I agree with OP, except ruby sanctum... if that wasn't foreshadowing of the quality of content coming.. I don't know what was.
I agree with OP, except ruby sanctum... if that wasn't foreshadowing of the quality of content coming.. I don't know what was.
"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?"
MoP is my third expansion-yes, I'm a Wrath baby-and I have to agree that Blizzard hit the sweet spot between making a game that was challenging for the average player, yet easy to get into. Far too many people base their opinions of Wrath on a couple of notions; one, that the dungeons were easy, and, two, that the raids weren't all that hard. (Everyone on the official forums, if you ask them, was breaking 4K DPS in quest greens and AOEing their way through dungeons while clearing all the raids the week they came out.) Truth was, they weren't easy for the average player. I was wiping in dungeons until 3.3, which was about the time that the launch dungeons-tuned for those people with quest greens and blues-got to the point that people decked out in 232-264 gear could just wallop their way through them. The ICC buff existed for a reason; to get the vast number of people trying to raid and hitting a brick wall in various places through the raid. And it STILL didn't help; only six people in my guild got Kingslayer at level 80, and that was a very typical experience on my server.
Yes, by the time 3.3 came out, you could hit 80 and within a week be in ICC. But it still took ABILITY to do ICC well. That's a game that is perfectly put together to keep someone playing. My best friend, who got me into the game, did that after being away from the game for months. You couldn't really do that in Cata until 4.3 dropped, and it's a lot harder to get ToT geared from nothing than Blizzard lets on. Wrath got that right.
It 100% matters because you are using it as the entire basis for your "OMFG I MUST BE RIGHT SUBS ARE LOWER" argument.
There are far far far more things that affect subs than feature x or feature y, if you can't see that you are in total denial.
But hey go ahead and believe what you want who am I to influence you, I expect no less from MMO-C.
---------- Post added 2013-05-21 at 01:37 PM ----------
You are defo not the only one, but you might be in the minority, this is Blizzards entire problem, every single tiny little thing they do people will be unhappy and come to MMO-C and moan and bitch about it
Buy I would unsub instantly if they went back to Wrath-style healing.
Last edited by mmoc3dde1cb131; 2013-05-21 at 12:39 PM. Reason: speeling!
This is pretty much BS. "WoW is old" is really legit issue. Each xpac will be harder and harder to keep subs. I myself am pretty bored with WoW now because I have been playing it for very long time not because of WoW is bad now or anything. WotLK didn't even gain the most sub. BC gained a LOT more. Subs started to decline at the end of WotLK. CoD and WoW comparision is also dumb. CoD releases on both PC and console. It's FPS game that doesn't require you to pay for subs. EA treats each CoD game as a new game and people buy that shit. All of these show how clueless you are.
I know right! WoW has been turned into rubbish with "ever declining new content" and "rehash of old content". No surprise subs have been declining as well.
Quality is subjective and I won't try to quantify it. I graphed the number of new bosses in 5-mans just to exemplify the fact that Cata and MOP had drastically reduced 5-man content. Yes, it is rubbish that we get merely 6 new dungeons (19 bosses) in MOP compared to 16 new dungeons (57 bosses) in TBC and 15 new dungeons (52 bosses) in Wrath.
I fully agree with OP.
And if someone says anything preCata lacked balance, so what? Cata+ tuning killed whole game with "balance" (which is actually balance explicitly around max level raiding, completely ruining leveling balance which is also a big part of game), dumbed down talent trees and other core elements, hybrid's healing becoming beyond pathetic outside of healing spec, interesting abilities (eyes of the beast, ritual of sacrifice, divine interverntion, etc.) were removed at a cost of making all classes having similar nukes and similar tedious combat flow, taint of dispel system (preCata dispels had no cd, had low mana cost and wouldn't trigger gcd if there was nothing to dispel), etc.
And sry, but simplicity of combat flow was a plus in preCata. Now, if not LFR I wouldn't describe you a single boss, as attention is moved away from actual fight to procs, dbm timers, short-term buffs, cds, floor, cast bars and so on.
Wrath for me is where the current problems with the game began. Badge tokens making content obsolete, LFD removing a huge chunk of social interaction, and recycled and watered instances being presented as new content. Not forgetting the Nax/OS/Maly raid tier was about as bad as raiding has been if you don't count ToTC.
But, good times were had, as pre-LFR there was still some community and interaction that hadn't been cut in the name of instant gratification. And I must admit, Yogg, Algy, and LK were most epic moments in the game before or since.
It's funny though, when cata was released wrath was seen as as bad as it can ever get, and was hated by almost everyone in every post. Now it's the high water mark. People will be saying the same about cata in 2 years time .
Last edited by mmoc53a5d0407d; 2013-05-21 at 01:19 PM.
Although you cannot go on and on. Cause all there was was LFD. It was the only real choice.. You got alot and all from just doing dungeons. If you liked dungeons ofc wotlk gotta be the best expac for you, but there have never been more to do than MoP, and the different ways of gaining stuff. To me it is just i liked the pace of wotlk LFD, but it should be applied to all other content aswell then. .. And those 12 dungeons surely got old to me.
But saying there was much to do in wotlk .. Not true at all.. It was very alt friendly.
The atmosphere - the lack of LFR, the raiding (icc more than anything) difficulty was great. I started raiding back then, not knowing about enchants and such things, but i still got into a raiding guild, and i learned to raid like that. That is FAR FAR FAR more rewarding than the LFR way. I rather suck and know i can get better and with that see the content, then just grinding enough heroics to get the gear ilvl i need to get a free pass to see all the raiding content. I never saw beyond freya in ulduar back then. (and never killed her) and this was in a pug. I sucked so much, very a poor player but i still got to raid. Today they act like the only way of seeing content if you suck is to press the free ticket to lfr. Not very rewarding.. No speciel feeling about that.
Give me 3 difficulties, easy normal and heroic. Easy for the newbies like i was (wotlk standards maybe a bit easier), Normals like they are now, i love the tuning of those, they feel really rewarding when you kill stuff with a somewhat casual guild, while we are never really stuck, and heroic like they are now, harder than any content ever seen before (from LK till now, except madness ofc <_<, crappy fight). And just remove that sick place called LFR. Do some realm mergings, let pugs have their glory back. Trades there were full of pugs when i played there back in wotlk are empty now, together with alot less people on the realms as they got nothing to do when they couldnt pug no more.
Edit: Another notion - i loved questing in the old world before cata, i hate what they did. Doesnt feel like an adventure as much as a world at war where everything is the same no matter where you go. It doesnt feel like uncharted lands you are exploring.
Also the new talent system is too unawarding to people leveling. Sure you have some choices when you hit top lvl and do raiding or pvp'ing, but alot of the time there are still cookie cutter builds. The synergies between the abilities you have with a specc works best together with one ability and that way it become cookie cutter. Back then you could also go out of the masses and not use a cookie cutter build. I loved that every level(or was it every other?) i had something to look forward to, progressing my char even from lvl 10 and onwards, spending the first 10 levels learning a little about the char and pushing for lvl 10 to get that award that points was.
Last edited by wrynil; 2013-05-21 at 01:29 PM.
"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?"
You aren't. I miss Wrath pally tanking too. And volley.
Last (so far) of the 10 level expansions, followed by two smaller ones that both lost subs. First we hear that subs are lost because the content isn't good. Then we hear that subs went away because the content is too grindy. Maybe the problem is that it's just not compelling.
Don't get me wrong, MoP is a solid expansion, and Pandaria is at times intriguing (and quite pretty), but it's not particularly menacing with the exception of Dread Wastes. So it's hard to describe, but that feeling of 'ominous' isn't all that apparent, or at least doesn't really smack you when you first arrive in the way, say, landing in HF or going through the dark portal did. I suspect that things like that sort of stick with players, and set the tone for everything else they view as they go along.
Maybe in the long term, this break is what was needed in the game so the next expansion can absolutely blow folks away in that regard. *shrug*
---------- Post added 2013-05-21 at 09:47 AM ----------
Console players. Enough said.
/glorious race
I always enjoyed the break betwen pacthes and expansions, so we could keep up with the content. Don't get me wrong, I like having lots of stuff to do, and am greatly enjoying Pandaria. However, right now I have lots of time to dedicate to the game. Even so, I am getting overwhelmed by how fast they are launching new content... When Real Life gets rougher, I don't know if I will be able to keep up and probably will lose some interest in the game...
I think Blizzard has yet to find a good balance. 1 year of Black Temple, 1 year of ICC and 9 months of Dragon Soul is certainly taking too long. But giving the masses only 5 or 6 months of Tier 14 with 14 bosses after leveling all the way to 90 and still grinding dungeon gear is too little time, and might prove even more disruptive than taking too long.
I miss PvE in Wrath (although I'm loving raiding right now), and I think we could adopt a similar model for future raid tiers.
10 man normal - slightly easier than 25 man, lower ilvl, few "TF" drops, low chance for 3 drops per boss
25 man normal - harder than 10 man, higher ilvl, more "TF" drops, 6 drops per boss
10 man heroic - similarly tuned as 25 man heroic, reduced ilvl gap between 25man heroic and 10man heroic gear
25 man heroic - slightly higher tuned than 10 man heroic, highest ilvl option
25 man LFR - faceroll, keep as is
I'm aware that people aren't happy with the current state of LFR, but I think it actually serves it's purpose as a way for people to experience content and catch up in gear.
As a 10m raider, it stings to suggest that we get the "downgraded" version of the gear, but I think adding an extra "difficulty" of raiding currently solves two issues:
1. It'll make normal raiding more accessible to family/friend/casual guilds. ToT is a great raid and our 10m team is progressing into heroics now, but I can see how more "casual" guilds may be getting stuck early in the raid. The fights (at least during normal progression) can be challenging for healers and our first few Iron Qon kills were DPS checks (~10-30 seconds from Enrage). Making 10m slightly easier, as they were in WoTLK, would help more guilds experience more content in normal difficulty - which is the difficulty that I believe Blizz wants the majority of the population to experience the content in (opposed to LFR as it is now).
2. Making 10m easier will allow people to pug successful normal raids. Unless you are on a High or active Medium population server with a pool of good raiders, I would imagine forming a successful ToT raid is extremely difficult. Apart from Jin'Rokh, the bosses in ToT require a lot of coordination (interrupts on Horridon, target swaps on Council, etc.) that will cause a raid to wipe if not performed accurately. Fights shouldn't be tuned down to LFR levels where fight mechanics aren't needed, but they shouldn't be to the point where one mistake can cause an entire raid to wipe.
10m progression guilds (like mine) shouldn't be neglected either, which is why I proposed a smaller gap between 10m heroic and 25m heroic gear. If the ilvl difference between 10 man normal vs 25 man normal gear is (hypothetically) 7 levels, as it was in WoTLK, the ilvl difference in heroic gear could be brought down to 3 or 4. The heroic fights in a 10m heroic raid would have to be easier to accomodate for a lower ilvl, but I'm sure the numbers can be tweaked to make sure neither raid size has an overall advantage.
One last note - I proposed a chance for a 3rd loot drop in 10 man raids because RNG can be cruel and sharding loot after loot can be a bigger hinderance for 10m guilds vs. 25m guilds (at least in my experience).
I believe these changes could address the decline in normal raiding that we've seen in addition to spurring on more community interaction.
Wrath was my favorite time of WoW. I still love running back to Ulduar and ICC for nostalgia.
Regen#1804 need NA overwatch friends.
None of this is correct... we had to use CC on trash. Seriously? the Nexus you never used CC? The hunters, healers and guardsmen in the frozen section? You didn't focus-fire on the golems/casters during Bran? You never CCed those spinning runemasters in Halls of lightning? You never stunned a raptor, which kept the trolls from dismounting? You never CCed the hunters riding the rinos? You never CCed those hunters that shot flares or put up that HORRIFIC reflecting shot shield?
None of you remember that? Seriously?
I was more referring to the fact that I think Wrath has had an influence on S9 and S12 than trying to imply it has gotten better. But, yes, I admit about my initial points that usually something is extremely broken at the start of expansions within arena (dk/paladin, resto shaman, warriors one by one) before they try to even it all out at the end. Not sure if Resto shaman ever got there in Cata since I wasn't paying attention before I quit, but hey.
Stunning mounted riders (happened in Zul'aman too) isn't anything new... and doesn't really count.
Otherwise, I remember stunning (as a holy paladin) the 2nd priest on the extra heroic mini-boss in Nexus, but CCing the Mage Hunters? No. Not necessary at all from my experience since the second week of Wrath. Reflective shields being a problem (like the ones in Violet Hold)? That's something that all of my guilds combined used to break out in laughter at people when it happened. Was a good bonding experience, though =P
Last edited by Confirm Deny; 2013-05-21 at 04:47 PM.