World of Warcraft®

My main gripe with the 'skill level' of this game is that it moved - and keeps moving - more and more from an RPG typical brain centered skill requirement towards a hand-eye coordination skill requirement usually associated with console games.

No. vanilla ended with 2, and TBc ended with 5, and WOTLk ended with tops 10-11.

Not according to

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2007/07/25/world_of_warcraft_has_9_million_subscribers/1

http://wow.joystiq.com/2007/01/11/wow-passes-8-million-subscribers/

and about thousands of other sources.

I would have linked you to the official press release but it seems it disappeared with Worldofwarcraft.com.

22/01/2013 12:07Posted by Draztal

Because facerolling through a videogame is fun. No it is not.

For some people it is. Some people only want some mindless fun. Something they can do to relax rather than having to set their mind on overcoming a virtual challenge. That's one of the many reasons why invoking majorities in online discussions just doesn't work.

We all have our own reason to do what we do. Some want to test themselves and improve their skill, some just want to relax and have some fun time with their friends. Some don't even know what the concept of hardcore and casual gaming mean, let alone "skill" or "competitiveness" in something they may not even consider a hobby.

If you just want to relieve some stress there is plenty other things to do. If you just want to relieve some stress then why do you go do something ingame that is too hard for you? WHY DON'T YOU JUST STICK TO LFR and let others enjoy the game?

You can't really asky others to not enjoy the game so you can enjoy your own vision of the game. Neither option is right. Sure, there are areas of the game specifically tailored to a particular group of players (Heroic Raids are better fit for the hardcore crowd), but that shouldn't stop you from trying something different and find out if it's fun or not for you.

And YES it are the unskilled losers who ask for nerfs. Deal with it.
This game is not stressfull, it's not rocketscience, it's piss easy. But for the 'majority' it is stressfull to do heroic raids or challenge modes or even normal mode? I wonder what is challenging in your real life if WoW is already too hard for you.

There you go, the "unskilled losers" ask for nerfs. That's a not very nice way of putting an etiquette over a group of players that may have difficulties overcoming a challenge in the game. There's no real reason why you should go out of your way to also say that then real life for those players must be incredibly difficult. We get it, you consider yourself a very skilled player in World of Warcraft, that's great.

But in a game with as many players as World of Warcraft has, you have to realize that people come from very different backgrounds, some have been playing games for years, some are just starting to discover this world... Therefore, they have different expectations of how they would like to enjoy the content.

Of course, it may look selfish to ask for nerfs if you can overcome the content at its current difficulty, but, isn't it equally selfish to deny others content just because they don't have your skill?

Just because someone doesn't have the skill to complete an encounter should in no way suggest that they content should be nerfed just so they can do the content. They can either learn to do better or they can enjoy the content whenever the next patch/expansion comes out that leaves them overpowered enough to faceroll the content.

There's no need to degrade the encounter just because some people refuse to better their skill set.

I may be wrong but I find it incredibly hard to imagine that there is a boss in the game that is absolutely insurmountable to even a casual player.

ok, checking my sources, to dodge the false memory effect I may have.

*November 23, 2004 - World of Warcraft Launches in North America
* February 11, 2005 - World of Warcraft Launches in Europe.
* Feb. 12, 2005, Azryel makes 1st character!

* June 14, 2005 - World of Warcraft hits 2 million subscribers.
* July 21, 2005 - World of Warcraftgains 1.5 million paying customers from China, totalling 3.5 million
* December 19, 2005 - World of Warcraft reaches 5 million subscribers.
* early 2006, the game hit more than 1 million mil subs in EU.
* March 1, 2006 - 6+ million
*January 11, 2007 - World of Warcraft reaches 8 million subscribers.

(side note : I indeed recalled wrong, the 2 mil was regional subs. My apologies)

* January 16, 2007 : The Burning Crusade
-March 7, 2007 - Burning Crusade sales hit 3.5 million
-July 24, 2007 - 9 + million subscribers.
-January 22, 2008 - 10 mil.
-October 28, 2008 - 11 mil.

** Wrath of the Lich King launches in North America and Europe.
-November 20, 2008 - Wrath of the Lich King beats Burning Crusade's sales records, selling 2.8 million units on day one. (note that Asian market does not get wotlk at that time ! )

-July 7, 2009 - Players in China temporarily lose access to the game.
-August 6, 2009 - Government censorship hits World of Warcraft in China. This does have impact, when we compare popularity.
-October 7, 2010 - World of Warcraft hits 12 million worldwide subscribers.

-August 28, 2010 - Wrath of the Lich King announced for China.

-December 7, 2010 - Cataclysm launches in North America and Europe. Cataclysm sells 3.3 million in one day.

-August 3, 2011 - Subscriptions decline to 11.1 million.
-November 8, 2011 - World of Warcraft loses another 800,000 subs.

Mists of Pandaria, September 25, 2012.
- still over 10 million subscribers as of October 2012

Number stolen by article by Eric Caoili as well Wikipedia, and I could also dig up the quartely memo's, but aint time for that now.

So actually we cannot say at all that TBC made game popular is it is now. As WOTLK continued the raise without Asia. I believe that without WOTLK the game would have lost subs more than gained. In fact TBC the growth was smaller. Since it was THE vanilla hype that set the grounds and claiming as if TBC's model contributed to popularity is false. Also vanilla novelty would have worn off eventually. And I very much doubt that we'd like the vanilla ways now. I have been here from Vanilla and I miss those days, but times change.

And now I have completed my wow-history citation and end it with my comment that people should not glorify TBC. The playing model aimed only to the top with grindy (and "skilled") content was not working THAT well afterall.

I feel old now :(

22/01/2013 13:32Posted by Draztal

The will to persevere and continue battling a foe that feels like an unavoidable obstacle is actually not as common as you may think among gamers (otherwise, why would we even have difficulty settings in most games anyways? :P)

One word:

Vaelastrasz.

@Björnkram

*formated wall of text*

Thanks, this helped me a lot.

^
Kudos.

The will to persevere and continue battling a foe that feels like an unavoidable obstacle is actually not as common as you may think among gamers (otherwise, why would we even have difficulty settings in most games anyways? :P)

One word:

Vaelastrasz.

He was called also Vael the Guild Breaker - which only confirms what blue says ... Being the 1st boss ever named like this. Next boss that earned the title was Mu'Ru (we could argue about 4 HM too, but we do not know since most people never set foot on nax 40, as C'thun cut them off already ... months before). Apparently people do not heabang infinitely afterall ?

22/01/2013 13:45Posted by Azryel

Apparently people do not heabang infinitely afterall ?

My point is that Blizzard did not nerf the encounter and a lot of guilds managed to beat him.
Brutallus was also more of a cockblock than M'uru for most guilds and extremely similar to Vael/Patchwerk in design.

Apparently people do not heabang infinitely afterall ?

My point is that Blizzard did not nerf the encounter and a lot of guilds managed to beat him.
Brutallus was also more of a cockblock than M'uru for most guilds and extremely similar to Vael/Patchwerk in design.

Oh, ok. But are you sure about the nerfs ? 1st got hotfixes left and right and 2nd was nerfed via SWP radiance or what it's called. It's been a while since vanilla and TBC and MU'ru got so many nerfs via the zone nerf as well singular nerfs.

And of course Brutallus was more of cockblock than muru since to get to mu'ru you had to kill also twins and we all know how hard is moving out from raid with debuff and using some fine ballet tactics with positions. People wiping on brutallus and mu'ru were not the same. There was strong skill cap inbetween. It's like saying people wiping on Sha and ambershaper have same skill.

And coming back to popularity and skill... how many raid guilds were in vanilla/TBC and how many by ICC ? Blizzard is still a business and their aim is to make money and TBC "skill" based gaming was not profitable, was expensive to make and too little were able to enjoy it.

Oh, ok. But are you sure about the nerfs ? 1st get hotfixes left and right and 2nd was nerfed via SWP radiance or what it's called. It's been a while since vanilla and TBC :>

If I remember correctly the only hotfix to Vael were for a respawn issue, also I believe Sunwell Radiance was a band aid fix to reduce avoidance of the tanks.
The only nerfs to Sunwell came way later when they nerfed the HP of all raid bosses by 30%.

22/01/2013 14:04Posted by Fyria

Oh, ok. But are you sure about the nerfs ? 1st get hotfixes left and right and 2nd was nerfed via SWP radiance or what it's called. It's been a while since vanilla and TBC :>

If I remember correctly the only hotfix to Vael were for a respawn issue, also I believe Sunwell Radiance was a band aid fix to reduce avoidance of the tanks.
The only nerfs to Sunwell came way later when they nerfed the HP of all raid bosses by 30%.

I must admit - cannot recall vanilla fixes accurately. And I will not argue that. But I am convinced that splitting game to mainstream and hardcore is giving them more popularity. However question is where goes the border of nerfs and buffs ? As i said I believe wotlk model is the best raiding model and HC modes should be left well balanced and un-nerfed.

So I kind of not sure I can agree with OP. But I surely would scream, when they actually start nerfing T14 content.

22/01/2013 13:32Posted by Draztal

The will to persevere and continue battling a foe that feels like an unavoidable obstacle is actually not as common as you may think among gamers (otherwise, why would we even have difficulty settings in most games anyways? :P)

I remember when my guild were stuck in DS because our core members starting to disappear. We had to take in some friendranked ones who are pretty chilled out. Our raidleader is very good and usually always Hold hands when it comes to raiding =p I really appriciate nerfs after a while, we want to clear the whole expansion for a boss, its fun to raid I love it.

This tier we're atm pressing on, had alot of people getting bored of raiding again and leaving, really stopped our progress, but when ppl stopped leaving and we took in some more casual players if you want to say that, we are starting to actually kill things again. That motivates players to continue. If we hit a stoneblock now with for example 2 hc bosses left, sha of fear would be one, I am actually more then happy to welcome nerfs.

Your progressive nerf is a better tactic (then the big 30% nerf in tbc content), For those big guilds to overcome the last step to be finished, and for those small guilds to kill their boss to be motivated again. I know the feeling smashing away on a boss for ages isn't fun, playing with friends is awesome, but every person cannot be good in the game as you can. In tier 11 I was playing with more casual people, didn't even kill nefarian normal, nor al'akir normal. We even had trouble with atramedes. when they were on holiday we oneshot atramedes. But I still miss playing with them. Being able to see them get happy over killing a hard boss for them is just joy!! The relieving sighs of them overcoming a challenge (and not having to progress on a very simple boss that is just not standing in fire basically) was mighty overwhelming.

I find it funny that so many hardcore players dislike nerfs so much. Don't you remember M'uru, that only a few guilds could kill? don't you remember the months of wiping you did on him? the frustration you had after your 200'th wipe. I never did M'uru (and glad I didn't), but my gm did in my current guild. Hard bosses break even a good guild yo! But just don't overdo nerfs like 30% immediatly ;_; That takes away the challenge for most of the community in one sweep :(.

One thing to note, this is my personal opinion, this is something coming from me. I am not telling how hardcore players are, or how they think, nor am I saying the same about casual ones. All I am doing is sharing my view of things in this thread.

Sunwell Radiance was a buff to all NPC`s and bosses, the exact oposite of say the DS nerf.
This was because the tanks where getting close to unhittable and that would have caused the bosses in sunwell to cry out for player nerfs.

I find it funny that so many hardcore players dislike nerfs so much. Don't you remember M'uru, that only a few guilds could kill? don't you remember the months of wiping you did on him? the frustration you had after your 200'th wipe. I never did M'uru (and glad I didn't), but my gm did in my current guild. Hard bosses break even a good guild yo! But just don't overdo nerfs like 30% immediatly ;_; That takes away the challenge for most of the community in one sweep :(.

I was wiping on muru 6 weeks straight from half day to night and it eventually killed my guild where some moved on to bigger and better guilds. But see the raiding is not same anymore. Then only way to kill and see kil'jaedan was to kill muru. The only way to peek behind the next door was to walk trough the previous door.

Now you do know how sha of fear looks like ! You do not need to wipe 6 weeks on lei-shi to know how sha of fear looks like. You are not going to break your guild same way as Mu'ru did. Now you can gear up completing the easier version of bosses and overcome the obstacles and feel as if you have achieved something regardless. Nerfing HC modes would remove the very need and essence of the term 'heroic mode'. I have cleared 16 normal bosses in T14, I have cleared 9 HC bosses /would be more, but thats another story and is too specific about 10 vs 25 raid model/ and I've seen the content and I am playing now to see if I have that what it takes to improve and get all 16 on HC.

On SWP I had no such option to raid sunwell if I was not quite prepared for Mu'Ru or Brutallus. Heck in TBC there wasn't even content to do outside raiding... if grinding 10000 reps to access hc dungeons was content. Guess what daily quests were limited to 10, and you still needed to get the rep rewards if you wanted to start and improve on raiding.

Because facerolling through a videogame is fun. No it is not.

I don't understand why, if you just want to relieve some stress and not have a hard time, you started playing WoW which, OBVIOUSLY, gets progressively harder.
If you just want to relieve some stress there is plenty other things to do. If you just want to relieve some stress then why do you go do something ingame that is too hard for you? WHY DON'T YOU JUST STICK TO LFR and let others enjoy the game?

And YES it are the unskilled losers who ask for nerfs. Deal with it.
This game is not stressfull, it's not rocketscience, it's piss easy. But for the 'majority' it is stressfull to do heroic raids or challenge modes or even normal mode? I wonder what is challenging in your real life if WoW is already too hard for you.

The OP is completely right.
Challenge modes are really not that hard. They are somewhat similar to TBC heroics. But the ONLY reason why people think it is hard is because everyone is used to this piss easy joke of a content. Everyone can do challenge modes. Some only take a little longer to get used to them and figure things out. It's a game and not some very hard study like some people want to make it out to be. You press your interrupt button and silence, it's not a brickwall.

The problem is that you are taking something that YOU dont find fun, and imposing this on others. The fact that you - and many others don't find something fun doesn't mean that it isn't fun for others. I think it is fairly obvious from what people say that there ARE those that find face-rolling through a game fun. There are a lot of things people do in RL that could be considered face-rolling. Watching TV is hardly challenging yet millions of people spend hours and hours glued to the screen.

Wanting a challenge is great, but don't assume that everyone wants a challenge. Some simply dont.

@OP

I just want to enlighten you that there probably is thousands of people, who comes home from work, exhausted both physically and psycially.

Mabey they can't bother to be an alert and active player, mabey the just want to chill.
You know slaying some pigs in the forest and loot them.

They don't have any needs to be a better player.

No problem with that. But then don't go do normal raids or whatever and ask for nerfs. Don't ask for heroic nerfs and just go do pet battles. Or even better, go play something else that you don't have to play with other people then you can slack as much as you like without bothering others.

I do agree with this, however not all nerfs are even asked for. Sometimes Blizzard nerfs content simply because according to their figures not enough people have experienced it. Blizzard want their hard work to be seen by more than a few people so when it seems to them that not enough have managed to do some content they may nerf it even without people asking for it.

Wanting a challenge is great, but don't assume that everyone wants a challenge. Some simply dont.

Then why bother with a game based on progression and challenge ?
Surely you'd be more at home playing Second Life.