Can you Deep Breath over the webs without spawning Nerubians?
If it isn’t fun it isn’t fun
Haven’t tried so I can’t say. The webs seemed inconsistent on if they’d spawn guys or not so I just go around unless I really don’t want to click the zipline and instead just jump+glide.
But what if…it isnt fun but it really is fun!?
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I would even go a step further and say:
Given the design of Retail being GCD dense and hasted, even if the difficulty was squeezed down to 2 or 3, the game, by virtue of filling every global, is still Always On™. And because of that, you are still always pressured to keep your fingers tight to the action bindings and press them as soon as they come back up.
The game is no longer designed to be slow. But that permanently activated intensity of action hollows out and dampens the relative importance of each action, to where when I see myself in the moment, I ask “Why am I even doing this?”
And when you ask yourself that question about a Video Game? It’s already over.
It’s not about difficulty. It is about the fundamental game design shift and how it’s transformed to be an Action game over the past 15 years, instead of an Adventure first.
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How dare you!
Yeah, and I get I may not be explaining it very well. It isn’t the mechanics themselves it is the nonstop nature of it. There is never a moment to just stop and do what your class is designed to do because you are constantly dealing with the mechanics.
Example, and I’m half afraid to say because if Blizz sees it they’ll just whack the few classes I am still enjoying, but pet classes because you can ignore a lot more of the mechanics. Or specs that can just face tank the mechanics and let you ignore more of it.
Like my Balance Druid feels like a real chore to do delves in. They take a 
ton of damage and dealing with the mechanics while trying to do a little dps just feels like banging my head on a wall.
I’ll often just swap to Bear for all the trash and just let Brann heal me through it. It just cuts down on the number of things it is vital to deal with. Then pop back into balance, down the boss real quick and move on.
Its not about bear being “safer”, not entirely that is a small part of it, the larger part is just being more forgiving and being able to be like “eh I don’t care about that mechanic I’ll just heal through it while I deal with this other thing”.
Maybe it is just a class/spec balance issue. My DK is still fun enough, classes that can move easily or have pets are fine. Maybe I’m, just frustrated at some of the class designs. Feel like I’m working my way toward that here as I reply more. 
You are explaining it better than I. Thanks. 
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I just wish we had a permanent wrath classic era server to play on.
Retail is still fun. But man. I wanted a permanent version of wrath classic. It just had alot of things that classic doesn’t have anymore with cataclysm, and that retail hasn’t had in years either. And I just wish I could get the best of both worlds.
Only thing that annoys me right now is the lack of permanent wrath classic era realms to play on. Everything else is just standard blizzard BS.
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It’s World of Diablocraft now. The MMORPG got dropped a few years ago in favor of a ARPG live service model.
Subs are great but if you speed up gameplay and add a cash shop they can compete with other eSports games and make more money.
It sucks but that’s where the industry is right now.
We went from games made by love and passion to games made as a platform to make money.
Pre 2008 = Games made well = more sales
2008 to 2015 = Games made well + loot boxes
2015 to 2022 = Ok games with battle passes
2022 to now = crap games with cash shops
Wonder where we go next?
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If you want to have fun do lower level delves. Do a T4/5 instead of T8 or higher.
End game rewards (ilvl over 606/610 imo) shouldn’t be given out unless you are doing difficult end game content.
End game isn’t supposed to be easy. You shouldn’t be able to faceroll through content and get free 616+ ilvl gear.
Challenging game content can cause some anxiety in folks. Been like that since the late 1970s with Atari games.
Your job as a gamer is to choose the level of challenge you have fun at and accept the rewards that come from doing that content.
If you don’t like challenging content with long drawn out fights that you must get near perfect then don’t do them. Don’t expect the same quality of rewards from that lower content.
Nobody is forcing you to do t11 delves or ?? zekvir. It is what it is and it’s your job to decide how hard you want to try. The harder you try the better the rewards.
I’m not planning on trying hard at this or any other game. I game for fun. So heroic raiding and maybe M+ 4 or 5 max. Not saying I won’t get pulled into a 9/10 M+ with friends or guildies occasionally, just that it’s not my intention to grind very difficult content.
I accept my ilvl will probably only be ~619-623 at the end of the season. I can faceroll anything in open world content including silver elites with 55-60m health solo on all of my 7 toons that are 599-612 ilvl. T8 delves are a light challenge at 600+ ilvl. The mechanics are easy to learn.
Not sure what you want but it sounds like you want to hit 636 ilvl without doing anything that challenges you. That’s not how this or any other game works.
Just do what’s fun for you. But by ilvl 610 you should be feeling strong enough to slap any open world content or delves to T8/9 in the face. That’s plenty of power if you aren’t doing M+8 or higher. Heroic raiding at 610 is fine and you can upgrade your gear from heroic raids.
I really don’t understand why people expect the best gear if they don’t like or want to do the most difficult content.
I thought i wanted this too. I was a Wrath baby and i played classic Wrath and loved every minute of it…until i didnt.
Compared to retail its so slow and simplistic that looking back on it i feel ashamed for struggling as much as i did 16 years ago lol
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I can get my tin foil hat on… but I’ve been working on the “What gives?” since MoP.
At the core, the people making the game love encounter design.
And because of that, the entire game is engineered towards the encounter mockup.
My guess is that you are an Explorer (Bartle Types).
It’s important for me to understand the game simply isn’t made for me.
That’s a strategic decision because the population has been weened down.
The highest return value player will get the cheese.
And at this point, that’s your Achievers and your Killers.
(Bartle Types are woefully outdated, but they serve a good heuristic/metaphor.)
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just waiting for next big patch tbh
The classic version of WOTLK and Cata are actually easier. Not because we played before but Blizzard actually made it easier.
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You make some really good points. I am definitely an explorer type pokemon! Lol
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LOL yeah, but also a bit of Achiever in there.
I don’t mind the “encounter design” nature of their development approach but there is that line where it becomes too much. I feel like the game tipped over that line to where “fun” is no longer part of the combat loop and it is all “mechanical” now.
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Gaming isn’t a job for most players.
Gaming shouldn’t be constructed as a job for the purpose of design or engagement.
Jobs are great but it’s easy to conflate “job” and “chore”.
That’s what should be safeguarded.
Because that is in the same domain of this particular malcontent.
Players choose the level of challenge. Big agree.
They absolutely have no obligation to accept the rewards.
They should just quit playing bad games.
Rewarding bad games and bad systems is how we got here.
In terms of design philosophy, there is a multidimensional model of time, knowledge, and talent. The game too strictly discounting dimensions as part of its reward structure will alienate players and attrition will follow. In a social game, those lost network connections create additional strain on your model and threaten collapse.
If you accept that risk to make YOUR perfect game, that’s fine. Do that.
But understand that not everyone shares the belief this far down the chain.
(Then we get the Ship of Theseus, modern-day WoW – who “made” this game?)
The idea that hard content needs rewards is an equal fallacy.
People are still speed running Mario games for the challenge.
Mario, by itself, was never designed as a skill-intense scenario to win.
You can one-button to game success, even if you’re not on the leaderboards.
The error here is that only leaderboard members deserve “the end game”.
That seems silly, even if we won’t agree on why.
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No brother. I wanted it sooooooo badly. Not even a joke. I was soooo mad when they removed wrath classic in favor of cata classic. Cataclysm was litteraly the expansion that made me want wrath of the lich king back in the first place.
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And again this isn’t about “challenge” and I realize this is the WoW forum and plenty of people, many of which intentionally, will miss that point. It is about how the game feels to play. When you start to feel like you are banging your head against a wall instead of enjoying the experience something is not quite right with the design.
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Yeah i can understand that. Cata made a lot of changes. The addition of Holy power to Paladins made me leave my tri-specced and bags full of gear Paladin and main Enhance shaman
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