainly by design based on that same 'blizzard has the 1.12 data' premise.

[Dergiab]

There are a lot of contributing factors to why the dungeons feel so easy on beta:
1. people know what telents to pick for max dps. this wasn't the case in early vanilla since resources were so scarce and the fact that having max level at 30 atm incentivizes picking max dps talents instead of a lot of survivability talents while leveling because you were so scared of dying and having to corpse run for 5 minutes... also no one is meming in shit specs like trying to heal in feral or elemental talents.
2. people playing on beta and being lvl 30 are not first time players and generally know the dungeons, have keybound every ability, can recognise a cc and know not to break it and interrupt abilities that will put a lot of strain on your healers. healers also know damage patterns and won't spam inefficient heal just because people dip to 70% hp.
3. the people playing beta are somewhat hardcore and will generally commit to finishing a dungeon they signed up for so you don't have issues like having to four man SMGY because your dps had to help his mom do the laundry and left in the middle of the dungeon and it would take your alliance buddies two hours to reach the instance,,,

I'm sure there's a lot more that I just can't remember atm.

I can name one: buffing up with consumables like it was an end game raid.

[Maudib]

What do you guys think about this?

I played vanilla and definitely remember them being as hard if not harder than the levelling. The guys in the beta are reporting levelling being MUCH hard than private servers but dungeons being WAY easier. They are talking about the possibility there was a stealth nerf to dungeons in 1.12

I hope this wasn't the case as easy dungeons will really suck in classic imo, what do you guys reckon?

It's the reason they have beta. You can rest assured they are going back to their reference server and comparing damage, health, healing, and interaction.

Some guys are finding old dungeon run videos form Vanilla and comparing them to Classic and providing feedback.

It'll get there...