The sound of fighting echoes across Stratholme as the Scarlet Crusade fight their daily fight with the Scourge that remains in the city. The flames lick across the ruined buildings unimpeded by the rain that showers down. Even after three years, the streets are still strewn with mutilated corpses, both human and undead. In the upper floor of one building there sits another corpse in an old rocking chair, just watching the streets below, unbothered by the fighting, the rain or the fire.
The corpse waves his hand, summoning a bolt of flame which incinerates a passing ghoul. A soft chuckle escapes his lips as the screaming ghoul runs into a crowd of Scourge setting them all ablaze. “Which resident were you, I wonder,” he mutters as he immolates another ghoul, “so many people, so many lives lost” he sighs, blasting another ghoul. He scowls, crushing the arm of the chair he sits in, the wood turning to splinters in his fingers he climbs to his feet and roars, “HOW LONG!! HOW LONG TILL I HAVE MY VENGEANCE.” roaring he slams his arms down his sides as the rain turns from water to fire, adding to the flames already consuming the city.
To continue reading this story you must raid through the entirety of T1 content until you’re decked out in 90% epics then get 15 more people for the 25 man only Tier 2, get fully decked out in those epics, move on to Tier 3 and Tier 4 where you get the conclusion to the story.
Now don’t you feel gutted and cheated? That’s almost as bad as requiring <Link Achieve>
There are so many reasons why the game is easier
Since the beginning of Wrath (and probably before) people have been complaining about how easy raiding is, how it wasn’t like the difficulty of Vanilla or TBC. Well I’m going to tackle this as both a Games Designer and a Writer, cause I’m both.
Firstly why do I do what I do? Why I do spend the time to write these stories and articles? The answer is simple: Because I like to entertain others. This is my goal, to create stories and design games that provide entertainment. I want people to fully enjoy all of my work, not just a part of it. I want you to finish my stories and feel both satisfied and hungry for more. If I place an insane requirement on my work then a lot of people won’t see the conclusion and I’m defeating my own purpose.
When I first hit level 70 I knew I had to gear for raids, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what I needed to get or where to get it. I didn’t know of sites like Elitist Jerks at the time, so all I had was my copy of Atlas Loot. I did eventually learn I needed to get 16% hit to be hit capped so I focused my time on getting gear with hit and gemming for hit until I got it. I didn’t know what spell penetration was about or how much spellpower or crit I needed or why Affliction was better than Destruction.
A little over a year ago I dinged 80 was already mostly hit capped, I knew that 0/41/30 was the best spec at lower gear levels and that I needed 17% hit to be capped, that I needed Revered Kirin Tor rep for the head enchant and Exalted Hodir for shoulder enchant.
This is the first and one of the biggest reasons why raiding is easier now. Experience and accessibility of knowledge. I am experienced now, I know where to find info on how to play, I have mods that warn me of boss attacks, I have mods and tools to show me what is the best gear for me. I’m not a clueless newb anymore.
The second reason is accessibility. In Burning Crusade the jump from 10 to 25 man raiding was near impossible for most guilds. Many guilds merged with others or ran a cooperative with another guild. Most guilds though resigned themselves to 10s and only ever did Kara or Zul Aman. These were probably very capable and skilled players held back, not by raid difficulty, but by lack of numbers.
Raid composition was another problem. With buffs limited to certain classes and buffs stacking, many classes became mandatory. You can do a raid now without a shaman for totems or a paladin for blessings and be alright. But before the homogenization of buffs this was much more of an issue, you needed every buff from every class stacked as high as it would go to be feasible. You needed Paladin blessings, you needed the Warlock 20% shadow damage bonus and the 13% spell damage bonus. Now with the buffs much more liberally given out and replenishment accessible to more classes, you can get away with much less than a perfect raid setup.
The new player. Yes they do exist, I’m sure you all know of one or two. I know in the past year I’ve introduced quite a few friends to the game. If they got to 80 and found that Naxxramas was the difficulty of Black Temple… what could they do? They’re level 80, should they go back and run Kara? Then TK? Then BT before trying their hand at Naxx? It would be a ridiculously hilarious flop. The first raid of each expansion should be the easiest, yes this includes Cataclysm. I hate to break it to you but the first raid of Cata will be of Naxx difficulty, maybe a little less AOE on trash, but the boss difficulty will be comparable. This is necessary and healthy for the game, both for new players who’ve never raided before and the experienced ones who haven’t raided in 5 levels.
The story. Look at vanilla wow. Can you trace a tangible story through the zones, dungeons and raids? I can’t. Onyxia has nothing to do with Naxx which has nothing to do with Molten Core which has nothing to do with the Forsaken plague which has nothing to do with AQ40. The raids and zones match up only slightly.
Burning Crusade eh, slightly better. There’s a continuing theme if you look hard enough, but it takes a bit of reading to see the connection between Maggies lair, Tempest Keep, Serpentshrine Cavern and Black Temple. Mainly those who’ve played Warcraft 3 will get it. Everyone else might not.
Wrath however, is the cream of the storytelling crop in my opinion. My first set of quests in Howling Fjord had me introduced to the Forsaken plague and the vampire guy from Utgarde Keep. I also encountered the Vrykul and how their ghost forms came to be in Northrend. Then I hit Dragonblight and continue the Forsaken plague, meet more scourge and encounter the mage wars, even a quest about Saronite. Then to Grizzly Hills were I learn more of the dangerous creature under Northrend. How many times do we see the Lich King himself in the dungeons and quests? Telling King Ymiron he’ll have his revenge, raiding Svala Sorrowgrave as a Valkyr, destroying the floor of Trial of the Champion then fleeing from him in the Halls of Reflection.
Then we hit the raids. Naxx is a scourge base in Dragonblight, sure it was ripped from vanilla but the theme fits. Obsidian Sanctum has little connection other than beating up black dragons (always a good thing), Eye of Eternity finished the mage rebellion story, Ulduar finishes the old god story, Trial of the Crusader begins the Icecrown invasion with the Icecrown Heroics and raid finishing it. There is a linked connection between all of these, they’re all interlinked, telling a story. Now the Lich King is accessible, he is going to be a tough nut but will get easier with the zone wide buff that will be applied in future weeks. Does this wreck the game? No, it doesn’t. It gives players, all players, the ones who seen him over and over in their quests and heroics, an opportunity to see the end of the story. I cannot help but support that sort of approach. To the extreme guilds, you have your rather tough Lich King normal and rock hard Lich King Heroic. To the rest of the players, you’ll get your chance to see the end of the story too, just not yet.
In summary:
- The Designer’s goal – The goal of the designers is to provide you with entertainment, complete entertainment. Not half a game, but a full complete game that you have a realistic chance of seeing the end of.
- Experience and accessible information – The average knowledge of a player has increased since vanilla tenfold. RAWR and Elitistjerks make info getting on specs and gear easy, sites like Tankspot make boss strategies clear.
- Providing 10 and 25 player modes – With every raid having a 10 man mode, its much easier to progress through the tiers without needing to mass recruit or change guild.
- Homogenization of buffs – Spreading the buff love means even more raid compositions are viable than ever before.
- The new player – Each expansion the difficulty must reset, the first raid must be the easiest with each raid getting progressively harder.
- The story – Wrath takes a new approach and tells a continuing story through every zone and dungeon and raid. To deny players the conclusion would be cruel.
So have raids really gotten easier? Or is it just our perception? I think it’s a bit of both. Setting up a raid definitely isn’t the hurdle it was before, nor is getting the gear for the content. The game itself is also balanced around the average player difficulty not the higher skilled players. On the other hand we get so used to having all the buffs we need and having specs like Ret Pala being good DPS, that we forget what it was like beforehand when we blundered our way through a raid and needed certain classes or the raid wouldn’t get anywhere.
Sorry what’s that? You don’t care about any of this and only want more of my story? Well I have no more room in this article, but maybe I’ll post more of it another time 
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Blizzard have done a great deal to improve raids over time, I first started raiding in AQ20 / ZG and moved into MC and a little of BWL when I joined The Infernals. The early days of raids were frankly silly, you might have +100 spell damage and about 4k hp, MC wasn’t about skill to much as getting a high fire resistance set and as for classes well, druid/priest/shammy = healer / warrior = tank. A 40 man raid might well have 2 tanks 15 healers and 23 dps and pretty much only dps got to choose their spec. An enlightened guild might let a druid tank or a priest dps but Blizz’s gear (e.g. the T1 set) was for a specific spec so you were put into that role, period. The people clearing BWL and AQ40 were probably the best raiders around with a handful of guilds doing them the end game content was really seen by a tiny % of players so the vast majority would see an expansion and perhaps dip their toe in and get nothing out of it which the tiny minority got to experience all to themselves. This led to the arrogance of the raiders who were so upset when TBC started moving towards the “scrubs” getting to see the content and getting gear. It was there at the end of vanilla wow certainly with people annoyed that the high end raiders were best set up for PVP as well as PVE and the high end raiders complaining because the “easy” pvp route meant a few people getting epic items for ranks 12-14.
When we got to 25 man in TBC it did open it up a bit more, sure we as a guild only managed 1 boss in TK and SSC but we did Gruul and Kara and at least got to see new fights and content that was open to us, those fights did not become easier, if anything, the setup was the key just as resistance gear was in MC/BWL and AQ. Now you needed a raid with say 5 tanks, a mage tank, high stam gear etc and the fights had a lot more innovation and different thing to learn but you could learn them and become farmers. With Sunwell patch and the badge gear was the real re-awakening of the “scrub” tag where raiders cried their eyes out because, shock, lower players were suddenly able to get good gear without needing to go to end game raids. However, this gear made instances more accessible and encouraged more people to take an interest. I’m sure more people made inroads into the 25s after SW:P launched with the associated badge gear and is that really a bad thing?
Roll on Wrath and you have content that even casuals can complete, sure we may not see the hard modes and get the better loot but it’s a great idea to open the raids up to 10 and 25 man guilds and, if anything, the fights have got more technical – compare say Ragnaros with Kel’Thuzad or Anub’Arak with Nefarian. The faction champs in ToC are harder than say Golemagg or Garr or Geddon.
This levelling means that while some raids are easier to manage, they can be made more challenging and more rewarding (hard modes) which keeps more people happy and I say that’s a good thing.
Raids should be a challenge, not due to the raid composition required or the resistance gear needed but because of the technicalities of the bosses themselves.
I think that’s a nice summary.
Wrath is definitely the pinnacle of WoW’s storytelling so far but, even so, OS is disappointing in that aspect. There is a point to it storywise but I don’t think it’s ever given any real explanation in-game.
Given that it has no real storyline connection to Wrath, but a pretty major connection to Cataclysm I wonder if it was supposed to be a set-up/teaser for the expansion.
Most likely they had intended to expand out the Black dragonflight like they intended for Old Kingdom/Azjol-Nerub to be a whole zone, but due to time constraints were forced to cap it at just a raid.
It’s a pity, I’d have liked to see more of the reason why it was there and why we were killing them.
Nice article
Lovely.
I think it also is the fact that people get more knowledge about their class, raiding and game mechanics. The LFG tool made it easier for people to find groups for heroics and thus made it easier to get decent gear. Does this make the instances/raids easier then TBC? No it doesn’t.
People have to put less effort in finding a party or raidgroup nowadays and because of that most of the raids become doable for everyone…not just the guys that are lucky to be in a guild that gets them good gear.
I think PvE wise wotlk is has been the most fun expansion for me.
PvP wise it has been the most horrible.
Wrath as a whole is great. Raiding is a hell of alot more accesible for the average player. I look at our guild which is an extremely casual guild but even they have managed to make progress in ICC, sure they may never get to hard modes before Cataclysm but at least most people are seeing the content.
The story especially during leveling was infinitely more interesting than the whole leveling experience in Outlands. The quests had more variety and generally were much more fun. Vehicle combat for one.
I cant say much about other classes, however it seems there are much more viable specs for warlocks. As Necrall mentioned, the information is much easier to find. The only specs I personally was aware of in TBC was the famous shadowbolt spamming Destro spec and the infamous boring SL/SL spec for PVP. There were others, however most if not all of the warlocks I inspected at the time were one of these specs and I really had to look long and hard to get more information. Well maybe as I was a complete Newbie then.
Gah, and of course I remebered the absolute pain of summoning in TBC
a very welcome change in Wrath.
On the otherhand, TBC had a more “epic” feel! Maybe, it is as I started playing WOW. Heroics were much, much harder imo then, well at least for the casual player like myself. I remember with my first warlock wiping and wiping in BF HC, ROFL think it took us 3 or 4 hours to complete it. My first epic felt like the biggest achievement, and I was so proud of myself when I grinded endlessly to get my Merciless Gladiator staff. Even Shatt, as ugly as it is, compared to Dala, felt grander for me.
I do as a “casual” feel the starting raids were harder in TBC. Kara before the great nerf was much harder than Naxx.
Unfortunately I still have regrets that it seems I will never see the harder content of TBC. Before all the ultra easy to get shiney gear now, I joined a pug to do a SWP run and even with a full 25 man raid of 80′s we wiped on the trash like fools and didn’t even get to first boss. AOE spamming did not seem to work there
However, despite WOTLK not feeling as epic for me, it definitely is a great, fun expansion and Blizzard did a superb job!
“Even Shatt, as ugly as it is…”
Shattrath is great. Seriously! The only things Blizzard need to do are remove the constant sounds of swords clashing and, of course, the laughing.
That said I’m probably in the minority of preferring the setting of TBC to Wrath. Even the goofy armour colours, though Blizzard could probably have done a better job homogenizing the quest greens you get…
Bah! I remember when getting to 60 was an achievement (a real achievement not ‘Ding – you looked at a nelf during this holdiay season – here, have a free pet’). Dire Maul was a serious challenge with amazing gear!
I loved TBC (goofy armour and all) and rate it higher than WotLK and that is saying a lot because I think Blizzard did a good job of WotLK.
And my point? I missed a lot of early content and now I get to see most content and overall I enjoy the game more.
Because I have become more hard core? Nope.
Because I am a better player? Nope. How could I possibly be better than I am now *coughchokechoke*
Because I am in a bigger guild? Nope.
Because I can walk up to a vendor and get uber loot? Nope. Well, maybe…
As it used to be, you hit a point that you had to have the right guild, the right raid members, you had to commit (N+1)^2 hours [N=number of bosses] to each raid and no choice about your spec (which as a healer, meant you were buggered)… Failure to comply meant that your character stopped making progress.
Now… Well, now there is always something you can be doing. There’s always a chance to make progress.
Yes, I know it is tough for the elite, hardcore raiders – But guys, c’mon, you can still out-gear and out-achieve the rest of us so be happy.
The elite hardcore really have little to complain about. I commonly hear “Waagh waagh every noob is walking around in full T9/10 just be running Heroics”
T9 sure, it’s not that hard to get with Heroics, but it’s obsolete gear.
T10? T10 requires 60+ Frost badges for one piece. You get 2 Frosts a day doing Heroics, which means 30 days of Heroics for one piece of T10.
Even then those who do ICC 25 will get the Trophies needed to upgrade their T10 to T10.5, and those who do ICC 25 Heroic will get T10.75
Gothmogs I know what you mean about TBC feeling special, I dinged 70 in TBC, my first epic was Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders and it felt awesome to get it. It was my very first epic on any character. That’s always going to feel special. No other epic I get on any character at any level is going to feel as special as that.
My first raid was Kara, a fresh run. Being the new guy I walked away with 3 epics, the gloves of Attumen I wore all the way up to Illidan (though not by choice XD). Heck I even made a “My First Kara Picturebook” documenting it in Paint.
I might post that sometime…
The biggest reason raids have got easier is due to the advancement of Add-Ons.
In Vanilla they were clunky and practically useless, though there were the odd decent one.
By TBC they were getting better, but still had bugs. There was starting to get better more stable and useful addons. Threat metres were poor.
In Wrath they are sleek, easily incorporated, and vast.
DBM is a must, and tbh raiding without it is practically a crime. In TBC I recall DBM always bugged on the first boss of ZA, being anywhere from 5-10 secs out, usually ending in a wipe if you didn’t pay attention to the noises.
One thing that I didn’t enjoy about Wrath was the AoE trash, but that isn’t as prevalent in ICC say as Naxx.
However it is IMO more accessible, and in many cases PUGable, therefore you don’t have to be tied to a 4 nights 100% attendance raid guild to see content.