So thinking about it I finally realized why wrath failed, why cata is failing and why Burning crusade had it 95% right.
Think of Tier 4. And for those of you that were there you know what I am talking about.
Everyone ran normal dungeons. Got our kara keys. Geared up. Then started raiding. Some of us in gear we crafted. Frozen shadoweave for casters. It was real easy to start raiding for everyone.
Some of us started in Karazhan. FUN!!! Every raid should be like that place. Bosses started off easy and then got tougher as you progressed. but there is real cool stuff in there. opera. chess. go go if you havent yet.
Others, went to Gruuls lair if they could get 25 people. The first boss is tough in that you have to pull all the mobs the right way or everyone dies (its like moroes X 100). its an execution check. pull it right and you can do it all in greens.
Gruul himself. Well in the beginning he was just god awful. Like king kong on steroids. Once they tuned him right, gruul is a dps check. and a skill check too. but if you dont have the dps you can have all the skill you want, wont matter.
The only thing Burning crusade got wrong was not having 10 man versions of gruul/ssc/tk etc. We tried to run SSC but the toughest part was getting 25 people. if it was 10 we would have been in there all night.
So Tier 4 had two levels of progression basically. kara and gruul. keep kara easy. make gruul as hard as you want. Split the raiding player base in half, give them each half the content.
You can do the same the next tier. make a bunch of bosses and split them in half. 6 kara type bosses, 6 sunwell type bosses.
One side goes and raids 6 fun bosses somewhere and the other goes and gets their faces smashed in.
With me so far? There are bonuses!! Yes! Goodies!
The kara side, honestly you can spread out their bosses forever with tons of trash in between that drop gear and as long as you have some cool stuff to look at they are just happy being somewhere, anywhere other than stuck in a 5 man.
Todays bosses are zone in boss. stairs boss. left wing boss. right wing boss. ZZZZZZZZ
Let me wander around somewhere with my guild and look at cool stuff like the kitchen in karazhan that leads nowhere but just cool too see, or the basement.
Hardcores get TWO bonuses!!!
You can make heroic versions of the kara bosses, and the gruuls bosses and the hardcores can have a blast in both!
AND you can make a bunch of 5 man runs, you can call them heroics, and make them real hard. Why? So that the hardcore guys have something to do in between all those heroic bosses. It will help them to gear up quicker!! FUN!!
Hardcore guys are always busy. Casual dudes are hanging in kara. maybe trying a heroic see how it goes.
Why Wrath failed.
It started off with kara (naxx 2.o) but had no Gruuls. Naxx hard modes dont count. Vanilla raiders already saw naxx they wanted something new. And there were heroics for them but im not sure they were that difficult , i didnt do them at first.
But they were stuck in 5 mans. And had no gruuls.
Then uldaur which was a littler harder, still not too challenging for raiders but more challenging for casuals. Toc blech who wanted to even be in there. Finally ICC. Hardcores had to wait till the final tier to be challenged. no wonder many of them werent pleased. You cant blame them.
Why Cata is failing
So we swung it totally around. This time we took all the bosses, made them all hard, made super hard versions right at the beginning. AWESOME for hardcores! im glad they didnt have to wait this time.
Kara people? We are looking around and looks kind of bleak. no aq20. no ZG (LOVE ZG) no kara. we dont even want naxx again ugh.
What do kara people have this time. basically 3 normal dungeons and a watered down mish mash of heroics sort of easy for kara people to get through but sort of hard for a challenge for the gruuls people. mixing the two camps together in heroics this expansion doesnt seem to be quite working and i am not quite sure what the thinking was behind it. leave the heroics hard for the hardcore guys and keep the kara guys out unless they choose to be in there. I just dont get why that was changed this expansion.
Anyway there you go. Problem solved.
Every tier should be based on the tier 4 model and I PROMISE you that everyone is happy. They were back in BC. except for no 10 man versions of all the other raids 8-(
TLDR - Tier 4 had raids for both hardcores and casuals. go back to that.