Recently, whilest pondering my willy nilly progression through ICC I started thinking a bit...
Then, to compound my wee thoughts, I ran across a link to a vid of a bunch of wipes on a boss in the Cata Stonecore heroic. The video poster was Milquetoast or Floating_air_bisquit or something in that vein. (if you read blogs, I would guess you know who I mean)
And the video was pretty well done, narrated and described.
But then I read the comments. (well, a few dozen out of the several hundred)
Among them:
They better not make ANYTHING in the endgame content of cata easy. i hated wrath having no challenges.
And...
I don't know. I'm thinking many breeze by these so called, "hard"
bosses once the final game releases. Bliz will likely cave in to the crying of
"it's too hard" and I imagine addons will push the difficulty of these
encounters more in the player's favor.
In fact this game would be a lot
better if addons were removed entirely.
And in the few times people mention that with such a massive difficulty spike, a HUGE portion of folks (ie "lolcasuals") will be unable to do much of anything either with "lame" guilds, let alone the whole PuG thing. They got lit up. BY THE VIDEO POSTER.
Witness:
Normaldude 1
2 days ago Eh, the people i end up getting pug'd with wont be able to handle this.
So flip out at me, its Blizzards fault they made WoTLK a fat joke it terms of difficulty.
Milquetoast
2 days ago @normaldude 1 So stop pugging.
Normaldude 2
2 days ago @Milquetoast "So stop pugging"... what is that? Seriously, take a moment to reflect on that point of view. I hope you'll realize just how extreme it is. And how unrealistic. Given the nature of WoW, given the unbalanced population distribution on, oh, I don't know, at least half the realms out there. Again, just think about it for a bit. 5 man content should be puggable, the alternative is unthinkable - the 5 man content being inaccessible to a lot of players.
Normaldude 3
2 days ago @Normaldude 2 Absolutely agreed! You are 1000% correct!
Milquetoast
2 days ago 40 @Normaldude 3 You're hilarious. You think that being in a guild is an 'extreme' attitude. I guess you started playing during Wrath.
It went downhill from there, and "Milquetoast" got a bit nastier (as did others). But the basic fact is that so many elitst assholes seem to think that if you aren't in a top-ish tier raiding guild, with super deep knowledge of the game and your class and every encounter, if you don't eat, breath and sleep WoW, you don't DESERVE to see and/or complete any content.
Because, you know, WOtLK was so easy. After all it only took Paragon how long to complete LKH25?
Oh, wait...
And how many guilds have completed all hardmodes again? WITHOUT THE BUFF
Oh yeah...
But... but... the Brewfest boss is too easy with my 6k GS toon, and killing him only takes 15-20 seconds.
Really? If you have a 6k GS why are you even bothering? You sure as hell don't need the emblems for gear...
It's like going into (current) Deadmines and bitching that Cookie is too easy as a raid geared 80.
wtf?
And even if there might have been a desire (by Blizzard) to re-tune the brewfest boss, there's this little "patch" coming out in a few weeks called Cataclysm that *might* be taking up manpower/resources.
Please, get over yourselves. The last major expansion in WotLK took top raiding guilds MONTHS to beat. And most "fairly hardcore" guilds took weeks-months after that.
And several "serious" players (decent-very good) players simply don't have the option to be in a great guild.
There are a fair number of serious, hardcore guilds, but the vast majority seems to be populated by self centered assholes that ONLY care about the progression, and "people" are just an impediment. If you want to do progression AND be treated like a decent human being, you're shit outta luck.
Yes, quality, "balanced", hardcore/good/fun guilds DO exist, but they are few and far between.
So... you end up with lots of players pugging, playing in less than ideal guilds, etc and struggling with content (even to just see it, let alone complete it). I would guess 50% or more are reasonably skilled players that want to see content, but are in this "less than ideal" situation. And are paying for the pleasure.
Yet the uber-leet hardcore assholes feel that the WoWworld SHOULD revolve around them. Fuck everyone else that can't be bothered to take the game as seriously as they do. You can't dedicate 20+ hours a week for gearing, farming and raiding? TOUGH SHIT!
Somewhow, I doubt that the vast majority of paying players (ie, the source of corporate profit) fit into those cute little molds. Like it or not, keeping THEM happy is what has paid for this upcoming ex*-pak. Not your 1,000 days played, not your 6,200 GS or your top ranked guild.
I realize that WoW is important to you folks. I realize you enjoy a challenge, and I fully understand and respect that. I also think Blizz HAS delivered a great challenge, with Naxx, Uld and especially with ICC (ToC was tough, but yeah, annoying). It took MONTHS for world best guilds to complete them. What else can you reasonably ask for? Even now, with the massive buff, a LOT of us are STILL trying to get our first Arthas kill. So I'm not sure what all the hatred is for.
Easy heroics?
Really?
Fuck, they've been easy for all the "reel srs rayders" since they completed Naxx, let alone once Ulduar gear became common. Prior to gear inflation, they WERE really tough.
But I really don't think that the above factors are the real reason the "uberleet" are so worked up. Why? Because “logically”, the above arguments/explanations can’t explain the venom and vitriol with which the “leet” scream and yell about how easy everything is. The last 12 months have had a TON of difficult, challenging content. Yes, older content has become easier, but as I mention, so has Deadmines! It's a simple fact: leveling and gearing makes ALL old content obsolete. And, if I may be so bold, expecting Blizard to re-tune each and every instance and encounter, just to stay "up to snuff" with the latest and greatest gear is just absurd.
But, even though there are folks that scream and yell for more challenging content, I'm not so sure that's really what they want. (after all, there's probably difficult content still left for many them to accomplish, AND Cata is just around the corner)
My honest, heartfelt guess is simply this: that they want to feel special and superior. That only THEY should get access to the biggest, baddest fights and weapons. That since THEY are willing to walk, uphill, both ways, in 6 feet of snow, that they and only they should reap the "real" rewards (ie, pixels and titles/words) for all their hard work.
In the past, they could (and did) because of the massive reliance on massive amounts of game play to be able to progress, and the huge disparity of progress between the “leet” and the “casual”. The less dedicated (or skilled/experienced) players simply had no way to play the content, gain the gear, etc, etc, etc… (I seem to recall reading that only ~6% of vanilla players got to see end game content – so it truly is a “special” group that made it ... in a rather real -ingame- sense they were special, and superior)
That was then... this is now.
Since Blizzard DOES cater to (or at least considers and tries to accomodate) a more casual, less intense player, it just infuriates the leet. Because the great unwashed masses get to be just as special as they are. Even though they didn't dedicate the hundreds of hours, and aren't cutting edge skilled, they too can haz epics! They too can haz “Kingslayer”.
Oh the humanity...
After all, there ARE titles that us peons will never get (Starkiller, The Immortal, etc). We will never have any real ranking as a player or guild on our server, and server (let alone world) firsts are something we only read about. We won't get our hands on Frostmourne or get 12/12 on hardmodes. So, there ARE a lot of things that only dedicated raiders will accomplish.
And still you guys want more.
