Is everything being so free such a good thing?

[MrFawlty]

Prepare to get hammered because all the fanboys just will not accept that the game has got worse in any way. The fact that alot of these underlying stats are in other RPG's is completely lost on them. They will just say they were boring...unless ofcourse Blizzard bring them back..

[Kolvarg]

Prepare to get hammered because all the fanboys just will not accept that the game has got worse in any way. The fact that alot of these underlying stats are in other RPG's is completely lost on them. They will just say they were boring...unless ofcourse Blizzard bring them back..

It's almost as if "worse" is subjective.

[Darsithis]

I remember back in tbc when i was a clueless fury warrior running round with double avool zul of jin thinking i was doing ok (agi daggers)

This was the only source of what i thought was me getting better (buying boes) so a guild recruitment officer inspected me he could see that i was putting in a ton of effort (even though it was in the wrong area and i was clearly clueless)

This person spotted i was trying and put me on the right path by taking me to the training dummies and recount, we had a long chat, i joined his raid guild once he seen i was listening to what he was saying and there was immidiate improvement in my output, just because i was clueless about what was what didnt mean i was actually dumb, he could see that i just needed pointing in the right areas.

For every one of you, there are hundreds who never get that direction from a more knowledgeable player. I was lucky enough, too, to receive feedback from other people, but I know others who don't socialize, or can't, or just get so turned off by the cruelty of anonymous internet people that they don't even try anymore.

Like telling the time as a child, its hard when you dont know how, as soon as you learn it becomes easy, wow is the same, things you dont know are hard, when you know them they are easy, are blizzard not taking away that learning curve by just handing out gear to everyone and nerfing everything?

Example being taughast, was it really that hard pre nerf? would it really of been such a bad thing to keep something in the game to give everyone to work towards if it was too hard? really? taking away that deep satisfaction when you conquer something hard? i feel sorry for new players now, they arent getting to experience the joy that once was when you figured out something that was hard (for you individually) and then conquered it by opening your spellbook and figuring out how the game works, its legit now just a case of wait till blizzard nerfs it or gives us enough gear to do it.

My point is, by giving everyone such a free and easy way to see the content, isnt it taking away that learning curve? if your bad, then your bad whether you see it or not, the issue with this game is bad players arent as easy to spot as i was back then, completely off the track, even someone as clueless as i was back then would be running round in 205 minimum right now, everyone who puts a bit of effort in is at least 205 when you consider covenent gear and battleground gear is 197.

Since them days expansion on expansion blizzard have made it easier to cater to the people who arent very good taking away that learning aspect (im not critisisng them)

When i raided first and progressed betrayer of humanity was the ultimate goal, the only source of gear which was on a weekly lockout, there was 4/5 better dps in front of me, more established raid members, i was waiting for the day i got it every week attending raids dreaming of getting that twohand. what do players dream for now?

What do people have to work towards now? you can pay a few hundred thousand gold and collect.

Blizzard have simplified the game so much over the years, feel free to add points to this list

WoW has always been easy, that was its selling point. It was marketed as the easy version of Runescape and EverQuest

-Introduction of lfg

How did this dumb anything down? The dungeons themselves remained the same, you just now got to group up with a bunch of randos you've never met

-Introduction of lfr

LFR, by nature, has to be easier. Why? Because it's random. Unlike, say, my raid group, you don't get to keep trying week after week with the same people, learning the fights. It's then, or never. Most of those players you'll never meet again. If there is too much failure, the group disbands and no one wins.

-Removal of more deeper game stats like hit points, spirit, haste breakpoints, armor penetration all things that would have to be thought about when balancing gear all removed in a bid to simplify for the more raw players like i was.

You still have hit points.

It wasn't meant to simplify for "more raw players", it was meant to remove arbitrary stats that did very little for player choice. You had to get 21 expertise. You had to get enough hit rating not to miss. You had to get a specific defense breakpoint to avoid being crushed. There was no fun or thought in it, and you passed on obvious upgrades solely based on un-fun breakpoints.

-complete dumbing down of talent tress, yes the talent trees pre cata were just as easy but that had a lot more variance, you could tweak a build rather than have everyone running the exact same talents which gave you more to think about how you could adapt and overcome what you was doing.

This is more of an opinion for a lot of people. I did like getting talents every level, but I also realize that outside of a couple of specs and a few points you could swap here and there, I'd argue virtually everyone had the same cookie-cutter talent spec. If you didn't, you were gimping yourself. Now there is a lot more viability. I have, as spriest, 3 talent rows I can switch out depending on fights and content I'm doing. I feel like I have more choice. On top of that, it's easier to balance it all, and provide players with more choices down the road. What's easier to balance? 18 talents or 105?

- introduction of weekly chest
- introduction overpowered items that dropped via rng.
- introduction of gear that puts out most of the damage for you (twilight devastation/stars/echoeing void)

Weekly chests are a great way to play catch-up and get rewarded for participating in content. You don't just get one for free, you have to do something. Titan/Warforging was removed because it was a terrible mechanic.

Imagine as clueless as i was if i just picked up the game now, do you think that guild recruitment officer could of spotted the effort i was putting in?

There are ALOT of players in this game that will happily help someone who is trying and will put the effort in, my point is, how do you tell now who is trying and who isnt with all the free gearing going around and the game being so simplified?

Sure - who wouldn't? The game may have changed, but you can still see someone working at learning their class, spec, and gear. There are more ways to know someone's skill and intelligence than whether or not they have the right stats on their gear.

The game has changed so much since back then, its like now all people care about spending time with there friends online (not a bad thing) with the time inbetween being filled by just walking around collecting things that need little/no thought process to collect, problem is there is so little to differentiate between these players and the top end players that really know there stuff that the water is muddied to the point everyone looks the same.

Progressing is harder because players like the player i was are rocking into the more demanding content oblivious to how unequipped they are.

take me as i was back then if i was to play my own key, i cant equip the wrong primary stat gear so that's fixed (thanks to blizzard assigning what gear is for you)
i have decent gear because well, needs no explanation.

m+2 - +3 thanks to the one player that knew his stuff carrying
m+5 - +2 thanks to the one player again boosting
m+7 - +1
m+8 -1
m+7 - lucky enough to get a party of 4 players farming a specific item that knew there stuff +3

In no time at all i have a +10 key in my hand as the player i once was, repeat this until all 10s are done and then when you look at rio you see a player that looks like he at least knows something about the game (i did not)

Players like the player i was, clueless but putting in the effort would then repeatedly join 11 keys getting boosted in every single one of them, 12 keys, 13 keys, boost boost boost boost all the while oblivious until the wall is reached where 4 players cant boost someone that bad.

Ever wondered how someone "that bad" (as bad as i was) is in your level key? this post is your answer.

I feel like you're over-simplifying M+ keys. Yes, at the start of the expansion, M+ keys were very hard as people were undergeared and not everyone knew mechanics. I didn't, for example, on my first M+ Halls of Atonement, know that I was supposed to remain inside of the circle for Halkais to avoid being feared. Now it's been a few months. Many players are more geared, they're more knowledgeable about the fights, so yes, lower keys are getting easier as people who are geared work their way up the ladder every week. How is that so terrible? That means more players get a chance to play lower-end keys, they get a chance at gear that can help them gear up, and they can enjoy the game.

I remember when the game had depth, take resto druid:

Then:
8% haste 4th rejuv
9.5% extra lifebloom tick
11.4% haste 5 regrowth tick
15% haste 5 rejuv ticks
17% extra lifebloom tick
21% 6 regrowth tick
27% 6 rejuv
31% extra lifebloom tick
while balancing spirt intellect and other stats you would have to decide which breakpoint to get inline with.

now:
equip highest ilvl.

It's not "equip highest ilvl". I've been a raider for a decade and I have yet to see anyone just grab things based on item level. All of us are concerned with specific substats, and I have, along with everyone in my team, passed on things that were "upgrades" because it was really a sidegrade or even a downgrade depending on what subs I would lose. If you just grab the highest item level you can find, your performance will suffer.

[dadoodoo]

Prepare to get hammered because all the fanboys just will not accept that the game has got worse in any way. The fact that alot of these underlying stats are in other RPG's is completely lost on them. They will just say they were boring...unless ofcourse Blizzard bring them back..

Ive noticed this, got people commenting that wasnt even around when haste breakpoints were a thing argueing how its the same.

Also they simplified rotations, back when you would need to watch swing timer to min/max the whole reason your haste breakpoint was important alot of the times was to fit in swingtimers nicely to not break it so you didnt get the mellee swing.

then:
make a gearset list, grind for it.
1) keep rend up
2) mortal strike
3) overpower as a 1st filler
4) slam as a second filler
5) bladestorm after a mortal strike with at least 4 seconds rend up if low on rage.
6) all this while watching your swing timer to not cut one of your mellee hits short.
this is the basic rotation that you would have to do while killing mimiron hardmode pre nerf.

bfa:
pray to rng for corruption.
press buttons hope twilight dev rng is good for you
this is the basic rotation to be a god in m+ early weeks season 4

Please do tell me more how it is just as hard in later expansions.

- - - Updated - - -

[Xjan]

Please do tell me more how it is just as hard in later expansions.

- - - Updated - - -

I would, but I'm 100% sure it would be completely lost on you.

[Caerrona]

Ive noticed this, got people commenting that wasnt even around when haste breakpoints were a thing argueing how its the same.

Also they simplified rotations, back when you would need to watch swing timer to min/max the whole reason your haste breakpoint was important alot of the times was to fit in swingtimers nicely to not break it so you didnt get the mellee swing.

then:
make a gearset list, grind for it.
1) keep rend up
2) mortal strike
3) overpower as a 1st filler
4) slam as a second filler
5) bladestorm after a mortal strike with at least 4 seconds rend up if low on rage.
6) all this while watching your swing timer to not cut one of your mellee hits short.
this is the basic rotation that you would have to do while killing mimiron hardmode pre nerf.

bfa:
pray to rng for corruption.
press buttons hope twilight dev rng is good for you
this is the basic rotation to be a god in m+ early weeks season 4

Please do tell me more how it is just as hard in later expansions.

- - - Updated - - -

So your "hard wow" was

keeping a dot up? Lots of classes do that now
Using 1 or two fillers/generators? Lots of classes do that now
Watch timers on buffs/debuffs? (Same shit as watching a dot) a lot of classes do that now.
Using an addon to tell you when to press/not press buttons? (Swing timer) alot of classes do that now.

If you believe that in bfa you could roll over your keyboard and match someone playing properly you are misinformed (both players with corruptions obviously). Try actually playing the game outside of parsing in lfr.

[dadoodoo]

both players with corruptions obviously

Damn, you even touched on the point i made but still the penny didnt drop.

Did you even play when swing timers were a thing or are you just making a presumption? because i played both so i can speak about my opinion which has weight behind it, if you didnt play both you dont really have as much weight other than a biased presumption? do you?

Players watch timers on a 15/20 second buff that procs once per minute is your arguement to being the same as a player watching and fitting his rotation into a timer that repeats every 2.4 seconds? really? im going to go with the biased presumption

[Tadkins]

For every one of you, there are hundreds who never get that direction from a more knowledgeable player. I was lucky enough, too, to receive feedback from other people, but I know others who don't socialize, or can't, or just get so turned off by the cruelty of anonymous internet people that they don't even try anymore.

You basically just described me, hehe.

I've always struggled with the social aspect of these kind of games, ever since my EQ days. I don't know why but I just never seemed to amass the armies of friends that others seem to be able to. And with WoW specifically, there's just so much going on that it becomes overwhelming and I almost feel like I need to stand aside as to not drag others down. I will fully admit that I struggle with my class at times, as well as concepts like simming and parsing, and there's so much going on in dungeons and raids these days that it's hard to keep up.

If it weren't for LFR or queuable dungeons I really wouldn't have a game.

[lordjust]

...

"this was not a matter of "omg so hard plox nerf" if thats the case then why not buff the abilities for the said classes? you have seen the hotfix's adjusting this so more chance frop, less chance drop, buffing/nerfing the abilities for certain classes, if it was only certain classes that were struggling then why not buff them?

...

Because you couldn't just buff specific anima powers or abilities for just one spec. Like fury has like only two good anima powers. One where you can use condemn/execute on CD and one where you automatically cast whirlwind when casting rampage. You need one of them or better both of them and the anima powers that boost your condemn/execute/rampage damage to have enough dps to kill bosses on higher floors.

If you buff the anima powers it affects also arms and prot that share these powers who already had an easier time because of different scaling. If you buff the base abilities so that other anima powers become useful like slam, it also affects different content like m+ and raids.

The easiest and fastest option was to just nerf torghast. They added some anima powers to help you survive (mages are glasscanons) and nerfed some anima powers (the alam power was nerfed from 10,000% to 6,000% because it was too powerful for arms and kills it completely for fury).

For the classes where Torghast was impossible to clear before the nerf, they can clear it if they get their bis anima powers and all other classes/specs it's too easy.

A maybe better fix would've been to remove the anti healer/tank buff from elites where they do more damge the longer you're in fight and gets immune to cc. Before the nerf the floor 2 boss had something like 3 mio HP and because of the buff it had to die in like a minute or so which meant you need something like 50k dps which was impossible for some classes even with bis anima powers. Healers could still outheal it and tanks could still mitigate enough damage to survive but as a dps you just die. Without the buff you could cc and maybe survive the normal damage to increase the fight lenght to maybe 2 minutes or so to have enough time to kill it.

[Seranthor]

.

Wow was never 'hard', not even in the beginning... It was justifiably mocked by other MMOs as the 'easy' option.

[dadoodoo]

Because you couldn't just buff specific anima powers or abilities for just one spec. Like fury has like only two good anima powers. One where you can use condemn/execute on CD and one where you automatically cast whirlwind when casting rampage. You need one of them or better both of them and the anima powers that boost your condemn/execute/rampage damage to have enough dps to kill bosses on higher floors.

If you buff the anima powers it affects also arms and prot that share these powers who already had an easier time because of different scaling. If you buff the base abilities so that other anima powers become useful like slam, it also affects different content like m+ and raids.

The easiest and fastest option was to just nerf torghast. They added some anima powers to help you survive (mages are glasscanons) and nerfed some anima powers (the alam power was nerfed from 10,000% to 6,000% because it was too powerful for arms and kills it completely for fury).

For the classes where Torghast was impossible to clear before the nerf, they can clear it if they get their bis anima powers and all other classes/specs it's too easy.

A maybe better fix would've been to remove the anti healer/tank buff from elites where they do more damge the longer you're in fight and gets immune to cc. Before the nerf the floor 2 boss had something like 3 mio HP and because of the buff it had to die in like a minute or so which meant you need something like 50k dps which was impossible for some classes even with bis anima powers. Healers could still outheal it and tanks could still mitigate enough damage to survive but as a dps you just die. Without the buff you could cc and maybe survive the normal damage to increase the fight lenght to maybe 2 minutes or so to have enough time to kill it.

So you say about how they couldnt just buff certain classes because they effected other specs yet then go on to say how they ADDED other abilities for surviving, i am not insulting you, im making the point that you are quickly shutting down because you feel insulted, i promise its not my goal im just trying to get people to see what i see because everyone is being fooled by blizzard.

Blizzard has the power to tune. they CHOSE not to because the majority of players were moaning, as i said there was a player in my guild same class who was whispering me before saying how "its broken" "dont bother wait untill they fix it" it was just a case of singling out the dangerous mobs with cyclone and waiting for full buffs to solo him.

kite, vortex, roots, cyclone, maim, mightybash all tools that this player did not think to use because blizzard nerfs and simplifies everything immidiately so players like him dont quit, taking out the opportunity that good players will succeed and maybe teach the players how its done thus for increasing the level of the players in the game enabling blizzard to increase difficulies and put some difference between the good and bad players again while making the game engaging once again for everyone for longer.

This expansion is going to die a horrible horrible death and is going to go down as the worst ever as soon as the new expac shine wears off which already 6 weeks in people are all over this forum saying they are not renewing there sub, there is nothing to do etc, people are already bored out there mind.

If the content was harder, wouldnt it take longer to complete? a longer learning curve? more engaging as you try again instead of just facerolling everything the game has to offer in a few weeks.

taughast might of been exactly what this game really needed to keep people engaged, but at the first sign of the majority of the player base saying "too hard" blizzard nerf it, how long was it live hard? 2 days?

My attempted guess is blizzards demographics is something like this

exceptional 1% faceroll taughast pre nerf
very good 5% bit of a challenge but did it pre nerf
good 15% real struggle, class dependant may of just scraped it.
average 30% tried but couldnt do it
below average 40% instant "too hard"
clueless 9% "whats taughast"

79% of the player base could not do the content so blizzard nerfed it so they easily could so now the demographic looks like this:

exceptional 1% god this is boring
very good 5% god this is boring
good 15% god this is boring
average 30% god this is boring
below average 40% pretty fun 3 weeks later: god this is boring
clueless 9% "whats taughast"

blizzard are deleting there own content by making it so easy for the masses

it doesnt matter how accurate my guess of the demographics are its still the same result. a bored community.

- - - Updated - - -

Wow was never 'hard', not even in the beginning... It was justifiably mocked by other MMOs as the 'easy' option.

i didnt say it was hard? it was easy enough for me too, my point is wow is now so dumbed down its nothing but a giant grind which is why so many people are making posts here about how bored they are, nothing to do etc. blizzard have nerfed the hell out of everything and simplified everything so much that nothing is engaging anymore.

Thanks for the comment, went straight to google "hardest mmo" guild wars, off to youtube to see if i might like it (hopefully i will)

[Seranthor]

i didnt say it was hard? it was easy enough for me too, my point is wow is now so dumbed down its nothing but a giant grind which is why so many people are making posts here about how bored they are, nothing to do etc. blizzard have nerfed the hell out of everything and simplified everything so much that nothing is engaging anymore.

Thanks for the comment, went straight to google "hardest mmo" guild wars, off to youtube to see if i might like it (hopefully i will)

So, cancel your subscription and find something that fills your need. Really, its not that hard. Millions of people have already done that.

[Caerrona]

Damn, you even touched on the point i made but still the penny didnt drop.

Did you even play when swing timers were a thing or are you just making a presumption? because i played both so i can speak about my opinion which has weight behind it, if you didnt play both you dont really have as much weight other than a biased presumption? do you?

Players watch timers on a 15/20 second buff that procs once per minute is your arguement to being the same as a player watching and fitting his rotation into a timer that repeats every 2.4 seconds? really? im going to go with the biased presumption

Lol what a complete joke. You have 0 idea how pretty much any class plays atm or hell even back then. If you actually think "back in muh day pressing mortal strike was HARD" you are fucking delusional.

[dadoodoo]

Lol what a complete joke. You have 0 idea how pretty much any class plays atm or hell even back then. If you actually think "back in muh day pressing mortal strike was HARD" you are fucking delusional.

Wow, so much dumb in one response. your not even worth a response, im dissapointed with myself for giving you this one.

[erifwodahs]

Well, if anything was proven by classic and will be proven by TBC and WotLK after that (if it comes) that gear is free.
You might think that you were "hard working" for the gear, but you weren't - you were not doing it in the right way.

Badges will let everyone to gear full epic gear in couple resets.

[dadoodoo]

So, cancel your subscription and find something that fills your need. Really, its not that hard. Millions of people have already done that.

true, i didnt think of that tbh. i thought wow was the only mmo out there, checked out guild wars vids looks interesting, kinda sucks that i have to learn a whole new game however it looks like it has huge versatility with balancing etc which is exactly what i need to be the best i can be, on the video it specifically states that every class can be anything which sounds amazing tbh, rather than 3 balance druids in a raid all with the exact same trinkets, covenent, build, talents while pressing there buttons in the exact same order, really dull when you think about it.

[Caerrona]

Wow, so much dumb in one response. your not even worth a response, im dissapointed with myself for giving you this one.

It's almost like you have no clue what you are talking about. Reading through this thread I really can't see anything other than "grey parses in lfr" qhen reading your replies. Opinions on classes doesn't really seem like your strong suit seeing as how you don't even know how classes work?

Good talk though. Got me through my lunch at work.

[dadoodoo]

It's almost like you have no clue what you are talking about. Reading through this thread I really can't see anything other than "grey parses in lfr" qhen reading your replies. Opinions on classes doesn't really seem like your strong suit seeing as how you don't even know how classes work?

Good talk though. Got me through my lunch at work.

buddy, your making it obvious that you didnt play back then because if you did you would know that what i was saying actually was the case.

Thanks for your input though! lol

[FiveDkp]

buddy, your making it obvious that you didnt play back then because if you did you would know that what i was saying actually was the case.

Thanks for your input though! lol

Link your Armory. I'm having severe doubts that you played BC/Wotlk. BC - farm easy heroics for badges, WOTLK - You could have ret paladins tank your heroics for badges.

Games been easy for a long time - you just don't realise you've got better and the information has got better.

[erifwodahs]

Ive noticed this, got people commenting that wasnt even around when haste breakpoints were a thing argueing how its the same.

Also they simplified rotations, back when you would need to watch swing timer to min/max the whole reason your haste breakpoint was important alot of the times was to fit in swingtimers nicely to not break it so you didnt get the mellee swing.

then:
make a gearset list, grind for it.
1) keep rend up
2) mortal strike
3) overpower as a 1st filler
4) slam as a second filler
5) bladestorm after a mortal strike with at least 4 seconds rend up if low on rage.
6) all this while watching your swing timer to not cut one of your mellee hits short.
this is the basic rotation that you would have to do while killing mimiron hardmode pre nerf.

bfa:
pray to rng for corruption.
press buttons hope twilight dev rng is good for you
this is the basic rotation to be a god in m+ early weeks season 4

Please do tell me more how it is just as hard in later expansions.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean what else to do when you are hitting a dummy but to watch auto-shots or swing timers? Oh look, boss is casting 8 second oneshot spell. So little time to prepare for it!
I mean the way you emphasize TD, which was only in for one patch in BfA btw and how you have no clue about what actually was good in M+ tells me all about how "good" you were and how ez it is. I guess highest you did was 15 while overgearing it?
You really don't radiate knowledge about the WoW and probably just read about min-maxing of the stuff back in the day on some forum rather than actually used the mechanics.