Why is end game tailored so much against the casual player?

[Crimson Spears]

Most of those did suck but (I may be alone here)... I kinda like visions. I won't say why because it just enrages my fellow members of the rio community.

Visions I feel are a edge case. I didn't mind them (made 15 million gold selling carries back when they went for over 500k I ran a lot of them) overall I felt the community wasn't a fan of them though.

[Kalisandra]

Watching the game change over the years is in essence watching it decay. I recall wow's old community and I am going to go rather far back with this but bare with me. In tbc you had a rather direct path in the game and I would argue on of the best progression systems. You went from normal to heroic dungeons. That step required certain skills to be mastered not terribly difficult skills but skills none the less. From there you went to kara then to gruul then depending on when we are talking tk and ssc.

My recollection was that lower Kara and heroics were about the same in difficulty, and in fact tanking lower Kara required less gear and some pulls in the 5-mans, especially before the heroics were nerfed. And frankly some of the pulls in the heroics took more skill to do than Kara did, because of timing and CC requirements (which also meant the 5-mans were fussier when it came to group comp than Kara until you over-geared them). Those early BC heroics could be pretty tough.

Each step taught players more and more skills difficulty build upon difficulty then things started to change. Queue wrath heroics now before LFD came into the game and even a bit after wow players had some general standards. That however wasn't acceptable and before long kick protection was added to force players to carry others. This lead to the playerbase degrading to the point that when cata came around what used to be the standard difficulty was now to high for the average playerbase.

Some of the Cata 5-mans when on heroic were over-tuned even if you wanted players to 'step up' and play right, and this was made worse by some specs being badly under-tuned initially, resulting in them being under-geared for some dungeons whilst in gear as good as any the dungeon dropped.

I lost some of my favorite content from "casuals" wailing they couldn't accomplish the content and demanding they get a movie mode of the game. From there LFR came into the game and the endless bickering and whining of players who immediately saw it for what it was a loot piñata. In MoP I watched as legendary items a system I never liked ( I don't see value in game breaking weapons) become a time locked grind to give the same type of player a reward for logging on. I've watched as grind after grind is added into the game from legion onwards all in a desperate attempt to attract a playerbase I personally think don't even really enjoy the game for the game play but rather are simply invested in the story.

As opposed to the vanilla legendaries that were a massive grind that rewarded a very few for persuading everyone else to log in for the raid over and over so that the few could get their Thunderfury, etc. Wrath and Cata were similar, though at least for Shadowmourne much of the grind could be done simulteanously by anyone working on the thing.

Then there was BC's "well, I guess you got lucky" method of low drop-rates. Sucks to be the number three DPS warrior in your guild when you're doing BT though.

However, I agree with you that legendaries have always been problematic in the MMORPG context. Either everyone can have them, at which point they're not really legendary and must either have an unspectacular effect or they are mandatory, or only the few have them and either massive grind is rewarded or they're granted by RNG (whether to a large or small portion of the playerbase doesn't matter) which is manifestly unfair, even by MMO standards (where RNG is a thing, but generally grinding enough will get you something, or something close enough).

[Necromantic]

Legendaries were a blast for those who got them (I had fangs of the father) but I can easily see how it wasn't fair for many. Unless you were in the guild from the start, you're almost guaranteed to never get that legendary. So anyone who joins in later and thinks "oh, that looks cool, I'll shoot for that!" will be greatly disappointed.

[Kalisandra]

I have to imagine can not. Its been arguably since mop they have been trying to add to the games modes starting with mops scenarios. Each one with the exception of mage tower and mythic+( though arguably that is just dungeons again) has failed.

I liked the MoP scenarios. Easy stuff to do with my extremely casual friends. Of course I just happened to have two extremely casual friends to hang out and play undemanding WoW content with, who couldn't be relied on to heal, tank, or even DPS well. So for us they were perfect content, and the limited, cosmetic, rewards were appropriate, too. I was disappointed when they were dropped as content, but I do understand why. However, I do wonder if a bit more work making them engaging could've made them a worthwhile 'easy casual' level of content and thus removed the need to tune down every other damned thing.

Who even does normal dungeons once they hit 60, aside from if you want a really quick run for the weekly dungeon quests?

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Legendaries were a blast for those who got them (I had fangs of the father) but I can easily see how it wasn't fair for many. Unless you were in the guild from the start, you're almost guaranteed to never get that legendary. So anyone who joins in later and thinks "oh, that looks cool, I'll shoot for that!" will be greatly disappointed.

I had Shadowmourne for my Ret Pally when it was current (barely - I got it pretty late in the tier). It was a blast alright. Absolute murder in PvP, only equalled by Arms Warriors with it (especially before they nerfed the Bladestorm+Sweeping Blows combo). However, utterly unfair for everyone who couldn't get one because of their guild situation or their main's class (though in the ICC raid Fire Mages out DPSed every plate DPS even when said plate DPS had the thing, so there was that).

[Crimson Spears]

I liked the MoP scenarios. Easy stuff to do with my extremely casual friends. Of course I just happened to have two extremely casual friends to hang out and play undemanding WoW content with, who couldn't be relied on to heal, tank, or even DPS well. So for us they were perfect content, and the limited, cosmetic, rewards were appropriate, too. I was disappointed when they were dropped as content, but I do understand why. However, I do wonder if a bit more work making them engaging could've made them a worthwhile 'easy casual' level of content and thus removed the need to tune down every other damned thing.

Who even does normal dungeons once they hit 60, aside from if you want a really quick run for the weekly dungeon quests?

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I had Shadowmourne for my Ret Pally when it was current (barely - I got it pretty late in the tier). It was a blast alright. Absolute murder in PvP, only equalled by Arms Warriors with it (especially before they nerfed the Bladestorm+Sweeping Blows combo). However, utterly unfair for everyone who couldn't get one because of their guild situation or their main's class (though in the ICC raid Fire Mages out DPSed every plate DPS even when said plate DPS had the thing, so there was that).

I mean before scenario's gave valor I recall doing one once that took over twenty minutes to find 2 other people in queue for it.

I can't really think of them as anything but failed content only when they massively bribed people with a massive amount of valor did people run them. As for normal dungeons I would point to them as a casualty of catering the "casual" playerbase. Once heroics were made so anyone could do them not only did they lose all value but normal was utterly ignored and seen as something to only do while leveling.

[ThatsOurEric]

I will say that leveling via doing the bonus objectives are extremely tedious and highly
skewed against the casual player for sure.

The damage of mobs are fucking absurd. You pull anymore than 2 (and sometimes,
two is too much) and you are going to die every time. A little bit of damage scaling
would've gone a long way, seeing as how grinding these areas are again, extremely
tedious.

[Kalisandra]

I will say that leveling via doing the bonus objectives are extremely tedious and highly
skewed against the casual player for sure.

The damage of mobs are fucking absurd. You pull anymore than 2 (and sometimes,
two is too much) and you are going to die every time. A little bit of damage scaling
would've gone a long way, seeing as how grinding these areas are again, extremely
tedious.

Compared to the original version of these (in WoD), they are junk. Hard, long, tedious, and giving little XP for the effort. In WoD they were very much worth doing, but not now. Just chain-run dungeons until your eyes bleed, hit level cap and do the covenant campaign (again... such fun).