Constructive criticism of WoW

[Deleted]

Well since everyone accused me of trolling in my last post, lets try this again.

Accessibility, difficulty, uniqueness, these are the things disappearing from World of Warcraft.

One of the standards we have been forced to accept is the inevitable nerf hammer content receives over a period of time. Going all the way back to vanilla, i dont think there is any piece of content that hasnt been touched by this.
However, if we were to talk about more recent things, lets compare last 2 expansions, Wotlk and Cata.

One of the biggest disappointments (to a lot of peope in Wotlk) was the lack of challenging gameplay. 5 man dugeons, somewhere along the line, became a snoozefest, chainpulling and aoeing every mob in sight. Naxxramas, one of the best raids back in the days, was turned into an amusement park with people competing who is going to clear it faster (think about 45 min was the record for clearing it). Ulduar was the holy grail of raiding, oh the difficulty leves, challenges, it was beautiful, before everything became nerfed to the ground. And then everything went straight to hell with ToC, as it provided no challenge at all.

Wrath became known as "era of casuals", which is confusing to say the least. A casual player is someone who doesnt have much time to play and does when he feels like or can. A more appropriate title would be "era of bad players". Blizzard failed to provide real challenges ingame so people failed to learn anything; they stood in fire, they didnt know how to play their class, they made major mistakes and never put any efford in improving themselves. On the contrary, with Blizzard failing to provide any challenge and nerfing the content along the way, they gave a false sense of improvement to people.

I am not alone in this thought. Here is a quote from Tom Chilton (http://www.nextmmorpg.com/hot-blog-q...chilton-at-gdc)
"A lot of the feedback that we had heard about Wrath was that a lot of our dungeon content was too easy. We think there is a place for some of that content to be easy, and I think that’s at the normal difficulties, where we really want people to be able to get through it without stumbling too much. But we also wanted to have that additionally level of challenge with the heroic difficulty. We feel like with Wrath we kinda dropped the ball in that it almost felt as if there weren’t two distinct difficulty modes on the dungeons."

Blizzard heard the pleas of these people and during Cataclysm beta spoke highly of their new "challenging" dungeons. They said "heroics will be heroic again". In beta and in the first days of release, they were challenging, but soon returning to Wotlk model, more and more nerfs started hitting the content; both to dungeons and to raids. Cataclysm 5 man dungeons once again turned into snoozefests, aoeing everything in sight. Raids didnt get away from this either, with Blizzards desire for most people to see the content before the next tier, nerfs are being slapped onto anything that moves.

Now, lets talk about hard modes, about heroic raids. Take any Cataclysm raid and compare normal and heroic difficulty. Lets actually involve some statistics here.

Blackwing Descent: normal / heroic
Magmaw: 50967 (95.12%) / 4164 (7.77%)
Omnotron Defense System: 47877 (89.35%) / 1801 (3.36%)
Maloriak: 42602 (79.51%) / 4563 (8.52%)
Atramedes: 35009 (65.34%) / 5079 (9.48%)
Chimaeron: 35303 (65.89%) / 7225 (13.48%)
Nefarian: 13455 (25.11%) / 602 (1.12%)

Anyone can see that there is a huge leap in difficulty going from normal to heroic. In order for more people to see the content Blizzard is nerfing the encounters. So why is this an issue? Because normals arent that hard to begin with. Lets assume normals provide a decent challenge to an average guild. By nerfing this and making it more accessible, you are turning experience of an average guild to a snoozefest, to accomodate people that are bad or not in guilds (in order to see the content). Even if you have a guild that has cleared 13/13 on normal, there is still such a huge leap in difficulty to heroics that they may hit a brick wall after 1-2 bosses and will be unable to continue. Statistics prove this.

The most obvious message this statistic gives is that content on normal difficulty (on release) is too hard for it to be cleared by the majority of guilds. It however, provides a decent challenge to an average guild. And since good guilds have heroics, both average and bad guilds have to compete over the "normal" difficulty, which constantly keeps getting nerfed to accomodate the bad players.

What this game needs is simple: 3 difficulty levels - heroic - normal - easy aka see the content.
By doing this, you keep the 2 demographics: average and bad sepparated. Average guilds will find challenge in normal modes, while bad guilds will be able to clear the easy mode and see the content. Going back to Tom Chilton, this is also the same guy that said that Blizzard needs to look beyond 0/1 and create more difficulty levels, besides normal and heroic.

Give bad players the option to enter an easy dungeon, where they can aoe everything and receive a green item and a cookie at the end. Leave normals to the average player that wishes some challenge and appropriate loot and then leave the heroic difficulty to be truely heroic again (5man raids if you will). Its okay if not everyone clears heroics, theyve already seen the content on easy and normal. Provide challenge in every aspect, teach people how to play the game, instead of lowering the bar every patch or simply, give them a platform (easy mode) of their own.

When you complete a challenging task, a heroic dungeon, an extremely diffucult and obtain an achievement perk, an item or a mount, you feel proud of the accomplishment and you should. You have worked hard and achieved something not many have. Now imagine waking up the next morning and finding out that the 310% flying speed, the rare mount from the last boss on heroic (or Sarth 3d), an epic item, a companion or insane title are a common thing, since Blizzard dedided to simply give them away to anyone with 5 min worth of time. Would it make you sad, would you feel disappointed, betrayed? All your hard work, now worthless? Well deal with it, this is how Blizzard does things. Instead of making 310% exclusive to people that have earned it (once you obtain a 310% flying mount, you are able to unlock 310% speed on all your mounts) theyve made it a common thing and spread it around. That insane title you worked you ass off? Not so special anymore, standards have been lowered (even though its a feat of strength as as such classified as "hard/impossible to obtain"). Latest thing? Call to Arms. Some people have spent 1-2 years farming for those mounts, which are now being given away in satchels. They should have recolored the new mounts that will be given away in CtA and let people that worked hard for their mounts proud, not angry.


Even though this is a fair post and makes some compelling arguments (and is even backed up by statistics), i am pretty sure it will be locked again and me, accussed of trolling. If you guys have any real counter arguments, lets hear them. Lets see how civilized is the wow community. And if you thing this game is just perfect as it is, im speachless.

p.s. Trolling - In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

p.p.s. I will be a good samaritan and report any user whos post i find to be in violation of the rules (http://www.mmo-champion.com/faq.php?faq=forumrules). This means any nonsence, gibberish, not on topic, not being constructive and so on.

[Deleted]

I understand your point. It's not a bad point, however there is a major problem.

Now do you know why raids started getting fewer and fewer bosses? Sure Blizzard might say that it's because of the fact they want you to not have to sit 100 hours on 20 bosses, but I am not that sure. It's design time as I see it.

Let's look at the model from ToCr, you have 10 man, 25 man, 10 man heroic and 25 man heroic. So for this raid Blizzard had to spend 4 times as much time tuning every mob to the apropiate level.

Now think about your suggestion, you'd have 2 more modes all of the sudden, 10 man easy and 25 man easy. So again it would require that every raid gets 50% more work in terms of balancing. That increases the time it takes for either the raid to come out (and look how many complain now) or it would lower the number of bosses (instead of 6 you'd get 4 bosses, so a wing of a raid in Wrath! - imagine the whine).

I think that for a good raiding environment they should stop nerfing raids until like 2 weeks before next tier is released. Therefor, people who like hard modes will play them, people who like normal modes will play them. Bad players won't get either at start.
However 2 weeks before the next tier content is nerfed, this way the average players get some heroic modes(but not all, and in 2 weeks I'm sure they won't bet BiS) and bad players get some normal modes (but not all bosses for obvious reasons). This way Blizzard resolves 2 things:
1.They get players to play the game even before patches come (since now there are many players who, when seeing they can't do anything, quit till next patch)
2.They make the content available for bads without interfering with the average and hardcores.

That's how I see it. Also a 3 difference in tiers would be welcomed but I don't see that happening anymore.

[aragorn1ring]

It's a sound idea to have more then 2 difficulty levels... but I'm afraid you'll just have bad players queuing for the heroic dungeons anyway. After all, no one sits around and says "Wow I'm pathetic at this game maybe I shouldn't queue for heroic" No, instead they say "There are better items in heroic I wanna do that one" Now you could say that Blizz can compensate for this by making the gear check, but as we have learned from Cataclysm people just buy blue and purple items (sometimes not even for their spec) to queue for heroics.

Problem not solved.

[Yogurthewise]

As a casual player who currently does not have the time to raid with my guild, I really hate hearing about nerfs to current raiding content. I don't understand the current philosophy of nerfing encounters to the ground when all encounters get out-geared rather quickly. I was hoping to be able to pug the current content (with the difficulty levels from release) shortly after next tier since I would be able to buy more T11 with JP.

I, AS A CASUAL, understand and accept that I will not be able to do top tier content the day it is released, I just wish Blizz would quit catering to the people who QQ that want instant rewards granted to them.

[Deleted]

Increased time spent designing an encounter? You make a valid point, but i think there are ways around it.

If you take 5 mans for example, all you basicly have to do is design heroic difficulty, then either strip a mechanic and/or reduce damage for normal and easy. So with little extra tweak in the mechanic/damage, you differentiate between multiple difficulty levels.

Same thing can be applied to raids, design a heroic encounter, then strip a mechanic/damage to get an instant normal easy mode. This concept is far away from perfect, but i think it can be viable to a.) bridge the big gap between normal and heroic and b.) to get that 3rd desired "easy" mode, derived from heroic>nerf>normal>nerf>easy.

I think one of the major faults is that people dont consider that content actually nerfs itself. On day 1, you enter a dungeon with bad gear and no experience, but on day 15, you have some gear upgrades and more experience. The person itself, via upgrades, experience and practice, nerfs the content to some degree.


As far as loot is concerned, i also have a half decent idea which might work very well, but doubt Blizzard would go for it (and it also complements 3 difficulity system quite well).

You have 3 difficulty models: Easy - Normal - Heroic
Tier 1: Easy (ilvl1) - Normal (ilvl3) - Heroic (ilvl6)
Tier 2: Easy (ilvl2) - Normal (ilvl5) - Heroic (ilvl9)
Teir 3: Easy (ilvl3) - Normal (ilvl7) - Heroic (ilvl12)

Sure, the ilvl numbers are probably a bit off, but the general idea stays. Tier1 comes out, you raid, maybe clear normal, but cant quite tackle heroic. Tier2 comes out, you dip into that a bit, upgrade your gear and maybe try the heroic tier1 again, which still provides an small upgrade (tier1 hc gear > tier 2 normal). You end up with cross tier raiding experience and while tier2 gets released earlier than say now, you get almost the same gameplay time on both tiers, since you also go back a bit into previous tier.

I think this would also help with the idea that you do not have to burn yourself out and finish the tier before next one arrives, since you can do both. And both complement eachother in terms of difficulty and loot. As opposed to the current model where we wait longer, but when the new tier comes out, everything else becomes obsolete.

@aragorn1ring
You will always have bad players trying to get what they cannot, but thats the beauty of heroics. They are heroic. They require certain skill. If other players realize they have some player in the group that has no skill, has low dps, doesnt know how to tank or heal, they will kick him. So the bad player will either try to do heroic with a guild group, at which point they will "encourage" him to either learn to play the game/class, or leave. So they either stay in normals, get kicked out of heroics OR L2P. I truely believe people do not want to be bad, they want to be good, but since Blizzard ends up nerfing the content into the ground anyway, they have no incentive/reason to improve.

@Yogurthewise
Why would you have to accept the wait time for nerfs to come, when you could still be getting some upgrades via easy>normal and enjoy some of the content, more within your reach. This is basicly what im getting at, have easy mode, for people that are either bad or simply do not have time to play. Next, challenge them with normal difficulty and if theyre up for it, have a crack at heroic. Again, anyone doing easy content should know that they will not receive epics. Imho, easy=green(maybe 1 blue last boss), normal= blue, heroic=heroic blue(maybe 1 epic last boss)

[Shock]

If you dont like wow then quit and go play rift and QQ there this is nothing more than a trolls post flaming wow

[Deleted]

Actually, thats a common missconception. I like wow, i play wow and i will continue playing it in general. I do from time to time unsub when i feel the content isnt worth it. The thing here is that i like Blizzard, theyve produced some amazing games, however im not a fanboy. Meaning? I dont blindly praise anything and everything Blizzard does. New content? New flying horse? A new chocolate bar with Blizzard written on it? I must buy everything instantly. Um, no. I praise them when they do great stuff and i criticise them, when they mess up.

The issue, i guess you could say, im having with WoW is that Blizzard has shown us, time and time again, that they are able to dish out some truely amazing content and provide really great and enjoyable gameplay experience. However, those moments arent as common as id like them to be. If i take a look at Wrath, the only time when i really enjoyed the game is when Ulduar came out. Nax was a joke, so was ToC and though ICC picked up the pace a bit, it was left standing as the only piece of content for the next 10-12 months. Having ICC to raid for 12 months while waiting new content to come out? No thank you.

Many asked if ive done 13/13 hc, to complain about the lack of challenge. Actually, i havent even done 1/13 hc. The guild im currently in was found at the beginning of cata and even though we had some older members, were still in stage where we dont have enough people and have to juggle between people and groups. You should know that raiding with different setup/group/people each month, while bringing in new players for trials, doesnt get you far, especially not in hc. But im fine with that. So from my point of perspective, heroics are out of reach, but normal content is becomming boring as it fails to provide challenge anymore, due to more and more nerfs.
This is basicly the reason why i would like for normal to remain normal and give 3rd - easy - option. There are about 15% of the guilds that are good, there are also about 15% which are truely bad and suitable for easy mode. This leaves 70% of the guilds which progress in normals just fine and get bored as content gets nerfed, so id hardly say im a minority.

But yeah, like i said, Blizzard is capable of doing amazing things and id like them to. I like WoW and i want to see it get better and better. And this brings us back to 3rd difficulty level, maybe some cross tier raiding to make things interesting and stuff like that. I do not think it would take that much more time to develop it, it would however, really improve the gameplay and everyones experience.

3 difficulty levels would allow each demographic (good, average, bad) to find themselves in an appropriate environment, where they are appropriately challenged. Implementing cross tier raiding and loot (for all 3 levels) would also make the game more appealing and accessible. That is what Blizzard wants and this is the best way to do it. Dont nerf the content, make another tier available for people to upgrade their gear and go back to finish the end bosses, while still getting some upgrades along the way. There is nothing wrong with clearing tier 1 normal then tier 2 normal and then, with tier 2 ugprades, going back to tackle tier1 heroic, as it still provides both challenge and better loot.

So yeah, Blizzard has shown me, that they are able to deliver unique, refreshing and truely amazing things and i love them for it. I just wish they did it more often, at a more constant pace and improve this game even further.

[Deleted]

You have 3 difficulty models: Easy - Normal - Heroic
Tier 1: Easy (ilvl1) - Normal (ilvl3) - Heroic (ilvl6)
Tier 2: Easy (ilvl2) - Normal (ilvl5) - Heroic (ilvl9)
Teir 3: Easy (ilvl3) - Normal (ilvl7) - Heroic (ilvl12)

Actually that's a preety ok model.

If you dont like wow then quit and go play rift and QQ there this is nothing more than a trolls post flaming wow

So by your logic if you like something you should worship it and get over any mistake they make at any time or you're a troll?
I belive that if you like something you can support the things you find good and critique the things you find bad. I, for one, have done both till now, not that much on the MMO Champ since I only came here recently, but still. If you bring constructive criticism it helps improve the product. If you don't bring any criticism the product starts getting worse. Imagine if on the PTR everyone would praise everything and nobody would report bugs, since then "there this is nothing more then a trolls post flaming wow", what would happen then?

What people need to understand is that not everyone thinks like them, I respect the opinions of other people even if I don't agree with them unless they're such opinions like yours Shock, since you only get to starting a flamewar with that type of comment.

[Osmeric]

In Cata, I think they're discovering the "nerf it later" approach isn't working. Guilds are exploding now, people are leaving, and many will be lost permanently.

[Deleted]

if you don't like a game anymore quit the damn game plz and stop bothering us on a non wow-europe forum
thank you

[Deleted]

If you dont like wow then quit and go play rift and QQ there this is nothing more than a trolls post flaming wow

OR, better yet : don't bash a game that you once enjoyed, but don't anymore, when there is no need to.
Wow lasted far longer gameplaywise than any other game I've ever played. 5 years to be precise. 250 days played. All content up till the last tier cleaned on time.

Simply put, I'd had enough. Blizz did a great job, but it simply wasn't worth it anymore.

[Arrowstormen]

constructive, but its a pretty horrible idea.

okay, more time waiting for content.

and even if its an easier mode, i will still remind much of normal, and will give training that will make normal not-to-hard.

making something called Easy mode, will just be an offend. nobody wanna do it. nobody.

heard someone talking about how easy WoW is. but yet, the person didnt had any boss killed on Heroic.

Heroic is, as the name says, for heroic players. and as GC said, the boss nerf themselves. as you kill a boss, it gives loot, and with loot, the boss gets already easier.

and when we talk about gear, 3 kinds of gear, every tier, wtf.

5 mans are not supposed to be hard when you got raidworthy gear. stop living in that dream.

---------- Post added 2011-04-16 at 07:01 PM ----------

when you have killed everything, and sit on 372 ilevel, you can take a break from raiding.