Objectively, I think WoW caters to both. There is a lot of things you can get access to playing casually…
I think the problem that while current WoW opens up the widest range of content to casual players, most of that content feels worthless due to burnout.
I judge by myself. I’m pretty casual, and I used to be pretty satisfied doing LFR/LFD/world content/random BGs. I even felt very sophisticated when I ventured into harder content. But over time that enjoyment eroded, because 1) i’ve been doing it forever, 2) community expectations rose higher, 3) people I cared about stopped playing the game, so there was no one to compare myself to at my own level.
So I think new casual players can actually have a great time in the game. But long time casual players are struggling and leaving. But I don’t think it’s a game’s or community’s fault, it’s just human nature.
I think enjoying life itself casually has become quite hard these days, with all the pressure of expectations the world puts on us.
The game is obviously biased towards hardcore competitive gamers, though Delves are a nice addition for casuals and without them and their rewards I would unsub. People say how easy t8s are, but in truth they aren’t all that easy- esp. when you’re first learning them, and they still feel harder than a lot of other games I played. Not anymore but I’ve often died a few times in them or beat them with 2 or 1 lives left remaining. Though it was my own fault completely I even just died recently in a t8 delve being 617 ilvl lol, though I’m 618 now. So yeah people acting like they are always uber easy and never challenging aren’t being totally truthful… though it’s of course easier than Mythic+ and raiding, they still have overlapping mechanics and make you know what you’re doing somewhat and pay attention.
And that is considered the easiest/baby tier of WoW for the 3 endgame pillars. Which it is, but the game obviously has a sweaty/tryhard bent to it. Mostly because Ion is in charge.
If they remove Delves, (since casual gamers were booted out of Mythic+ since old 1-10 doesn’t exist any more, and that was my jam) and no way for casuals to progress or advance, I would just leave. It’s a bit worrisome because the devs obviously cater to the hardcore group the most- even with the addition of things like Delves, and Delves could just be a cruel trick to get money from casuals than sweep the rug out from under us then the next expansion they turn it into the ultra hardcore game that they want and heavily nerf Delves and make them feel too trivial and World Quest-y, and then too many players leave, and they might be force to revert it again etc. But Delves hit that sweet spot, as you want to make the content feel meaningful- and not just like bam I win, because then they would nerf the rewards and you would get absolutely no satisfaction. So it’s a tightrope balance. Casuals want things difficult enough to be meaningful, but nowhere near difficult and masochistic as ‘hardcore gamers’ play at.
If you have insight and read other people well it’s not that difficult to figure out the intentions and biases of the Devs are lol like the 2nd poster told you. When content first comes out, even LFR can be challenging for players and have one-shot mechanics etc. Many players don’t subscribe until the last season because their class is boderlline unplayable until then, because they need good gear to make it functional, but that gear only drops in very challenging content- until at the end they nerf things. Like last bit of Legion was more of a party for everybody, but the beginning was such a tryhard slog.
I think it very much depends. I think ‘just being a body there’ and having some remote understanding of raid mechanics days are limited to LFR and could be a ‘longer personal challenge’ of Delves. Generally speaking as long as you’re trying in LFR you’re safe from getting kicked.
But I think if you can play the game ‘ok’ and say do mechs and parse green you’re probably good enough to join a Guild that can assist you in getting AoTC/KSM.
I have personally found the higher keys more hard this time. I do struggle in a 10 when I am on my tank and this might just be a sign that I either need to practice more/get more gear or review how I play. The same ‘level’ on a 20 I did in Season 3 of Dragonflight didn’t feel as hard so maybe i’ve gotten worse or the game has gotten harder.
With that said, WoW is kinda decently balanced towards everyone IMO.
There has never been any balance. You may as well have to separate games with how brutal wow’s difficulty curve is…better to call it a difficulty cliff.
You go from being able to hit level cap with white attacks to mythics.
WoW was a huge success in vanilla and classic even through WotLK cause it WASN’T a harcore grind like Everquest and other MMOs at the time. It’s rather ironic that we’ve gone from the trend setter to the trend follower and even falling behind the times.
That is because they want to get you up to end game as fast as possible so that way you are running Mythic keys and doing Blitz and Solo Shuffle but mainly the keys. That’s alll they care about.
The only difficult part of this game is figuring out which addons you need, and putting up with other players. If you can make friends, and get into a good guild, everything is a cakewalk. But staying solo, and living in the pugging world is just a self-inflicted problem.
Wow seems to be driven towards making the game for Elite players / end game. I guess they run the line for E-sports type competition. The casuals are just left to their own devices.
Basically all leveling content and world content is “easy”. For me, ease involves the likelihood of failure (vast majority of quests cannot be failed) and the amount of gear or skill needed (since some encounters like the mage tower are skill based by normalizing gear everyone) and others like high m+ is a mixture of both (because even a fantastic player in a 12 key but 580 ilvl will likely not have enough hp to survive as a tank, hps to heal, or dps to meaningfully participate, yet a higher ilvl who doesn’t know what they’re doing or how to manage mechanics will also fail to contribute).
Generally, I find wow has a good balance of content access and challenge. Anyone can raid, for example…with LFR, where mechanics have been neutered. Everyone can do dungeons…in heroic, where mechanics again don’t really matter.
I just wish they had a hard mode for questing like in Diablo.
It’s interesting you said that because he said he’s pleased with Delves and their reward structure and thinks it M+ needs to have it’s rewards restructured.
I’m curious: what do you all define as “hardcore”? I don’t disagree or have issues with any of y’all’s statements, but it’s always interesting to hear what people consider to be “hardcore” and “casual”.
A “hard core” player rolled into TWW geared to the teeth, stomping everything in their path. Probably didn’t replace a single piece of gear until 77 or 78. This felt easy with little challenge.
Now do the same on a character in DF leveling greens. Someone who didn’t get the free 480s from the pre launch event. Your HP is so low a common open world critter can take a third of your health in one hit. It’s going to feel more difficult and death will be a constant companion.
For me it feels easy. Yea there are places that are a little challenging, but over all the open world is a face roll. Heroic dungeons have been lacking challenge but that’s OK, since you need the same ilvl to do LFR, and LFR offers better rewards, heroic dungeons have become a valor and cloth farm.
If you want challenges heroic raids and keys are there for you. I haven’t pushed that hard in a while so I can only speculate here, but in my past experience joining a guild was a better experience than pugging. Sometimes we ran higher keys for the finish, knowing we would never time the thing but the vault sure gave awesome rewards some weeks.
This game has difficulty for every skill level. I believe it’s some players approach that’s flawed.
i feel they mean as play style because they have dummed down things as in no more need to try for agro no need for md or tot or cc to clear mobs etc high xp rates healers rarely run out of mana and everyone basically has a self heal now.
Is WoW more balanced toward hardcore or casual compared to what? As there are currently 6 levels of gear (explorer, adventurer, veteran, etc.), I would imagine that there would be three overall answers from people at each level of gear. The game is hardcore which is why I can’t progress past veteran level gear. The game is casual given my naturally acquired champion level of gear. And, I am at xyz level of gear because I can only play 3 hours a week.
