Comments on: [WoW] What goes up must come down: how easy is this patch exactly?

By: [Blizzard] Plan B in patch 4.3, and Diablo 3 trailer « Welcome to Spinksville!

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 10:46:51 +0000

[...] this week I asked readers how they had found the difficulty of WoW’s latest patch, 4.3. Thanks to everyone who responded! The main impression I get is that [...]

By: Nosnum

Nosnum — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:06:26 +0000

I stopped raiding completely right after FL came out, and ended up cancelling my account. I had some alts on my wife’s account that I would occasionally pop in on to PvP, and when 4.3 dropped I took the best geared of these into the new 5-mans. Cleared all 3 with no wipes and zero-prior knowledge of the fights. I have no axe to grind since I no longer play regularly, but they really did seem designed to simply hand out 378 gear. If you can grasp not standing in a blotch on the ground, and moving when a wall of gunk heads your way, then these can probably be cleared by a tank and 4 level 80′s. I like the environments, and I think they got the length right, but the difficulty level, or lack thereof, almost feels like they’ve just given up.

By: Darraxus

Darraxus — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:06:37 +0000

I have found the new Heroics very fun. I like being able to jump in and be done in 20-30 minutes. I dont have time to be slogging thru and instance for 1.5 hours.

By: Simon Jones who is blogless

Simon Jones who is blogless — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 02:16:15 +0000

Every time I here someone complain about the difficulty of the new 5′s, I also hear the echo of them complaining about the difficulty of Cataclysm early on, which I personally found pretty okay. I was also okay with with WotLK difficulty as well.

The issue with difficulty is that everyone wants it tailored so it’s just hard enough for them so they still feel leet but not hard enough so other people are more leet than them. It’s a similar logic that you see with things like people complaining about ten man raiding or the concept of LFG or attunements or what have you. People want it tailored to their own personal sweet spot. This isn’t going to happen and complaining that it’s too hard or too easy is just going to result in whatever comes next being too easy or too hard for you.

In all honesty? The new 5 mans are fine. They’re about as easy as the last tier of ICC 5′s, where some bits are hard if you don’t know the fights or aren’t able to grasp not standing in things.

LFR is, however, perhaps the greatest thing ever for someone who actually wants to see content but doesn’t want to have to put aside a special raid night and is something every other MMO should emulate. If Swotor is going to copy every other part of WoW, it better copy that.

By: Zellviren

Zellviren — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:16:17 +0000

It’s got nothing, whatsoever, to do with gear – the new heroics are laughably easy. This is an objective statement, because I’ve managed to clear all three with some pretty appalling DPS performances in the group.

In fact, several pulls were managed WITHOUT A TANK. This is what continued subscribers have to look forward to in Pandaria.

Enjoy.

By: Copernicus

Copernicus — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:49:07 +0000

While I enjoy the idea of using CC and interrupts, it seems that enough people feel it’s more fun just to run in and AoE everything down, that the ones that do try to CC when appropriate just get frustrated at the idiocy of the others. A chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link, and in a PuG there can be (and often are) several weak links. Having to overcome the adversity caused by your other group members is not the intended goal, I think.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that I’d rather use CC in a dungeon designed as an AoE fest, than AoE in a dungeon designed to use CC.

By: vlad

*vlad* — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:23:09 +0000

Having not bothered to enter either Zandalari on my Warlock alt (as I was sick of going there on my main to farm VPs), and having not even stepped inside Firelands, I still found the new ‘heroics’ to be completely lacking in challenge, despite only having 346 gear from old heroics, 359 Justice gear, and the odd 378 boe.
I think I did more interrupting with my Felhound than anyone else in those pug runs, and I was by no means bottom dps, yet we didn’t have a single wipe.

LFD being LFD, it was still full of idiots who are ready to abuse anyone who didn’t do exactly what is required (“Skip it, talk to ur dragon and press skip”, Yes ok, because I’d hate to waste a few seconds of your precious time by actually trying to enjoy the lore section, god forbid!). Still, 10 heroics later and I’m now ilvl 369, so I will soon be able to enter the LFD. Or maybe I just won’t bother. The good news about getting gear upgrades is it makes doing achievements solo a lot easier.

By: Robert Ramsay

Robert Ramsay — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:30:03 +0000

ah – apparently I have remembered the loot level incorrectly. Sorry about that.

By: smakendahed

smakendahed — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:17:58 +0000

Just show up to loot. Yay?

Bleh.

Blizzard would be better off creating a third tier of instance where you do need CC and it is challenging something more like what they have for raiding.

The most fun I had in the game was in the beginning of Cataclysm when you were breaking into the heroic instances while wearing blues.

But then I actually enjoy a challenge.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:00:54 +0000

Unless the best players are quitting out of boredom, they’ve made the game too hard. And this is true even with multiple difficulty levels.

I think they were shocked at how negative the reaction was to the increase in difficulty with Cataclysm, although they shouldn’t have been if they had been paying attention. Their marketing got it totally wrong somewhere. Well, that’s over now, and whatever that source (I suspect it was forum posts) that told them hard would be popular, it has now been recognized as biased and unreliable.

They will be paying attention to actual customer behavior, not loud voices complaining things aren’t hard enough for their leet skillz.