Harder Content = Better?

[AyuZ]

Before I begin, this video; --SNIP--, intrigued me very so.

Now, the video is quite long but it goes like this; In vanilla Mike goes on to explain how that when Naxxramas FIRST came out, only 1% of the population saw it before BC hit, granted there was 7-8 million subs around then, that's roughly 70,000+ people seeing it. Mike says that this was NOT a bad thing, it instilled a great sense of a "journey" into the game. I personally remember in vanilla it was a journey in itself just getting to 60, and once there, I felt as if raids were a forbidden territory for me and I was almost intimidated by the thought of a 40 man raid. He then says that in BC, the trend of difficult pursued, and he's right. Heroic dungeons beat the living hell out of you, if you missed a CC or pulled aggro, you were dead. Not to mention that it took a week or LONGER for any endgame boss to be downed (Meaning the first boss of a raid)! Now-a-days it's within 2 days!

People started complaining that they didn't get to see content and in response Blizzard really watered the game down, it's really not the same, I know there is heroic raids but it still isn't the same, what do you guys think? Do you think that a harder, more "mysterious" (In terms of never seeing content because of how hard it was to get to), WoW was better? I really feel like when I hit 90, it wasn't a journey to get geared, but more of just filling the iLvL requirements and prerequisites Blizz implemented.

[insmek]

Quite simply, no. Harder content is not better for the community or the game. Cataclysm made this mistake, and Blizzard course corrected with Mists. Now, I think that harder content should always be an option for those willing to seek it out. Heroic raiding and challenge mode dungeons are the manifestation of this right now, and I think most people are fairly happy with those.

I don't think that players are wrong for wanting to kill the boss and see how the story ends without having to watch it on Youtube.

[AyuZ]

Quite simply, no. Harder content is not better for the community or the game. Cataclysm made this mistake, and Blizzard course corrected with Mists. Now, I think that harder content should always be an option for those willing to seek it out. Heroic raiding and challenge mode dungeons are the manifestation of this right now, and I think most people are fairly happy with those.

I don't think that players are wrong for wanting to kill the boss and see how the story ends without having to watch it on Youtube.

Yeah I forgot to mention the opening Cata difficulty, I personally think it was great, people bash Cata heavily but I think before the next patch, it was golden. Heroics were HEROIC. You didn't just waltz into there and receive your preraid gear, you had to focus, learn, and gain essential skills that you will carry to when you can raid. I will never forget my first heroic Stonecore or Heroic SFK run, Ozruk, the most notorious party wiper of that time lol, or Baron Ashbury, where if your interrupts weren't on point, you would be in for a loooooooooooooooooong fight.

[poogle]

The hardest thing about vanilla was getting 40 competent people to log in regularly.


Using the first fight of each expansion as an example (excluding wrath, since it was recycled):

Lucifron (dispel, tank boss around corner & kill adds)
Attumen the Huntsman (stand in a certain spot and shoot him)
Halfus (OMGWTF dragons, whelps & explosion everywhere)
Stone Guardians (5 mechanics to watch for & unusual tank swapping)

Honestly can you sit there and tell me the bottom 2 aren't more difficult by a significant margin, in terms of tactics. What made the earlier portions of WoW difficult was lack of information, poor class design & horrible itemisation. The game wasn't harder in terms of what we had to do, we just knew less about how the game worked and apparently so did the developers (spi on warrior set gear, paladins healers preferring cloth, some specs being 2 buttons etc.). It has a lot to do with the amount of information we have available & the amount of players that test content before release. It's been quite a while since I've gone into a new tier without already knowing what everything does.

I agree that I miss the BC-style heroics.

[Wishblade]

I like it much more now, but I don't mind Blizz making some really hard challenges, like mechanics in Challenge Modes not mentioned in the Journal, or Ra-den not having any info in the journal at all. Some secrets are nice, but difficulty is fine atm imo.

[Golden Yak]

For me, it's more exciting to watch other people tackle harder stuff. The times when I've attempted the higher difficulty content myself haven't been any more enjoyable then doing the same stuff on lower difficulty - even when I completed it successfully. I felt greater sense of relief when it was over, but I wouldn't exactly call it 'better', and I really don't have any desire to do it again (and again and again).

[AyuZ]

The hardest thing about vanilla was getting 40 competent people to log in regularly.


Using the first fight of each expansion as an example (excluding wrath, since it was recycled):

Lucifron
Attumen the Huntsman
Halfus
Stone Guardians

Honestly can you sit there and tell me the bottom 2 aren't more difficult by a significant margin, in terms of tactics. What made the earlier portions of WoW difficult was lack of information, poor class design & horrible itemisation. The game wasn't harder in terms of what we had to do, we just knew less about how the game worked and apparently so did the developers (spi on warrior set gear, paladins healers preffering cloth, some specs being 2 buttons etc.). It has a lot to do with the amount of information we have available & the amount of players that test content before release. It's been quite a while since I've gone into a new tier without already knowing what everything does.

I agree that I miss the BC-style heroics.

Yes the 40 man aspect was more of an annoyance, but watch the video I linked and go about passed half way when he states the dates of wold firsts for bosses in BC. It will blow. your. mind. compared to todays firsts, I miss it.

[Yriel]

Do you think that a harder, more "mysterious" (In terms of never seeing content because of how hard it was to get to), WoW was better? I really feel like when I hit 90, it wasn't a journey to get geared, but more of just filling the iLvL requirements and prerequisites Blizz implemented.

For me, no. I always found it stupid that they made a big fuzz around Illidan, made a badass intro video to the expansion and then for most people the only place they actually saw him in game for a second was when they finished the Netherdrake dailies.
I never got the appeal of this "There is a boss out there that i will never see, how cool is that..." thing. When i play a computer game i want to see the big things.

But in the end it is a question like "Metal or Rap ?", different people have different opinions.

[MrHappy]

a challenge is fun with the right group of people. A wipe-a-thon in pugs gets old fast

[Osmeric]

Harder content is the dev catering to their own egos, ahead of the interests of their employers and stockholders. It is bad for the game as a business.

[AyuZ]

For me, no. I always found it stupid that they made a big fuzz around Illidan, made a badass intro video to the expansion and then for most people the only place they actually saw him in game for a second was when they finished the Netherdrake dailies.
I never got the appeal of this "There is a boss out there that i will never see, how cool is that..." thing. When i play a computer game i want to see the big things.

But in the end it is a question like "Metal or Rap ?", different people have different opinions.

I see what you mean, and it's a valid point. I personally think that LFR really, really was a bad move. Cause you essentially see everything dumbed down, and it's really anti-climatic. The fact that I can press a button, get into a group, and kill the Sha of Fear, essentially THE end game boss for this current content patch, without even TRYING, is kind of ridiculous.

[Osmeric]

I personally think that LFR really, really was a bad move.

LFR saved the game.

[AyuZ]

LFR saved the game.

Not being arrogant, but is this a joke? Elaborate please!

[Trassk]

Hard mode content is for a minority of players. The Devs themselves said the mistake that made in cata was after wrath, they tried to have the content focused to much on hard mode, from the 85 heroics to raids, and they admitted it was to focused on a small minority of players who complained about wanting the game to be harder.

Personally, I feel the difference in mists in how the introduction of heroics and scenarios allows a smooth progression to getting geared up.

[Osmeric]

Not being arrogant, but is this a joke? Elaborate please!

The decline in Cataclysm was serious and accelerating, right up until the patch they introduced LFR. At that point, subs stabilized for half a year. The small hardcore minority was upset, but many of the much larger non-hardcore majority came back. Had they stuck with the original Cataclysm design philosophy through the end of 4.3 things would have been very dire indeed.

In general, catering to the hardcores, those who actually do hard mode raids seriously, is a terrible idea. They are just insignificant in number. Even normal mode raiders at T11 (or T14) difficulty are not a large fraction of the player population. They get far more dev attention that the revenue they produce would warrant.

[Darsithis]

This thread can stay open but that video is forbidden here.

[skitzy129]

I see what you mean, and it's a valid point. I personally think that LFR really, really was a bad move. Cause you essentially see everything dumbed down, and it's really anti-climatic. The fact that I can press a button, get into a group, and kill the Sha of Fear, essentially THE end game boss for this current content patch, without even TRYING, is kind of ridiculous.

If you actually kill Heroic Sha, you would see and feel the significant difference between the two.

Do not mistake an LFR clear and a Heroic clear as the same thing. LFR might as well be interactive Youtube. Do you think Youtube allowing game footage is a really really bad move?

[Trassk]

Not being arrogant, but is this a joke? Elaborate please!

You must be kidding right? What, are you one of the small minority of players in a hard mode guild that can't understand why people don't just join a guild themselves to see content?

LFR allowed everyone to see raiding content, and have something to do outside of daily heroics, even if they did not have a guild. The statistics of how many people did raiding content prior to LFR was so small, to the devs it felt like they were putting all this effort into making these raids and only a tiny percentage players got to see it.

LFR changed that and now everyone gets to see the content, and rightly so.

[Deleted]

This thread can stay open but that video is forbidden here.

just out of pure curiosity, not complaining, why so?

--------------------------

To be in topic

It depends, on how harder it is. If it is so hard that it becomes frustrating then it is not ok, especially on a MMO that need to keep people engaged over long period of time, at the same time too easy is bad too huh, don't get me wrong. It is a matter to strike a balance that WoW do perfectly by applying what has been applied most games: introducing different difficulty levels, easy, normal and hard.

In general extremly hard games are ok for Single Player or normal Multiplayer game that people can play, forget, and play it again at a later time without too much time and money investment.

Also the argument in regard that "in BC/Vanilla the boss took longer to get down" it is quite stale, the bosses were not really that much more difficult than now, and now we're not seeing something that we've not seen in the past except that when we get something new then we have people complaining that is "gimmicky/annoying/etc"

Classes were still half broken or in need of serious tweaking and there was not much of a community sharing constantly video and hints that are now omnipresents.

Also the game is 8 years old the average player is now better so are the ones in the top guilds.

There are still plenty of jackasses that do not know left to right but a "bad" player now is probably better than a "bad" player then. Please consider that the definition of "bad" here is not the guy that play tank and go with spirit gear huh. Let's set the bar to someone that maybe does not push his char to the extremes, make some bad choice in gear, maybe missing some enchant or dies a litttle too much on avoidable stuff but still able to contribute a bit to the fights.

[poogle]

Yes the 40 man aspect was more of an annoyance, but watch the video I linked and go about passed half way when he states the dates of wold firsts for bosses in BC. It will blow. your. mind. compared to todays firsts, I miss it.

BC still suffered from many of the same problems as Vanilla until you actually got into the raid tier, and again it was a problem of people in my experience. When my guild had people to raid with we made steady progress, but a lot less people were interested in raiding back then. There was also the issue of the gear gap, you had a lot of work to do to catch up tiers until they released the extra waves of badge gear near the end.

Then there was the transition between the first & subsequent tiers. Starting raids as a 10m experience then shifting everything everything else up to 25 was a huge problem. Guilds had to either mass recruit or merge to push forward, but when the number of raiders was less than it is now it was very hard.

Attunements were also a choke point that held progress back. Not just that they existed, but that it involved running the harder heroics that required certain group elements to succeed. If you had an enh shaman, warrior & rogue that need to get attuned then chances are you would have to run 3 different groups to get it done because you needed the ranged & CC for those places. Add in the daily lockout & only having so many tanks/healers and you were looking at a decent delay just to even walk in the door for SSC/TK. On a similar note the demise of resist fights solved another one of these problems.

As far as world firsts go I never really cared much about that - whether or not it takes some other guy 2 months or 2 weeks to clear the tier doesn't change my game play, nor does it make me think "wow this tier is going to be so easy if they can do it in 2 weeks". The elite might be clearing it faster, but the general raiding populace isn't in my experience. Heck the tier is almost over and most guilds haven't even cleared normal.