the mechanics in the heroics are anything but "shitty", it is the fact that one person screwing up ruins it for everyone. That is where raid difficulty is supposed to have the line drawn. The fights themselves are VERY entertaining, it is the bad attitude of the players about them, the fact that not everyone is always on their A game, that is the reason the can be a drudgery. I am not saying people should need to always be on their A game for heroics, but it is definitely difficult to create a feeling of suspense or desperation in a dungeon without that requirement. Halls of Reflection was my favorite heroic in Wrath, not because it could randomly screw you, but because when it wouldn't RNG screw over eating a squishy, you had everyone, regardless of skill level, get serious, and when you did manage, you totally felt like you rocked!

re: Heroic dungeons, I basically felt that this was a very soft interview, as far as how he answered. It feels like he's saying, "Well, we overtuned the difficulty of heroics and made them too long etc.," but "Hey, we gave you the HoT dungeons, and they fit much better into our re-reevaluated idea of how long/difficult a dungeon should be, so that's a success."

I agree with you, Ata. I found myself so frustrated with the new dungeon mechanics at release, particularly as a melee player (and with people in pugs that insisted on playing like it was a Wrath-style aoe-fest), that I left the game for a while. When I eventually came back, I battled through some of those frustrations, but it's been a weird expansion in that regard.

I'll go ahead and concede that this is Blizzard interviewing Blizzard... but to me it's still disappointing to read some of Scott's answers. I think I was expecting, perhaps unrealistically, some more in-depth commentary (about what have been much-discussed issues for this expansion) from the Lead Encounter Designer.

Difficult heroics that require cc and strategy are great, but the way it was delivered this expansion was just bad timing.

First off, we were all fresh from an expansion that exemplified the exact opposite of that playstyle (Wrath AOE fest where CC was actually a hindrance). Months and months of WOTLK ensured that new players never learned these skills, and old players completely lost these habits. Indeed, I remember multiple groups as a healer where after requesting CC to help from going OOM so fast I would get the honest response "what's cc??". Furthermore, the entire 1-80 content only exacerbates this problem, as with the buffs to gearing and nerfs to content, 1-80 dungeons are usually quite trivial and a mindless faceroll. After literally days of content of training new players to just zerg and aoe, they suddenly hit a brick wall of pain in 80-85 dungeons, which demand them to suddenly and flawlessly change to a playstyle they never knew existed, never learned, and don't even know how to execute.

That above was enough to create a disaster. Now throw in some more bad alignment of events: healing redesign. Healing was retooled in a way that was the dramatic opposite of WOTLK style healing. Old habits that were handsomely rewarded and ingrained in wotlk suddenly crashed and burned, resulted in going OOM in seconds. Healer's that were flexible and willing to both relearn their class AND relearn how healing worked hit the second difficulty: many if not most dps players and tanks did not/could not/or would not make the necessary playing adjusgments (TBC style careful pulls with CC) which meant that ALL of the dungeon encounter difficulty got stacked on the healer.

The two of those things certainly is ripe for disaster, but now throw in one more bad alignment of events: uninspiring end-game content. The truth of Cataclysm was that the meat of the expansion was the new 1-60 content, but most players expected it to be the 80-85 content. There were fewer dungeons at-release than the prior two expansions, and due to the aforementioned points players became burned-out of those dungeons even faster. This was exacerbated further by a slower gearing rate compared to WOTLK.


For the above reasons, what was great in principle was a disaster in practice. It's not that players are lazy or stupid and desire mindless content; it's simply that they just want to have fun, and this expansion's end-game content involved changes that were implemented with the subtlety of a train-wreck. Heck, player's like a challenge: WOTLK, despite much wailing, wasn't the eazy-sauce faceroll people make it out to be. The dungeons, when appropriately geared, could be just as challenging at the start of the expansion. The only difference is that one could out-gear WOTLK dungeons much, much faster than Cata dungeons, and hence they got the incorrect perception of being easy.

Players like a challenge, but more than anything they want to have fun. If we can have both, then the more the merrier. But challenge without fun, especially when it's delivered in the form of boring and limited number of dungeons, is no fun at all.

I am one of those players who healed heroics and pugs like you can't believe all through WoTLK. I pined for the days of TBC healing, but the way it was executed in Cata was a disaster, and I dropped my main healer in favor of rolling a rogue. Now I play my rogue and do nothing but pve solo, slowly leveling and savoring the real gem of Cata, old-world content.

You all are right. That's because what failed was not the fact that the heroics were long and difficult. It was the fact they're long and difficult *combined with* Dungeon Finder PuGs, groups you have no influence on and that are a complete Russian roulette when it comes to skill, communication, etc. And of course the fact these dungeons were so very long, drawing out the pain. I spent four hours in Grim Batol once without finishing it. We went through I think 6 tanks during that time. Four hours, and no VPs. Certainly not a "fun" gaming experience!

That's when frustration sets in: when people feel they don't have control over their own success and thus often fail without being at fault - with the only alternative being not to participate in end game PvE at all.

But dungeon-finder PuGs with even the dread and fearful HoR weren't as grindy and miserable as Cata dungeons. HoR was HARD in the early days before you mindlessly outgeared it, and a blast to do with random people (I purely pugged, never was in a good guild). I never had that consistent experience in Cata.

I think part of the difference is motivation. The series of Icecrown Dungeons were quite simply incredible. Just the sheer dread excitement of HoR, of knowing that THE FRICKING LICH KING is marching towards you was a kick in the butt to play like crazy and take the dungeon seriously that I just don't think was equaled in the Cata dungeons.

I dunno, I may just be a grumpy old-timer, but I felt the change to the cataclysm dungeons was a refreshing change of pace. I remember at the beginning of wrath, going into normal-mode Nexus wearing my T5-T6 and my Arena axe, a month or so into the expansion. We went down into the room with the frozen Alliance (or Horde if you are Alliance). I remember panicking when the tank didn't assign raid targets, and being even more alarmed when he pulled. I quickly CC'd the healer, terrified of heals going out or perhaps a fear being used, only to have the tank break it. 'What does he think he's doing!? This room is full of enemies, he's gonna pull more before we're half-done with these guys!' Then, lo-and-behold, the enemies are dead, and CC was rendered obsolete for almost the entire expansion. I mindlessly DPS'd my way through Wrath, jumped gleefully at the opportunity to kite the stoneskin gargoyles in Naxxrammass, and then sat bored until Ulduar.

When Cataclysm hit, I was eager to try these new heroics, and they were HARD! I loved ever minute, from off-tanking the early pulls in Stonecore with my pet to having tanks wait on ME to CC a caster in Skywall, it was amazing and wonderful. We've lost something of that, but now people just recognize when a pull needs CC, needs offtanking, needs an interrupt, and I'm there to provide it.

This wasn't just listening to a vocal minority, this was what the game needed. Cataclysm was hard to begin with, yes, but I think the game, and the players, are better for it at this end.

"HoR was HARD in the early days before you mindlessly outgeared it"

Say what? I have several alts who were covered in purple at the end of Wrath that never completed HoR in either mode because it was such a meat-grinder. 90% of the DF groups I was in fell apart in less than 5 minutes because the first pull almost always ended in a wipe.

Decked out in full 378s, maybe NOW they outgear HoR.