Raiding needs to be less hardcore

[Fred Skinner]

I think bosses are way too complex nowadays. Having 5 phases with 10 abilities each.. where people need addons like DBM or otherwise they would not know what to expect.. where raiding guilds hire lua scripters to make them raid timers..

Really.. whoever designs raids nowadays, he has a real problem what a game should be about. At least for most of the players.

I remember the good old days, when bosses were tank and spank often, with one ability you had to care about. Those were the days when i played raids as well.

Dungeons went the same way. The bosses are overly complex, even on normal and in raids on LFR. Because developers with a hardcore mindset believe their players "have become so much better".. Considering the fact that raids have been less and less appealing to normal people, they probably should think about returning to easy bossfights for normal players, and leave their multiphase bosses to mythic raiders. While i do not really believe mythic raiders would deserve such high degree of attention. They are a small minority, after all.

To me it seems the devs sit in a filter bubble, where everyone is highly skilled and completed Dark Souls without using a cheat mod. While the fact is that cheat mods are the most successfull mods for hard games.

[Xath]

The neck and consumable costs and forging are the only issue with raiding currently. The noncapped grind has burnt so many of my friends out there is literally always something you can be doing to improve your character whether it's spamming islands or spamming M+ for fortes it kind of blows honestly.

[Marrilaife]

The neck and consumable costs and forging are the only issue with raiding currently. The noncapped grind has burnt so many of my friends out there is literally always something you can be doing to improve your character whether it's spamming islands or spamming M+ for fortes it kind of blows honestly.

Worst part is noncapped grind of stuff like WQs and Islands was added with the intent of giving casuals something to do, because they always complained this game is "raid or die", but the flaw in that thinking is that if you don't raid, you have very low to no reason to grind, so you end up skipping it anyway and complaining there's "no content". So basically it adds extra load on raiders while providing very little to nothing for casuals. Fail / fail. This game needs content for non-hardcore people who don't raid, push m+ or do rated pvp, because that's where the bored playerbase lies that needs more content.

In the end they just keep adding more gates for raiding / m+ / rated pvp in form of various grinds to stay competitive (just check the pvpers complains how COS raid gear is too good to pass for pvp, while for raiders it's mediocre to garbage). They just piss off their hardcore playerbase while not solving the problem of casuals running out of content at all.

8.2 is gonna come and it's gonna be again "I have to do content x which I don't like to get the relic that is most useful in content y which I'm mostly interested in". Stupid design and all Blizzard had to say was basically they want everyone to do all the content, ideally. Sorry, but nope. Wow was always a form of theme park where people picked whether they want the roller coaster or the water slide, and nobody ever was happy if their roller coaster was gated behind that horror tunnel first.

Stop gating pvp behind pve, pve behind pvp, and both behind the menial world grinds that last not weeks, but months through artificially stretched mechanisms like artifact knowledge preventing you from "being done with it" early on. The target playerbase for these types of content is mostly separate. No idea why instead of letting everyone enjoy their piece of the pie they just want to shove people into content they don't enjoy constantly, so in the end people get annoyed and quit.

[Xath]

Worst part is noncapped grind of stuff like WQs and Islands was added with the intent of giving casuals something to do, because they always complained this game is "raid or die", but the flaw in that thinking is that if you don't raid, you have very low to no reason to grind, so you end up skipping it anyway and complaining there's "no content". So basically it adds extra load on raiders while providing very little to nothing for casuals. Fail / fail. This game needs content for non-hardcore people who don't raid, push m+ or do rated pvp, because that's where the bored playerbase lies that needs more content.

In the end they just keep adding more gates for raiding / m+ / rated pvp in form of various grinds to stay competitive (just check the pvpers complains how COS raid gear is too good to pass for pvp, while for raiders it's mediocre to garbage). They just piss off their hardcore playerbase while not solving the problem of casuals running out of content at all.

8.2 is gonna come and it's gonna be again "I have to do content x which I don't like to get the relic that is most useful in content y which I'm mostly interested in". Stupid design and all Blizzard had to say was basically they want everyone to do all the content, ideally. Sorry, but nope. Wow was always a form of theme park where people picked whether they want the roller coaster or the water slide, and nobody ever was happy if their roller coaster was gated behind that horror tunnel first.

Stop gating pvp behind pve, pve behind pvp, and both behind the menial world grinds that last not weeks, but months through artificially stretched mechanisms like artifact knowledge preventing you from "being done with it" early on. The target playerbase for these types of content is mostly separate. No idea why instead of letting everyone enjoy their piece of the pie they just want to shove people into content they don't enjoy constantly, so in the end people get annoyed and quit.

Yup and it blows also have friends spamming cos every week because they need the gear for pvp.

[Zyky]

Like the title says, raiding nowadays is too hardcore and time consuming. Many my old guildmates have quit raiding because the effort it needs every single tier.
Last two expansions the insane farming required for artifact power grinding is outrageous AND consumable farming in top of that.
I'm fine with gearing 2 raid ready alts if there would be no AP.

The raiding scene must go back to its root where you didn't have this insane mandatory AP grinding to stay competitive. I have raided hardcore every single expansion excluding vanilla and this expansion is the first one where I seriously think going casual, and I'm not the only one.

e: my suggestion would be making actual raid bosses harder at launch of tier, don't make first 80% of bosses loot pinatas. Force guilds to smash their heads on first bosses as well, but maybe make it so bosses drop more loot so it doesn't hurt average guilds in overall progress. I'm fine with longer tiers if there would be no AP grinding every single tier.

The problem is not the difficulty of the raids(except when it's vastly overtuned like CoS is), the problem with raiding and why people are quitting is because it isn't nearly rewarding enough to justify the time investment. Instead you can spend significantly less time doing M+ and getting the same gear in far less time.

[Salty Maud]

I wouldn't necessarily say that raiding needs to be less hardcore but I can relate with the OP sentiment. Rushing to high neck levels at the beginning of each new tier to unlock the traits for power gain is only really relevant for cutting edge players, and for those players the grinding goal is set higher than to casuals (higher ilevel azerite requires more neck levels), but AP comes from the most trivial content available in the game. Make your best players grind the content made for your worst players. Doesn't feel appropriate at all. Same can be said for having to pick flowers and farm LFR on multiple characters for augments. Trivial content that gives you something only your highest end players need. It's a pretty shitty design. Smart in terms of inflating the playtime requirement but absolutely horrid for providing a good experience in the game.

[cparle87]

Like the title says, raiding nowadays is too hardcore and time consuming. Many my old guildmates have quit raiding because the effort it needs every single tier.
Last two expansions the insane farming required for artifact power grinding is outrageous AND consumable farming in top of that.
I'm fine with gearing 2 raid ready alts if there would be no AP.

The raiding scene must go back to its root where you didn't have this insane mandatory AP grinding to stay competitive. I have raided hardcore every single expansion excluding vanilla and this expansion is the first one where I seriously think going casual, and I'm not the only one.

e: my suggestion would be making actual raid bosses harder at launch of tier, don't make first 80% of bosses loot pinatas. Force guilds to smash their heads on first bosses as well, but maybe make it so bosses drop more loot so it doesn't hurt average guilds in overall progress. I'm fine with longer tiers if there would be no AP grinding every single tier.

Sounds like heroic, maybe normal, raiding is more your speed now.

[Sezh]

Then your guild obviously carried you. I mean your admitting to being a slacker. In the context of mythic raiding of course, for everything else your fine.

Okay buddy.

[Powerogue]

What are you doing, world first mythic? Much like Legion, you don't have to get every single AP level early on, and in fact would be pretty stupid to try due to how exponential values work.

If you want less hardcore raiding, raid on a lower difficulty. It slides all the way down to "literally can have 1/3 or less of the raid understand the mechanics and you'll be fine" LFR.

[Garymorilix]

I don't understand people at this point.

You can't simultaneously say that raids are too hard now even on LFR and it sucks then turn around and say raids were harder in Classic (*or insert random old school exp*) and it was better then. This is beyond bonkers.

People used to complain they couldn't get into raids cuz they had to farm too much, now that they can they say it was better back then because "getting into the raid was an achievement".

Every single argument contradicts itself everywhere.

As for raid difficulty, I am a pug-HC raider. I feel like HC is very easy, and I lead my groups from week1 of release (cleared 6/9 BoD week1, all on week2).
The mechanics are basically muscle memory and good reaction skills, which means you have 2 working eyes and can use WASD tactics. That's it.
I did a few Normal runs (mainly Mekka for mount) and it's already night-and-day compared to HC.
I ran some LFR for the same reason, and literally with half the dps behind tanks and maybe 2 healers healing NOBODY died ever and we got bosses down quickly.

I honestly can't see where raids are hard. Even if you are the worst player in the region you will just get carried in LFR. You don't even have to do mechanics.

[tehdef]

I don't raid. I used to. I was decent, and in a decent guild competing for realm firsts.

However, this post can be summed up as 1 person being unhappy with an aspect of the game, and rather than adjusting his expectations of the game, he wants to change the game.

You remind me of people who want a bigger battery in their phone, but rather than buy a case with a battery in it to double or triple your battery, you would rather force the manufacturers to add to the size of the device, and forcing everyone else to adhere to your change.

In summary: Buy a battery pack, or in this case, find a way to raid that makes you happy. Don't make my phone bigger cuz you want to raid less.

Note: I think I mixed up the points in my summary, but you get the idea. Don't be selfish.

[potis]

I don't understand people at this point.

I honestly can't see where raids are hard. Even if you are the worst player in the region you will just get carried in LFR. You don't even have to do mechanics.

I have the same attitude but where you are wrong is you overestimate humans.

What you consider a joke, which they are, most of Mythic is also, there is another 99% that for multiple reasons simply cant do it.

They cant even do LFR if random alt of some better player is there.

Crucible at the moment is an example, if its 100% LFR players they wipe and wipe because they simply dont even care/know.

[Garymorilix]

I have the same attitude but where you are wrong is you overestimate humans.

What you consider a joke, which they are, most of Mythic is also, there is another 99% that for multiple reasons simply cant do it.

They cant even do LFR if random alt of some better player is there.

Crucible at the moment is an example, if its 100% LFR players they wipe and wipe because they simply dont even care/know.

No, see, I get that. I get it when people simply don't care.

But it is not difficult when you do care. That's the whole point.

Ofc you're gonna wipe everything if you're watching a youtube video while writing a thesis and trying to raise 3 children all during your night shift.

What I mean is the people here who actually say they 'care' and presumably engage with said content say it's too hard, when that is just not true. If you have a bigger attention span than 3 seconds and you can beat a goldfish at a memory test, you should not really be able to lose LFR. That's how it's designed anyways.

Edit.: I don't have anything against casuals btw. Real casuals, anyways. Those that accept the level they play at. I know people who are perfectly fine doing LFR and fishing and mild dungeons. It's all good.

It's true for most of us, we accept a level that we can play at.
My problem is with people who simply refuse to do anything by themselves and complain about it and try to get it changed for other people for no other reason than their ego.
For example, I'm not a big BG fan, but I don't go around saying that BG's should be deleted or turned into some kind of MoBA style experience or something. I know my place. Everyone should identify what they like and stick to that. Even if it means abandoning WoW.

[potis]

It's true for most of us, we accept a level that we can play at.
My problem is with people who simply refuse to do anything by themselves and complain about it and try to get it changed for other people for no other reason than their ego.
For example, I'm not a big BG fan, but I don't go around saying that BG's should be deleted or turned into some kind of MoBA style experience or something. I know my place. Everyone should identify what they like and stick to that. Even if it means abandoning WoW.

Oh that, thats just usual mmo-champion mentality, they are all Mythic raiders with 3k raider.io score and 2.5k Arena/RBG rating but they refuse to link their B.net accounts because all they ever were and all they are is LFR hero level, aka always behind the curve, always terrible and always blaming the game and their biggest achievement in the game is finally getting that rare mount drop after 300 runs.

You get used to it

[Fred Skinner]

Oh that, thats just usual mmo-champion mentality, they are all Mythic raiders with 3k raider.io score and 2.5k Arena/RBG rating but they refuse to link their B.net accounts because all they ever were and all they are is LFR hero level, aka always behind the curve, always terrible and always blaming the game and their biggest achievement in the game is finally getting that rare mount drop after 300 runs.

You get used to it

Thats a real problem nowadays. You are not allowed to be weak or a bad player in .. a computer game.. which is about.. killing pixel bosses.

Another effect of blizzards focus on organized groups and meritocracy, where a game replaces a job for many. Even if they are bad.

Add to that a massive dunning krüger effect, where everyone believes he is the greatest pro gamer of all times, and you get the nowadays wow community. Which focuses on min maxing.. while playing normal raids. Which rage flame people in LFR, because they do not perorm.

Because failure is a sin.

Really, blizzard, that IS your fault. That is also what hardcore gaming leads to, as that minority is the smallest but most vocal group.

There is so much hypocrisy in WoWs community. LFR players flame others because they "subperform". The few real hardcore gamers use their anecdotal evidence to act as if everyone would play that way, and all those LFR heroes parrot them. World Quest only players parrot everything their most favorite streamers rant about "evil casuals"..

Why do people not just enjoy the game, and forget about a meritocracy. Play what you like. Have fun. And if you do not have fun, quit.

[Najnaj]

Like the title says, raiding nowadays is too hardcore and time consuming. Many my old guildmates have quit raiding because the effort it needs every single tier.
Last two expansions the insane farming required for artifact power grinding is outrageous AND consumable farming in top of that.
I'm fine with gearing 2 raid ready alts if there would be no AP.

The raiding scene must go back to its root where you didn't have this insane mandatory AP grinding to stay competitive. I have raided hardcore every single expansion excluding vanilla and this expansion is the first one where I seriously think going casual, and I'm not the only one.

e: my suggestion would be making actual raid bosses harder at launch of tier, don't make first 80% of bosses loot pinatas. Force guilds to smash their heads on first bosses as well, but maybe make it so bosses drop more loot so it doesn't hurt average guilds in overall progress. I'm fine with longer tiers if there would be no AP grinding every single tier.

Bad headline. What you mean is "less grindy", not less hardcore.

[potis]

Thats a real problem nowadays. You are not allowed to be weak or a bad player in .. a computer game.. which is about.. killing pixel bosses.

Its 2019, there is no excuse to be bad at anything, all the information is everywhere for every aspect in life, there is only naivety, lack of education and bad luck as to which part of the world you were born in, i dont expect the Nigerian villager to know how to operate a computer, but the fucking average 25-40 year old from Europe? Yeah no.

I stopped giving excuses for the average terrible WoW player and why they are terrible years ago, same reasoning applied.

Also to fix your misinformation, its not about being weak or bad, no one cares how you play, the actual real casual is not a problem to the game, those are having fun and dont give a rats ass about anything.

The problem is many different categories of people that dont accept (or even realize) the category they are in and request changes they do not even understand.

[salate]

Now I'm really puzzled.

People over the world (russian/euro/american) always cry that game is too casual.
Then I see threads like this one.

And LFR haters, LFR lovers... All that stuff... Poor Blizzard, there is no possibility to make everyone happy I believe

I have my own opinion about raiding, and have easy answer to that > I have no time to spend on mythic raiding, but gladly closing every aotc happy.

Maybe I just dont understand the situation because I dont raid hardcorish, but well, I was in a serious raiding guild once and understood its not for me.

[Zyky]

Don't underestimate the strength of the defensive traits, especially if high damage input is the main cause of stagnating progress. So it definitely does affect your raiding progress when you're part of a semiprogress/casual mythic raid guild that aims for CE.

I dont think he's referring to the defensive traits, just the 49 and 50th neck levels. Regardless the grind is annoying, I don't want a new grind every few months when they decide that the months I put in before wasn't enough for the rest of the expansion.

[Fred Skinner]

Its 2019, there is no excuse to be bad at anything, all the information is everywhere for every aspect in life, there is only naivety, lack of education and bad luck as to which part of the world you were born in, i dont expect the Nigerian villager to know how to operate a computer, but the fucking average 25-40 year old from Europe? Yeah no.

Noone has to excuse himself for being bad at computer games. If you learn that, you probably get that it is not your business if someone plays good or bad. Care about your own gameplay, and let others do however they like. It is not up to you to flame foreigners if they "play bad".

Also to fix your misinformation, its not about being weak or bad, no one cares how you play, the actual real casual is not a problem to the game, those are having fun and dont give a rats ass about anything.

There is no misinformation if i say that a relentless meritocracy, implemented into the game by the designers, based on a competetive gameplay which shows challenging content as the only content that matters, is the major reason for the toxic community we have nowadays. There is no misinformation if i say that some people feel forced to perform, and would not accept the idea they just are no good players, as they would lose the people in the groups they play together with.

The pressure to perform is a game design issue, and could easily be adressed by the developers, by taking every focus from competition and challenges.

A game is bad designed, if it even asks performance from those who play the raid theater mode, or who play together in normal raids as friends. Where people leave their groups of friends because another guild performs better.

While blizzard pretends the game is about "playing with friends", it is really about "playing with performers". And that, and only that, is the reason of the toxcicity of WoWs nowadays community.

The problem is many different categories of people that dont accept (or even realize) the category they are in and request changes they do not even understand.

Well, the problem is that people are being pressed to be more performant than they can be. And the problem originates from the game design itself.