And if you make a mistake in Cata, i.e. pull too much, you’ll die. I don’t see what point you’re trying to make. Because 2 mobs are more threatening in Vanilla vs 5 in Cata? Literally every class has some method of safely pulling single targets, like I said from the start pulling single mobs to a corner in Vanilla is no more or less difficult than pulling entire groups in Cata, it’s just more tedious
4 Likes
I think we have the usual misunderstanding of “difficult” = time consuming, if a mob does more damage to you, and you spend more mana and time killing it, somehow that is qualifying as harder, realistically a murloc you can barely kill in elwynn forest in vanilla is no more difficult than 2 shotting a rock elemental in cata.
Anyway this obsession with “difficulty” vanishes completely when you compare the vanilla raids to the cata raids, where the cata haters forget that the classic raiding experience is for toddlers
9 Likes
Honestly this is the crux of it. There’s some fascination among Vanilla purists about making the “journey” as miserable as possible by default, instead of making things more accessible so that people can make their own fun or do the content they choose for themselves at the end of the journey. Which the obsession with difficulty and tedium is kind of ironic considering WoW was billed from the beginning as Everquest for casuals
I still maintain that if Vanilla had released brand new today without its own legacy to carry it, it would’ve been an even bigger laughingstock than New World
I think SoD really shone a light on it. BFD at launch was panned by the purists as being way too difficult and retail-like, while people familiar with actual raiding agreed it was a pretty simple and inoffensive intro raid to the season
5 Likes
logic would tell you to make the start of the game easy (aka hyjal questing for example) but the end game hard (like heroic raiding)
Instead we have vanilla, which starts off very slowly, gets slightly less slow as time goes on then dumps you into an end game which is barely more difficult than what you’ve already been doing, just requiring a lot more people. Vanilla has a lot of charm to it (imo) but referring to its difficulty, it makes very little sense
I am 100% sure vanilla wow would bomb now for the same reason that SoD has, you have hardcore vanilla purists who don’t like the modern twists but you have modern players who don’t like the modern twists because they aren’t modern enough. SoD tries to cater to everyone but makes no one happy. If vanilla wow came out today it would be panned by the modern gamer
4 Likes
These days, whenever you have a losing argument that you can’t defend, you just cry “projection” as if it’s somekind of gotcha. You just look like an even bigger fool lmao.
7 Likes
Except I’m talking about leveling not end game raids. And again, you need to be more careful pulling a murlock in vanilla because you know things can get out of hand quick. There’s a reason Cata had a huge drop off in player base when it released, and leveling experience was a big part of it.
10 Likes
Not only did cata alienate the remaining old guard from vanilla/TBC that didn’t quit in wrath yet, the game became completely unappealing to new players. Most new players coming in will quit thinking WoW is a kids game when they have a 50-100 hour grind of 2 shotting everything with no challenge whatsoever.
6 Likes
If cata released as a new game without a 10 million plus player base coming in, it would have never made it regardless of when it released.
2 Likes
Honestly anything after cata is 100% for children. Buying cosmetics, mounts, buying levels, the absolute ease of leveling. I’m subbed and I play classic was in WOTLK till cata and my 10 year old plays retail.
2 Likes
Uh huh, whatever helps you sleep at night
2 Likes
just so we’re clear, you want harder leveling content but don’t want to talk about end game raids? how convenient
oh dear, throwing a knife at a murloc and walking 30 yards away is very compelling gameplay and very difficult to do
5 Likes
Yes, it was the difficulty of heroic dungeons, and the first major patch just being the rerelease of ZA and ZG as heroic dungeons. And frankly it wasn’t even huge in the long run. Firelands had a pretty even period, and then Dragon Soul saw a slight bump up and then gradual decline due to its relative mediocrity as a raid, and the fact that it ran on for 14 months
2 Likes
You are free to start a thread for your own topic if you want to talk about end game content but yes I was talking more about the leveling experience, I have no problem admitting the dungeons and raids improved.
You very well know you aren’t just pulling said murlock 30 yards away or getting into some kind of mess traversing a mine. You’ll argue to no end, but you know you’ve died plenty in vanilla, bc, even wotlk while leveling.
LOL. The drop off continued after the nerfs at an accelerating rate. It was a disaster for sub counts if anything, it was the straw that broke the camels back from the remaining old guard who started in TBC. Hell those nerfs alone are what made totalbiscuit quit for good. It was such a massive spit in their customer bases’ face.
3 Likes
Maybe for some but myself, people who’ve responded to threads in these forums and pretty much everyone I know have cited being able to one shot everything and the general ease of leveling.
Well, myself, people who have responded in these forums, and pretty much everyone I know agrees that WoW as a whole was just starting to age around Cata and wanted to try new things at the time, and are enjoying this revisit down memory lane
So I guess we’re at an impasse 
4 Likes
I remember cata originally being pretty hard. Even just questing in Hyal wearing heroic and a little ICC gear. I recall sapping and sheeping through everything instanced.
TH was a gear check. I really enjoyed everything in cata, pvp, raids and questing.
Retrospectively I absolutely loved TBC and wrath the first time. The cinematic sold me NGL. Do I like stepping foot in either again for longer than 5 mins, no f in way. and you can stick lvl40-50 in vanilla somewhere indecent. 
if it was an actual challenge then we wouldn’t have entire raid being ran on hardcore mode with full groups. it’s tedious and time consuming, but not an actual challenge
3 Likes
seriously? Thats how you leveled?
I ventured into caves where enemies were concentrated with massive aggro ranges,a single runner could lead to death. Casters were deadly and enemy abilities dealt a lot of damage.
Yes, leveling was a lot harder back then. Not like Cata where enemies die in a single ability use. Where enemy camps are sparely populated, oftentimes changed to neutral so they dont gang up or attack the poor players and even if they did…Cata toons are so overpowered that they wouldnt care anyway.
Sure, you could level in the old days as you describe, that would be your own fault tho. You had the option to go high risk, high reward. In catacylsm that option doesnt exist anymore. Now you only have boring, boring, boring
1 Like
There is risk of death depending on the class due to the class strength. Like warriors are the slowest to level in vanilla because they dont get good until after lvll 40.
1 Like