Can we all now agree that Vanilla wasn't harder?

[Thrif]

This is a stupid comparison. Classic is designed for all content to require effort while retail is designed around having mostly really easy content and lock their difficult content behind m+ and mythic raids.

So it depends on what you are looking for. Classic is definitely harder on average because you will die a lot more while levelling and doing dungeons than in retail, but it has nothing that compares to high m+ or mythic raiding in terms of challenges. So it really depends on what you mean by difficult.

That said, vanilla definitely was more difficult than retail, if you consider the average player skill of the time. So people claiming they have stopped playing because the game got too easy definitely have a base for that argument.

Angry retailer thread #7813692

And no, we can't.

Think you lowballed that a bit, but the point came across.

[hulkgor]

You must be smoking some serious stuff if you think that deadmines is even remotely close to anythin in bfa, esspecially m10+.

Why are you comparing a normal dungeon, to a m10?

You should compare Deadmines... to normal Atal'Dazar. And let's be honest... normal Atal'dazar aint harder.

It's just dishonest, even absurd, comparing a mythic10 to a normal dungeon.

[Hehalol]

Yeah I agree on that

You agree because you are both delusional. Its so hard to go around and 1 shot mobs in my full heirloom gear. Wow really hard pulling these 50 mobs as any class without anyworries because i have 40 instant cast abilities, never have to drink or eat or run out of mana either! wow is much harder in BFA then its is in vanilla.....yeah....

[Tojara]

People using the 1.12 excuse as to why everything is so easy makes me chuckle. Game is good and its also easy, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. If youre seriously playing this for challenging PvE content youre playing it for the wrong reasons.

There are so many resources out there for vanilla and people basically make their lives about playing the fucking game on private servers for nearly 10 years, what do people honestly expect. We live in an age of information far more than we did in 2004 and how it's a surprise that a 15 year old game is easy is perplexing.

15 years ago people were ignorant to the games mechanics, for lots this was their first MMO, and a lot of shit people kept secret or weren't that well known. Guidea weren't really a thing, nor were kill videos released so quickly. These days you have loads of guides to choose from pretty quickly, data analysis from logs, and people fucking stream themselves playing.

Note this isn't me saying vanilla or classic sucks. I spend more time on classic atm cause I enjoy it and retail is in a lull until 8.3 anyways. Ill repeat that its PvE difficulty has no bearing on my enjoyment of the game. Why people get offended and try to defend the honor of classic WoWs difficulty when its difficulty is questioned is weird.

If we wanted somewhat challenging PvE content they would have had to tuned things differently and added shit to bosses to make then interesting. Lots didn't want that and I partially agree. It's funny that pre raid BiS doesn't really matter when you can just jump into MC /Onyxia and wait for resets for the next 6 months. Oh well, still fun.

[Seranthor]

opinion=/=facts

This means what exactly?

[Jujudrood]

How about "harder" is entirely subjective and, maybe, just maybe, some people find one "harder" than the other?
Maybe the "difficulty" in vanilla is that, even by 1.12 standards, classes were still without reasonable balance, mobs white-hit for gobs of HP, gear was scarce, all that jazz.
Maybe the "difficulty" in retail is tuned to the highest end player in terms of Mythic Raids and High M+, which is an entirely different game at this point, and the remainder was purposefully brought down to the lowest common denominator to be as accommodating as possible.

Maybe they are both easy and hard at the same time and, as an individual, you can choose which one is easier/harder, which type(s) of content you prefer for fun and/or challenge, which you enjoy more, and just like, I dunno, live life.
I mean, that's just like, your opinion, man.

[Seranthor]

How about "harder" is entirely subjective and, maybe, just maybe, some people find one "harder" than the other?
Maybe the "difficulty" in vanilla is that, even by 1.12 standards, classes were still without reasonable balance, mobs white-hit for gobs of HP, gear was scarce, all that jazz.
Maybe the "difficulty" in retail is tuned to the highest end player in terms of Mythic Raids and High M+, which is an entirely different game at this point, and the remainder was purposefully brought down to the lowest common denominator to be as accommodating as possible.

Maybe they are both easy and hard at the same time and, as an individual, you can choose which one is easier/harder, which type(s) of content you prefer for fun and/or challenge, which you enjoy more, and just like, I dunno, live life.
I mean, that's just like, your opinion, man.

Naw mon... Vanilla be way harder because the vanilla enthusiasts say it is mon, and dontcha know they got alllll the answers. The retail plebs and those scrubs that played other MMOs long before vanilla dont know what they are talking about. Cause we right and we right because we say we are right.


/sarcasm off

[Cainium]

Before we can really talk about which game is harder we have to clarify two things:

1. The definition of difficulty.
2. The part of the game we are talking about.

1. Things are difficult if they require a skill or practice you don't have. The basic gameplay of WoW has never really changed that the mechanical skill requirements change drastically. Espacially with the capability of AddOns showing and monitoring all the important stuff which is supposed to make the game "harder".

2. With the first point in mind it is clear that the DPS and Healer roles are more or less the same between Retail and Classic, just with a different ability set per class. Gameplay wise the tank role changed the most. From generating the most threat and passive survivability to the direct opposite. If someone started playing Retail after this change such a person will have to relearn how to tank. I've met tanks who can't pull aggro of me while I'm only wanding, and tanks that build enough threat so I can multi-dot and basically go full-dps mode.

Then we can talk about dungeons and raids in general. The most prominent thing which Classic has in common with Retail is "planning ahead". For mythic+ it's important to have a good overview about the groups cooldowns and the next mob pack abilities before pulling. In Classic the tank has to know what and when to pull as well, which mobs should be focused down first (which is a mythic+ thing too) and "eventually" when and where to ask for CC.

Mythic+, however, requires people todo this fast while in a Classic dungeon everyone has more than enough time to think about the correct move. So Retail is generally harder if we talk about Dungeons.

Same goes for Raids. Well... to some extend. The MC first kill was a speedrun, nothing more, nothing less which is IMO the reason famous retail guilds did not participcxate in that "race". Exploiting layering or not, acquiring the experience and building the plan to perform such a speedrun is way more challanging than many people give them credit for. I now how MC works, but I have no clue if Classic would restart "fresh" how to perform such a speedrun.

As for the majority raids will be easy. But I think organisation will be harder since there are hard class and gear requirements later on. Of course, not for speedrunners which already have their plan for BWL and AQ. But for the "casual" majority the boundaries are different.

The leveling phase isn't harder in terms of mechanical skill as long as the pull works as expected. That's the point where anyone can use their classes toolkit to the maximum and HAVE to do this. Pulling so many mobs in retail that there is no way of surviving no matter how bad you are at the game is almost impossible. Killing 5 elite naga in Nazjatar can be done in a single pull. Pulling 10 "might" kill you, eventually.

That's one reason I would say the general outdoor gameplay is a little bit harder or at least equal.

But another very important skill in Classic is, again, planning ahead. Everyone can drasically reduce their leveling time if they would be better at this. I'm "decent" since I haven't played on private servers and took on the journey with common sense. In Retail, nobody really needs to think to do any outdoor stuff anywhere. Everything is so close together that a "mistake" results in basically no time loss.

The last thing about outdoor content is the management of resources. Mana, food & drink and gold are limited. Being unprepared and not caring about these things will result in heavy time losses.

In conclusion Classics outdoor content is harder. Not in terms of mechanical skill requirements which both games lack (but still, Retail more than Classic) but in terms about efficiency. Being efficient on what one does is a skill too.

Conclusion

Both games have their own kind of difficulty in different areas.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I think the biggest thing we can agree on this thread is either bait or a troll.

No kidding its easier. It was the base first iteration on the game. Anyone that told you MC was going to he harder than mythic raiding today was also baiting and trolling.

I take it on the non-classic forum this thread would already be closed for "game vs game" but here, no, it has to ride.

[pewpmeiser]

Dont get me wrong, leveling is much harder (well.. slower) than retail.


But all this "Raids were harder" or "You actually needed to CC mobs in dungeons!"
Dont, its false. Yeah CC to some degree, but NOT nearly as much as in retail wow with mythic +.


Please dont use the argument "Classic isn't Vanilla" nothing changed dungeon wise.

Vanilla was harder, for the wrong reasons. It was harder in terms of system mechanics, not game/enemy design. Raiding was harder because you had to get 40 people online at the same time to commit, with half a brain (for the most part). Retail gameplay/boss design will trump anything classic had, all day.

[Caperfin]

Honestly, that was the story folks were stirring up before classic launched. Classic had "real" mechanics, and as a harder overall game, etc etc. Just a quick search on the forums shows people, more than likely trolls, you know, trolling.

Sadly, I know what your are talking about. People claimed it was hard yet decimated raiding content in a matter of days. The casual-est of guilds were blazing through stuff.

[CrawlFromThePit]

Dont get me wrong, leveling is much harder (well.. slower) than retail.


But all this "Raids were harder" or "You actually needed to CC mobs in dungeons!"
Dont, its false. Yeah CC to some degree, but NOT nearly as much as in retail wow with mythic +.


Please dont use the argument "Classic isn't Vanilla" nothing changed dungeon wise.

Some things are harder, some are easier. It's not one descriptive that fits every single feature of the game.

[Speaker]

The thing that made vanilla hard was that no one had a clue what they were doing. There were no guides, there were no videos, there was no twitch. Everyone was new to the game, and no one knew anything. Combat rotations didn't exist. No one knew what stats were important, or what talents were best. Dps was bad, healers were bad, tanks were bad. Going into a dungeon blind and figuring it out as you went was what made the game so much fun back then. Now, with everything thoroughly researched and that information disseminated the game is much easier than it once was. Combine that with patch 1.12 optimizations and you don't really get the full picture of the true vanilla experience. It is nothing like it was back then. Trying to compare the two is impossible.

[Big Thanks]

Using the "you can't pull massive groups in Classic!" is a fallacy. Sure you can't but most people don't even do that in retail. Try and pull a large group of adds as a mage in BfA and watch your character's health bar rapidly deplete. Just because a FEW classes can mass pull in Modern doesn't mean ALL of them can. Leveling in Classic isn't harder unless you MAKE it harder. Otherwise, it's just slower when compared to Modern.

Something inconvenient is consequently harder.

We all agree Classic is more inconvenient to level than modern? Then we all agree Classic is harder than modern wow...in leveling.
Its semantics.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Something inconvenient is consequently harder.

No, it's not.

[Kithelle]

Yup talent changes have no impact on the game at all. Absolutely true. Also this has been discussed to death by now its time to move on and stop trying to stur up shit and play whatever you want to play and stop worrying about others.

Sure, when one side does it it's stirring up ship, yet people even after MC and Ony were cleared were still claiming vanilla was hard. But truth and honesty aren't a lot of peoples strong suit? Right? You know!

[Annelie]

Dont get me wrong, leveling is much harder (well.. slower) than retail.


But all this "Raids were harder" or "You actually needed to CC mobs in dungeons!"
Dont, its false. Yeah CC to some degree, but NOT nearly as much as in retail wow with mythic +.


Please dont use the argument "Classic isn't Vanilla" nothing changed dungeon wise.

Vanilla was hard. Classic is not. It is a massive difference. Tons of stuff changed dungeon wise.

[TheRevenantHero]

Something inconvenient is consequently harder.

We all agree Classic is more inconvenient to level than modern? Then we all agree Classic is harder than modern wow...in leveling.

Inconvenience =/= difficult. I'll still accomplish my goal. Just because it took 2 hours longer doesn't mean it was more difficult. Difficulty requires challenge. There was nothing truly challenging about Classic leveling unless you fucked up and made things too challenging. You know....just like in Modern WoW.

[Annelie]

See, people now tend to say things like 1.12 is something completely different....come on guys, if you have played everything back then you should know its not.

Of course 1.12 changed a lot, but not that much at all. We were simply bad and the game was back then already called the casual mmorpg compared to everqeust etc.

WoW was not everyones first MMO you know. And not everyone was 7y old back then.

[Big Thanks]

No, it's not.

Yes it is. Its even on the dictionary inconvenient its a synonym of "harder"

- - - Updated - - -

Inconvenience =/= difficult. I'll still accomplish my goal. Just because it took 2 hours longer doesn't mean it was more difficult. Difficulty requires challenge. There was nothing truly challenging about Classic leveling unless you fucked up and made things too challenging. You know....just like in Modern WoW.

If it takes longer is harder than something that takes less time.
I can give u a list of harder situations also.
Situations that not only just take more time but also require more skill.