Is Classic too easy?

[Jastall]

So what ?
Difficulty is not measured just by the amount of mechanics thrown at you, but by how tightly they are tuned. Or else normal and heroic would be the same difficulty, and obviously they aren't.
BWL so far feels pretty much like the normal-difficulty raids I did in Legion and WoD (no idea about BfA, I haven't played it, but I doubt it changed a lot compared to the two previous x-pack), especially considering that we have better gear and more powerful classes than what it was initially tuned for, and mostly we already know everything about the raid and have a number of veterans who already have experience in it, so it reduces the difficulty it is supposed to have.

So OBVIOUSLY people who are used to mythic are plowing through it. No shit. They also plow through normal BfA raids, what a surprise, and then even when they don't yet know the strat and haven't people who cleared the raid already. It's expected, the only people who try to make a lot about it are a tiny number of blind fanboys and a huge number of bitter haters from retail who work hard to pretend they proved something.

And newsflash : they will also plow through AQ40, because it'll be roughly heroic-level of difficulty, and they will ALSO plow through Naxx, because even if it's roughly Mythic-level difficulty (and probably noticeably easier in fact, because there was no "easier difficulty" to fall back on, so Blizzard couldn't make the raid as insanely hard as they do it now), they already know the raid, and Mythic raiders DO plow through Mythic raids when they already know and are experienced in the fights. Big news, nobody could guess that.

For someone who says "so what?", I feel that you're being quite defensive over a simple observation. And when I mean mechanics I also meant the tuning, N'zoth in particular has several mechanics that can result in a death or wipe very quickly even on Normal. And Heroic does add a fair amount of mechanics, some of them easy (the wall on Skitra), others less so (the MC on Il'gynoth or the requirement to have the entire raid do the mind phase on N'zoth).

And LOL at Naxx being the equivalent of Mythic. AQ40 will be like late Normal (mostly Twin Emps and C'thun, rest is ez really) and Naxx will be at somewhat Heroic level, but I'd say only 4H and KT are anywhere close to a later Heroic boss, rest are more like a buncha Wrathions at most.

Finally, the "but it's old content!" defense doesn't seem to hold firm when 1) massive amounts of casual guilds and pugs have trashed BWL already, and only a portion of them have clearly it in private servers recently and 2) retail raids have guides and strats up from PTR a week before they even release if not more. The disparity in available information isn't very wide.

Classic being easy doesn't make it bad per se. But it IS easy, compared to the level of challenge available on retail. There's no going around this one.

[Tsyplenk]

For someone who says "so what?", I feel that you're being quite defensive over a simple observation. And when I mean mechanics I also meant the tuning, N'zoth in particular has several mechanics that can result in a death or wipe very quickly even on Normal. And Heroic does add a fair amount of mechanics, some of them easy (the wall on Skitra), others less so (the MC on Il'gynoth or the requirement to have the entire raid do the mind phase on N'zoth).

And LOL at Naxx being the equivalent of Mythic. AQ40 will be like late Normal (mostly Twin Emps and C'thun, rest is ez really) and Naxx will be at somewhat Heroic level, but I'd say only 4H and KT are anywhere close to a later Heroic boss, rest are more like a buncha Wrathions at most.

Finally, the "but it's old content!" defense doesn't seem to hold firm when 1) massive amounts of casual guilds and pugs have trashed BWL already, and only a portion of them have clearly it in private servers recently and 2) retail raids have guides and strats up from PTR a week before they even release if not more. The disparity in available information isn't very wide.

Classic being easy doesn't make it bad per se. But it IS easy, compared to the level of challenge available on retail. There's no going around this one.

You're forgetting that there's loads of videos of tactics for all the bosses already, so even if you don't know the instance, you can easily look it up and research mechanics and tips from other players etc. I never played Classic private servers, yet I knew all the bosses before BWL came out due to watching 1-2 videos.

It might be easier, but it's miles better than the ghost town retail garbage.

[Echocho]

I never played Classic private servers, yet I knew all the bosses before BWL came out due to watching 1-2 videos.

To be fair the same is true for retail, whenever regular people reach the bosses hardcore guilds along with PTR testing leads to there being detailed strategies out there on day one.

They're often pretty difficult to execute but the tactics are there.

[Tsyplenk]

To be fair the same is true for retail, whenever regular people reach the bosses hardcore guilds along with PTR testing leads to there being detailed strategies out there on day one.

They're often pretty difficult to execute but the tactics are there.

True, but it's not the complete full fight with all tactics and phases etc. Classic bosses are the full experience already released, you could even go on a private server and play it like for like as Apes and such do.

Not to mention you might not be able to execute the bosses like the top players do on the PTR, yet you could change your strategy and try loads of different things on a private server, if you get what I mean.

[Kolvarg]

*snip*

Whether it's my fault, yours or both of us, this conversation is clearly not leading anywhere and becoming less and less centered on the topic, so I'll thank you for the discussion and bid you farewell Have a nice day!

[tauntor]

Let's not kid ourselves, LFR is way harder than any of the Classic raids and that's a hilarious feat in itself.

My organized and competent guild wiped on razorgore 8 times before we had it down pat. You cant wipe in LFR with a team working together to try and win

[lollerlaban]

My organized and competent guild wiped on razorgore 8 times before we had it down pat. You cant wipe in LFR with a team working together to try and win

That's a weird way of saying your organized and competent guild is worse than a group of random people in a LFR

[Outofmana]

Batching ruins classic though. The artificial lag removes every performance based actions, paladins Bopping near death mages, clutch nature switchness heals, lay on hands etc, it all doesn't matter in classic. It's sad PVt servers were such a better experience, classic is a lagging snoozefest. No one can excel currently in classic because of batching, making it even 'easier' for everyone as it already is.

Shame majority seems not to have experience pvt servers, as outrage over batching would be much louder otherwise.

[GucciWarr]

“Ghost town retail garbage” yeah can confirm this guy has literally never tried a class in BFA, acquires an essence, or even tried readily available difficult content. Just the classic player echo chamber at it again nothing to see here folks

[Ielenia]

You're forgetting that there's loads of videos of tactics for all the bosses already, so even if you don't know the instance, you can easily look it up and research mechanics and tips from other players etc. I never played Classic private servers, yet I knew all the bosses before BWL came out due to watching 1-2 videos.

And there are loads of videos of tactics for all the bosses for modern WoW before the raid goes live since they go to PTR to check the boss' mechanics, so that's not exactly a solid argument.

It might be easier, but it's miles better than the ghost town retail garbage.

Anyone who says "ghost town" is really shooting themselves in the foot...

[Akka]

For someone who says "so what?", I feel that you're being quite defensive over a simple observation.

The "so what" was about the validity of your argument, not about posturing. I thought it was pretty clear. And I'm not "defensive", I'm just annoyed by the need to repeat myself.

And LOL at Naxx being the equivalent of Mythic. AQ40 will be like late Normal (mostly Twin Emps and C'thun, rest is ez really) and Naxx will be at somewhat Heroic level, but I'd say only 4H and KT are anywhere close to a later Heroic boss, rest are more like a buncha Wrathions at most.

Considering the amount of retards who claim BWL is "easier than LFR" when it's such obvious bullshit, you'll forgive me if I'm going to NOT take the word of some guy on the Internet and will gauge it myself.
My guess is that Naxx will definitely be "early Mythic boss level", though I'm keeping an open mind about it (unlike the people who seem to have their entire life vested in how hard Classic would fail).

Finally, the "but it's old content!" defense doesn't seem to hold firm when 1) massive amounts of casual guilds and pugs have trashed BWL already, and only a portion of them have clearly it in private servers recently and 2) retail raids have guides and strats up from PTR a week before they even release if not more. The disparity in available information isn't very wide.

First, the delta between the claims of "PuG and super casual have cleared BWL day one" made in the forums by people with questionable motives, and what is actually seen in-game, is pretty huge. Just like the "LFR is harder", I'm trusting what I see much more than what sounds like BS from people who wants to reach a conclusion.

Second, comparing a fight that is known through datamining a couple week in advance with a fight that has been known for 15 years, played by a number of people in the raid, with preparations made for weeks if not months in advances and hit by indirect nerfs compared to its initial release, feels like a pretty weak move.

Classic being easy doesn't make it bad per se. But it IS easy, compared to the level of challenge available on retail. There's no going around this one.

Depends what you compare. Leveling is definitely several times less easy. Regular 5-man aren't easier, there is just not three harder mode. Raiding need to be compared with the comparable difficulty level (MC with LFR, BWL with normal, AQ40 with heroic, Naxx with mythic). Comparing MC or BWL with mythic is plain retarded.

And yes, I agree that "harder" doesn't necessarily means "more fun". I'm not intent on claiming something that is false, I'm intent in putting things in their appropriate place, and that means I'll both laugh at the idiots who claimed that MC would be hard (like I did well before Classic was released) and at the idiots that will try to make inadequate comparisons and/or claim that the part of Classic which ARE more challenging (or less easy or whatever) are easier.

[Tsyplenk]

And there are loads of videos of tactics for all the bosses for modern WoW before the raid goes live since they go to PTR to check the boss' mechanics, so that's not exactly a solid argument.


Anyone who says "ghost town" is really shooting themselves in the foot...

Yet, the PTR doesn't have all phases of every boss released, whereas you can do every single part of the instance on a private server. So yes, it is a solid argument.

I say ghost town because that's what it is. They should add tumbleweeds to the game.

[Unholyground]

I will say it again, WoW and mostly all games are easy. Not many games have ever been a real challenge to me (that I am interested i, since I won't play a game I am not interested in) over the years, all difficulty can be overcome.

[Darien Stegosaur]

Classic has extremely little content if you're not a raider or a serious PvP:er, however I'm beginning to feel that the content it does have is way too easy. Raids are cleared the first reset by most guilds and then you're back to raid logging for farm raids that are almost as easy as LFR is in retail.
It doesn't give you a sense of accomplishment and the character progression is extremely slow, with new gear upgrades coming at you about once a month.
It's starting to feel like, what's the point if there's no challenge?

Classic was always too easy because it was designed like EverQuest.

MMOs back then were never mechanically difficult. They just forced you to slog through tedium. They were a willpower check.

Naxx will get cleared in an hour just like BWL did, because the people who are clearing it in an hour are the people who really love and understand that content. It only had a low clear rate in original because it had ridiculous time requirements which most guilds could not satisfy and the game overall had no meaningful catch up mechanics so someone leaving (be it gquit or quitting the game entirely) was a massive hit to your guild.

[arkanon]

They should add tumbleweeds to the game.

They added them to classic, but the 'moving out of the way' mechanic was far too advanced for the average classic raider.

[Ielenia]

Yet, the PTR doesn't have all phases of every boss released, whereas you can do every single part of the instance on a private server. So yes, it is a solid argument.

Again, just because Blizzard doesn't test the last boss does not invalidate the argument that you can do all the other bosses in the PTR.

I say ghost town because that's what it is.

No, you say "ghost town" simply because you want to hate on Blizzard, regardless of facts. Even low-pop servers aren't "ghost towns".

[Jastall]

The "so what" was about the validity of your argument, not about posturing. I thought it was pretty clear. And I'm not "defensive", I'm just annoyed by the need to repeat myself.

Considering the amount of retards who claim BWL is "easier than LFR" when it's such obvious bullshit, you'll forgive me if I'm going to NOT take the word of some guy on the Internet and will gauge it myself.
My guess is that Naxx will definitely be "early Mythic boss level", though I'm keeping an open mind about it (unlike the people who seem to have their entire life vested in how hard Classic would fail).

First, the delta between the claims of "PuG and super casual have cleared BWL day one" made in the forums by people with questionable motives, and what is actually seen in-game, is pretty huge. Just like the "LFR is harder", I'm trusting what I see much more than what sounds like BS from people who wants to reach a conclusion.

Second, comparing a fight that is known through datamining a couple week in advance with a fight that has been known for 15 years, played by a number of people in the raid, with preparations made for weeks if not months in advances and hit by indirect nerfs compared to its initial release, feels like a pretty weak move.

Depends what you compare. Leveling is definitely several times less easy. Regular 5-man aren't easier, there is just not three harder mode. Raiding need to be compared with the comparable difficulty level (MC with LFR, BWL with normal, AQ40 with heroic, Naxx with mythic). Comparing MC or BWL with mythic is plain retarded.

And yes, I agree that "harder" doesn't necessarily means "more fun". I'm not intent on claiming something that is false, I'm intent in putting things in their appropriate place, and that means I'll both laugh at the idiots who claimed that MC would be hard (like I did well before Classic was released) and at the idiots that will try to make inadequate comparisons and/or claim that the part of Classic which ARE more challenging (or less easy or whatever) are easier.

Considering that I'm not part of the people who say it's easier than LFR (well MC is, rest isn't), I dunno why you refer to that several times over the course of your post when I outlined that I do not think it the case. It does make you sound defensive, sorry to say.

Naxx is absolutely not early Mythic boss level, save maybe the odd free kill ones like Champion of the Light or Skitra that are barely harder than their Heroic counterparts. AQ40 is not Heroic, hell normal N'zoth has more mechanics that hit relatively harder than post-nerf C'thun. I saw a video of a world 4 or 5th guild in vanilla that was the POV of a Frost mage that literally applied his oil to his weapon mid pull, stopped to chat a few times, pressed 1 all fight long to Frostbolt, and stood in place never, ever moving save for the two times they went to the stomach. Phase 1 of N'zoth alone will gib you if you stay in one spot, and is the easiest by far since only half the raid must later repeat it with the mob having the same HP total.

As for private servers VS datamining, PTR testing and dungeon journal, again, the difference is not as wide as you would like to believe. One or two pulls on a Normal boss with that kind of information is quite enough to know its ins and outs unless it's the final boss which is typically a longer fight. You absolutely don't need that much practice to easily kill a Normal boss. Neither do you need any for BWL, almost 2000 kills of Nefarian were logged day 1, far more than N N'zoth, and I strongly doubt they're all private server players.

[Tsyplenk]

They added them to classic, but the 'moving out of the way' mechanic was far too advanced for the average classic raider.

Suppose if they did add them to retail then no one would notice anyway because the game is so dead there's no one to notice it :/

Again, just because Blizzard doesn't test the last boss does not invalidate the argument that you can do all the other bosses in the PTR.


No, you say "ghost town" simply because you want to hate on Blizzard, regardless of facts. Even low-pop servers aren't "ghost towns".

Again, you can't do every single phase of every fight on the PTR, so there are unreleased abilities and changes you have to come up against and decide how to handle, therefore you can't pre-plan everything perfectly to steamroll it. Not to mention the clue is in the name of a "test realm", they can make MANY, MANY changes before the fight is actually released, making the fight potentially quite a bit different from the fight tested. Whereas private realms are the exact same fight.

[Ielenia]

Again, you can't do every single phase of every fight on the PTR, so there are unreleased abilities and changes you have to come up against and decide how to handle, therefore you can't pre-plan everything perfectly to steamroll it.

"Normal" and "heroic" fights are tested in their entirety.

Not to mention the clue is in the name of a "test realm", they can make MANY, MANY changes before the fight is actually released, making the fight potentially quite a bit different from the fight tested. Whereas private realms are the exact same fight.

Can you name a single instance in when a raid fight went through "many changes" before being released? Doesn't have to be "MANY, MANY changes", just "many changes."

No need to respond. The answer is 'none'. Fights are tested in PTR not to decide which mechanics to use or remove, but to balance the numbers.

[Jurwi]

No, you say "ghost town" simply because you want to hate on Blizzard, regardless of facts. Even low-pop servers aren't "ghost towns".

It's kinda funny this hate culture of today. So many Classic fanboys are hating retail with these ghost town analogies, and exactly the same way the Retail fanboys are hating Classic, claiming and dead and all that jazz.

Neither game is dead nor a ghost town. Both probably are steadily losing players, but far from dead. Or a ghost town.