Forum post of the day: Serious business decisions
by Amanda Dean 
Jan 13th 2009 at 1:00PM
WoW has changed considerably over the years, often for the better and sometimes for the worse. Better and worse are, of course, a matter of perspective. Slovotsky of Turalyon is getting fed up with people complaining about the easing of raids. He's confident that Blizzard made the choice to lower the difficulty on raids because more of the player base can now have a chance to experience them. He disagrees that casual players have ruined the game. Familiarity may also lead to boredom. Some of the guilds that have progressed through Naxx have already done so either in the Pre-BC era or on the PTR.As some pointed out, Blizzard is a for-profit business. The company's job is to sell a product, not to rule with a heavy hand or coddle the incompetent. The switch to an inclusive raiding environment was most likely a marketing decision. Caydence of Draka drove this point home, to rebut the argument that players will quit WoW because it's easier. It is simply a better business decision for Blizzard to alienate the "hardcore" players who make up a small minority. She suggested that the subscriber base has grown with each ease in difficulty.
Arcwulf of Stromscale claims that WoW is a bait and switch for OP players. he complains that Blizzard is catering to the "whiney nubs" that can't handle a difficult and demanding engame. This contingient believes that its not fair for "OP" players to suffer through boredom so that more people will be included. Perhaps should Blizzard continue to make an exclusive endgame while allowing a portion of their player base to "go play Hello Kitty Island Adventure," as Arcwulf put it. Is WoW for Hardcore players, casuals or both?
I am a member of Blizzard's target audience. I am excited to be included in the endgame content this time around. I'm in a small guild with no desire to be in a massive one. I'll never be a front line raider. I'm not in it for shiny purples, I'm here for the social/cooperative experience. I hope to make it through all of the content as it is released. I don't see myself becoming bored any time soon. If I do, I'll roll another alt, work on achievements, or come up with some wacky goal for myself. See you in Naxx.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Raiding, Forums, Forum Post of the Day
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Cyanea Jan 13th 2009 1:02PM
I, for one, am tired of hearing about this.
Kylenne Jan 13th 2009 1:14PM
Amen. You know something? I'm a raider who would have seen T5 content minimum had I not started the game so late into BC (I began about a week before 2.4 hit). I min/max to the Nth degree, am meticulous about my gear and rotations, etc. I'm not casual by any means, and I left my casual guild because they were not making enough of an effort to get geared and start raiding after Wrath even after myself and several of the other gung ho types offered to help. I adore a good challenge; aside from RP, it's what I live for in this game.
That said, these QQers seriously need to STFU. They are in the minority. Instead of tuning the content for that 2% of the population and telling the majority to go play Hello Kitty, how about Blizzard tunes it for the majority and that 2% can go play Final Fantasy XI and bang their heads against bosses like pre-nerf Absolute Virtue. They also need to be patient. While Blizzard has gone on record that nothing will be Sunwell hard again, that does not mean that every raid is going to be a joke like Naxx is. We have not even seen one content patch yet, the expansion JUST STARTED, calm the eff down.
Evi Jan 13th 2009 1:26PM
Agreed. It's been discussed to death already. Stop beating a dead horse. How much more can we possibly learn from discussing this? We're at the dawn of WotLK. It's only been out since mid November! I'm confident that more difficult raids will appear in the coming months. That should satisfy the "hardcore" players who don't feel challenged and give the "casuals" something to work toward after Naxx.
Justin Jan 13th 2009 1:39PM
I hear you, Cyanea. I'm also very tired of hearing about this topic.
I also think that the issue is more complex than the inaccurate hard vs. soft comparison. A related factor is the quantity of content available. If tier 8's Ulduar was already in the game, the "hard core" wouldn't be complaining of Naxx's ease because they'd quickly move past it and change focus.
For comparison, when BC launched, there was tier 4, tier 5, and half of tier 6 already in the game, while now there is only one tier. Given that patch 3.0.8 isn't out yet, it will still be a long time before the next tier of content is released. This is troubling to me, because my VERY casual guild (measured by time played) happens to be somewhat skilled, and we clear all available content in two easy nights of raiding. To me, the problem is not at all the hardness/softness of the encounters, but simply that there simply aren't enough encounters. Certainly, Blizz could artificially inflate the content size of the raids by making them much harder, but that's an inelegant solution.
I think this hard/soft quagmire would disappear if there was simply more content. HURRY UP Ulduar!
Jason Jan 13th 2009 1:40PM
Same here, this has ceased to be news. I am neither a n00b nor a hardcore raider - I fit somewhere in the median of that set .
How about some posts on useful things, like the best places to farm Chilled Meat when Convention at the Legerdemain comes up in the cooking quest rotation or a series of articles on strategies for heroic instances like Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom or Halls of Stone.
Marc Jan 13th 2009 1:43PM
I for one am tired of people saying that HELLO KITTY online is NOT hardcore. HKO is very hardcore! We don't want any WoW noobs coming in and spoiling our way of playing!
Adrienne Jan 15th 2009 11:48AM
I am actually very much against elitism. ie. all the people that complain about welfare epics, badge gear from heroics, etc. etc.
But in this particular case, Blizzard is going too far. There's a big difference between removing a mind-numbing grind (like random drop quests); and between removing a mind-stimulating challenge. To the extent that raid content was mind-numbing (trash mobs, 25-man only, etc.) yes, that should be removed. But you shouldn't remove the actual part that requires a brain (strategy, coordination). In the long run, nobody plays Tic-Tac-Toe. Nobody plays checkers, or Go Fish. Yes, we all -used- to play them. And then we outgrow them.
Arkeband Jan 13th 2009 2:37PM
Oh, come on, Naxx isn't THAT easy. "Durr I slam my face against the keyboard and I got The Immortal achievement!" Until you can say that seriously, you can't say it's mind-numbing.
Just because an extremely small percentage can do it somewhat effortlessly doesn't mean it's not engaging and difficult for many others. You cannot pug Naxx to completion, or if you do, it's going to be a day-long struggle with tons of frustration. Some bosses are tank and spank for the most part, but some are actually somewhat challenging and will weed out the super casuals. (Heigan, anyone? You are literally fighting your own latency.)
Antonia Jan 13th 2009 2:52PM
Cyanea, I'm right there with you.
Its getting annoying to an extreme now. Its starting to seem that the "Hardcore" players are also the ones that bitch the most when things don't go their way. Your a small piece of a VERY large pie, your lucky if you get listened to at all. and all this is coming from me, someone who considers himself a hardcore raider; that's how much some of my peers sicken me.
I'm personally all about equality, specially in a game that millions are going to play. i like the fact more people will get to see what I'm doing every week for themselves instead of having to go to WoWWiki to read what their missing or having to watch some guilds fraped instance clear on youtube. I like having more people to talk to about each raid fight with. the bigger the raid base gets the more focus raids will get. that means less lag mistakes and poor implementation like wintergrasp (because i think PvP is even a bigger player pull then raiding is, but someone sporting the numbers would need to confirm that)
honestly i think the difficulty is a little on the easy side in Naxx and OS (with no drakes alive), but that also doesn't bother me, the whole game is about instant gratification. It has been more or less since the beginning. why do you think we had rested xp in the first place? hell, it takes less time to level to an even higher level now then it did to get to 60 in vanilla. farming is about to be more instant with the 1 tap mining, hell it already is for people who just want gold with the addition of dailies in BC.
You want hardcore? the only real game that's still really going at all that's still hardcore is Final Fantasy XI and they're even dumbing that down a little to compete with the monster that is WoW.. That shit there is hardcore, spending about as much time as you're total played time in WoW right now, probably WAY more really, to hit a level cap that hasn't moved since the day the game launched to play an endgame that takes some linkshells (they're like guilds but more loosely formed, they really are better imo, no one usually throws their power in your face) 18+ hours of nonstop fighting in 1 boss battle to complete. that my friends is hardcore. Loot going to a random person in your group with no control over it is Hardcore. 3 or 4 days spent GRINDING (no questing) on the same 2 mobs for 20 hrs, is hardcore.. 18hrs of fighting not to getting any real "epic" loot from a boss at all is hardcore. hundreds of thousands of "gil" (FFXI money) to level trade skills that may not even create an item when you go to make it let alone give you a skill level is Hardcore.
I've been there and as beautiful a game it is and has much of a fan of the rest of the series i am i couldn't even handle it. Go there, experience hardcore and come back crying that you miss the way things are on our side of the fence.
Ice Jan 13th 2009 3:56PM
Agreed here too.
What people seem to forget that most of current raids are _ENTRY LEVEL RAIDS_. They are not suppos to be hard just because there was Sunwell. It doesnt grow from "Sunwell difficulty" because its level 80 or anything, it resets on xpack. Isnt this like saying Kara wasnt as hard as some AQ40 therefore Blizzard made BC raiding easy-mode because kara was ..well entry level raid.
So no, next Xpacks entry level raids wont probably be "as hard as icecrown citadel raid". You just have to start from bottom like anyone else..
Amaxe Jan 13th 2009 4:28PM
http://www.gucomics.com/comics/2004/gu_20041209.jpg
If we did go to Hello Kitty, you know what it would look like...
Freebird Jan 13th 2009 1:07PM
I concur with Amanda. If they eased the dungeons to be more palatable for everyone, then kudos to WoW.
OnniHopeDream Jan 13th 2009 1:07PM
As far as I can tell, the hardcore QQr's only look at the literal clearing of raids. They completely forget about the entire achievement system. Everyone on my server has cleared Naxx within it's first few days or first week, but not very many have cleared 3 drake sar, or 3 min Patchwerk, or any other hard raid achievements.
Pzychotix Jan 13th 2009 2:05PM
Yes, a game is totally designed well when you have to blindfold, tie your hands to your head, and play with your butt.
It ruins any sense of achievement.
Euripides Jan 13th 2009 2:10PM
Optional drakes and whatnot are the future of WOW. Hardcore players complain that they've beaten everything and that the game is too easy- I hope that when 3.1 comes out, the new content has enough "hard mode" challenges to keep them occupied so the rest of us can continue to play peacefully.
Honestly, they should make a lot more of these challenges- and design some of them to be nigh impossible with legendary returns. Imagine if instead of a low drop rate, thoridal was earned by iron-manning Kil'jaeden with 10 characters. I don't know if this fight is the best example, but the goal would be to make some things possible, but incredibly hard. So hard that Nihilum would have a rough time.
spacedrabbit Jan 13th 2009 1:08PM
I still strongly believe that there needs to be some end game content that is only reachable by dedicated, hardcore guilds. As someone who worked hard to reach just SSC in BC (never made it though) with my guild, I like to know there's something on the horizon for working hard.
OldManGeorge Jan 13th 2009 1:15PM
Work hard? Working hard? I thought this was a game..?
Idran Jan 13th 2009 1:33PM
Yeah, but that doesn't mean some people don't have more fun with a game that takes work and effort to get through. I'm not personally one of them, but there's a reason why games like N and I Want To Be The Guy are so popular.
Joe Six Pack Jan 13th 2009 2:35PM
Your working hard may not be someone else's. They just need to add leet rewards to the achievements as others have suggested.
Sure you beat Nax but you didn't get the Uber achievement.
I have hardcore raided and I am now casual. I seem to work ever harder as casual than I did as a raider lol.
2% needs to play something else and let the other 10 million people have their fun now.
krismusic Jan 13th 2009 1:12PM
I think making the dungeons easier is probally one of the best ideas blizz has done. For the past 5 years the hardcore players have been the only ones able to clear thru aq 40, sunwell, bt and etc... with ease while many of the other players havent even seen that content, its about time that everyone can step into naxx even if its in a pug.