I want to state that my intent for this article was to demonstrate that this new style of raiding doesn’t leave people behind. I think it’s a great intent on Blizzard’s part. There will always be the ends of the spectrum. The super hardcores who only let you in if you’ve already done it. The super casuals who just want to STFU PEW PEW and be at the end of the game already. In any case, I don’t believe it’s fair for any of us to judge the situation basic on either of the extremeties. With that, I believe the raiding community is stronger and healthier now.

HardCore raiders want to know how good someone is by checking the gearscore/achievements someone has before they will let someone in their guild or run. Casuals don’t want to learn how to do Naxx, and Sarth, and EoE before jumping into Ulduar, (which is a very pretty raid), and TotC. They don’t need gear from there so why should a casual go. Umm because A) It is gorgeous B) It is a hoot when done for fun C) You learn skills you will need to raid D) All of the above. If you guessed D you are the winner.

I think both approaches are wrong.

Hardcores don’t realize they may be missing out on a 3rd or 4th reroll by someone who had it with their server, guild, etc., and rerolled. They may have been epic somewhere else, and had to start over without the cash to transfer. They could be the bestest healer, tanker, dpser evah, but they don’t have the achievements, and lol gear is too easy to get it means nothing. (Yes the grammar and spelling errors were intended.) Whatever happened to tryout periods. You can faceroll through Naxx these days in a few hours, take them in see how they do. Maybe they have skills, maybe they don’t.

I find that I can’t learn to tank as my offspec, because no one wants to take the time to let people learn they want fast easy runs with no deaths in heroics. If you can’t finish Nexus in under 20 minutes you are a noob and a scrub. “Umm, Yes I believe that I covered that when I joined as a healer, but offered to tank because I have way more stamina and health than the “tank” who isn’t defense capped.” I want a smooth run, and they want a fast one. With my tanking skills you can’t have both.

I get fed up with the Haves much more than the Havenots. And I have 2 very soon 3 pieces of welfare tier 9. I have healed a tank with under 31,000 health through most of HToC as a paladin. I nearly ran out of mana many times, but he has potential. He is learning, and that is what I think Blizz is doing with these soft gear resets. They want to help people learn. Too many Haves are too busy for people who are learning, and that ticks me off more than anything else.

Our guild split and the raiders left right before Ulduar. I have seen one boss fight in there. I have the gear, but I can’t get an invite anymore without linking the achievement. I can’t learn to fights or get the achievement without getting in, and the vicious cycle rolls on. This is us versus them, have vs. havenots, Casual vs. Hardcore. It should be community vs. Arthas, or Alliance vs. Horde, not epeen vs. scrub.

The people you help now, could be the next hardcore to show you a thing or three. Also those hardcores might be willing to grab badges in lolNaxx, and it gives you a chance to show off your skills.
Arkaneena´s last blog ..She’s ALIVE And Practice makes Perfect

The drawback to the accessibility and speed of ToC is how quickly you can become sick of it. Running it on 10 and 25-man normal and heroic, and then again on 10-man on 2 alts (with a chance of a pug 25-man for an alt) really adds up. Then again, doing the daily heroic for each character can get pretty stale also.

Plus it’s kinda fun. I usually run a PUG TOC-10 on weekend afternoons. 1-3 players usually have never seen it at all, but we make it to the end more often than not. It is very rewarding to achieve that, to keep players motivated through several wipes, to get them to do things right.

Also, I love my alts being able to enjoy at least the 10-normal version of what my main does on 25-heroic. It varies the fun, gives me the opportunity to see fights from another angle, and allows me to keep reasonably geared alts in the wings, for when I tire of my Main, which happens every 1-2 years. I went Hunter, Priest, Hunter, and currently Priest again… but got to raid with my Tankadin, Rogue, Warlock and SP, too.

Tobold (inspired by Larisa) said this better then I would:
http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2009/10/wipegear-quota.html

Sumup “Larisa has an interesting observation about people who say that World of Warcraft is too easy: Only 0.13% of them actually beat the hardest content in the game. The other 99.87% are complaining that WoW is too easy, without having been able to beat it themselves.”

Entry level raiding is clearly alot easier then it used to be in vanilla and TBC. Mad props to those who tanked core hounds in Valour, and I myself remember that Kara was not that easy when doing it in questgreens. But that doesn’t change the fact that its still a tiny minority that is able to clear all content.

@Saresa
I heartly feel your pain.
Perhaps I just have too much time on my hands, but when new content is released I feel compelled to do it on both 25 man and 10 man. Not only are 10 mans a good way to practice content (if 10 mans aren’t easier the fact that I can pick my 10 most competant raiders to do it with certainly makes it feel that way) but with 10 man hardmodes its too often loot there worth getting too.

Not hardcore enough to have all 25man hardmodes on farm so I dont need loot from lower instances, but not casual enough to not care about those possible upgrades.

While I love Blizz for creating lots of new wonderful content, I hope they can dish out an extra day in the week for next patch. Would suit me fine.

My group of friends, who I would call “extremely casual” (my friend’s main is still 54 after 5 years O.o) play for very different reasons than I do, with 4 80s and I just joined a progression oriented raid guild on my server. Both ways of playing the game are ok and should be supported.

However, this means that hardcores are being asked to give up parts of the game that made it fun for them. Namely, having a piece of loot or that screenshot that says “yes, I actually saw that boss. Not only have I seen that boss, I killed him. I even *farmed* him enough to get a good drop!” This is what I hear when people talk about the “epicness” of downing old content.

That “epicness” is still there in wrath raiding! It’s just different. Yeah, TOC 10 *is* easy and accessible. If you have conquest gear and a pulse, you should clear it. However, there are only 2 or 3 guilds on my server who have even cleared a few bosses in TotGC 25! Also, Yogg with all the lights out or Sarth +3d were epic achievements in their day, and they came complete with epic loot! On another server where I have an 80, it is hard to find guilds that have even cleared TotGC 10!

Blizzard has two competing interests – Hardcore raiders who want a challenge and truly epic accomplishments, and average joes who want a good time with their friends and a chance to see content. Hardmodes solve the first problem, and badge upgrades and normal modes help the second.

However, that means that hardcore raiders will have to give up that feeling of epic-ness just for *reaching* a certain boss. That epicness has moved to the achievement screen. Just push Y, or equip your amazing title and your amazing mount! Meanwhile, the number of players who know the basics of the fights, know the *trash*, are decently geared and can step in when one of your old standbys can’t make it, and are developing a solid foundation of raiding skills, has increased a hundred fold.

Some of those guys might just stay where they are. Others might fill slots on those slow nights in some of those upper echelon guilds one day. By improving the lowest common denominator, Blizzard is improving the base skill level of endgame players. That’s a *good* thing for everyone.

As for downing new bosses – the first time I downed a Keeper in Ulduar, even on normal, that felt pretty epic. Or even the first time we downed Malygos – epic. We had to wipe and work hard for those kills (I don’t know why people have such a hard time with combo point healing, seriously -_-). When you look back at the old content, you have to realize things like pre-nerf Magtheridon were just stupidly annoying, and they felt epic when you downed them *because you had just beaten something that was stupidly annoying*. I think seeing that go away is also a very good thing.

@unpoloart:
I highly doubt that 1% of the population has killed Anub. When I’m able to join a PuG to kill him on my alt, that’s when it’s easy. Edit: I just heard that a new guild on my server has cleared ToC-10… but not managed to clear Ulduar-10. That’s what it means to be “too easy.”
Codi´s last blog ..GotEM – wuuuuut?

Then there’s the huge jump in difficulty between normal and hard modes. On my server, 44 guilds have killed Anub25 – only six of them have killed Northrend Beasts hard. That leaves 38 guilds stranded in front of a brick wall because they were lured into a false sense of progression. Had the difficulty adequately risen from Ulduar normal modes (and not plummeted as it did), there would be no need for a gap that big.

Then there’s your point about the vast variety of available playstyles. I think the more casual players might not see that this variety is quite one-sided. With launch the casual side got Naxx while the more hardcore side got Sarth3D and pointless achievements. (“We made Naxx too easy. How about you try it with 20 people for no reward?”) Ulduar was fine in my eyes but the coliseum left the more hardcore players stranded for a month before they could even start doing their content due to the artificial gating system. (Go, 1shot a new boss this week and then go back to sleep for another week. Yay.) Now they plan to repeat that with Icecrown. (Gated and you need to finish normal first before you can start hard modes.)

I’ll finish for now, but all the facts aside, I really don’t get why “you people” want to get into the final tier of raiding that fast. When I played more casually, I was happy that there always was new content to go for. I never got into a phase in which i was out of content, as opposed to raiding at the top end now. Why you would willingly skip something as awesome as Ulduar and go into lame TotC instead is beyond me.
scrusi´s last blog ..Friday Filler #2