STOP making the game for the top 0.01% of the players! It’s killing this game

[Battlebeard]

You can't compare the matchmade mode (lfr) where noone talks or the only talk is trash talk of today with any pre-lfr content. In lfr you go in and expect at least half of the group to be afking. In vanilla classic, or even bc classic, you expect everyone to lift their weight, even in pugs (mostly also cause it'd hurt ones server reputation if they wouldn't).
That is why lfr feels harder. That's why I'm always preaching that normal mode is "easier" (note the quote marks!) than lfr. Because you simply do not have 15/25 players afk there.
Clear times of normal full clears are faster than the queue and the clear time of a single lfr wing combined, because you have infinitely less slackers there. That is why I can't understand anyone saying "I only do lfr because I can't commit to a schedule". There is no need for a schedule to do normal, in fact your limited playtime is better spent/more efficiently spent doing normal pugs instead of lfr.

I only do LFR cause it's litterally impossible to ever get invited to Normal mode. Unless you already cleared it and have 260, there is a 0.0001% chance you ever get invited.

[Azharok]

I only do LFR cause it's litterally impossible to ever get invited to Normal mode. Unless you already cleared it and have 260, there is a 0.0001% chance you ever get invited.

So it's not impossible

[Battlebeard]

LFR is a victim of player mindset which ends up boiling the raid down to the lowest common denominator. Even a very good player walks into LFR and their mindset is likely "Everyone is going to suck and not even try so why bother trying? I'll afk and move around enough to not get vote kicked, wipe a couple times, and we'll power through it on determination." It becomes a self-reinforcing problem.

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C'thun was literally impossible. The world first people went about ten weeks bashing their heads against him without success before they went to Blizzard and aske for hotfixes. These days if the WF first guys are struggling it gets nerfed in a couple days so they can continue progressing.

Naxx was the ultimate case of raid roster boss, in that you needed eight tanks to do the Four Horsemen.

We just had Naxx classic, in it's original state, and you didn't need 8 tanks, people were just sort of inexperienced back then.

[oplawlz]

We just had Naxx classic, in it's original state, and you didn't need 8 tanks, people were just sort of inexperienced back then.

This is kind of a misnomer. Classic started with everything optimized to the last patch, which made all the previous raids much easier. Players also knew exactly what gear they needed for the next tier from the get-go, allowing them to target not only BiS for current raids but future ones as well.
Not disagreeing with the experience thing, just pointing out there were several other factors.

[cparle87]

We just had Naxx classic, in it's original state, and you didn't need 8 tanks, people were just sort of inexperienced back then.

You needed 8 tanks for the 4 horsemen, two for each of them. It was one of the ultimate roster bosses.

[Battlebeard]

You needed 8 tanks for the 4 horsemen, two for each of them. It was one of the ultimate roster bosses.

Not in the 2019 Classic, it was done with about 5 tanks. People just nuked Thane, then the tank swap was super easy.

[cparle87]

Not in the 2019 Classic, it was done with about 5 tanks. People just nuked Thane, then the tank swap was super easy.

Guess we'll have to jot that down to #somechanges, then.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Guess we'll have to jot that down to #somechanges, then.

No, people were just bad at the game in 2004. Even during Classic launch, I was doing MC in a group of people from 58 - 60, and we were still able to clear it in about an hour (this was in the first month of launch), which was basically unheard of in Vanilla. I believe Naxx was even cleared by people using exclusively green gear as a form of "challenge mode". Normal Naxx runs did did a burn strat, taking advantage of all classes being able to output significantly higher DPS than was done during Vanilla and requiring fewer tanks, but most guilds not using the burn strat would use an 8 tank rotation (4 in, 4 waiting for tank stacks). Essentially, the problem isn't #somechanges, it's that people didn't understand the game back then.

[Flatspriest]

100% agree, the game is far too hard, it only caters to top players, there is a reason Classic became huge.

You must not have played the game during the original Classic era. You would have to sit and eat after every single mob. You would get attacked by anything and everything that was hostile towards you from a great distance. It was very much harder then. They have made this game so much easier over the years due to a majority of the player base being casuals rather than hard-core raiders.

[Doffen]

Mythic players are way more than 0.1% of the player base. Today its more likely that you can swap the numbers and remove the dot, 10%.

In SoO 9000 guilds killed at least one boss on mythic. 22k on normal. We are closing in on half of the amount of normal players(41%ish). Which wasn't the case just a few years ago. In Tomb of Sargeras it was 9k vs 31k. Less than 30%. Going back in time, the raiders were even at even lower percentages simply because it had more players and more players are likely to have a bigger spread on what content they are playing.

If anything, blizzard should cater more to those who already play the game and has done for years, the raiders.

[munkeyinorbit]

3 hours a week is not a lot of commitment.

And ill say it again, performance has nothing to do with whether or not u are casual. Unless you are trying to classify all casuals as low skilled?

Casuals play low skilled content. 3 hours or 40 hours a week. If its low skilled then it's casual.

[czarek]

Casuals play low skilled content. 3 hours or 40 hours a week. If its low skilled then it's casual.

Casualas plays low skilled content ???? What ?! If you play as casual it not mean ur low skilled or grabing for low skill content...

[potis]

Casualas plays low skilled content ???? What ?! If you play as casual it not mean ur low skilled or grabing for low skill content...

Everyone uses the word as they see fit, taking it too seriously only damages your braincells, for him, casual means low skilled content, without any actual logic behind it.

So someone playing only daily HC dungeons on 8 alts for 40 hours a week, is a casual, and the guy playing 5 hours clearing Mythic raid + his weekly Mythic Plus is a hardcore no-lifer.

Lovely logic eh?

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Mythic players are way more than 0.1% of the player base. Today its more likely that you can swap the numbers and remove the dot, 10%.

In SoO 9000 guilds killed at least one boss on mythic. 22k on normal. We are closing in on half of the amount of normal players(41%ish). Which wasn't the case just a few years ago. In Tomb of Sargeras it was 9k vs 31k. Less than 30%. Going back in time, the raiders were even at even lower percentages simply because it had more players and more players are likely to have a bigger spread on what content they are playing.

If anything, blizzard should cater more to those who already play the game and has done for years, the raiders.

It is pretty interesting how almost everyone draws the conclusion that Blizzard is making a mistake giving X players content instead of Y rather than the equally plausible explanation that they are following their own internal data and understand who butters the bread

[Miffinat0r]

Not sure why this is still even a debate.

Ion confirmed via interview that they focused on the top for too long and ignored casuals. He acknowledged it.

Now if he meant anything by it has yet to be seen but there's no point of even arguing when the lead GD says they ignored the vast majority of their players for competitive players.

[shoc]

Thank god for LFR

[marathal]

I'm starting to wonder if it is because they have fragmented the game into too many micro versions. You have your normal raiders that will do Normal and Heroic, and that's about it. Then the top raiders representing a smaller subset doing Mythic. Now you have those that use to just run dungeons for Valor and to initially gear up by leveling and now stepping away from Raiding, because they can play with 4 of their friends and run Mythic +15 or higher for a challenge without the struggles of having people miss raid. You of course have the PvP crowd, and they have added a ton of world content to keep anyone busy. For any that like to play all aspects of the game, it is overwhelming. For myself not having a PC the first 3 weeks put me behind the rest of the people I would play with, add to that many being home working from Covid with hours more to play, I was never able to keep up. There wasn't a significant reward, or currency for doing Dungeons unless you were pushing High keys, and I always felt I was slowing done any groups from the first Mythic dungeons added to the game. If you cannot devote enough time in the week to do maintenance content to advance the story, devote time to doing the tower, the maw, etc. You just could not keep up. That's why I ended up where I am at. Wearing Green Quest gear I bought from the AH better than what I had from playing the expansion to date, upgrading from what ever the current flavor of the month expansion feature was added, only to find out when the next patch was dropped it all changed again. So here I am, logged into the game for less than an hour a week, sitting AFK in Sinfall. I have not gotten past the gate in the new zone, honestly have no desire to beat my head on the desk any longer.

TLDR; I think you are partially right in the added difficulty hurting the game, but I think it may be more of a problem that you can never complete it unless you are at the top level, There is not "WE beat it on Heroic" Awesome, high 5 great job everyone. Beating Heroic just means you now have to move on to Mythic, and I don't think the majority of those that raid have it in them any more. We are all getting older, and have careers, family, and the thoughts of spending 40 hours working a job, to come home to work 40 hours at a job that is supposed to give us enjoyment, just doesn't work any more.

[Merpish]

This game is not designed for the top .01%. It's designed for the bottom 98%.

[Echo of Soul]

Guess we'll have to jot that down to #somechanges, then.

If #somechanges means having to get good at the game then sure.

[Dequanacus]

Why is end game content so hard?

Because 'hard' and 'end game' are synonymous. You have plenty of content done after you finish leveling but it's not hard and therefore not 'end game'.

I'm not sure what isn't 'endgame' about LFR besides you being able to clear it.