The problem with this is, you are comparing tbc to tbc here.
Now try comparing tbc to wotlk.
2 Likes
Sure, doing any of the full 25 man achievements was as harder or harder than anything in TBC, Look at sarth 3 drake during T7(before it was out geared) vs Mag/Gruul. I think there was a grand total of 1 guild that did ICC 25 hard modes to completion on my server which was a high pop at the time.
You are comparing normal raids from tbc to heroic or hard mode raids of wotlk
You are missing the point of comparing normal mode raids to normal mode raids.
And even then some of the hard mode fights from wotlk were still easier than some tbc fights.
And then we have heroic dungeons.
Compared to tbc, Wotlk heroic dungeons are an absolute joke.
I’m comparing the hardest TBC has to offer vs the hardest Wrath has to offer, that TBC doesn’t have multi difficulty raids doesn’t change that comparison. And heck if you want to compare normals? Ulduar is on par or harder than SSC/TK.
And the same applies to 5 mans, some of the achieves there were harder than any of the attunes for T5. The reality is with a pally tank most heroics including SH are trivial in TBC as well, which makes the difficulty a group comp issue not an intrinsic difficulty of the dungeon.
Bro I’ve played every version of WoW other than Shadowlands, I know the difference, stop repeating this.
You’re the one who keeps conflating having 3 specs with also changing the actual talent trees.
I’m sorry, but you are referring to a very literal definition of “accessible” here. Accessibility is not just “ease of access”. In gaming terminology, “accessibility” definitely does colloquially refer to the content’s approachability to different ranges of skill.
Whines about HOR didn’t even last a week or two after the dungeons’ release and it was mostly focused on the first part of it.
To use a word that you frequently re-use: your perspective on the difficulty is myopic.
WOTLK is referred to as when things got “casual” for a reason but it’s not as simple as 1:1 comparing each section of the game to its own counterpart, but if I had to diagnose it myself it would be because the gearing got easier, with excessive amounts of reliance on BoJ gearing and the ease of which someone could attain these badges (because heroics were a joke) basically meant getting top tier gear most of the expansion was very easy (and they refreshed badge gear several times).
Reputations were also much more straight forward and didn’t take nearly as long to max.
If you really wanted to, you could defend basically any expansion for maintaining its difficulty because every expansion has managed to still have hard raids on the highest difficulty available, but that simply hasn’t been the measuring stick throughout the years.
Classic and TBCC are referred to as “harder” because of the experience as a whole, it was simply less forgiving in all the little aspects due to less conveniences and such. I don’t think anybody has ever tried to argue that they were harder specifically because of the large raid instances being literally harder. The reasons they are referred to as “harder” goes much deeper than that.
— side note
Cata heroics at launch were awesome, and they were a huge improvement over the WOTLK heroic experience.
I was mortified when they gutted them, especially after Ghostcrawler had done that giant middle-finger watercooler telling everyone to “git gud”. He got so much backlash from that…he left the company not long after and I remember the forum cheering over it and I just remember feeling kinda sad that the community was now…the way it was.
I don’t agree that they were built around “specific group comps” and this speaks more to what kind of player Ziryus was in that time than it does the indicator of flawed design.
2 Likes
It’s all subjective. I thought Vanilla was the easiest of the three. It only might be considered “hard” because it was long. 60 levels to grind through instead of 10. Almost no incentive to do dungeons like the attunes and rep grinds of BC and no heroic mode. Unless you did them early in their level range, and most people didn’t, they were a snooze fest.
Yeah and there’s a vocal portion of people who believe that tedium is in no way connected to the concept of difficulty.
I actually don’t agree. Something taking longer or being more tedious can definitely be a metric of difficulty in my opinion.
Difficulty doesn’t only have to be measured by reaction speed, APM, or aim.
1 Like
The difference is that it’s a case of will I do it vs can I do it.
Having to summon the willpower to do something is definitely what I would consider an aspect of challenge 
That’s why diets are “challenging”, for example.
2 Likes
Sure it can and you can value that experience. We’re different. Doing something very easy for a long time isn’t a fun way for me to spend my time. Like I said above I almost quit Morrowind long before I had completed the game for that very reason.
Not really, watching you tube while grinding levels or farming gold isn’t hard.
Are you referring to the YouTube part or the grinding part?
1 Like
They aren’t mutually exclusive, welcome to the world of multiple monitors.
Just because you find a way to make something easier for yourself doenst mean it still isn’t a difficult thing to do.
That’s like…IDK, Michael Phelps saying that swimming an Olympian-level lap time is “easy” because he does it all the time…when it’s definitively not easy…he just trained for it and he’s used to it.
You have experience with grinding and have ways to make it easier on yourself…doesn’t make it any less of a challenging activity to engage in for the broader population.
1 Like
Yes it does, it means that by and large most of WoW is so brain dead easy I can do it while essentially watching TV.
No it would be like Michael Phelps saying sitting in a jacuzzi is easier than swimming a lap.
Dude…I’ve gotten people to play WoW who can barely figure out how to function their character much less do an extensive chain of quests…while they do just fine playing other games on console.
You can’t extrapolate your experience as being the default.
You are experienced and well-adjusted to MMOs or grinding in general. Not everybody is. In fact I’d say MMO players make up a minority of the overall gaming community, making your skillset unique.
1 Like
Yes… that in and of itself should tell you how basically easy the fundamentals in WoW are. From day one WoW explicitly removed most of the harsh MMO mechanics that turned people away from MMO’s.
That’s really only relevant to people who were experienced with MMOs.
People who are new to MMOs…especially people who are new to PC games in general (WASD controls, etc), watching them try to play WoW is like watching a baby learn how to walk.
Point being, it’s a learned skill.
1 Like
That is hardly unique to WoW(or MMO’s) all gaming a learned skill.
Stop pretending MMO’s require some above and beyond skill set, especially WoW. I could teach someone how to do the basics of killing boars a lot faster than building a base in an RTS.
Who said that? WoW has always been the Fisher Price of MMORPGs aimed at the Walmart masses since its inception. Why dont you just come out say dual specs and heaps of other conveniences make MMOs harder?
Apparently it does not matter to Ziryus if what he types is stupid ignorant nonsensical non sequitur just as long as it’s contrarian.
2 Likes