Breakfast Topic: Are heroics really heroic?
by Anne Stickney 
Dec 29th 2011 at 8:00AM
Uh-oh, it's semantics time again, combined with a trip to the way-back machine, even! I still have nightmares about heroics back in The Burning Crusade when they were first introduced. In order to even get into heroic dungeons, you needed a key, and to get that key, you needed a certain amount of faction reputation. When The Burning Crusade launched, you needed to be revered to get a key; this was later reduced to honored. Needless to say, it took a very long time before anyone could step into heroic modes -- and they were difficult, to say the very least.
Trash respawn timers were tight. If you were lucky, you could get to the first boss before the trash started to respawn on you, and if you wiped on the first boss, you got to enjoy the experience of clearing all that trash all over again. Bosses were incredibly difficult, as well -- healing was an absolute nightmare. These days, in comparison, heroics are ridiculously easy. No, I am not kidding you. They are a breeze compared to the early days of The Burning Crusade. You don't have to work to get into them other than obtaining the appropriate gear, and once you're inside, the bosses aren't that much of a struggle.
So that leads to the question we were pondering in work chat -- are heroics these days really heroic? Sure, the items you get from the dungeons are better than your normal dungeon gear, but the difficulty of the dungeons isn't really ramped up anywhere near the extreme that we saw in The Burning Crusade. To me, heroic mode still equates to that antiquated BC model, where heroic meant hard mode, and hard mode meant You will want to stab yourself in the eye with a fork three pulls into the place.
There is something to be said about the sheer relief and sense of accomplishment you got when you cleared one of those old dungeons; you really felt like you'd done something great and played to the best of your ability. In Mists, we're looking at an endgame that doesn't even have normal mode dungeons -- at level 90, you simply leap into heroics. My question is whether or not the term "heroic" even has meaning at this point. We've gone from hard mode and a rep grind, to a slightly less severe rep grind, to not needing a key at all, to heroics you can simply AoE through without having to think too terribly hard about any given thing.
Should heroics still be called heroics? Or are they simply regular dungeons that give better loot, now? What do you think?
Trash respawn timers were tight. If you were lucky, you could get to the first boss before the trash started to respawn on you, and if you wiped on the first boss, you got to enjoy the experience of clearing all that trash all over again. Bosses were incredibly difficult, as well -- healing was an absolute nightmare. These days, in comparison, heroics are ridiculously easy. No, I am not kidding you. They are a breeze compared to the early days of The Burning Crusade. You don't have to work to get into them other than obtaining the appropriate gear, and once you're inside, the bosses aren't that much of a struggle.
So that leads to the question we were pondering in work chat -- are heroics these days really heroic? Sure, the items you get from the dungeons are better than your normal dungeon gear, but the difficulty of the dungeons isn't really ramped up anywhere near the extreme that we saw in The Burning Crusade. To me, heroic mode still equates to that antiquated BC model, where heroic meant hard mode, and hard mode meant You will want to stab yourself in the eye with a fork three pulls into the place.
There is something to be said about the sheer relief and sense of accomplishment you got when you cleared one of those old dungeons; you really felt like you'd done something great and played to the best of your ability. In Mists, we're looking at an endgame that doesn't even have normal mode dungeons -- at level 90, you simply leap into heroics. My question is whether or not the term "heroic" even has meaning at this point. We've gone from hard mode and a rep grind, to a slightly less severe rep grind, to not needing a key at all, to heroics you can simply AoE through without having to think too terribly hard about any given thing.
Should heroics still be called heroics? Or are they simply regular dungeons that give better loot, now? What do you think?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
DragonFireKai Dec 29th 2011 8:13AM
"JUST SHUT UP AND SHEEP THE MOB!"
I think I'll use that next time someone bitches about how they can't be bothered to put any effort into the game because they're too busy working 16 hour shifts at two different jobs, 7 days a week, and spending time with the supermodel girlfriend and their 2.4 kids.
noel mcleod Dec 29th 2011 10:40AM
Well except for the supermodel girlfriend and the extra ".4" kid, you nailed it. Oh, I'll still sheep the mob (how did you know my main's a mage ...) BUT if you premise is (as it appears to be) that WoW should only be for people with countless hours to invest and us casuals should just get out, I think you're starting to see Blizzard's answer.
And in reply to the posted question from the article - you want HARD mode - do Dragon Soul on heroic. There's YOUR hard mode, for the rest of us the troll dungeons were hard enough. For those of you who need to validate your life with a video game, there ya go! For those of us trying to have a little escapist fun, the heroics are plenty hard enough.
karatesmashunhurt Dec 29th 2011 12:02PM
"you want HARD mode - do Dragon Soul on heroic. There's YOUR hard mode, for the rest of us the troll dungeons were hard enough."
The problem is that getting into (just normal mode) Raids takes quite a lot of investment of time. I want an option where I can queue up and get a suitable level of challenge. The new 5-mans are depressingly easy, I think they can be completed without a wipe, with most people not knowing the strategies. LFR is (other than Spine/Madness of Deathwing) just as easy it seems - especially playing as a healer.
I've only been playing since the beginning of Cata, and the 5-mans up til now provided a good level of challenge, in a good amount of time.
The new 5-mans are quite fun, but there's no real sense of accomplishment at the end, I just do them because I feel I need to VP cap on each character or I'd be letting my raid team down.
I don't want you excluded from the game because you can't complete Zuls quick enough to make you happy. But I want some casual content for me to play that feels like a challenge and not just a grind. I dearly hope the challenge modes in MoP will bring it, but I worry that people will complain HC modes aren't enough end content and that challenge modes should be easily doable by people other than no-lifers.
Moonfaxx Dec 29th 2011 2:42PM
It is generally understood that normal mode dungeons are there for people to experience content. In raiding, LFR mode provides the same.
So why is it, then, that heroic 5-man dungeons and normal and heroic raids have not gotten brutally difficult? With the introduction of LFR, I expected normal and heroic raids to be MUCH more difficult than T11 and T12. Normal raids should be nearly as difficult as heroic raids were, and heroic should be at LEAST as difficult as Sunwell. It boggles my mind that so many guilds steamrolled normal mode Dragon Soul in the first week.
LFR is for seeing content. Normal raiding is for a coordinated guild group. Heroic raiding is for people like me that enjoy wiping hundreds of times before downing a boss.
What I'm really interested in is Blizzard providing a reason for why normal and heroic T13 content is so easy when LFR was created for the express purpose of allowing people with little time to experience content.
DragonFireKai Dec 29th 2011 7:40PM
So you work 32 hours a day and still find time to play wow Noel? How do you do it?
I'm not looking for heroic raid difficulty in five mans, but at the same time, I'd like something more challenging than the current incarnation of 5 mans which go so far as to tank the final boss for you.
And the "countless hours" argument is a strawman. It takes 15 minutes to look up a spec's spec, rotation, and stat priority, and it takes less than five minutes to get a rundown on every boss in an instance. You know what the best part is? It's a one time investment. Those 5 minutes will ensure that 95% of the complaints your getting in an instance will never happen again. People aren't spending countless hours studying for five mans. They've never spent hours studying for five mans. I guarantee that you've spent more time playing WoW than I have looking up five man bosses, by a massive margin. The next time you complain about someone expecting you to spend "countless hours" researching out of the game to prepare for an instance, keep in mind that they probably spent less time getting prepared than you spent complaining about how long it takes to get prepared.
slim1256 Dec 29th 2011 8:13AM
Sooo... since I wasn't around back then, let me ask: is it possible that as players we've gotten better?
I mean - sure, now in the Twi-roics, we pretty much just plow on through them, but we're pretty overgeared at this point, too. We're just VP farming when we go in there. But I know that when I run instances, I try to do all the little things - interrupts on CD, stuns and slows, defensive cooldowns. I may not use my whole toolbox, but I definitely remove the top tray and root around in the big compartment underneath it.
Maybe players now are a bit more savvy about the things that Blizz can throw at us? There are also a lot of resources around for how to deal with the new instances (was stuff like that as readily available in TBC days? I have no idea).
Sounds like they're definitely easier, and "Heroic" feels like a misnomer when you're roflstomping through there for your 150 VP and all the shards you can carry, but... I suspect the divide isn't as great as it might seem. That's just a guess on my part, however.
tenaciousmonkey Dec 29th 2011 8:17AM
I'll try and use most of my toolbox, too, but it pretty much seems like I'll be sapping just for myself, to make myself feel good, since the tank will grab it anyways most of the time. And what irks me is when I, as a tank, mark something and get told "nah, don't worry about it, there's no need for CC"; while I'm NOT worried about it, it still makes controlling mobs much easier on me when I have less to worry about.
Succulent Dec 29th 2011 8:22AM
I agree, I've been saying this for a while now. I've been playing since vanilla but I could easily say that I didn't really get knowledgable and properly good at the game until wrath.
I tanked a lot of TBC heroics on my Druid (to succession as well, with pugs) but I don't think I was particularly knowledgable then. I remember clearing out my bank on the Druid and seeing my old TBC tanking gear, the gem choices were terrible.
So yeah I think you're right, I think people have got better. And it filters down to the newer players too I'd say. Heroics are easier but we're also better and that will probably play a factor.
Haiko Dec 29th 2011 8:27AM
In the TBC ones you had to do what you did, only to survive, not to just breeze through. There were places that were hard to run without a hunter / mage because some trashpacks needed proper chain CCing.
Also, the people that entered those heroics, really grinded the rep to be allowed to run them and knew the normal versions by heart. And for every group of heroic you had to grind the rep of the associated faction to be able to get the key.
Its not that players got better, in the contrary: players got lazier due to the "nerf" of HCs and the LFGtool. Blizz needed to make them easier due to that tool, otherwise no PUG would survive. In TBC I spent ages waiting for groups in tradechannel and then got invited to those of which people knew me and knew what I could do.
I like the LFGTool though, because it reduced the waittime for DPS tremendously. The casualization (is that a word?) of HCs (and thus the lack of need to really know how to get 95% or more out of you char only to live through one) is just a result of it.
edwinsinclair Dec 29th 2011 9:07AM
I have been playing since Vanillia and I generally avoided running dungeons in PUGs back in the day. Dungeon runs were hours long back in the day. The new model of about 30-45 minutes is just right as far as I am concerned. Perhaps a third class of instance is what's needed: a mini raid. The Zuls would be a good place to start with that. Make it 5 man content, but give it all the difficulty of BC heroics.
LynMars Dec 29th 2011 9:42AM
At the beginning of an expac, the Heroics always seem a little rough, but things even out quickly; even BC heroics got easier as gear and practice increased, though things like the timed run in Shattered Halls could still be a challenge for some groups.
There have been Blizzard comments about how much more knowledgeable the playerbase has become over time; many of the most helpful website began or evolved during BC and really took off in Wrath. LFD had a hand in it, and they stopped making fights that *required* certain class mechanics, or revamped various classes to have similar mechanics to even things out. Our characters are more powerful than they were then--I'm not just talking levels, I mean in how talents and gear inflation have altered things.
There are still plenty of folks who don't know what's going on, though, and can make a run difficult and headachey, and things seem harder than they should. It took a guild run to Zul'Gurub to get a new-to-the-game-as-of-Cata guildmate/tank a successful Jin'do kill; everyone in PUGS tried telling her to do it differently, but in the end, no one was wrangling the ghosts so healers would get overwhelmed (or they'd swarm and kill my tank friend when she tried to save the healer between big guy pulls) and they'd wipe. She was confused as to what she was doing wrong (tank/heal mentality: it's all our fault), but when she explained it to me, I wanted to bash my head on a wall and smack sense into those puggers.
Still, she willingly throws herself into LFD and asks for help to learn things after we take her through a new dungeon. She keeps trying, and learning, and eventually succeeding.
There have been a lot of changes in Blizzard's philosophy over time that have not only made things like heroics easier, but the players have gotten more savvy overall, and folks are far more helpful--even in PUGS--than people give credit for too often, if one just speaks up and asks politely. Sometimes they give you wrong advice, sure, but people still try.
Sterb Dec 29th 2011 9:52AM
If you were a (good) hunter during TBC, you wouldn't say we've just gotten smarter. Back then every pull took careful planning and skill. Chain trapping separated the hunters from the huntards. LOS pulling, distracting shots, purposely delaying a pull to reduce your trap timer.
Nope, the tools have gotten way better and the content much easier.
Thanaxas Dec 29th 2011 9:56AM
I think that many mechanics that we take for granted now, simply do not exist before during BC times
Tank CDs were narrow focused in specialities then. Shattered Halls without a pally tank? Better have a freaking good Warrior/Druid tank before trying it
Want to AOE everything down? Your healer had better be the best damn geared healer out there. The stuff they fling at the party is seriously screwed up, including tons of disorient effects and enrage effects that come from several mobs in the same pack. AND THOSE HURT!
There were literally days early on after they introduced the Daily Dungeon quest concept where you would never find groups for some of the daily heroics... EVER
These included (but not limited to) the following dungeons:
Shattered Halls,
Botanica,
Arcatraz (by virtue of needing quests to access the dungeon, oh and flying mounts to get into the dungeon - Warlocks couldn't summon party members up there and 600g for a 60% flying mount was not chump change),
Mana Tombs,
Auchenai Crypts,
Blood Furnace,
Old Hillsbrad
Each of those dungeons had kicks and tricks that made it extremely brutal for a PUG group to go through.
Like Crypts with the adds that spawned other adds that bum rush the healer pretty fast, and mobs that MC and a boss that basically says "You better not get hit too much cos that healer will have a cast time sooooo slow (s)he won't be able to heal you through all the damage"
Mana Tombs still patrolling mobs and the last boss was mechanically very technical to handle (Kill adds before they spawned a more difficult add, boss teleport aggro wipe, that sort of thing)
Old Hillsbrad - well screw you Thrall. Oh and the last boss could dispel Righteous Fury off a Pally Tank. Guess which tank was least likely to get that daily done
There are so many quality of life changes in the years, plus some simplification of Heroic mechanics (ie, no raid like execution needed, Murmur's Sonic Boom, I'm looking at you) in Wrath, that people who've never experienced it will seriously wonder what the big deal is
As a healer in BC, most of my memories was pretty much spamming Greater Heal (with Renew and PoM) on the tank and hope the mobs die before I OOMed
Alysandir Dec 29th 2011 10:02AM
@slim1256: Yes...and no. Yes, from the perspective that more people can run heroics now; "back in the day," you had to count on friends, guildies, and often the luck of running into total strangers of the appropriate role who wanted to go, in order to get a run going. No queuing up cross-realm. And by "role," I mean not only the trinity, but whether you had enough CC of the right types. And given the amount of crap you had to go through just to get attuned, that pool of people was smaller to draw from than it is today. So by virtue of this alone, more people get heroics experience, and naturally become better at running heroics.
No, from the perspective that, back in TBC, heroics were a nightmare. There's a reason instances earned nicknames like, "Shattered Balls" and "Slabs," because they were honest-to-God brutal at the gear levels you were expected to tackle them. One mis-pull or a badly timed CC or CC break, that was it...you wiped. Period. There was no, "Good recovery guys!" There was, "Release and run back, guys." Did it make the game more fun? Not really. It just made people feel like special snowflakes if they happened to have a regular group to run with, so they could brag to everyone about how awesome they were. The whole notion of having to pay a price in frustration in order to experience gated content is one that was best left in the past.
Malon Dec 29th 2011 10:31AM
I don't think it's a case of gear, or knowledge; the TBC heroics were genuinely much more difficult than anything we've seen since. They were a challenge right up to the end of the expansion. In those days, especially at the start of TBC, 'LFM' didn't mean 'Looking for more' - it meant 'Looking for Mage,' because their ability to Poly the majority of mobs you'd encounter was invaluable.
Wrath heroics, and even Catacysm heroics, are nowhere near the same level of difficulty. If you tried to pull two-three packs at the same time, even in Black Temple gear (possibly not Sunwell), you would have your face ripped off and give your healer, and the rest of the group, a heart attack.
Personally while I appreciate the shorter, easier heroics when I'm low on time, and know why they're necessary with the LFG tool, I wish we could go back to TBC-levels of challenge in them. They tested everyone in a group, and I see them as a pinnacle of 5-man content.
s.scott.staten Dec 29th 2011 11:34AM
Yes it's possible, but from all the random "heroics" I've done... No, the playerbase as a whole is NOT better.
Average Joe Dec 29th 2011 11:49AM
@Thanaxas
Don't forget wiping your own party in Shadow Labyrinth...
TIME FOR FUN!
wizlynjonstar Dec 29th 2011 12:03PM
Players haven't gotten better they just feel more entiled to get epic gear and walk thru "heroics" and raids. If you don't believe me wipe on a trash pull on LFD or LFR and see how many drop. Another reason for the ease of heroics and raids these days are while we have 10 classes at 85 there are really only 3 tank, heal, and DPS. What I miss about Vanilla and TBC is the since of accomplishment you got from attunement quests and rep grinds(for more than just vanity items). Just getting 40 people on the same page and the right 5 classes in each group to get the right buffs. My guildies and I would have noob tests before we even started a dungeon about simple things like ok lock who do you SS?(cookies for everyone who gets this right or even knows what I'm talking about). We need to know that you knew your class.
For every good improvement we lose something. Yes old attunements sucked, but if you had it you knew what to do.
One last thing Blizz give shammies some love where is our legendary weapon? Forgotten but us Shammies are used to that.
Jabadabadana Dec 29th 2011 12:05PM
I came into the game late BC. I think the Zul'aman patch was one of the earlier things I remember.
By the time I got into heroics, the majority of them were be roflstomped by people who completely overgeared the instance. People didn't want a warrior tank, because then they couldn't put up blessing of salvation, and aoe their way through the place. There were exceptions, Magisters and SLabs, and Halls seemed to scare people a bit.
Which comes to the next difference. I basically played just my warrior at 70. Getting a group as a non-cc dps'r for certain heroics was nearly impossible. To the extent of forcing me to become a tank because at least then I could get some groups. CC was important, trash was scarier.
However, by the end of the expansion, people knew the pulls, cc'd their crap, range pulled, overgeared, and cleared with relative ease.
As for us being better, and the overall gap: What we have learned now, is a different set of tools. The skill now is how to dance, how to maintain uptime/numbers, how to gear. We dodge ten times the number of mechanics as we did back then, but apparently such dodging is easier, especially with all the warnings and third-party boss mods. In BC it felt like management of one's resources was much bigger. Whether it was mana, defensive cooldowns, cc, agro, etc. Fights were more standstill, but we had less class tools and personal resources to use. I think the difference is that that kind of premeditation of abilities is harder than reactively dodging out of the puddle on the ground.
That's my take on it anyway.
loop_not_defined Dec 29th 2011 12:21PM
wizlynjonstar: "Players haven't gotten better they just feel more entiled to get epic gear and walk thru "heroics" and raids"
It's not necessarily about gear, it's about experiencing content. And yes, most players are absolutely entitled to experience this stuff. After all, it's mostly their money funding the development of this stuff, not the money of the ~2% who raided pre-4.3.