Draztal ends the "WoW is too easy now" argument in a long and beautiful post
It began with this "even though there is normal and heroic mode i dont see the challange there if it gets beaten in 48 hours" on a forum post. It ended with this: "In the end, what's important is what you experience. If someone else beats Throne of Thunder Normal in 48 hours... good for them, your experience is still intact. TLDR: Don't be lazy. Read the post."
If you are going to read one blue post this year, make it this one. Forget about the eventual blue posts concerning the next expansion, forget about the wit and sass that Ghostcrawler and Zarhym can throw out. Yes, even forget about the amazing sweaters Bashiok and Nethaera wear for Christmas and makes a blog post about. This is the blue post you want to read.
It's an argument we all hear way too often. "WoW is so much easier now, the content is cleared in 48 hours." While the facts behind statements like these are usually entirely wrong (it is here too -- Throne of Thunder hasn't been cleared on Heroic yet, despite guilds working around the clock to do so), the sentiment and perception remains somewhat true in the eyes of the beholder. WoW used to be more difficult, more challenging; but now it's just a joke because of the QQCasuals.
Draztal makes a great long reply to this, outlining just what's changed in the past eight years to lead to this perception, and why things actually are not harder than they are. It's possible to sum it up by just saying that there are a vastly large number of resources for players now, and that the difficulty of raids and progression has been switched into three tiers instead of one. It's now possible to enjoy the game however you want, not just being stuck into one (what ended up to be) insanely difficult progression path.
But really, we agree with Draztal. Don't go for the TL;DR version. Don't be lazy. Read the post.
After the break.
- i have never said that vanilla was good, i just said it had hard raid content indeed because of the fact that people didnt have aoe healing or anything but whatever the conditions were, it was hard
The difficulty of Vanilla didn't really rely on DPS timers or complicated strategies, though (at least not as a norm, those definitely existed back then as well). Patchwerk was a tight DPS check in Naxxramas. Four Horsemen did have a strict tank requirement to be met. And some other bosses had gear resistance requirements.
However, what made it hard wasn't the actual boss in many cases, but the fact the only way to access those was by going through a rather lengthy tier route:
Tier 0.5: Zul'Gurub
Tier 1: Molten Core (except Ragnaros)
Tier 1.5: Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj
Tier 2: Onyxia, Blackwing Lair, Ragnaros
Tier 2.5: Temple of Ahn'Qiraj
Tier 3: Naxxramas
Of all these, Zul'Gurub and Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj could be ignored to some degree, but all the others were mandatory in order to get into the next step, with some overlapping though. (You might be able to take down Anub'rekhan in Naxxramas while still working on C'Thun in Temple of Ahn'Qiraj).
- even though there is normal and heroic mode i dont see the challange there if it gets beaten in 48 hours
What could you possibly do now that people that aren't you have cleared Throne of Thunder in normal mode? (at the time of writing this post, the most progressed guild in the world is 11/13 Heroic)
In all seriousness, it's not even possible to compare this to the old days. Meaning, there wasn't a Heroic mode of which you could get enough gear to overgear the Normal mode raid of the upcoming raid tier (which happens to some degree these days), and the availability of online resources and general knowledge of the game inside the community has increased a thousand fold. These days you can find anything on the internet, from guides to optimize your gear to perfection (Ask Mr Robot) to guides for your bosses (Tankspot, Icy-Veins) to tips and hints about your best rotation, glyphs and talents (Max DPS). And of course, very complete Item/Spell/Quests DBs (WoWHead, WoWDB).
And not just for raiding, for Fishing (El's Extreme Anglin') making gold/using the AH (Elvine) and of course pets and pet battles (Warcraft Pets, Petopia).
Sites that follow what's going around the WoW scene and latest updates. (WoW Insider, MMO-Champion)
Oh, and comics. Those won't make you improve but will make you realize how big this community actually is and probably make you laugh as well (The Daily Blink, Dark Legacy Comics, Teh Gladiators).
And this is just scratching the surface. Really.
I didn't mention language specific fansites (there's a ton of them, and some are super popular in their languages), specialized fansites that focus on particular classes or aspects of the game, blogs, artists, addon developers and so much more. The Warcraft community is immense.
And of course, that huge size has also its impact on how much, how good and how quickly the information about raids flies around. So, you can't just pin it down to "the raids must be easier because now they are way easier" and call it a day, because the thing is, World of Warcraft is a very different game than 8 years ago. But the community? The community is always getting better and better (and bigger!). So, in my humble opinion, rather than arguing it's because the game now is easier (it isn't there's a Heroic mode where guilds are facing some of the most challenging bosses ever released on this game) we should give a shout to all those guys, known and yet-to-be-known that are enriching the community.
i would just like to see a extreme boost for all dungeons and raids even on normall mode, the casuals of today are not skilled in any way shape or form they are just wacking on a boss and it falls down, even casual players can live up to higher standards, thats why they need to boost everything
You'll probably be able to find very skilled casual players. But on a tool used to create groups randomly, it's unlikely they'll be able to coordinate together (they don't know each other, they might miss communication tools, or not even be there yet in terms of game knowledge to tackle harder bosses). Those players, if they wish to, and can, are more than welcome to experience the raids on normal and Heroic.
The challenge is there. It's up to you to decide how much of it you want, but I honestly don't think it's fair to say the game has gotten easier without having experienced the most difficult content available in-game and at the same time using as proof what someone else on the internet has done.
In the end, what's important is what you experience. If someone else beats Throne of Thunder Normal in 48 hours... good for them, your experience is still intact :-)
TLDR: Don't be lazy. Read the post.
