I am simplifying it because I find it rather simple. I didn't find any of those bosses all that much more challenging then what I see in hard modes right now. (at least from what my friends in the game tell me). I know more people that killed Kael'thas then I have heard people kill heroic spine. So I ask again, what is the difference if that difference is not "exclusivity"? As for Karazhan, it was a great dungeon, but the reason it so so many people was because it was easy.

You can consider it a false notion, but that does not change the design. Blizzard themselves have called it the end of the game, the last "challenge" people can defeat. Believe it or not, but there are guilds out that want to attempt hard modes, and when they beat themselves on the wall over and over again they get frustrated. That frustration leads to them giving up before they win. The guilds that beat it the months prior are already farming it for giggles, so why not making the farming a bit easier and give others a chance to attempt the fights?

Again, why do you raid? If it is the challenge, why not turn off the debuff? Why is a few more guilds attempting it with the debuff a slight versus you and what you accomplished? Should I get mad that I got my T2 back in vanilla but now some paladin solo farms it? No, I don't, because after I beat the challenge I move on and don't care how others beat it. I got the Headless Horseman Mount before they added the daily queue system, I don't scream now that 100s more got the mount.

How many casuals are getting handed hard mode gear? I might not be seeing it. Also, you can buy Arena gear by just flopping through battlegrounds over time, most of the gear does not even require ratings anymore, and those that do have the rating requirement removed once the gear becomes irrelevant.

Again, this comes down to what I feel is the fundamental problem. It's not about challenge. If the game was about challenge you can make the game challenging outside of what Blizzard programs for you. You can fight a raid in blue gear. You can turn off the debuff in Demon Soul. Hell, you can even try attacking the fight with less people. The problem is "hardcore" players don't do that. They UTILIZE every advantage open to them and then cry that those advantages exist. Many of the first hardcore players are the first to find exploits to trivialize encounters if possible, even getting some world first runners banned in the past from cheapness.

No, in the end it always comes down to the prestige. The idea that you did something few others could do, and I will never understand it.

Whenever I see someone complain about how easy stuff is, I always imagine a guy climbing a tree to get his frisbee. He does it, feels all great about himself and flexes off to all the people in the park. The next day he returns to see another guy getting his frisbee out of the same tree with a cherrypicker (one of those lift machines), grumbling how easy the other guy had it since he didn't need to climb it. Later on he loses his frisbee again, has the option of climbing the tree again like before, but then uses the same cherrypicker that the other guy used. Why? Because it was easier to get what he wanted, and it was not "fair" that he worked harder for the goal yesterday.

Maybe you are not like that, but then I have to ask... Do you use the debuff during hard modes?

__________________

The problem with the STV contest is that it's essentially designed to only let assholes with lots of asshole friends win.

The best strategy is to have all your guildies camp fishing holes and fish out of the holes that other contestants fish from, thus reducing the number of fish they can catch. And, God help you if you're on a pvp realm.

The Northrend version is completely random. Which is annoying, but also at least a little more fair, if you don't happen to belong to a guild full of jackasses with nothing better to do on Sunday morning.

Eh I'd rather they just remove the shared lockouts honestly. I enjoyed that so much in WotLK when my guild would run ICC25 and after the raid do our 3 10 man groups for things like the achievements and in general to see whose group was better. Was also nice in getting some upgrades in certain slots as well since that was also when the gear was different between 10 and 25 man. Honestly I think Wrath was Blizzards best expansion in terms of overall content to do since I didn't get burnt out nearly as fast as I did over and over and over in Cataclysm. Hell if they waited longer to get ToC out (since people were barely through Ulduar) and released ICC maybe 4 months later due to that then Wrath would have been Blizzards best expansion with how they released content. ToC may have been better as well.

But yea I dislike hard modes. It's basically the same thing again but with more HP and damage while in TBC I actually had to take a month to down a boss. Plus it felt so incredibly rewarding when we beat Kael'thas pre nerf and went into T6 becoming one of the top guilds. Course then the guild suffered from the GM/MT selling his account and the officers that took over not being good enough leaders which lead to the guild falling apart. But I also disliked how attunements basically meant that if you were a top guild you had to poach people from other top guilds or just hope you got apps that were already attuned since unless they were a friend or a class you really needed you turned them down. I at least was lucky enough that I just was able to go back to my old server and raid with my friends in another top guild doing Sunwell until I could no longer raid EST times. I think hard modes would be better if they all fully changed the fight and none were the lazy mode designer version of 'hey that boss has 20 million more hp and hits twice as hard and that's all'. Hard modes can feel rewarding as well as long as they are done right which Blizzard seems to have a hard time doing. You beat Spine expecting something similar to LK and end up fighting a hard mode that's basically the same exact fight with 1 new pointless mechanic which is boring as can be since the DW fight sucked so much and was 1 giant dropped opportunity for a actual epic fight. That and I thought the entire instances premise was stupid and didn't feel one bit like it was almost the end of the world between the terrible voiceacting and the lack of any good scripting (and I still think the whole Thrall thing was stupid).

No, the objective of a competition is to find a winner. You shouldn't be trying for Salty if you don't have what it takes to fish in the big league (time, skill and luck).

Welcome to the Salty spittoon, how tough are ya?

__________________

I would be Salty if I could win won of them, but I can never seem to get the damn shark! (I refuse to do the STV one on my PVP server)

__________________

Like I said, the STV contest is about douchebaggery more than time, skill, and luck.

Again, my reasons are for challenge is something I'll address later in another relevant point. Karazhan, outside a select few encounters, was definitely not easy when it was released, it still took a hell of a lot of co-ordination to complete. It certainly got easy as the expansion went on but that was due to other factors such as better gear arriving with badges.

I'd like a source for that Blizzard statement if you could find it. Would broaden my knowledge on the issue.

My simple opinion on said guilds is that they are not hard modes target audience and thus should not be the ones being catered too. If they want to give it a shot then that's great! Maybe they will get the same victory rush I used to get killing tough shit. If not then Wow has plenty of other avenues to amuse yourself, even more-so in Mists.

Please don't give me the "Why don't you turn off the debuff?" answer. This is a fake choice for the vast majority of raiders out there, nobody wants to do something the hard way when there's an easier alternate available. It would be like choosing to hike to work when you have a car.

As for your T2/Headless Horseman mount question: I'll get to it a bit later.

Casuals are handed hard-mode gear when hard modes become a joke to the point they can walk in and grab it thanks to their 25% I win buff. Not really much explanation needed there.

Yes arena gear is earnt by flopping through the battlegrounds but thats besides the point. You aren't getting a 2200 rating unless you get in that arena and work for it. It does not become easier over time to get a 2200 rating. I would have no problem with the average player having access to hard-core dragonsoul gear when its irrelevant, he'd only use it for transmog anyway.

I agree that its not about challenge anymore. It certainly used to be and its why such a huge amount of players are always whining about nerfed content. Blizzard took away an experience that many of us really cherished. Yes a lot more people now play and enjoy their game and thus they generate a lot more money but that doesn't stop the older generations being bitter. As for making the game interesting outside of whats programmed, I'd do it but the majority just want the gear and a raid is made up of 9-24 other people so what I want ultimately doesn't matter.

I like to call it the hipster mentality and its not really something that you can understand. You either have it or you don't.

I have it. I used to ride my warbear all the time throughout BC because my guild was the only one that could clear the timed run. Eventually some other guilds cracked it and the mount was everywhere. I stopped using mine as a result. I now use it again now since overtime it has once again become rare. Some people will agree with that but most won't and ultimately neither side is going to change. Its just how I feel.

I did use them because my guild wanted too. I did not like it but I did use them.

In the end I believe we're just off different mindsets on this issue. Theres a reason these debates have lasted years on the official forums.

__________________

The tactic on my realm was to bring along 10 mates with mammoths to sit in the pools other people tried to use.

Well, my tactic to win the Kalu'ak Fishing derby was to do it when everybody was playing Diablo III.

^^ Game endings/storylines, if present, can render that comic null.

__________________
The Curse of Monkey Island - Part III

Story based MMO's sound neat but that has yet to really succeed that well usually since other areas of the game suffer in turn (TSW and ToR). Partly since the developers cannot make content as fast as it's consumed.

I remember how I almost won the STV one fair and square, but then I had problems with my computer lagging right when I teleported to Booty Bay, and so I missed it by mere seconds.... *grumbles*

__________________


I am handclaw and this is my favorite thread on Scrolls of Lore!... oh wait, nope... Just another bitching thread.

[quote=Zeus;517389]I'd like a source for that Blizzard statement if you could find it. Would broaden my knowledge on the issue.

It would take some time, so I would have to do it later. It's hinted a bit in the bit post done recently about content consumption though, with heroics raids being considered "the end".

Thus, short answer, you don't do it for the challenge itself, otherwise you would make the challenge. It's not a fake choice if the desire is the challenge, but it's not, it's the loot and the prestige.



Now this is also a generalization. I am one of those "older" generations, and I am perfectly happy with the changes being made. I am not bitter or anything about it. Cataclysm made me bitter because they attempted to regress back to harder lower end-game and it failed.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying what you gain, I just think you put to much stock into the rarity of an item and forget that sometimes having the item is it's own reward, not the fact no one else has it. Hell, most of my mounts I see all the time, but I still love things like my Argent Charger, Netherdrakes, Netherrays, Drakes, etc... I

I can agree we have different outlooks, and in the end we are fighting for two different games.

I just dislike people arguing "challenge" when, based on the evidence from hardcore guilds, it's less about the challenge and more about the epeen and loot. I mean look at the best guilds, they fight for world first because it makes them famous, not because of the difficulty. Many big guilds have even been banned for attempting encounter breaking bugs, like the Lich King bomb exploit.

I just can't take those that argue challenges seriously because most of them do anything they can to remove the challenge, utilize the crutches handed out to make the content easier, and then rage for hours about how boring everything is.

In the end, whatever they decided to do with hard modes won't matter to me. I never plan to do hard modes because I don't give this game enough stock to turn it into a second job with schedules, clockwork rotations, and applications. That is not what makes the game fun to me, no matter what it is I kill.

__________________

That is true, mount farming (TLPD and friends) will take a beating too.

__________________

I got it on two toons, winning the STV tourney for both. Did it solo, too, nobody else helping out (well, for the second one I was 2 boxing for Crusader Aura). Only a mid-pop realm, but there were a fair number of participants both times.

__________________

Putting LFR on a separate lockout allows newbies to continue to learn mechanics, while also allowing veterans who normally have no need to run LFR to take a newbie through it. Think of it this way, you want to teach someone new the basics of the raid: would you burn your normal/heroic lockout taking them through LFR? Nope.

Normals shouldn't be balanced around LFR equipment, they should be tuned around the last tier's normal equipment, and likewise with heroic.

As for heroic nerfs, nerfs you can turn on and off are fine by me though I think the achievement should count only for playing it at the hardest mode. Heroic raiding can have some fun experiences (the additional laughs in BWD being the big one) but the best hard mode was Ulduar where you could turn it on for individual bosses.


The problem is only a very very small number of people actually succeeded in hardmode raiding before nerfs, and once they have done it, they've done it. Everyone else will work to a certain point whereupon they can not do any more and then they will simply quit. Quitting is the worst that can happen, so the dungeon is retuned to be a bit more forgiving. All that means is that maybe a select number of deaths can be tolerated and still allow the group to finish without wiping everyone.

My question to you is, what does it matter to the world first type? The very few who actually would finish these dungeons if they were never nerfed? That other people can eventually finish them when nerfed doesn't matter because they had their moment of glory already. Nerfs will not stop the world's top guilds from blasting through everything and getting world first, just because they can gloat over it for six weeks instead of four months.

The top guilds will not simply wait until the nerfs take effect, they will still go do their thing. All it means is that the people who are NOT in top guilds won't hit a wall and be unable to finish the dungeon until the next tier of content renders any challenge obsolete anyway.

There isn't a huge amount of players always whining about nerfed content. It's a small number of players whining far louder than their number would suggest.

Far, far more people would whine about never being able to kill the Lich King after spending an entire damn expansion waging a war against him on all fronts, simply because they aren't in a raid group or able to succeed in a raid environment (playing for hours several days a week, surviving challenging boss mechanics, group politics, etc.)

If you've run out of room for alts, you're probably fine.

I partly agree.

They should make a new Feat of Strength, one with a title reward and a mount, that can be achieved if you kill all bosses, without the buff, in a single lockout, without dying. Much like Immortal and Undying. To keep it exclusive the title will be removed when the raid is no longer current.

All the other ones should remain the same.

Give the hardcore their chance to have something for the prestige, the rest of the instance will be weakened so those "quasi-casuals" can beat it for the loot.

__________________

I'm fine with giving people a feat of strength for a full raid clear at the hardest difficulty, but Blizzard shies away from limited time high skill rewards like titles and mounts after the Ahn'Qiraj mount.

They like all actual rewards (titles, mounts, etc) to be collectable even after they've been outgeared long enough to no longer be challenging. A feat of strength is fine because it comes with an Unlocked date added to it (meaning you can tell if it was gained when the content was new or not) and can be linked to in chat if anyone wants to show off.

Restricted titles, mounts, etc are the kind of epeen "let me show you how good I am even though you never asked" thing big babies want but aren't going to get.

Sometimes, but you didn't see them bring back titles like Hand of Adal or Undying, and they removed the Raptor and Tiger recently from the revamped ZG. Even the new bear mount from ZA is different then the old one, so they obviously still like some "exclusivity".

I like collecting mounts so I am fine not having a super-duper hard mode one, but I think a title is fair to give up since there is not really any achievement tied to how many titles you earn.

__________________

Black and Plagued Protodrake too.

I like the reducing boss mounts to below 1% droprate when the next expansion hits, I hope they do it again with MoP. It keeps the mount rare if you got it before its drop rate was nerfed, but there is still hope for those who are persistent enough mount farmers.


I want it, I'd hardly say I'm a big baby. It's those unobtainable things that got me raiding in the first place, you know, seeing those people standing around in that super rare, super hard to get gear riding their super rare mount. I'm not crying out for nothing to be available to casual noobs, I just think that sometimes it's good to keep some exclusiveness in game rewards. Shit, I afk on my Rag mount in Stormwind. Is it because I want to rub it in everyones face? No, it's because it's rare, it's cool looking and I take pride in my wow accomplishments (you know, within the confines of WoW ).

__________________

Idea:

Using Cataclysm as a model, you can only do Dragon Soul after completing Firelands on one toon. Once and only once you complete Firelands, your main AND alts get access to End Time/Well of Eternity/Hour of Twilight. So Firelands unlocks both Dragon Soul and the 378 gear availability for your alts. I think that'd still be completing the journey, but letting your alts get in on the action as well.

__________________
"to be disappointed in self is to have trusted in self"

LFR teaches you nothing. I would never attempt to teach someone a raid through LFR because every single aspect of it is demonstrated in a completely incorrect manner. The players aren't invested, the content is a joke and frankly if the gear wasn't so good for the effort the system would be dead. It isn't even fun to do. For teaching I would just point to a strategy regarding the fights and then when they have read it take them to a normal raid on a lower tier then current. Wows current design means you never go back tiers in progression raiding anyway and they're easy enough for anyone with a brain to grasp.

As for your second point I quoted, agreed. The rest I've already been through with Scythe. I'm just going to agree to disagree on this.

This would be of great interest to me, sans the "without dying" crap. The reason that was axed after Immortal and Undying is because it was not decided by skill, it was decided by connection. It was especially frustrating for us because being Australians, we have to deal with constant 200+ lag and ancient continental wiring. Losing your attempt on a boss for an entire week because 1 person got shafted by his connection on heigan was complete bullshit. Particularly when you consider how much of an absolute joke lolramus v2 was.

__________________