Ohh I get it now. You are one of those guys who thinks because he did some heroic raid content in WotLK that you are one of the "elite" players.

Hint: WotLK raid content is a joke. Even casual progression guilds got to 10/12 Heroic ICC before they stopped caring, none of which would have finished SSC or TK, much less Hyjal or BT in TBC and wouldn't have gotten through BWL, much less sniffed the first boss of AQ or Naxx in Vanilla.

I doubt you have your Hand of Adal title and you probably did not enter AQ or Naxx in Vanilla. IE you are not the elite player you think you are.

 

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Here's just one example of what happens when the content in LFD groups isn't as easy as someone wants it to be:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1207761285

For the record many of us tanked heroics with those kind of health pools, and healers with far less gear than the one who cried and refused to heal a "noob tank".

Notice how the challenge of healing a tank that isn't massively overgeared isn't welcomed and accepted? That's because the pally healer is really just an overgeared poor player. That's the average WoW player right now. Soon they will just be a poor player without gear again. They will not enjoy it, and they will not magically improve. It will either get changed or they will abstain.

--Sly

 

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/sigh

The problem is this:

Heroics were originally created to be challenging 5-man content. Something for people who couldn't or wouldn't raid, but still liked playing more difficult content with a small group of friends.

Then somewhere along the way, through the constant nerfs during BC and then the entire paradigm shift of WotLK, heroics became the new normals (and basically a required stepping stone for raiding, assuming the rest of your guild wasn't already geared up and carrying you), and normals became for leveling only. WotLK heroics are even easier than vanilla normals were, although this is as much because of gear inflation as anything.

So we've lost the original intent of the heroic.

If Cataclysm continues to treat heroics as normals, and a required stepping stone to get into raiding, then there will likely be problems. People will feel forced to do these heroics even if they, or the random people they are grouped up with, can't really handle the content. Normals will continue to go largely unused at end-game.

As someone who hardly ever raids, but loves 5-man content, this is very disappointing. I wish the people who just wanted to gear up for raiding could do so in normals, and heroics could be seen as a tangential path for people who like "hard mode" 5-mans. Perhaps this is possible in Cataclysm, I don't know - I haven't looked at the gear reqs for entry level raids at all. Nonetheless, I know what the mindset of people going into Cataclysm will be.

 

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If you ever spot a DK with a "Hand of Adal" title, please ring me. Because I want to see it too, and possibly take a screenshot.

This said, you are so wrong it's not even funny anymore.

I've stopped raiding in vanilla after clearing AQ40 because of real life and time constraints (moving and changing job, making my own company). That's also why I barely raided in TBC, real life was always >>> WoW for me. During TBC, I was mostly doing PUGs, but unlike you, I've never pretended doing better than organized guilds. I've cleared Kara, ZA, and the easier 40 man, but long after the guilds cleared it, because I was invited by friends as a casual player. I know PERFECTLY how PUGs behave when facing harder content, like the TBC content, because I was on their side back then.

I've also chosen to come back to raiding but focus only on 25 man content in WotLK for the same reasons. Difficulty and being casual has nothing to do with it - it's all about being with a good guild. When you were still wiping on Putricide, we were clearing 11/12 heroic (up to sindragosa) in one evening, starting 20:30 and ending midnight. Yet we aren't elite, I agree - we didn't get the heroic LK 25, and our casual status indeed came into the way for that, notably the summer and its load of AFK people.

But you're welcome to spew more nonsense, toad princess. Difference between you and me - for me, you can check what I did in my signature, and I don't brag about doing things I've never done, or facerolling ICC with a PUG - for you, gutter, and others, it's only words in the wind. If I was thinking I'm as "elite" as you pretend, I would just do like you guys, remove my armory from my signature and pretend doing things I've never done.

Yeah, "partial" PUGs (started by a raiding guild, and then filled with randoms) kill the Lich King now, with top notch gear and +30% buff. Sure. And it's a good thing, everybody should be able to see all the content he pays for. But pretending PUGs do just as fine as organized guilds which members play together each week and know each other well, that is complete nonsense. A guild will clear content and have it on farm status a PUG will start dropping several months later, if not more. Stop telling us fairytales, be realistic.

 

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I doubt you have it on any of your characters. Obviously I am not a new player to WoW and understand a DK would not have the title.





Really you were in one of the handful of guilds to kill Cthun before TBC came out? Impressive.





/golfclap





Hmm it seems that you do brag about things you have never done, IE killing Cthun. And FYI what I was stating was not bragging, it was merely pretext to show that my opinion on the quality of pug players is backed up with extensive experience.

You can choose to believe me or not. I don't really care.





Where did I say anything about pugs doing as well as an organized guild would? They obviously do not. Nor did I state how quickly pug players clear content. Obviously organized guilds will do that faster as well.

That has nothing to do with the quality of players in pugs and the assertion in this thread that pug players are generally horrible at playing this game and that there will be issues in the expansion due to that.

If your expectation is that when you join a pug it will do as well as your organized guild does, then it you that has the problem not the pug you are joining.

 

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You possibly confuse AQ40 with vanilla Naxxramas. You also nicely (troll method) skipped the parts of my post that are annoying for you, like the part where I explain I've been doing PUGs during whole TBC, so I'm gonna borrow that emote of yours: /golfclap for that.

For the rest, you actually pretty much agree with me. Thanks for that.

I'll be waiting for the link to the achievement showing your PUG Deathwing kill in Cataclysm

 

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The Eye of Cthun was the last boss in AQ40, the raid instance before Naxx 40. It was essentially unkillable for most of Vanilla.





I don't care why you don't have your Hand of Adal title or why you were never in Naxx 40 so why would I quote and reply about it? It's not annoying to me in the least lol.

 

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You have to revisit your info then. My guild (Rapture on Runetotem EU back then) killed it. And if you want to know why I left, the leader had to stop because of "real life", and the guild changed then. Being guild leader is also a talent not everybody has (just like raid leader).



Ah, you missed the point then. My bad, I assumed you were smarter. The point was, you're not the only one with PUG experience, and PUG experience in environments way harder than WotLK. That's the point me and a few (smart) others are trying to make. PUGs are gonna whine and cry if Cataclysm goes back to TBC difficulty for 5 man. Facerolling is over.

 

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For no other reason than boredom let me see if I can state this again in a way that people can understand.


1. WoW PvE is not objectively hard. It has never been hard. It will never be hard. I've been here since release and the hardest thing about vanilla was enduring the mind numbing boredom of the time it took to form a group or raid. The content was not hard. Ever. It's DESIGNED to be beaten.


I guess this is a really objective and opinion based statement. I have found many encounters that while I would not describe them as hard, I would describe them as just challenging enough to remain fun. There is stuff to do with in the ecounter, places to move, other things to kill, whatever it may be. As WoW grows they introduce more and more mechanics, I can only see more fun things to do with in the encounter to make them more engaging. More fun.

2. The discussion is not (or should not be) about difficulty in an objective sense.


3. There is a very large portion of the huge player base of WoW that for whatever reason is simply unwilling to, or incapable of, playing above a whack a mole level. This means CC, kill orders, don't stand in the stuff that's KILLING you, use your abilities beyond smashy one key - are for whatever reason difficult concepts for them. I see them 95% of the time I PuG. It's so rare to have all 4 other members not be mouth breathers that I actually notice when it happens.


If you are talking about 5 mans, for the most part there isn't even a challenge factor. I think the goal in desinging these instances should just be to engage, give us stuff to do, fun little gimmicks to complete. The new Deadmines is a great example. Stuff to blow up, cannons I can jump in. Good players or not 5 mans were never meant to be challenging. If anything a bad player or two inserts a challenge the devs could never hope to dream up. As a recent tank I am actually enjoying making up for my team mates stupidity.


4. In WoTLK number 3 was never an issue because it was never needed. I did Heroics in quest blues and greens from the very beginning of Wrath and even then - there was no CC, and people died, just as they still do, to slow killing ground effects (as few as there are). The instances were able to be finished anyway because that's how they were tuned.


5. As far as I can tell from all anecdotal evidence, Cataclysm dungeons will require CC, kill orders, and have ground (and possibly other) effects that will kill you faster. Basically they will be tuned for a higher level of play (NOTE: I did not say high level). The instances will not be able to be finished without playing above the foam helmet level.


6. This will not magically result in bad players becoming good players and crushing or dominating content.


Not magically no. There will always be bad players, can some players learn to use CC? Absolutley. Back in the day when UBRS was one of the main instances, CC was a must. You couldn't finish with out it. Players learned, once and a while you'd get that one guy that would DoT the sheep or whatever but even that was rare. Players have gotton worse since vanilla, so I believe they can get better.


7. It is very likely that what will in fact happen is frustration, and less people doing PvE content than in WoTLK. It's what happened in BC heroics. There is no reason to believe it won't happen here. When it's not fun it's not going to be done.


8. This is bad. It is better to have a game that is fun and accessible to many and too easy for a few than to have it annoying / inaccessible to many and "fun" for a few.


I disagree this is a bad change. You are assuming they are going to be upping the curve so much that these instances will be super hard and tedious? That would be bad, yes. All they are doing is making sure we have to use the abilities given to us. The simple change of making CC manditory again is not earth shattering. It is learning to use one extra spell and learning how not to break CC. Even the average PuGger can do this.


9. Killing the ability for PuGs to faceroll PvE will reduce the ability for people to solo queue up random dungeons and get them done. This is what sucks.


Bad players will not stop joining the queue. They joined groups in Vanilla, they join queues now and they will continue to join the queue in Cata. These bad players rely on us to get them through the dungeon, if they are truly bad players and can't complete the content as it is anyway, making it a little bit harder changes nothing for them.


I do not remember Vanilla with fond longing because I literally don't care that others have access to gear, nor do I define my worth by how many pixels I have that someone else doesn't have. I remember it as frustrating because nothing could be done without a group, it took forever to form one, and the content caused issues for foam helmet players which then meant it wasn't fun for me because they couldn't complete it.


If you are such a good player, why are you playing with all these baddies? If you were trying to PuG 40 man raids in Vanilla no wonder you don't remember it with fondess. If you are a good player you should be able to get in a good raiding guild to complete the content.


Again if you are talking about 5 man's, you should still be able to complete the content even if there are a few bad players in your group.


I have no problem doing any PvE content. If I had 5 of myself I wouldn't even know the average WoW Pugger existed. However, I'm required to rely on others, and as such I'd rather it be easy enough for those others to complete than for it to be "challenging" for them to the point that I can't reliably complete a PuG heroic run until the content is outgeared significantly, because I can't do it unless THEY (random average players) can do it.


You sound like a very anti social player, playing a very social game. If you want to play a game where you don't depend on anyone, stick to the solo content, or play a single player game. Or again, join a good guild. Bad players don't plauge me. I litterally ran more then 10 5 mans last night, all of the runs had a least one bad player. I went through a instance where I was both tanking and healing myself. Wasn't a great expirience, but we still got it done.


A real good group can 4 man any 5 man dungeon. Exception players with decent gear can even 3 man. Fights take a lot longer but it can be done.


For all the boasting you do about your individual skill it sounds to me like you don't enjoy a challenge. For me facerolling a dungeon is not fun. I've actually nodded off while healing some dungeons with my Shammy.


I hope I'm wrong - I really do - because if I am WRONG I will enjoy Cata, but if I am right it's going to suck for many months.


As many people have predicted it, it will start off hard like BC, people will complain and they'll tone it down. Personally any challenge they can add to the game is a good change. I'm not worried about upsetting the really bad players, we'll just carry them through the dungeons like we always have. The moderate players I think will catch on enough to get through it.

 

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I hear that. Except I'm not sure (now) what the original intent of 5-mans was supposed to be.


And I'm still not sure that Blizzard sees 5-man as a legit separate playstyle.


I think Blizz just sees them as a means to an end to get more players into raiding. (They'll LIKE raiding, if they would just TRY it!) I think the fact that there is a portion of the player base that prefers 5-man is incidental to Blizz's long-term goal. And those players are making it their endgame in spite of Blizz's intent.


(On the other hand, I've had less than 2 hours sleep, so I could totally be blowing smoke here. I'm willing to take my lumps if my thinking's not clear. )


I'm not sure that I can go back and definitively say that 5-mans were put into the game by intent to be an end-game for those that couldn't / wouldn't raid. I think Blizzard was probably surprised by the success of Dire Maul at a time when "Raid or Die" was Kaplan's agenda. I think they've always been seen as the progression-hook to raiding.


So in TBC, they put in more (which were definitely challenging walking in with greens/blues). Once again, demonstrating that the instances themselves were not particularly hard, it was the glass-wall created by lack of gear. Once properly geared, those instances were moderately easy, leading to the model of AoE-style fests we see in LK. Blizz found however, that a lot of the player base was not doing them (putting in the faction-key barrier was a great speed bump idea on paper, and not smart in the end.) However, they did provide a progression path to places like Kara, once again, it seems, with the thought of herding the playerbase into what they considered the only true end-game: raiding. 5-mans were the place players spent a long time grinding to get into, then grinding through for gear (speedbumps), before moving on the real target: Kara and beyond.


(Do note, however, that in TBC, Blizz got the 5-man and 10-man gearchecks "backwards". As originally released, some of the 5-man heroics required Kara gear which is what made them feel like endgame.) They corrected that progression in LK, by "oversteering" the other way.


So, realizing that players WOULD grind through 5-mans as a way to gear up, Blizz then swung the pendulum the other way in LK, making it incredibly easy to walk through the regulars as a leveling playground, and, as you said, turning the Heroics into a way to easily obtain gear to be able to progress toward 10-man raiding, and hopefully drawing more and more players in, sheparding them towards raiding. In LK, it became incredibly efficient for guilds to send players through to get their gear without having to run individuals through themselves. (Yay for DF). 5-mans were once again, a means to an end.


For all that I've said Blizz has been inclusive about the diversity of playstyle out here, it sure seems that they are still focused on getting more players into raiding. Only this time, instead of berating them (a la Kaplan in Vanilla), they may still be assuming that it is lack of proper gear, not incentive, that keeps players out of raiding. So they've consistently lowered the barriers to acquiring gear to the point that heroics have become an easy-regular-feel AoE-fun-run in LK.


The fact that the DF makes it eaiser and more players are actually enjoying them is probably, again, incidental. And yes, there are more ICC-10 and 25 PuGs which would only validate Blizz's perspective that everybody wants to raid. So they are providing more paths to get there easier.


So, yes, I hear you and your concerns. I love 5-mans as a playstyle as well.


BLizz has heard is that 5-mans are too easy now and are swinging the pendulum the other way, at least temporarily. And will probably, as many have cautioned, be adjusted down to allow more cattle, er players, through the gear-chute on the way to raiding.


Because in the end, that's their focus. 5-mans, I think, will always been seen as a stepping stone, now more than ever, because of how successful they were in LK.

 

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