WoW is pulling a HotS

[Osmeric]

What I really find disturbing is that the current devs and Ion haven't been in any way held accountable for butchering the game. Instead it seems they just put in cash grabs to make up for the lost subs: That fox store mount and the 'goodbye Im going away' bundle.

Be sure you distinguish between things the devs actually screwed up on, vs. things they did that were constrained by resource limits. As the game winds down, budgets will inevitably shink, so something that looks like a game design mistake may just be them attempting to deal with fewer options on what they can do.

[Roxxy]

I find it very very hard to believe that titanforging, azerite pieces and mass gear dropping would be introduced because of resource limits. If anything these things have taken up more resources, devs trying desperately to balance pieces of gear, balance raids and failing. I have heard that azerite traits are a nightmare to try and balance. The devs are giving themselves more work if anything. Also with the power creep being so high now last tiers raids becomes obsolete in record time, pushing the devs to create more content faster.

[korijenkins]

Not really though.

It literally is though. If you think the current content is more difficult than anything in Wrath, you're a fool.

Not to mention the game had depth back then, and knowledge was actually required to play and build your character (which was also a thing).

[Adlian]

I have 3 friends that started to play in BFA without playing the game before that and all of them quit 1 month later after reaching 120 (with the 110 boost ofc, nice way to start the game..). Why did they quit? They felt like there is nothing to do after quickly gearing with normal heroic gear.

Well GJ Blizzard with making the game easy, even your targeted audience dont like it.. what a joke.

[Blayze]

Yet Wrath also started streamlining everything after their merger with Activision. Most notibly the last-half of the expansion was filled with that and that's when subs were going up a bit for people to try out.... aaaaand then promptly going down down down after cataclysm.

Cataclysm bled subs because it made everything super tedious and difficult; if you were a casual player, the message was clear: Blizzard didn't want you playing their game any more. 4.3 stopped the flow for a time by giving us Raid Finder (For the first time all expansion, we had actual introductory raid encounters), more than two dungeons we were expected to run for VP, and by then they'd fixed the God-awful half-cap on weekly VP gain from 'lesser' sources being eaten into by 'better' ones.

Why do you think Mists had actual things to do out in the world? For fuck's sake, the PvP side faction in Cata had more dailies than the rest of the expansion combined at launch.

[Nestoras]

Nobody has to "try". You just made an uninformed statement and you're backed into the corner. Nothing you say is correct, so again; get out

We re out. Go play the game you enjoy.

[Aggrophobic]

It literally is though. If you think the current content is more difficult than anything in Wrath, you're a fool.

Not to mention the game had depth back then, and knowledge was actually required to play and build your character (which was also a thing).

Haha. Oh, thats a good one. You litterally have no clue.

[therealstegblob]

Anyone saying WotLK was 'harder' than BFA is delusional or a troll. Possibly both.

I will say that while raid fights are generally better these days (with the engine able to do more stuff), that I DO think some raids have been leaning towards the "strangely too simple" side. Antornus and especially Uldir have had a lot of "I can't believe these fights are so stupid and easy". Mythic Taloc feels like what a normal mode WotLK boss felt like, lol. Heroic Taloc feels like a weird 5 man dungeon boss being fought by 10+ people. Fetid Devourer, even on Mythic, straight up feels like a motherfucking Molten Core boss (at least as a DPS, tanks at least have to worry about a swap mechanic I guess).

I think raiding has strangely gotten a little easier. I didn't raid in Legion outside of Antornus and I've been raiding as a Rogue since Antornus (and will continue to do so through BFA) so we'll see if fights get anymore sophisticated than what we saw with Uldir.

[Cronovey]

To this date i can't think of a raid that felt more difficult to beat as a group than Ulduar. These days even shit-tier guilds beat most if not all of the mythic bosses before the next tier.

We're currently at 1612 guilds that have beaten Mythic G'huun; compare that to previous tiers: Ulduar itself had 1566 guilds clear Alone in the Darkness (Yogg +0) which is actually incredibly comparable. Unfortunately since the merge we're unable to track who was in 10 or 25m groups. 2527 guilds completed heroic Anub in ToGC, with 1282 of them completing it without a single death in 25m. Counting 10m, 36280 kills on heroic and 19013 Insanity runs done. That doesn't look like an incredibly difficult raid tier. 1101 guilds completed Heroic LK in 25 man groups and 5664 completed it in 10 man, again all fairly comparable to current raid content numbers for completion. For Tier 11 we'll go with Sinestra, the most difficult/least killed end raid boss, and 2147 guilds finished her off as well. 1374 in 10 man and 685 in 25 man for Sinestra; if you go by Nefarian we're in the 3k+ range for guilds killing him on heroic.

Heroic Rag was a joke compared to other raid tiers. 6666 guilds in 10 man but only 491 in 25 man; the raid was incredibly unbalanced and skewed toward 10 man groups. The same thing was the case in Dragon Soul with 9059 kills in 10 man and only 1191 kills in 25 man, but 1191 in 25m is still quite comparable to the 1612 of Mythic G'huun. You're comparing up to 29775 players completing Dragon Soul up to 32240 players completing G'huun. MoP? Heroic Sha of Fear: 1491 in 10m, only 303 in 25m. Again, an expansion with a very unbalanced setup toward 10m groups. Throne? 4750 Ra-den 10m kills, 368 in 25m. This is the reason that flex mode was implemented during this expansion; they found it impossible to properly balance between such drastic differences in group sizes. 2861 10m Garrosh kills, 1026 25m Garrosh kills. These are all using heroic mode, which is the equivalent to current Mythic content that you seem to think everyone is completing.

WoD: 20 man mythic only. Now we'll see some number changes right? 2026 Blackhand kills, 2850 Archimonde kills. Hmmm, those are both easier to kill than G'huun. Legion maybe? 2003 Gul'dan kills, 892 Kil'jaeden kills, 1748 Argus kills. Overall pretty comparable numbers again other than Kil'jaeden which is a complete bitch of a boss fight to be perfectly honest; I'm not surprised it was under 1k guilds.

So what I'm seeing throughout literally every single tier is completely comparable numbers literally from as far back as Wowprogress can track. You're looking at, in general, between 1000-2000 guilds clearing all current content every single tier, with 10m raids being much higher generally. Outside of the handful of outlying bosses (Ra-den, Kil'jaeden, Sha of Fear) where 25m was incredibly punishing, every single tier has been completed by a very normal amount of players as it always has been. You're pulling your anecdotal evidence right out of your ass when there's hard evidence to go off of on an easy to find website.

Even the part where you talk about raid level gear from badges is incorrect; Isle of Quel'danas with the Sunwell Plateau patch added that with Badges of Justice giving gear equivalent to Black Temple raid gear (very close in ilvl, like 5-10 lower), which was followed up by Emblems of Frost and Valor in Wrath which let you fill in belt/boot/OH slots during Naxx, then more in Ulduar, then more in ToC (even allowing the purchase of low level tier gear) and then more into ICC.

[prwraith]

WOTLK was stupidly hardcore compared to current game. get out.

I'm sorry what...did you play during wrath?

- - - Updated - - -

If you think the current content is more difficult than anything in Wrath, you're a fool.
.

Anddd another one who has no idea what he's talking about

[d00mh4cker]

Back in wotlk, BC and vanilla wow was a MMO, now its a solo game with the option to play with others.

You can get the the highest possible ilvl and best gear by playing the game completely solo.
Wow is not a MMO, it's a single player game with the option for co-op.

[Alkizon]

Aggrophobic
- snip -

korijenkins
- snip -

Do you even understand (both of you) that you're now rest against understanding definition of "content"? Ie, you are arguing and comparing things without convinced of sameness of your understanding of this concept. Ie, your discussion is easily killed by one simple phrase: a lot of dif.modes is progress, not content (these concepts aren't interchangeable now, also scaling is none of both). But progress itself in modern interpretation is simplified to obtain items of a certain level - here progress ends. They offered you artifacts first, and now AA and neck as a substitute for progress, but NOT CONTENT.

We dealt with this many times when we were arguing about M+ and about modern raids design (+(+)+(+/+/+/+)+(+/+/+)+/+(+/+/+)). I also mentioned it a little here, but apparently I overdid it and most people ignored the message due to its size:

In fact, WotLK in some sense was very much tolerant (compared to Legion&Co) due to that there was a certain height (ceiling/temporary limit) of growth in everything, which means that person could work, then relax a little, then switch to twink and work again, go back to main and relax again and so several times during single expansion without any rush (both PvE and PvP). Do you feel this now? From my own experience, this is main thing that most people did before project "commercialization", somewhere between BC and Legion. But problem is that faster game "goes" (and "faster faster" is now its basic philosophy), the more often switch happen, which means that period of fun is shorter, and the higher soft cap is (under "soft cap" I mean: average stair to which specific player can climb without changing own game style intensity/complexity - current amount of content that can consume and depth of progress that own abilities' level allows to reach; as part of this, stuff that happens now is even more pitiable, since all content is consumed easily through easiest difficulty, and progress, which's indicator are equipment(ilvl)+AP, isn't attainable in principle by virtue of mechanics (process is accessible to all regardless of ability and experience, since doesn't require any such stuff to participate (=borderless in terms of content), but is unachievable for anyone); don't forget that current average player is like a dog in "food absorption" framework - doesn't know own measure, because game doesn't allow/teach to determine it), so the less it happens during one expansion. What follows from all this - total number of once average player's "fun"-hours inevitably decreases and "work"-hours increases... Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to complain to trade unions!

So if a lot of dif.modes isn't content, then you should compare the easiest difficulty for particular “content” for adequacy of your discussion (precisely when discussing content difficulty), but not the most complex one. It's normal vs LFR and now think about what is it for Ulduar. Do you both understand this?

(aka outdoor-1 → 5+outdoor-2 → 10+outdoor-3 → 20, just like that, also)

But if you want to compare progress difficulty, here is a smarter maze, because see the quote: now "all content is consumed easily through easiest difficulty, and progress, which's indicator are equipment(ilvl)+AP, isn't attainable in principle by virtue of mechanics (process is accessible to all regardless of ability and experience, since doesn't require any such stuff to participate (=borderless in terms of content), but is unachievable for anyone)". They simply missing development "ceiling" in current design (not only for a particular player due to limited time and opportunities/abilities, but in general for all). There is no end for "progress" for anyone and since there is no end, so there is no goal to reach that end, which was (still is! I'm not talking specifically about this game) main playing motivator for most people. That is, developer’s trick isn't to make it unattainable in principle, but so that it can be reached by average at a certain time defined by devs (even if this time is transferred to next expansion for some and for some in advance of this deadline), and concepts of progress and content shouldn't be separated here, their division is artificial and vicious for this particular game.

For reference: last boss killing at any level of complexity, taking into account current design, is the end of “raid” content (doesn't metter if it M or LFR), and progress due to budding it out as separate concept is now associated exclusively with set of BIS gear for current expansion stage (in some sense, it also did before, but it was limited by “content” earlier - steps of testing your abilities and accumulated knowledge/motility/social factor (friends' help/buying), but now it's not - no reason, no motivation, apparently, challenge is clearly not working when it only one motivator, curiosity/interest and envy are much stronger ones).

Therefore, you get all final content in LFR, and progress continues by freebie “hatching” daily/weekly quests and by going to easiest of "profitable" mystics available to you (not you, but average player, also, judging by forum, not only average...) - with minimal for you labor costs (= you get progress in exchange for subscription, very slow and almost uncontrollable (what is also absolutely true for those who're truly involved in difficultest progress stages), but... which cancels bar for your skills that you had to overcome back then), which still “keeps” you with its accessibility until you realize that you're mired in routine of useless progress for you in terms of content, and then you'll understand that this all turns into challenge/E-sports, which not driving by curiosity or interest in content meaning, this could be enough for someone especially if game holds gameplay bar, but somehow I strongly doubt this last in relation to current game *looking at even if not accurate, but assumptions regarding subscribers number*

MORE HERE (kind of tl;dr HERE)

So, what did you decide to talk about?

...but after all, latter will "shit in slippers" with beloved tokens, all forms of scaling and temporary progress systems for devs and will somehow offend some solo players, which don't want to depend on anyone, don't want to communicate "closely" with anyone, or to participate in something where people will evaluate significance of their success, and often not so much mechanically, but sometimes even more socially, so this can put them into a defenseless position, because they don't have enough will to stand up for themselves. I still don't understand why they came into MMO, the only thing that comes to mind is that devs, out of greed, beckoned them with carrots, deceived them, and now we have situation that we have. At the same time, without looking at fact that everyone is trying not to offend the other at first, everything ends with big swearing and no end to the edge of this is visible.

since they eliminated unavoidable elements of social interaction, took away sensible control from players, gave it to automation, so players, in revenge, took control out of game area and now devs also ceased to control anything... timer/pl-lootbox/rio-rating/hurry-no-talking/half-dungeon-is-zero-result - this isn't about everyone, but since game doesn't recommend appropriate behavior in key places' design, which means it doesn't teach, doesn't weed out at initial stage - there're no natural conditions for formation of community, which means "what has grown, has already grown" means whining, toxicity and crying mice chewing cactus at final stage of game design (it's too late, initial stage has been missed)

ps. I'd also discuss their abnormal simplification/understanding of "progress" in current design, for it's "stupidity follows stupidity" in this sense, but it won't be appropriate here in my opinion, just redundant.

[MiiiMiii]

TL;DR: Heroes of the Storms is a MOBA made for people that does not like MOBAs. BfA is a MMORPG made for people that does not like MMORPGs.

[Alkizon]

TL;DR: Heroes of the Storms is a MOBA made for people that does not like MOBAs. BfA is a MMORPG made for people that does not like MMORPGs.

You should put it into the OP

[Kralljin]

We're currently at 1612 guilds that have beaten Mythic G'huun; compare that to previous tiers: Ulduar itself had 1566 guilds clear Alone in the Darkness (Yogg +0) which is actually incredibly comparable.

I have doubts about this number.
Alone in the Darkness (25man version) had its first kill roughly 3 months(!) after Patch 3.1 release.

So if we're looking at the 4-5 Month frame where Ulduar was actually "current content", i do not believe that over 1500 Guilds then went on to kill Yogg+0 that quickly, even with we apply the timeframe of mythic Uldir, i do not believe the number comes even close.

Yogg+0 was farmed hard once ICC was out and the gear made the boss piss easy to farm, since it awarded a unique mount, incentive to do was relatively high.

[d00mh4cker]

TL;DR: Heroes of the Storms is a MOBA made for people that does not like MOBAs. BfA is a MMORPG made for people that does not like MMORPGs.

Wow was a MMO made for people too casual for MMO (success).

Wow today is a single player game for people who sometimes wants to group up.

[Alphatorg]

We're currently at 1612 guilds that have beaten Mythic G'huun; compare that to previous tiers: Ulduar itself had 1566 guilds clear Alone in the Darkness (Yogg +0) which is actually incredibly comparable. Unfortunately since the merge we're unable to track who was in 10 or 25m groups. 2527 guilds completed heroic Anub in ToGC, with 1282 of them completing it without a single death in 25m. Counting 10m, 36280 kills on heroic and 19013 Insanity runs done. That doesn't look like an incredibly difficult raid tier. 1101 guilds completed Heroic LK in 25 man groups and 5664 completed it in 10 man, again all fairly comparable to current raid content numbers for completion. For Tier 11 we'll go with Sinestra, the most difficult/least killed end raid boss, and 2147 guilds finished her off as well. 1374 in 10 man and 685 in 25 man for Sinestra; if you go by Nefarian we're in the 3k+ range for guilds killing him on heroic.

Heroic Rag was a joke compared to other raid tiers. 6666 guilds in 10 man but only 491 in 25 man; the raid was incredibly unbalanced and skewed toward 10 man groups. The same thing was the case in Dragon Soul with 9059 kills in 10 man and only 1191 kills in 25 man, but 1191 in 25m is still quite comparable to the 1612 of Mythic G'huun. You're comparing up to 29775 players completing Dragon Soul up to 32240 players completing G'huun. MoP? Heroic Sha of Fear: 1491 in 10m, only 303 in 25m. Again, an expansion with a very unbalanced setup toward 10m groups. Throne? 4750 Ra-den 10m kills, 368 in 25m. This is the reason that flex mode was implemented during this expansion; they found it impossible to properly balance between such drastic differences in group sizes. 2861 10m Garrosh kills, 1026 25m Garrosh kills. These are all using heroic mode, which is the equivalent to current Mythic content that you seem to think everyone is completing.

WoD: 20 man mythic only. Now we'll see some number changes right? 2026 Blackhand kills, 2850 Archimonde kills. Hmmm, those are both easier to kill than G'huun. Legion maybe? 2003 Gul'dan kills, 892 Kil'jaeden kills, 1748 Argus kills. Overall pretty comparable numbers again other than Kil'jaeden which is a complete bitch of a boss fight to be perfectly honest; I'm not surprised it was under 1k guilds.

So what I'm seeing throughout literally every single tier is completely comparable numbers literally from as far back as Wowprogress can track. You're looking at, in general, between 1000-2000 guilds clearing all current content every single tier, with 10m raids being much higher generally. Outside of the handful of outlying bosses (Ra-den, Kil'jaeden, Sha of Fear) where 25m was incredibly punishing, every single tier has been completed by a very normal amount of players as it always has been. You're pulling your anecdotal evidence right out of your ass when there's hard evidence to go off of on an easy to find website.

Even the part where you talk about raid level gear from badges is incorrect; Isle of Quel'danas with the Sunwell Plateau patch added that with Badges of Justice giving gear equivalent to Black Temple raid gear (very close in ilvl, like 5-10 lower), which was followed up by Emblems of Frost and Valor in Wrath which let you fill in belt/boot/OH slots during Naxx, then more in Ulduar, then more in ToC (even allowing the purchase of low level tier gear) and then more into ICC.

You realize there are ever changing factors? Like the size of the playerbase and the amount of time a content stay relevant, as well as the extend of direct and indirect nerfs? 2k kills out of 11m subs on a mid-expansion boss that was relevant for half a year is a world of difference to 2k kills out of 5m subs for an end of expansion boss that was "relevant" for 1 year and got nerfed half a dozen times. Without context your numbers are close to meaningless.

TL;DR: Heroes of the Storms is a MOBA made for people that does not like MOBAs. BfA is a MMORPG made for people that does not like MMORPGs.

How do you know what the average MMORP user likes?

[rrayy]

WOTLK was stupidly hardcore compared to current game. get out.

No it want'. WOTLK was not even in teh same zip code as "stupidly hardcore". Nothing about it was hardcore. You don't know what you are talking about.

- - - Updated - - -

Back in wotlk, BC and vanilla wow was a MMO, now its a solo game with the option to play with others.

You can get the the highest possible ilvl and best gear by playing the game completely solo.
Wow is not a MMO, it's a single player game with the option for co-op.

I can get a full set of mythic gear without a group? Where?

You really need to quit while you are behind.

[valky94]

Again, try to look beyond top raids, how much time did you spend in top raids vs, lvling, pvping, entry level raids etc. I'd take Naxx fucking 10 over world quests ANY day.

i wouldnt, because a whole wing in naxx has less mechanics than one boss in uldir

[Spiel]

Like cmon Naxx 10 overall was about as hard as the heroic dungeons (which were already very easy). I remember that very well.

And was first cleared with T6 sets mostly btw. The thing about wotlk was just that health pools were very small compared to the dmg we dealt/received/could heal. I remember very well that Lava Burst for shaman, was dealing more damage than what it dealt in BfA. And a T10 guys healthpool was around 30-35k for nontanks, greater por pvp gear but you get the idea. Health bars jumped a lot, but were not really difficult to fill again with a couple swift heals, even from almost dead. It was perhaps harder than usual for dps because they had a shorter timeframe to get out of bad stuff. But for tanks and healers, technique/throughput-wise, quite the same. There came a point as healer that the only thing you did was spam the biggest heal you had, because gear and talents allowed you to regen more by actively casting than resting.