The Harsh Reality: Why WoW's Difficulty is Harming its Player Base

Hey folks, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for quite some time now and I’m a bit concerned about the state of the game. Specifically, I think that the current raiding system is simply too difficult for the average player to handle. I know that there are a lot of hardcore raiders out there who relish a challenge, but let’s be real here – not everyone is cut out for that kind of playstyle.

Personally, I think that Blizzard needs to step in and make some changes to the way that raids work. For starters, I think that the bosses need to be nerfed down a bit so that they’re not so punishing for players who aren’t in the top 1% of the playerbase. And while we’re at it, maybe we could simplify the mechanics a bit? There are just too many moving parts in some of these fights, and it’s really hard to keep track of everything that’s going on.

I know that some of you might be thinking that this is just me being lazy or wanting everything handed to me on a silver platter. But that’s simply not true. I’m willing to put in the time and effort to learn the fights and get better at the game. But when the mechanics are so convoluted and punishing, it just feels like I’m banging my head against a brick wall.

I think that Blizzard needs to remember that this is a game, not a full-time job. Players shouldn’t have to devote their entire lives to mastering raid mechanics and getting gear just to stay competitive. We should be able to enjoy the game on our own terms, without feeling like we’re constantly falling behind the curve.

In conclusion, I hope that Blizzard takes a hard look at the current state of raiding in World of Warcraft and makes some much-needed changes. Players like myself shouldn’t have to feel like we’re not good enough or that we’re being punished for not being in the top 1%. Let’s make the game accessible to everyone, not just the hardcore raiders who have been playing for years.

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Normal and Heroic are easy. There are four difficulty levels to raid at, LFR, N, H and M. Pick one that suits you

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To be honest, I do feel like the segmentation of the playerbase that resulted from having so many different difficulties of everything has done more harm than good.

I think the game works better when most players are kind of on the same page.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an elegant solution at this point.

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I’m not a raider but I get what Lolurmad and Jahnsen are saying. I can add that from my observers standpoint - back in the day when there was just one flavor of raiding, and they had probably twice as many subscribers. So, my conclusion is that in the simpler days something must have worked with the “old way” that isn’t working in the new system.

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Only the World-First Contenders are doing this like a job. If your guild is not in contention for RWF, and it still feels like a job to you, then you’re in the wrong guild.

What curve are specifically talking about. I would guess item-level, but that’s clearly tied to difficulty and that makes sense–highest difficulty = best gear. If you’re not talking about item-level then what?

  1. There’s LFR (queued is by definition the most accessible).
  2. There’s Normal (anybody should be able to do this if they have even 5 serious people out of 20; I see it every Fri/Sat at 9p PDT).
  3. There’s Heroic (now we’re starting to get a challenge, but >50% of people participating in Heroic have already gotten to 7/8 bosses down)
  4. Finally there’s Mythic ( about 25% of raiders are are 2/8 and only 7.6% are 7/8, but it’s the pinnacle of PvE difficulty in WoW).

Are you specifically asking to make Mythic Raid more accessible by nerfing it? I’d be on board with that if you nerf the item-level it drops too (or just wait for end-of-season nerfs).

Edit: Percentages courtesy of WoWProgress
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I agree. Maybe we could have something like multiple difficulty levels so that you could set the raid to be easier or harder depending on the group you’re running with?

Sarcasm aside, I’m not sure I understand why simply setting the difficulty lower isn’t a solution here. Not everyone needs to play on Mythic. I don’t play on Mythic. I don’t feel like I’m missing out by only setting my sights as high as AOTC every season. WoW has multiple difficulty levels for a reason. Everyone is welcome to play at the level that is right for them.

So unless you’re trying to say that even the lowest level of raid is too prohibitive, I don’t know what problem you’re looking to solve. If you’re not satisfied with the level of difficulty that you currently run, then you should aim to get good enough so that you can perform there.

I think that’s overly reductive. There were a ton of variables that were different in WotLK when WoW had 12 million subs compared to today. And not even all of those factors are ones WoW can control. MMOs as a genre are less popular now than they were back then. I think it’s somewhat dubious to point to any one factor of WoW and say, “this. This right here is why we don’t have 12 million subs anymore.”

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We are having a problem with mechanics bloat and over-complication, but this is only really an issue for one boss in Heroic, and for Mythic raiders - who know what they’re signing up for.

There is no punishment for not being in the top 1% of raiding.
Raids are not seasonal; you do not miss out on anything by not clearing on the highest difficulty right away, and AoTC is accessible to people who don’t even raid through community incentives that ramp up when the mount comes along.

There’s really only one aspect of the game that has a 1% issue, and raiding is not and has never been it since like, TBC.

I think that the premise of this post is really disrespectful to the average WoW player.

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It’s not so much as it’s difficult per say, as it’s just completely unclear in a lot of aspects, which you can argue makes it more default because of it.

Lets take a look at mechanics entirely, most of them are so unintuitive that discerning what isn’t and isn’t a stack is insanity. Most of WoW’s mechanics boil down to “there is a swirl on the ground”, well you can either stand in it for a buff, stack on it for raid wide damage, not stand in the “fire”, etc. There are so many options despite the same visual representation that it’s a mess, not only that there are some bosses within raids that do the same thing visually but a completely different mechanic, or things are tied to “what type of magic the boss is using”, some are red, or blue, or green.

WoW needs to adjust how it handles Raids entirely, and I know a lot of people are potentially going to give me hell for it, but FFXIV does a good job of making it clear in most cases what exactly needs to be moved out of, what a stack marker is, where you need to stand, etc.

Lets compare two bosses from each game, we’ll take a look at Raszageth and Hippokampos from P2S. And we’ll even look at something simple such as LFR Ras. Ras has a swirly that will slow your character down that needs to generally be placed in the back, a frontal beam (which has a very obvious indicator), and bad swirls all over the ground, along with being knocked back (a variety of this), a push back, etc.

Generally you want to stand in the bad stuff to avoid the knockback, but not stand in the bad stuff to avoid the lightning, but also accept the knockback at specific locations to land on platforms, but the one knockback is slow and you just have to stack on top of her or at least pop certain abilities to run around. While all of this is a very simplistic way of describing the fight, there are several knockbacks that all have different visuals, do the same thing, but require different positions and adjustments to it, while some of these are very obvious as to which is which because of phase transitions and which phase you are currently in, it’s not very intuitive for someone new trying to learn the fight.

Now if we look at P2S from FFXIV for instance, you’ll have tank busters with a clear marker, you’ll have arrows for which direction to slide to and where you need to line up with a partner of your own that has the opposite, you’ll have orange aoe markers to move out of, you’ll have specific debuffs to move away from the party, etc. It sounds like a lot and the only real comparison you can draw is “Don’t stand in the aoe markers for FFXIV and don’t stand in the swirls for WoW” and that is true, but it makes every other mechanic in most cases very generally visible, sure there is some trial and error involved there too, but it makes it very clear, then its up to the player over whether its a skill issue or not, and sometimes latency/netcode screws you over, but generally speaking its mostly fine.

WoW fights have nothing like that, if a tank buster happened in WoW, you have to pay attention to the abilities and pop accordingly, or just take it and get healed. For FFXIV, you get markers over your head over what is clearly a tank buster. Now in FFXIV’s case those sometimes look like stack markers, but again, it’s a very clear indicator. WoW largely has nothing and it makes the fights harder because of it.

Nobody is asking for them to be a constant 123 of abilities that never variate, which a lot of bosses are already like that anyway, but they need a lot of indicators to better smooth out the flow. Because there are bosses that are vastly more complicated than Ras by a large mile, look at N’Zoth and his mechanics for instance.

Also they should just tone down the difficulties in general. You don’t need LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mythic. Just have it be Normal and Mythic and balance accordingly. Normal is basically the equivalent to FFXIV’s normal raids, and Mythic is equivalent to Savage or Ultimate raids, or what have you. You can have a lot of mechanics but they need indicators and better flow. That and they need to fix how gear is handed out, because as it stands right now there is zero point in raiding when you can get everything from M+, even with the new system coming, why should anyone bother with Mythic raiding when you can still do something vastly easier, vastly faster, and with less people. Also remove the trash mobs from Raids and have you spawn at the boss when you die, it’s a chore and raids take too long.

tl;dr: Hot take, probably gonna get a lot of crap for it, but it is what it is, read it and form your own opinion and discussion around it.

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You must really like the game, since you pay for both a retail and a classic account. I know I don’t enjoy it enough to pay $30 a month, but thanks for your input on the state of the game. :+1:

The difficulty would be fine if there weren’t lockouts and the meta wasn’t min maxing the timegate Great Vault and Catalyst.

It’s not immersive or meaningful to play the timegates.

Hyperbole much? LFR is so easy you should be able to do this with pressing 1-3 buttons of your rotation. Just stop with the nonsense about having to ‘spend your entire life’ learning how to play. There’s an 81 or 82 year old grandmother who streams daily who easily clears m+ 15-20s. If you’re so bad at the game that LFR is a huge life challenge, all MMOs like WoW are too difficult for you. Candy Crush is a viable option tho.

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You get both for 15 tho

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The only wall in LFR Vault is Ras. Seriously. And even the worst of groups usually managed to knock that one out after enough determination stacks. Pretty much every other boss except maybe one (Broodmother) can be downed even with half the raid on the floor.

Hmm, well I guess I was wrong for about the nth time today. :smiley:

I’ve always wondered why someone would post on a classic character while discussing retail issues. There is no way to offer advice to help said poster due to no background to work with.

Anyways, I hope they can get help with their issue. :+1:

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That’s why there are 4 difficulties.

You arn’t entitled to rewards you can’t earn.

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they need an easy setting for everything but they feel any rewards for that would undermine participation in raids, which it would.

raid or die is the hill they will die on.

hoping things get smarter if Microsoft takes over…

Even though tying sub count to any specific design aspect is stupid, peak subs was in late Wrath with ICC which had essentially 4 raid difficulty settings with 10, 10H, 25, and 25H.

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If you reduce the number of difficulty options, you basically tell some percentage of the player base that their subscription isn’t wanted anymore. If mythic raiding goes away, so too does my subscription. Get rid of LFR raiding and lots of casual players are going to bid wow adieu.

Reducing the number of difficulties isn’t really an option at this point.

Separate from that, I disagree that wow is too hard right now.

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Yeah, I agree. I think the monkey’s out of the bottle on that one.

Pandora only comes out of the box; she doesn’t go back in.