1581

They have faced that issue. And in Cata, it caused whining beyond belief - no one wants to PUG real heroics, because the general population is a bunch of clueless morons. But the term ‘heroic dungeon’ has been around for years, and has some level of connotation behind it. So they can’t just drop it and rename things. So, they add challenge modes. Something new, without the baggage of the word ‘heroic’, and thus without the expectation that PUGs should be able to face-roll it. Not an equipment gate, not ‘content that 90% of the population won’t see’, just pure e-peen achievement for those that choose to do it.

1582

That doesn’t really explain why people should be able to PUG (original and therefore hard) heroics? Unless it’s because players feel entitled to be able to participate in and complete all available content or something. All I know is, WotLK and Cata heroics felt easier than level 60 ‘normal’ dungeons. A lot easier!

1583

This is true however you cannot put the genie back in the bottle. It was possible and people would not cope/ did not cope with the changes. Hence the changes

1584

Because they’re part of gear progression, which is necessary to get to raiding, which is a major focus of the endgame and key to player retention. And Blizzard loses a lot more subscriptions than they gain by trying to cater to the tastes of the hardcore.

1585

Yeah, his level of distaste for MoP questing isn’t a rational response from anyone who has ever played WoW before. Questing in the new expansion is, at it’s worst, on the same level of previous expansions and some times far better. It’s also not going to change from what he’s experiencing now, so quitting is probably a good idea it it works him up that much. As to the “I’m a Warlock” talk, since when has that mattered in WoW? There hasn’t been a single expansion that has catered to individual classes or had branching quests or storylines based on what class you play. Why expect that now?

Say they did that, what would be different than the current situation? You still have the same exact content. They kept the name heroic because it’s a familiar term, and there are some dungeons that have lower level and 90th level versions, which means the 90th had to be called something.

As was mentioned, the gear level required for LFR, which is supposed to be able to be done by just about anyone, is gear from those dungeons. Making them impossible for the average person, or even hard enough to deter them, would defeat the point of making a LFR in the first place. It has nothing to do with entitlement, Blizzard actually wants people to experience all of the content, which is why they’ve put the challenge in places where people can still get it, while keeping out of way of people who just want to see the new stuff. There is plenty of challenge in MoP, if you feel like taking it on.

1586

All I have to say is: LOL. How dare these people who are paying $15/month expect to experience the content of the game!

And how dare Blizzard hate to create content that only the top 1% of players experience! I want to feel like a special snowflake and my experience is lessened when everyone else can do the same thing!

Go do challenge modes and heroic raids, which offer plenty of challenge, and dial back the elitism. It’s over, and you lost.

1587

Except you don’t need to do the heroics. A set of cheap pvp gear, bought gear, some gear from the points from the dailies, a weapon from the AoA scenario…heck, the scenarios generally and you’re good for LFR.

1588

Well, I know I would be a lot more hesitant to plunk down my monthly fee if there was an arbitrary leetness gate I was not welcome to cross. But from reading forum posts & tweets to GC, there does seem to be a significant contingent of WoW players who feel that expanded access diminishes their own hard-won experience.

I’m betting that if Blizz budgeted for raid asset production in proportion to the population that raided pre-LFR, there would be a hell of a lot less raid content and even more complaining from the epeeners.

EDIT: damn, Menzo said the same thing.

1589

Personally I would prefer to have “normal mode” dungeons getting you the gear you needed for LFR difficulty raiding, and “heroic mode” dungeons getting you the gear you need for group raiding, and this crazy new challenge mode being for the people who do “challenge raiding”.

That way everyone gets to see the same content, but you can play at the difficulty level that makes the game interesting for you.

I haven’t played since early/mid-Cata, but the fact that Pandaria dungeons apparently have “easy mode” and then a very difficult challenge mode doesn’t encourage me back.

1590

I believe this is more accurate.

1591

Yes, i think it does diminish the accomplishment of a well put together group of people on vent working through a hard dungeon if 4 idiots and an afk raider chatting on vent can do the same dungeon just as easily.

Of course these days i’m generally in LFG stuck with the 3-4 random idiots while I watch youtube on my 2nd monitor most of the time, so i mind it significantly less.

I do believe the extra rewards you get for a random dungeon through the LFG system encourage more… decent players to use it though so it isn’t as bad as I remember when i played last (when it was first introduced).

In any event, not all content is for everyone. After being exposed to it for many years, i’ve built up an extreme dislike for wow pvp, especially arenas. This means i will never get any of the pvp gear or other advantages.

1592

Get gold in all the Challenge Modes and then come tell us how awesome you are. Until then, less complaining about stuff that’s already been litigated. The people spoke, and elitists lost. Blizzard knows what drives their revenue, and exposing the most people to the most content wins.

1593

It’s not a hard dungeon if it can be done just as easily by a PUG. And if it can’t, PUGs will be nightmarish and people who don’t have an extensive, talented, and regularly available friends network will be left out in the cold. The “this isn’t challenging enough!” crowd tend to forget that it’s not about the individual player lacking the skill, it’s about the inability to guarantee a full group or raid that’s operating at a commensurate level.

And it’s true that not all content is for everyone, but there’s a difference between not doing something because you dislike it (I fucking hate PvP) and not doing something because you don’t have access or would have to essentially crawl across broken glass to get access to it.

1594

I don’t get this “PUGs will be nightmarish” thing. I pugged Cata heroics quite extensively and quite happily. It was fun because there was some measure of challenge. Most people knew what they were doing. If a group had someone who was really bad (especially if they were tank or healer) then yeah that group might fail, but this only happened occasionally. If every pug group always succeeds then the content is trivial - that’s pretty much the definition. Refusing to accept some possibility of failure is refusing to accept any level of challenge.

Now I guess it’s possible that most pug healers were absolutely terrible, and therefore since I almost always queued as healer I always had a good healer. It’s possible you don’t want to take on content at the heroic difficulty level. That’s absolutely fine. I agree that content should be available to you at the normal difficulty level. I don’t agree that there is not some acceptable level of challenge that makes pug interesting without making them miserable.

I would say the mistake in Cata was the way you were automatically funnelled into heroic group content; often too early in terms of gear and knowing the encounters; rather than the existence of that content itself. (Also there was a dearth of L85 normal content at release)

1595

I did normals during early Cata with an excellent tank friend of mine but the rest of the group was PUGged and they were pretty nightmarish. I said “fuck that” and quit when I hit the point where I would have needed to grind heroics. Because that’s the thing. Challenging is interesting once or twice. You’re not doing these dungeons once or twice. You’re doing them dozens of times to get geared.

(My experiences with PUGging ICC 25 in Wrath got painful pretty fast too. Lower Citadel, fine - sometimes we even got the achievements - but anything past that was simply not viable, and there was no hope of getting better because there wasn’t a consistent group -to- get better.)

1596

I don’t know who put the stick up your ass that has you overreacting so ridiculously, but it certainly wasn’t me.

Being difficult /=/ being elite, heroics to me were an optional way of tackling a higher challenge than 5mans without needing 15-25 to do raids. Me and 4 guildies/friends would knuckle down and spend a few hours trying to do one Heroic just to accomplish it - not because we wanted to be some kind of mythical 1% elite.

I did dungeons in WotLK and pugged almost entirely, all the way up to the hardest heroics and never found any real challenge - just people who never spoke, never communicated and frequently dropped out when whatever item they were looking for didn’t drop and they saw no point in continuing.

I don’t really see how that’s an improvement, but apparently that makes me an elitist asshole for liking optional content that’s difficult, challenging and requires teamwork, co-ordination and communication - and only offers very small and limited rewards as compared to normal content.

1597

That’s wrong. Most of the stuff you listed is gear level 450 (pvp, bought, AoA weapon), you need a minimum of 460 to do the first lfr. Scenarios offer 460 gear, and while I had incredible luck gearing one character through them most people rarely see the items they need and getting a full set would take a while. As for rep grinding for gear to do LFR, good luck with that. One piece of gear every couple of weeks will get you LRF ready in about 6 months.

They have normal mode and heroic mode, just like they always have. Only now it’s called heroic and challenge. Making a third tier would be a complete waste of time.

If you have a well put together group with people working hard on vent and you want a challenge that’s what challenge mode dungeons are for. Having heroics doable by your average pug only diminishes your accomplishment if you aren’t nearly as leet as you think you are. The real leet players don’t care about heroics, because they are doing the actual hard stuff.

That’s what challenge modes do, so what’s the problem?

1598

I don’t see how a timed mode putting you within three broad rankings is comparable to a significantly harder in every possible way dungeon. Sure, there’s a challenge involved, but it isn’t the same one in any way.

Also, how is the old heroic now challenge? I’m told challenge isn’t more difficult, it’s just timed. I’m also told the rewards are cosmetic whereas heroic offered upgrades to normal gear.

1599

Heroics haven’t ever been optional for progression as far as I know. Certainly not since Wrath.

1600

Oh no, it was awful.