For a game who is 20 years old and people grow up with it, it’s easier cause now the majority of players have less time (but more money) to spend on it.
When people have less to spend in game it’s better to do it on end game rather in the start.
I don’t think game difficulty has anything to do with how fun a game is, unless you’re looking for a soulslike. I’ve played lots of games with 0 difficulties, some of them where you couldn’t even die for instance, yet they were fun and engaging.
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To me it looks like the game got harder and harder with every expansion.
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I like it just fine.
In classic leveling was a bit ““harder”” because mathematically you are unlikely to survive multiple mobs unless you have some kiting utility (mages), bosses however are not very difficult in group settings.
Retail flips it around, the open world is so trivial that it feels like you’re playing an action game with a godmode cheat on which makes the whole experience boring but the Endgame difficulty is way above what classic could ever offer even probably in SoD
Its a really weird situation imo
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Player power has been increased in order to deal with ever increasing NPC mechanics in dungeons and raids. However, low level content has never been adapted to the change and now you just kill everything without any challenge whatsoever. It’s only when you hit the endgame that you will notice the increase in difficulty.
I think this is an incredibly bad design, as the leveling process promotes lazy and bad gameplay, while the endgame demands you to stay on top of your class/spec in order to succeed. People get used to easy mode until they get into M+ and suddenly hit a brick wall because they have never been taught to actually “git gud” by the game.
But yeah, endgame difficulty in Classic and retail are just two different games entirely. Classic is so easy that people cleared MC at level 58 with questing greens.
Exactly.
The leveling experience should actually work as a long tutorial where people learn the most common boss mechanics. First one by one and then by combining them. Until you reach endgame and you need to apply most, if not all all, of what you learned…
This will feel more rewarding and less hostile to all new players. It’s relaxing videogame tutorial 101 stuff.
I think the gameplay is braindead and tedious.
It’s a complete snoozefest as you clobber one generic auto-attacking mob after the other, cycling through the same plethora of damage-dealing buttons as always, without much of a worry or care.
It’s only the higher echelons of progression content that feels engaging and challenging, albeit in a static and group-dependent manner.
All the solo content and most of the group content is trivial gameplay that is purely a time-consuming activity that gates the reward or story you’re doing it for.
It may as well be an auto battler for all the engagement it provides.
The fact that bots can succeed at most of these plain gameplay activities speaks volumes about the game design Blizzard have constructed. Whack-a-mole with flavor.
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A game 20 years old must cater all the type of gamers.
I miss too the sense of danger i had in darkshire back in time in 2007 but now… devs are more focused to maintain game alive giving prizes via shop than create a sense of accomplishment.
Im not so negative like Jito but i think he nailed the point speaking about gameplay Braindead. Maybe not so tedious. But braindead? yes.
Because despite what you might think, levelling i classic wasnt hard… it was tedious and very slow…
Now its tedious and fast…
And the new generation of players dont like anything where they might fail in any way shape or form
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Because WOW had transformed into a game for toddlers.
it was hard because we never knew how to play. Now with all the tips, tricks and videos and infos is really simple. just long and boring.
There is such a wide range of capabilities that make tuning the core game almost impossible. There is player skill, there is class / spec, there is computer / network power.
A blood DK can AOE half a zone while a clothie might just about handle 2 or 3 mobs if handled correctly.
Some players will be running a 9 year old laptop with the settings on Low and other on a new gaming rig set to Ultra.
Some players will be 24 with keen eyes and sharp reflexes and some will be 55 with poor vision or joint pains.
There is plenty of challenge in game if you seek it out but it’s not forced on players. Those willing and able to do M+23s can crack on with that, I can’t even do a M+3.
The game grew to its height of players in Wrath when it drastically reduced a lot of difficulty. This led to a lot of complaints about Wrath Babies who didn’t understand that the game was now way too easy, so the OP’s complaints have been made since at least Wrath.
Classic was only hard because there was no strategy guide for raids and we played the game on a fridge.
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Do you realize its 20y old content and retail raids are literaly cleared 2h after new patch hits live game.
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No classic was and still is hard becouse game isnt undertooned for casuals to have participation trophes. You actualy have to be engaged in gameplay and think about how you gonna aproach different situations instead of just zugzug pull entire room of mobs ane aoe everything down without your mana or hp goes below 90%.
Mythic raiding is actually hard. Is was always about gearing up and not strategy. Just watch a random Ragnaros fight. No one moves while the frost mages do their damage.
No it was tedious and slow becouse it was hard.
You are exctly that type of player what consider something veing hard based on amounth of eifferent gameplay mechanics. Too bad becouse thats not what define difficutly.
Raszageth LFR is harder than anything I’ve had to do in any Classic so far.
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This topic isnt mythic raids. Its about baseline difficulty specialy during leveling. And this difficutly is joke on retail. Yeah you can do harder content later but guess what you alredy burned that content in easy mod so higher difficulty is not new content you just hop on pointless treadmill.
If mythic raids would be only difficulty in the game then yes. But at this point higher difficulty levels are just meaningless treadmill.
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