Why is mindlessly easy the default for wow?

[Jessicka]

I do think the biggest issue was making heroics harder AND making them queable. That to me was the mistake. If some servers had too low populations and needed cross realm help they needed to merge (connect) realms or developed the cross realm group finder instead.

Funny that these are things that weren't even considered at the time because such low pop realms didn't exist.

[Kehego]

So 5 mans being hard didn’t grow subs in TBC but 5 mans being hard caused subs to go down in Cata?

Interesting.

you can't be dumb enough to really think that the difficulty was the sole defining reason?

the 2 characters that carried the franchise on their backs are dead, what's left? TBC heroic participation rate was dogshit throughout. WoTLK heroics were pretty low participation until ICC patch as well.



but fr, who the fuck cares about deathwing?

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Funny that these are things that weren't even considered at the time because such low pop realms didn't exist.

low pop realms always existed

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I think that it is really, really easy for people who are very good at the game, or take the time to look stuff up, to underestimate how obtuse the game is to the average person.

I used to think that making things hard and queue-able was the problem. Then, I played FF14 and it proved me incredibly wrong. There is a ton of queued content certainly as difficult or more difficult than cata heroics and it works totally fine. Why? A coherent, shared telegraphing language that allows learning fights (and the general combat system) by doing the fights, rather than with prior research. Plus, there is no "ignore the mechanics and power through" which allows players to learn bad habits.

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If it was easy, it wouldn't have been an issue, so you clearly aren't willing to engage with the reality of the situation.

"cata heroics were easy... just press your fucking buttons (something that people didn't have to do in the last expansion)"

People were unwilling to adapt and/or get good. dassit. pressing cc spells and not breaking said cc afterwards wasn't difficult in the slightest.

[NineSpine]

"cata heroics were easy... just press your fucking buttons (something that people didn't have to do in the last expansion)"

People were unwilling to adapt and/or get good. dassit. pressing cc spells and not breaking said cc afterwards wasn't difficult in the slightest.

If they were easy we wouldn't be having this conversation. Stop using this topic as an excuse to talk about how awesome you are. Nobody cares.

[Kehego]

If they were easy we wouldn't be having this conversation. Stop using this topic as an excuse to talk about how awesome you are. Nobody cares.

But they were easy. Difficulty is subjective.

Lmao why the fuck would someone try to flex epeen on HEROIC dungeons, like the absolute entry level group content? Its not hard to kick a cast, it def isnt hard to polymorph a mob, and that's all you had to do. press your fucking buttons.

[Relapses]

You also criticize the game, so it is hypocritical to say everyone who has different criticisms should just leave. If that's the case, you would leave.

There's a line between constructive criticism and demanding the game cater to one's own personal vision. The OP has been doing the latter throughout this thread. He wants to remove an RPG element from the game because he feels it's unnecessary. That RPG element he feels is unnecessary is the exact reason other people play the game. I don't think a game that has repeatedly been criticized as "lacking engaging RPG features" by people who've quit should be in the business of removing one of the few RPG elements it still has as this would (imo, obviously) move the needle even further towards WoW becoming a lobby game.

[NineSpine]

There's a line between constructive criticism and demanding the game cater to one's own personal vision. The OP has been doing the latter throughout this thread. He wants to remove an RPG element from the game because he feels it's unnecessary. That RPG element he feels is unnecessary is the exact reason other people play the game. I don't think a game that has repeatedly been criticized by people who've quit should be in the business of removing more RPG elements in the interest of moving WoW even further in the direction of becoming a lobby game.

Yeah, he's horribly wrong. It's a terrible idea. But I think the games fucked up for different reasons and so do you. I get it though.

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But they were easy. Difficulty is subjective.

Lmao why the fuck would someone try to flex epeen on HEROIC dungeons, like the absolute entry level group content? Its not hard to kick a cast, it def isnt hard to polymorph a mob, and that's all you had to do. press your fucking buttons.

I don't know. You are the one flexing right now. You tell me the appeal of doing so.

Again, if they were easy, we wouldn't be having this conversation and Blizzard wouldn't have admitted they were hard. Difficulty is subjective, and that's why we base something like that on the experience of the entire player base not just Kehego because he's soooo amazing and soooo good at wow that this wasn't a challenge for him.

[rrayy]

TBC heroics were hard and subs grew, why is that?

Correlation does not = causation. Saying x is why subs grew is completely disingenuous because there are a variety of reasons why subs grew. NO one thing causes subs to grow or decline. Completely disingenuous to say subs grew in TBC because heroics were hard. That was probably like the 1,000th reason why subs grew.

[xuros]

I think it is alienating a lot of people from the game. I see a lot of people in newcomer chat being perplexed why there are not any dangerous enemies in the game. After awkwardly explaining that they likely wont see any for the first twelve hours of play( assuming boosted a lot more without it) they seem to loose all enthusiasm to play.

With most of the most popular games for pc being harder games like counter-strike, mobas, elden ring and other challenging games shouldn't wow try to challenge players before heroic raids or mythic raiding?

( grabbed the games from steams most played not a perfect nor complete sample but a sizable one.)

Because not mindlessly easy is something you can work towards with Mythic raiding and High end M+ keys. Doesn't all have to be Nightmare mode gaming to make it fun. I doubt that the game being fairly easy for solo play is "alienating" anyone.

[Argorwal]

Correlation does not = causation. Saying x is why subs grew is completely disingenuous because there are a variety of reasons why subs grew. NO one thing causes subs to grow or decline. Completely disingenuous to say subs grew in TBC because heroics were hard. That was probably like the 1,000th reason why subs grew.

So why then do people harp on Cata heroics being hard is a major reason subs declined? If heroics being hard wasn’t a reason subs increased then why is it a reason subs decreased?

More than likely it was driven by the Lich King story being over if I was to guess.

[Elias1337]

That was never the case. WoW has ALWAYS been this way since original release. It was just more tedious.

No it really wasnt. Mobs actualy opposed threat. Then this uber entilted casuals came in complainig about it and Blizzard caved in in order to get their sub money. And in process of cuttering game for these so called casuals alianated rest of their core audience.

Yes mobs were not mechanicly challenging becouse you know 2004. But thats not excuse having world mobs with mechanics what hit like wet nuddle. Doing no dmg and dieing in 2 seconds. Its also reason btw why are zones over saturated by mobs. To compensate for fact game become easyer and faster.

[Lolites]

It might be me getting older but I'm growing increasingly sick of games trying to substitute a difficulty progression system with a time spent one.

as opposed to what period in wow? vanilla, where everything was easy enough for people after lobotomy, just took a LOOOONG time?
between m+ and mythic raids wow now have more difficult content than in the past, not less...

[NineSpine]

No it really wasnt. Mobs actualy opposed threat. Then this uber entilted casuals came in complainig about it and Blizzard caved in in order to get their sub money. And in process of cuttering game for these so called casuals alianated rest of their core audience.

Yes mobs were not mechanicly challenging becouse you know 2004. But thats not excuse having world mobs with mechanics what hit like wet nuddle. Doing no dmg and dieing in 2 seconds.

That's not what happened. The "I want the game to be a lobby for instances" crowd is who demanded the world content be dumbed down.

[Lolites]

TBC heroics were hard and subs grew, why is that?

people need to understand, players were leaving in DROVES back then too... and we KNOW that, bcs at some point in late cata (or early panda?) they said 100m people tried wow, yet it never reacherd 13m active subs, so in vanila-pandaria period over 87% who tried the game LEFT...
there just was enough new players to outweight that, but thats not possible forever...

also, TBC heroics were not really difficult if you knew what you are doing, its just back then a lot of people DIDNT know

[Kehego]

people need to understand, players were leaving in DROVES back then too... and we KNOW that, bcs at some point in late cata (or early panda?) they said 100m people tried wow, yet it never reacherd 13m active subs, so in vanila-pandaria period over 87% who tried the game LEFT...
there just was enough new players to outweight that, but thats not possible forever...

also, TBC heroics were not really difficult if you knew what you are doing, its just back then a lot of people DIDNT know

same with cata heroics.
people just refused to learn. No more wotlk zerg, boo hoo.

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Yeah, he's horribly wrong. It's a terrible idea. But I think the games fucked up for different reasons and so do you. I get it though.

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I don't know. You are the one flexing right now. You tell me the appeal of doing so.

Again, if they were easy, we wouldn't be having this conversation and Blizzard wouldn't have admitted they were hard. Difficulty is subjective, and that's why we base something like that on the experience of the entire player base not just Kehego because he's soooo amazing and soooo good at wow that this wasn't a challenge for him.

I just used hard CC.

Like, the only classes that don't have them are what, warriors and DK?

[Shadowferal]

people need to understand, players were leaving in DROVES back then too... and we KNOW that, bcs at some point in late cata (or early panda?) they said 100m people tried wow, yet it never reacherd 13m active subs, so in vanila-pandaria period over 87% who tried the game LEFT... there just was enough new players to outweight that, but thats not possible forever...

100 million??
Really?

[Kehego]

100 million??
Really?

that was a #of accounts created statistic years ago yeah

[matheney2k]

Funny that these are things that weren't even considered at the time because such low pop realms didn't exist.

Low pop/dead realms have always existed umm...

[Ghost of Cow]

It has always mostly been the default for MMOs. Of course they want to keep you doing something easy 10,000 times over doing something hard fewer times.

That way it's accessible to everyone and keeps you occupied much longer. There's a reason why you don't see the same concepts in single-player games.

[GreenJesus]

I can agree with this as long as making harder outdoor content not just damage sponges or ridiculously overtuned auto attacks that kill you in two unavoidable melee swings. Would that mean having to constantly dance around avoiding triangles and squares, and dodging telegraphed animation wings and memorizing specific mechanics for each rare in the world? I remember the part on timeless isle where The fire cows were on the other side of the bridge with those kilnmasters that would one shot you if you stood in the cone. Good times. Is that what you are asking for?

Another thing Blizzard needs to do is make mechanics on the ground stand out more. I know they like having mechanics look lore-accurate or whatever, but please have better outlines on where is good and where is bad. Enough of the vague swirlies. Put a dark outline around the edge of the swirly please for the love of god.

[Lolites]

100 million??
Really?

yes, but i had wrong time, it was late panda, not early

https://www.polygon.com/2014/1/28/53...ounts-lifetime