WoW is pulling a HotS

[nekobaka]

Lol. No. 10 man easier raids. Incredibly easy heroic dungeons. Naxxramas incredibly easy. Welfare badge loot. Lots of pugging of content, such as Gold DKP runs.

Current normal is comparable if not easier than non-naxx WotLK raids. ICC itself even with the 30% buff kept many from even seeing LK. Heroic dungeons are also easy now. Welfare badge loot has been replaced with titanforge by rewarding players with even higher ilvl than WotLK normal 10 man ilvl. The badge grind was fairly long for non-raiders until Cata gutted it. The introduction of the flex and later normal difficulty paired with cross realm raiding two to three fold the amount of players clearing organized raids. Oh and lets not forget LFR.

Now general length of long term grind for all types of players has been increased, but the methods to keep these players rewarded has also been increased.

[Chromell]

In Classic and TBC the game grew in popularity. In Wrath it stopped growing. It was also not the "most casual friendly expansion" at all. Do I need to mention it did not have LFR?

I guess it may seem like it because it was during WotLK that things began to cater more to casuals. Heroics weren't nearly as challenging as in BC. Farewell epics. Introduction of LFD system. IMO these are the features that began paving the way for what we have now.

[tangers58]

This ENTIRE thing falls apart when you realize the most casual friendly expansion Wrath that people glorify these days was HYPER casual friendly and had over 11 million subs.

... do you have a shit memory or are you just trolling?

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In Classic and TBC the game grew in popularity. In Wrath it stopped growing. It was also not the "most casual friendly expansion" at all. Do I need to mention it did not have LFR?

Um no. It skyrocketed in Wrath, and peaked in early Cata, which is where the growth died.

[Zka]

WOTLK was stupidly hardcore compared to current game. get out.

You must have some memory issues. Facerolling super easy heroics gave you access to almost the best gear, first raid tier was a fucking joke and subsequent tiers were only somewhat hard on heroic 25 mode. LK was the faceroll expansion.

[barrsftw]

All true statements, except the last one, I'd wager a very small minority of pvprs ever achieved 1800 in wotlk.

Now that that's out of the way, here's the only thing you need to know, ALL the problems you mentioned in wotlk, are amplified and worse than ever in the current game. Listing them as they existed in WOTLK or even TBC, doesn't change the fact that's it's worse now, so much worse.

1800 was definitely not easy to achieve in WotLK. It's like the current equivalent of 2400. I remember queue times being really long too once you got up to like 2k rating.. like multiple minutes.

[Elias01]

You must have some memory issues. Facerolling super easy heroics gave you access to almost the best gear, first raid tier was a fucking joke and subsequent tiers were only somewhat hard on heroic 25 mode. LK was the faceroll expansion.

I wasnt high geared in WOTLK by afking so i guess no.

[mickybrighteyes]

This ENTIRE thing falls apart when you realize the most casual friendly expansion Wrath that people glorify these days was HYPER casual friendly and had over 11 million subs.

I think you've confused the terms "most casual friendly" there....

[Gref]

What is the purpose of playing moba? it is to obliterate your opponents in the most overwhelming, cunning, incentive ways possible.
Nobody plays dota or lol to suck on opponents dick. in fact no human plays games to lose and lose and lose forever, be it a simple hide and seek or soccer. Beating the shit out of your opponent is in our dna. it is there in the nature.

Then you design a moba, that is less challenging than single play supermario. Was going to write bomberman but shit that was tough.
And your competitor games are exactly designed for the opposite; beat your opponent into oblivion.

No wonder it is dead and they are thriving. Whoever thought let's design our moba as casual as possible, no brainer was utter idiot. Fuck sake it is against the philosophy of mobas.

This can be connected to wow. I was beaten in bgs, out played, out geared back in vanilla. Then I would say where to get those items, how to improve better etc and yes I would do that, I would struggle to get those items. I gathered mats for lionheart helm, got unstoppable force, ab shoulders etc slowly I built my warrior and ho boy I still remember downing 3 allies all by myself much clearly than what I ate yesterday. 3vs1. That thrill , that overwhelming feeling. Skill+gear+effort combined. Cannot wait for classic really.

[Elias01]

In WoTLK I was a single boss kill away from clearing everything on Heroic 25man.
Since then, I have never come remotely close to that. In fact, Mythic is rather inaccessible these days.

The term we used were Wrath babies. That expansion was super casual.

Problem is you compared WOTLK 25 hc raid to Mythic raiding to determinate what expansion is more casual. Casual expansion is determined by what expansion is more acessible no what expansion is harder. WOTLK didnt had LFR so was far less accessible than current expansion. So BFA is more casual expansion than WOTLK becouse it is more accessible game. And it isnt now just for content. They made high end gear accessible to masses so again more accessability = more casual game. So stop using this difficulty argument becouse that thing have nothing to do game being casual or not.

[Zka]

I wasnt high geared in WOTLK by afking so i guess no.

Do you mean you get "high geared" by afking now? How exactly?

[MiiiMiii]

There is a lot of people arguing what was most hardcore between WotLK compared to BfA.

The argument for BfA being more hardcore is M+1000 and Mythic raiding. Yes. These modes are more hardcore than WotLK.

The reality is though, that the average Joe in WotLK had to put a lot more effort to get geared up to beat "all the content" than he has to in BfA.

Average Joe has no motivation to beat the same content again and again, scaled. Average Joe does not try to get "Ahead of the curve" on Ghuun, he wants to raid to beat all the bosses and get some loot that feels good. The argument is then that Average Joe had a much harder time killing Arthas in WotLK than he will have beating whatever the last boss is in BfA. Average Joe will get a lot more enjoyment of gear in WotLK than in BfA because the scaling between tiers is much smaller.

Average Joe does not care about being rank 1 in PvP, he wants to get gear to "pwn some noobs". If Average Joe needs to step up his skills to get the 1800 rating requirement item in WotLK. In BfA, well.. He might as well just use the PvE gear, and the gear does not really make him that much more powerful than the enemies anyway, because of the scaling.

So, for Average Joe, WotLK is MUCH more hardcore than BfA.

I just think it is a bit dumb to use M+20 and Mythic raiding as an argument for BfA being hardcore. Reality is nobody cares enough to do them. Can you blame them? Why would they? For some mount?

[Aleksej89]

If blizzard thinks they can get a new younger audience they are sorely mistaken.

Todays young gamers prefer mobile games, BO4 and fortnite/pubg.
There is no significant young audience that will go for WOW.

Blizzard can either cater to the current audience it has or continue pruning and neutering the classes and game systems until it makes every fan abandon the game.
BFA already got me and EVERYONE in wow i knew (15+ friends and an entire guild) to quit wow after playing it for many many years so they are doing a good job of ruining wow.

[In Ogres We Trust]

Like cmon Naxx 10 overall was about as hard as the heroic dungeons (which were already very easy). I remember that very well.

What? That... doesn't... even... make... sense.

[Elias01]

Do you mean you get "high geared" by afking now? How exactly?

AFK warfronts, world bosses, LFR, faceroll world Q take your pick.

[HumbleDuck]

I can't take anyone who thinks vanilla was considered hardcore back then seriously.
WoW has always been the causal MMO.

[Elias01]

If blizzard thinks they can get a new younger audience they are sorely mistaken.

Todays young gamers prefer mobile games, BO4 and fortnite/pubg.
There is no significant young audience that will go for WOW.

Blizzard can either cater to the current audience it has or continue pruning and neutering the classes and game systems until it makes every fan abandon the game.
BFA already got me and EVERYONE in wow i knew (15+ friends and an entire guild) to quit wow after playing it for many many years so they are doing a good job of ruining wow.

Thing is you cant really atract young audience for simple fact even this audience is young they still have same desir to stand our and feel exact same way as we did back in Vannila and current WoW do no provide that. Lot of poeple hate on Fortnite. Saying like it is some leper like game or w/e. But this game for todays young audience is what for us WoW used to be back in vannila. And no Fortnite isnt casual game and definitly not simple. It is vastly comples game. You have FPS elements with many weapons on top of building mechanisms and movement skills. Young audience do not games like current wow. Handling evetyhing on silver plate and being simple.

And mobile games are not popular becouse of games but becouse of covinience of mobile devicies. It is kinda obvious that device what you have 24/7 by your side will be used more than PC what sit in your home. But when those kids get home they will always go rather play on pc than on mobile.

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I can't take anyone who thinks vanilla was considered hardcore back then seriously.
WoW has always been the causal MMO.

If WoW was back in vannila areldy casual there was no reaosn to make it even more casual. Vannila striked sweat spot beetwen casual/hardcore and sandbox/themepark.

[Niwes]

regardless what the real reason is (many things can come into play here), at the end, one thing is fact:

while classic and TBC the subs gone up up up.
mid wotlk (introduction of LFG and easy heroics) it reaches his maximum.
after that, subs gone down down down.

as i said, per se that says nothing about „why“ and there are many reasons and its a complex task. but the overall fact stays, that the point when the game started to change his behaviour, game design and foremost target audience, is exactly the point when subs reached their zenith.

this may mean nothing. but it happened that way.

[Alkizon]

Somehow strange that thread with theme about MOBA which isn't really connected to forum local content turned into specific expansions discussion... into something like may be this or this or this.

Didn't want to write anything first, but still decided to comment on something then...

First, I want to clarify that person to whom cited was addressed hardly indicated complexity, rather preservation/presence/use of previous mechanics.

*Had the emblem and heroic were easy enough to see a player with a full raid gear

The idea of badges as "alternative/help" wasn't bad and didn't interfere as long as it followed rules of progress and content sharing (realisation was a problem; WotLK, in this sense, have similarity to last 3 expansions), hiding sets or alternatives equal items behind badges was a mistake - sets are privilege/carrot/separator degree of PvE content complexitys between each other (in current realities, badges' role played by forge items +(+/+/+))

*Still a wrath thing (and putting time to find ppl don't make the game harder btw, especially if you had a guild to get mates in)

See pre-quote blooper

*People were already checking their build on Elitist Jerks so it didn't matter

People also did it in Classic, it wasn't about this, but about availability of opportunities.

*Later expansion also had "some of the hardest raid encounter" (HC Ragnaros, HC Lei shen, MM Gul'Dan, MM Archimonde, LFR Durumu if you was the guy with the brain of the raid). Limited attempt is not difficulty, it's timegate.

See answer to schmonz's quote under.

*Like today most of the stats were useless. Hit / defense / expertise were just stats to cap then they were useless. Separate spell crit from physical crit just made gearing longer. Armor pen and spirit are the only stats that are to be missed in my opinion but they were not wrath material to begin with.

They weren't useless, they were at same time: players strength's grows limiter + timegate/requirements + catch-up mechanics. They limited number of "reinforcing" characteristics, created certain requirements for participation in a specific level/area of content (separator on demand and required quantity), at the same time were more (faster) accessible over time (expansion progress, due to professions and variability of already available equipment).

*Weapon skills was boring to increase and most of us were just going full afk auto-attack on a monster

It was RP logic part, immersion price, doesn't metter if you didn't like it. Main thing that it didn't interfere and harmoniously fit into this world rules, strengthened/supplemented them.

*Weapon speed would be useless with the new gearing philosophy anyway.

If we didn't go there, we won't ended here, would we? How is this even any argument?

*It didn't for most classes. You had a few races that had bonuses with it but that's all.

See weapon skills comment.

*Just another thing to farm. Not even difficult to fly over Wintergrasp seeking for titanium

Just another... see stats comment.

*Socket you were filling with the same gem. Oh no, you had meta gem that was hard /think /thankelitistjerks
*Elitist jerks again.

See stats and talent trees comments, especially because it's inextricably linked with professions consumption.

*You had recruit a friend for level 1 to 60 and you could rush your alt. Was not as fast as a boost but cheaper.

It doesn't matter in principle, here I disagree with both mechanisms, and there shouldn't be any heirlooms, also there was a lot mechanics to limit "growth rate" especially with high lvl help, on the other hand, if player acts within legal game rules ("Anything that isn’t an abuse of a bug is considered fair play"), then why would someone spoil the fun. I mean, if player does this with spoiling own “experience” of consuming game's half, then it’s probably personal problems and it’s personal right to do/feel consequences/understand own mistake/right action, why bother?

Let me outline boundaries again:
1) some people don't want to constantly be on path of progress, they like to reach their ceiling (knowing that they can't make it further), and then have fun in content available to them, with interruptions for twinks;
2) other people like to be constantly in duty of progress (and it doesn't matter if they don't have necessary skills, even trivial content should bring them "tangible benefits"), they don't need breaks, and they almost don't get any pleasure from content itself if one isn't related to the first;
3) game can't be made for both of these representatives, parameters aren't compatible
- if there is easy almost endless path - there is no ceiling, no time to stop, if there are stops - "workers" sooner or later become nothing to do and they aren't capable to "entertain" somehow themselves without virtual whip; here'd be to chide current content and gameplay for inferiority/insolvency/deficiency, it's very likely that this'd even be correct, but I'm not playing and will try to refrain from such comments, in the end, attracted target audience also changes along with change in ideology of these, which means... which means that whatever one may say, but fault is anyway lies with devs themself.

In fact, WotLK in some sense was very much tolerant (compared to Legion&Co) due to that there was a certain height (ceiling/temporary limit) of growth in everything, which means that person could work, then relax a little, then switch to twink and work again, go back to main and relax again and so several times during single expansion without any rush (both PvE and PvP). Do you feel this now? From my own experience, this is main thing that most people did before project "commercialization", somewhere between BC and Legion. But problem is that faster game "goes" (and "faster faster" is now its basic philosophy), the more often switch happen, which means that period of fun is shorter, and the higher soft cap is (under "soft cap" I mean: average stair to which specific player can climb without changing own game style intensity/complexity - current amount of content that can consume and depth of progress that own abilities' level allows to reach; as part of this, stuff that happens now is even more pitiable, since all content is consumed easily through easiest difficulty, and progress, which's indicator are equipment(ilvl)+AP, isn't attainable in principle by virtue of mechanics (process is accessible to all regardless of ability and experience, since doesn't require any such stuff to participate (=borderless in terms of content), but is unachievable for anyone); don't forget that current average player is like a dog in "food absorption" framework - doesn't know own measure, because game doesn't allow/teach to determine it), so the less it happens during one expansion. What follows from all this - total number of once average player's "fun"-hours inevitably decreases and "work"-hours increases... Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to complain to trade unions! Sometimes I think that main Classic consumers are adult people, who're tired of this rush, who are sick of these patients (deliberately don't call them "players", since I mean not players only), that demanded more&more/faster&faster/Me&Me&Me and changed game to the way it's become now.

schmonz
The raids were way easier in organized groups in WotLK. Todays heroic and mythic raids are way more "hardcore".

The problem is that no one needs this "hardcore" (although, people already pointed out inadequacy of your statement, at least in terms of heroic), when they have an alternative in the form of "inexpensive" ways of obtaining both "content" and solving problems of ithematization, they getting both without any effort, but just with subscription time, why bother about it?.. so:

nekobaka
Current normal is comparable if not easier than non-naxx WotLK raids. ICC itself even with the 30% buff kept many from even seeing LK. Heroic dungeons are also easy now. Welfare badge loot has been replaced with titanforge by rewarding players with even higher ilvl than WotLK normal 10 man ilvl. The badge grind was fairly long for non-raiders until Cata gutted it. The introduction of the flex and later normal difficulty paired with cross realm raiding two to three fold the amount of players clearing organized raids. Oh and lets not forget LFR.

Now general length of long term grind for all types of players has been increased, but the methods to keep these players rewarded has also been increased.

lunethzero
Just because its challenging doesn't make it fun. And the side content adds no substance to the game other than just being a welfare gear machine. On top of everything, it doesn't matter how much content there is if the classes aren't interesting and fun to play.

that's true. They have neither interest nor desire to participate in this disgrace now, but this need somehow did exist back then.

Akka
Classic will not reach anything like even original Vanilla population, because despite it's quality, it's still a) old, b) a finished product without future, c) not all people who liked it are going back for many reasons.
But if WotLK had followed Classic/Early TBC design philosophy, I'm pretty sure the growth would have followed, and the fall would have been much slower.

Point /c/ is a big problem, and I especially encountered this in discussions with friends. It doesn't matter whether their main reason was “inadequate replacement of character models” (this is closer to me due to certain circumstances) or game's philosophy and design as a whole, but they don't want to take part in this, referring primarily to the fact that they don't believe/trust company anymore, they don’t want to waste time on people who “betrayed” their friendship and affection, people who first trampled/destroyed their interests without looking at any protests, and then suddenly started backing off: doesn’t it smell like another cheating/betrayal? But point /b/ also can't be thrown out, it does matter, yes.

As for “followed”, this is, as mentioned, the problems of attractiveness/adaptation, which are more likely to have a social/psychological genesis, this is crucial moment when they decided that they have the right to want more. It is impossible to overestimate devastating effects of WotLK and transitional stage in form of Cataclysm in this sense; here I also agree (but don't forget that Classic and BC also had symptoms of too protracted "content" cycle in form of content/balance changes released near Naxx and Sunwell;
---
don't read that they were bad, they were surplus for current content, and therefore required significant changes to progressive "finished" part of released content (such game mechanics as threat, stat growth and balance of progress), they could for example be separated by a pair of levels (real char.lvls) both in complexity (performance/characteristics requirements) and progress from current content instead of rebalance and catch-up mechanic (they mostly were rushed), but unsuccessful levels distribution as such is a separate topic
---
but if it was closer to the end of the cycle in previous times, then WotLK have began it even before its middle: inflation and rush, this is something that should have sobered up developers with sufficient critical thinking, but vice versa scared them and they began to cut content on the move).

Therefore, statement that “WotLK influenced failure of Cataclysm” have place for existence (only that problem here isn't in sequence, but in methods' inheritance), since they began “familiarize” with subsequently realized unsuccessful design solutions in it. WotLK was an inappropriate experiment, results of which were misinterpreted, and Cataclysm became consequences, Pandaria was result of cleansing Cataclysm, WoD was PR bomb and great overestimation of current own capabilities without correcting wrong design trends (in theory, it should have been excuse for 3 previous expansions, maybe they even understood that they were wrong, but it was already late and they only made even more critical errors, my personal experience ends here in connection with new models advent, everything further is more likely theoretical sampling speculation), Legion - is already corporate experiment to obtain long-term profits (this time experiment was a success, just its goal was no longer respectable, but fully money based, because they urgently needed something to "pay" for WoD compensation), BfA is "based on reduced budget" dried rot of ideas left after Legion, and Shadowlands dosn't really change much of main BfA stuff.

ps. Why do people like to remember WotLK? I don't think that because it was complex and correct in everything, no. Most likely because this is the last time when game “mechanically” and visually (experience/impression) still somehow resembled its original one.

Also some decent points:

Kralljin
I don't know what sort of Wotlk you've played, but i'd argue that in comparison to any recent WoW expansion, Wotlk is downright hardcore.

No LFR.
Catchup only awards gear the lowest Ilvl from the previous tier, meaning you still have to work through the previous tier rather than just jump into the current one.
If you don't raid, you can basically stop playing after farming heroics because the game is effectively over for you.

I really think that a lot of those casual players which believe WoW is nowadays intended for the "Hardcore audience" have a very skewed image of WoW that seems to be like:
"I don't like WoW anymore and i am casual, since casuals and hardcore players are opposed to each other, it means they design the game around hardcore players!".

The simple reality is just that WoW no longer has a real target audience, the game is utterly torn between catering to pseudo E-Sport, entertaining people that have only very limited time available while wanting to see every piece content and also still humoring the idea that it's some sort of RPG.

Everything must somehow work for everybody and thus ends up being a at best neutral experience for everyone because nobody gets the feeling anymore that any content is actually made for them.
That is the real issue, blindly pointing at some audience and saying "They're designing the game around those!" is just a half truth.

[Kheldin]

Thing is you cant really atract young audience for simple fact even this audience is young they still have same desir to stand our and feel exact same way as we did back in Vannila and current WoW do no provide that. Lot of poeple hate on Fortnite. Saying like it is some leper like game or w/e. But this game for todays young audience is what for us WoW used to be back in vannila. And no Fortnite isnt casual game and definitly not simple. It is vastly comples game. You have FPS elements with many weapons on top of building mechanisms and movement skills. Young audience do not games like current wow. Handling evetyhing on silver plate and being simple.

And mobile games are not popular becouse of games but becouse of covinience of mobile devicies. It is kinda obvious that device what you have 24/7 by your side will be used more than PC what sit in your home. But when those kids get home they will always go rather play on pc than on mobile.

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If WoW was back in vannila areldy casual there was no reaosn to make it even more casual. Vannila striked sweat spot beetwen casual/hardcore and sandbox/themepark.

Just have to agree with HumbleDuck there, if you played MMORPG's before WoW classic you know that WoW was way more accessible and casual friendly then any other MMORPG out there. That was also a reason for WoW's success and getting people to play an MMORPG at all.

What Blizzard seems to ignore is that the the complexity, uniqueness and feeling of each class gives the game more depth and a higher longtime motivation for players instead of adding pointless content (Pet Battles) or AFK Warfronts/LFR which are only interesting for the very first time when you haven't seen the encounters at all.

Also the way how and how fast you can getgear matters alot in the long run imo. Finding a balanced path there is still somethig Blizzard never achieved and is probably one of their core problems which will never satisfy even 50% of the community.

[Yriel]

They don't understand the pain of having to grind for xp by camping a site with 4 other people.

And before that waiting for an hour as a group for a good spot to clear.