The Case for Harder Raid Content

First things first let’s get this out of the way. I’m happy we have classic, happy with my experience so far and more so than anything, happy for those who fought so hard for it.

I want it to be the best possible experience it can be. I’m assuming we all do. That goes for levelers, RPers, PvPers and of course, Raiders.

And that’s where my worry comes in. Classic raiding is and never was supposed to be mythic raiding. It’s extremely dated and we’ve obviously grown as players exponentially since then. Classic isn’t about brutal cutting edge raiding. People wanted it because they wanted the MMO “world” back. And we got that.

But raiding is a large part of WoW, and a large part of the player base and as it stands…it’s incredibly unsatisfying.

I want to try to be objective about it, but I feel confident in saying that Molten Core is painfully easy. There’s almost zero sense of achievement, progression and engaging boss fights just don’t really exist. Right now it feels like a weekly loot Pinata with some trash mobs to kill time. BWL will be similar in how quickly it’s vanquished, and even AQ40 and Naxx which will certainly be a step up, shouldn’t be that particularly challenging for the average player because of how much time we will have to accumulate gear.

I understand those who want no changes, though it’s already not an “authentic” experience due to the patch were playing on. But is hilariously easy endgame content really representative of vanilla wow? Is it the best thing for the player-base as a whole?

I can tell you right now, far more people quit when something is to easy than they do when something is hard. Yes, people will complain and moan about how harder raid content isn’t “authentic” and it isn’t what they’re looking for. But far, FAR more people will be genuinely happy to have meaningful raid content.

Classic has so many wonderful RPG elements, an engaging leveling experience, a relevant over-world and a flawed, yet enticing PvP system. Why not give it a solid endgame experience to round that out and give us the best “version” of the game in its original state?

Again, the mechanics will never be anything to crazy. But I feel like proper itemization, gear grinding etc. are in the spirit of vanilla. And when you can clear the hardest content in the game comfortably with half of a raid in mediocre gear…than the gear grind becomes irrelevant in PvE.

I’ve heard from many who played on private servers that the “upscaled” ones were the absolute best experiences. Some guy names “gummy” or something increased the raid difficulty on one of the servers and it seems genuinely beloved by those who played on it. Perhaps that’s the direction we should go with classic.

I don’t believe multiple difficulties really fits classic. But perhaps some kind of hard-modes similar to Ulduar that can be activated before/during the fight? Personally I’m all for just outright increasing there difficulty by a significant amount, but I’ll take what I can get.

Again, I think this would make a better experience for everybody playing classic. I think it would help retain a lot of players, which is obviously ideal for the health of the game. The number one reason people are quitting is because stepping into Molten Core and farting your way through it is kind of disheartening. We grinded through the awesome and engaging leveling experience, geared up from well-designed dungeons only to complete obliterate MC without much effort.

I know this will get BLASTED by the #NoChanges crowd, even though most of them don’t even realize that’s there’s already plenty of changes.

Yes this would trigger a lot of people, but it would make a LOT more people happy, and draw them back to the game. It would make for a better game, and why in the world wouldn’t we want those cherished version of one of the most influential games of all time THAT much better.

Again, nobody expects mythic level raiding. But moderately challenging, meaningful raid content? I think most of us would gladly welcome that change.

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Cataclysm says you’re wrong. At launch that xpac was brutal and wow subs dropped for the first time. Also note the lack of WoW level success for “hardcore” mmos.

/blink. Yeah, that cloth gear with strength and agility are totally itemized properly…
One of the things i like about classic is the odd itemization.

Difference between unavoidable changes (server architecture, bugs from using the new client, etc), temporary changes (layering), and bad changes (what you want).

You want a hard mode MC? No enchants, no consumables, no mind control buff, no more than 5 of each class, crafted/quest gear only.

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well said
/10char

these people can’t make their own fun and challenges - they have to have their gameplay dictated - so thus, he calls for harder content, even though he can make the content as challenging as he wants (low numbers, no buffs (as you suggest), or a meriad of other things).

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Vanilla raiding up til about second half of AQ40 and into naxx can’t really be made hard without just buffing it up to wazzoo, the mechanics are piss easy.

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Without a full raid redesign they can’t rebalance the raids and if they redesign the raids they have to redo the classes at the same time.

Basically any messing with the numbers leads down the rabbit hole.

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Harder raid content exists. It’s called Mythic Eternal Palace. I don’t get why you would play Classic and expect it to be something different than what it has always been.

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im predicting an overwhelming majority of guilds get stuck at 7/9 aq40, unable to kill either viscidus or cthun

just a guess but looking at the amount of 2+hr molten cores it seems likely. the picture will be clearer after BWL drops. so, there’s your harder content

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In Vanilla, things were never hard - even at current patch. However, it was much more grindy and time consuming than Classic. Much more.

The case should be made for raids to be more time consuming - requiring more dedication. Re-tuning mobs to hit harder and have more hp, isn’t increasing the difficulty, but it’s about making people grind dungeons more for BiS, increasing raid clear times, which in turn affects guild dynamics, and even BiS items. It will no longer be +spell power > all. Mana management will matter again. Reverting threat buffs, will make threat management a thing again.

But Blizzard won’t do this. It’ll be dumb for them to. Most of the playerbase won’t be able to handle it. Not because of difficulty. Because it’ll take up too much time, and not as accessible.

But myself along with a bunch of others, pre beta, on the old Classic forums, were all in favor of a re-tuning. Granted, we were in the minority. But the discussion was already there. Now, the closest we get to actual Vanilla is World of Naxxcraft. And even then, it isn’t 1.11.

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I’d rather they not start making changes, but I must admit the speed of which raid bosses are mowed down is hilarious.

https://i.imgur.com/ug8FXwt.mp4

that type of speed is only possible with 18 warriors

Warrior dmg looks very impressive. Wish Hunters could get some of that.

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Just wait an expansion or two when they actually allowed them to scale :stuck_out_tongue:

effing cleavis

It’s funny to go back and read posts like these:

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High expectations. I’m not sure why people still think LFR is a cakewalk when compared to MC, I was in a LFR group that spent 5 hours banging their heads against Uu’nat.

The LFR version is not an impossible task by any means, but it has far more mechanics that can wipe the group if not done correctly.

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people are in for a rude awakening after twin emperors. not the top 10% sure

Post twin emps trash still gives me nightmares

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Correct.

It’s a large part of Retail. As you said, it was never a large part of Classic, and if it was actually a large part of the playerbase the way so many claim, why didn’t retail sub numbers match Classic sub numbers. After all, you have raiding, raiding, and more raiding in Retail. If you want “satisfying raids” go to retail. The point of Classic is to go back to a time when raiding took a back seat to everything else in the game. The spike in subs indicates that it’s been hugely successful. Quit trying to ruin something that everyone fought so hard for all these years.

This is not a surprise to anyone but you.

That’s what people wanted, and that’s what people got. Unlike Retail, much of the loot is BoE, too, so you can buy it on the auction house. Quit trying to compare Classic to Retail. They are not the same game.

Then why this post?

Yes! Obviously. Just because you’ve learned to play better now that you’re 24 and not 10 doesn’t mean that raiding was any harder back then. The endgame content is just as hilariously easy now as it was back then.

Then please explain the sudden spike in sub numbers now that the faceroll raids have been re-released. Please stop pushing this false conjecture now that the statistics are suggesting the exact opposite.

Mythic Raiding in retail is for them, then. Leave our Classic WoW alone.

If they ever release WotLK WoW again, then you’ll have this. Classic never had this and hopefully never will.

Wrong. It wouldn’t make for a better experience for me, and last time I checked, “everybody” still included me. It would make for a better experience for you. You’re part of everybody, but you’re not everybody.

That’s not why I’m blasting it. I’m blasting it because after all these years I finally get to play an MMO that isn’t 100% about raiding again, and you want to screw it up.

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I agree that they do need to retune BwL to take a few months for the average guild to clear or it won’t feel authentic. The content was never Dark Souls hard, but it did keep guilds busy progressing. Obviously the top guilds will clear it day one as the only way to prevent that is to overtune it to insane levels. It’s fine if guilds have a bit easier of a time than in the original BwL release, but the average guilds should NOT be clearing it in the first few weeks.