I gotta agree. I share your sentiments 100%. I played old school FFXI for about 2 years, which is commonly labled (incorrectly, for the reasons you pointed out) a more "hardcore" game by fans. I got max level with 2 jobs, completed all the dynamises, finished Sky, killed Kirin, competed against other top Linkshells to tag the hardest NMs when they spawned, and I can confidently say that compared to WoW's challenging content (competitive PvP and raids), anying in FFXI was a walk in the park. A very very long, tedious walk in the park, but a summertime stroll nonetheless.
I do think that the length of the leveling experience and silly mechanics like losing experience upon death are often fallaciously described as "challenging," "difficult," or "hardcore." I can't stress enough that there's nothing difficult about it. It simply adds an element of tediousness to the leveling process and makes the achievement of reaching max level more significant.
Yes but you may have done all that but there would still be a reason to kill that NM again to clear a dynamis and claim an NM meanwhile with WoW all you are doing is running the same raid for points to get gear and not to get the actual gear from that raid. So guess what I'm saying is the way to obtain your gear in WoW is "EZ Mode" being both PVE and PVP gear. Now during vanilla I honestly could not call WoW easy mode for the fact you grinded Battlegrounds for your PvP gear and each raid you had a small chance of getting a piece of PvE armor.
Leveling use to be hard since there was always the chance of being rolled up on by someone around your level or higher. Last I played I went from 1-70 without being attack by opposing faction once and even on my way from 80-85 same thing.
PvP is easy if done right and the right way to PvP is roll in a group and not go off on your own.
And last it's boring leveling from start to finish more then once for me at least.
WoW isnt very deep when it comes to gameplay its just spam, saying that though Rift is even more Ezy mode than WOW, you dont even need an entire hotbar you can get away just fine with one super macro.
nah you need more then one macro, you need macros for things like you mad? bads and so on, no wow player can life without these macros XD
I see a lot of posts here confusing "EZ Mode" with lack of depth.
The other posts seem to be mixed on how leveling should be implemented.
Makes one wonder if any MMORPG can even be relegated to these one side mini phrases at all. Like "hardcore, casual, EZ Mode, Dumbed Down". Just goes to show we all have issues with our MMOs and we definitely do not agree on what they are. So how does a developer create a game around such wishy/washy opinions and tastes? Yikes, I do not envy them at all. People are impossible to please, fully.
Worse, is when everyone projects their own experiences/tastes on other players and can't understand why they don't agree with them. I've learned to respect what other people like, even if I don't personally like it myself.
Personally, while I can see some elements of WoW could be considered challenging, there are also a lot of areas in which it's not so much how you play, but rather how long you've played, that dictates your success.
Yes, the game does have some challenge to some of the raids and instances, where a group needs to work together. Most of this can be negated though by just spending more time on the easier parts, building up your gear, then just going and steamrolling the challenging part. Not all of it can be done this way, but a great deal of it.
The levelling, that's certainly been dumbed down a lot. It used to take a reasonable amount of time to get through the levels, but now, they reduced the amount of experience needed, so it just feels like you sail through the earlier levels. The revamp with cataclysm has made this even worse, by turning the quests into linear quests, focused on a small area, then moving on to the next small patch. The addition of the built in quest navigation is yet another example of this, though it can be disabled and there were addons to do the same before, it's made the whole levelling process a lot simpler for those that don't want to disable it, or even know it can be disabled.
Progressing through the PvE content is also rather easy. You might find the odd challenge in dungeons, especially if dealing with pugs, but if you put enough time in, you can get enough gold, crafting materials, or both, to negate a lot of the gear required from instances, or at least make the instance runs easier to do. It doesn't take extra skill to get through things, as without the gear, you just won't do it. It just needs extra time to GET the gear.
PvP is similar, though due to the opposition being human, it does involve at least a bit more skill. The gear still plays it's part here though, and two characters of similar strength and skill will have their fight determined by who has the best gear. There are times even where someone with the most skill can be beaten simply because their opponent has better equipement. Do you need to be skillful to get good gear? No... You just need time.
There are some areas where skill can help, but most, if not all, can be negated by simply putting in more time and grinding. This is why, in my view, WoW is an easy game. It's not such a bad thing to be easy, and certainly some people do prefer it. It means it's an accessible game, and one that will attract a lot of players, serving as a good introduction to the genre. Where it causes problems though, is that almost the whole industry has decided to copy these ideas, rather than take a chance and provide something that's a logical "step up". There are other MMOs, and many with more complex mechanics and designs, but none that are I am aware of that have managed to provide such a complete "package" of content, appealing to the same broad range of players, while also offering that step up in the challenge.
------------------------------ Currently playing: Rift
former player of: DAoC, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, SWG (pre-NGE), WoW, Warhammer online, LotR:O
WoW isnt very deep when it comes to gameplay its just spam, saying that though Rift is even more Ezy mode than WOW, you dont even need an entire hotbar you can get away just fine with one super macro.
nah you need more then one macro, you need macros for things like you mad? bads and so on, no wow player can life without these macros XD
I was referring to Rift needing only one macro. My DK on WOW used to tank using 2 macros so it is a little harder than Rift :P
I gotta agree. I share your sentiments 100%. I played old school FFXI for about 2 years, which is commonly labled (incorrectly, for the reasons you pointed out) a more "hardcore" game by fans. I got max level with 2 jobs, completed all the dynamises, finished Sky, killed Kirin, competed against other top Linkshells to tag the hardest NMs when they spawned, and I can confidently say that compared to WoW's challenging content (competitive PvP and raids), anying in FFXI was a walk in the park. A very very long, tedious walk in the park, but a summertime stroll nonetheless.
I do think that the length of the leveling experience and silly mechanics like losing experience upon death are often fallaciously described as "challenging," "difficult," or "hardcore." I can't stress enough that there's nothing difficult about it. It simply adds an element of tediousness to the leveling process and makes the achievement of reaching max level more significant.
Yes but you may have done all that but there would still be a reason to kill that NM again to clear a dynamis and claim an NM meanwhile with WoW all you are doing is running the same raid for points to get gear and not to get the actual gear from that raid. So guess what I'm saying is the way to obtain your gear in WoW is "EZ Mode" being both PVE and PVP gear. Now during vanilla I honestly could not call WoW easy mode for the fact you grinded Battlegrounds for your PvP gear and each raid you had a small chance of getting a piece of PvE armor.
Leveling use to be hard since there was always the chance of being rolled up on by someone around your level or higher. Last I played I went from 1-70 without being attack by opposing faction once and even on my way from 80-85 same thing.
PvP is easy if done right and the right way to PvP is roll in a group and not go off on your own.
And last it's boring leveling from start to finish more then once for me at least.
So...we as players have gotten used to the game mechanics and such, that without a complete overhaul of the game's core mechanics, it will always be "easier" to level now since we are so familiar with the game, right? That's how I see it right now and it's not an issue for me. Again, leveling should be fun and not tedious. It was in vanilla but over the years it is "easier" to level because I now know how the game works, in and out for the most part. That's not a developer fault, that's just human nature and adapting to our situations. Only thing that can cure that, is a brand new game with different mechanics.
I wonder if that's the real underlying issue here. For those who crave challenges, doing the same things for years isn't appealing to them and so they start to yammer and cry about "EZ Mode" . For those like myself, where these games aren't about the challenge but about character progression, exploration and good old escapist entertainment, we scratch our heads and wonder why people are crying about the games we've been playing for years. 2 sides of the fence, 2 player types. Maybe there's more or variations of the 2, but that's where I see the real issue stemming from.
WoW isnt very deep when it comes to gameplay its just spam, saying that though Rift is even more Ezy mode than WOW, you dont even need an entire hotbar you can get away just fine with one super macro.
nah you need more then one macro, you need macros for things like you mad? bads and so on, no wow player can life without these macros XD
I was referring to Rift needing only one macro. My DK on WOW used to tank using 2 macros so it is a little harder than Rift :P
and that was irony I was saying, no wow player can life without saying the dude they ganked with less then half his hp of bad or other lame childish taunts,
It's quite simple for me. The outdoor leveling content has been dumbed down a lot and gear stats have gone the other direction. They didn't stop there they made leveling exp go faster then the content your playing turning quests in the zone green and grey before you even finish the zone.
The combination of the two has made the outdoor pve just a time sink to end game with zero challenge. This is what killed wow for me for I love to play alts. What a waste of resources on the 1-60 content for the revamp in Cata.
To answer your question when my brother's nine year old daughter can level in Wow with ease that is the main reason (there is more) I feel Wow is EZ mode. This would have never happen at launch.
This. What's the point in completely re-doing the old lands if you are just going to level through it so fast you only get to see a portion of the re-made zones? Blizzard should have removed the faster leveling from the old lands when they re-made it.
Alternatively, players constantly complain that certain MMOs are too linear, providing only one questing path through the same zones. You must quest through the same zones every time you make a new alt. WoW features 6 completely distinct level 1-60 quest paths, 3 for alliance + 3 for horde. So which is it? Should every new character see all content every single time they level an alt, or should the games provide a variety of leveling paths?
I gotta agree. I share your sentiments 100%. I played old school FFXI for about 2 years, which is commonly labled (incorrectly, for the reasons you pointed out) a more "hardcore" game by fans. I got max level with 2 jobs, completed all the dynamises, finished Sky, killed Kirin, competed against other top Linkshells to tag the hardest NMs when they spawned, and I can confidently say that compared to WoW's challenging content (competitive PvP and raids), anying in FFXI was a walk in the park. A very very long, tedious walk in the park, but a summertime stroll nonetheless.
I do think that the length of the leveling experience and silly mechanics like losing experience upon death are often fallaciously described as "challenging," "difficult," or "hardcore." I can't stress enough that there's nothing difficult about it. It simply adds an element of tediousness to the leveling process and makes the achievement of reaching max level more significant.
Yes but you may have done all that but there would still be a reason to kill that NM again to clear a dynamis and claim an NM meanwhile with WoW all you are doing is running the same raid for points to get gear and not to get the actual gear from that raid. So guess what I'm saying is the way to obtain your gear in WoW is "EZ Mode" being both PVE and PVP gear. Now during vanilla I honestly could not call WoW easy mode for the fact you grinded Battlegrounds for your PvP gear and each raid you had a small chance of getting a piece of PvE armor.
Leveling use to be hard since there was always the chance of being rolled up on by someone around your level or higher. Last I played I went from 1-70 without being attack by opposing faction once and even on my way from 80-85 same thing.
PvP is easy if done right and the right way to PvP is roll in a group and not go off on your own.
And last it's boring leveling from start to finish more then once for me at least.
So...we as players have gotten used to the game mechanics and such, that without a complete overhaul of the game's core mechanics, it will always be "easier" to level now since we are so familiar with the game, right? That's how I see it right now and it's not an issue for me. Again, leveling should be fun and not tedious. It was in vanilla but over the years it is "easier" to level because I now know how the game works, in and out for the most part. That's not a developer fault, that's just human nature and adapting to our situations. Only thing that can cure that, is a brand new game with different mechanics.
I wonder if that's the real underlying issue here. For those who crave challenges, doing the same things for years isn't appealing to them and so they start to yammer and cry about "EZ Mode" . For those like myself, where these games aren't about the challenge but about character progression, exploration and good old escapist entertainment, we scratch our heads and wonder why people are crying about the games we've been playing for years. 2 sides of the fence, 2 player types. Maybe there's more or variations of the 2, but that's where I see the real issue stemming from.
Serious question since i have not played in awhile but how many player dungeons are there? I don't remember if they removed 25 mans or not.
It's quite simple for me. The outdoor leveling content has been dumbed down a lot and gear stats have gone the other direction. They didn't stop there they made leveling exp go faster then the content your playing turning quests in the zone green and grey before you even finish the zone.
The combination of the two has made the outdoor pve just a time sink to end game with zero challenge. This is what killed wow for me for I love to play alts. What a waste of resources on the 1-60 content for the revamp in Cata.
To answer your question when my brother's nine year old daughter can level in Wow with ease that is the main reason (there is more) I feel Wow is EZ mode. This would have never happen at launch.
This. What's the point in completely re-doing the old lands if you are just going to level through it so fast you only get to see a portion of the re-made zones? Blizzard should have removed the faster leveling from the old lands when they re-made it.
Alternatively, players constantly complain that certain MMOs are too linear, providing only one questing path through the same zones. You must quest through the same zones every time you make a new alt. WoW features 6 completely distinct level 1-60 quest paths, 3 for alliance + 3 for horde. So which is it? Should every new character see all content every single time they level an alt, or should the games provide a variety of leveling paths?
Yeah, that argument cracks me up. For me, WoW's way of doing it is the ONLY way to do it hehe, and we'll see more of that in SWTOR and GW2, if I read their features correctly. This is a good thing.
Lets look at it this way.. Wow is a kids game. The entire point of the game is to get new players to a MMO. It's original design (vanilla) was a work in progress. What we see now is a very streamlined game and quest system designed for new players that have no idea what to do next once they get a quest.
It's not a casual game persay, it's just streamlined for new players to jump right in and start playing. Blizzard is not concerned if you think it is easy mode. they know it is and they designed it that way. If you want it to be complex and deep, then this is not the game for you.
But also it's mass appeal is not the innovation it's not the immersion, it's that someone that has never played a MMO can jump right in (with a low end PC) and start playing. The endgame is not the goal for new players, it's hitting level 85 and after that if you want to try end game raids you have that option if your willing to work for it.
So bottom line if you grow out of Wow as a player then you have started to yearn for more complex gameplay,and thats when you one,need a break, or two, it's time to move on to another game.
I think what people mean by EZ is that, it doesn't require a lot of thinking.
It can be hard in terms of difficulty of gameplay, but it doesn't require strategy or tactics or choices to improve efficiency (or very little), because the gameplay, such as instances or dungeons or raids, even just normal questing are just very linear in terms of progression. Thus this creates a situation that a guide can easily be sufficient to help players through 95% of the content. It doesn't really too much of a practise to be great at great at something, and in turns, it doesn't feel special earning the prize.
Is this bad? Not necessarily, I mean I don't like to grind my brains and turn it into overdrive 24/7, I do enjoy from time to time to just waste my time in a joyous stroll of casting fireballs.
But a certain part of the content needs to make the player feel special (which is bloody hard to do so in MMO setting), it needs to create a challege for player to overcome, to feel like they have earned something, thats what difficulty is all about in game, it isn't to prevent you from finishing the game, a game is made to be completed, or its just plain stupid. But how to manipulate the difficulty is the question, a lot (and I mean like 95% majority of MMO developers) opt for a time consuming process, where you have to grind away for 2 hours before reaching the exciting part, which lets you choose a "difficult" mode (eg: Heroic), including bosses having a larger health pool, higher damage output, and occasionally a more devastating attack, in short, it simply makes the content requiring more and more time to complete. Sure this is one way to go about it, but repeating this method over and over again creates boredom, it needs other methods to create difficulty, because everyone can just spend longer hours to earn the trophy, but in the end, if everyone is special, no one is.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW? As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
It does, however, cater to the more casual gaming audience. As this demographic includes players across the age spectrum, the things implemented are going to see "EZ" for players of different skill levels or backgrounds of experience.
While I typically spend my time elesewhere game-wise, I can definitely appreciate the things that Blizzard has implemented the last few years and why.
Most of the things I have seen or heard complaints about came about because it was either bad for business not to or it was needless to put newer players though the extra changes.
Quest Tracking, Dungeon maps, Dungeon Helpers, Threat meters and the like weren't originally implemented by Blizzard but so many made use of often corrupt 3rd party programs that the implemented their own. More generous leveling curves, ease of Dungeon Questing, and ease of queing for dungeons and PvP all make for players to be able to play with their friends of disparate character or item level faster.
Each of these present very real potential reasons for players to quit due to confusion, frustration, or stagnation... Blizzard removed those hurdles.
Expect to see more of this in the coming years when games start learning to market to a specific audience as opposed to the "shotgun mentality" (i.e. Obliquely offering much but delivering potentially very little) used by so many Publishers these days.
A lot of people confuse time sinks with challenge. Hardcore and Casual are terms that get thrown out a lot. The term casual has almost become an insult because people view casuals as bads who want no challenge. Time spent doesn't equal challenge, there are plenty of casuals who love hard content, they just don't want stupid useless grinds accompanying them.
WoW is easy to understand and it is accessible. Most people who complain about WoW being "EZ Mode" don't have all the current bosses downed in heroic mode. If you and your guild can clear a new raid in heroic mode the first few weeks of it being released, then your opinion of WoW being EZ mode is valid.
I'll go ahead and do devil's advocate since I'm waiting for my pizza in the oven lol... But its actually a really easy answer granted your not fan-boying it and being honest. Its "EZ mode" if:
1- You've played since the early haydays and seen things gradually "dumbed down".
2- They assume everyone is a casual gamer and grinding is non~existent with an emphasis on the end gear with everyone wearing the same thing where everything ends up being "do A-B-C and your done".
3- It has a very minimal learning curve even with PvP in contrast to other games that were released at the same time. Usually EvE online is typically bought up as the prime example of "learning curve" for a known title on this site at least.
4- The implementation of game new features instead of either not using them or using them as 3rd party can be argued to be like a gold handicap; it helps make a less skilled player seem not as useless and make a really skilled player even better but generally everyone benefits.
5- Since there is more of an emphasis on the end game content versus the exploration and lore of the game, it means everyone just does the former and not the latter (or majority at least) thereby making it the rehashed stuff. Nothing really challenging or what not. Its just the same old stuff.
6- Like cata, it seems in order to get players to stick around stuff becomes "more accessible" and "less challenging".
Not saying this is an absolute or such but hey I'm bored and thought I'd take a crack at it.
Modern day WoW is super easy, leveling wise, it's sickening. I mean the only hard time I had leveling after Cataclysm is this Murloc quest in Elwynn forest, where only if you are alone and not a super easy leveling class like Paladin, than easily 5 murlocs could start attacking you and kill you.
However, even during Wotlk it was just as easy as every other MMO. I mean there is literally zero MMO's that I would say take brain power, strategy, tactics or skill, especially compared to the most simplest single player games. Even Eve, which is said to be the hardest MMO, is super easy, I mean "leveling" is 100% easier than WoWs and the combat is simpler than WoWs in my opinion. If the economic stuff wasn't a tiny bit difficult than the game would easily be considered EZ mode for MMO's.
Seriously, people say it's for kids and beginner mmo players, but there is no modern MMO that really is much more difficult that says you are no longer a kid, no longer a beginner.
"Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people." - Eleanor Roosevelt "Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security." -Norman Vincent Peale
It's quite simple for me. The outdoor leveling content has been dumbed down a lot and gear stats have gone the other direction. They didn't stop there they made leveling exp go faster then the content your playing turning quests in the zone green and grey before you even finish the zone.
The combination of the two has made the outdoor pve just a time sink to end game with zero challenge. This is what killed wow for me for I love to play alts. What a waste of resources on the 1-60 content for the revamp in Cata.
To answer your question when my brother's nine year old daughter can level in Wow with ease that is the main reason (there is more) I feel Wow is EZ mode. This would have never happen at launch.
This. What's the point in completely re-doing the old lands if you are just going to level through it so fast you only get to see a portion of the re-made zones? Blizzard should have removed the faster leveling from the old lands when they re-made it.
Alternatively, players constantly complain that certain MMOs are too linear, providing only one questing path through the same zones. You must quest through the same zones every time you make a new alt. WoW features 6 completely distinct level 1-60 quest paths, 3 for alliance + 3 for horde. So which is it? Should every new character see all content every single time they level an alt, or should the games provide a variety of leveling paths?
Yeah, that argument cracks me up. For me, WoW's way of doing it is the ONLY way to do it hehe, and we'll see more of that in SWTOR and GW2, if I read their features correctly. This is a good thing.
Well, for me if you're making new alts on a regular basis, then the content is probably too easy.
For me its all about the journey, and not about the destination. So call me old school, but I want it to be challenging to level up, to take time and real thought to minimize my downtime and when I do reach level cap (however far down the road that is) it is a real acheivement that many will not be able to accomplish.
WOW is not that game. I'm not going to argue that the raid content or high level arena PVP isn't competitive (though not really offering the same experience of RVR back in DAOC's glory years) but it surely is, (my guild had almost cleared AQ 40 back in vanilla WOW) but the rest of the game is clearly designed for casual game players like yourself and many others.
Remember, what some folks call tedious others call a challenge.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
MMOs in general are designed to not be difficult, or hard. I've not seen any mechanic other than players basically failing to pay attention that makes things difficult.
There's a lot of things; someone said progression and that's the big part of it. What you need and how you get it is completely laid out for you and it's just a matter of investing time (as opposed to investing skill) to obtain it.
The King is a natural born leader and in WoW and a few other games it wasn't hard to round up a team to take down the "new" and "improved" content from these games as it came about. Despite me having grew tired of a lot of the raid mechanics years ago.
The talent trees, the combonation of abilities, the gear sets laid out for you; the most difficult part of the game is trying to figure out your optimal key pressing sequence.
Even then with all the addons making questiong speedy, trading speedy, and honestly NO MMO has crafting. At best they have assemblage- and it stinks.
Themepark MMOs, even with their PVP content, are easy games in general. Honestly Super Mario Bros. 8-3 has a higher "think / react / achieve" difficulty rating than anything in WoW; or any other MMO for that matter where the players have no control over their progression.
It's quite simple for me. The outdoor leveling content has been dumbed down a lot and gear stats have gone the other direction. They didn't stop there they made leveling exp go faster then the content your playing turning quests in the zone green and grey before you even finish the zone.
The combination of the two has made the outdoor pve just a time sink to end game with zero challenge. This is what killed wow for me for I love to play alts. What a waste of resources on the 1-60 content for the revamp in Cata.
To answer your question when my brother's nine year old daughter can level in Wow with ease that is the main reason (there is more) I feel Wow is EZ mode. This would have never happen at launch.
This. What's the point in completely re-doing the old lands if you are just going to level through it so fast you only get to see a portion of the re-made zones? Blizzard should have removed the faster leveling from the old lands when they re-made it.
Alternatively, players constantly complain that certain MMOs are too linear, providing only one questing path through the same zones. You must quest through the same zones every time you make a new alt. WoW features 6 completely distinct level 1-60 quest paths, 3 for alliance + 3 for horde. So which is it? Should every new character see all content every single time they level an alt, or should the games provide a variety of leveling paths?
Yeah, that argument cracks me up. For me, WoW's way of doing it is the ONLY way to do it hehe, and we'll see more of that in SWTOR and GW2, if I read their features correctly. This is a good thing.
Your getting away from your OP. I showed you why Wow is EZ mode today for me and you go off on multi path ways to level. Wow has dumbed down the the leveling experience from vanilla to what we have today. If I were to rate the leveling challenge in vanilla on a 1 to 10 scale I would give it a solid 7 compared to a 1 today. That is why it's EZ mode for me.
I'll go ahead and do devil's advocate since I'm waiting for my pizza in the oven lol... But its actually a really easy answer granted your not fan-boying it and being honest. Its "EZ mode" if:
1- You've played since the early haydays and seen things gradually "dumbed down".
2- They assume everyone is a casual gamer and grinding is non~existent with an emphasis on the end gear with everyone wearing the same thing where everything ends up being "do A-B-C and your done".
3- It has a very minimal learning curve even with PvP in contrast to other games that were released at the same time. Usually EvE online is typically bought up as the prime example of "learning curve" for a known title on this site at least.
4- The implementation of game new features instead of either not using them or using them as 3rd party can be argued to be like a gold handicap; it helps make a less skilled player seem not as useless and make a really skilled player even better but generally everyone benefits.
5- Since there is more of an emphasis on the end game content versus the exploration and lore of the game, it means everyone just does the former and not the latter (or majority at least) thereby making it the rehashed stuff. Nothing really challenging or what not. Its just the same old stuff.
6- Like cata, it seems in order to get players to stick around stuff becomes "more accessible" and "less challenging".
Not saying this is an absolute or such but hey I'm bored and thought I'd take a crack at it.
1. I am not playing presently, but I have played Cata some and played tons during "Vanilla". I liked that they have reduced the grinds and made it easier for new players to get exposed to the game and get themselves up to a lvl where they can venture with their friends faster. MMO's were always supposed to be a community and the difference between new and old players in most MMO's has always been a very vast one lvl wise.
2. This itemization is an issue I completely agree with. I miss the days of games like AC or AO where you could tailor your character to fit your playstyle and still be quite effective.
3. PvP is a harsh subject for me on this game as it has always had less to do with skill that it did class, macros, specialty UI's, enchantments, and armor.
4. Agreed. The problem,though, is that without the handicap it costs Blizzard money, resources, and their reputation to fix the problems after the fact. Anyone who has gamed with multiple companies in the last 10 years or more can cite at least one company they would never give another dime to. More often than not, due to an issue that was mishandled or not handled at all.
5. That's indicitive of the "race" that makes people cite how easy or not a game is.. They compare MMO's to console games typically without meaning to. DCUO is a great example...The devs never meant for any player to spend time grinding levels, but to experience the content from each mentor with different characters sprinkled in with co-ops and pvp. Yet, you still had players complain (loudly) about how easy it was to lvl up and how there was no challenge. All other negative aspects of the game aside, it was apparent that many just didn't (don't ) "get it".
6. The heroic and raid encounters I saw in Cata had folks whining about it being too hard in droves. Reminded me of what you found in Vanilla in raids like original MC or ZG back when they were relevant.
First, I would like to disagree that EVE is just as easy as WoW. Skill progression in EVE, IMO, is more realistic. Which seems more involved therefore immersive. By more reaslistic, I mean, in real life, it takes time to learn new things. A long time. As far as combat... If you get killed in WoW, so what! In EVE, you risk losing your ship and everything on it. Plus, risk losing skill points if your clone isn't up to date.
Anyway, back to topic. I think "EZ Mode" is a veteran term used to express displeasure in the current generation of games. For instance, I'm a DAoC vet and I can't stand the PvP in WoW. In DAoC, a group was all but required to compete in the frontiers. Everyone has their role. Tanks, DPS, Buffing healer, healing healer etc were all required. In WoW PvP, there really is no dedicated role. Everyone just jumps in and tries to survive. Rinse and repeat... and repeat... and repeat... Granted, the PvP isn't necessarily easier... Just requires much less thought.
Soooo.. Play UO, DAoC, EQ1, Ashron's Call and then play WoW again... Then there may be a chance at better understanding the phrase.
WoW used to be difficult. I played since Vanilla and it was considerably more difficult. WotLK and Cata really dumbed it down for blizzards profit.(1-2 mil of hardcore subs, or 12 mil subs of who cares what type of player?) The game is just too faceroll now. Not to mention that it is so damn hard to find good and dedicated guild members for your 4 night a week raid. Many people you find at 80 just started playing a month ago and don't know what they're doing(Why don't I get xp in a raid?!). Well over half of them don't know a basic rule of raiding. Stay out of the fire. Better yet, stay out of the bad stuff.
The reason you probably haven't downed end game raid content while it was considered progressional content because of the people who read forums and agree with all the hardcores who ragequit and then stop trying to do well and read mechanics and watch videos because they think they're better than the game all of the sudden.(Then they proceed to blame the raid and not themselves. Don't get the people who do spend an hour or 2 before raid and rage when you wipe mixed up with the others. They're doing something right.) As with any good MMO, it should challege your skill and your mind. It is here that WoW is slowly degenerating.
Soooo.. Play UO, DAoC, EQ1, Ashron's Call and then play WoW again... Then there may be a chance at better understanding the phrase.
I've played all of those and every single one annoyed me to no end with their frustrating WORK like mechanics and clunky controls/UIs.
For me, WoW took the best of some of those games, namely EQ1, and just made it FUN and less of a hassle. I want to come home, hop into a game and have a blast doing whatever. Not go back to the days pre-WoW when I was playing SWG and FFXI and I came home from work to....more work.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Some of us want to "live" in an alternate world. We want to become our toon. Rise and fall with their accomplishments. We want to feel accomplished when we win a difficult battle or embarrassed when we lose. In WoW, it feels more like, "Whatever". Get to the top? You look just like every single other person that has made it there. In MMOs like DAoC or AC, you bought (or crafted) your own armor and used dyes and/or enamels to color it the way you want. Then you crafted or paid someone to embue whichever stats you wanted. Everyone was different. You were unigue. Almost noone was exactly the same.
WoW is fun, yes. But it's very basic. Just my very humble opinion.
The slight talking about how wow is EZ mode is a simple answer. The OP must be on an incredibly crappy server if he cant pug 85 raids, and that's how wow is EZ mode. Blizzard dumbs down their raids when they release new content, all 85 heroics have been dumbed down to EZ mode, all 85 Raids other then firelands has been dumbed down to EZ mode, and then on top of all that you can get raiding loot from badges you get from heroics so, que up a random heroic get thrown into a pug and bam you get badges that get you top tier gear. Now sure firelands is semi hard, and require you to have a compantant group to get threw it, but it was beat on the PTR before it was even out, sure by the top raiding guilds in the world but once they go off and make a guide (and that's another problem, there is no random effects you can EZ mode guide it threw every fight every pull) most guilds will be out their capable of doing it.
Sure heroic raids add in extra effects, but not enough to keep people out of it in the first weeks of being out. If you don't want that get your self a full set of pvp gear in less then 3 days of work, most classes can do fine in pvp gear doing pve. And its not like you need to actually do anything you can jump around on your mount in AV and get the honor you need. This is why wow is EZ mode. On top of that it takes less then a week to get to 85, no death effects other then miner armor damage that you have to pay off with gold if you don't have 15k gold after a week of being 85 your prob doing it wrong.
This is why wow is EZ mode. Sure it plays well for the casual gamer, and that's what blizzard has focused on for the last 4+ years. Its what drove me away from the game, its just too easy to do things there no challenge left in the game. you watch a you tube video of a boss fight and you can do it. I have done everything in that game That I could think of, Main tanked, Off tanked, Main Heals, DPS, Holy PVP, DPS PVP Ive seen all the end game content up to 85. I have rare mounts that no longer exist in the game. I have gear that was taken out of the game, I have closed to max factions. The few things that I didn't get were lore master achievement Pre cata, and that's honestly only because I didn't want to do starting level quest on high level toons. I did all this while maintaining a 40+ hr week job, 2 kids and a wife.
This game is built for a causal style of game play. As I have gotten older, I want to go back to the days of Ever quest where, you went to the plain of death and the demi god would come out and instantly kill 7-10 of your raid members, didnt matter who just a random 7-10 people insta died. Not meny games give you this type of random game play.
EDIT: Sorry for the wall of text when I posted the site was all messed up looking all white on black with code all over it idk. haha.
Comments
Yes but you may have done all that but there would still be a reason to kill that NM again to clear a dynamis and claim an NM meanwhile with WoW all you are doing is running the same raid for points to get gear and not to get the actual gear from that raid. So guess what I'm saying is the way to obtain your gear in WoW is "EZ Mode" being both PVE and PVP gear. Now during vanilla I honestly could not call WoW easy mode for the fact you grinded Battlegrounds for your PvP gear and each raid you had a small chance of getting a piece of PvE armor.
Leveling use to be hard since there was always the chance of being rolled up on by someone around your level or higher. Last I played I went from 1-70 without being attack by opposing faction once and even on my way from 80-85 same thing.
PvP is easy if done right and the right way to PvP is roll in a group and not go off on your own.
And last it's boring leveling from start to finish more then once for me at least.
nah you need more then one macro, you need macros for things like you mad? bads and so on, no wow player can life without these macros XD
I see a lot of posts here confusing "EZ Mode" with lack of depth.
The other posts seem to be mixed on how leveling should be implemented.
Makes one wonder if any MMORPG can even be relegated to these one side mini phrases at all. Like "hardcore, casual, EZ Mode, Dumbed Down". Just goes to show we all have issues with our MMOs and we definitely do not agree on what they are. So how does a developer create a game around such wishy/washy opinions and tastes? Yikes, I do not envy them at all. People are impossible to please, fully.
Worse, is when everyone projects their own experiences/tastes on other players and can't understand why they don't agree with them. I've learned to respect what other people like, even if I don't personally like it myself.
Personally, while I can see some elements of WoW could be considered challenging, there are also a lot of areas in which it's not so much how you play, but rather how long you've played, that dictates your success.
Yes, the game does have some challenge to some of the raids and instances, where a group needs to work together. Most of this can be negated though by just spending more time on the easier parts, building up your gear, then just going and steamrolling the challenging part. Not all of it can be done this way, but a great deal of it.
The levelling, that's certainly been dumbed down a lot. It used to take a reasonable amount of time to get through the levels, but now, they reduced the amount of experience needed, so it just feels like you sail through the earlier levels. The revamp with cataclysm has made this even worse, by turning the quests into linear quests, focused on a small area, then moving on to the next small patch. The addition of the built in quest navigation is yet another example of this, though it can be disabled and there were addons to do the same before, it's made the whole levelling process a lot simpler for those that don't want to disable it, or even know it can be disabled.
Progressing through the PvE content is also rather easy. You might find the odd challenge in dungeons, especially if dealing with pugs, but if you put enough time in, you can get enough gold, crafting materials, or both, to negate a lot of the gear required from instances, or at least make the instance runs easier to do. It doesn't take extra skill to get through things, as without the gear, you just won't do it. It just needs extra time to GET the gear.
PvP is similar, though due to the opposition being human, it does involve at least a bit more skill. The gear still plays it's part here though, and two characters of similar strength and skill will have their fight determined by who has the best gear. There are times even where someone with the most skill can be beaten simply because their opponent has better equipement. Do you need to be skillful to get good gear? No... You just need time.
There are some areas where skill can help, but most, if not all, can be negated by simply putting in more time and grinding. This is why, in my view, WoW is an easy game. It's not such a bad thing to be easy, and certainly some people do prefer it. It means it's an accessible game, and one that will attract a lot of players, serving as a good introduction to the genre. Where it causes problems though, is that almost the whole industry has decided to copy these ideas, rather than take a chance and provide something that's a logical "step up". There are other MMOs, and many with more complex mechanics and designs, but none that are I am aware of that have managed to provide such a complete "package" of content, appealing to the same broad range of players, while also offering that step up in the challenge.
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Currently playing: Rift
former player of: DAoC, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, SWG (pre-NGE), WoW, Warhammer online, LotR:O
So...we as players have gotten used to the game mechanics and such, that without a complete overhaul of the game's core mechanics, it will always be "easier" to level now since we are so familiar with the game, right? That's how I see it right now and it's not an issue for me. Again, leveling should be fun and not tedious. It was in vanilla but over the years it is "easier" to level because I now know how the game works, in and out for the most part. That's not a developer fault, that's just human nature and adapting to our situations. Only thing that can cure that, is a brand new game with different mechanics.
I wonder if that's the real underlying issue here. For those who crave challenges, doing the same things for years isn't appealing to them and so they start to yammer and cry about "EZ Mode" . For those like myself, where these games aren't about the challenge but about character progression, exploration and good old escapist entertainment, we scratch our heads and wonder why people are crying about the games we've been playing for years. 2 sides of the fence, 2 player types. Maybe there's more or variations of the 2, but that's where I see the real issue stemming from.
and that was irony I was saying, no wow player can life without saying the dude they ganked with less then half his hp of bad or other lame childish taunts,
Alternatively, players constantly complain that certain MMOs are too linear, providing only one questing path through the same zones. You must quest through the same zones every time you make a new alt. WoW features 6 completely distinct level 1-60 quest paths, 3 for alliance + 3 for horde. So which is it? Should every new character see all content every single time they level an alt, or should the games provide a variety of leveling paths?
Serious question since i have not played in awhile but how many player dungeons are there? I don't remember if they removed 25 mans or not.
Yeah, that argument cracks me up. For me, WoW's way of doing it is the ONLY way to do it hehe, and we'll see more of that in SWTOR and GW2, if I read their features correctly. This is a good thing.
Lets look at it this way.. Wow is a kids game. The entire point of the game is to get new players to a MMO. It's original design (vanilla) was a work in progress. What we see now is a very streamlined game and quest system designed for new players that have no idea what to do next once they get a quest.
It's not a casual game persay, it's just streamlined for new players to jump right in and start playing. Blizzard is not concerned if you think it is easy mode. they know it is and they designed it that way. If you want it to be complex and deep, then this is not the game for you.
But also it's mass appeal is not the innovation it's not the immersion, it's that someone that has never played a MMO can jump right in (with a low end PC) and start playing. The endgame is not the goal for new players, it's hitting level 85 and after that if you want to try end game raids you have that option if your willing to work for it.
So bottom line if you grow out of Wow as a player then you have started to yearn for more complex gameplay,and thats when you one,need a break, or two, it's time to move on to another game.
I think what people mean by EZ is that, it doesn't require a lot of thinking.
It can be hard in terms of difficulty of gameplay, but it doesn't require strategy or tactics or choices to improve efficiency (or very little), because the gameplay, such as instances or dungeons or raids, even just normal questing are just very linear in terms of progression. Thus this creates a situation that a guide can easily be sufficient to help players through 95% of the content. It doesn't really too much of a practise to be great at great at something, and in turns, it doesn't feel special earning the prize.
Is this bad? Not necessarily, I mean I don't like to grind my brains and turn it into overdrive 24/7, I do enjoy from time to time to just waste my time in a joyous stroll of casting fireballs.
But a certain part of the content needs to make the player feel special (which is bloody hard to do so in MMO setting), it needs to create a challege for player to overcome, to feel like they have earned something, thats what difficulty is all about in game, it isn't to prevent you from finishing the game, a game is made to be completed, or its just plain stupid. But how to manipulate the difficulty is the question, a lot (and I mean like 95% majority of MMO developers) opt for a time consuming process, where you have to grind away for 2 hours before reaching the exciting part, which lets you choose a "difficult" mode (eg: Heroic), including bosses having a larger health pool, higher damage output, and occasionally a more devastating attack, in short, it simply makes the content requiring more and more time to complete. Sure this is one way to go about it, but repeating this method over and over again creates boredom, it needs other methods to create difficulty, because everyone can just spend longer hours to earn the trophy, but in the end, if everyone is special, no one is.
How much WoW could a WoWhater hate, if a WoWhater could hate WoW?
As much WoW as a WoWhater would, if a WoWhater could hate WoW.
WoW isn't EZ Mode.
It does, however, cater to the more casual gaming audience. As this demographic includes players across the age spectrum, the things implemented are going to see "EZ" for players of different skill levels or backgrounds of experience.
While I typically spend my time elesewhere game-wise, I can definitely appreciate the things that Blizzard has implemented the last few years and why.
Most of the things I have seen or heard complaints about came about because it was either bad for business not to or it was needless to put newer players though the extra changes.
Quest Tracking, Dungeon maps, Dungeon Helpers, Threat meters and the like weren't originally implemented by Blizzard but so many made use of often corrupt 3rd party programs that the implemented their own. More generous leveling curves, ease of Dungeon Questing, and ease of queing for dungeons and PvP all make for players to be able to play with their friends of disparate character or item level faster.
Each of these present very real potential reasons for players to quit due to confusion, frustration, or stagnation... Blizzard removed those hurdles.
Expect to see more of this in the coming years when games start learning to market to a specific audience as opposed to the "shotgun mentality" (i.e. Obliquely offering much but delivering potentially very little) used by so many Publishers these days.
A lot of people confuse time sinks with challenge. Hardcore and Casual are terms that get thrown out a lot. The term casual has almost become an insult because people view casuals as bads who want no challenge. Time spent doesn't equal challenge, there are plenty of casuals who love hard content, they just don't want stupid useless grinds accompanying them.
WoW is easy to understand and it is accessible. Most people who complain about WoW being "EZ Mode" don't have all the current bosses downed in heroic mode. If you and your guild can clear a new raid in heroic mode the first few weeks of it being released, then your opinion of WoW being EZ mode is valid.
I'll go ahead and do devil's advocate since I'm waiting for my pizza in the oven lol... But its actually a really easy answer granted your not fan-boying it and being honest. Its "EZ mode" if:
1- You've played since the early haydays and seen things gradually "dumbed down".
2- They assume everyone is a casual gamer and grinding is non~existent with an emphasis on the end gear with everyone wearing the same thing where everything ends up being "do A-B-C and your done".
3- It has a very minimal learning curve even with PvP in contrast to other games that were released at the same time. Usually EvE online is typically bought up as the prime example of "learning curve" for a known title on this site at least.
4- The implementation of game new features instead of either not using them or using them as 3rd party can be argued to be like a gold handicap; it helps make a less skilled player seem not as useless and make a really skilled player even better but generally everyone benefits.
5- Since there is more of an emphasis on the end game content versus the exploration and lore of the game, it means everyone just does the former and not the latter (or majority at least) thereby making it the rehashed stuff. Nothing really challenging or what not. Its just the same old stuff.
6- Like cata, it seems in order to get players to stick around stuff becomes "more accessible" and "less challenging".
Not saying this is an absolute or such but hey I'm bored and thought I'd take a crack at it.
Modern day WoW is super easy, leveling wise, it's sickening. I mean the only hard time I had leveling after Cataclysm is this Murloc quest in Elwynn forest, where only if you are alone and not a super easy leveling class like Paladin, than easily 5 murlocs could start attacking you and kill you.
However, even during Wotlk it was just as easy as every other MMO. I mean there is literally zero MMO's that I would say take brain power, strategy, tactics or skill, especially compared to the most simplest single player games. Even Eve, which is said to be the hardest MMO, is super easy, I mean "leveling" is 100% easier than WoWs and the combat is simpler than WoWs in my opinion. If the economic stuff wasn't a tiny bit difficult than the game would easily be considered EZ mode for MMO's.
Seriously, people say it's for kids and beginner mmo players, but there is no modern MMO that really is much more difficult that says you are no longer a kid, no longer a beginner.
"Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security." -Norman Vincent Peale
Well, for me if you're making new alts on a regular basis, then the content is probably too easy.
For me its all about the journey, and not about the destination. So call me old school, but I want it to be challenging to level up, to take time and real thought to minimize my downtime and when I do reach level cap (however far down the road that is) it is a real acheivement that many will not be able to accomplish.
WOW is not that game. I'm not going to argue that the raid content or high level arena PVP isn't competitive (though not really offering the same experience of RVR back in DAOC's glory years) but it surely is, (my guild had almost cleared AQ 40 back in vanilla WOW) but the rest of the game is clearly designed for casual game players like yourself and many others.
Remember, what some folks call tedious others call a challenge.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
MMOs in general are designed to not be difficult, or hard. I've not seen any mechanic other than players basically failing to pay attention that makes things difficult.
There's a lot of things; someone said progression and that's the big part of it. What you need and how you get it is completely laid out for you and it's just a matter of investing time (as opposed to investing skill) to obtain it.
The King is a natural born leader and in WoW and a few other games it wasn't hard to round up a team to take down the "new" and "improved" content from these games as it came about. Despite me having grew tired of a lot of the raid mechanics years ago.
The talent trees, the combonation of abilities, the gear sets laid out for you; the most difficult part of the game is trying to figure out your optimal key pressing sequence.
Even then with all the addons making questiong speedy, trading speedy, and honestly NO MMO has crafting. At best they have assemblage- and it stinks.
Themepark MMOs, even with their PVP content, are easy games in general. Honestly Super Mario Bros. 8-3 has a higher "think / react / achieve" difficulty rating than anything in WoW; or any other MMO for that matter where the players have no control over their progression.
Your getting away from your OP. I showed you why Wow is EZ mode today for me and you go off on multi path ways to level. Wow has dumbed down the the leveling experience from vanilla to what we have today. If I were to rate the leveling challenge in vanilla on a 1 to 10 scale I would give it a solid 7 compared to a 1 today. That is why it's EZ mode for me.
1. I am not playing presently, but I have played Cata some and played tons during "Vanilla". I liked that they have reduced the grinds and made it easier for new players to get exposed to the game and get themselves up to a lvl where they can venture with their friends faster. MMO's were always supposed to be a community and the difference between new and old players in most MMO's has always been a very vast one lvl wise.
2. This itemization is an issue I completely agree with. I miss the days of games like AC or AO where you could tailor your character to fit your playstyle and still be quite effective.
3. PvP is a harsh subject for me on this game as it has always had less to do with skill that it did class, macros, specialty UI's, enchantments, and armor.
4. Agreed. The problem,though, is that without the handicap it costs Blizzard money, resources, and their reputation to fix the problems after the fact. Anyone who has gamed with multiple companies in the last 10 years or more can cite at least one company they would never give another dime to. More often than not, due to an issue that was mishandled or not handled at all.
5. That's indicitive of the "race" that makes people cite how easy or not a game is.. They compare MMO's to console games typically without meaning to. DCUO is a great example...The devs never meant for any player to spend time grinding levels, but to experience the content from each mentor with different characters sprinkled in with co-ops and pvp. Yet, you still had players complain (loudly) about how easy it was to lvl up and how there was no challenge. All other negative aspects of the game aside, it was apparent that many just didn't (don't ) "get it".
6. The heroic and raid encounters I saw in Cata had folks whining about it being too hard in droves. Reminded me of what you found in Vanilla in raids like original MC or ZG back when they were relevant.
First, I would like to disagree that EVE is just as easy as WoW. Skill progression in EVE, IMO, is more realistic. Which seems more involved therefore immersive. By more reaslistic, I mean, in real life, it takes time to learn new things. A long time. As far as combat... If you get killed in WoW, so what! In EVE, you risk losing your ship and everything on it. Plus, risk losing skill points if your clone isn't up to date.
Anyway, back to topic. I think "EZ Mode" is a veteran term used to express displeasure in the current generation of games. For instance, I'm a DAoC vet and I can't stand the PvP in WoW. In DAoC, a group was all but required to compete in the frontiers. Everyone has their role. Tanks, DPS, Buffing healer, healing healer etc were all required. In WoW PvP, there really is no dedicated role. Everyone just jumps in and tries to survive. Rinse and repeat... and repeat... and repeat... Granted, the PvP isn't necessarily easier... Just requires much less thought.
Soooo.. Play UO, DAoC, EQ1, Ashron's Call and then play WoW again... Then there may be a chance at better understanding the phrase.
three2six
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three2six
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WoW used to be difficult. I played since Vanilla and it was considerably more difficult. WotLK and Cata really dumbed it down for blizzards profit.(1-2 mil of hardcore subs, or 12 mil subs of who cares what type of player?) The game is just too faceroll now. Not to mention that it is so damn hard to find good and dedicated guild members for your 4 night a week raid. Many people you find at 80 just started playing a month ago and don't know what they're doing(Why don't I get xp in a raid?!). Well over half of them don't know a basic rule of raiding. Stay out of the fire. Better yet, stay out of the bad stuff.
The reason you probably haven't downed end game raid content while it was considered progressional content because of the people who read forums and agree with all the hardcores who ragequit and then stop trying to do well and read mechanics and watch videos because they think they're better than the game all of the sudden.(Then they proceed to blame the raid and not themselves. Don't get the people who do spend an hour or 2 before raid and rage when you wipe mixed up with the others. They're doing something right.) As with any good MMO, it should challege your skill and your mind. It is here that WoW is slowly degenerating.
I've played all of those and every single one annoyed me to no end with their frustrating WORK like mechanics and clunky controls/UIs.
For me, WoW took the best of some of those games, namely EQ1, and just made it FUN and less of a hassle. I want to come home, hop into a game and have a blast doing whatever. Not go back to the days pre-WoW when I was playing SWG and FFXI and I came home from work to....more work.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Some of us want to "live" in an alternate world. We want to become our toon. Rise and fall with their accomplishments. We want to feel accomplished when we win a difficult battle or embarrassed when we lose. In WoW, it feels more like, "Whatever". Get to the top? You look just like every single other person that has made it there. In MMOs like DAoC or AC, you bought (or crafted) your own armor and used dyes and/or enamels to color it the way you want. Then you crafted or paid someone to embue whichever stats you wanted. Everyone was different. You were unigue. Almost noone was exactly the same.
WoW is fun, yes. But it's very basic. Just my very humble opinion.
three2six
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three2six
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The slight talking about how wow is EZ mode is a simple answer. The OP must be on an incredibly crappy server if he cant pug 85 raids, and that's how wow is EZ mode. Blizzard dumbs down their raids when they release new content, all 85 heroics have been dumbed down to EZ mode, all 85 Raids other then firelands has been dumbed down to EZ mode, and then on top of all that you can get raiding loot from badges you get from heroics so, que up a random heroic get thrown into a pug and bam you get badges that get you top tier gear. Now sure firelands is semi hard, and require you to have a compantant group to get threw it, but it was beat on the PTR before it was even out, sure by the top raiding guilds in the world but once they go off and make a guide (and that's another problem, there is no random effects you can EZ mode guide it threw every fight every pull) most guilds will be out their capable of doing it.
Sure heroic raids add in extra effects, but not enough to keep people out of it in the first weeks of being out. If you don't want that get your self a full set of pvp gear in less then 3 days of work, most classes can do fine in pvp gear doing pve. And its not like you need to actually do anything you can jump around on your mount in AV and get the honor you need. This is why wow is EZ mode. On top of that it takes less then a week to get to 85, no death effects other then miner armor damage that you have to pay off with gold if you don't have 15k gold after a week of being 85 your prob doing it wrong.
This is why wow is EZ mode. Sure it plays well for the casual gamer, and that's what blizzard has focused on for the last 4+ years. Its what drove me away from the game, its just too easy to do things there no challenge left in the game. you watch a you tube video of a boss fight and you can do it. I have done everything in that game That I could think of, Main tanked, Off tanked, Main Heals, DPS, Holy PVP, DPS PVP Ive seen all the end game content up to 85. I have rare mounts that no longer exist in the game. I have gear that was taken out of the game, I have closed to max factions. The few things that I didn't get were lore master achievement Pre cata, and that's honestly only because I didn't want to do starting level quest on high level toons. I did all this while maintaining a 40+ hr week job, 2 kids and a wife.
This game is built for a causal style of game play. As I have gotten older, I want to go back to the days of Ever quest where, you went to the plain of death and the demi god would come out and instantly kill 7-10 of your raid members, didnt matter who just a random 7-10 people insta died. Not meny games give you this type of random game play.
EDIT: Sorry for the wall of text when I posted the site was all messed up looking all white on black with code all over it idk. haha.