When did the game start having to be designed around pugging?

[Garymorilix]

This is a common thing people like OP think when their playstyle or community suddenly changes.

The best example of this is Master Loot.

Someone who only ever raided in a fair guild with friends and family thinks that the removal of Master Loot is bad.
They themselves never experienced it being used unfairly so it cannot be bad.
But in reality this is only their percieved reality, real reality is different.

OP most likely did not use to PuG much or at all before but now he does PuGs on a regular basis so he experiences in game systems differently.

The game is not being more focused on PuGs.
But certain gameplay elements or even grouped content is percieved differently by organized and by not-organized people.
It is only logical.

I personally PuG 95% percent of the time so my opinion on certain things will be entirely different than someone's who does organized content 95% of the time.

The main point here is to not try to force your view on others.
If you hate pugging, don't do it.
If you don't like being dependant on others, dont join guilds.

[Twdft]

Eh? Don't get me wrong, Kara was cleared by pick up groups for the entirety of TBC but Magtheridon, PuG'd from the beginning???

Depending on realm, but pugs who actually downed Gruul instead of just Maulgar mostly went on to do Magtheridon. Maybe not right from the beginning but definately when he was slightly nerfed with the cube clicking.

[Aphrel]

I would argue patch 1.7 with the introduction of Zul Gurub.

Dungeons were pug content from the beginning, raids not so much because you needed 40 players on a steady basis. Zul'Gurub changed that and was pugged all the time already in 2005.

Burning Crusade changed the raid structure to 10/25 and while 25 was still mostly run by guilds, Karazhan, Gruul and Magtheridon were absolutely pugged right from the beginning.

So I don't think WoW was in some later expansion made to be puggable, it already was.

It took nihilium 6 weeks to down magtheridon and claim world 1st, and another 2 weeks went by until the world 10th kill had landed on him. That fight was absolutely brutal at the beginning, no pugs did him for months until the global nerf waves came with the first patches.

Same with gruuls lair, he was superhard at the start aswell. Death and taxes who had world first on maulgar took 2 full weeks to down gruul after him.

Pretty much every raidcontent was hard in the beginning of tbc, even nightbane in kara was hard, the world 10th kill on him was over 3 weeks into the expansion, and that was the entry level raid.

It wasnt until several months later when several global nerf waves hit all raid content that ppl started pugging anything outside of kara and possibly maulgar.

[lagiacrux]

I see this a lot (especially now with the covenant abilities), the demand or entitlement from players that the game needs to be changed because getting in to pugs will be too difficult otherwise.

Not that many years ago the standard reply to such demands was always "find a guild and your problems will go away" but now players expect the game to be catered towards pugging. When this mentality replace the old mentality? It's a MMORPG after all so I would assume that forming long relationships like you do in guilds would be the goal, not fleeting ones (at best) you get from pugs.

the playerbase has gotten older.
more RL resposibilites -> less free time -> less time for organized raiding with fixed dates -> pugging is a viable option

[goldlock]

It took nihilium 6 weeks to down magtheridon and claim world 1st, and another 2 weeks went by until the world 10th kill had landed on him. That fight was absolutely brutal at the beginning, no pugs did him for months until the global nerf waves came with the first patches.

Same with gruuls lair, he was superhard at the start aswell. Death and taxes who had world first on maulgar took 2 full weeks to down gruul after him.

Pretty much every raidcontent was hard in the beginning of tbc, even nightbane in kara was hard, the world 10th kill on him was over 3 weeks into the expansion, and that was the entry level raid.

It wasnt until several months later when several global nerf waves hit all raid content that ppl started pugging anything outside of kara and possibly maulgar.

I don't think those same bosses would hold up very well if I am honest. While most of the wow player base has remained rather static or even regressed in skill with the nerf to dungeon difficulty outside of lets say a mythic +5. The best players have been pushing themselves for a decade. When TBC is released I expect content to absolutely be toppled till around blacktemple/sunwell.

The games changed, you cant cross the same river home twice.

[unbound]

People have been pugging since the very beginning. People have been making demands for game changes since the very beginning. People have been provided over-simplistic answers (like the asinine "find a guild" as if all guilds are great) since the very beginning.

None of this mentality represents a change of any sort.

What has changed is the game itself. As Blizz has been cutting corners (since Wrath), the popularity of the game has declined and Blizz has been desperately trying every low-cost trick that they can think of to try to hold on to subscribers.

Thus we have 4 tiers of raids now, and a dungeon system that scales. Not because this is a serious effort by Blizz to make the game better, but because they can be cheap as **** and try to hold on to a few people who think infinite grind of the same raid / dungeon with infinite grind of the same loot is somehow content.

[Fistfighter]

In Wrath, actually, it just got more and more streamlined from that point on

[onesBronson]

Well it's not everyday that my friends want to play wow so I can keep from pugging. Maybe you might fare better than me at that. You don't necessarily have to pug your way through everything, so long as you have a guild and friends. I think blizzard knows this, which is why its encouraged to join a guild, a community, or make some friends who you can run content with. Otherwise, you're better off pugging everything as all the changes are leaning more towards.

[StillMcfuu]

I see this a lot (especially now with the covenant abilities), the demand or entitlement from players that the game needs to be changed because getting in to pugs will be too difficult otherwise.

Not that many years ago the standard reply to such demands was always "find a guild and your problems will go away" but now players expect the game to be catered towards pugging. When this mentality replace the old mentality? It's a MMORPG after all so I would assume that forming long relationships like you do in guilds would be the goal, not fleeting ones (at best) you get from pugs.

If the game were designed around pugging, raids would be easier and require less coordination.

[Belloc]

This game has had a focus on pugs since the very beginning. Meeting stones? For pugs, since guilds can easily expect you to be there on time. Dungeons? For pugs, because you only really want to do them when you're leveling up and there's no guarantee that you'll have guildies that want to go. Battlegrounds? Oh, definitely for pugs and for obvious reasons.

So, again, from the very beginning.

Now, regarding covenant abilities: Your premise is false. Players will still be able to get into groups -- raid, mythic plus, or otherwise -- regardless of covenant abilities. Sub-par Azerite Essences and Corruptions didn't stop people from getting into pugs, after all.

The people on the forums like to complain. They like to predict doom and gloom. They are usually misguided, if not completely wrong. They complained about gear score ruining the game... and now it's built into every character and those characters still get into groups. They're going to be wrong about covenant abilities, too... and, if they're not, then that's when Blizzard will step in and make it easy to switch.

[Echo of Soul]

The people on the forums like to complain. They like to predict doom and gloom. They are usually misguided, if not completely wrong. They complained about gear score ruining the game... and now it's built into every character and those characters still get into groups. They're going to be wrong about covenant abilities, too... and, if they're not, then that's when Blizzard will step in and make it easy to switch.

I think you're right about that. I never once had anyone even check my essences or corruptions, heck they don't even check my talents.

[Aphrel]

I don't think those same bosses would hold up very well if I am honest. While most of the wow player base has remained rather static or even regressed in skill with the nerf to dungeon difficulty outside of lets say a mythic +5. The best players have been pushing themselves for a decade. When TBC is released I expect content to absolutely be toppled till around blacktemple/sunwell.

The games changed, you cant cross the same river home twice.

im not talking about tbc-classic obviously...

but since you do:
Given the laziness of blizzard i fully expect them to release the game in the 2.4 patch in a similar manner to classic. And thus given all the huge content nerfs that came between 2.0 and 2.4 every content from kara to illidan will be roughly as hard as molten core/bwl...
This also solves the problem with the bugged bosses (Al'ar and vashj, both still killable thou, but bugged nontheless). I doubt they want to re-release that.

If we are lucky they will go with the 2.1 patch (bt release, but will hyjal Q locked so no1 can get further). But that will still mean that ssc/gruul/magtheridon/all hc dungeons has already gone throu huge waves of nerfs. So pretty much only vashj, kaelthaz and and the other tk bosses will be the genuine experience.
But thats probobly the best we can hope for.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

LFD was the precursor to LFR.
Both reduced the need to actually interract and get to know people.
For better and worse (it's never just one or the other).

[azka]

Get a guild and you should be fine.

[Cyram]

It's the new buzzword the doomsayers are using.
Tier sets and pugging.
... but as to why they're complaining... because the choice of a covenant will mean they won't get to do it "all" so they feel they won't be accepted by pug groups who will be elitist jerks about non-optimal covenant choices.
People would rather yell at game devs than to change the rules they themselves set up for themselves.