Page 1 of 3
1
2
3
LastLast
  1. #1

    Mists more CASUAL than WTLK ?

    I often come across numerous threads where people's opinion of WTLK being very casual seems to overshadow how casual the game really is in Mists of Pandaria.

    The common complaint being that "Epics" were not epics any more. And that everyone had access to epics. However, I can't seem to see how that is any different currently. In fact I can only see how worse of we are. I mean at least during WTLK only the last boss in a heroic dropped epic gear, and people didn't have easy access to raid weapons or drops without actually making a considerable effort. However, that is simply taken out of the game by what we now have in LFR. That means everyone has a chance of getting a drop for practically no effort.

    4.3 was quite annoying cause you had so many melee classes that were rolling around with LFR Gurth's and Dual Wielding Gurths in Random BGs. It left me to wonder how many would actually be running with any of the weapons that dropped from normal LK during WTLK? Even now you have a bunch of classes running around with LFR raid weapons.

    Sure raiding was easier than it ever was and more open to the masses but it had the perfect balance. You had hardcore content for those that were willing to challenge themselves and normal raids that were challenging enough for the normal folk. When you killed LK on Normal Mode, you "cleared" the content. Sure you could push ahead on hardcore but that was only a bonus. Even Blizzard accepted that and quite frankly agreed that "heroic" mode was for more of a challenge. However, now you are given 3 modes, and Blizzard expects you to get through all 3 modes there by resulting in constant nerfs to content as they would like everyone to see the content on all 3 difficulties. How is this better to what we have in WTLK?

    Moving on in 5.2 we actually have a complete over haul to how PVP weapons and gear can be acquired. So now even random LegolassXXXWTFXXX can farm his T2 weapon by simply popping all his CDs in 2 mins fights in 2 v 2 and get his Elite gear by the time the next season starts with no restrictions. It doesn't get any casual than this.

    A lot of people complained about the dungeons being nothing more than an AOEfest. But that was only cause most of the dungeons were tuned for level 80s in ilevel 187-200 gear. It became a complete AOEfest when everyone was geared to the max in 232 +. However, dungeoning was actually fun to what we have now. The very first dungeon in Mists has hardly and its basically from one boss to another. The fights are uninteresting and bland.

    In Mists we now have dailies giving Valor Points which were only reserved for killing raid bosses and completing a heroic dungeon. Isn't that very casual from what we had during WTLK?

    However, the introduction of other elements like "farmville" and "pokemon" battles in WoW only show how Casual the game has gotten in Mists compared to what we had in WoW and still people prefer to praise Mists but consider WTLK to be a game for the "casuals".

  2. #2
    4.3 was quite annoying cause you had so many melee classes that were rolling around with LFR Gurth's and Dual Wielding Gurths in Random BGs. It left me to wonder how many would actually be running with any of the weapons that dropped from normal LK during WTLK? Even now you have a bunch of classes running around with LFR raid weapons.
    During LK WotLK everyone was running with bryntroll. i was raiding 10m that time, but still was able to get it in some joint cross guild raid.
    Aldoraan Ret Pally since 2.4

    Outland - love forever

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Aldoran View Post
    During LK WotLK everyone was running with bryntroll. i was raiding 10m that time, but still was able to get it in some joint cross guild raid.
    It hardly had a game breaking proc. And if that is all you could pull out from my discussion I am quite amazed. /sigh

  4. #4
    I expect a larger fraction of the player population will finish the raid content in LFR than completed Wrath on normal mode. In that sense, and in the sense that more casual-oriented stuff (pets, scenarios) was added, MoP is more casual that Wrath.

    I also expect the most difficult raid content of MoP will be harder than the most difficult raid content of Wrath. In that sense, Wrath was more casual than MoP.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  5. #5
    You can pick out fractions of the game and call it casual, and the 'casual' players pick out other fractions and will say only 'no-lifers' will be able to see all the content. There is merit to both, and I do think they did a great job in MOP balancing the two.

    The worst complaint (that has been going on since TBC) is that epics are not epic anymore. I think this is utter bullshit. I was one of the few people in "epics" during classic wow. It's not the sense that nobody else has purple gear on your server that made it feel worthwhile. It's the sense that you were one of the few guilds on the server that killed a hard boss (this still exists in MOP). And seriously, raiding in classic and TBC was still a lot easier than it is now. If you compare the mechanics from these raids to todays raid... Who cares if other people run around in purples or now in a few ilvl lower gear. I raid to see the fights, to play with a bunch of people who want to see the content in a harder way than LFR.

    What's the difference between having a random dude with a LFR Gurth's in your BG when you are swinging the heroic version and have that same random with some blue weapon with the exact same stats and you with an epic weapon? Atleast now the casual player is happy he got to see the story behind the game and has a sense of progression.

    Your 3rd point: You still have hard content for those willing to challenge themselves and even more than in WOTLK (Heroic mode and challenge mode). Blizzard does not expect you to clear all 3 modes... And the raiding was pretty well balanced in MOP (albeit the slower guilds would be massivily overgearing MV for example).

    I do think the PVP move is pretty bad, or they have to make the cosmetic gear for 2200 rating very very cool. However, than the ppl who whined about the gear now will whine again... The other changes to gearing in pvp are pretty nice though, especially for alts! (x week cap).

    I personally think these dungeons are a lot of fun, I definetly did not like spending 1hour in TBC in heroic dungeons. Trash pulling all the time is not fun either. I also believe that the dungeons are a lot less bland than they used to be in previous expansions and they employ a lot more interesting mechanics than they used to in WOTLK.

    Now you actually need reputation to spend your valor points on something usefull so no, I would not say it is more casual than during WOTLK.

    How does the introduction of new content like pet battles make the game more casual?

    Quote Originally Posted by wynterlyn View Post
    I often come across numerous threads where people's opinion of WTLK being very casual seems to overshadow how casual the game really is in Mists of Pandaria.

    The common complaint being that "Epics" were not epics any more. And that everyone had access to epics. However, I can't seem to see how that is any different currently. In fact I can only see how worse of we are. I mean at least during WTLK only the last boss in a heroic dropped epic gear, and people didn't have easy access to raid weapons or drops without actually making a considerable effort. However, that is simply taken out of the game by what we now have in LFR. That means everyone has a chance of getting a drop for practically no effort.

    4.3 was quite annoying cause you had so many melee classes that were rolling around with LFR Gurth's and Dual Wielding Gurths in Random BGs. It left me to wonder how many would actually be running with any of the weapons that dropped from normal LK during WTLK? Even now you have a bunch of classes running around with LFR raid weapons.

    Sure raiding was easier than it ever was and more open to the masses but it had the perfect balance. You had hardcore content for those that were willing to challenge themselves and normal raids that were challenging enough for the normal folk. When you killed LK on Normal Mode, you "cleared" the content. Sure you could push ahead on hardcore but that was only a bonus. Even Blizzard accepted that and quite frankly agreed that "heroic" mode was for more of a challenge. However, now you are given 3 modes, and Blizzard expects you to get through all 3 modes there by resulting in constant nerfs to content as they would like everyone to see the content on all 3 difficulties. How is this better to what we have in WTLK?

    Moving on in 5.2 we actually have a complete over haul to how PVP weapons and gear can be acquired. So now even random LegolassXXXWTFXXX can farm his T2 weapon by simply popping all his CDs in 2 mins fights in 2 v 2 and get his Elite gear by the time the next season starts with no restrictions. It doesn't get any casual than this.

    A lot of people complained about the dungeons being nothing more than an AOEfest. But that was only cause most of the dungeons were tuned for level 80s in ilevel 187-200 gear. It became a complete AOEfest when everyone was geared to the max in 232 +. However, dungeoning was actually fun to what we have now. The very first dungeon in Mists has hardly and its basically from one boss to another. The fights are uninteresting and bland.

    In Mists we now have dailies giving Valor Points which were only reserved for killing raid bosses and completing a heroic dungeon. Isn't that very casual from what we had during WTLK?

    However, the introduction of other elements like "farmville" and "pokemon" battles in WoW only show how Casual the game has gotten in Mists compared to what we had in WoW and still people prefer to praise Mists but consider WTLK to be a game for the "casuals".

  6. #6
    Titan Tierbook's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Charleston SC
    Posts
    13,870
    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    I expect a larger fraction of the player population will finish the raid content in LFR than completed Wrath on normal mode. In that sense, and in the sense that more casual-oriented stuff (pets, scenarios) was added, MoP is more casual that Wrath.

    I also expect the most difficult raid content of MoP will be harder than the most difficult raid content of Wrath. In that sense, Wrath was more casual than MoP.
    harder than yogg 0 lights? me thinks not
    Quote Originally Posted by Connal View Post
    I'd never compare him to Hitler, Hitler was actually well educated, and by all accounts pretty intelligent.

  7. #7
    I dont think anything will ever be as casual as Wrath was. The 25 man GDKP PuG I ran with was 12/12 with 11 HMs done each week. Thats better than some servers. Pretty pathetic when a server cant even raid better than a trade chat PuG lol. Also every server in the game was PuGing 12/12 on normal mode with at least 3-4 HMs every week. Marrowgar HM was a joke, Lootship of course was always done on HM, Festergut/Rotface were faceroll on HMs and so was Dreamwalker. BQL was free loot on HM once you got the addon that told you when to bite people and who to bite. Only ones that could give people problems were maybe PP, Saurfang, LDW, maybe Princes on 25M and of course LK. So basically all WoW players were 12/12. Every single person with an active level 80 at the time had Kingslayer title cause ICC was such a joke. It was a fun raid...but a joke nonetheless.

    ---------- Post added 2013-01-20 at 05:00 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Osmeric View Post
    I expect a larger fraction of the player population will finish the raid content in LFR than completed Wrath on normal mode
    Well if you can beat 100% sure cause I dont see how anyone could not have beaten ICC, at least on normal mode, especially with the buff, which you dont get in LFR. Kingslayer was just as easy to get as Jenkins.

  8. #8
    There is no denying the normal mode raiding is less accessible by random server pugs now in MoP than it was in WotLK. Groups of 10 random shitheads could get together and clear half of ICC (even if it took them hours to do it) with relatively no problem, but I don't see any random pugs on many servers going in and clearing even past Elegon Normal in this tier.

    The normal modes aren't terribly challenging, but they are definitely more "hardcore" than WotLK's normal modes were.

    LFR is basically the old LK normal modes, and the current normal modes are in a weird place between ICC Normal and Heroic, with hardmodes being designed to deliver exactly what they advertise. Hard modes.

  9. #9
    Overall MoP is way more casual then WoTLK. Now anyone can get into LFR and get fully geared and experience "raiding" and having raid gear / tier. In Wrath you had to get together a 10 or 25 man or random (could be brain dead morons) and pug through as far as you could. For some this was easy but I assure it was not so easy on every server. I can't say pugs get further then then now, to me it seems the same overall with MoP maybe being a bit harder but lets face it you can enter 10 man with full LFR gear versus wrath you had last tier at best if you were pugging (in the begging of tier that is, if content was out a while you could be geared but end of tier doesn't really seem to be a concern). 25's I can't say because I do not do them now, but I know back in Wrath you could easily pug 5-7 bosses with some heroics even with terribads getting carried.

  10. #10
    It is much, much, much worse now. It has never been this bad. Now it's an anomaly if someone doesn't have full epic gear, because it indicates they haven't played enough to get it, not they haven't played well enough to get it. Time equals gear now, there are no other barriers except time invested; which is ruinous to a game that's entirely based on reward for feats; or used to be.

  11. #11
    I shouldn't chime in here never playing MoP, but don't forget too - Wrath had seperate lockouts and no LFR - which on its own seems less casual friendly to me.

  12. #12
    Merely a Setback Trassk's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Having a beer with dad'hardt
    Posts
    26,315
    I've always hated the argument between hardcore and casual.

    When Cata was released, blizzard made the mistake of making the content aimmed as the hardcore playerbase, which they admitted to, and said the hardcore players were a minority of the player percentage. So instead of doing something for most of the players, they did only little for them and the rest for the hardcore community.

    The game should not revolve around one aspect of the playerbase. Hardcore, you have your super hard mode heroic raiding, and the more casual, you have LFR and dailies and heroics to do. There is even a middle ground for those who like to balance between casual and hard.

    No game should be presented as one mode.
    #boycottchina

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Tierbook View Post
    harder than yogg 0 lights? me thinks not
    Good thing the expansion isn't over yet.

  14. #14
    Legendary! MasterHamster's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    Land of the mighty moose, polar bears and fika.
    Posts
    6,221
    Yup, it's more casual.

    Casual in the sense that MoP isn't telling non-raiders to f off as soon as they got 463 blues.
    Active WoW player Jan 2006 - Aug 2020
    Occasional WoW Classic Andy since.
    Nothing lasts forever, as they say.
    But at least I can casually play Classic and remember when MMORPGs were good.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Dabrix32 View Post
    I dont think anything will ever be as casual as Wrath was. The 25 man GDKP PuG I ran with was 12/12 with 11 HMs done each week.
    How far into the patch did you reach that point? 3.3 went on for a while to put it mildly.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Servasus View Post
    There is no denying the normal mode raiding is less accessible by random server pugs now in MoP than it was in WotLK. Groups of 10 random shitheads could get together and clear half of ICC (even if it took them hours to do it) with relatively no problem, but I don't see any random pugs on many servers going in and clearing even past Elegon Normal in this tier.

    The normal modes aren't terribly challenging, but they are definitely more "hardcore" than WotLK's normal modes were.

    LFR is basically the old LK normal modes, and the current normal modes are in a weird place between ICC Normal and Heroic, with hardmodes being designed to deliver exactly what they advertise. Hard modes.
    They're hardly any harder. There's constant pubs all the time on my server for heroic MSV and my RL friends, who are anything but the most stellar of raiders as a team, were able to get elegon down the first week they hit 90.

    Even if you can't get elegon the first two bosses in ToES and HoF are prefectly doable.
    “Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.”
    "Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others."
    Ambrose Bierce
    The Bird of Hermes Is My Name, Eating My Wings To Make Me Tame.

  17. #17
    Yes. Things take time instead of any sort of skill to get, even the time required isn't all that much. it's disappointing really, when WoW was someones life at least they used to have something to show for it. Oh well, I guess everyone deserving to have the same shit is what's "fun".

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Shiny212 View Post
    It is much, much, much worse now. It has never been this bad. Now it's an anomaly if someone doesn't have full epic gear, because it indicates they haven't played enough to get it, not they haven't played well enough to get it. Time equals gear now, there are no other barriers except time invested; which is ruinous to a game that's entirely based on reward for feats; or used to be.
    So to you 486 gear = 50-whatever HC gear is?

    ---------- Post added 2013-01-20 at 11:33 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Goldjman View Post
    Yes. Things take time instead of any sort of skill to get, even the time required isn't all that much. it's disappointing really, when WoW was someones life at least they used to have something to show for it. Oh well, I guess everyone deserving to have the same shit is what's "fun".
    From a business standpoint it makes perfect sense to design something that'll only ever be seen by less than 5% of the playerbase?

  19. #19
    Brewmaster insmek's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Las Vegas
    Posts
    1,436
    Quote Originally Posted by wynterlyn View Post
    Moving on in 5.2 we actually have a complete over haul to how PVP weapons and gear can be acquired. So now even random LegolassXXXWTFXXX can farm his T2 weapon by simply popping all his CDs in 2 mins fights in 2 v 2 and get his Elite gear by the time the next season starts with no restrictions. It doesn't get any casual than this.
    This change is to address a very real issue. No matter how skilled a player is, if they picked up PVP partway through a season they were were never going to catch up. PVP is more fun when people are on a more equal playing field. You do want a fair fight, don't you? Because someone who only wants to fight someone who's weaker than them is simultaneously a huge scrub and the Biggest Douche in the Universe™.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shiny212 View Post
    It is much, much, much worse now. It has never been this bad. Now it's an anomaly if someone doesn't have full epic gear, because it indicates they haven't played enough to get it, not they haven't played well enough to get it. Time equals gear now, there are no other barriers except time invested; which is ruinous to a game that's entirely based on reward for feats; or used to be.
    Epic gear ranges from ilvl 470-ish all the way to 500+. That's a big difference in gear, and it ultimately serves to differentiate people with "entry level" endgame gear from "hardcore" endgame gear. Any gear before that exists only for the purpose of getting into endgame raiding/pvp. Everyone gets purples, but the hurrdcore among us get to stroke their e-peen and enjoy their larger number.

    Accessible ≠ Casual.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Nerraw View Post
    How far into the patch did you reach that point? 3.3 went on for a while to put it mildly.
    I remember PuGing the first wing the day it went live. My gear wasnt even that great mostly stuff from that ToC 5 man heroic and some JP gear. Wasnt in full ToGC 25 gear or anything like that. I still laugh and dont understand how people could never beat Saurfang. ICC was a joke. If 100% of people that stepped foot into ICC never killed the LK then there are far more bads in this game than I thought. Its one thing if you never did ICC cause you didnt like raiding. But if you killed the first boss you should have had no problem killing every boss after that. Normal mode might as well have been a 5 man especially once the buff maxed out.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •