Yeah, I also have this issue. For example I could use catch-up Benthic gear to do 8.0 WQ content easily. Problem is - it would feel like I waste my time.
You should clearly understand, that speedrunning requires lots of preparations. So guy above said, that lots of preparations = hardcore. It's not 100% right, but preparations => effort, you put into game. And effort = hardcore.
As you can see in this video, lots of nuances should be taken into account to do proper speedrun. Including exploits. Because, for example, duping is allowed in Journey mode, but in expert mode it shouldn't be, so it's some sort of exploit. Or invulnerability exploit. Or spawn limit exploit. Casual just don't have time to learn all that info, that isn't needed for ordinal gameplay. And I don't even mention, that at the end speedruns usually mean grinding proper RNG.
Last edited by WowIsDead64; 2020-08-26 at 05:04 AM.
I don't care about Wow 11.0, if it's not solo-MMO. No half-measures - just perfect xpack.
Easy vs hard is a completely different axis than casual vs hardcore. For example raids in vanilla were hardcore (i.e. you had to spend a lot of time to be get money, gear, etc. that you needed to do them), but easy (i.e. if you actually had gear to do it, the only challenge was getting 40 people to do anything rather than the actual encounter). Current WoW is kind of casual (i.e. a typical person has enough time to stay relevant, although there are some mechanics in place that work in contrast to that) and hard (i.e. a very small percentage of players is capable of killing a mythic boss while wearing the gear that was intended for the fight; most players can't even do that while outgearing the boss, save for maybe a first boss in a raid tier).
I don't like content that is 'hard' (bosses impossible to solo) in open world, but I love hard content instanced. I work a lot of graveyard and I'm NA, some shit I simply cannot do. Not only that, some open world 'hard' content means once the initial rush of groups doing it dissipates we tardy fuckers are left to rot, even during day time . Its not easy to find a group for open world on 'dead' content in WoW: achievements, bosses, quests, etc.
I can find plenty of players for events in GW2 at 4 in the morning and even get some metas done, yet WoW which supposedly has way more players can't muster a group to get a world boss dead in uldum. it actually doesn't make any sense to me.
I don't think the game is casual unfriendly or casual friendly. The difficulties seem fine to me.
The problem is all the crap surrounding content. Being forced to grind boring borrowed powers every tier and being forced to do the most tedious boring crap the game has to offer.
These people are the reason wow is in such a bad state atm
I'm totally aware that it takes a lot of preparations to speedrun, and also practice etc.
What if I prepare a lot before I go to slay the Ender Dragon in Minecraft (last boss-ish)? I can do that over a very long time while exploring, building and crafting. What's the difference between that and what the speed runner does, if any? Speed runner is just doing it efficiently over a shorter more compressed time period, right? That's what's hardcore? Spending a lot of time in a game over a short time period? Then we're back to the example of me running heroic dungeons for several hours a day vs raid log for mythic N'zoth twice a week. The HC runner would be more hardcore, right?
Hardcore for me would be if you dedicate yourself to something very intensively over a short or long period of time. No matter how difficult what you do is. Be it completing a Dark Souls game naked without a single death or doing a simple workout routine over and over each day.
Oh, yeah, I've almost forgotten about it. Current design has another problem. If you're casual, you do content slower than other players, so you fall behind them, or you just want to replay this content later, on alt for example, at some point this content becomes dead and you no longer can complete it solo. This is big downside for group and pseudo-group (where group requirement is implicit) content. Dunno, what is intention and pros behind such kinds of content, if cons are so big. May be Blizzard want to force so called "interaction" on players? Because they think, that it's fun? May be they have so few players, that they have to force them into newer and newer content via killing older ones? I don't know. Blizzard think, that their shiny cross-realm LFD fixes this problem. But it actually doesn't. As waiting for 1hr for group to kill some rare for your quest chain within just 10 seconds - isn't fun gameplay. Yeah?
Broken Shore for example. I returned to game not long before 7.2. So I fell behind "main stream". And when I reached this content and wanted to do class mount stuff - this content had already been DEAD. And I also couldn't do it solo, because it was way too overtuned and, I guess, intended to be done in LFG groups. I completed 2-3 mounts, but couldn't do this content any longer. And as Argus had similar design, it's destiny was exactly the same.
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It's about "effort" anyway. Dunno, how to explain it better. It's like doing something against "nature". Overcoming yourself. Like sport. If you "just play easy game" - then it's causal. If you do something via some "unnatural" way, like grind perfect RNG just to do things 1s faster - then it's hardcore. You don't play the game. You try to achieve some result. You put effort into it. Not just entertain yourself. It's hard to explain, but it should be obvious.
Running just to keep yourself healthy or just for fun is one thing. Doing it to beat world record is completely different. It requires lots of training, that is unnecessary for ordinal life. It can be called professional. It can be called your job. It can hurt your health and cause traumas. Doing it may seem easy for people, who just watch it from outside. But it would be really hard to do the same for them. Because they have many IRL problems, that prevent them from doing it. Same with hardcore games. Is setting 1s faster WR worth learning all that exploits, tricks, nuances and playing 24/7 to grind that perfect run for you? I guess, no. No, if you aren't streamer, who don't have a job and therefore can play 24/7 and earn money from donations. Is beating Mythic boss worth dealing with higher difficulty level? Is that 24/7 AP grind worth that +0.00000001% DPS? If it's worth, then you're hardcore. If not - casual.
Last edited by WowIsDead64; 2020-08-27 at 04:25 AM.
I don't care about Wow 11.0, if it's not solo-MMO. No half-measures - just perfect xpack.
A Bethesda game with mods to control the difficulty is the perfect level of difficulty. I'll use Fallout 4 and 76 as examples.
Those games are exactly as hard as you want them to be, that's why I always go back. In Fallout if things get too tough, I fall back to a settlement or camp, think things through, maybe hunker down for the night (have mods that make night too dark), then try a different approach. It doesn't get much better than that, that's the essence of raiding and dungeon crawling. Plus it's more of a full experience.
You should try 76 out tbh. People talk a lot of smack on it because of the bugs, but it isn't an easy game by any stretch and you have to put work in to it before you're not wondering why you're not demolishing like the guy next to you, because that happens a lot in that game.
You will be chilling and see a demi god come up and destroy everything in sight and wonder why that isn't you. Unlike WoW, where you are that demi god after reading icy-veins page and grinding 3 diff things for 999 hours.
There's a grind in 76, but you can fast travel and if you party up it gets cut in half. Unlike in Classic where if you party up or join a guild you aren't sure if you'll be cucked on loot or not.
So... much effort + little gain = hardcore?
It very much isn't "obvious" or I would not asking so much^^ You might do speedruns just for fun as a hobby while still having a everyday life with work etc.
Too me it sounds like everyone set their own standard as to what is hardcore and not which in turn makes some things hardcore for some but not for others. That's why it's not obvious. It's all in the eye's of the beholder.
Exactly! Hardcore = low reward/effort ratio. But in this case reward is much wider term, than just "epics per second". It's about how overall how satisfying this game is. Rewards are just part of this feeling.
UPD Hmm. Reward/effort isn't correct. That's, why I talk about effort only as measure of hardcore. Why? Because "reward" is subjective. Hardcore players are satisfied, when they do harder content. Therefore reward/effort ratio can be exactly the same both for casual and hardcore player. Only effort differs.
So overall current game just isn't satisfying. Because all of a sudden Blizzard has narrowed spectrum of players, they see as their target auditory. They think, that it's challenge, competition and power growth - are 3 major things, that make their game satisfying. It's just wrong. There are many other players, who play for other reasons.
Last edited by WowIsDead64; 2020-08-28 at 04:35 AM.
I don't care about Wow 11.0, if it's not solo-MMO. No half-measures - just perfect xpack.
I've already given that answer. Strait smooth way for casual player to progress without suffering from "preparation" period, that can take whole casual content time, i.e. when casual reaches "comfort zone" - he has nothing more to do there. How many times, should I repeat it? Hard 4.0 heroics back in Cata were considered extremely hardcore. MOP dailies were considered extremely hardcore. And now compare them with post-Legion content, like Broken Shore, Argus, Nazjatar, Maw, Torghast, etc. They're JOKE. This is how Wow has changed during recent xpacks. Only fact, that this kinds of content are full of non-soloable rares/elites/mini-bosses/just-big-mobs/large-mob-packs and Blizzard constantly trying to make them mandatory via removing all ways to skip them, i.e. flying, ground mounts, etc. - tells everything about this content.
And now do you remember WotLK, where only thing, casual needed to do - badge runs through heroics. Or Cata 4.3, where players were able to get catch up gear in 3 new 5ppls (that was fun by itself) and then just straight to LFR. Or WOD, where Garrison+Tanaan combo was just perfect casual content and therefore WOD would have been the best xpack ever made, if only it would have had such content on release + even more such content in content patches.
Last edited by WowIsDead64; 2020-08-29 at 07:55 AM.
I don't care about Wow 11.0, if it's not solo-MMO. No half-measures - just perfect xpack.
This is what I don't understand. What do you mean by "preparation"? Many rares are solable, given gear (maybe class as well). You get gear from many sources such as WQ, dungeons, raids, arena, visions, AH. You also have a weekly chest with currency for Azerite pieces.
Yes, it's a long grind to get mythic level of Azerite if you only do a m+ at level 2 but you'll get it, eventually. Yes, it takes a while to get good corruptions. Yes, it's time consuming.
Would it all be solved if you could farm X justice badges per week through different means, ranging from dungeons to raids to pvp with which you could buy gear?
Is it the time investment that is off-putting? It's also progress. Especially as a casual who doesn't do organized raids you'll have a lot of things to do to progress, all by yourself.
I'm pretty flexible and indifferent to many things so it might be impossible for me to understand what you mean. Don't take it personal^^
Raiding and M+ are the PvE combat endgame. Rated BGs and Arenas are the PvP combat endgame.
What about outdoor world combat endgame? What about outdoor world non-combat endgame (such as Lucid Nightmare puzzle)? What about leveling content? What about solo instanced combat endgame (well we have Torghast in SL)?
I don't care about Wow 11.0, if it's not solo-MMO. No half-measures - just perfect xpack.