Blizzard: 'Changing mechanics to be more reasonable and less punishing is an improvement'

@j1083 I must agree.

@j1083

Dungeons being something you can't do while practically afk does not mean they are inaccessible. 5-mans are pretty easy if people know how to play the game and use the skills available to them.

the problem is while blizzard has allowed the game to be played at many skill levels and allow people to advance as far as they want. People still suck and can't play to save their life.

@rhorle

"Dungeons being something you can't do while practically afk does not mean they are inaccessible. 5-mans are pretty easy if people know how to play the game and use the skills available to them."

ie, if they're the hardcore type player who is already geared up and/or knows the instance like the back of his hands. For normal players, on the other hand...

@rhorle THIS!

One reason I stopped playing was all the QQ about how hard cataclysm was. It isn't hard at all. Not when it takes 2-3 days to level 80-85 and the dungeons are just about paying attention.

WotLK was a joke IMO. Dungeons were so easy that I'd concentrate more on vent conversations than healing or tanking and still end up with no wipes.

WoW is dying of a thousand cuts and has been since TBC.

@The Ogre

You seem to be the type that thinks simply knowing how to play the game is the difference between hardcore and not hardcore. Casual people can and do perfectly fine in heroics in cataclysm. Stupidity and skill are both qualities that can happen with hardcore or casual labels.

@j1083
I agree, and that was more-or-less why I moved on to other things and left Cataclysm behind.

That, and WoW's community made grouping for new players one of the most awful online experiences I've ever had.

@sortius

It wasn't hard, but it wasn't fun either.

I enjoyed being able to play with a wider variety of people and concentrating a lot less a lot more than I did having to get my serious face on and get to business just to play a game, all the while having my potential party pool reduce exponentially all in the name of "challenge."

@sortius Dying and yet still managing to increase its subscriber base. That's quite some feat.

@(Unverified) subscriber base is no indication of a good game. Just look at Modern Warfare 2 or Farmville. You're basing your opinion on a fallacy.

@sortius

I see this all the time. I played WoW for 4 years and by far, TBC TK 5-mans were my most favorite content. The issue is, and one of the better rants on the Blue Plz podcast, that Blizzard fails to set reasonable expectations for the playerbase. They engineer the laziness and then everyone's disappointed when the playerbase demands content be easier, rather than learning to play better.

Right now, I'm playing Rift and the more I play, the more disappointed I am by people in general. There's really on two requirements to progress in the game. Gear correctly and be able to focus for 5-7 minutes at a time. Many people fail one or both of these on a pretty consistent basis.

@j1083

El Oh El.

Wotlk was so stupidly easy, it was nothing short of terribly pathetic. Cataclysm started out with a lot of promise. The whole reason I went back to try it at Cata's release was because of the number of complaints flooding the forums that the content was "too hard". I was excited, and for a little while, it was fun. Unfortunately, once it came to raids, the difficulty didn't effectively scale with the increased number of players up from 5-man heroics...

And then of course, thanks to the "casuals" or as I call them "noobs who should play RPGs and leave MMOs for large groups of players who want a challenge that takes a large group in coordination to succeed", Blizzard decided to take another round of dumps all over their original fanbase, you know, gamers. Now they're buffing AoE across the board something like 70% on average, recycling some more content (oh shock, that hasn't happened before), and just making things easier and easier until we surpass the idiocy that was Wrath of the Laughable King - which seems like it's just around the bend, now.

Some of my friends still play it, and sometimes I feel like I should go back to play with them - but even close friendships of 10+ years and my own significant other aren't enough to make me shell out 15 bucks just to, hours later when I'm level capped and bored at the complete lack of challenge, wonder why the hell I reactivated.

The game is terrible, sad, and its formula is so tired it's a wonder they are still able to thrive. I chalk it up to the same reason Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys made their millions: People are stupid and easily entertained. Glad I don't fit into the category of people who can find enjoyment in such a ridiculously easy game, because then I'd be concerned that if someone threw a ball in my general direction, I'd uncontrollably drop to all fours and trot after it in a flurry of slack-jawed drooling excitement.

@j1083

WotLK turned World of Warcraft into Wii of Worldcraft. Taking a step back from that isn't a bad thing.

@NeverDeath

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy playing games with people who may not be up to the "challenge," but have better social skills than composing multi-paragraph odes to denigrating those of differing opinion. To each their own.

It's big Hypocrisy on the devs' part.

They spent MONTHS yapping about how they were making the game "harder" for the sake of the handful elitists that had been QQing for years and now that they're losing a nice chunk of their subscription (Yes, Cataclysm is considered a failure by blizzard, heads have already rolled) we get a blue post about how "Well we were really trying to make it more accessible".

I call bullshit.

@NeverDeath
Did Blizzard shit in your breakfast? Every WoW thread on massively has you crying about how bad it is. Something has got to be good about it if 15M+ people play it over the few 10ks that play the other underground free-to-play MMOs.

@slash beast

Agreed, but Blizzard is still obviously in damage-control mode about it (that's been going on since Cata launched in early December).

@slash beast

You would know thats just bollocks if you ever tried to tank a cata heroic.