Is it time for tiered content to return?

[Dusty tome]

With the rng/grind fest that is bfa do you think it might be time to return to tiered content? To the idea that there should be content of all difficulty levels rather then difficulty levels for all content?

I can only speak for myself but the excessive rng of bfa has left a craving in me for some good well balanced tiers. No wacky loot. No scaling difficulty. Just a expansion with a measured and gradual difficulty increase from start to finish.

What are your thoughts on it?

[Azerate]

No.

A system with multiple difficulty options caters best to players of various skill levels and should remain in the game. The additional difficulty levels are among the best additions to the game ever.

If you just make a raid with 2 first bosses being easy, then 99% of the players won't see past those 2, rendering the content useless.

[Jtbrig7390]

Fuck no that is a really dumb idea.

Doctor Cox says it better then me tho.

--- snip ---

[xcitng]

Should have Ulduar style of raids, the higher up dudes can make it harder for themselves and 20 people flat so its balanced like current mythic raids with better loot and for the normal players, make it flex just like now.

LFR should be a tier behind.

[Christan]

No.

A system with multiple difficulty options caters best to players of various skill levels and should remain in the game. The additional difficulty levels are among the best additions to the game ever.

If you just make a raid with 2 first bosses being easy, then 99% of the players won't see past those 2, rendering the content useless.

Tbh instead of lfr reg heroic mythic, id love a combination of ulduar and togc
Normal - normalwith something you do in fight tommake it heroic difficulty
And a heroic mode where you do something to make it mythic difficulty.

People could pick and choose which bosses they'd like to try on their guilds *hard mode*
Notice i didnt mention lfr? That should be renamed storymode where theres no damage and bosses lose health on a timer so people can see all the bosses phases, or maybe make it 1/10th(i might be overestimating people lets say 1/50th the damage)normal damage instead of no damage, and queable at a lower level
Then you get a cache at the end with 3x drops of heroic dungeon gear, or maybe m+0, once a week, idk so many options

[Marrilaife]

Just a expansion with a measured and gradual difficulty increase from start to finish.

There was never a gradual difficulty increase, just content requiring higher gear to pass the checks. Often also including resistance checks. Difficulty increase could exist within the raid itself, with the endboss being much harder than the entry boss, but it was never linear, and not exactly preserved between tiers (early next tier bosses easier than previous tier late bosses, no one will say shade of Akama was harder than lady Vashj because he was in the next tier?)

Anyway judging from general participation in raiding and mythic+ majority of playerbase is not interested in beating higher and higher difficulties, only in obtaining easy loot. People who play for challenge, like high key pushing or racing for the leaderboard in mythic raiding are extreme minority. Making a game around them alienates 99% of your paying customers. Gradual difficulty increase means sooner or later they will hit a wall, run out of content, and unsub. That's why also most raids are nerfed over time.

[Jtbrig7390]

LFR should be a tier behind.

Want to kill raiding and a huge chuck of WoW's income go right for it. Thankfully blizzard isn't that stupid.

[Dusty tome]

No.

A system with multiple difficulty options caters best to players of various skill levels and should remain in the game. The additional difficulty levels are among the best additions to the game ever.

If you just make a raid with 2 first bosses being easy, then 99% of the players won't see past those 2, rendering the content useless.

I don't think it does it creates a system were only higher skilled players are adequately challenged while the rest get a movie mode. I could see the case for normal and heroic raiding but the rest really doesn't have its place.

- - - Updated - - -

Want to kill raiding and a huge chuck of WoW's income go right for it. Thankfully blizzard isn't that stupid.

Yeah bfa is showing us the power of free loot to carry the title.

[Azerate]

Tbh instead of lfr reg heroic mythic, id love a combination of ulduar and togc
Normal - normalwith something you do in fight tommake it heroic difficulty
And a heroic mode where you do something to make it mythic difficulty.

People could pick and choose which bosses they'd like to try on their guilds *hard mode*
Notice i didnt mention lfr? That should be renamed storymode where theres no damage and bosses lose health on a timer so people can see all the bosses phases, or maybe make it 1/10th(i might be overestimating people lets say 1/50th the damage)normal damage instead of no damage, and queable at a lower level
Then you get a cache at the end with 3x drops of heroic dungeon gear, or maybe m+0, once a week, idk so many options

I started with Wrath, and while I cleared most of the heroic raids, I still prefer the current system. I'm probably not good enough and also cba to progress mythic, and at the same time I believe I'm better than the "normal" level. Back in Wrath I felt obligated in some way to progress through heroic because normal was a joke. In Legion and BfA I no longer had to go highest difficulty, because something in between was added, which suits me very well.

For this simple reason it's good there are multiple difficulties. Some people are just better than the LFR level, but they aren't heroic level, others are better than the normal level, but they aren't mythic level, and so on. Wrath was my favorite expansion because I came back to Legion and BfA, but still, today I believe that old difficulty system was annoying and forced me, in a way, to progress heroic.

[Jtbrig7390]

I don't think it does it creates a system were only higher skilled players are adequately challenged while the rest get a movie mode. I could see the case for normal and heroic raiding but the rest really doesn't have its place.

Yeah bfa is showing us the power of free loot to carry the title.

The rest have its place because it pays the bills on raiding (LFR anyway). Before LFR it was a niche and after a majority now do it, I don't understand how people like you keep ignoring this fact even tho blizzard has stated it many times.

LFR pay's for raiding, You like raiding then that is the cost of it. Want to remove LFR, Want to Gut LFR, Want to Gate LFR then the cost of raiding goes with it.

The stunt of gutting LFR happen in WOD and it blew up in blizzards face. We are not going back to a TBC style of raiding, We are not going back to LFR not being rewarding (WOD).

Accept how it is or move along to another game. Stop giving a shit about what pixels other players get and you will be happier.

[Dusty tome]

The rest have its place because it pays the bills on raiding (LFR anyway). Before LFR it was a niche and after a majority now do it, I don't understand how people like you keep ignoring this fact even tho blizzard has stated it many times.

LFR pay's for raiding, You like raiding then that is the cost of it. Want to remove LFR, Want to Gut LFR, Want to Gate LFR then the cost of raiding goes with it.

The stunt of gutting LFR happen in WOD and it blew up in blizzards face. We are not going back to a TBC style of raiding, We are not going back to LFR not being rewarding (WOD).

Accept how it is or move along to another game. Stop giving a shit about what pixels other players get and you will be happier.

Lfr and lfd both represent a unsustainable game long term. All you end with is the dumpster fire of bfa. Endless grinds and slot machine gear to tide over people who would have more fun playing video poker or farmville respectively.

The concept of a run you are never expected to lose has no place in any game that markets to teens or older.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

So you want....

less

reason to play this game?

[Lucetia]

The only thing I can see is them bumping LFR difficulty up a little bit, merging Normal/Heroic together and adjusting difficulty accordingly and then Mythic mode. Having three difficulties would be fine, four seems a bit much and helps attribute to burn out for some. Other than that, no difficulties are fine and we don't need everything merged into one. While people claim that's what was great about old WoW, it also caused a metric load of issues and why the game shifted.

[Christan]

I started with Wrath, and while I cleared most of the heroic raids, I still prefer the current system. I'm probably not good enough and also cba to progress mythic, and at the same time I believe I'm better than the "normal" level. Back in Wrath I felt obligated in some way to progress through heroic because normal was a joke. In Legion and BfA I no longer had to go highest difficulty, because something in between was added, which suits me very well.

For this simple reason it's good there are multiple difficulties. Some people are just better than the LFR level, but they aren't heroic level, others are better than the normal level, but they aren't mythic level, and so on. Wrath was my favorite expansion because I came back to Legion and BfA, but still, today I believe that old difficulty system was annoying and forced me, in a way, to progress heroic.

Vanilla i didnt raid except for being run through MC oncefriends guild)...and while im trying to save up for an epic mount...it was WAY to expensive.
In bc i raided 25m in wrath 25m 10m(trinkets) and when togc came out 4x a week icc 25h and on an alt i helped out in gdkp runs on my shaman, made about 200k gold, for about 2hr a week. pretty damned good considering how easy icc was to run with a competent group
Since the end of cata ive only raided on and off, i LOATH lfr, to many mythic geared twats talking about how bad everyone is linking damage meters, or trolls trying theirnhardest to wipe the raid, hunters who md to healers (it was only funny when it happened to me in a guild raid, tanks were still able to pick the trash up)

Mind, people say hatred is a strong word, it isnt hatred is just a strong dislike, loathing is where its at.

[Dusty tome]

The only thing I can see is them bumping LFR difficulty up a little bit, merging Normal/Heroic together and adjusting difficulty accordingly and then Mythic mode. Having three difficulties would be fine, four seems a bit much and helps attribute to burn out for some. Other than that, no difficulties are fine and we don't need everything merged into one. While people claim that's what was great about old WoW, it also caused a metric load of issues and why the game shifted.

I think the main problem with a "tourist" mode is its completely destructive nature to the game. The second a lfr exists all content below raiding becomes obsolete or is heavy restricted like mythic plus in order to keep the tourist mode alive with gear that both far outstrips its difficulty level while at the same time needs to be that powerful or no one would bother with it.

It puts the game in a lose,lose scenario. It's going to take a heavy hit one way or the other once it is included.

[Marrilaife]

in order to keep the tourist mode alive with gear that both far outstrips its difficulty level while at the same time needs to be that powerful or no one would bother with it.

Uhh... lfr gear is less powerful nowadays that there are no tier bonuses and you can get the same ilvl from mythic 0 dungeons and warfronts (that one is a loot-a-palooza...)

[xcitng]

Want to kill raiding and a huge chuck of WoW's income go right for it. Thankfully blizzard isn't that stupid.

Might want to look at the sub numbers decline after WOTLK by more than half the player base after WOTLK designed raids champ.

https://imgur.com/a/04uhViU

[Rusken]

With the rng/grind fest that is bfa do you think it might be time to return to tiered content? To the idea that there should be content of all difficulty levels rather then difficulty levels for all content?

The question itself is flawed. There is content of all difficulties it just so happens that it's in the form of difficulty levels for all content. The measured and gradual difficulty increase comes from progressing through those difficulty levels. N Raid1 > H Raid1 > N Raid2 H Raid2 is your standard difficulty path and Mythic is there for those who want the extra challenge. It's entirely subjective whether or not that's better than Vanilla/BC's model of Raid 1 > Raid 2 > Raid 3. I would argue not, considering in those days the raids were your ONLY source of upgrading gear and the entire rest of the game was irrelevant once you reached a certain point (not counting out-lying cases of resist gear in Vanilla).

On the subject of RNG and loot I do agree, the warforging system and weekly caches are promoting the worst behaviour and toxicity amongst the community I've seen in a long time and while I'm personally fine with the concepts I believe there are plenty of aspects to be improved upon.

[Powerogue]

No.

I loved Ulduar to death, but I still only ever saw the first 5 bosses of it that whole expansion due to that system. Their current system of staggering access to raidfinder and enticing the higher difficulty modes with things like the kirin tor spellwing mount for H Argus seems to be working just fine. I only miss the challenge appearances from Legion giving me a tough single player objective as an additional motive to gear for.

[Flarelaine]

Might want to look at the sub numbers decline after WOTLK by more than half the player base after WOTLK designed raids champ.

https://imgur.com/a/04uhViU

You have no proof it is a direct consequence. Correlation is not causation and a thousand other things have changed in that time.