This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Standard Complaint #1: This game is too easy QQStandard Answer #1: Kill Lich King on Heroic 25 difficulty, and then we can sit down.Just because they took the "grind" out of WoW doesn't mean the game is easy. 90% of the people !@#$%ing about how easy the game is haven't even FACED the LK on 25 man NORMAL, let alone Heroic. Have you killed Algalon? Did you do Alone in the Dark pre nerf? Hell, did you even kill Yogg pre nerf? Quit complaining until you have steamrolled the content.
...Ok, this blog has got to be the worst I have ever read on this site.People have been arguing ad nauseum about the "hardcore vs. casual" mandate for what seems like years now and you choose to refresh it via an invalidated opinion piece about how the game should, "go back to the way it was", furthermore adding nothing new whatsoever to the debate.I'm speaking from a design perspective rather than a market appeal ideal; it's just simply not a good idea. There are games out there with more depth than WoW, go play them.WoW is a game, not a job.
I think the people who actually got screwed here are the middle of the road raiders. Everyone likes to label people as 1 of 2 things, hardcore or casual, when really there are many shades of grey here. The people who have downed alg/yogg0, or Anub heroic, or Lich 25 aren't going to be the ones complaing about it being too easy, because those fights AREN'T easy. However, Normal ToC, first half of Uld, first half of ICC of course are all pretty darn easy. Most all of the hard core raiders are very happy with the hard mode system, and the casuals are very happy with the normal mode system. Its not that they've made the content easier - they've spread it out so there's really a lot less middle group - and that really alienates the semi-hardcore raiders, the ones who WILL clear all of ICC 25 normal, but won't get very far into hard modes, I think that's the kind of raider that Blizz will need to address in Cataclysm, because there are more of the averages than pure hardcores and pure casuals combined. Someone made a post about Normal and Heroic modes, and adding a Champion mode - I think that is on track on what Blizz should think about for catering to the average raiders as well.
WoW doesn't quite cater to casuals as much as some folks think... We're all guilty of thinking that at one point or another, but really that feeling stems from nostalgia and nothing more. In truth, it's not that the game is easier, it's that the things that used to be somewhat mysterious and hard to find info on, are now pretty commonplace and are basically household knowledge. Also many of these same things (defense rating, crit rating, etc) have been changed and honed into their current states where they are more manageable and easier to understand.Further, as players, we have crunched a lot of numbers and tried a lot of different twists on the tools blizz has given us, and through theorycrafters putting their heads together on community sites such as wowhead or EJ, we've more or less conquered the learning curve, to the point where anyone who doesn't know these things is considered by many to be a noob. Once you've gotten down how every little mechanic works, things are bound to feel easy, and they should!So at that point we're left with taking our knowledge and putting it up against that which blizz has designed for us... which really isn't all that easy, still. Overgeared and very competent group, sure you'll roflstomp heroics...hell, I was blowing through northrend in t6 waiting to find an actual upgrade when wotlk came out. But really, how easy is this current stuff compared to x instance in the old days? Did you consider 'well we can't do x instance because we can't find a rogue', or 'I wish my guild could clear BT but we don't have a warlock' hard? That wasn't hard, that was just a pain in the ass.Today, if an at-instance-level group screws up, it's still a wipe. DPS not on Anomalus' rifts? Your heals will probably go OOM and you'll die. Everyone standing there soaking Keristasza's DoT? You wiped. Try chain-pulling and AoE'ing everything down while your entire group is in questing blues/greens? You won't make it. Hell, running my lock in groups of 5.5k+ gearscore I still see people get annihilated on the uphill trash packs after Ick in Pit of Saron. And like many others have said...unless you've got a gladiator's frost wyrm, all hard mode achieves and sitting in full sanctified, you really can't call it easy, because you haven't done it all. Blood Queen on normal mode is a brick wall for many of the very same people that claim ICC is just so easy. Why? Because it requires some coordination and foresight, which while for many is not too big a deal, most casuals will never get past that boss because it requires the same flavor of coordination that used to be repeated in basically every vanilla raid, as well as most TBC raids.The ease of getting gear today might seem like it caters to casuals, but it's not. Sure everyone benefits, casuals included, but the driving force behind emblem gear is to keep those that want to raid, able to. Without up-to-par emblem gear, all raid guilds would be doomed to die. Think about it; a new recruit would have to farm heroics to get up to naxx10. Then they'd farm naxx10 to get up to 25, then either bypass EoE or farm it on 10 until they got up to Ulduar10. Then Uld10 to 25, then ToC10 then ToC25 then finally ICC10. You're looking at months' worth of gearing, assuming you get very lucky with drops, just to be able to set foot in current content. Emblem gear keeps the endgame alive without making it a headache.Sure there's been a few missed opportunities here and there, in terms of Blizzard not making a certain thing 'feel more epic' than it should have been. Like that the LK got wasted like a few hours after he was released... I've not downed LK yet but even still that does leave me feeling kind of meh. But that was bound to happen with progression-hungry people eating content as fast as it's released, and for the most part they've done a pretty damn fine job of making the game still complex and hard for those that want it, while making it accessible and fun for those that just want stuff to do in their free time, and just as rewarding for both.