Here’s a post that an officer of mine wrote on my guild forums. I wanted to share it with the rest of you to generate some discussion as we head into the long weekend. Check it out! Do you agree? Why or why not?
If you partake of the wow forums you will notice a large number of QQ threads lately that divulged from the nerf wars that usually take place.
ToC is too easy!
That is a huge complaint from a very small minority!
Now its not that I disagree with the statement but I disagree with the reasoning. It is my belief, and I think it is very very true, that the main reasoning people complain about the level of difficulty of ToC stems from the following basis.
People love to lord over other people.
It is that above statement which drives a majority of people that do raid. That statement is slowly being crushed by Blizzard’s belief that all of its subscribers should have the opportunity to do content.
Now if you do not quite understand what I mean by that I will explain it out fully. In Vanilla WoW on my old server, my guild was the only guild to be able to fully clear BWL, AQ40 and most of Naxx. We had roughly 40 or so people in the best gear. Every other guild that raided struggled with Molten Core and could barely kill a few bosses in BWL.
The ego that goes along with that level of success was amplified greatly. Believe me I had every hunter on the server drooling over my gear and asking me all sorts of questions. In BGs, it was common for me to rack up 120 killing blows and 0 deaths. I could one shot people and to be perfectly honest, it felt very good.
Blizzard realized soon after the release off Naxx 40 that they had indeed made a mistake. They released the best raid they ever built and no one saw it. Only a handful of the total population ever stepped foot into Naxx. They then decided they needed to change the game and they did just that.
We are now in the world of easy epics and 10 mans. It is relatively easy to see most of the bosses in game and actually kill them. Epic gear is widely available and if you only play a few hours a week you can conceivable have a raid ready character in a month. The casual players rejoiced.
But those few hardcore people did not.
They were no longer lords and masters of there respective servers. Thus their ego shattered and the crying began in full force.
I don’t know what kind of person can define themselves by this game. I define my hobbies as something I enjoy doing. I enjoy the game and I enjoy the camaraderie of the people I play with. It’s much the same with any of my hobbies be that golf or hockey. I don’t define my existence around it though. I don’t sit around work and brag about killing C’thun in Vanilla wow or being 6 of 6 Sunwell pre nerf. But I think many of these people who do have this perception about themselves where this game defines the type of person they are.
I find that very odd and disturbing but it in it self is nothing more that human nature.
The guy who buys a Corvette because his neighbor bought a Mustang would be that person. He defines himself on what he has as compared to others around him and that very concept drives many WoW players.
It’s a strange world we live in.
Great article
I think that’s one perspective. I think it’s also hugely flawed.
Ask yourself – why do you raid? Is it so you can lord over your epics and get random tells saying how pro you are? Is it the amazing fame of being awesome at world of warcraft? Is it being able to tell others that they’re terribad?
I’m sure there are a few who this applies to. But much like the vast minority of loud people on the internet that make it seem like blizzard is totally clueless, I think this is a vast minority too.
I think that there are a lot of players who want upgrades in gear, and that’s why they raid – to improve their character’s personal power.
I think there are a lot of players who want to raid because they enjoy a challenge that involves teamwork.
I think there are a lot of players who raid because they enjoy doing social activities with other like-minded people.
And those three reasons comprise far more than the rest.
Now, why would people like that be upset? Let’s see.
For starters, the easy one: the challenge. If it’s not all that challenging to do this stuff, it’s not going to be satisfying for them. They have months and months of stale raid content to look forward to, with fairly banal encounters and farming galore. That’s not fun. They play for the experience, and the experience is sorely lacking.
The social folks: another simple one, though not quite; they’re going to be unhappy because they won’t be doing as much raiding. The sooner things are on farm, the sooner the raid’s over. There’s less impetus to get together and play.
The gear folks are interesting. Some, I’m sure, want their gear to be special and indicate that they’ve earned something others haven’t. But I think this isn’t the only situation. I think that they also want to feel like that awesome piece of gear was hard to get and that they did earn it; that their purple’s value isn’t just in how powerful it makes their toon, but how hard it was to acquire. So for those who want awesome gear, I doubt many or even most would be happy if they could hit a shiny button and get the best in slot gear right out of the bat. It doesn’t distinguish them, and it doesn’t mean anything.
.-= Kal´s last blog ..[General] Ugly loot math =-.
I have two answers- to the people that say ToC is “too easy”, make sure you’ve tried the much much harder ToGC first. That said, the loot from hard mode Ulduar is a shade lower quality than regular ToC, and I find that the difficulty/reward ratio has changed. Ulduar hard mode is still harder than ToC normal, and ToC normal gives better rewards.
If it had been me designing this new content (and mind you, I’d probably make a terrible game designer), I’d have made ToC rewards a shade lower quality than Ulduar hard mode.
.-= EuripidesOutDPS´s last blog ..Hunting Anub’arak! =-.
Blizzard’s bottom line is to make money. And to do that, they need to please as many people as possible. And designing the game so that only < 1% of the subscribers will experience it is just bad business.
Isn't that why they made Heroic versions?
.-= Drev´s last blog ..Destiny Rides a Deathcharger =-.
I think it’s just accessible. The problem with any sort of bell curve (which is what Blizzard are trying to achieve i.e. appeal to the most common number of play styles) is that a certain amount of people will be ‘better’ or play more or whatever and thus find the content too easy.
Ultimatley Blizzard have decided that they want the majority of their gamers to experience as much content as possible and that means make things easier aka more accessible.
.-= We Fly Spitfires´s last blog ..Interview At Grinding To Valhalla =-.
Great post. This is not a complicated issue, and I like that you did not make it into one. Don’t define your life, and your life’s accomplishments around a video game. Why? Because it can only be controlled partly by you. You do not want to define your life around something you can’t even control.
Enjoy the game. It is still a game, right?
Accessible. It’s part of a blue ocean strategy that Blizzard is implementing to make the game more appealing to a wider audience than just the bleeding edge raiding demographic, ultimately at the cost of appeal of the bleeding edge demographic themselves.
There’s not a lot of room in this comment box to bring out the points I want to make, so I’ll just redirect anyone who’s interested to this link: http://frostisthenewblack.wordpress.com/?s=blue+ocean
.-= krizzlybear´s last blog ..The RP Itch =-.
More accessible is good! It allowed me (and a heck of a lot of other folks) to leave a raiding guild for a casual guild that raids and *still* see the content. Did it feel great to have other druids ogle my gear when we were one of the few guilds in AQ40 back in the day? Of course. But did that define me as a person? Um, no. Someone else getting to experience end game raiding in no way shape or form adversely affects my happiness or fun level. If you are someone who has exponentially less fun based on other people having fun (i.e. you think there is a limited supply of fun to go around and someone else’s good time is your loss), then maybe you need to check in with the real world.
.-= candy´s last blog ..Are Hard Modes the New Line in the Sand Between Casual and Hardcore? =-.
I think we’d need some clarity first. Is this regular 10 or 25man raiders doing the QQing? Or those doing the heroic versions? Or those doing the hard modes of either?
I’d credit QQ over “easy mode” a lot more if 1. they were in the top 5 World Firsts to do that content at that level and 2. if they could independently share and prove the grand total number of wipes and hours spent on that particular raiding achievement.
Gotta love that achievement tab.. Fascinating stuff.
I have fond memories of TBC because it took us weeks to get every single new boss kill. There wasn’t this expectation that with a new boss that meant that we were getting a new kill today. It had nothing to do with lording it over everyone else, but instead about accomplishing something that we felt was meaningful.
A lot of that is gone now. I can’t even remember the last time that I truly got that high of killing a boss. I certainly don’t get it on every single kill like I used to.
I think the backlash you’re seeing is because Ulduar was more difficult than Naxx and as a result, players were expecting ToC to be more difficult than Ulduar. In reality though, it falls somewhere in between Naxx and Ulduar in difficulty which is a bit demoralizing for those of us that were hoping for something a step up from Ulduar.
.-= Veneretio´s last blog ..Talking Tank, Saturday on Rawrcast =-.
I think for the most part, the more accessible model is better, and that is what we have. If you want truly amazing loot, and truly amazing achievements, you can do the hard modes. If that was still too easy, you can do the truly truly hard achievements, and get mounts and titles.
However, if you are like me, and took one look at the release of Black Temple back in BC, and said “well, that looks like a lot of fun, but I’ll never get to see that”, then I think the accessibility is nice to have. I don’t have time to become a hardcore raider, but I still enjoy the raiding game.
I think the rewards for doing 10 man versions aren’t good enough. Too often, they just become alt raids and no one really commits to them. We had a 10 man Ulduar run a couple of weeks back – and due to some recruitment problems, this was all we could do so we brought our best players. The fights were still hard, and our gear level was about right, but we all played really well and it felt like we’d accomplished some great stuff. That doesn’t happen on alt or pug raids (admittedly it doesn’t always happen on main guild 25s either). back when ZA was 10 man only, that brought the best players on their mains, but it was still 10 man only. Those were some of the most fun times I’ve had raiding.
The same problem happens when a new instance is released, as Euripides points out. Having hard modes is great, but if the reward/effort equation doesn’t work out anymore – then the cutting edge groups aren’t going back, and everyone else doesn’t want to even do the normal version. I have logged on several times to find the pug list for TOC full, while the pug list for Ulduar 10 (which I haven’t cleared yet, just have to kill off the last 3 keepers+general+Yogg), is completely empty. I raid to see new boss fights, not to gear up. But I may not get a chance to see those fights because TOC is too easy to get gear from.
It has nothing to do with defining yourself by a game – it has to do with personalities. I am a friendly team player type person, but I have a competitive streak. I like to feel challenged & I’m exactly the same in my professional career.
To me the reward from raiding is the first time you finally down a boss fight that has been causing you grief. Nothing about gloating, ranks, gear.
For me, Blizzard introducing Hard Modes has been the perfect outlet for this. We try a fight on Hard Mode for a number of attempts each week before scaling back on the ones that we simply can’t get.
When it is easy – which TOC has been, it’s a little dissapointing because the excitment of something new and shiny is over so fast and then they made it even slower by releasing only one boss a week.
.-= Lathere´s last blog ..Faction Change: Alexria the Blood Elf Mage is No More! =-.
I do appreciate that they’re making it easier for casual gamers to see content. But I also understand the frustration of being fed “easier” instances in order to keep us casual raiders satisfied. I enjoy WoW for a lot of reasons, but the strategical/puzzle aspect of boss encounters has always been a whole lot of fun for me. It’s a little annoying to know, for example, that sure, my guild may be able to down a boss, but, hypothetically speaking, it may just be because it was a nerfed encounter. Idk. Maybe that’s a “hardcore” mentality, but I like to beat games that really challenge me.
On the other hand, I’ve personally become something of an achievement maniac. Maybe hardcore players are the reason why Blizz added achievements and hard mode encounters, which are even more gratifying to win. For example, achievements, for me, make heroics a whole new ballgame… bring all your buddies, and try to play the instance a way it’s not normally played, and not many people can do unless you know what you’re doing, and you’re skilled enough to get it done. So maybe the way that Blizz is trying to challenge “hard core” gamers is just changing, and not disappearing entirely.
(Edited cuz I R speak gud english alweyz)
I started on a comment, and it turned in to a wall of text. So I put that on my own blog.
Hardcore raiders, 3.2 was not for you. It was for your alts, and casual raiders, and people trying to catch up so they can enjoy Ulduar content, and maybe have a chance at seeing Ice Crown.
.-= Colerejuste´s last blog ..Reply: ToC is too easy =-.
I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure all of the “raiding is too easy” complaints are just another form of e-peen stroking. If you told me 90% of the people complaining that raids are too easy had never even fought Yogg-Saron, much less hardmodes, I would not be the least bit surprised.
Whenever I see someone say “raiding is too easy”, I just read it as “I’m too awesome” and know to quit reading right there because what follows is just a thinly-veiled treatise on the size of their e-peen.
ToC is accessible, It feels a little to easy, for instance killing the 2nd boss with no healer actually knowing what incinerate flesh actually meant or did, I see more the problem being based on currently difficulty a great deal of guilds are going to finish Normal this week or very soon, and then hit the brick wall that is Heroic TOC
I’d say it’s both – easier than what we expected based on the difficulty of Ulduar, yet very accessible based on the new 5man giving out lots of high quality gear. Someone else said it, this was the “gear up your alts” patch moreso than the “seperate the men from the boys in raiding” patch – I’m pretty sure that’ll be Icecrown.
I think some people are also worried about getting bored between now and February when Icecrown Citadel is likely released. Onyxia might distract people for a few days, but when we blow through content so fast (with only raiding 2 days a week!), it leads to boredom… And then if people are killing Arthas the first couple weeks after we walk into IC, they’re going to be bored again before the expansion comes out… The problem with easier content is that people are going to get bored with it faster.
.-= Lissanna´s last blog ..Progress Update – ToC 25 Normal clear =-.
@Kal
“that their purple’s value isn’t just in how powerful it makes their toon, but how hard it was to acquire”
I couldn’t have said it better. I think raiding is too accessible at the moment. I think there should be some exclusivity yes. But I think only 1 guild of 40 players per server reaching the end raiding is too extreme. And I think every man and his dog can pug the end raid when they feel like it is too extreme.
There must be some happy medium. I want my gear to reflect the challenges I have faced and overcome – a badge of pride. Not to one shot everyone else in Battlegrounds.
.-= Cassandri´s last blog ..Bringing Down the Bloodlust Instance Servers =-.
I do have to admit i did think that regular totc ( on 25 man ) was very easy. My guild managed to down every boss in a max of 5 shots first time round. However im pleased to say that the heroic version is imo alot more challenging which will be enough to satisfy me for a while 😀
However the main thing i miss about raids being more ‘accesible is the loss of respect for the higher guilds on my server. Maybe is just my srver having quite a low horde pop but despite the rewards(proto drakes) i just dont think huge guilds get the respect they once did in BC and vannila…. just my 2c tho
My guild and onother are trialling a raid alliance with a view to things becoming permenant. Our first joint run was last week into ToTC25.
We’ve cleared Ulduar 10 and they’re working on Yogg. Both guilds os similar size and capabilities although they come from a long heritage of raiding from back in Vanilla days and we’re new kids on the block only starting with Kara in TBC.
We cleared all of the available bosses on TOTC25 in one evening – not tried Anub yet though.
Compared to something in the region of 3 or 4 evenings working on Yogg before final triumph. In comparison to Ulduar the Trials is a big let-down. It’s just not epic in the same way that ulduar is.
We’re definately casual but I fell a little let down by the current content’s challenge and it’s scope.
.-= Ulv´s last blog ..Ulduar is cleared =-.
I find it weak to say the the QQ comes from character flaws. That’s a pretty bold and also broad statement.
I play games for the challenge. I like hard challenges and like to overcome them. One of the things which I like about wow is that you tackle challenges with a team. You are not only dependant on your own but also on the skill and the organisation of your teammates. That adds another dimension.
The way Blizzard did things in the past was to present the raiders with challenges of increased difficulty. A new raid instance was harder then the one before, harder on your gear, harder on the skills you needed.
Trial of the crusader broke that. You need less skill, less organisation and less gear to complete trial of the crusader while in the end when you walk out of it you will have better gear then you could get by doing the harder challenges.
While I play for the challenge I also understand that others play for other reasons. Like getting as strong as possible aka getting the best gear. Our raid is made up of different players who raid for different reasons. In the past those reasons were compatible (players who wanted challenge got good gear in the en and people who wanted gear needed to complete challenges).
Trial of the crusader breaks this. The reasoning of a lot of players: “why do Ulduar hard modes when you can get better gear in ToC”? This makes us have a hard time filling a raid at the moment.
I hope the heroic ToC will pose more of a challenge.
How is this not just a repeat of the same stale arguments on the forums that the author him/herself links to? “Hardcore raiders = elite snobs.” Which is the invariable answer to “Casual players = undeserving scrubs.” Neither position is nearly remotely tenable, yet they are the two arguments most often heard on this issue. It is asinine.
This is not to say that I disagree with the cause to which the author clearly subscribes. I really like the fact that raids are much more accessible, and that hard modes are hard (for the majority of players – I’m sure a portion of the playerbase wishes there were an Ultra-Hard-Mode). But can we nix the classist name-calling? These comments have identified a plethora of reasons to like or dislike the current difficulty levels, and very few of them resorted to characterizing “Hardcores” or “Casuals.”
I do not think there is anything wrong with saying you play for challenge etc.. The thing the writer of this article is talking about though is the need for some players to throw up walls on content for people they deem not worthy
It is an artificial bouncer at the club they want to have. You are not beautiful or famous enough to get in the club so you must wait outside.
Those are the types of arguments people are presenting
If you want a challenge do the hardmode
I thnk it is reasonable to say that ToC hardmodes are fairly difficult for the average to above average guild.
Now if you happen to be in those top 50 worldwide guilds and you find ToC hardmodes too easy. Sorry but I personally do not believe you balance a game around 500 people out of 6 Million
Well, I love raiding, I’m not soooo hardcore (4 or 5 days/ week), and never saw algalon’s face.
For me the biggest problem now it’s that is boring to raid in a content so easy to complete.
“If you want a challenge do the hardmode”
Yeah, we have hard modes, and now, heroic modes. But they are on the same place, with the same boss, with the same scenario and almost the same habilities. That’s the boring point to me.
Back to the TBC raids, I remember that I was so happy, everytime we killed a boss for the first time (and it could take some weeks), cause that meant some new stuff to view, new landscapes, new npcs, new bosses, new strats to read… it was so exciting!
Now I feel that it’s all about the same. 4 raids (10n 10h, 25n 25h) in the same claustrophobic gray wall. Lol.
sorry for my english 🙂
.-= WoWGirl´s last blog ..Blizzard ouviu as nossas preces! =-.
I agree with WoWgirl. I think that the current raids are at a just fine point of accessibility and difficulty.
The part I hate, hate, hate is the monotony of repeating the same boss 4 times a week in slightly different iterations, in the exact same brown-walled room every time.
Similar difficulty bosses with models distinct from trash mobs spread out in a traditional instance? I could like that.
I also think this will probably be one of the few, if not the only, trash-free raids Blizz will make. I’m worried that it will make people lazy about trash and less willing to clear it when we have to. I always get steam coming out of my ears if I find that 5 people are on an unannounced bio break during trash clears.
I think the normal version of the 25 man is definitely too easy. Not because it bothers me that others can clear it but because I missed the challenge I’ve always felt new content should bring. It just feels wrong walking into a new instance and without tactics or really thinking about it, just killing everything in a one shot. I would like to see a slight increase in difficulty with the normal version. The hardmode versions seem better tuned although with the lag we have had since Wednesday its been a bit hard to tell.
I have to admit I also hate the fact that the normal and heroic versions are basically the same fights with just damage changes and a few ability tweaks. WotLK put me off 10 mans since it was just a lite version of the 25 man and there is only so much time I wanted to spend in Naxx/Ulduar, but this is so much worse.
The bit that annoys me the most however is the cloned supporters in the gallery, they could at least have made a few more differences between them. Some blood on the sand would help liven the place up a bit as well.
Too me the bigger complaint should be that they did not change the tactics of the hardmodes and normal modes like they did with Ulduar
XT Hardmode is a really different fight then Normal as is General Vezak
After trying Northrend beasts hardmode, which btw is very challenging for us at least, that would be my biggest complaint. The fight is basically normal mode with the damage amped up big time. I am sure they could have changed the fights tactically as well to give us something different to look at.
Its a small complaint
@Sydera
What kind of sadomasochist are you? Who wants trash? I know I don’t. Trash is basically a time waster. Instead of trash on hardmodes blizzard gave us the limited attempts per week on hardmodes. Which is a far better idea IMO.
Well, I think everyone is correct here. The problem is that this whole instance is nothing more than a loot pinata~. That is all this is supposed to be. I thought I remember seeing a Blue announce it at Blizzcon or in a forum somewhere though I can’t find it now.
This is not a pretty instance. This is not an instance with alot going on. This is not an instance to push the bleeding edge progression guilds. It is an instance, a raid, and a dungeon designed to gear people up, so if you want to raid you can. It has hardmodes, but the hardcore hard are there as another attempt by Blizz to please the whole community. It may succeed, it may fail.
How is this instance any different from the Vault? Didn’t get the gear you needed to drop, try a short low trash raid instance. Still didn’t get good drops, try a daily heroic dungeon, and a regular dungeon that get everyone Naxx geared.
They shortened the progression curve for players who just got to 80, new guilds getting started etc. That is why the emblem changes were made as well. Now that the progression curve is shorter, people don’t feel like they have to pugg Naxx for weeks.
I don’t play this game for gear, I play this game to have fun. I need the gear to see new, shinier instances. The new loot pinata~ instance helps players like me. Blizz is determined to make this game accessible to new players and alts.
The expac resets the gear and new players can raid then, but will they stick around for another year waiting. This lets new players raid now. Does this minimize your hard work, no not really. Do I have to work as hard as you did, no. That isn’t the point. Are you having fun? I am.
.-= Arkaneena´s last blog ..Paladin Instance Healing by difficulty Trial of the Champion =-.
Raiding is not that easy. Raiding is about perfect and where it should be. You want raids accessible but not impossible.
.-= Skonged´s last blog ..WTB class switch =-.
its hard and challenging to the point that my guild whom does two knocks, vezax hard and every other hard mode besides firefighter (working three knocks) and one and 0 lights has pussed out. “guys if we can’t not stand in sunbeams we can’t do beasts hard” translation = we are waiting till thing gets nerfed like every other encounter before really going for it. heck we have 36+ attempts left.
this from a toppish (yeah can pull top 1k globally np) is a far cry from what vanilla was.
WTB people working the content, and saying hell we may wipe fifty times, over “oh noes too hard”
really I haven’t decided whether to see it out till wrath ends or just roll troll and pvp in free time casually now.
/end rant.
btw we lol facestomped the reg 25 man.
the fun seems gone. not because of the content but because of the inevitable nerfs people know are coming.
The primary issue that the colliseum has in comparison with the previous instances is that it doesn’t progress in terms of difficulty.
Naxxramas and Obsidian Sanctum were easier than EoE for most people.
OS3D was the hardest content encounter we had.
Ulduar started off rather easy, and the initial mimiron and yogg saron encounters were actually challenging. Perhaps not OS3D challenging, but still challenging. Some might argue that Yogg is harder than OS3D, but I believe that the only thing that makes normal Yogg challenging is people actually learning their role, where OS3D had so much chaos at times that people had to actually pay attention and not just follow a play book. Once again, this is my opinion, which i’m sure many will disagree with. Mimiron was actually fun until he was nerfed and nerfed and nerfed.
Ulduar hard modes are actually hard with the exception of XT, who is incredibly simple in my opinion, each of one of them offers a challenging encounter that allows for players to really test what they can do with 24 other people.
So far nothing and I do mean NOTHING in the Coliseum is challenging on normal mode. Kel thuzud is more challenging than most of it, and Malygos requires more learning than anything in there. Considering this is the latest in the PROGRESSION of instances, it is way too easy.
Naxx>OS&EoE>Ulduar>Coliseum should be the order of difficulty since it’s what the gear and release schedule follows.
Instead it seems like it’s Coliseum>OS1D>Naxx>EoE>Ulduar in terms of NORMAL mode challenge.
Well, that’s just my view anyway.
Is ToC too easy? I think not.
I’m in a guild that I consider to be slightly more hard-core then Blizzard’s target. We’re a very laid back and casual minded guild, but we also have raids 4-5 nights a week. Due to summer downtime we haven’t had enough active members to do much 25 man raiding, but we clear up to Yogg every week in Ulduar 10 and are doing a couple early hard modes.
So far, our impression of ToC is that the instance as a whole is scaled right in relation to the other raids, but the individual fights are not well scaled to each other.
Beasts of Northrend: Sufficiently challenging, took us a couple weeks to really get the grip of it. The worm poison still manages to kill people who get lost about where to run, but this week we pretty much got it down.
Jaraxxus: On paper this sounds like an extremely complex fight, and we’re finding that it does always take at least one or two deaths before people new to the fight really get the grips of all the mechanics. That said, the fight is surprisingly easy to master, infact I think the incinerate flesh value could have been higher. Once we understood the flow of the fight, this actually feels easier then northrend beasts.
Faction Champs: This is where we’re stuck. Compared to the previous fights, this is unbelievibly difficult and horribly frustrating. None of us are PvPers, so for Blizzard to throw this very arena-centric fight into the mix is seriously pissing us off. Over two dozen attempts at the fight last night, and we just cannot get more then two of them dead before our healers get focused and destroyed. CC is useless, more so then even diminishing returns should be.
This fight has the same level of difficulty shock that we experienced the first time we tried to farm trash in Sunwell, and it’s made even more frustrating by all the guilds saying it’s easy.
So, no, I do not thing raiding is too easy, I think it’s right about where it needs to be.
4300 guilds killed 25 man Anub’arak the first week it was out (9000 on twins), 7589 have killed Yogg (4 watcher) but most of those guilds will have spent at least a few weeks learning him. That’s a fairly significant drop in difficultly, and if the servers hadn’t acted like crap this week i expect more guilds would have finished.
I didn’t expect ToC to be as hard as the ulduar hard modes, but I didn’t expect to 1 shot everything either. Personally I feel it should have been tuned for guilds that can down Yogg+4 and the hardmodes to be tuned around the current firefighter/3 knock achievements (meaning they take 1-2 weeks to learn each). From what I’ve seen the hard modes seem to be ok (with only about 200 guilds having killing something so far) but the normal mode is a touch too easy.
Faction Champions is a bit of a different beast, personally I think it was extremely poorly designed but it’s not really that hard once your CC knows how to handle it.
(stats from http://www.wowprogress.com/)
I think faction champs is one of the cooler fights in there.
the best by far in the entire encounter is beasts, as it is now. granted some guilds are stomping heroic on that, but it takes a raidwide level of skill and not feckking up. *which we all do*
to beat it.
personally I think it should be harder on regular and even harder than it is in a scaleing sense on heroic.
isn’t like we are going to see ICC anytime soon.
“Normal” difficulty is too easy. We’ve one- or two-shot all the bosses in ToC, both in 10 and 25 mode.
Hard difficulty is way more challenging. We just spent 15 trys on The Beasts, then 2 on Lord Jarasomething. The Champions seem very hard, we’ll go back to them tomorrow. Hopefully They’ll entertain us for a few hours too.
the column was very intresting and had me thinking about the same things. But since my motivation for raiding have been a bit diffrent my reasons for being fed up with the new stuff seems to be as well.
I started as veryvery casual player in vanilla, raiding would have been a distant dream to me. However when I got into raiding, end vanilla/tbc I loved the ability to see my skills grow, how I was able to learn, become better tackle new encounters with my guild. I agree that offering more content to everyone is good – the right choise – but I am now, in Wrath, bored out of my mind.
Not because stuff is easy. it most often isnt *that easy* and there are always the hardmodes for that 🙂 but because it is THE SAME.
Personally TBC was best for me raiding-wise. There was steady progress (yet SSC and TK were way too difficult in the beginning), and every week one could do many *diffrent* types of raids, with diffrent bosses. There was karazhan that was fun even everyweek for badges and for countless alts. There was ZA – that was first so hard and after months of hard work we got the bear run nailed before bears were gone for good. And all 25 amns stuffs with just one lair or whole instances slowly towards BT and Sunwell.
We finally got to BT and managed to kill Illy (after nerfs) – but never made it to Sunwell.
and I think it was good. I think that seeing there was something I couldnt quite reach made me improve as player, had me motivated and gave me a goal where to aim.
Now it is grinding the same over and over, and then going it again in 25 man, AND then in hc modes. NOT really that intresting.
I love the more casual approach – but the same places are steadily driving me away form wow. I love healing, I’m good at it, but even new improved gear and dear friends cannot beat the feeling of doing same thing, over and over again.
The peeps I’ve raided with since early tbc are skilled, but sorta casual – adults with RL. And now we are amongst the best 5 guilds in our side…
All current content cleared, working on Collisium 10 Hc-modes, unlocking U10 algalon and working on U25 hcmodes atm.
it’s odd, I never wanted to be “hc-raider” and now I seem to be. Funnily enough I liked wiping in TK trash for 2 moths more than oneshotting through Collisium.
for me having something to dream was more important than “seeing all bosses”.
Chiper, Champions(10) which is what I am assuming your talking about is probably a little too reliant on having the right classes and those classes being played well. Mainly a priest with a mastery on when/where to mass dispell and a rogue with improved throwing and the knowledge of when and where to use it and their cc tools. Your raid does not all need pvp experience but if those 2 players do then it sure helps.
The fact that casuals such as my self can see content without sacrificing our real lives is why we play. This is a choice of time commitment. A hardcore player that has cleared everything just has more time, and therefore goes through the content faster. The problem is that every player is moving at their own pace, and the leaders of the content will be bored too soon if they have to wait for the casual players to be finished the content.
There is no solution to this. However I do not think that it is reasonable to expect USD$15 per month to give you constantly new content, or even new content every month. Maybe these players need to play more than one online game at a time? Do you watch TV 40 hours a week and still whine that nothing is on? Do you play Indoor Soccer 40 hours a week and say that the game is getting stale after 1 month?
Or find ways to otherwise challenge themselves in the game; rather than bitching about how easy it is. Playing more Alts won’t help with being bored by the fight mechanics; after all nobody runs Stockades for fun every week.
Playing a lot will always make it seem easier. It’s not. In 95% of cases time and focus is the point of differentiation between most players. Epics are just a reflection of the investment to date.
.-= Typhoonandrew´s last blog ..Raid leading Ulduar 25 =-.
Quoteing Typhoonandrew:
[quote]The fact that casuals such as my self can see content without sacrificing our real lives is why we play. This is a choice of time commitment. A hardcore player that has cleared everything just has more time, and therefore goes through the content faster. [/quote]
This statement is as wrong as it can be and denies the fact that some people are just better players then others. If I see 1 person doing 7000 dps and a similar geared person of the same class with the same spec on the same fight doing only 3500 dps there is more going on then just “having more time”. Some people just perform awefull. And the nice thing is: there is nothing wrong with that. Everyone can play this game how they like to play it.
The real difference is that some people play this game competatively and some don’t. The competative players will search for others with similar mindset and skill-level, and THAT is why they go through content faster. NOT because they have more time, but because they are more committed. So-called social guilds spend often a lot more time then the so-called hardcore guilds.
A lot of guilds which choose to have a limited raiding schedule (like 2 raiddays/week) but with a competative mindset prove time and again that with commitment you don’t need loads of time to perform well.
Top end wow players in classic wow thought they were special because they could do things other wow players couldn’t. The constant in that reality is one, wow players. The US military has been testing people using games for years. WOW is one of those games along with other fighting games. I met in vent one guild made up of people in the same unit. With very little time playing the game they were able to down all classic wow content in blues and get into Naxx in classic wow. I remember that week very well. They nailed all the content in blues.
Being a top wow player has very little meaning when the player base is filled with casuals who don’t care or people who frankly have so much time on their hands, its likely they are not dedicated professionals or kids. Its not the top of totem pole of society.
This whole blue challenge was something recently tested by some bored wow players.
http://www.wow.com/2009/09/02/yogg-saron-in-blues/
[quote] “This statement is as wrong as it can be and denies the fact that some people are just better players then others” [/quote]
There are better and worse players, no doubt – within a guild you’ll see them, or a party, or a Stormwind bank. I think its friggin obvious that people who don’t take the game seriously will contribute a lot less. Any good raiding guild will not take them into ToC in the first place, so take it as read that they’re not part of the raiding equation for ToC and Ulduar.
My point was talking about the difference between the players who are trying to raid seriously. I think it is time invested that separates them. Perhaps I should have used the word dedication?
In our guild we have a lot of ex-hardcore players who take the game very seriously, but needed a break from 4 nights a week. I’m position 1 or 2 dps, often raid leader, and sometimes tank. We’re working on the content slowly and find that we add a new boss to our kill list every week we’ve tried. Attendance is an issue, so we suffer under the yoke of not enough toons some weeks. The weeks we get the right folks on, we highly successful.
.-= typhoonandrew´s last blog ..Raid leading Ulduar 25 =-.
Loved reading the post..Will definitely agree that having done a majority of my raiding only from the start of WotLK, i’ve heard a lot of my RL vanilla WoW raider freinds moan about how easy they’ve made stuff. But then again, i’ve been able to really get into this aspect of the game, only because Blizzard has now removed the concept of “attunement” to instances and made it a lot more accessible.
But I beg to differ on one particular point. Its kinda obvious that no one would like to flaunt one’s in-game achievement at their workplace amongst people who are clueless to really appreciate them. But having gotten into raiding for just over a year now, and having lived amongst a rather large number of WoW players, i have come to understand that showing off about one’s gear is quite natural. Call it envy, or competitiveness, Im quite sure that every player would like to boast about their achievements, which according to me, Blizzard has enabled a much larger section of the players to do. Its probably the sense of satisfaction or that momentary feeling of pride when a person gets to flash off his new gear that keeps people driving in-game. I agree that “team work”, or “having a good time with freinds” might be one inspiration to get people to raid, but in the end, its just everyone’s desire to be the best, and theres no denying that. This is something that Blizzard has made easier after WotLK, and im quite sure that there are a lot more people sub-conciously appreciating it, than putting on a “QQ face” and following the mentality of a rather specific niche of the WoW community.
Well since im somewhat of a new WOW gamer i will share my opinion on this matter. It has its pros and its cons.
Honestly i am against making other newer instances and raids as easy as the one before so that everyone could see them. It may sound a little strange but i can remember when i was watching my brother play and he was some of the numbered few who had the Benediction staff. It was awesome to look at and it represented a lot more than just a new toy.. In my honest opinion gamers should be required to earn there rankings and not just made to be equal. I shouldnt be able to jump into to wow during wrath and be able to skip all the previous raids in order to get gear.
Now this can also be a problem becuase as earlier stated the PUGS to go into any of the other instances are non existant. If it would not have been for my brother i would never gotten a chance to see what the inside of MC looked like becuase no one ever wanted to do it.
It has its pros and its cons like everything else in life. What one person might hate i might love and visa versa. Its to know at least they implented a form of hardcore mode with achievements and so forth so the game doesnt get stagnant for those who have all these newer instances on farm.
Ralex