what makes Wotlk so easy?

Snoogems · January 2009

ive been gone since about nov 24. and im wondering what makes wotlk so easy to gear up in? ill take easy gear all i like to do is kill people anyway.

Snoogems · January 2009

bump

Khrymson · January 2009

Because WoW was already easy enough, and Blizzard made it even easier with WotLK by making the raids more accessable to the masses of casual players!

Snoogems · January 2009

sorry i dont understand i havent been playing wow lately what do you mean more accesible?

Sramota · January 2009

Naxx is only there to show off what it once was,
comparable it's lower than Kara early BC
Ulduar should show what WoW is to become with Wotlk
currently we're enjoying the 'demo'

Qilin · January 2009

Originally posted by Sramota

Naxx is only there to show off what it once was,

comparable it's lower than Kara early BC

Ulduar should show what WoW is to become with Wotlk

currently we're enjoying the 'demo'

This.

It has only been 2-3 months, what was people waiting for? Confront Lich King directly as you step on Northrend?

S1GNAL · January 2009

Originally posted by Snoogems

ive been gone since about nov 24. and im wondering what makes wotlk so easy to gear up in? ill take easy gear all i like to do is kill people anyway.

Short answer - Money

Long answer - Business

floppyface · January 2009

Originally posted by Khrymson

Because WoW was already easy enough, and Blizzard made it even easier with WotLK by making the raids more accessable to the masses of casual players!

While I dislike WotLK, its comments like this from EQ/FFXI/EVE people who level 1 character to 80 and decide to call the whole game easy that gives the wow fanbois an argument.

Levelling in WoW has always been easy and fun. Needing to get 70 people together in a raid to go killl a bunch of boars for 6 months to level 3 to 4 is not fun or "skillful".

But while getting to max level in WoW has always been pretty easy, you always had the choice of tough and challenging raid content if you wished to do it. Bosses like Vaelastrasz, Nefarian, Twin Emperors, C'thun, 40 man Naxxramas, Magtheridon, Vashj, Kael and all of Sunwell Plateau were challenging, tough and demanding bosses/instances.

Doing the cutting edge content in WoW took a lot of dedication. But even if you waited a few months and used boss strats from guides the content was still fun and challenging.

But in WotLK:

All raid content is incredibly easy and only gimmick like 3 drake sarth are challening.
Heroics are just a zerg fest where you just run through and AoE the trash down.
Professions have a lot less to offer and most professions only have a few BoP/Self things to offer. Enchants for rings for enchanters only, socketing items for blacksmith, BoP gems for Jewelcrafters, alchemy was hammered back in BC, tailoring is only useful for leg enchants etc. Mana/wizard oils are no longer used at lvl 80
PvP is a joke. Class balance is non-existant. Arena revolves around paladins, deathnights and rogues and Kalgan has pretty much made PvP in WoW now to be based around arenas.
So thats raiding, 5 man dungeons, professions and PvP. Unless you love achievements or constantly levelling characters there isn't much in WotLK.

Alandora · February 2009

Originally posted by floppyface

Originally posted by Khrymson

Because WoW was already easy enough, and Blizzard made it even easier with WotLK by making the raids more accessable to the masses of casual players!

While I dislike WotLK, its comments like this from EQ/FFXI/EVE people who level 1 character to 80 and decide to call the whole game easy that gives the wow fanbois an argument.

Levelling in WoW has always been easy and fun. Needing to get 70 people together in a raid to go killl a bunch of boars for 6 months to level 3 to 4 is not fun or "skillful".

But while getting to max level in WoW has always been pretty easy, you always had the choice of tough and challenging raid content if you wished to do it. Bosses like Vaelastrasz, Nefarian, Twin Emperors, C'thun, 40 man Naxxramas, Magtheridon, Vashj, Kael and all of Sunwell Plateau were challenging, tough and demanding bosses/instances.

Doing the cutting edge content in WoW took a lot of dedication. But even if you waited a few months and used boss strats from guides the content was still fun and challenging.

But in WotLK:

All raid content is incredibly easy and only gimmick like 3 drake sarth are challening.
Heroics are just a zerg fest where you just run through and AoE the trash down.
Professions have a lot less to offer and most professions only have a few BoP/Self things to offer. Enchants for rings for enchanters only, socketing items for blacksmith, BoP gems for Jewelcrafters, alchemy was hammered back in BC, tailoring is only useful for leg enchants etc. Mana/wizard oils are no longer used at lvl 80
PvP is a joke. Class balance is non-existant. Arena revolves around paladins, deathnights and rogues and Kalgan has pretty much made PvP in WoW now to be based around arenas.
So thats raiding, 5 man dungeons, professions and PvP. Unless you love achievements or constantly levelling characters there isn't much in WotLK.

If you did raiding in the past, you know how to do things 'best'. If you never raided, the heroics and raids in wrath are NOT easy.

AOEing down trash - Yes, if your tank has raid experience and your DPS has raid experience, they can pull this off. But people who have never raided (especially tanks) will not be able to generate enough TPS to keep aggro. Healers who aren't raiders will be healing the tank while the DPSers die. Also the nerf to WG and COH will make AOEing trash much riskier.

I've raided before, but when I pug, I can tell that the average wow player hasn't. Heroics and 10Naxx are still difficult encounters for average players.

If you've been in a raid guild for years, and you do wrath content with only your guild, then yes, Nax/heroics are easy. But guess what? the average player didn't raid before wrath. Even Kaz wasn't 'normal' endgame for most players.

killer1337 · February 2009

Originally posted by Snoogems

ive been gone since about nov 24. and im wondering what makes wotlk so easy to gear up in? ill take easy gear all i like to do is kill people anyway.

Wotlk is easy because, it only takes 1-2 weeks from 70 to get to 80 if ur geared right playing about 2 hrs a day. Blizz also made the raids easier to complete, and dumbed down the game even more, such as making crit and spell the same thing.

Torik · February 2009

Originally posted by killer1337

Originally posted by Snoogems

ive been gone since about nov 24. and im wondering what makes wotlk so easy to gear up in? ill take easy gear all i like to do is kill people anyway.

Wotlk is easy because, it only takes 1-2 weeks from 70 to get to 80 if ur geared right playing about 2 hrs a day. Blizz also made the raids easier to complete, and dumbed down the game even more, such as making crit and spell the same thing.

Crit and +spell are not the same thing.

And the 'fast and easy' thing is highly subjective. If you play casually, do not rush and take time to try new content in WotLK you have months of stuff to do before hitting 80.

DrowNoble · February 2009

Blizzard mentioned that they didn't like that some of their content (pre-BC Naxx) was never experienced by the vast majority of players. With BC they saw that heroics and Kara were the more common raids rather than the 25-mans. So they decided to make regular/heroic versions of raids and make 10/25 versions of them as well. So now Joe Casual can run Naxx (10 man reg) as well as Jake Hardcore running Naxx.

They made the leveling curve easier, homogenzied the loot and added more grinding to keep you going. So it's still a grind fest at 80 just done differently.

Faelan · February 2009

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Wow is the only MMORPG where PvP weapons and PvP gear are based on a rated ladder system.

No wins, no decent PvP gear.
Yes it is that hard. It is so hard most don't dare to enter, because the embarassing results are even shown on the armory.
So it has the hardest PvP in ANY mmorpg. Because your losses are ... displayed on the WWW.
Arena made the blind followers and no lifers in PVE look soar.
It is indeed embaressing showing off that legendary weapon with a 1478 Arena rating isn't it ?
No doubt about that.
Grtz to all who obtain the seasonal gladiator titles: less than 0.5%.
Less than 0.5%, yep, and still the trolls say it is easy.

Sorry, but EVE takes the prize on that one. You can spend a month getting that uber ship, only to have it blown up in seconds... and unlike WoW, once it's gone - it's gone. To add further insult to the injury, your loss will most likely be posted on some killboard where people will laugh over your 2 billion ISK fail boat. As a result, a lot of people don't even dare enter low-sec in EVE.

In WoW you can at least enter a BG and be relatively anonymous... and with the burst damage going on... you don't even need PvP gear to blast people. Once a bunch of people target you, you'll go down... resil or not.

Xasapis · February 2009

What makes Wotlk so easy?

How about your 2-4 years of experience with the game?

This is fundamentally a more general issue with all games, not just MMOs and not just WoW. Veterans feel that any content thrown at them is easy or they have seen it before. On the other hand the developers can't just make content for veterans, unless they want to keep all new players frustrated and outside.

For me the current playground is the training ground for the new generation of gamers. People that will come to like raiding and don't feel like it's a hardcore no-life endeavour. Some of them will feel like doing harder instances, when these are available.

In any case, if you look at any class and the mechanics used per encounter, you'll probably realise that you're playing a more complex game than the classic WoW.

Faelan · February 2009

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Thanks for the update.
But I just wanted to show that the PvP competition in Wow is hard, because of the so called public consequences AND that PvP weapons can only be obtained through a rated ladder competition.
I agree. Well, actually - engaging in PvP is easy enough. It's just hard to be successful at it with the way the arena system is set up. That's why we see people constantly doing things like rerolling to the FOTM class because you need every edge you can get to stay competitive.
In another thread I showed people that there is NOT one person out of 5.000.000 who made all the PvP achievements in WotlK and it could still take quite some time before anyone does it.
Wow is very much a game of achievements , titles, PvP and PVE these days. It's no longer a pure raiding game (and certainly not a "leveling" game).
And min-maxing. Don't forget about min-maxing.
And a maxed combo of those playing styles are VERY hard to get. PvP rated player system (and distributing weapons and titles acordingly) is hard.
So the term "easy" is just how you look at things. There are different ways to "punish" players without demotivating them, that's why Wow is a succes.
I'm getting the impression that a lot of people are demotivated from PvP in WoW these days because the forced arena and class balance issues. I think the WoW popularity has more to do with lack of viable alternatives, lack of knowledge of alternatives (a lot of the WoW players I talk to don't even know, or know very little of other MMOs) and the fact that WoW is the "thing" to play. Oh, and let's not forget it runs on your grandmother's old computer.
As for EVE, I tried it, but I do not like a game where you can't leave your cockpit and come to a PvP spreadsheet fight.
The game was designed around space ship combat. If you don't like space ships, that's fine. Each to their own. You don't use a spreadsheet for PvP though. That's dead wrong. You use a fitting tool to figure out the best setup for your ship, character skills and the role you intend to use it for. Min-maxing as I pointed out above. Just like people in WoW fuss over getting the right gear with the right stats for the right spec for the right class. As a result, I used a spreadsheet for estimating my stats with gear upgrades for my WoW character. How ironic is that?
I am sure if such trivial things like trees, houses, a landscape were part of EVE there wouldn't be a discussion. But I think such 'trivial' things are more interesting than an advanced Exel spreadsheet and a poststamp head on the left corner of my screen.
We're not discussing personal likes/dislikes here. I was merely trying to point out that WoW isn't the only MMO out there with unforgiving PvP. That there's something even more merciless and worth smashing your keyboard over. I also pointed out that as a result of this, that quite a few people never get near PvP in EVE (or outright quit because of it). That's not too different from WoW. A lot of people simply refuse to touch (or quickly give up on) arena because they either suck at/dislike the dueling style of play or because they just want to have some fun smashing a couple of heads and not worry about being min-maxed to the death in order to not be rolled over when the current overpowered class combo decides to fart in their general direction.
You used to be able to do that in the BGs. Smash some heads. Have some fun... and although it could take some time to get the honor needed, you at least got some nice gear in the end. Unfortunately, a lot of people saw this as an easy way to get some decent gear without running instances to death or joining a raid guild, so it was abused by AFKing. But instead of finding a way to fix this, Blizzard took the easy way out and just placed the nice gear in the arena... with the option to get it by raiding as well. WTF?
Now it's either arena or die... or raid or die... or grind pointless achievements for showing off. Oh well, I guess that's still better than pre TBC gamplay.
Everyone his own of course.
So Wow shows you don't need to have a full loot system in place to talk about a hard competition.
I agree.
Just look at the videos on the web where guys are smashing their keyboards on the desk (or worse) when they loose some rated Wow matches.
Which is why I don't bother with arena. It's not worth having my day ruined because I lost a match. I play to have fun, not to compete. If I want to compete, I'd pick up some sport instead.

Mwaji · February 2009

Originally posted by Faelan

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Wow is the only MMORPG where PvP weapons and PvP gear are based on a rated ladder system.

No wins, no decent PvP gear.
Yes it is that hard. It is so hard most don't dare to enter, because the embarassing results are even shown on the armory.
So it has the hardest PvP in ANY mmorpg. Because your losses are ... displayed on the WWW.
Arena made the blind followers and no lifers in PVE look soar.
It is indeed embaressing showing off that legendary weapon with a 1478 Arena rating isn't it ?
No doubt about that.
Grtz to all who obtain the seasonal gladiator titles: less than 0.5%.
Less than 0.5%, yep, and still the trolls say it is easy.

Sorry, but EVE takes the prize on that one. You can spend a month getting that uber ship, only to have it blown up in seconds... and unlike WoW, once it's gone - it's gone. To add further insult to the injury, your loss will most likely be posted on some killboard where people will laugh over your 2 billion ISK fail boat. As a result, a lot of people don't even dare enter low-sec in EVE.

In WoW you can at least enter a BG and be relatively anonymous... and with the burst damage going on... you don't even need PvP gear to blast people. Once a bunch of people target you, you'll go down... resil or not.

Honestly comparing EvE pvp to WoW or to even put wow in the same catagory as EvE is, well don't Flatter WoW. WoW pvp is soft the losses are none, there is only gain and no loss. WoW is no way near top calibur PvP and the illusion that WoW is the only game with a ladder system well, maybe if you played something before wow or know that half the games in existance have ladders so wow is not special in that reguard.

Now top performers in wow could probably hang in there in any game, that being said they probably already do. I imagine many of the top Arena players probably play or played Guild Wars and L2 or any other game that laughs in the face of WoW. But to be honest to majoraty of BGers or Arena contestants don't die because they are outmatched or because of burst, even though that is a problem. They die because they are simply bad. I can attest to the number of kills I got being outnumbered or hunters that don't know what strafing is. Paladins who bubble at the wrong time. You can go on and on, there is no loss, no skill level demands and certainly no camparison to EvE.

Zayne3145 · February 2009

I don't understand the whole hard = fun mentality. I'm super casual and I still consider WoW hard. My guild and I are all casual and are gearing up for Naxx which is taking forever as we're hardly ever able to all run heroics together because of RL commitments. We still have a hell of a lot of fun when we are together though, as the content is more accessible now to people like us. I've resigned myself to the fact that we'll probably never see Arthas, but more power to those that have the time and inclination to get that far.

Xasapis · February 2009

To Mwaji:

Lets assume that the population of totally inept players is 10% (fictional number) at any given MMO. If my MMO has 10 players, I may bump into 1 inept player. If my MMO has 100 layers, I may bump into 10. And so on.

The above of course assumes that all MMOs has an equal amount of people that are lacking basic skills, which is not the case. But even with differences, there are still more uskilled people to bump into in the more populated games.

Generally speaking, games with more lenient entry levels will be more forgiving to people making mistakes. Generally speaking again, the people that are now beginning their climb of the learning curve will be more vocal than the experts, so they are easier to be spotted. It's easier to remember people that have screwed up royally than people who had a smooth ride and parted their ways later on, unless you make an effort to keep in touch with those people.

The problem with L2 back in the days I was playing, was that it neded half my day levelling to gain up on the losses, or just to keep up level wise with the rest of the top PvP people. I didn't and I don't have half a day, so I had to cut down on my sleeping hours. I ended up leaving the game after months, because I was physically tired. L2 was all about having tons of free time. That's what made it hard, nothing else.

Mwaji · February 2009

Originally posted by Xasapis

To Mwaji:
Lets assume that the population of totally inept players is 10% (fictional number) at any given MMO. If my MMO has 10 players, I may bump into 1 inept player. If my MMO has 100 layers, I may bump into 10. And so on.
On a typical MMO maybe that number may be right, but those players don't survive long, on WoW lets assume that number is closer to 60% and wow Caters to those very players.
The above of course assumes that all MMOs has an equal amount of people that are lacking basic skills, which is not the case. But even with differences, there are still more uskilled people to bump into in the more populated games.
No were just assuming ( WoW ) has a large number of players lacking basic skills.
Generally speaking, games with more lenient entry levels will be more forgiving to people making mistakes. Generally speaking again, the people that are now beginning their climb of the learning curve will be more vocal than the experts, so they are easier to be spotted. It's easier to remember people that have screwed up royally than people who had a smooth ride and parted their ways later on, unless you make an effort to keep in touch with those people.
Generally speaking there are not that many games more lenient than wow, most Korean Grinders hold more of a challenge starting off. The difference in the Vocal community of newbs is WoW caters to them and holds experienced players at gunpoint, EZ mode or die.
The problem with L2 back in the days I was playing, was that it neded half my day levelling to gain up on the losses, or just to keep up level wise with the rest of the top PvP people. I didn't and I don't have half a day, so I had to cut down on my sleeping hours. I ended up leaving the game after months, because I was physically tired. L2 was all about having tons of free time. That's what made it hard, nothing else.
I won't argue L2 is a level grind, to do so would escape the obvious. It was just an example, WoW pvp doesn't touch that game or many others. WoW is carebear pvp, it's not hard to master or hard to learn. You would only have trouble with it if you refused to learn or were used to smashing buttons and getting lucky, which many do on wow. Really a paladin could be played by a trained monkey at this point.

WOTLK is both broken and easy at the same time. To say the game holds any challenge at this point would be absurd. Trying to reel in a casual base is ok to a point but now the game has degressed to a joke. Very simply if you think WoW is hard you are seriously lacking in higher brain function.

Xasapis · February 2009

I'm not saying that WoW is hard. I'm saying that L2 (never played GW so can't comment) is just as easy, mechanics wise, if not easier. The grind is heavier, that stakes are bigger, but the gameplay mechanics are simpler.

Neither game is hard, it's just that one is more popular so it's getting heat for it.

Lazarus71 · February 2009

The difficulty of these games is all subjective. Why do people have a hard time seeing that or even have such a need to classify and separate players into lvls of skill. What is hard for some is easy for others and vice versa. If you like a game and find it challenging or easy or fun or just plain hard does not really matter. All that matters is that you have fun playing it.

[Deleted User] · February 2009

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floppyface · February 2009

Originally posted by DrowNoble
Blizzard mentioned that they didn't like that some of their content (pre-BC Naxx) was never experienced by the vast majority of players.

Thats because it was released 5 months before 2.0 came out. I knew a hell of a lot of guilds doing a couple of bosses in Naxx but stopped because raiding stopped after patch 2.0 hit. AQ40 and 40 man Naxx were released with 1 year of the release of BC. Considering that million of players had only recently started playing WoW they didn't have time to level up to 60 than run ZG, MC, Onyxia, BWL and most of AQ40 (C'thun was harder the the early bosses in Naxx) before the expansion hit. So stop misrepresenting the reason why people didn't see Naxx.

With BC they saw that heroics and Kara were the more common raids rather than the 25-mans. So they decided to make regular/heroic versions of raids and make 10/25 versions of them as well. So now Joe Casual can run Naxx (10 man reg) as well as Jake Hardcore running Naxx.

Of course heroics and Kara were the most common raids since you could not do any Tier 5 content until you cleared Karazhan, Gruul, Mag etc and the hardest heroics. Yes, they did remove attunements from SSC and TK later on. But of course Karazhan was the most ran instance. It was the first.

Mwaji · February 2009

Originally posted by templarga

Originally posted by Mwaji

WOTLK is both broken and easy at the same time. To say the game holds any challenge at this point would be absurd. Trying to reel in a casual base is ok to a point but now the game has degressed to a joke. Very simply if you think WoW is hard you are seriously lacking in higher brain function.

Nope, to try and put all MMO's in one category of rating them compartively difficult is absurd. Seriously. You keep repeating this time and time again and I keep asking you (and others who say it as well), please tell us how WOW is so easy? What makes WOW so easy as compared to LOTRO or WAR or AOC?

As someone else said, difficulty is subjective and trying to say that WOW is easy for everyone is simply incorrect. I think the courses I teach are easy but I still have people who fail them. I think driving a car is easy but so many people can't do it at all. I think reading "War and Peace" is easy but others don't. I think building a computer from the ground up is easy but others don't. WOW is easy for a lot of people because they have invested a lot of time in their raiding guilds and spend a lot of time doing raids over and over. WOW is hard for some people as well because they do not have the time to invest.

Difficulty in an MMO is all about time committment. WOW is not any easier than the next game except to say it requires less time to get things done.....therefore the very casual aspect of the game. The risk versus reward factor in most MMO's today is the same.

You are simply basing your assumptions on YOUR playstyle. It does not mean everyone approaches the game like you do and not everyone thinks it easy. And insulting those who like WOW and maybe do find it a challenge (because they are a casual player and do not have a lot of time to invest) only shows that you have some vendetta against WOW and its players and you really do not care to listen to reason and valid arguments.

So please, tell us how WOW is so easy now as compared to other games

Ok As for time Commited WoW takes very little as of WOTLK, you can walk in at 80 and be done clearing the raids in matter of days if you have good group, which was proven since they cleared everything on WOTLK the first 10 days. LOTR or any other RAID heavy mmo take much longer, they probably feel like they did something great at the end. I'm sure you will try to parse the arguement that somehow because it's hard for the unskilled that makes it just as balanced as other games.

I know wow is easy because I've been playing long enough to know better. I think when your maybe confusing casual with carebears. Most casuals even think the game is easy trying to say there just like you is unfair to them, give them more credit than that. I would wager by the sheer amount oif complaints over wow being too easy or bursty on the WoW forums that your one of the minority who still thinks the game is hard. That says alot since you think the game should cater to your lifestyle rather than the other 80% of wow trying to enjoy the game. But don't worry I think WoW is listening to you.

Trying to lump skill factor of WoW with other games as the same is not even beliveable. WoW is not top tier on pvp or pve. WoW caters on the lower end of the spectrum and it just gets worse.

Now you tell me what makes wow so hard for you? Now see I know that you can't because there is no way thats true, you'll do the typical rehash of wow subs numbers, or challenge based on skill level BS. But push comes to shove generally the only ones who think WoW is hard now were at best bench warmers pre WOTLK. I would wager WOTLK is the first expansion they ever even raided consistantly, or got an arena score above 1500. So one thing is certan WOTLK is the easiest expansion by far.

I also think your confusing playstyle with ability or basic reasoning. Playstyle is not what is holding you back Templarga, whats holding you back is that your bad, very bad at wow if you think it's hard. I don't have a vendetta against wow players, I have a vendetta against the weak players who want the game to coform to them and ruin the game for everyone else. Players like you aren't new Templarga, but your old enough to know that. You probably played on UO and were one of the first people to flee to Trammel. You were also probably very vocal, about how the game was just too hard for the " casual" player. That was also the killing blow to that game.

Difficulty is subjective to a subjective player. Players of low skill level have very little objective opinion, since they make up a large chunk of wow population, you have alot of bad opinions on game balance. WoW can't be lumped with other mmos for an average estimate, the EZ factor in wow is far and away higher than your normal mmo.

As for your valid arguments, you haven't given one yet, Faboi wow praise is not an argument . Using skewed logic based off hope is not an argument and nither is parsing the argument to create arguments that don't exist. There really is no debate to whether wow is easy or not to the Average player. It obvioulsy is. The valid arguments you mention I think only exist in your head, but never actually took place.

Lazarus71 · February 2009

Originally posted by Mwaji

Originally posted by templarga

Originally posted by Mwaji

WOTLK is both broken and easy at the same time. To say the game holds any challenge at this point would be absurd. Trying to reel in a casual base is ok to a point but now the game has degressed to a joke. Very simply if you think WoW is hard you are seriously lacking in higher brain function.