Is MoP too easy?

[Cryptoengineer]

I found this video interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rd0-zVIBVo

A a raider who struggled through WotLK (I didn't have it nearly as
easy as shown here) I appreciate this viewpoint.

Looking for other opinions.

pt

[Warulak]

That's why they have hard mode for raids and challenge modes for dungeons. For hard core raiders to feel like they have a chance to flex their e-peen a bit.

[Cryptoengineer]

On Apr 15, 9:48 am, Warulak <waru...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That's why they have hard mode for raids and challenge modes for dungeons.  For hard core raiders to feel like they have a chance to flex their e-peen a bit.

I appreciate that. However, the reward of being able to visit parts of
the game exclusive to those who have put in that level of effort is
(for many) a hell of a lot more satisfying than simply having another
achievement.

When I and my raid team finally stood before the Frozen Throne in
WotLK after *months* of coordinated effort, I knew I had earned it,
and that everyone else there had too. When we took down the Cata
bosses, there was no such sense of reward, since we'd already been
there many times in LFR, along with every Tom, DIck, and Harry who had
a lvl 85 toon.

Is that elitist? Yes. Deal with it.

pt

[IYM]

I'm with you on that as well to a point. Coming in a bit later to the
game (fall, 2009) my raid team had gotten up to Sindregosa on normal,
without "help" and then downed the LK with only the 10% reduced buff
when Bliz threw it out there. When Cata dropped, we started with the
Bastion of Twilight and had gotten through the council (and also Magmaw
on the other raid) before my team/guild fell apart. It was tremendously
more satisfying, along with the cheering on vent when we downed a boss
we had been working on for weeks....It was fun. LFR was only introduced
with Dragon Soul. While half of me is appreciative of LFR in that I
get to see content I probably would not have seen until later, half of
me feels the other way, so I'm quite torn.

I guess another question to ask is how the LFR has impacted (negatively
or positively) raid teams in general? I personally seem to find guild
teams harder to "get going" because people have the option of seeing the
content on LFR, and are less likely to be available to raid at a
specific time as they can run it anytime they want. It used to be a bit
easier before to get the people as they would want to become part of a
raid team to be able and get in and see what ICC looked like, for
example, because there was no other way to see it. I can't tell you how
many times we've had to cancel raids now because we were short, and
ended up running something else for guild or personal achieves, like old
cata or wrath content on heroic that we could do with 7 or 8. That's
fine for fun, for an occasional fill in as a break from 3 months of
grinding out an instance, but gets old quick, let me tell you when the
opposite happens.

However, Bliz still caters to the very elite raiders though. For
example, take this new Thunder King raid. They still haven't made part
4 available to LFR (maybe tomorrow?) as they wanted to let the "real
raiders" get through it on regular as the raids have been open fully on
10 & 25 man since 5.2 dropped. I've never belonged, nor do I think I
would want to belong to a dog-eat-dot raid team like that, because of
the investment of time, having to compete for a spot, etc. I guess that
makes me a "casual raider" as there is no way I'm going to have the time
to put in to have cleared that yet.

So I guess this isn't exactly a "is MoP easy" answer...I guess it is
just different and ever changing, than the way it used to be as a result
of a business catering to it's core group of paying customers, as I
don't think they are really getting any truly "new" accounts. The
customer is king and if Bliz can keep WoW going as long as they can by
giving 90% of the current players what they want, so be it.

[Warulak]

Ahh see that's where you are in error.....

You do not, contrary to popular belief, have to do
LFRs at all. This way you can feel that accompishment
and not feel 'tainted' because you've been there so much
in LFRs.

Thus I say, using your exact words, deal with it.

[Cryptoengineer]

Which part of 'exclusive' didn't you understand?

pt

[Ting Hsu]

Definitely agree with that video. I would go further and say that
Wrath of the Lich King was too easy.

During Burning Crusades, everything was hard. But due to that, people
learned how to play better. You could depend on a guy decked out in
heroic 5 man gear to have a decent understanding of tactics, aggro,
crowd control, class mechanics, proper build, etc. And it only took
about 3 months of raiding to turn him into a veteran raider.

While 3 months sounds like a long time, it took 6-8 months during
Wrath, to turn a recruit into a veteran. The recruits in Wrath just
didn't have that basic understanding of how to play that Burning
Crusades forced you to learn. So they had to learn all of those
basics, plus how to raid, all at the same time.

And you know what? It wasn't their fault. Wrath had made it easy on
them, so they never had to get better. It was annoying as all hell to
raiders though, because it meant a hella long time before you could
depend on someone.
--
// T.Hsu

[Peter T.]

I finally took my time to watch the vid. I normally never watch
youtube. But the comments here forced me to it.

Anyhoo! My realm's top guild cleared ToT normal in less than 5 hours
the same day 5.2 went live. All bosses. Atm theyre struggling at third
boss on HC. But still.

--
Peter T.

[Cryptoengineer]

Which raises the question: What will that guild do while waiting for
the next patch or expansion? I think we've seen all the main line
bosses we're going to see until the next expansion, which is 6 to 18
months away.

How many top end players will drift away in the interim?

pt

[Peter T.]

Den 20-04-2013 03:42, Cryptoengineer skrev:

> Which raises the question: What will that guild do while waiting for
> the next patch or expansion? I think we've seen all the main line
> bosses we're going to see until the next expansion, which is 6 to 18
> months away.

Atm they will continue progressing in tot hc. Im sure about that! In
the meantime I guess some or most of them will level their alts, do
reallife stuff outside the raiding scheme and maybe even sell Challenge
runs (for ppl who wants those silver and gold medal achs). They dont
need VPs like the rest of us etc.. :)

--
Peter T.

[John Gordon]

In <slrnkn52bk....@mbp55.local> Lewis <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> writes:

> Remember, each raid has four difficulty settings, right? LFR, Normal,
> Heroic, and Challenge. So, when you finish on Normal, you've done the
> easy half.

I think Challenge is only for heroic 5-mans.

--
John Gordon A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs
gor...@panix.com B is for Basil, assaulted by bears
-- Edward Gorey, "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"

[Peter T.]

Den 21-04-2013 14:26, John Gordon skrev:
> In <slrnkn52bk....@mbp55.local> Lewis <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> writes:
>
>> Remember, each raid has four difficulty settings, right? LFR, Normal,
>> Heroic, and Challenge. So, when you finish on Normal, you've done the
>> easy half.
>
> I think Challenge is only for heroic 5-mans.

There is an extra level of heroic called Thunderforged (heroic) in ToT
dropping 541 gear.

--
Peter T.

[Catriona R]

On Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:39:16 +0200, "Peter T." <pin...@hotmail.cum>
wrote:

Is there? I'd got the impression that the Thunderforged gear was just
a random chance to drop better quality gear with a higher item level,
rather than yet another difficulty level. Certainly everyone was going
on about world first heroic kills, not heard of any world first
thunderforged kills yet, unless I'm missing something.

[Peter T.]

Den 25-04-2013 16:12, Catriona R skrev:

>> There is an extra level of heroic called Thunderforged (heroic) in ToT
>> dropping 541 gear.
>
> Is there? I'd got the impression that the Thunderforged gear was just
> a random chance to drop better quality gear with a higher item level,
> rather than yet another difficulty level. Certainly everyone was going
> on about world first heroic kills, not heard of any world first
> thunderforged kills yet, unless I'm missing something.

I admit its a pure guess. :) I went to wowhead for the strats for the
last 3 bosses in tot lfr an hour ago and saw some 541 gear called
thunderforged heroic. So I concluded there was some sort of a challenge
level above heroic.

--
Peter T.

[Cryptoengineer]

It's just an item level, not a raid level. Catriona has it right.

pt

[Ting Hsu]

On Apr 19, 9:42 pm, Cryptoengineer <petert...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Which raises the question: What will that guild do while waiting for
> the next patch or expansion? I think we've seen all the main line
> bosses we're going to see until the next expansion, which is 6 to 18
> months away.
>
> How many top end players will drift away in the interim?

Looks like 1.3 million quit (a 14% decline) in 2013 Q1.
http://paritynews.com/business/item/1053-world-of-warcraft-loses-13-million-subscribers-in-2013
--
// T.Hsu

[IYM]

I was just reading up about that in another article , and one of the
comments had some merit, which was that a lot of people took advantage
in the first quarter of 2012 of the Diablo promotion that Bliz was
offering with regards to the deal of purchasing a 1 year subscription to
WoW and get Diablo free or something. I know a lot of people and
returning players took that offer. Even if most of them quit playing
again by December last year, those subs would have only dropped off
during the first three months of the year. The article did say that
they also got a bump increase in membership during that time as well.
The article I read also stated that most of the drop occured in the
East, (asia market). Maybe all the gold farmers and hackers cancelled? lol

Does that mean that people are not leaving? Of course not - Just saying
it may not mean a massive quit from the game in the first quarter, but
rather that last years numbers were inflated and it was more gradual
than 1.3M people quitting in the first 3 months of 2013.

To WoW's credit, a almost 10 year old computer game *still* has 8m
subscribers. Even SWTOR, which was supposed to be a WoW killer,
introducing a F2P option hasn't come close. RIft? Guild Wars? But all
that doesn't matter anyway - Enjoy what you play.

I read most of the comments from players / former players in the article
I read and the consensus was that most thought that Pandaria was leaps
and bounds better that Cata, the raid content was actually much
improved, but most felt the LFR ruined the 25 & 10 man raids.
Interestingly, the #1 reason for 90% of them quitting or not staying
after coming back was the forcing of the dailies grinding. The most
amusing comments were those that bitched about paying $15 a month to
ride your mounts in a circle in a major city waiting for a queue were
the same ones bitching about dailies. Bliz introduced the dialies, IIRC
to get people spread *out* of the cities. Everyone hung out in Dal
during wrath, and Org/SW in Cata.

Seems you just can't make certain people happy and they'll bitch about
anything... lol


Sorry - went off on a tangent there. :)

[Catriona R]

On Fri, 10 May 2013 15:44:21 -0400, IYM <nor...@whitehouse.gov>
wrote:

>I was just reading up about that in another article , and one of the
>comments had some merit, which was that a lot of people took advantage
>in the first quarter of 2012 of the Diablo promotion that Bliz was
>offering with regards to the deal of purchasing a 1 year subscription to
>WoW and get Diablo free or something. I know a lot of people and
>returning players took that offer. Even if most of them quit playing
>again by December last year, those subs would have only dropped off
>during the first three months of the year. The article did say that
>they also got a bump increase in membership during that time as well.
>The article I read also stated that most of the drop occured in the
>East, (asia market). Maybe all the gold farmers and hackers cancelled? lol
>
>Does that mean that people are not leaving? Of course not - Just saying
>it may not mean a massive quit from the game in the first quarter, but
>rather that last years numbers were inflated and it was more gradual
>than 1.3M people quitting in the first 3 months of 2013.

Yep, numbers can be made to say a lot of things and I think in reality
it's not as bad as the drop sounds. Also different things in different
markets by the sounds of it, it doesn't seem to be dropping so much
over here; if my server's anything to go by it's increasing lol,
although I'll grant low pop servers won't feel the same!

>To WoW's credit, a almost 10 year old computer game *still* has 8m
>subscribers. Even SWTOR, which was supposed to be a WoW killer,
>introducing a F2P option hasn't come close. RIft? Guild Wars? But all
>that doesn't matter anyway - Enjoy what you play.

I've always found it funny when people hype up a game calling it a WoW
killer. Many of those have flopped, others have probably done fine,
but none have matched WoW, nor do I think WoW's end is at all near;
yes, it's lower than it used to be, but it's still got a huge
population as MMOs go, and plenty more scope for expansion I think.
MoP has been a big step up from my point of view as well; far more to
keep all playstyles involved.

>I read most of the comments from players / former players in the article
>I read and the consensus was that most thought that Pandaria was leaps
>and bounds better that Cata, the raid content was actually much
>improved, but most felt the LFR ruined the 25 & 10 man raids.

LFR "ruining" 10 and 25-mans probably depends on your viewpoint. I
reckon it's freed a lot of people who didn't really want to do those
in regular guilds, and so they stopped and do it in their own time on
their own terms. Of course it's hard for those who *do* want to do
guild runs, but hopefully people can adapt as they get used to how
things now are, and those who want to will find each other and get
good teams running, while those of us who prefer LFR can enjoy
ourselves there.

>Interestingly, the #1 reason for 90% of them quitting or not staying
>after coming back was the forcing of the dailies grinding. The most
>amusing comments were those that bitched about paying $15 a month to
>ride your mounts in a circle in a major city waiting for a queue were
>the same ones bitching about dailies. Bliz introduced the dialies, IIRC
>to get people spread *out* of the cities. Everyone hung out in Dal
>during wrath, and Org/SW in Cata.

Rofl yep! I personally have loved this expansion for endgame: it's the
first time where I've not had an army of alts by 6 months after
launch. I've actually really struggled to find time to level any alts
as there's so many things my main can do. And I've spent very little
time sitting in cities, perhaps because I've bothered to go out and do
dailies (hint to complainers: they're less dull if you don't do all of
them at once, every day - a different set each day gives nice
variety!), among many other things. I think Blizz have backed off from
the daily grinding now anyway; you can gear fine without it, world
bosses, dungeons, LFR, pretty easy to gear up. My druid has opened up
a couple of factions for valor gear but never actually bought anything
(other than the neutral 522 neck, which requires zero dailies); he's
got 481 ilvl though, without even having done HoF/ToES yet.

>Seems you just can't make certain people happy and they'll bitch about
>anything... lol

Yep lol. I've noticed there's a number of people on various forums who
take every opportunity to bitch about WoW, using any excuse they can.
I have no idea what they want from the game, but from the amount some
complain, I think they'd be better finding a game that's nearer to
what they want rather than bitching constantly about the many many
things in WoW that aren't to their taste; it comes across as though
there's nothing they actually *do* like, other than complaining! I've
pretty much given up on most WoW forums for that reason, the
atmosphere is toxic, this place is one of the few where you can get
mostly sensible conversation and reasonable sharing of opinions,
without descending into hyperbole and insults.

[QQGnomie]

The complain certainly worked well in the past. Instead of finding a
single player game that the complainers can log on/off anytime without
working with others, they keep complaining until Blizzard opens up group
contents for them by making LFG/LFR. I am sure bitching is working as
intended. For all who prefer LFG/LFR, they should be thankful that
people love to complaint. without the complains, Blizzard may never
want to turn a MMO-Role Playing Game to a MMO-Single Player Game.

>> improved, but most felt the LFR ruined the 25& 10 man raids.