Easy vs Hard?

[mysticx]

The game is not casual unfriendly. Sure, it's casual unfriendly to keep your character progression maxed but you also don't need to do that to clear casual content.

To be fair, i think that with the "Casual itemlevel cap" being raised every raid tier, we have plenty of character progression, i remember Vanilla, being stuck in tier 0/dungeon blues all the time with the very occasional world drop epic, or BC with heroic blues, the occasional epic (My warlock and shaman alts wore crafted epics until the start of Wrath), and some items from badge-farming, now that was limited character progression.

[Saltysquidoon]

Open world content has never been hard in WoW it will never be hard in WoW.

Beyond that right now if you logged in you can get a full set of catch up gear in minutes without doing any group content. That is more than enough to absolutely shit on the open world.
OP has literally not even played this patch or is lying to make a troll thread

But when we talk about outdoor, all this players should be mixed together in one singe common content. Both Mythic raid hardcores, who constantly say, that outdoor is way too easy for them, and casuals like me, who think, that it has became way too hard.

I'm thinking we're seeing a l2p issue here. Watch a spec guide on youtube so you know which talents to pick and which abilities to use in what order. You'll be able to kill those boars champ.

[WowIsDead64]

I don't know, how to talk with current players, cuz it's obvious, that there are no old casual players left in Wow, who would understand me. Simple fact. Back when MOP was released, it's dailies were considered way too hardcore for playerbase, Wow had back then. MOP dailies. Yeah. Go try them now. They are complete joke vs what we have now. See? Yeah, there was casual-friendly Draenor. May be way too casual friendly. But during 2 recent xpack game has changed and became way too hardcore. Compare content like Broken Shore, Argus, Nazjatar, 8.3 dailies, Visions, future Maw, Torghast with MOP dailies. With Tillers for example.

But again. I want to remind you, that this thread isn't standard casual vs hardcore thread. It's about trying to say, that even easy and casual game can be interesting, if challenge isn't what player focuses on. He may focus on many other things, including story, achieving some player-defined goals, etc. And in this case challenge only puts unnecessary obstacles on his way to his goals, so he wants to skip them.

[Zephire]

I just want to say, that I don't understand, why this game should be "competitive" and "challenging" and things like "routine" or even "no-brain" are considered to be some sort of heresy, while I clearly see, that in other games they aren't? For example there is nothing bad about just driving your truck and looking at blue sky and green grass in ETS2. Because this game is about "RPing" truck driving. It's about buying your truck, customizing it, etc. Not about "challenge" and "competition". Game doesn't have to be about it! Same about Terraria. There is nothing bad about just routinely digging kilometers of tunnels and customizing your house. There are other goals in game, than "challenge" and "competition".

And in Wow it takes way too long to get to that "comfort" zone, I want to be in. Yeah, I'm casual. In terms of MMO. I don't do Mythic+ or raid. At the end only content suitable for me - is leveling. And it's clearly not enough to be worth sub fee. At least endgame outdoor content should be available to me. So, when it's way too overtuned, this leaves me with nothing to do in this game. And I'm altoholic. I play alts, because I want to have "collection" of classes, specs and gear. And because I want to replay "good" fun casual content, while skipping "bad" hardcore. Not because I want to do all the same stuff from scratch, I've done on my main, just because I've completed 100% content on my main, so I don't have any other content to do on that week. This is concept, Blizzard clearly don't get. Simply because game has limited amount of good content. And it's actually not bad, because "goal" should be reachable in reasonable amount of time. Only then it feels rewarding to reach it.

I've read some of your posts in this thread and I feel like you're looking for a game that isn't WoW. Most of what WoW has to offer you dislike (correct me if I'm wrong). That's totally fine.

Though, why would challenge and competition remove from the casuality of a game? I get irritated when I can't solo group quests becuse that makes me feel bad but I like the challenge and will come up with a way to do the group quest alone. What if you come back to it later with better gear and stuff? Maybe that makes it easier? It's like that truck example where you felt it was somewhat pointless to invest in new trucks etc because the challenge wasn't there. Here you have a challenge, which will become trivial with enough gear. How come you critizise it so much instead of liking it? Shouldn't it motivate you to gear your character more? Same goes for M+, doesn't that motivates you to gain power? I mean, maybe you don't like it but someone does for the same reason as you need a motivation to gear. Isn't challenge and difficulty a motivator?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be rude or anything. I just get the feeling that you think something is wrong but you can't really nail it down.

I'm progressing on mythic N'zoth currently and it's a blast, it's so much fun and the fight it just great. Outside of that though, I don't really do anything else but some M+ here and there. Something is lacking for me but I can't nail it down at all. What makes me play the game in the first place? What is fun? Maybe I simply feel a pressure to play more bacause reasons while I'm instead just happy doing my raids, some M+ and nothing more?

Edit:
You also say that you don't want challenge. That you just want to walk a road in tanaris, looking at the nightsky and contemplating life. Why would challenge elsewhere not alow you to do that? What is it that you feel challenge removes from your WoW experience?

[VinceVega]

Not 100% sure, what you try to say. I guess, it's something like "Blizzard don't want to make dedicated content for every player, they have - they try to make compromise content for all" and I agree with it. And I think, that their approach to design of outdoor content is wrong. They try to make it common content. I.e. some players do raids, some don't. Some players do arenas, some don't. Some players do Mythic+, some don't. This players have choice to participate or not to participate in this content. And they also have different difficulty levels, they can choose from. But when we talk about outdoor, all this players should be mixed together in one singe common content. Both Mythic raid hardcores, who constantly say, that outdoor is way too easy for them, and casuals like me, who think, that it has became way too hard.

This is wrong. Just wrong. And I think, that solving that problem should be top Blizzard priority now. But it isn't. Yeah, Torghast is actually attempt to solve it via providing dedicated solo content. But, again, it's based on "challenge" and "competition" the same way, Mage Tower was. So, again, it's content, that isn't targeted on casual players. I tried Binding Of Isaak and I didn't like this genre. Too much grind and RNG to overcome again. I need something more routine, trivial and may be even no-brain.

But what do you want to do with the outdoors? I sorry if this sounds condecending, not meant that way, but outdoors is piss-easy. I sat my 10 year old nephew in front of my pc and gave him controll of my character. He did not have any major problems with it.
Outdoors is allready easy. Making it even easier would just completly take out the fun for everything.

In a previous post you said ETS2 and Terraria don't force you to do this by just driving around and digging tunnels. You can do that in wow. You can just fly around or kill low level mobs or play in the last expansion. You won't get anything content relevant out of it. But you won't get anything in terraria either by just "digging around"

Also if you don't want competition in the game jzst ignore it. You don't have to participate in it. Thogast has no competition. You can play by yourself playing what you can do. Like in the open world. You want to get rid of the hard part that many others enjoy. I don't go to blizz and tell them to remove everything below mythic raiding or mythic 15+ because it is easy for me.

[WowIsDead64]

I've read some of your posts in this thread and I feel like you're looking for a game that isn't WoW. Most of what WoW has to offer you dislike (correct me if I'm wrong). That's totally fine.

Though, why would challenge and competition remove from the casuality of a game? I get irritated when I can't solo group quests becuse that makes me feel bad but I like the challenge and will come up with a way to do the group quest alone. What if you come back to it later with better gear and stuff? Maybe that makes it easier? It's like that truck example where you felt it was somewhat pointless to invest in new trucks etc because the challenge wasn't there. Here you have a challenge, which will become trivial with enough gear. How come you critizise it so much instead of liking it? Shouldn't it motivate you to gear your character more? Same goes for M+, doesn't that motivates you to gain power? I mean, maybe you don't like it but someone does for the same reason as you need a motivation to gear. Isn't challenge and difficulty a motivator?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be rude or anything. I just get the feeling that you think something is wrong but you can't really nail it down.

I'm progressing on mythic N'zoth currently and it's a blast, it's so much fun and the fight it just great. Outside of that though, I don't really do anything else but some M+ here and there. Something is lacking for me but I can't nail it down at all. What makes me play the game in the first place? What is fun? Maybe I simply feel a pressure to play more bacause reasons while I'm instead just happy doing my raids, some M+ and nothing more?

Edit:
You also say that you don't want challenge. That you just want to walk a road in tanaris, looking at the nightsky and contemplating life. Why would challenge elsewhere not alow you to do that? What is it that you feel challenge removes from your WoW experience?

But what do you want to do with the outdoors? I sorry if this sounds condecending, not meant that way, but outdoors is piss-easy. I sat my 10 year old nephew in front of my pc and gave him controll of my character. He did not have any major problems with it.
Outdoors is allready easy. Making it even easier would just completly take out the fun for everything.

In a previous post you said ETS2 and Terraria don't force you to do this by just driving around and digging tunnels. You can do that in wow. You can just fly around or kill low level mobs or play in the last expansion. You won't get anything content relevant out of it. But you won't get anything in terraria either by just "digging around"

Also if you don't want competition in the game jzst ignore it. You don't have to participate in it. Thogast has no competition. You can play by yourself playing what you can do. Like in the open world. You want to get rid of the hard part that many others enjoy. I don't go to blizz and tell them to remove everything below mythic raiding or mythic 15+ because it is easy for me.

It feels, that it's exactly my problem. That "I do Mythic N'zoth and some Mythic+ so outdoor is super easy for me, that even kids can do it on MY character". But what if Mythic+ or Mythic Raids are brick wall for me, that has too low reward/effort ratio, so I avoid them? What if leveling new character and do some outdoor content on him - is only available content for me, so for me there is no reason and way to "do some harder content, outgear it, came and beat it later"? Now just try to level new alt with class, you have never played before. Not your "comfortable zone" class/spec, that is in most cases class, that has tank/healer spec or pet to offset difficulty problems. Try caster, that doesn't rely on "being hit by design". Try SP, try Mage, that isn't Frost. And then just try to get back to "comfortable power zone" without any other means, but doing outdoor content. May be then you'll notice, that 99% of the way you'll struggle with exceeding difficulty. Mostly exactly because this content is tuned for players, who play in a long term and do harder content. And don't forget, that we are at the end of xpack now. Yeah, may be after long grind corruptions make everything trivial at the end. But imagine, that it's 8.2 and we don't have them. Try to do Nazjatar in baseline Benthic gear. Just try. You should understand, that even doing intro quest line without them isn't possible, so you would need to grind better gear via WQs for weeks, because they only give you slightly better gear, than you already have. There is even video on YouTube, when some streamer tries to do it and gives up at the end. Imagine, that you are supposed to grind better gear via pearl upgrades via doing this content for weeks. Imagine, that you need to grind rep on every character to get essences. And now imagine, that it's the only content in a game, you can do. Imagined? Would you play such game in a long term? For weeks, months, years? I guess, no.

P.S. You should also understand, that I'm not noob or player, who doesn't know, how to play this game. I have 10 years of experience. Therefore yeah, I know rotation, I use CC, interrupts and save buttons. At the end in contrast to difficulty class mechanics are the most dumbed down in Wow's history now. They're joke vs what we had in, let's say, WotLK, when classes had ton of talents and abilities, shared between specs, so you needed to fit them all on your action bars. If I can't beat content, it's only due to it being physically impossible to do it. Like in this video.

[SkagenRora]

We dont need solo players in an mmo, your kind will not be missed, if u want games catered to the casuals there is always fortnite and candy crush out there.

WoW has never been more casual friendly.

How Would solo options ever hurt you?

If people prefer solo just let them.

The people who prefer group progressing/Cordination and all that noise will still do that.

And the people who rather not deal with that stuff can just do the solo options.

[Loeko]

The main issue I have with games, especially WoW, being easy is that I personally find that this comes at the expense of other elements in the game. When quests are super easy, you consequently remember them less, not only the quests but also the characters and the zones. Everything loses impact despite the hard work of the lore, visual or sound artists. I've played Legion and BFA as much as I played Vanilla, and despite the transcending work of the art team and the positive image I have of it overall, these expansions are simply not memorable.

I couldn't care less about escorting an NPC now because the outcome of the quest doesn't depend on the keys I press. I don't remember any of them, I don't remember what zone I did them in, I don't remember who I was escorting nor who I was fighting. I've done hundreds of those quests in the past decade and still, the only ones I remember are Corporal Keeshan in Lakeshire and the other ones in Vanilla, simply because it required me to pull my fingers out of my ass, care about aggro and use the geographical structure of the zone for the NPCs to stay alive. The lack of difficulty just makes everything else in the game less impressive, less memorable.

Of course, that doesn't mean that everything should be Dark Soul level of hard. There's a middle line but Blizzard entirely crossed by making fights outcomes not depend on the player input. Sure, it probably brought in a lot of players, but how many did run away because of that? I personally believe that these difficulty issues are the one of main reasons WoW has been bleeding players for years.

[Zephire]

It feels, that it's exactly my problem. That "I do Mythic N'zoth and some Mythic+ so outdoor is super easy for me, that even kids can do it on MY character". But what if Mythic+ or Mythic Raids are brick wall for me, that has too low reward/effort ratio, so I avoid them? What if leveling new character and do some outdoor content on him - is only available content for me, so for me there is no reason and way to "do some harder content, outgear it, came and beat it later"? Now just try to level new alt with class, you have never played before. Not your "comfortable zone" class/spec, that is in most cases class, that has tank/healer spec or pet to offset difficulty problems. Try caster, that doesn't rely on "being hit by design". Try SP, try Mage, that isn't Frost. And then just try to get back to "comfortable power zone" without any other means, but doing outdoor content. May be then you'll notice, that 99% of the way you'll struggle with exceeding difficulty. Mostly exactly because this content is tuned for players, who play in a long term and do harder content. And don't forget, that we are at the end of xpack now. Yeah, may be after long grind corruptions make everything trivial at the end. But imagine, that it's 8.2 and we don't have them. Try to do Nazjatar in baseline Benthic gear. Just try. You should understand, that even doing intro quest line without them isn't possible, so you would need to grind better gear via WQs for weeks, because they only give you slightly better gear, than you already have. There is even video on YouTube, when some streamer tries to do it and gives up at the end. Imagine, that you are supposed to grind better gear via pearl upgrades via doing this content for weeks. Imagine, that you need to grind rep on every character to get essences. And now imagine, that it's the only content in a game, you can do. Imagined? Would you play such game in a long term? For weeks, months, years? I guess, no.

From Icy-Veins:
Benthic Gear
Base: Item Level 385
Upgrade #1: Item Level 400
Upgrade #2: Item Level 415

Dungeons
Normal: Item Level 370
Heroic: Item Level 385
Mythic: Item Level 400


Mythic+
Keystone Level | End of Dungeon Loot | Weekly Chest Loot
Mythic 2 405 410
Mythic 3 405 415
Mythic 4 410 420
Mythic 5 415 420
Mythic 6 415 425
Mythic 7 420 430
Mythic 8 425 430
Mythic 9 425 435
Mythic 10 430 440

Timewalking
Dungeon: Item Level 395
Raid: Item Level 415

Professions
Item Level 415
Item Level 430
Item Level 445

Eternal Palace Raid
Raid Finder: Item Level 400
Normal: Item Level 415
Heroic: Item Level 430
Mythic: Item Level 445

Azerite Armor (Titan Residuum Vendor)
Item Level 415 Tokens
Item Level 430 Tokens
Item Level 445 Tokens

As you see there were a lot of different ways to get ilvl 400 besides upgrading Benthic. I also did try out Nazjatar with a 385-ish character and yes, some parts was difficult and I did some quests with other people just to do them. And then you add titanforging being a thing and world quest rewards scale with ilvl to a cap.

From what I understand it's not the available gearing alternatives that is the issue, according to you, it's the fact that it takes time. Have I understood that correct?

P.S. You should also understand, that I'm not noob or player, who doesn't know, how to play this game. I have 10 years of experience. Therefore yeah, I know rotation, I use CC, interrupts and save buttons. At the end in contrast to difficulty class mechanics are the most dumbed down in Wow's history now. They're joke vs what we had in, let's say, WotLK, when classes had ton of talents and abilities, shared between specs, so you needed to fit them all on your action bars. If I can't beat content, it's only due to it being physically impossible to do it. Like in this video.

I never assumed you were bad so that's chill. I'm also a veteran with some 15 years of WoW history and I don't consider my self as a newbie or bad player. I do have time though and that might skew my perspective a bit.

When I dinged 120 me and my friends started doing mythic 0 with about 30 ilvl lower than recommended. It was rought but fun and we took our time but managed. I don't care about my ilvl I just push til I either manage or give up and try again later. Maybe it's not your playstyle though.

Do you rather solo everything? Is group play out of the question?

Also, I do not mean to attack you as a person so please don't read that into the discussion, I'm simply trying to understand from what angle you're looking at the game. No need to be defensive basically :P

[WowIsDead64]

Do you rather solo everything? Is group play out of the question?

Also, I do not mean to attack you as a person so please don't read that into the discussion, I'm simply trying to understand from what angle you're looking at the game. No need to be defensive basically :P

Playing with strangers isn't enjoyable to me. For me it's better to do quest solo, than wait for 10 minutes for auto group, just smash that quest within 10 seconds and then disband and go your way. Dunno, how to explain. Such auto groups "trivialize" content for me. I don't feel, that it's me, who play this game. It's auto-played. And it's not enjoyable for me. Playing with static/guild/friends would be more enjoyable, but currently I just can't put social obligations on me. This problem is part of being casual. I want to keep my right to play this game my way. Including not logging in at all, if I'm way too busy today.

But at the same time I actually like some group content, that is initially designed to be group content, like random heroic 5ppl runs, when they have reasonable reward/effort ratio and difficulty level. Timewalk runs for example. I just wanna do such group content, when I have proper mood for it. Problem with this content - Blizzard don't support it and therefore player participation in it is very low, that causes long queues and makes in ineffective to do for casual player.

[Saltysquidoon]

Playing with strangers isn't enjoyable to me. For me it's better to do quest solo, than wait for 10 minutes for auto group, just smash that quest within 10 seconds and then disband and go your way. Dunno, how to explain. Such auto groups "trivialize" content for me. I don't feel, that it's me, who play this game. It's auto-played. And it's not enjoyable for me. Playing with static/guild/friends would be more enjoyable, but currently I just can't put social obligations on me. This problem is part of being casual. I want to keep my right to play this game my way. Including not logging in at all, if I'm way too busy today.

You are consistently making up problems and blaming the game for them.

There is no reason you can't join a guild because you have limited time. There are plenty of quality guilds that will let you join as a social without having to commit to their raid roster but still occasionally play with them. Or even some sort of retirement guild for ex hardcore players

If you don't want to use the group finder to clear quests you're struggling with (which I hope are the blue dragon quests as they're supposed to be grouped for) because then it becomes 'too easy', that's also a you problem not WoW's problem. The solution is there.

Finally, the gear issue is a non-issue. You can get 400-415 catchup gear just grinding mobs in uldum and vale*, that's not counting the free leggo cloak. Assaults drop 445 gear, not to mention the emissary box. All of this is can get you to a level where you can comfortably do world content, you don't need to be in full Mythic Ny'alotha/full M+ gear to do quests.*

*Also, the guy in the video you linked was doing uldum on a character in heirloom gear. If you are that under-geared maybe try playing some of the game before talking about how hard it is.

[Zephire]

Playing with strangers isn't enjoyable to me. For me it's better to do quest solo, than wait for 10 minutes for auto group, just smash that quest within 10 seconds and then disband and go your way. Dunno, how to explain. Such auto groups "trivialize" content for me. I don't feel, that it's me, who play this game. It's auto-played. And it's not enjoyable for me. Playing with static/guild/friends would be more enjoyable, but currently I just can't put social obligations on me. This problem is part of being casual. I want to keep my right to play this game my way. Including not logging in at all, if I'm way too busy today.

But at the same time I actually like some group content, that is initially designed to be group content, like random heroic 5ppl runs, when they have reasonable reward/effort ratio and difficulty level. Timewalk runs for example. I just wanna do such group content, when I have proper mood for it. Problem with this content - Blizzard don't support it and therefore player participation in it is very low, that causes long queues and makes in ineffective to do for casual player.

Completely agree about the "smashing" part, I rather try and try again solo if I'm in the mood than joina a group or get help. Sometimes it's nice to just be done with it though.

How come you like doing heroic dungeons but not say mythic 0 or low m+? Think about it in therms of difficulty, ilvl reward and your ilvl. HC becomes easy and relaxed with enough ilvl, so does m0 and low m+. There's just no auto looking for group for m0/m+, other than that (and affixes ofc) they're very similar to HC or normal dungeons.

I still, sadly, have a bit of troubble grasping what you mean WoW is lacking. I can see my self in your text, when I don't have friends online to do m+ with I don't feel like joining a random group for it whilst not really enjoying any other aspect of the game at that time. There I feel the game's lacking. Usually if I just dive in and do stuff anyway my mood slowly switches and I start enjoying my gameplay again. Just feels like some psychological barrier for me. No idea if you can relate to that though :P Very interesting hearing your point of view though!

I think Saltysquidoon nails it as well.

You are consistently making up problems and blaming the game for them.

There is no reason you can't join a guild because you have limited time. There are plenty of quality guilds that will let you join as a social without having to commit to their raid roster but still occasionally play with them. Or even some sort of retirement guild for ex hardcore players

If you don't want to use the group finder to clear quests you're struggling with (which I hope are the blue dragon quests as they're supposed to be grouped for) because then it becomes 'too easy', that's also a you problem not WoW's problem. The solution is there.

Finally, the gear issue is a non-issue. You can get 400-415 catchup gear just grinding mobs in uldum and vale*, that's not counting the free leggo cloak. Assaults drop 445 gear, not to mention the emissary box. All of this is can get you to a level where you can comfortably do world content, you don't need to be in full Mythic Ny'alotha/full M+ gear to do quests.*

*Also, the guy in the video you linked was doing uldum on a character in heirloom gear. If you are that under-geared maybe try playing some of the game before talking about how hard it is.

At least it reflects my own dilemas from time to time

[Bloodyleech]

It feels, that it's exactly my problem. That "I do Mythic N'zoth and some Mythic+ so outdoor is super easy for me, that even kids can do it on MY character". But what if Mythic+ or Mythic Raids are brick wall for me, that has too low reward/effort ratio, so I avoid them? What if leveling new character and do some outdoor content on him - is only available content for me, so for me there is no reason and way to "do some harder content, outgear it, came and beat it later"? Now just try to level new alt with class, you have never played before. Not your "comfortable zone" class/spec, that is in most cases class, that has tank/healer spec or pet to offset difficulty problems. Try caster, that doesn't rely on "being hit by design". Try SP, try Mage, that isn't Frost. And then just try to get back to "comfortable power zone" without any other means, but doing outdoor content. May be then you'll notice, that 99% of the way you'll struggle with exceeding difficulty. Mostly exactly because this content is tuned for players, who play in a long term and do harder content.

In what world do you live?
When any of my characters freshly dinged 120 they instantly went into Nazjatar and did everything till unlocking Worldquests there. Afterwards they instantly unlock the legendary cloak.
And yes, Mage, SP, Boomkin. No 410 Gear or stuff, nor farming any gear beforehand. The mage actually died to the elite naga in the intro, right when he killed her, but it was still possible.
It's definetely a "you" problem if you struggle with world-content.

[Sansnom]

Quitting Wow due to it becoming way too casual unfriendly in two recent xpacks and playing other games has made me think. When game is easy, yeah, I start to feel, that some game mechanics are pointless in it. For example if Death Stranding would be harder, all that equipment wouldn't be so pointless. Or if ETS2 would be harder, may be carefully choosing orders, routes, building garages in proper cities and buying proper trucks for proper tasks would be more meaningful. But at the same time easier game allows me to play the way, I want it to be played. For example Journey mode in Terraria allows me to disable corruption soft-timer and focus on terraforming and customizing, rather than playing according to intended scenario. Or Civ1, where I liked to conquer whole world and then terraform it again, so I needed to trigger "no game over on conquering whole world" bug and play on easiest difficulty.

I will be honest, I am not sure if I understand what you are actually asking. First, does Blizzard cater to the hardcore? Yes. But that does not mean they have ignored the casual. They have made effort to open the game more to the casual players.

LFR, Flexi raid, alternative gear progression, M+.

I don't think the issue for you is a casual vs hardcore. It sounds like it is a more your-way vs Blizzard-way. But you does not really provide what is your-way.

Personally, i would prefer Blizzard focus more on the casual by providing actual new content rather than just recycling existing content into new forms. Sure they provide gear progression but it is recycled content. They need to break out of the endgame == raiding thinking and providing some new alternative content to raiding.

[Frolk]

How Would solo options ever hurt you?

If people prefer solo just let them.

The people who prefer group progressing/Cordination and all that noise will still do that.

And the people who rather not deal with that stuff can just do the solo options.

I dont mind solo play, but solo players shouldt get same rewards as people who do group content, which bleeds into the argument if u only do solo stuff, u dont NEED the better gear anyways as u dont do any difficult content.

The 1 exception to this will be Torghast, if it gets to same lvl of difficulty as early Mage Tower, but then again its hard content and should be rewarded for doing hard content.

[Drusin]

Why can't we have it all?
Why not normal leveling mode, heroic leveling mode, mythic leveling mode, prestige leveling mode?
Normal, heroic, mythic, M+ dungeons
Normal, heroic, mythic, prestige raiding
Normal world quests, 1 mask world quests, 2 mask world quests, etc?

Why does it have to be black or white? Why can't all the systems be in place and players choose what they want to play?

[SkagenRora]

I dont mind solo play, but solo players shouldt get same rewards as people who do group content, which bleeds into the argument if u only do solo stuff, u dont NEED the better gear anyways as u dont do any difficult content.

The 1 exception to this will be Torghast, if it gets to same lvl of difficulty as early Mage Tower, but then again its hard content and should be rewarded for doing hard content.

I've never ever considered gear a stepping stone towards "More difficult content"

I just want to do more damage and see stuff die faster/see higher numbers.

A saying i came up with a few years back "I don't gear for raids, I raid for gear"

But i don't raid at all currently as it's pointless now when M+ gives 465-475 loot.

[docterfreeze]

A higher skill ceiling is always better in multiplayer games made for teens or adults.

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

I fail to see how WoW is casual unfriendly. I pretty much play solo these days because the friends I had quit or we're on opposing schedules due to work or family, and I don't have any issue with outdoor content, especially with how they throw gear at you now, personally I think they are throwing too much gear, given how quick world quests tend to be, I'd rather they change it to something where you collect parts to assemble a piece of gear after a week if you are going to get a certain leveled item.

I played during MoP, I don't remember those dailies being too hardcore for the player base, people complained there were too many and that too much stuff was locked behind rep so they felt mandatory.

[aceperson]

while i prefer the hard approach, there is a need for easy as well. not everyone wants to slam their face against a wall for a sense of accomplishment. i'll take dark souls 3 and wow for example. dark souls 3 is a hard game. it's about timing everything perfectly but you're build doesn't stop you from succeeding. i would say this is a case of a hard approach while letting easy people feel like they can play the game and win. as much as i love dark souls 3, i probably wouldn't have played it if i had to spend hours figuring armor types and resistances and such. i stated my character how i wanted, learned the spells i wanted, found a weapon i enjoyed and did a jack of all trades build where i had all the magic as well as a decently ranged polearm weapon. i found fun in how hard the game was but also found an appreciation for how much the game didn't force me to learn every little detail.

wow is certainly different for me because i have been playing for over 10 years. when i first started, i had no idea what dps even was. the first time someone asked me what my dps was, i looked at my character panel and gave them my weapon dps. now i'm to a level where i could raid mythic if i felt like and possibly be in a top 1000 guild but i don't like extreme walls. i'm at a point where i have learned most of the minor details. when something like brawlers guild or horrific visions comes around, i try to complete it before i out gear the content so i can enjoy the challenge. but when something like warfronts comes around, i'm reluctant to do anything because it has no chance to lose unless all 20 people are doing nothing. there is no reason to do that content let alone find enjoyment.

with all that said, just because i like games like cuphead which are hard but have simple mechanics i can master, that doesn't mean that game is for everyone. there definitely need to be easier games for children and adults who just want to have fun without feeling the need to read a manual. when it comes to wow, blizzard has no idea how to balance between hard and casual. they put in mechanics like covenants, azerite power, artifact power, titanforging, etc, to try and make them take the game more casually while the casuals actually hate these mechanics because they are balanced around the hardcore players it was meant to break.

blizzard needs to just make mechanics that have depth, but can also be ignored with minimal consequence. that is what i believe allows hardcore AND casuals to enjoy a game.