Can we all now agree that Vanilla wasn't harder?

[pinkz]

2004 van wow did not have/or:
- start at patch 1.12
- open betas for players to practice leveling for 1-19, 1-30/40 for the time they were up.
- layering
- 10 player dungeon XP bonus
- prelaunch practice, prep, and raid completion
- unauthorized servers to practice on for 14 years
- addons like now

player who set the 60 leveling record, predid it even faster on a unauthorized server prior to classic wow, this server was more than likely a updated closer to classic wow version with data obtained from Beta and early download.

MC and Onxy was "easy, way to easy, easier than remembered" for the WF classic group per their comments. composed of OG van wow players and others who did this at years back or at much harder levels on unauthorized servers

can not accurately compare the two.

[Khuzog]

The talent choices in retail means nothing because they have barely any impact whatsoever until level 100 or higher. Maybe you don't care about that, but I think it's horsepoop.

I'd be fine with retail talent structure if they impacted gameplay at their level, not just endgame.

Retail: "Has barely any impact whatsoever"
Classic: my first three talent points literally couldn't move my intellect score up, my fourth one gave me 10 mana, my fifth one gave me a newsworthy 20. I immediately rushed to the Classic forums on Reddit with keyboard clenched firmly between my thighs so I could moan about what an improved gameplay experience this was as all the nostalgia of skipping classes and sitting in a non-air conditioned bedroom 13 years ago came flooding back.

Serious Gameplay Decisions for Serious Players Only, clearly.

You tried to flex on my post with Holy Priest as your example. Did the 1% more crit on Holy spells in vanilla have a meaningful impact? Or did you start with Disc first for the willpower trait for 3% resistance against all the mobs that don't fear or stun until later levels? Maybe you grabbed Holy Concentration so you had at least a minimal chance to heal yourself while you can't smite anything to the ground due to all the knockback since it isn't covered by Holy Concentration in the first place.

I get it, I know Classic is a fragile ecosystem because it will never be improved, so when people make you see the ugly flaws in your game your only choice is to live with them or quit, but vanilla talents aren't a pedestal worthy endeavor, it just means you're happier with pressing a button three times to get Improved Renew rather than one time to get the replacement for Improved Renew. Your illusion of choice isn't actually choice, it's just a re-skinned skinner box of small rewards while you ignore getting all the QOL stuff automatically in retail but I guess it's bad now because you didn't push the button with the pretty picture five times. Are you going to use the ONE endgame viable build for Holy Priest or are you gonna do the "Yeah I mean... I guess if you want to use that one" deeper Discipline build? Or will you be the promised one who finds a m-m-m-metabreaker build after fifteen years?

Doesn't matter, you'll hit two buttons in a raid. Three if you make a macro that cries out for Innervate instead of manually asking for it.

[Dergiab]

Doesn't matter, you'll hit two buttons in a raid. Three if you make a macro that cries out for Innervate instead of manually asking for it.

Doesn't matter, you'll hit one button in anything outside an instance in retail.

[Khuzog]

Doesn't matter, you'll hit one button in anything outside an instance in retail.

This is the most adorable case of "no u" when being faced with valid points that I've ever seen and I love you for it. Oh you.

[Dergiab]

This is the most adorable case of "no u" when being faced with valid points that I've ever seen and I love you for it. Oh you.

Just got home from commute so I have no time or willingness to argue anymore because I'm busy being incredibly bored in Classic. Because that is what I do, playing games I'm bored by.

[Celarent]

The fascinating takeaway here is that with Vanilla's instanced content so much easier when revisited, it's almost certain BC's is, too -- which means that the late-Wrath call for harder stuff "like it used to be" was drawn from nostalgia of player skill at the time.

And that means Cataclysm's difficulty bump wasn't a reversal of Wrath's design so much as it was an artificial bar -- and giant middle finger -- raised against players who'd spent the last four years getting just good enough to clear things. And to top it all off, questing was made forgettably and tediously easy. No wonder subs never recovered.

[Beet]

Dont get me wrong, leveling is much harder (well.. slower) than retail.


But all this "Raids were harder" or "You actually needed to CC mobs in dungeons!"
Dont, its false. Yeah CC to some degree, but NOT nearly as much as in retail wow with mythic +.


Please dont use the argument "Classic isn't Vanilla" nothing changed dungeon wise.

For one it is harder at 60 in pugs. It just is man. Mainly because people dont know how to play their class so they get aggro and its just bad. And no raids arent harder. MC and BWL are jokes. AQ40 is gonna smack some around however. But its not harder than retail raids of course. It's just different. You need consumables and such.

And to be fair, this is 1.12 so its a lot easier than doing stuff at say patch 1.6. This is post every single class revamp so all classes are better than they were for the majority of vanilla.

[TrollHunter3000]

To put it in perspective, the current content is being completed with a catch-up patch’s tuning across the board. That includes classes, bosses, combat mechanics, etc. 1.12 is very different from all the patches before it.

No. It's not.

[CostinR]

The fascinating takeaway here is that with Vanilla's instanced content so much easier when revisited, it's almost certain BC's is, too -- which means that the late-Wrath call for harder stuff "like it used to be" was drawn from nostalgia of player skill at the time.

And that means Cataclysm's difficulty bump wasn't a reversal of Wrath's design so much as it was an artificial bar -- and giant middle finger -- raised against players who'd spent the last four years getting just good enough to clear things. And to top it all off, questing was made forgettably and tediously easy. No wonder subs never recovered.

Except that Wrath would be the biggest joke of them all if they did a classic version of it. Say hello to pulling entire dungeons in crap gear.

Also fairly wrong: Cataclysm even at the time for people was nowhere near as hard as BC could be early on and here's the thing even with private server experience it can be noted the 5 mans were not really harder on those servers then classic is: Yes MC was cleared week one on private servers.

So if Blizzard does BC I am sure people will have a nasty surprise waiting for them: It's called Shattered Halls and it's going to smash your teeth in.

Just as I suspect BWL and ZG are going to be a rude wake up call for people thinking classic is a joke: MC and Ony are in 1.12, sure. The Berserkers of ZG will have their toll.

[Annelie]

Not even close. Any Classic dungeon can be easily 3-manned by 3 hybrids of any kind. Don't even need dedicated tank/heals.

Do that in Uldaman during apropriate level.

[Frozenbro]

Just as I suspect BWL and ZG are going to be a rude wake up call for people thinking classic is a joke: MC and Ony are in 1.12, sure. The Berserkers of ZG will have their toll.

Depends who are you referring to, cause for the average wow player everything on wow can be considered hard since the average wow player IS bad, but if you mean world first and top guilds related, they are gonna breeze through everything, naxx included, if you doubt this you are delusional.

[Moggie]

Dunno but logic should dictate that a patch that was released towards the end of Vanilla as a starting point for Classic means the original Vanilla and Classic are quite different on top of the various bonuses and such that exists on Classic which did not originally. All the info about what each patch added and fixed is pretty accessible with a simple google search one cares to read instead of one moment claiming to starting in wotlk then the next suddenly some long time player like a few of these folks have done. 1.0.1 =/= 1.12.

Also, people need to realize other mmos such as EQ and the likes had raids aplenty and more difficult especially since addons were quite a new concept with WoW. It’s not like folks from these games had never done boss encounters before. There were even a number of well known players from EQ who were part of the dev team. The only difficult part about those early encounters was the attendance boss and juggling a roster of 40+ raiders.

Just agree to disagree that those of us who played from the beginning had a widely different experience than those who play the current incarnation of Classic and/or private servers. Nobody’s gonna convince the other no matter what.

[Eveningforest]

The only difficult part about those early encounters was the attendance boss and juggling a roster of 40+ raiders.
Just agree to disagree that those of us who played from the beginning had a widely different experience than those who play the current incarnation of Classic and/or private servers. Nobody’s gonna convince the other no matter what.

This is basically what it boils down to, the logistics of managing such a huge crowd, dealing with dkp and so few drops, farming endless hours, making sure everyone is getting resist gear, etc. This is most likely something the more recent players cannot even imagine going through.

And if you were in more of a friendly/social guild, like I was, nobody who wanted to raid was to be left behind, so now you're juggling 60+ people who take turns each week, so everyone gets to go. Every issue is voted on and everyone has a voice.

Of course guilds who picked people based on classes, mandated specs and allocated gear progressed faster. But I didn't care because I liked the people I was playing with. Aaand we made it well into AQ40 with a bunch of "useless specs" among us too. It was good times!

[Firefall]

Currently leveling a Holy Paladin in a group, my first five talent points thus far have given me 2 intellect or 20 mana.

Man I sure am glad we have these back. Can you imagine not being able to immerse yourself into this level of customization? Imagine if I had a choice of three new abilities by now, that'd just lead me to some cookie cutter bullshit.

Lol I love you.

[Beerbill Society]

I die and I wipe a fucking lot. Can't remember the last time it happened in retail, so yeah, it is harder or at least feel harder.

[sopeonaroap]

I think the faction of people saying it is harder is silenced anyway. And also, leveling is not harder, it is just slower with an overall slower gameplay. Depends on class of course, but still, as a Mage I pulled like 8 mobs and AE'd. I just hat to reg like two minutes for every pull...

And it was obvious that it's gonna be really easy if you had any clue at all.

We also never use CC in dungeons. No need for that at all. We were all shit players back then. Now only some players are still that shit. For everyone else classic now is of course easy.

it's harder if you know what the word means. it's slower because you can't pull and nuke 5 mobs at a time. non-mages are able to kill 1 or 2 mobs at a time and if you pull a 3rd and live, you're gonna have to sit down and drink and eat.

it's harder, you folks just like to move goal posts like nobody is going to notice it. retail is easier because resource management is non-existent, damage in relation to mob HP is higher and uptime is 100% if you can keep your ADD ass in place.

[Frozenbro]

it's harder if you know what the word means. it's slower because you can't pull and nuke 5 mobs at a time. non-mages are able to kill 1 or 2 mobs at a time and if you pull a 3rd and live, you're gonna have to sit down and drink and eat.

it's harder, you folks just like to move goal posts like nobody is going to notice it. retail is easier because resource management is non-existent, damage in relation to mob HP is higher and uptime is 100% if you can keep your ADD ass in place.

Pretty sure he meant the raiding aspect, since he said "also" the lvling (tho i disagree about vanilla lvling not being harder), so hes not wrong here, if you legit think raiding in classic has any weight, then im sorry.

[Puddlejumper]

Classic is more dangerous than retail: you are more likely to die doing practically anything.

Retail is harder than Classic: it's faster-paced and the skill cap is probably 10 times as high as in Classic.

It isn't hard to understand that there's a philosophical difference more than anything. Some people like more danger and having to adapt more to the world. Other people like feeling like super-heroes.

Personally, I don't think there's a legitimate complaint either way on this axis. Play what you prefer. The places where Classic shines have to do with better pace of play, more coherent game systems, more social incentives, etc. None of that has anything to do with being "harder" and nobody who cared about their game being "harder" would come back to Classic for that reason.

[Tripax]

No shit mythic raids / high level M+ is harder than the endgame pve in classic.

Who gives a crap. People don't play classic for its 'challenging endgame content', they play it because it's a lot better game as an mmorpg. Retail is pure shit in that regard. There's a reason why my 15 years old guild hasn't touched retail since Uldir and has moved entirely to Classic.

[Jurwi]

I die and I wipe a fucking lot. Can't remember the last time it happened in retail, so yeah, it is harder or at least feel harder.

You either really bad yourself or you run with really bad groups.