Tune WotLK up, a lot

[Dequanacus]

Hello all,

TBC has suffered a big problem. We all knew the content so good from doing it back in the day, then from farming it for mogs and what not over the years after. Player experience and more complex mechanics as of recently.. it all allowed us to faceroll the content in BC classic.

There is 5 to 6 times more people running around on 4sb T6, warglaives... so many amani warbears the very week of release. I dare to say that, right now, the average server gear is the same as it was when we were deep into SWP over a decade ago, since not that many even got past Muru by the time the zombie event started anyway...


Now WotLK comes and I see 3 big problems.
1- More recent content and more popular.
2- Easier raids in average.
3- Far more accesible end game content.


If we facerolled BC content, what are we going to do with WotLK´s? I think a base HP and dmg buff should be applied to all dungeon and raid bosses. A very simple way to ensure that we do not have guilds pulling Alone in the Darkness out of their butt in the first or second week... I don´t even ask for deeper work, just a plain, base buff to all, just to buy us some extra time.

It will simply not be fun. Imagine Naxx.. it was a faceroll back then, so today we might as well go as levels 75 to make it stick a bit? Everyone is going to get there on full SWP sets lol... (remember, some BC loot goes well to Ulduar)


That´s all I think WotLK classic will need I fear a lot of people will burn out of it too easily otherwise.

Thoughts?


Btw, classic haters don´t even bother replying, this is for people genuinely interested in WotLK classic Leave the toxicity away.

Are far more players geared now compared to when this content was new? Absolutely. Are many players still absolutely awful at the game? Absolutely. Alienating those players doesn't seem like a good idea and speaking personally at least, the content was just as easy back in the day as the only real roadblock was finding enough good players to group with and the guilds that had those had very little issues with the actual content.

[Aphrel]

Hard modes will be full cleared week 1 in every raid, barring *maybe* 25H LK just because of the enrage.

I don't think you fully understand just how easy Wrath was or how much better the players and tools of today are. Even on gigabuffed private servers, with 150%+ HP buffs and 50%+ damage buffs, bosses are full cleared week 1 quite easily.

pretty sure even LK will die aswell. Can always cheese it by stacking a godawful amount of locks

[shise]

This is the worst idea I've ever read on these forums.

We've already seen from SoM that trying to appeal to the 1% of the most hardcore players is a recipe for disaster. If anything, Blizz should aim for more accessibility, not less.

What are you talking about? That is totally not what this is about.

My point is to make fights last more than 2m inutes... not to make them stupidly complex and hard.

No 1%... actually I want it to appeal to the 80%.

[BeepBoo]

Players with digitally invested lives can't gatekeep.

There's a psychological difference between getting as powerful as absolutely possible within the confines of a game and still having a difficult time, whereby a relatively small portion of people are able to beat something and you get to feel elated to be part of that... and doing something in an intentionally obtuse fashion while everyone else steam rolls it.

[Coffeh]

What are you talking about? That is totally not what this is about.

My point is to make fights last more than 2m inutes... not to make them stupidly complex and hard.

No 1%... actually I want it to appeal to the 80%.

They do last more than 2 minutes. Just because the elite, professional gamers breeze through them doesn't mean they should be balanced for those types of the top 1% of raiding guilds. Wrath is fine the way it is. Heroic raids are not going to be easy for the average raider to begin with. They're going to struggle.

[Celarent]

There's a psychological difference between getting as powerful as absolutely possible within the confines of a game and still having a difficult time, whereby a relatively small portion of people are able to beat something and you get to feel elated to be part of that... and doing something in an intentionally obtuse fashion while everyone else steam rolls it.

The same point the OP made in response, which is fair...except that this is a nearly 15-year-old game being released on account of nostalgia, and the original draw of Wrath was its accessibility. Aside from decent counter-arguments being made about heroic raiding's actual difficulty, this seems the wrong venue for extreme challenge.

That said, competitive metas pop up all the time. An Iron Man variation would be easy to curate *and* track online without disrupting the apparently unforgivable flow of proverbial warbears.

[BeepBoo]

this seems the wrong venue for extreme challenge.

I don't disagree. The only thing I ever wanted out of any of these re-releases was a rebalancing so I could be a retnub and actually do dmg in raids. I've been waiting on THAT experience since the actual fucking game came out (as in OG vanilla) and I signed the dumb petition that even got bliz to acknowledge the market for what became wow classic release.

Clearly I'm never going to get my wish, so I don't really care about any of the re-releases at this point. Was just making an observation.

[Berndorf]

The same point the OP made in response, which is fair...except that this is a nearly 15-year-old game being released on account of nostalgia, and the original draw of Wrath was its accessibility. Aside from decent counter-arguments being made about heroic raiding's actual difficulty, this seems the wrong venue for extreme challenge.

That said, competitive metas pop up all the time. An Iron Man variation would be easy to curate *and* track online without disrupting the apparently unforgivable flow of proverbial warbears.

Not disagreeing with your overall point but the bolded part is just sort of strange to me. Accessibility was part of the appeal of Wrath but wow was at that point the biggest phenomenon in video games even before Wrath came out and made changes towards that compared to vanilla and tbc. The biggest draw of Wrath I would say was it building on what was there already then adding what could be seen as the completion of the primary story line from wc3. Accessibility was just part of it which included adding things like the dungeon finder and heirlooms plus making the leveling experience easier.

[shise]

They do last more than 2 minutes. Just because the elite, professional gamers breeze through them doesn't mean they should be balanced for those types of the top 1% of raiding guilds. Wrath is fine the way it is. Heroic raids are not going to be easy for the average raider to begin with. They're going to struggle.

Dude no, stop with that silly elitists this elitists tat argument...
I play in a NORMMAL guild, and we ram through everything in no time. Illidan never gets into demon phase, and we are not pushing or try hards, we are normal.

People miss the point: Classic BC and probably WotLK start up on the latest build, with nerfs and buffs. This already makes things easier by default and we are also stronger. Combined with knowing what to do at every single fight.

Yes, fights do last an absurd short time. Sure not all fights last 2 minutes, but maybe they last 4... Illidan used to take 15 or more minutes as a fight alone.

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Is this thread a part of the "you think you do, but you don't" sentiment?

How?

This post is about: buff the fights a bit, so they last more than 2 minutes, so we acn enjoy our classes. That´s all.

[kranur]

Dude no, stop with that silly elitists this elitists tat argument...
I play in a NORMMAL guild, and we ram through everything in no time. Illidan never gets into demon phase, and we are not pushing or try hards, we are normal.

People miss the point: Classic BC and probably WotLK start up on the latest build, with nerfs and buffs. This already makes things easier by default and we are also stronger. Combined with knowing what to do at every single fight.

Yes, fights do last an absurd short time. Sure not all fights last 2 minutes, but maybe they last 4... Illidan used to take 15 or more minutes as a fight alone.

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How?

This post is about: buff the fights a bit, so they last more than 2 minutes, so we acn enjoy our classes. That´s all.

Man, what is it so hard for you to understand?
Outside of t7, most of the fights are much higher tuned in the hard mode and heroic modes.

Illidan's demon form phase was also being skipped in the original tbc, just not in the first weeks because t6 was released too early and people got in with t4 and some t5 gear, unlike full t5 bis like today.

To add to that most of the people were just new and had no clue what they were doing and how to do it better. If you go ahead and increase the values, you're just shitting on the people that are new or didn't play WoW for the past 15 years just to please some crowd that has.
If some people steamroll the content, that's fine, that is the result of practicing the mechanics for 15 years and perfecting their gameplay, nothing wrong with that.

It makes no sense to complain about the difficulty a game when you go through it for the 999th time and it feels easy because you now know the ins and outs of it, while in reality the game hasn't really changed.

If you really want to do actual challenging content, classic games that have dissected for 15+ years don't make a good choice. You can take a tank and spank boss and increase its values all you like, at the end of the day it will still be tank and spank, just more tedious.

[Mnemosia]

I do remember the hard modes on Wrath were actually hard, as in Lich King and Yogg 0 for example. We have also been calling for original Sunwell prenerf and we got Vashj prenerf too which I enjoyed a lot. I know not every boss is going to be hard but I'm sure some of them will still pose a challenge for the majority of people.

But the point of the game it's still to beat them, and we are more experienced 10 years later so it's kinda normal that we go through them more easily. TBC barely had resources or guides, even people who played well did gear badly or made wrong talent choices or bad raid comps (there's still people nowadays doing that so...). All of that together made bosses last a few minutes more, I don't think there's anything wrong with the game itself, it's just that for the time and development that was what existed and now both games and players are more experienced and complex.

If we change that, then it's not actual true original experience (and I'm not a purist on this anyway, but just mentioning the point of many people who want to relive it) even if it feels easier now.

I joined TBC on a casual guild and switched to a speedrun more hardcore-ish one. Vashj with the casual one was a nightmare, and a piece of cake with the speedrun one. First one killed it a few times with several wipes, second one consistently every week oneshotted. There was still a difference. Back then first guild probably wouldn't even have killed her at all. I still think it's fine for people to see the content and the less hardcore ones will still do it a slower pace which is proportional to skill/time invested/interest, whatever you want to call it. I think the game should cater to different levels of players and not just hardcore. Yes, it feels shitty to have shorter fights. Yes, I remember being on Vashj post nerf being there in the middle like 'man this is boring as fuck'. Still, you need a balance. And some of WotLK hard modes and heroic bosses do have a nice balance even if they are going to be easier now. There's no fix for 'players just got more experience and resources and this game is 10 years old' other than purposefully changing the original game, which is uh... having arguments on your playerbase for months.

I'd say just enjoy the most you can of the harder fights. There's still some room to enjoy them like Vashj or KT, and I do hope Sunwell prenerf will keep up some of the expectations. I don't expect us to do 300+ tries on M'uru, but I'm sure it's also not going to be oneshot the first week by anyone.

Having said that I wouldn't say no to an optional +Hard mode buff if people want bigger challenges. I would probably click it myself but not want it as the main immutable option. Keep the original game as is as a base for everyone, then have people choose if they want a modified version that is harder. Not sure how hard is to do that but I think that could be a nice balance.

[Northern Goblin]

M'uru phase 1 will be nothing like it once was. Guilds aren't stuck in the "only warrior is tank" mindset they were in 2007, and enjoy significantly easier aoe tanking of the adds.

[storn206]

M'uru phase 1 will be nothing like it once was. Guilds aren't stuck in the "only warrior is tank" mindset they were in 2007, and enjoy significantly easier aoe tanking of the adds.

I strongly doubt that was still a thing in Sunwell. Start of the expansion sure but not at that point

[Onikaroshi]

I strongly doubt that was still a thing in Sunwell. Start of the expansion sure but not at that point

It wasn't, paladins were highly valued in aoe tanking by ZA, you always had one for the bird boss.

[Northern Goblin]

I strongly doubt that was still a thing in Sunwell. Start of the expansion sure but not at that point

Most people maybe used one (or a holy paladin in some prot gear) for Felmyst adds, but most guilds wouldn't slap one on Brutallus for example.

Between them having prot warrior MTs since Vanilla for older established guilds, there was a lot of copycat/take as gospel truth along the lines of "Whatever Kungen says"

[schwank05]

People were already burned after the second week of BT
Came back for the bear in ZA he got burned after the third unsuccessful bear run
Too many servers, too many dead servers
My guess the success will be on populated server (like Pagle, Faerlina, Mankrik, Benidiction for Us East) just forgot the low and the medium

Bear run is stupid easy we have been farming 2 a week since release. I have been having a blast in Hyjal/ BT. I prefer Hyjal, but we are currently Focusing on Killing Illidan we will have a full 3 hours to kill him Thursday I am hoping that happens and we can get BT down to 1 night clears and do Both Raids in 1 night saving our 2nd Raid night for Alt raids.

[Bigbazz]

One of the major reasons WotLK was so successful was because of how accessible it were. Doing everything harder wont automatically make it better.

The tryhards will clear content no matter what in the earlier versions of wow. classic, bc, wotlk never really was hard bar a few exceptions.

But it was accessible and ALOT of ppl played it, especially wotlk. the most accessible xpac.

It will be easier than it was originally for the same reason TBC was, being on end patch where classes overall do more dps and have better survivability. It'd be nice if WOTLK Classic wasn't easier than WOTLK due to class changes. You can see it on private servers, some classes are broken strong in T7 doing massively more dps while others are even weaker than they were (example Fury Warrior, nerfed in every patch).. Good guilds already know the 3.3.5 meta from private servers and will turn up with raid groups that look vastly different to 2008 due mostly to 2010 tuning being in the game already, and every tier until ICC is going to be some hilariously easy version of the game.

Naxx and TOTC (normal) were already among the easiest raids ever released, while Ulduar has some tough fights they will be undertuned on 3.3.5 talents.. If Blizzard is going to do a lazy release end patch tuning then WOTLK is going to suck for a few specs that were great in the original T7, while some new specs will be gods relative to ilvl, and if Blizzard doesn't touch the numbers the bosses will be hilariously easy even compared to in 2008/2009.

WOTLK should have many changes to balance, or it's just going to be plain awful.

Is this thread a part of the "you think you do, but you don't" sentiment?

People have definitely changed their minds to wanting to play Classic but with some of the bullshit removed. Each iteration of the game is super close to being amazing... Classic isn't Vanilla though, because you're not doing the content with the same classes you were back then, many classes had talent swaps, new talents added or buffed/changed significantly. New stats added into the game, some stats buffed/nerfed.

Example is like Haste in TBC for casters being changed, massive change to the game. In WOTLK you had for example a huge buff to Armor Penetration in Ulduar, where in T7 it was an undesirable stat and that made some old Naxx T7 items now very desirable even during T8. If you're on end patch you're not playing the game as it was back then, so changes to improve the game would be welcome.

Bosses being even easier than they were originally isn't a thrilling concept.

[Utrrabbit]

Horrible idea in every single possible way.

[RickJamesLich]

Classic should be a museum not new content with updated challenges.

I gotta disagree entirely, classic for many players is simply more fun than what retail has to offer. The reality is that for a lot of players retail has stunk for 10+ years. Us classic players don't ask for much, but toss us some bones here or there, a new raid, zone, or dungeons would be nice, not to mention classic last time around had a lot of players so blizz can make $$$ if they do it right, don't just release the same old stuff though.

[Playintrafic]

Pre nerf is a buff for 99% of the player base that never experienced the fights in that state.

The fights were not released in their 2.4.3 state and are therefore a buff on what the fights were like during the original 2.4.3

You think they can just do 2.0.1... not it would be a waste of time, they dont have backups of all that old code. Never thought they would need it. The just released on 2.4.3 because it was the most fixed version before the Wrath pre-patch.

Yeah it is gonna make a good bit of pre-nerf content easier, some of it maybe even do-able. 100% certain the World 1st of Lady Vashj was a bugged kill. Did anyone actually kill her before she was patched? KT was fucking borked too. Bad tuning and bugs =/= difficulty. Especially when servers and gaming computers were far less powerful in 2007 than now. Not to mention even in wrath I still guildmates on dialup or satellite internet.