Make The Open World Challenging Again

[Brocknor-hellscream (Brocknor)]

@Qamaits-darrowmere

Let’s take this to its ultimate conclusion and just make every mob Defias Invokers.

No no no no… no, sweet child.

I present to you…

Son of Arugal.

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Rashiko-bleeding-hollow

The issue isn’t the world being challenging, it’s a combination of how fast we gain power and how there isn’t anything worth doing in the world.

Even in TBC, by the time you’re clearing karazhan you’re able to faceroll 90% of the world as classes like hunter, mage, warlock or whatever else.

Same applies to molten core in vanilla. But that doesn’t really bother most people because there’s still a reason to go to these zones and do things, be it to gather, or obtain unique resources used for crafting that only certain mobs drop (like the fire elementals at the elemental plateau.

The certainty in the grind is a very appealing part of old WoW: “If I work hard for this, I WILL get it eventually.” vs “If I farm keys for hour per character all week, I get to pull the lever on the slot machine!” It’s a very linear form of character progression.

The amazing warlock cloak you got in t1 is still decent in t3. This logic doesn’t hold now, because gear levels spike violently high, and the catch-up is basically automatic. If you run a normal dungeon right now, you get a better item than mythic nathria gives. That’s insane.

It’s about as insane as doing IoQ dailies in TBC classic and getting Black Temple level gear?

Catchup gear was known to be important to the game since ZG.

[Qamaits-darrowmere (Qamaits)]

@Brocknor-hellscream

Son of Arugal.

You, as a proud member of the Horde, have your nightmare fuel and I have mine. They can both exist in this new deadly world.

[Hootiezap-tichondrius]

@Brewa-hyjal

The outdoor game was never challenging.

A lot of people were just really bad at WoW when they started, since they had never played an MMORPG before.

You must be newer to the game. Did you ever try completing quests in Vanilla or TBC? Half of them weren’t completable without groups no matter how great you were at the game.

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Brewa-hyjal

The outdoor game was never challenging.

A lot of people were just really bad at WoW when they started, since they had never played an MMORPG before.

It was never super hard, but there is a difference between pulling 1, maybe 2 mobs at a time and being worried about runners like you do leveling in classic to just running into everyone aoe killing 15 mobs and ending at full hp in retail.

[Archspire-scarlet-crusade]

@Brewa-hyjal

The outdoor game was never challenging.

Yeah also this - I’m curious at what point the OP is referring to when they say “again”. I thought it was just a play on the political slogan - “Make X great again (for the first time)”

[Argadar-kaelthas]

The problem with WoW is nothing in the game prepares you for the “endgame”. Everything is designed to be thrown away one patch at a time. There is nothing in the leveling system that would adequately prepare a player to step into a raid or m+ and perform at a level that would make y’all happy. Making the world more difficult would not achieve this goal either.

[Brewa-hyjal]

@Argorwal-ysera

It was never super hard, but there is a difference between pulling 1, maybe 2 mobs at a time and being worried about runners like you do leveling in classic to just running into everyone aoe killing 15 mobs and ending at full hp in retail.

A friend of mine had a funny story during vanilla.

It was about that troll area in Zul’Gurub that had all those patrols wandering around it. His story went like this:

On my Priest, if a patrol aggros, I Psychic Scream and run away.
On my Rogue, if a patrol aggros, I Vanish and run away.
On my Paladin, if a patrol aggros, I bubble and run away.
On my Mage, if a patrol aggros, I blink and run away.
On my Druid, if a patrol aggros, I go cat form and Dash and run away.
On my Hunter, if a patrol aggros, I feign death and wait for them to leave.
On my Warlock, if a patrol aggros, I KILL ALL OF THEM.

[Falken-trollbane]

@Hootiezap-tichondrius

You must be newer to the game. Did you ever try completing quests in Vanilla or TBC? Half of them weren’t completable without groups no matter how great you were at the game.

Right?
Stromguard was damn near impossible to solo at level.

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Brewa-hyjal

@Argorwal-ysera

It was never super hard, but there is a difference between pulling 1, maybe 2 mobs at a time and being worried about runners like you do leveling in classic to just running into everyone aoe killing 15 mobs and ending at full hp in retail.

A friend of mine had a funny story during vanilla.

It was about that troll area in Zul’Gurub that had all those patrols wandering around it. His story went like this:

On my Priest, if a patrol aggros, I Psychic Scream and run away.
On my Rogue, if a patrol aggros, I Vanish and run away.
On my Paladin, if a patrol aggros, I bubble and run away.
On my Mage, if a patrol aggros, I blink and run away.
On my Druid, if a patrol aggros, I go cat form and Dash and run away.
On my Hunter, if a patrol aggros, I feign death and wait for them to leave.
On my Warlock, if a patrol aggros, I KILL ALL OF THEM.

Pretty much.

In retail it’s just aggro the patrol and 4 other packs and blow them all up effortlessly without even using cooldowns one every class.

And even warlocks had to play a balancing act of fear and ripping aggro off your pet. It’s not as impossible to die as it is in retail.

[Brewa-hyjal]

@Hootiezap-tichondrius

You must be newer to the game. Did you ever try completing quests in Vanilla or TBC? Half of them weren’t completable without groups no matter how great you were at the game.

Sure. You know what I did? I brought a friend.

[Brewa-hyjal]

@Argorwal-ysera

And even warlocks had to play a balancing act of fear and ripping aggro off your pet.

Blueberry + Health Funnel + Drain Life

[Hootiezap-tichondrius]

@Brewa-hyjal

Sure. You know what I did? I brought a friend.

Ahhh, you see. You are proving my point already. Making the content more difficult results in bringing friends, right? Bringing the social aspect of the MMO back seems like a win to me?

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

@Brewa-hyjal

@Argorwal-ysera

And even warlocks had to play a balancing act of fear and ripping aggro off your pet.

Blueberry + Health Funnel + Drain Life

The hard part in classic is not ripping aggro off your voidwalkwe because it’s threat level is trash. Even just healing aggro can pull it if you’re not careful.

It’s not like some super difficult only elite players can pull off or anything of course, it just makes you pay a little bit of attention to the mobs rather than them being like tiny annoying ants that never pose a threat.

Mob level vs player level used to mean a lot back then too. That was part of how they could have 60 levels with very little stat changes and damage scaling.

[Ahnohla-hyjal]

Eh, some players could use every addon known to man and would still suck. It ain’t the addons.

[Brewa-hyjal]

@Hootiezap-tichondrius

@Brewa-hyjal

Sure. You know what I did? I brought a friend.

Ahhh, you see. You are proving my point already. Making the content more difficult results in bringing friends, right? Bringing the social aspect of the MMO back seems like a win to me?

A better solution would be to remove LFD.

[Argorwal-ysera (Argorwal)]

The classic forums are already rioting over LFD not being in Wrath.

[Simplyred-hydraxis]

@Stabmcstabby-aegwynn

Oh, this again, elite mob every 1 inch of every map thread.

That’s the problem. They go from one extreme to another. I’d prefer more powerful mobs in the open world to swarms of annoying ones. Just make them more random and less predictable.

[Merpish-sargeras]

It is true that most people that play WoW are terrible at it, but if you think that making the open world challenging will force people to rise to the occasion, it will not. People will just quit.

[Brewa-hyjal]

Yeah, well, it became obvious a long time ago that people playing classic don’t actually want classic.

The key point for me was when they said original classic wouldn’t have that 8 debuff limit on bosses at launch.

They should have no LFD at WOTLK launch, then add it when ICC goes in. That’s how it happened historically. But what classic players “want” has always been a mess, too many disparate camps wanting totally different things.