Will WOD really bring the challenge back to WoW?

Lord.Bachus

Is it a step away from the easy modo?

doodphace

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus
Is it a step away from the easy modo?

I dont expect the questing to change, nor do I expect the raiding to change...so essentially it will have "easy" questing, and the raids will range from easy to the hardest they have ever been/the hardest on the market.

That's the reason the game still has 7 mil subs 10 years on, oodles of content for everyone.

jmcdermottuk

I doubt it. Given what's happened with Wildstar, I think Blizz might be a bit wary of going too far down the hardcore road.

Abdar

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus
Is it a step away from the easy modo?

Are you talking questing, raiding, bgs, arenas, open world pvp? It would have been helpful if you said what you thought was so easy mode before asking your question.

Meriik

WoW has always had incredibly easy content and incredibly hard content, kinda up to you what you play.  Though the leveling process has gotten quite a bit easier.

doodphace

Originally posted by jmcdermottuk
I doubt it. Given what's happened with Wildstar, I think Blizz might be a bit wary of going too far down the hardcore road.

I dunno what you mean by that, WoW's current heroic raids, the ones released a year ago, are harder than Wildstar's...considering that the raids have only gotten more complex each xpac/tier, we have absolutly zero reason not to think that WoD's raids will coninue to be the hardest on the market, and the hardest WoW has ever had. The difference between wow and w*. is wow has easier versions if you so choose.......what people don't get to do though, is be presented with 4 difficulties ranging from easy, to medium, to slam your face against your desk hard, choose easy, and claim the game is too easy lol.

dreamscaper

I don't care about the challenge (or lack thereof).

• Am I still rounding up exclamation points and then proceeding to blast through them in short order in order to level?
• Am I still on a never-ending treadmill in terms of gear progression?
• Does the game still feel like the same one I began playing over a decade ago?

For me, WoD is going to be DoA if it doesn't fundamentally revitalize the above. The garrisons seem like they'll be a step in the right direction, but I don't think it'll be enough by itself.

Dauntis

Just like every expansion some dungeon and raid bosses will be hard until people figure out the mechanics. Questing and other content will remain the same.  WoW will remain this beautiful tapestry of mixed content until all the expansion goodness is squeezed out and ran through thousands of times.... then we will have the dead period until the next expansion. It is cyclical... but usually you can only call the "difficult" content challenging for the first three to six months.

 

evilized

No. Want proof? Look at how well Wildstar is doing because of it being "challenging." Blizz won't do something that will lose them money, even if it makes the game more fun.

Abdar

They did add a 'Mythical' tier to raiding as well, whatever that means. Again, the OP should have expanded on what they felt was so easy that the game needs to fix.

Battlerock

Originally posted by evilized
No. Want proof? Look at how well Wildstar is doing because of it being "challenging." Blizz won't do something that will lose them money, even if it makes the game more fun.

The stakes are way higher in WoW than Wildstar

- people give up thier lives for WoW

- you just can't say because it didn't work for Wildstar it won't for WoW.

WoW is the mmorpg that is the exception to the rules, they have the history and the following to do whatever they want and people will still play.

What WoD will do is allow larger raiding guilds to have a presence again in WoW. It's good for the game because the more people you have willing to help the noobs out the more the noobs become attached and noobs are the best source of income. 

Tamanous

Originally posted by Battlerock

Originally posted by evilized
No. Want proof? Look at how well Wildstar is doing because of it being "challenging." Blizz won't do something that will lose them money, even if it makes the game more fun.

The stakes are way higher in WoW than Wildstar

- people give up thier lives for WoW

- you just can't say because it didn't work for Wildstar it won't for WoW.

WoW is the mmorpg that is the exception to the rules, they have the history and the following to do whatever they want and people will still play.

What WoD will do is allow larger raiding guilds to have a presence again in WoW. It's good for the game because the more people you have willing to help the noobs out the more the noobs become attached and noobs are the best source of income. 

I'm sorry, are you suggesting that hardcore raiding guilds are the ones who help noobs out the most? When have they done anything other than force players into playing builds THEY want so THEY can progress fastest without worry of others slowing them down?

 

Have you considered why Blizzard went away from hardcore game play? Could it be possibly to stray away from the hardcore elitists who form the backbone for conflict and restrictive game play?

Pepeq

Nope.

Hariken

Lol don't worry WOD will do just fine like every other Wow xpack. And don't forget no flying mounts in the new zones so getting to quest will be alot more challenging. 

Ghavrigg

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus
Is it a step away from the easy modo?

When it comes to WoW, you're the one choosing to play it on easy mode. 

Regardless, don't expect the game to change its style drastically. There will always be hardcore options, and always be easier options. 

grapevine

Originally posted by Abdar
They did add a 'Mythical' tier to raiding as well, whatever that means. Again, the OP should have expanded on what they felt was so easy that the game needs to fix.

 

Technically, they're not adding a new tier, but renamed them.  

 

Flex raids are now called normal.

Normal raids are now called HC

Mythic is basically resized HC raids.

 

So unless you are a top tier raider, it's been dumbed down and made easier.

Amjoco

No, but I will play it! I don't think the problem with WoW is so much the challenge, you can find it there if you look. The problem I'm irritated with (among other things) is the talent system, or lack of. Still a good game with tons of content.

The only way Blizzard could make WoW challenging now is to host about 10 each Vanilla, TBC, and WoTLK servers. I would pay full subscription to play on a Burning Crusade server. 

Battlerock

Originally posted by Robokapp

Originally posted by Tamanous
Originally posted by Battlerock
Originally posted by evilized
No. Want proof? Look at how well Wildstar is doing because of it being "challenging." Blizz won't do something that will lose them money, even if it makes the game more fun.

The stakes are way higher in WoW than Wildstar

- people give up thier lives for WoW

- you just can't say because it didn't work for Wildstar it won't for WoW.

WoW is the mmorpg that is the exception to the rules, they have the history and the following to do whatever they want and people will still play.

What WoD will do is allow larger raiding guilds to have a presence again in WoW. It's good for the game because the more people you have willing to help the noobs out the more the noobs become attached and noobs are the best source of income. 

I'm sorry, are you suggesting that hardcore raiding guilds are the ones who help noobs out the most? When have they done anything other than force players into playing builds THEY want so THEY can progress fastest without worry of others slowing them down?

 

Have you considered why Blizzard went away from hardcore game play? Could it be possibly to stray away from the hardcore elitists who form the backbone for conflict and restrictive game play?

touring.

 

9/10 act that way, but the others are very kind and love helping nooks get better, they are Wow community builders and the more of them there are, the better it is for the health of the game.

Shaigh

Questing has never been hard in WoW. If you think questing used to be challenging you don't really want a challenging game.

 

As much as I would love challenging heroic dungeons, wotlk and cata taught blizzard that people who want challenging dungeons wont do dungeons for long until they jump into raiding, and the rest want their dungeons easy.

 

The only challenge you have in WoW is in top tier raids, arena, rated bg and possibly challenge mode dungeons, which is still far more challenging content compared to other MMO's.

 

Even though wildstar doesn't come up to wow's raids, it had far more active singleplayer gameplay and tougher leveling dungeons with people complaining they would rather have methodical tab-target combat and that dungeons were too hard.

waveslayer

with the stat squish and class changes(further dumbing down) the game almost plays itself now, add in the character model upgrades , it almost seems like a different game, so no, other then the higher tier raiding and PvP it will not be more challenging, it will be even less.

Nitth

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Originally posted by Lord.Bachus
Is it a step away from the easy modo?

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The game has been made easier every year for the last 9 years you would have to be insane to think they would reverse flow now.

And what would be the incentive if they did?

Cata showed that they would piss of the larger, more profitable section of customers by going back to "Hard mode" dungeons and thus they quickly resumed the easy mode flow.

Shaigh

Originally posted by Nitth

 

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Originally posted by Lord.Bachus
Is it a step away from the easy modo?

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The game has been made easier every year for the last 9 years you would have to be insane to think they would reverse flow now.

And what would be the incentive if they did?

Cata showed that they would piss of the larger, more profitable section of customers by going back to "Hard mode" dungeons and thus they quickly resumed the easy mode flow.

I totally agree. Anyone who did wotlk already noticed that people stepped out of challenging dungeons. Every time you got oculus or HOR during end of wotlk people jumped out of the group and would rather have a 15 minute lfg-debuff to get an easier daily dungeon next time.

 

The only people that benefited from cataclysm dungeons were the ones in proper guilds or had a longer friends list, but it wasn't particularly pug-friendly.

Herase

No tbh, the only content they can really have a play around with is HC mode i.e Mystic, but not sure how people will like the 20 man  only req for it. They can't really afford to make any crazy changes to other parts of the game because it's what the current playerbase like. They did it once and half the players booted. So i would say don't expect it to stray to far away from what it already is.

What i've noticed over the last 2 xpacs is if the playerbase think it's too hard or requires a bit more effort and enough people complain blizz will nerf it to high heaven.

OhhPaigey

No, if you choose to quest to 100, and LFR.

And no, if you choose to do mythics (heroics) because most people haven't even cleared heroic SoO even after they gave an ilevel boost.

All they have changed recently is that they have made it easier for new players to understand & learn the game.

No "challenge" has been taken out of the game.

Nitth

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Originally posted by OhhPaigey
No, if you choose to quest to 100, and LFR.And no, if you choose to do mythics (heroics) because most people haven't even cleared heroic SoO even after they gave an ilevel boost.All they have changed recently is that they have made it easier for new players to understand & learn the game.No "challenge" has been taken out of the game.

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Same tried argument again and again.

90% of the game has had passes which reduced complexity, strategy and difficulty.

The remaining 10% content (raids ect) does not represent the whole game, Does not represent the games difficulty adequately and only caters to a small minority of players.

Roguewiz

The only time WOW has ever been difficult has been new content, typically heroics or raids, that was overtooled to be extremely difficult.  Typically, they dumb it down within a patch or two after the forums explode with "OMG QQ".  

So no, I doubt WOD will bring back the challenge.