Harder Content = Better?

[Tomana]

Now, the video is quite long but it goes like this; In vanilla Mike goes on to explain how that when Naxxramas FIRST came out, only 1% of the population saw it before BC hit, granted there was 7-8 million subs around then, that's roughly 70,000+ people seeing it. Mike says that this was NOT a bad thing, it instilled a great sense of a "journey" into the game.

Whoever this Mike is, he's stupid. Pouring resources into stuff that only 1% of the playerbase will ever see is idiotic (and if anything else, unfair). Luckily, this game model is in the past, as most companies realised the above.

[Trassk]

just out of pure curiosity, not complaining, why so?

Because it was nothing but a massive whine video of someone wanting it all to be about his way, and dam to anyone else.

"I think only having 1% of the population seeing content is great because I get to feel like a special snowflake" Thats the sum of that video.

[Deleted]

Whoever this Mike is, he's stupid. Pouring resources into stuff that only 1% of the playerbase will ever see is idiotic (and if anything else, unfair). Luckily, this game model is in the past, as most companies realised the above.

I also try to see it in a different way.
If I were a designer or artist, I would like for my work to be available to as many people as possible. It is not only a matter of resources but also of personal satisfaction of having people come and enjoy what I've created.

---------- Post added 2013-02-17 at 12:41 AM ----------

Because it was nothing but a massive whine video of someone wanting it all to be about his way, and dam to anyone else.

"I think only having 1% of the population seeing content is great because I get to feel like a special snowflake" Thats the sum of that video.

fair enough, thanks ^^

[Blueobelisk]

For me I think it's good and it gives a huge incentive for the raiders to work to see something, I like high difficulty at least for one boss or mode. But lol with LFR now there's just no more incentive because I can see the content just as easily. I would personally prefer it harder.

Realistically that can't happen though.

[Essem]

Back in Vanilla and TBC, a new player would see someone that was raiding and think "oh man! i want to be like that guy!" The drive and motivation was actually there for new players. They had to join a raiding guild and the raiding scene blossomed.

Nowadays, how many thinks the same thing, probably some but to a much lesser degree. Those who does and wants to raid get up to max lvl and finds out about LFR and skips the whole "has to join a raiding guild part". So as a result raiding is slowly choking to death.

[Deja Thoris]

If harder content were better they'd just have the fist boss fucking instagib everyone so they could cry out how amazing the content is.

Hell. doing this they wouldn't even have to develop more bosses, they could just pretend there was stuff behind the boss.

Also, that vid has been posted here tons, thats why its not allowed. I respect his PoV but I'm also smart enough to realise you don't balance content around the 1%.

[Cernunnos]

Harder content should be optional. Those that want it can do it.
I don't have the time to put in the extra effort that is required for HMs, so I will stick to normal mode stuff.

What is wrong with finishing a game on normal mode, then moving on to the harder mode of the game if you want a challenge after that?
You dont go right into Hell/Inferno mode in Diablo before you have finished normal.

I remember how awesome it was finishing Secret Agent and 00 Agent mode of Golden Eye after finishing Agent mode. Don't really see how Heroic mode bosses in WOW are any different. Normal mode first, then the harder mode second.

[Wondercrab]

Diverse pools of players need diverse types of challenges, which is why most games have multiple difficulty settings. The fact that many MMOs went without them for so long is more reflective of their clunky design than anything else.

One (hard) mode of difficulty only tends to work in niche games that are very explicitly targeted towards hardcore players, for example Dark Souls or Monster Hunter.

[Deleted]

Back in Vanilla and TBC, a new player would see someone that was raiding and think "oh man! i want to be like that guy!" The drive and motivation was actually there for new players. They had to join a raiding guild and the raiding scene blossomed.

Only the case with certain people. Very few of them.

Nowadays, how many thinks the same thing, probably some but to a much lesser degree. Those who does and wants to raid get up to max lvl and finds out about LFR and skips the whole "has to join a raiding guild part".

Most people in vanilla didn't even reach max level. (Same was true in TBC)

The idea that the average wow player looked up to some hardcore player with better gear or progress is laughable. They were all level 45 and wondering where gammorita was etc

[Theendgamelv3]

This thread can stay open but that video is forbidden here.

I quite curious about this as well. It doesn't make sense to ban a video and not close the thread. If it is the content in the video, well it is basically a discussion of the what the video brought up. Basically it makes no sense to ban the video when the content of the opening is the same as the video.

As for the discussion, no it doesn't make for better content. I like how it is now. People have more choice on what they want to tackle the game and choice IMO is great.

[Enemyz]

You must be kidding right? What, are you one of the small minority of players in a hard mode guild that can't understand why people don't just join a guild themselves to see content?

LFR allowed everyone to see raiding content, and have something to do outside of daily heroics, even if they did not have a guild. The statistics of how many people did raiding content prior to LFR was so small, to the devs it felt like they were putting all this effort into making these raids and only a tiny percentage players got to see it.

LFR changed that and now everyone gets to see the content, and rightly so.

If you call doing LFR seeing content it's so watered down people afk in it. What happened to doing pugs? You never had to join a guild to do them and it's a lot more of a challenge then LFR.

[Deleted]

If you call doing LFR seeing content it's so watered down people afk in it. What happened to doing pugs? You never had to join a guild to do them and it's a lot more of a challenge then LFR.

People generally didn't pug throughout wows history, or if they did the pug didn't get anywhere.

[Trassk]

For me I think it's good and it gives a huge incentive for the raiders to work to see something, I like high difficulty at least for one boss or mode. But lol with LFR now there's just no more incentive because I can see the content just as easily. I would personally prefer it harder.

Realistically that can't happen though.

Having high difficulty it one thing, you have heroic mode content for that. But denying people the right to see content is plain stupid. Video games for decades have developed such a thing as Easy - Normal - Hard modes, and sometimes even -Expert - mode. That way everyone gets to see content at there own level and feel whatever sense of accomplishment they can from whatever level they want to play as.

[Osmeric]

What happened to doing pugs? You never had to join a guild to do them and it's a lot more of a challenge then LFR.

You answer your own question, so why did you even ask it?

(1) All but a tiny minority of players dislike challenging content (although a somewhat larger number pretend to be good enough to handle challenging content, at least on the forums before they actually try to do it.)

(2) Pugs and challenging content is not a happy combination.

[Trassk]

If you call doing LFR seeing content it's so watered down people afk in it. What happened to doing pugs? You never had to join a guild to do them and it's a lot more of a challenge then LFR.

so because a few tiny exceptions you think its not worth doing.. Funny, because this thread was made in the principle of someone who thinks the tiny percentage of people are the ones who deserve to see the content.

Double standards to not make for an agreeable situation.

[Deleted]

Harder content is the dev catering to their own egos, ahead of the interests of their employers and stockholders. It is bad for the game as a business.

Which says a lot for the average gamer, and perhaps even society as a whole.

[McNeil]

As some other people said, harder content should be optional. I would like to see more very challenging 5-man dungeons (no timed runs...), because I don't enjoy the current 5-man snoozefests. Yet I still kinda ''need'' to run them for my valor points. I'm asking for another Magister's Terrace :P

[yuca247]

The hardest thing about vanilla was getting 40 competent people to log in regularly.


Using the first fight of each expansion as an example (excluding wrath, since it was recycled):

Lucifron (dispel, tank boss around corner & kill adds)
Attumen the Huntsman (stand in a certain spot and shoot him)
Halfus (OMGWTF dragons, whelps & explosion everywhere)
Stone Guardians (5 mechanics to watch for & unusual tank swapping)

Honestly can you sit there and tell me the bottom 2 aren't more difficult by a significant margin, in terms of tactics. What made the earlier portions of WoW difficult was lack of information, poor class design & horrible itemisation. The game wasn't harder in terms of what we had to do, we just knew less about how the game worked and apparently so did the developers (spi on warrior set gear, paladins healers preferring cloth, some specs being 2 buttons etc.). It has a lot to do with the amount of information we have available & the amount of players that test content before release. It's been quite a while since I've gone into a new tier without already knowing what everything does.

I agree that I miss the BC-style heroics.

Most people fail to acknowledge this because they look back at Vanilla and TBC with rose tinted glasses. What Vanilla and TBC had going for it was that WoW was still fresh. That wears off any game after 8 years.

Yes the 40 man aspect was more of an annoyance, but watch the video I linked and go about passed half way when he states the dates of wold firsts for bosses in BC. It will blow. your. mind. compared to todays firsts, I miss it.

No not really, I'm not surprised at all. Back then you didn't have a lot of the information like you do now. The players are way way more "advanced" so to say than they were back then. Players get a chance to see and datamine a lot of the content before it even goes live. It doesn't blow my mind I think it's logical.

[Trassk]

Which says a lot for the average gamer, and perhaps even society as a whole.

Games have catered to different levels of difficulty for decades, this is nothing new.

[Rucati]

I quite liked the harder content in Burning Crusade, didn't raid in vanilla so can't speak to that, but I did full clear every raid in BC when it was current, and it was a lot more fun than raiding is now.

Heroics need to be harder, or preferably they should just give you loot for zoning in then you can leave and requeue to get full geared. There's no sense in me having to waste 10-15 minutes in a heroic completely bored for gear when it isn't the least bit engaging or entertaining, if it was at least difficult it would be enjoyable, but there's nothing fun about doing content a two year old monkey can do.

As for LFR, I don't really think it's a bad thing, but I also don't think it should be every boss in the game. Instead of having the full instances if they only had the first parts I think it would be better. Then people that want to raid but don't want to join a guild can do LFR and do half the content, but the people who really want to see all the content can join a guild and raid the right way.

I know people complain that raiding takes too much time, but it really isn't that time consuming, there are guilds that raid 3 hours a day two days a week, everybody can do that surely, and you'd get to see the content. At this point WoW has become less of a game and more of a chat room, if it keeps this up it'll end up like Runescape, a spot to go talk to friends while mindlessly killing bosses and collecting loot that hardly matters because the bosses are so easy your gear doesn't make a difference as long as you're hit capped.