WOTLK, Crusader and ICC was too easy

[Broomba37]

I have been watching multiple streams of guild having a hard time clearing the bosses on Heroic and even on the PTR and yet many people have complained that the raids and heroic bosses was too easy before Cata, and now they are hard and many are melting down and getting frustrated when they can't rise to the challenge or have a difficult time fighting the new fights.

[Drarkan]

I last raided seriously when our guild got to LK on regular on 10 man. We had a hard time on the 3rd phase when the valkries picked up a random person, and defiles hit the floor. Eventually the group downed it 4 weeks later but by then I had to drop cause I was focused on opening up our store. Had to do some renovations after I got off work where I was before we opened, so raiding was not a priority. I can only imagine how hard the new heroics will be. I really should try raiding some of the current content, I'm sure I could find a good pug on Blackrock.

[Ualaa]

Burning Crusade was designed to be a challenge.
The progression was pretty much:
a) level up
b) run non-70 dungeons
c) run 70 dungeons
d) run non-70 heroics
e) run 70 heroics and/or Kara
f) raid

If you skipped a step, you were pretty much going to die... unless it was the case of having many players already ahead of the curve for whatever you were raiding.

Stepping into heroics for BC era play was very difficult, especially before they nerfed the heroics... which they did several times.



The WotLK era, seems to have been much more of an easy mode.
Let all the kiddies experience the full game, with the massive number of GDKP runs (my server had 40 or so GDKP's for current highest content, both 10 and 25 man runs throughout the WotLK era).
They brought in the buff while you were in Icecrown, which further made it easier.

Not saying the raids were a walk in the park.
I loved the challenge of SSC and TK, back when you needed to defeat Lady Vashj and Kael'Thas, prior to getting into Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.
My progression guild got into (on 25-man) Tier 6 shortly before they opened Tier 6 to everyone; I was raiding (one-box) with a Demo Warlock at that point.
It sucked once they opened Tier 6 progression, as most people would clear SSC/TK up to but not including the final bosses, then kill 6 Hyjal bosses and 4 BT bosses before coming back to farm the harder Tier 5 final bosses.

But quite a few people managed to get fresh to 80th toons, take them into a heroic dungeon and get the achievement for both the dungeon and the heroic on the same run... along with say three others in the group getting the heroic achievement.
Granted, this might be second or third characters for players who knew exactly what to do, but still... the toons were extremely undergeared, and doing the same calibre of challenges an expansion earlier would have resulted in constant wipes with no chance of winning no matter how hard or frequently they bashed their heads at the problem.



Cataclysm is somewhere between the two extremes.
There is an inordinate amount of trash in the instances, particularly from those who were spoiled during WotLK with AoE the trash on the way to the bosses.
CC is somewhat needed when starting heroics; it's not completely optional like WotLK nor absolutely essential like BC.

And then people start to bitch and moan because Cata is too hard.
When the player base specifically asked for more of a challenge than WotLK.

[Chamassa]

I've been hardcoring this game since TBC.
I ran up to Black temple back then
Then my guild died and i made my own social raiding guild. Never got through SSC.

In WOTLK we cleared Every tier except the hardest hardmodes (OS3D, Like 5/14 Ulduar hm, heroic last boss crusader, putri/sindy/lk/RS hc)

Now we are coming close to 4.2, we are still fighting to even get Cho'gall and al'akir down, neferian is not even on the menu at the moment. This is all on NORMAL mode.

I love the challenge, but everyone saying cata is alot harder is right. Not a single doubt about it.

No complaints from me though :P

(PS: Although i know exactly the right people on my realm, and my own track record definitly did include 100% clear in both crusader and icc, same thing now i pugged Cho'gall/Al'akir/Heroic Halfus so far with alt runs of top end raiding guilds :P)

[RavingNoah]

I've noticed that boar's teeth are generally sharper now...not as much fun making breakfast.
.

[Unca]

I think that Blizzard approaches the game as if it's trying to balance it on a plank that is resting on a small platform. When the plank starts to tip too far in one direction, you have to move the opposite way to keep it even.

Vanilla (for a player coming from a game like Everquest) had a lot of things that made it pretty easy. You could level to max by solo questing, and the harder instances (Scholo, Strath) allowed up to 15 players at a time. The raids were tough at the start, but as content was added even casual guilds were raiding Molten Core and the smaller raid sizes allowed small guilds to try their hand at it.

Burning Crusade cranked up the difficulty a notch at the start, although the solo game was still very viable. Instances were manageable but heroics were very tough at the start, as were the raids. I remember that Blizzard nerfed heroics repeatedly, then they did the same for Kharazan, Gruul's, and Magtheridon. By the end of the expansion, even our tiny and super-casual guild was farming Kara for kicks.

WotLK seemed to carry over the attitude from the latter part of BC, and then took it even farther. Heroics became a joke, where you ran through and cast whichever AOE you had on everything, because AOE was overpowered and so was tank aggro. Everyone got epics, pretty much regardless of time/effort/skill. I did some raiding in WotLK but I can't really judge it, except to say that even for someone as clumsy as me it was pretty easy to figure out the strats and learn what to do.

I think that with Cata they decided that they'd gone way too far in the easy direction, though they are wary of going too far the other way. Notice that they plan to implement a LOT of nerfs to current raid content when 4.2 comes out, to allow guilds to farm it easier. They may be very happy with this setup, where the current content requires a fair amount of skill/effort, while the older content gets scaled back so the rest of us can see it if we want.

I doubt I'll see it, my plan right now is to PVP with my rogue. But she is in a level 25 casual "invite everyone you see" guild that is managing some raiding, and if I get my resto shammy an invite, well...