Are you pleased with this content tier?

[Ratman_tf]

Shouldn't being able to play your class properly be required to 'beat' (see endgame) in WoW?

But past a certain level of competency, raids aren't about playing your class well, as much as having big enough numbers and memorizing the boss gimmicks like memorizing multiplication tables. I found most boss fights in TBC and Wrath boring due to just that.

I'd personally like it a lot if they lowered the numbers and made boss fights more unpredictable.

[Modern Angel]

I think it's too tough to say without having Ulduar as a basis for comparison. In a vacuum, this tier of content is probably a little too easy (note: easy, not accessible) but if it really is a stepping stone to a decent challenge in Ulduar it's all good. Which is my standard reply to people bitching about it being too easy: give it a little time because it's meant to be post-nerf Karazhan level.

I like the lesser time required, for sure, with a baby on the way and just being in a different place in general than I was four years ago. But I've made the argument that the smartest, least dwelt on thing Blizzard does is grow up with their player base. I'm 31, not 27... even a kid who picked it up in college at 19 with time to burn is 23 or 24 now with a whole different set of time constraints.

Now, with that said I think the lack of time requirements sort of makes it feel less like a world. It's a little hard to describe but WoW isn't a terribly compelling world from a fiction standpoint so not being in it except on raid nights (and pretty much only on raid nights) sort of makes the whole thing feel a little more disconnected than it did when I was catassing it. That opens up a whole different argument about how much of a virtual world's verisimilitude relies on time commitment; that's one which is going to be mighty subjective but I figure there's at least one line graph in there.

[Chimpy]

To answer the question. Overall I think the current content tier is ok. Achievments add enough spice to keep some stuff more fresh than it could be, and there is more variety than there was for close to a year after the original release for max level characters.

[Sjofn]

Now, with that said I think the lack of time requirements sort of makes it feel less like a world. It's a little hard to describe but WoW isn't a terribly compelling world from a fiction standpoint so not being in it except on raid nights (and pretty much only on raid nights) sort of makes the whole thing feel a little more disconnected than it did when I was catassing it. That opens up a whole different argument about how much of a virtual world's verisimilitude relies on time commitment; that's one which is going to be mighty subjective but I figure there's at least one line graph in there.

The raid that MOST feels hugely disconnected from the world to me is Obsidian Sanctum. Why am I killing those dragons? Why? I mean yes, I'm doing it for the loots, but there's like ... NOTHING in the game that I've found that even mentions why I would want to do what I'm doing in there. Yes, the black dragons are iffy, but they're not the current dragon flight being assholes.

[Fordel]

It's supposed to tie into a Novel no one will read.

[Rasix]

Just beat Kel'Thuzad  10man today.  I subbed in on my guild's first clear for the last 2 attempts at KT.  Death's Bite dropped and it went to the main tank (DK).  I still haven't gotten a single purple main spec drop yet. 

I have yet to see half the fights in that place.  However, it was fun and felt appropriately challenging.  I didn't do great DPS(~1800), but there were mitigating factors for that (newness, kinda OTing, dying/ghouling/b'rezzed  ). Luckily the same tank/healer group had been banging away at that encounter for a couple nights and they did a really good job (keeping me up while tanking wasn't a breeze).  4 melee made it a pain, but that also meant we had 4 interupts (dk tank, me, rogue, rogue).

It was cool that I got to see that encounter, try it, and beat it.   Under the same circumstances in pre-TBC/TBC, I don't think that would have been the case.

[Phunked]

It doesn't surprise me that it surpises you. I'm wondering why you are butthurt over the fact that other people, retards or not are succeeding. Frankly, I'm not even sure how you know these people who are semi-functional are even doing well. Does it somehow diminish the fact you beat a computer? Do you have to trod on others doing well in order to know that you are successful? Do you run around Dalaran checking people's specs and gear, then smacking your forehead and cursing when you find out they have the same thing as you? I'm hoping not.

In any case, let's get to the real reason you're asking this. You're fucking bored, and the content didn't hold your interest because there wasn't enough challenge. So now, you're going to ask the majority of the WoW populace who's not 3 Draking Sarth, and not even done yet with most of the content if we're happy? Yes, of course we're happy with it. You're not happy. Most of us would say, get over it.

The only drawback to this whole situation is that Blizzard is taking forever to come out with the next level of content. But then yall will burn through that and wonder how in the fuck anyone can deal with this game.

No I don't walk around Dalaran QQing about how this one guy has BoH he got from a pug. I didn't much care about people pugging Sunwell trash for best in slot ranged weapons. Loot doesn't motivate the hardcore raiders like the middlecore raiders think it does. We all get what we want eventually (even with all the RNG gripes).

I know that people who are barely doing anything are doing well because I have alts. And I play them during time I'd otherwise be raiding on my main (if there was content to raid). That means a lot of pug runs because we only have one alt content clear a week and this is my 2nd alt. I have DK/War/Druid, so I'm either tanking or healing 99% of the time (almost never DPS, since that's less useful, relatively). I don't require that everyone else bash their heads in frustration while I clear content with a well oiled machine of people who probably spend more time doing research for this game than they would getting to know their future spouse. I get zero validation from being better than others (videogames as personal validation is a lousy path to go down) but I do enjoy beating the challenge. Currently, that means playing against the computer, since PvP in WoW is terrible ATM. Though to be fair, I ran rogue/rogue at 70, and that wasn't exactly rocket science either.

What bothers me a bit is the fact that a lot of people who play now feel entitled to clearing the content. I don't so much care that it's easy but that this seems to a shift in philosophy. I'm wondering what they'll do when people expect to be able to pug Ulduar. I mean the vehicle boss at the start seems to be a bit of a cockblock for people who can't play very well, but if it's anything like maly (you can do it it with 30-40% non-retards) then people will get carried past it. How much satisfaction do you experience when you clear content that offers almost no resistance. You mentioned Saph as the hardest fight in Naxx. This is true, but mostly because no one does it in resist gear like it's intended.  If you wear the crafted set and run the aura (we did on the first kill in November) it's a joke. The fact that you can avoid this entirely and bruteforce heal (like almost every group does) actually means that you're powering through the 'hardmode' fight. When the hardmode is default and people aren't even aware that there's an 'easy' mode, what does that say about the easy mode difficulty?

[Hindenburg]

No I don't walk around Dalaran QQing about how this one guy has BoH he got from a pug

What bothers me a bit is the fact that a lot of people who play now feel entitled to clearing the content.

Clearly.  You save your QQing for here.

How dare those fuckers FEEL something without my permission?   

That you want resist gear to be mandatory again is... disturbing.

[Ironwood]

Retarded thread is retarded.

I run a large guild.  I've not seen all the content.  Just like this point, the rest of your argument is so flawed it's giggleable.

Stop polishing your armor with my tears.

 

[Nevermore]

The raid that MOST feels hugely disconnected from the world to me is Obsidian Sanctum. Why am I killing those dragons? Why? I mean yes, I'm doing it for the loots, but there's like ... NOTHING in the game that I've found that even mentions why I would want to do what I'm doing in there. Yes, the black dragons are iffy, but they're not the current dragon flight being assholes.

Wasn't Onyxia part of the back dragonflight?  People might still be kind of pissed off at the black dragons because of her.

[kildorn]

The raid that MOST feels hugely disconnected from the world to me is Obsidian Sanctum. Why am I killing those dragons? Why? I mean yes, I'm doing it for the loots, but there's like ... NOTHING in the game that I've found that even mentions why I would want to do what I'm doing in there. Yes, the black dragons are iffy, but they're not the current dragon flight being assholes.

Wasn't Onyxia part of the back dragonflight?  People might still be kind of pissed off at the black dragons because of her.

We forgave her because she was nice enough to drop shitloads of gold <3

[Nevermore]

What bothers me a bit is the fact that a lot of people who play now feel entitled to clearing the content.

How dare those assholes! Just because they pay the same $15 I am, they think they're entitled to see the same content?  Fuckers need to know their place!

[WindupAtheist]

"Deep down are all you terribads really happy with this easy content?"
"Actually yes, we're quite pleased."
"FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU---"

Anyway, I don't care if PVP is supposed to be unbalanced right now, I'll do it and dailies until I quit. I'm never doing another instance run again. That shit is just not fun.

[Xanthippe]

I'm never doing another instance run again. That shit is just not fun.

I like them the first time I do them.  Over and over again? Nope.

[Lakov_Sanite]

People complained and left the game when they introduced 20man instances like Zul'gurub.
People complained and left the game when burning crusade lowered all raids to 25man.
People complained and may leave the game in wotlk because of 10man content and easier non-achievement raiding.

The only constant? Subscriptions went up.

I'm so sorry for you and all the other people that are  over this but I can't be arsed to care and nor will blizzard.

[kildorn]

To be fair, the ZG whining was because at the time, it was some of the best loot in the game, and fit poorly into raid schedules and groups. It caused a lot of drama as to who got in which ZG group and such.

Any other whining was unmitigated bullshit, because ZG was amazingly technical for it's time, and flattened a lot of raiding guilds who were used to brute forcing content, whereas a DM blue'd guild who could actively not stand in fires was pretty solid. ZG was a great instance.

And yeah, no matter how hard the 5%ers think Blizzard's alienating them, it's overall good for the game as a whole in that it brings content to more people, who tell their friends how cool it is, and gets more new players. Alienating casual players is the path of horrible income.

[Phunked]

Retarded thread is retarded.

I run a large guild.  I've not seen all the content.  Just like this point, the rest of your argument is so flawed it's giggleable.

Stop polishing your armor with my tears.

 

Your counter-argument is so eloquent that I can find no flaw in its substance-less void to critique.

No really, I totally accept that my position isn't going to appeal to a lot of people. I expected it to be critiqued, but ideally via some semblance of a well marshaled argument. If I wanted responses using ad absurdo arguments, I'd have posted on WoW general.

In regards to the responses about  entitlement and content, do you feel entitled to play against a chess grandmaster because you picked up a copy of Chessmaster 4000 one day? If you can't master the jumping in Super Mario, are you still entitled to beat Bowser?

The "I pay money I deserve" argument, in addition to being logically flawed, is (actually) reducible to the absurd. You pay money to be able to access the content. You are not entitled to anything beyond that. I am not suggesting that the vast majority of the playerbase be relegated to dailies and 5 mans again, I think that's a bad design philosophy. Similarly, I was  not suggesting that resist fights need to come back anymore than the rest of you, I was merely pointing out that Saphirron *is* a resist fight that is trivialized by being undertuned (if you assume that adequate tuning for a resist fight is that you have to wear resist gear to be successful).

You need to stop reducing this to stereotypes. Am I suggesting that no one but the most hardcore ever see the entry level content? No. I am, however, proposing the idea that it might be wise to tune content such that it requires a bit more execution and adequate (not exceptional) playing skills.  For the vast majority of you, that means you'd still clear it, but maybe not in the first couple of weeks, and you might wipe a couple times a night. On the flipside, you at least get some sense of accomplishment in knowing that the stuff didn't fall over dead for you after you looked at it the wrong way. Is this so terribly undesirable?

[Phunked]

And yeah, no matter how hard the 5%ers think Blizzard's alienating them, it's overall good for the game as a whole in that it brings content to more people, who tell their friends how cool it is, and gets more new players. Alienating casual players is the path of horrible income.

Were casuals really alienated in Vanilla and TBC? I mean yes, they did something wrong in both expansions that they're doing better now. But if the argument is that 1. Alienating (true) casuals loses money and 2. Vanilla and TBC alienated casuals, then why did subscription and revenue levels continue to rise unabated during both content tiers?

[Hindenburg]

do you feel entitled to play against a chess grandmaster because you picked up a copy of Chessmaster 4000 one day?

I'm sure you're aware of how shitty your analogy is.

[Phunked]

do you feel entitled to play against a chess grandmaster because you picked up a copy of Chessmaster 4000 one day?

I'm sure you're aware of how shitty your analogy is.

Yes. About on par with the average level of overhyperbole here.

[kildorn]

And yeah, no matter how hard the 5%ers think Blizzard's alienating them, it's overall good for the game as a whole in that it brings content to more people, who tell their friends how cool it is, and gets more new players. Alienating casual players is the path of horrible income.

Were casuals really alienated in Vanilla and TBC? I mean yes, they did something wrong in both expansions that they're doing better now. But if the argument is that 1. Alienating (true) casuals loses money and 2. Vanilla and TBC alienated casuals, then why did subscription and revenue levels continue to rise unabated during both content tiers?

Vanilla alienated casuals in the endgame until the nerfing of MC and addition of ZG and addition of tier 0.5, all of which were aimed at making content more accessible. ZG was a hit and showed that half the issue with casual players was getting 40 fuckers together to do shit, even after MC was easy enough for greens to do it, it wasn't hugely run due to the org issues.

TBC was better, but fell down with kara being difficult at it's start, and not being enough content for casual players. One casual raid wasn't cutting it for variety and lockout timers. ZA helped a ton, and was a hard-ish casual raid. The issue they found was that they'd locked in to what casual players wanted, but it's wasteful to make content for two different groups of players all the time.

Wrath did the normal/heroic thing to stop that: exposing everyone to the SAME amount and quality of content.

edit: I can clearly show here that WoW rapidly started trying to figure out how to make an epic feeling game that everyone could access, and took multiple expansions to learn all their lessons. That's why subs kept rising: they were working to fix the issues and improve it for the majority of players. If they'd said fuck it and just released expansions of nothing but BWL/AQ40, I can theorycraft that they'd be nowhere near as successful in expanding the MMO market as much as they have.

[Phunked]

What proof do you have (honest question, not rhetorical device) do you have the casuals were ever unhappy with content in Vanilla/TBC? Is it the forum QQ from the 1% of people who even know that WoW has offical forums? Personal anecdote? Something else?

I mean the argument exists that it is possible to reverse engineer a problem based on the fact that Blizzard put out the solutions you described, but this seems to be a bit weak. Maybe they anticipated a future problem? I mean everyone keeps talking about how like 20% of the entire population even raids to begin with. Does adding more accessible raid content really do anything for them?

[Hindenburg]

overhyperbole

What's the difference between that and regular hyperbole?

What proof do you have (honest question, not rhetorical device) do you have the casuals were ever unhappy with content in Vanilla/TBC?

Oh, I see, you're a troll.

[Ingmar]

And yeah, no matter how hard the 5%ers think Blizzard's alienating them, it's overall good for the game as a whole in that it brings content to more people, who tell their friends how cool it is, and gets more new players. Alienating casual players is the path of horrible income.

Were casuals really alienated in Vanilla and TBC? I mean yes, they did something wrong in both expansions that they're doing better now. But if the argument is that 1. Alienating (true) casuals loses money and 2. Vanilla and TBC alienated casuals, then why did subscription and revenue levels continue to rise unabated during both content tiers?

In vanilla, absolutely for sure. Practically my entire guild ended up leaving the game, partly because we got precisely one bone tossed to us after release - Dire Maul. All the other development time appeared to be going into bigger and harder 40 man raids that smaller and smaller percentages of the population were going to be able to see. They did eventually come out with the 20 person stuff, which was in some ways even harder and also still out of our reach as a small guild (which I would guess the majority of guilds are/were.) I would bet good money that the decision to casual-ize the game for TBC was driven in part by their own internal numbers on what was happening with subscriptions, and that there was a trend there that was being hidden by the huge numbers they were getting by launching in other countries.

They fixed it for TBC, we came back, and we're REALLY happy that it is even more fixed for Wrath.

[fuser]

 After restarting from scratch after WoTLK, I'm amazed at how quickly you can get geared up to a good standard with WoTLK. I'm on a medium-high pop server where we generally hold winter grasp (it might flip once or twice depending on lag). VoA is insane for its drops long as your one of the lesser class/specs(and not DK number 14 on the raid). You can quickly gear up in the blue season 5 set (getting roughly 10-12k honor a night just doing daily's and WG). Then just gem for PvE if need be.

 H VH is the silliest way to farm badges daily even if you only have 20-30mins.

[Phunked]

overhyperbole

What's the difference between that and regular hyperbole?

What proof do you have (honest question, not rhetorical device) do you have the casuals were ever unhappy with content in Vanilla/TBC?

Oh, I see, you're a troll.

1. Overhyperbole is like regular hyperbole but TO THE MAX. Take Schild, mix with some WUA and distill over a medium flame.

2. No really, I've never been casual, so I have no idea. Just because everyone SAYS that casuals were emoqq in vanilla and TBC doesn't make it true. Ingmar's first hand account is a much better indicator of what happened than "people whine on forums it must be true".

[kildorn]

What proof do you have (honest question, not rhetorical device) do you have the casuals were ever unhappy with content in Vanilla/TBC? Is it the forum QQ from the 1% of people who even know that WoW has offical forums? Personal anecdote? Something else?

I mean the argument exists that it is possible to reverse engineer a problem based on the fact that Blizzard put out the solutions you described, but this seems to be a bit weak. Maybe they anticipated a future problem? I mean everyone keeps talking about how like 20% of the entire population even raids to begin with. Does adding more accessible raid content really do anything for them?

At the time, they actively discussed being dismayed by the percentage of players who had ever zoned in or downed a boss in the various raid encounters. Essentially, they saw early on that they were churning out new content that nobody would see. At the time I WAS a hardcore raider (BWLish era is when all this went down, and the MC nerf) and it was entirely due to casuals not having jack shit to do and it would be easy to see everyone leaving if your options are: A) quit, B) run Strath again.

If you look back, you can see their various attempts at fixing the issue, and they seem to have found the solution of this expansion learned from prior expansion tests. The tried adding more 5 mans, it's okay but lacks staying power (DM, Sunwell), they added slightly smaller raids (ZG), they reduced overall raid sizes (all of TBC) and picked that as a solid development number, then found a way to streamline development and not block content from parts of the playerbase.

The ideal goal is to not wind up with 5% of your playerbase using 60% of your endgame. That's blatantly a business model begging someone else to come be the next big thing.

[Hindenburg]

Is it the forum QQ from the 1% of people who even know that WoW has offical forums? Personal anecdote?

Just because everyone SAYS that casuals were emoqq in vanilla and TBC doesn't make it true. Ingmar's first hand account is a much better indicator of what happened than "people whine on forums it must be true".

Stop, please.

[Phunked]

I remember the next big thing.

Whatever happened to MJ's game again? I remember playing WAR for a bit then quitting b/c tier3 and 4 was made of pure suck. Did they ever fix that?

Is it the forum QQ from the 1% of people who even know that WoW has offical forums? Personal anecdote?

Just because everyone SAYS that casuals were emoqq in vanilla and TBC doesn't make it true. Ingmar's first hand account is a much better indicator of what happened than "people whine on forums it must be true".

Stop, please.

Your eloquence and articulation convinces me oh so well.

[Musashi]

Perhaps you'll appreciate my eloquence then.

Dear OP,

Fuck off

Thanks,

Everyone.

[kildorn]

If you care about Ingmar's anecdote: I played with Ingmar from day 1 in WoW.

I eventually quit and rerolled to another server, and started my hardcore raider career out of complete Boredom with WoW's endgame as a small guild. As in, there wasn't shit to do but 5 man instances.

Anyways, do you have any evidence that WoW hasn't been sliding towards the casual since the MC nerf patch? Because I can't see a single data point that shows WoW's design direction heading for hardcore-ville, population You after ZG's release.

edit: And we've had a LOT of Next Big Things during WoW's life. WAR was the most recent, but not the one that started the drive to keep the casuals, which was Vanilla-era.

[Phunked]

These aren't meant to be counter examples, but original TK+SSC attunements, as well as pre-3.0 Sunwell were pretty hardcore. I mean these were eventually later rectified but it shows that at least someone in development though that people wanted to see more hardcore content. What was the next big thing around ZG anyways? LotRO? Because I hated that game so fucking much. Most grindy leveling ever. It almost felt like you weren't supposed to level.

@Musashi:

Clever.  Why so butthurt though?

[Rasix]

2. No really, I've never been casual, so I have no idea. Just because everyone SAYS that casuals were emoqq in vanilla and TBC doesn't make it true. Ingmar's first hand account is a much better indicator of what happened than "people whine on forums it must be true".

You're starting to get annoying. 

If you want another personal example, both times I quit pre TBC was due to raiding taking up too much of my time.  I wanted to see and experience all of the content and the only real way to do that was through a competent raiding guild as there wasn't a very competitive scene horde side on the server I played on.   In TBC, there was a similar experience with all of the stupid keys and the lack of casual guilds having any raiding success.  When raiding was off the table, there just wasn't enough for me to do and WoW lost my subscription for a time.

Then Kara got the nerf bat, and I came back and had fun progressing in a more casual setting. 25 mans were less fun and the strife they caused within the guild was regrettable. Once you start segmenting your own playerbase due to very stringent requirements on time investment, gear, and number of people involved; you start causing a of conflicts that wouldn't be there if there were alternate paths.

Now with WOLK, the 25 man material is really not causing a lot of problems except for a few folks that still have it in their mindset that it's the pinnacle of their personal advancement.  A good deal of this is because the exact same materal is available in a more casual 10 man format.  There's no "this content is only for the uber, get back in your heroics, chump".  This will delay the inevitable guild breakup until Uldar starts frustrating the less time constrained in our guild.

If I absolutely had to jack up the difficulty for the poopsock, bank prancers; I'd just crank it up for the 25 man versions while leaving the 10 man more accessible.  But then you'd get crying that some uber guild's little clique doesn't have something that tests their refined skills.

edit: I'm going to say this only once, stop the damn trolling. This isn't WoW general forum.

[kildorn]

These aren't meant to be counter examples, but original TK+SSC attunements, as well as pre-3.0 Sunwell were pretty hardcore. I mean these were eventually later rectified but it shows that at least someone in development though that people wanted to see more hardcore content. What was the next big thing around ZG anyways? LotRO? Because I hated that game so fucking much. Most grindy leveling ever. It almost felt like you weren't supposed to level.

@Musashi:

Clever.  Why so butthurt though?

LOTRO was supposed to be a HUGE casualsink. When was DDO anywho, I thought it was mid-WoW.

TK and SSC's attunements were pretty well mauled, and the whole attunement system tossed out on it's ass, which is more evidence that every time something hardcore winds up in the WoW design docs, it gets an axe to the face shortly thereafter.

Someone in design did want to appease the hardcore, but Management didn't seem to agree, every time it got done, it got reversed. I've never seen an entire raid instance get tuned Upwards.

[Phunked]

If I absolutely had to jack up the difficulty for the poopsock, bank prancers; I'd just crank it up for the 25 man versions while leaving the 10 man more accessible.  But then you'd get crying that some uber guild's little clique doesn't have something that tests their refined skills.

Going to focus in on this quote. I'm inclined to agree, since I don't think any of the serious raiding guilds ever considered 10 mans parallel progression. I have absolutely no idea why people argue that you need to have 10 mans as difficult as 25 man raids (or the 5man/solo instance crowd). The only reason this is the case atm is because 10+3 is more demanding in terms of DPS relative to 25+3 since you tend to have the same amount of tanks in both, and maybe 3-4 more healers in 25, and then 10 more DPS. I'd imagine that no one would have an issue with easy 10 mans to 'see content' and harder 25 mans to 'get owned if not HARDCORE (tm)'. If that were the case, I'm sure I'd be somewhere losing sleep instead of inciting WoWGeneral-esque hatred of my playstyle.

In terms of the uber clique thing; I don't know of any 10man only guilds (as in, no 25 man gear) to have cleared 10+3. I'm sure they exist somewhere but they are the vast minority even within the tiny minority of people who've cleared 10+3 anyways. I'd imagine if they wanted to get Perreto optimality in terms of minimizing QQ, they'd make 25 mans a bit harder and keep 10 man difficulty the same (minus 10+3, which is totally out of tune).