Is Classic too easy?

[Monkiy]

The title question is absurdly stupid. Classic is exactly as hard as when it released, in every possible literal sense. Players are significantly better players across the board, and that's really the only change - the target audience, and target performance. It's easy in the current context of gaming.

[OrcsRLame]

Well, yeah, there kind of is, because no guild will accept someone that hasn't made the effort to at least get prebis. A bit like you dont need the kind ilvl that people require to do most mythics but there is still a community imposed expectation for it

I find it depends a lot on class and current needs.

On Alliance side for example, a lot of raiding guilds will take any holy paladin. You don't need gear or enchants, you just need greater blessings and to not wipe the raid and people will bring you in. If you can actually heal properly then guilds will happily take you and hand you all the gear you need.

[WowClassic]

Wrong - guilds just want 40 people - they dont actually care. I take pugs with me pretty frequently - so long as they can physically enter the raid - thats enough. Nothing else matters. So 3 of your 40 raiders are in greens - who cares - most of this content can be cleared by 25-30 players comfortably.

Bahahah maybe for MC/Ony. No one's going to take you to BWL or AQ in greens

[TJ]

Bahahah maybe for MC/Ony. No one's going to take you to BWL or AQ in greens

Whilst MC was absolutely faceroll, BWL is still very easy. AQ requires a bit more thought, but still nowhere near hard.

[OrcsRLame]

Bahahah maybe for MC/Ony. No one's going to take you to BWL or AQ in greens

My guild took a fresh 60 pally into AQ40. We needed another pally lol.

[Daymanmb]

All of this screams "I havnt actually done any recent mythic content". Players have those advantages RIGHT NOW and cannot even get half way through mythic after months and months of running it. There are plenty who can't even clear heroic. And yet apparantly, in 3 years, the content will magically get easier and thousands of guilds will be clearing it in an hour? Your level of delusion is higher than most.

Stop pretending heroic is hard lol. Theyre just bad players. The good players are in better guilds clearing mythic, or moved on from the game because retail is terrible.

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My guild took a fresh 60 pally into AQ40. We needed another pally lol.

Better off with another dps Im sure. A fresh 60 healer is getting hard carried. Link logs.

[bloomy]

There is no "pre raid grind" - classic proved without a doubt this was a fabrication of the "trust me, its hard" crowd. Turns out you didnt even need to be level 60 to raid, let alone geared or prepped.

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BIS lists absolutely existed, strats were readily available, and no video required as they are so braindead simple, addons were MORE powerful during vanilla, not less, but yes, obviously internet connections have improved. Lastly, the old "but players have cleared it multiple times" falls over when you face the reality that a hell of a lot of classic players have never played vanilla, or a PS.

Of my raid team of 50-60 players, only 5 of us ever played in vanilla, and ZERO have played on a PS. Everything has died in either 1 or 2 attempts. No comms, no world buffs, no mandatory consumables - just turn up, walk in, have a laugh and kill some ultra casual content, similar to LFR.

you realize everyone knows you're full of shit when you say that you guys have no experience and use no comms and it dies in 1-2 attempts right? some of us actually play classic... aq40 isn't necessarily hard but if you try to just roflstomp ouro/visc/twins/c'thun you will just die over and over. all of those bosses are made easy due to planning and spreadsheets with people already assigned to spots going into them. you would know this if you played classic but it's pretty clear you don't.

[arkanon]

Stop pretending classic is hard lol. Theyre just bad players. The good players are in retail clearing actually challenging raids, or moved on from the game because classic is terrible.

I love your replies - always so accurate and on point.

[Pohut]

Well, yeah, there kind of is, because no guild will accept someone that hasn't made the effort to at least get prebis. A bit like you dont need the kind ilvl that people require to do most mythics but there is still a community imposed expectation for it

Ha ha ha ha. No dude, I currently heal all our raids as a ret paladin. I can't be bothered respeccing and content is so piss easy, that nobody cares. Prebis. Lol.

[arkanon]

you realize everyone knows you're full of shit when you say that you guys have no experience and use no comms and it dies in 1-2 attempts right? some of us actually play classic... aq40 isn't necessarily hard but if you try to just roflstomp ouro/visc/twins/c'thun you will just die over and over. all of those bosses are made easy due to planning and spreadsheets with people already assigned to spots going into them. you would know this if you played classic but it's pretty clear you don't.

You lot crack me up - "you obviously dont play classic, because your reality doesnt line up with my fantasy!"

[Alteiry]

Vanilla WoW wasn't hard and neither is Classic. People struggled with Vanilla because the game hadn't been picked apart and theorycrafted into oblivion. It's like comparing someone learning to drive for the first time to someone who's had their license for 16 years. Shit yeah the newbie's gonna struggle. That don't mean driving is complex or difficult.

Furthermore, Vanilla was actually derided at the time as excessively casual, forgiving and easy to master compared to other MMOs on the market. But that's why it became such a hit - because it was a casual-friendly game, easy to pick up and get into, and easy to master.

Retail is objectively more difficult than Vanilla/Classic, but that also hurts the game. All the secondary game mechanics like artifact power, azerite gear, essences and corruption complicate the game to the point where new or returning players feel so intimidated by the learning curve of the metagame that they don't bother sticking with the actual game itself. And Shadowlands unfortunately seems to be more of the same, even more than BfA.

Quod erat demonstrandum, people like Classic BECAUSE it is easy and casual. If it was actually hard, no one would want to play it except the toxic munchkins who spent the last 16 years on private servers with the difficulty artificially dialed up to 11.

[arkanon]

Quod erat demonstrandum, people like Classic BECAUSE it is easy and casual. If it was actually hard, no one would want to play it except the toxic munchkins who spent the last 16 years on private servers with the difficulty artificially dialed up to 11.

I feel like im in the minority who openly admit the only reason i play classic is BECAUSE its so easy - i enjoy that aspect of the game. I still enjoy the challenging content in retail BECAUSE its challenging as well, but the simplicity of classic is a massive appeal to me. Although we dont use discord as a raid team, i do have a group of 3-5 mates from retail, and we are usually on discord talking shit and having a beer and a laugh while clearing content - its a nice relief from retail.

[Darkimpact]

You lot crack me up - "you obviously dont play classic, because your reality doesnt line up with my fantasy!"

So you claim to have killed C'Thun AND Twins in 1 to 2 attempts with no pre-fight experience, no prep, no communication, and no consumables day 1? How about Visc? Same claim? I also call bullshit.

If this is true let's see some logs.

[McNeil]

I shared my thoughts at some point but since this is now a huge thread and I can't find it back, I'll just share them again:

Classic raiding is way easier than how it was in vanilla. This ofcourse is mostly due to players knowing the game all to well and have gotten better over time. But part of it is also because we are playing at the latest client which also made the raids easier. We have much better computers and internet connections, there are well written guides and videos easily accesible, we have much better voice communications etc. Classic worked as a new game being released in 2004, but being re-released in 2020 it could have used some number tweaking due to the advantages we have now which were not tuned for in 2004. I would have at least buffed all bosses by 20% to make up for it.

Its also why I'd approve a possible Classic+, because they could make new 40 man raids that they can probably tune for the players today. Make them way harder and keep the one difficulty. I'm only not a fan of the world buff meta but I doubt that people will want to see it go away.

Also I don't find that the majority of retail raiding is that hard either. LFR is easy, normal is easy, heroic is now mostly easy except for maybe a few bosses, mythic remains hard except for maybe the earlier bosses depending on your raid. So basically about 85% of retail raiding is easy aswell. Since the fights are all new it takes some time to learn them ofcourse, but then after a few weeks they just get rolled over quite easily if its not on mythic. Mythic+ dungeons is also hard content but thats like 1 of the 4 dungeon difficulties available. Its good that there are both casual and more hardcore options, but for the vast majority they generally don't care for the hardest difficulty. One thing retail raiding does horribly is turning previous raids completely obsolete once a new raid releases, while Classic keeps raids progressive so often you have guilds still raiding every raid, which also means more content for them.

As for the difficulty in the open world its a lot more difficult than on retail. Its so easy to get ambushed by mobs around you and there's a good chance that you won't survive unless you have some slows or use health potions. On retail I can just pull a whole group and AoE them down with about every class. The group quests are also a lot harder, some of them actually take quite some time to even complete. One example is when I tried to do the Thule Ravenclaw quest which required you to have 5 players, we 3-manned it but it took some attempts as we were all to low level. We tried to CC the mobs around him but they had a good chance of dodging every spell. I honestly don't see why anyone would say Classic leveling is easier than retail where you can just steamroll your way to max without even entering the world.

[chrisnumbers]

The title question is absurdly stupid. Classic is exactly as hard as when it released, in every possible literal sense. Players are significantly better players across the board, and that's really the only change - the target audience, and target performance. It's easy in the current context of gaming.

This is the only correct answer, but people have to argue about who is the most right about it, as well as make countless side arguments that have nothing to do with it. I love it though, I come by for a good laugh every day.

[tangers58]

Classic has extremely little content if you're not a raider or a serious PvP:er, however I'm beginning to feel that the content it does have is way too easy. Raids are cleared the first reset by most guilds and then you're back to raid logging for farm raids that are almost as easy as LFR is in retail.
It doesn't give you a sense of accomplishment and the character progression is extremely slow, with new gear upgrades coming at you about once a month.
It's starting to feel like, what's the point if there's no challenge?

Almost as if people have had 15 years to learn how the fights work

[munkeyinorbit]

So you claim to have killed C'Thun AND Twins in 1 to 2 attempts with no pre-fight experience, no prep, no communication, and no consumables day 1? How about Visc? Same claim? I also call bullshit.

If this is true let's see some logs.

Hahahaha. Who fucking logs their kills? Do you log your LFR kills? It is essentially the same thing. Is classic so toxic that they expect a bunch of people who use an easy activity to spend time with their mates? Next time I go bowling with my mates I'll be sure to get the logs of my 120 score.

[dacoolist]

I shared my thoughts at some point but since this is now a huge thread and I can't find it back, I'll just share them again:

Classic raiding is way easier than how it was in vanilla. This ofcourse is mostly due to players knowing the game all to well and have gotten better over time. But part of it is also because we are playing at the latest client which also made the raids easier. We have much better computers and internet connections, there are well written guides and videos easily accesible, we have much better voice communications etc. Classic worked as a new game being released in 2004, but being re-released in 2020 it could have used some number tweaking due to the advantages we have now which were not tuned for in 2004. I would have at least buffed all bosses by 20% to make up for it.

Its also why I'd approve a possible Classic+, because they could make new 40 man raids that they can probably tune for the players today. Make them way harder and keep the one difficulty. I'm only not a fan of the world buff meta but I doubt that people will want to see it go away.

Also I don't find that the majority of retail raiding is that hard either. LFR is easy, normal is easy, heroic is now mostly easy except for maybe a few bosses, mythic remains hard except for maybe the earlier bosses depending on your raid. So basically about 85% of retail raiding is easy aswell. Since the fights are all new it takes some time to learn them ofcourse, but then after a few weeks they just get rolled over quite easily if its not on mythic. Mythic+ dungeons is also hard content but thats like 1 of the 4 dungeon difficulties available. Its good that there are both casual and more hardcore options, but for the vast majority they generally don't care for the hardest difficulty. One thing retail raiding does horribly is turning previous raids completely obsolete once a new raid releases, while Classic keeps raids progressive so often you have guilds still raiding every raid, which also means more content for them.

As for the difficulty in the open world its a lot more difficult than on retail. Its so easy to get ambushed by mobs around you and there's a good chance that you won't survive unless you have some slows or use health potions. On retail I can just pull a whole group and AoE them down with about every class. The group quests are also a lot harder, some of them actually take quite some time to even complete. One example is when I tried to do the Thule Ravenclaw quest which required you to have 5 players, we 3-manned it but it took some attempts as we were all to low level. We tried to CC the mobs around him but they had a good chance of dodging every spell. I honestly don't see why anyone would say Classic leveling is easier than retail where you can just steamroll your way to max without even entering the world.

I agree with everything you said but a few little points I'd like to ask:

Have you beat nzoth on lfr? And link your armory so I don't need to ask any other questions

The reason I'm saying this is, all of your points are spot on, but I see a few things that don't add up when it comes to the retail side IMO

Do I think the boss's are easy after a few weeks and especially now that corruption is so dang op it makes up for 10-20+ % of peoples damage overall, that's like world buffs in classic right.. my thing is though: as a casual I think retails pretty easy ONCE you have the achieves logs and gear, but until you get them, you're fighting this up hill battle of grinding out essences, pvp, and M+.. and by the time you have everything.. theirs no need to play anymore because you have it all.. that's the difference to me on Retail Vs Classic: in classic you get your bis because you've played private servers for 8 years, then you move onto another toon, get bis and move to another. With bis you'll never get better, and that's the end at least for the carrot on a stick grind. Once everyone farms out naxx.. I mean that's it right? Classic TBC will be completely separate right, like why would they allow you to carry over all your stuff from classic vanilla right, they will make you level up to cap anew I would guess

I guess my point overall: each version of the game has its grinds or annoyances - its all about the community good or bad, and because we know what to expect: classic gets rolled over day 1 in an hour because the games much easier when you've been practicing it on private for 8 years before a lot of these nubs that don't even know what's going on even step foot in.

Retail is always an up or downhill, and it's either dogshit easy or way tough so that it excludes the playerbase and that's exactly what happened at the beginning of Cata.. the playerbase WANTED harder content, blizz released it and literally the playerbase fell to the floor because even basic B dungeons were actually decently tough for us "casual" players at least.

Classic is grindy Retail is easy: That's pretty much the gist of is UNTIL you get into hard content, then each version takes a nose dive into the abyss (high level pvp, raids, etc)

[munkeyinorbit]

I agree with everything you said but a few little points I'd like to ask:

Have you beat nzoth on lfr? And link your armory so I don't need to ask any other questions

The reason I'm saying this is, all of your points are spot on, but I see a few things that don't add up when it comes to the retail side IMO

Do I think the boss's are easy after a few weeks and especially now that corruption is so dang op it makes up for 10-20+ % of peoples damage overall, that's like world buffs in classic right.. my thing is though: as a casual I think retails pretty easy ONCE you have the achieves logs and gear, but until you get them, you're fighting this up hill battle of grinding out essences, pvp, and M+.. and by the time you have everything.. theirs no need to play anymore because you have it all.. that's the difference to me on Retail Vs Classic: in classic you get your bis because you've played private servers for 8 years, then you move onto another toon, get bis and move to another. With bis you'll never get better, and that's the end at least for the carrot on a stick grind. Once everyone farms out naxx.. I mean that's it right? Classic TBC will be completely separate right, like why would they allow you to carry over all your stuff from classic vanilla right, they will make you level up to cap anew I would guess

I guess my point overall: each version of the game has its grinds or annoyances - its all about the community good or bad, and because we know what to expect: classic gets rolled over day 1 in an hour because the games much easier when you've been practicing it on private for 8 years before a lot of these nubs that don't even know what's going on even step foot in.

Retail is always an up or downhill, and it's either dogshit easy or way tough so that it excludes the playerbase and that's exactly what happened at the beginning of Cata.. the playerbase WANTED harder content, blizz released it and literally the playerbase fell to the floor because even basic B dungeons were actually decently tough for us "casual" players at least.

Classic is grindy Retail is easy: That's pretty much the gist of is UNTIL you get into hard content, then each version takes a nose dive into the abyss (high level pvp, raids, etc)

But what part of classic is hard? If we ignore grindy then that leaves nothing. You don't have to be good to rank in PvP, just committed to 18 hour days. You don't have to be good to raid which is shown by the 34% of full clears in AQ. Maybe it's the elites out there in the world that are actually dangerous. Yes. It is the elites in the world that makes classic hard.

[arkanon]

So you claim to have killed C'Thun AND Twins in 1 to 2 attempts with no pre-fight experience, no prep, no communication, and no consumables day 1? How about Visc? Same claim? I also call bullshit.

If this is true let's see some logs.

Why the hell would a bunch of ultra casual classic players be logging? This is brain-dead easy content for us, we are not chasing perfect kills and high ranked speed clears - just like the majority of classic raiders, we rock up, have some laughs, kill some bosses, and socialise and enjoy ourselves.