Did casuals ruin WoW and if so how?

[Arbs]

So,

Cata heroics (pre-nerf) = BC heroics

They bascially were

[Pann]

So,

Cata heroics (pre-nerf) = BC heroics

So, players did not find it fun to spend half an hour in a queue only to find that no matter how well they played they could not complete the dungeon if just one person did not know what to do and those that had not run the instance before bore the brunt of other players' frustration when they messed up.

Quite frankly it was a bad design in TBC and inexcusable in Cata after the popularity and accessibility of heroics in Wrath.

[Glorious Leader]

They're making just as entitled an argument as any other group of players might be (lets pretend for a moment that the playerbase is so easily fragmented into player types). The humorous tidbit here is that a) most casual-centric requests would serve to decrease sub stability (by effectively making content consumable at a faster rate), and b) Blizzard has been listening and making efforts towards said casual playerbase, and it's still not working out in their business interests.

A) Content consumed fast for you is probably content at about the right pacing for actual casuals. Casuals who say dont commit a whole lot of time to the game or can't for whatever reason.
B) Blizzard has made some efforts but they've been half hearted and have largely been concerned with maintaining the hardcore play style in the face of mounting economic pressure to entertain the mass of players who are lvl max cap and don't give a fuck about HM and increasingly now Normal Raiding. In fact I would argue they really don't give a fuck about raiding they just want to progress their characters and all the "casual" content or most of it at any rate doesn't do that.

- - - Updated - - -

Casuals are keeping the game alive... Bad clueless dev's are killing it. the fight between good and evil.

Ironically Yes. To be frank I'm AMAZED they've retained as many casual players as they have considering they keep giving them the finger at every opportunity.

[nekobaka]

So, players did not find it fun to spend half an hour in a queue only to find that no matter how well they played they could not complete the dungeon if just one person did not know what to do and those that had not run the instance before bore the brunt of other players' frustration when they messed up.

Quite frankly it was a bad design in TBC and inexcusable in Cata after the popularity and accessibility of heroics in Wrath.

It shows the impact that just a minority can have on the majority. Casual != bad, but stick one bad in a group of the majority and the ship sinks.

Though I do remember a number of WotLK heroics failing due to one player even at launch. There was still complaints of multi-hour heroic runs, tedious mechanics, and one shot mechanics. A lot of players hitting the ICC heroics already out geared the place allowing caring to happen in the first place. I have seen ICC five man groups wipe due to losing a dps and not having enough output to complete the event. WotLK heroics was not the only place that players got carried. I have had a number of groups where players do end up caring that one person prenerf. Now some fights involved the entire group to be involve in a mechanic like that beam one which after you learn it isnt that hard and was rarely an issue in most of my groups. That boss had a wide enough DPS wiggle room to allow players to focus more on the debuff.

Cata heroics was far from BC heroics. The closest you get is having to do GB with a completely failed bombing run and then you would have something that compared to BC heroics which PuGs did all the time. What is a bad design is making DPS the hide in the corner roll for those who dont want any sort of responsibility to making the tank manage all the mechanics and then expecting these players to assume responsibility and ask them to side step into a beam for a few seconds. I do not understand the mentality of those who do not want to work together as a team and yet do team oriented group based content.

Heroics did not suddenly become popular in WotLK as they was already very popular in BC and had a lot of players of all types participating in them. The next big boost to heroics did not hit until LFD came in which made them a far faster to gear out and burn out form of content which created big problems in Cata which lacked content compared to when LFD launched on top of a years worth of content that many out geared.

[Glorious Leader]

Heroics did not suddenly become popular in WotLK as they was already very popular in BC and had a lot of players of all types participating in them. The next big boost to heroics did not hit until LFD came in which made them a far faster to gear out and burn out form of content which created big problems in Cata which lacked content compared to when LFD launched on top of a years worth of content that many out geared.

This is simple untrue. Wotlk popularized heroics in large part because you could buy lots of different gear from them now and because people were finally starting to hit max level with more regularity then they did in BC. In fact the developers said somewhere that the heroics in BC had very little participation as well.

TBC added them as an alternative form of max lvl content but most players weren't even hitting max level anyway or getting the keys to do them (especially when they required revered). They were not seriously fit for mass consumption until LFD. The "lack of content problem" you describe was actually not a problem for casual players. It was for so called hardcore casuals who played for 20+ hours a week. For actual casual players Cataclysm was fine (difficulty concerns aside).

[Korgoth]

Casuals didn't ruin WoW, the developers reaction to casual players did.

Reactions such as: Removing exclusivity from raiding and pvp gearing. Spending time and resources on things like daily quests and pokemon over raid content. Homogenizing, simplifying, and just down right retarded class changes.

[Tomana]

Reactions such as: Removing exclusivity from raiding and pvp gearing.

Yeah, how did they dare endulging the whining of a minority who wanted to be special.

Spending time and resources on things like daily quests and pokemon over raid content.

I thought we were talking about casual players?

Homogenizing, simplifying, and just down right retarded class changes.

What changes. Paladin in MOP >>>> paladin in BC. Much more fun in all three specs.

[FeliciaMarie]

I think it's funny when people assume or bring up the topic "Do you think casuals ruined the game?". I've been playing sicne the beginning and there have been casuals since day 1. Most of the player base is casual. Without the casuals this population of this game would be hardly anything.

[NewportsDentarg]

If something takes more time, it is by definition, harder.

Also, I take it you never actually tried 4 horsemen back in Vanilla, or KT, or M'uru, etc etc.

Time-Consuming is not by definition harder. One of the most ridiculous statements I have seen in awhile. I

[LeperHerring]

So, players did not find it fun to spend half an hour in a queue only to find that no matter how well they played they could not complete the dungeon if just one person did not know what to do and those that had not run the instance before bore the brunt of other players' frustration when they messed up.

That's why LFD is such a big mistake (or at least using it for every dungeon). You can't expect an LFD group to be able to tackle anything but trivial content successfully. Which means all 5 man content must be trivial junk. WoW lost a lot of depth due to that. Back in vanilla I ran 5-mans exclusively and had a great time (I was an actual "casual"), but that's not going to happen with LFD.

Quite frankly it was a bad design in TBC and inexcusable in Cata after the popularity and accessibility of heroics in Wrath.

There was nothing wrong with it in TBC. Heroics were the top tier casual content (along with Kara/ZA if you wanted to raid), it was not supposed to be something you can mindlessly zerg through with 5 randoms. And Cata heroics had nothing on TBC. The class abilities have grown incredibly since then. In Cata every class had strong AoE (dps, heal, threat) and a bunch of survivability abilities. In TBC only paladins had AoE tanking etc.

[vesseblah]

There was nothing wrong with it in TBC. Heroics were the top tier casual content (along with Kara/ZA if you wanted to raid),

You're 100% wrong and there's 100% proof for that.

When TBC came out originally the item levels for heroics and Karazhan were flipped around. Kara actually dropped tier lower loot than heroic five-mans which made the fives incredibly hard because there was no viable way to gear up for 'em.

TBC was full of "fun" tuning fuck-ups like that all around.

[Pann]

That's why LFD is such a big mistake (or at least using it for every dungeon). You can't expect an LFD group to be able to tackle anything but trivial content successfully. Which means all 5 man content must be trivial junk. WoW lost a lot of depth due to that. Back in vanilla I ran 5-mans exclusively and had a great time (I was an actual "casual"), but that's not going to happen with LFD.

So without LFD and taking even longer to fill the group people would somehow enjoy being at the mercy of one player making a mistake? Halls of Reflection was not trivial content yet for the most part it was successful in Wrath because one player making a mistake would not wipe the group and a skilled/geared group were able to pick up the slack if this happened whereas in Cata it did not matter how skilled the rest of the group was.

There was nothing wrong with it in TBC. Heroics were the top tier casual content (along with Kara/ZA if you wanted to raid), it was not supposed to be something you can mindlessly zerg through with 5 randoms. And Cata heroics had nothing on TBC. The class abilities have grown incredibly since then. In Cata every class had strong AoE (dps, heal, threat) and a bunch of survivability abilities. In TBC only paladins had AoE tanking etc.

There was plenty wrong with TBC heroics ranging from attunements to classes being excluded for lack of CC abilities. Without a guild behind you it was unlikely that you'd ever get to see a heroic in TBC. I don't know what Cata you were playing but every class had their AOE abilities severely nerfed from Wrath,

[melodramocracy]

Time-Consuming is not by definition harder. One of the most ridiculous statements I have seen in awhile. I

He's right, however. Time investment is a factor in difficulty, despite what you may think to the contrary.

[vesseblah]

He's right, however. Time investment is a factor in difficulty, despite what you may think to the contrary.

Let's put this really simple so that nobody should fail to understand it:

If your task is to wait in queue being free to do anything you like while doing it and you know exactly how long it will take, you're essentially claiming that case b is inherently more difficult of the following two.

a) waiting for 100 minutes
b) waiting for 101 minutes

Now please explain to me and the rest of the forum what is the extra difficulty in case b and where does it come from?

[Glorious Leader]

He's right, however. Time investment is a factor in difficulty, despite what you may think to the contrary.

It's true. I find myself challenged to continue to subscribe to the game while I wait in que for an hour for lfr or grind more mindless dailies. It's really difficult alright. Not sure how I managed for so long. I'm some pro let me tell you.

[Bibly]

No. The game is fine

[magik8ball]

I think gating is really one of the big problems with this game. You have to put in so much time to be at an even gear level with everyone else, PvP or PvE. "Hardcore" players don't want to waste their time doing something so simple and well within their skill level, while casuals don't want to waste what precious little time they have to play grinding stuff to get the gear that they won't have much time to use before it becomes outdated.

There really has to be an easier way for all players, casual or hardcore, to access adequate challenges for their skill levels and have those challenges give meaningful rewards.

[DrSteveBrule]

There really has to be an easier way for all players, casual or hardcore, to access adequate challenges for their skill levels and have those challenges give meaningful rewards.

Skill isn't stagnant. It's ideal for a game to make you want to improve on it. Not only do you feel accomplished in something you feel like that skill will help you in the future, for the next set of challenges. You'll probably feel less inclined to part from something you are good at or that you put effort in.

Blizzard needs to treat it's playerbase as one. Quick learner, slow learner, it's irrelavent. You begin with parts of the game that are easy and ramp up to harder challenges, all of which should feel mandatory.

And to make players willing to go through it, award those challenges accordingly.

[SodiumChloride]

Skill isn't stagnant. It's ideal for a game to make you want to improve on it. Not only do you feel accomplished in something you feel like that skill will help you in the future, for the next set of challenges. You'll probably feel less inclined to part from something you are good at or that you put effort in.

Blizzard needs to treat it's playerbase as one. Quick learner, slow learner, it's irrelavent. You begin with parts of the game that are easy and ramp up to harder challenges, all of which should feel mandatory.

And to make players willing to go through it, award those challenges accordingly.

Blizzard can't make players do anything. They can only provide players with things they want to do.

You seem to forgot we are the ones paying them.

[melodramocracy]

It's true. I find myself challenged to continue to subscribe to the game while I wait in que for an hour for lfr or grind more mindless dailies. It's really difficult alright. Not sure how I managed for so long. I'm some pro let me tell you.

Why are you bothering with LFR, don't you have normal ToT down?