There is a more subjective definition of "hard", which is your own, and then there is the less subjective definition of "hard", which is when compared to the average of the gamer population. A game that requires, for example, a 1.5-second reaction time may be hard for someone, but it's not hard for the general population. But something that requires like a 0.5 second reaction time, it's much harder, objectively.
Compare the end boss of vanilla WoW with the end boss of BfA. How many 1-hit-KO abilities are there in each? What's the complexity of mechanics in each?
You were the one who brought "raid fights" and "Dark Souls" to the discussion.Also, where exactly does WoW require those three things, on its base difficulties? (Leveling, World quests, Normal dungeons, LFR)
But back to leveling: even in modern WoW, while leveling, if you pull too many mobs you die. Can you level faster in modern WoW than you can in Classic? Yes. But that does not make it "easier". Just less time-consuming. And something being "time-consuming" is not necessarily "hard". There is no race to make "time consumed" be a measurement of difficulty. A quest to kill an elite mob or mobs? Get a group, or skip that quest. Simple as that.
Also, if you allow me to be facetious for a moment, but going back to your previous example of chess: yes, you can win any and all not-timed chess games if you take your time. You just have to wait until your opponent's patience runs out and he forfeits the game, giving you the win.
Only 2 kinds of people hyped Vanilla (and thus Classic) up as difficult. Those kinds of people were:
A) People that accomplished/felt accomplished in Vanilla, couldn't keep up with the times and wanted to make it seem as though the game required the best kind of gamers back then to prop up their fragile egos.
B) Fanboys/fangirls of said people, whom were often content creators/Streamers. And their fans were LOUD and obnoxious.
And so the myth took hold. Meanwhile you had PS players tell the truth. I'm fairly sure that more people killed BWL in its first 48 hours, than the amount of people on Retail able to finish LFR without a hitch on Live in that same timeframe.
I know for a fact that the guild I keep tabs on (because I'll potentially join them for Naxx), made up mostly of casuals/LFR-players on Live, downed Neffy the first day. They don't tryhard and don't consist of PS players that have done the raid hundreds of time, but they still cleared it with ease.
Last edited by Queen of Hamsters; 2020-02-14 at 09:06 PM.
Are we talking about LFR?
Because handing out Bronze Dust for Chromaggus in an LFR setting and having people not waste them (because they're a finite resource) sounds like a nightmare to me. In fact, Chromaggus in general in an LFR setting seems awful, you know people will be trying to finish casts and getting hit by breaths, and you'd be guaranteed a draconid MC on nearly every attempt with how people tunnel things.
Classic raids are easier than Retail, definitely. They are about pre-raid prep and organization mostly, with few difficult mechanics. However, like I mentioned above, there are a handful of bosses with mechanics that I think would cause issues in a LFR setting, so I'd say they're about on par with Normal difficulty Retail raids. Nothing in Classic touches Mythic Retail raiding.
But that's okay. Neither one is inherently better or worse. People need to get over their egos and need to be seen as "being good at a game."
Last edited by jackofwind; 2020-02-14 at 09:38 PM.
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
People are Metagaming progress, people are bis each tier so every raid will get utterly demolished. It was a great experiment and nice to revisit old places but its not the same. The same would be said with BC and WoTLK but that's not what matters, its simply revisiting.
you're saying that because a top guild can complete a raid in 42 minutes that they have spend years practicing that means it's easier than lfr?
100% the exact same would happen if they were to release tbc, wotlk, cataclysm etc. people know the mechanics, they have practiced the raids and there will always be a few guilds that just blaze through it, it's not proof of anything.
No, they are saying that because THOUSANDS of non PS players one shot their way through the raid with zero experience or knowledge of the encounters.
Some of you fall back on the "but they are pro gamers who practiced for years!" while ignoring the thousands of guilds and pugs that cleared the raid in a couple of hours without all the experience and practice of these pro gamers.
EDIT for clarity - i dont think this is a problem AT ALL - its a reality, and its one that wont be changing any time soon, but its just how it is. Unless they remove Normal, Heroic, and Mythic, Classic raiding is substantially easier than the 'competition'./
Last edited by arkanon; 2020-02-14 at 11:43 PM.
I have a similar sentiment. I don't think it a bad thing per se that Classic is easy; a lot of good games are on the easy side and people have more than a right to enjoy easy and relaxing gameplay. But I just can't quite shake the satisfaction of seeing the myth that vanilla was some kind of hardcore era where only "real" gamers could prosper crash and burn. Yeah, leveling's harder in Classic no doubt, but it's still not hard by any stretch of the imagination, and literally everything else is far more demanding in retail.
WoW has literally always been a casual MMO- that was its main claim to fame from the onset and why it exploded in popularity while its competitors struggled to have more than half a million total players.
I pugged heroic until I quit with Battle of Dazar'alor. We literally killed Jaina with randoms in Heroic on ID 2.
If you dont believe me, here https://worldofwarcraft.com/de-de/ch...kragjin/tsarez
https://worldofwarcraft.com/de-de/ch...strength/raids
All with randoms. Complete, utter strangers. From /2
Last edited by StayTuned; 2020-02-15 at 12:01 AM.
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
I have yet to see anyone claim that the mechanics in Vanilla were harder than now. Vanilla *was* hard; the same way that BC raids *were* hard. The same way that Mythic Kil'jaeden *was* hard. The same way that Mythic 'Ghuun *was* hard.
For the time period, Vanilla was harder proportionally than current raids.
Farming WAS hard a thousand years ago. It's borderline trivial today. Does that mean we can claim that farming WAS actually easy, people just didn't know better? We've gotten better at it, so it must have been a joke back then too? Our experiences is precisely what makes things easier.
Classic isn't hard. But Classic isn't Vanilla.
Sometimes, I just can't even:Originally Posted by Teffi
Originally Posted by Nixx
I would say the "average" of the gamer population can vary quite a bit. If one considers all gamers (including people who only play mobile games and such), most likely either version of WoW could be considered quite challenging.
In Normal and higher raid difficulties modern WoW is unquestionably more challenging. But with the majority of LFR bosses, that's not the case - even if they do still technically have a higher number of mechanics, the truth is they almost never matter because the tuning is so forgiving you can out-heal and out-dps everything. And even if you can't, at first, you will likely be able to after enough wipes since you get a stacking buff each time. And if you still can't, you can very easily leave the group and find a new one that might stand a better chance.
I brought these up as arbitrary examples that just because you can explain in a simple matter how to overcome a certain challenge, doesn't mean there isn't a challenge there. Meaning, you can say "just don't be careful not to overpull and you won't die", which is true, but it doesn't negate the fact that there is an added difficulty of having to care not to overpull.
Sure, in modern WoW you can still overpull. But it's not even comparable to Classic. It's simply much easier/more likely to unintentionally die in Classic. An average player will find it hard to deal with more than 1, maybe 2 same-level mobs at a time. If you look into mobs higher level than you (with all the added miss chance and etc), elites, group quest mobs, and such, the difference is even more apparent. So I do defend that regardless of whether one considers time requirement an aspect of difficulty, Classic overall is more challenging than modern WoW at its base (easiest) difficulties, despite still being, all in all, a fairly easy game.
Personally I do think that time requirement is an aspect of difficulty. Difficult can be defined as something that needs effort or skill to accomplish/deal with/understand. So reflexes, knowledge of the game and fights, positioning and all that stuff would fall under "skill", while required time would fall under "effort".
Last edited by Kolvarg; 2020-02-15 at 12:29 AM.
But here's the thing: if you want to compare "which one is the hardest", you need to compare both entities at their hardest, because, otherwise, it's the same thing as saying a 12-year-old is faster than Usain Bolt because he can outrun a walking Usain Bolt. Or say that feathers are heavier than lead because 10 pounds of feathers are heavier than one pound of lead.
But there is no challenge. Spending more time to reach max level than you do on modern WoW is not a measurement of difficulty when you don't have a time limit to reach your goal. Overpulling and aggro'ing extra mobs? That will also happen in modern WoW if you just go around attacking everything in sight without keeping your surroundings in mind, and yes, you will die, in both games. If the mobs are higher level than you? Go to a different area with mobs more at your level, or below it. Elite/group quests? Find a group, or skip those quests. To this day I skip the group quests in Icecrown when I level my character through Northrend.I brought these up as arbitrary examples that just because you can explain in a simple matter how to overcome a certain challenge, doesn't mean there isn't a challenge there. Meaning, you can say "just don't be careful not to overpull and you won't die", which is true, but it doesn't negate the fact that there is an added difficulty of having to care not to overpull.
Classic is simply not this "hardcore" game people claim it to be, even when compared to modern WoW.
I never said "time requirement", I said "time consumed". Leveling does not have a "time requirement". You don't have 'X amount of hours' to reach max level. That said, your own definition of "difficult" excludes "time consumed" as a measurement of difficulty since it required neither effort nor skill.Personally I do think that time requirement is an aspect of difficulty. Difficult can be defined as something that needs effort or skill to accomplish/deal with/understand. So reflexes, knowledge of the game and fights, positioning and all that stuff would fall under "skill", while required time would fall under "effort".
Good thing classic is both. You have to actually manage resources, watch your surroundings to avoid pulling extra mobs, use slows/cc to prevent fleeing mobs from aggroing more, know when to kite or just run away, etc. You have to do literally none of that in retail aside from (barely) managing your resources. Which really just comes down to "are my cds up? Great, I can pull 12 mobs at once and AOE them".
I won't deny it's tedious. But in no way is the difficulty of leveling comparable between the two, classic is far harder.