On Raiding Disappointment: An Open Letter to Blizzard

When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure - Peter Marshall

Dear Blizzard,

As a subscriber who came to World of Warcraft with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Cataclysm represented my first true opportunity to get in on the ground floor of new content. For the first time I felt as if I wasn't lagging behind everyone else and was finally experiencing content the way it was meant to be experienced. I greeted the new expansion with a lot of anticipation and enthusiasm.

Cataclysm introduced many controversial changes, many of which were not received terribly enthusiastically by the community. I, on the other hand (being an avid Kool-Aid drinker), was thrilled with a lot of the changes, and incredibly excited to see the new content, experience the new levelling experience and, most importantly, to progress through the new raids. I understood the need to make the game more accessible, and supported the changes.

In fact, I was very frustrated with a lot of the complaining and the griping coming from the WoW community. Back in March I wrote a post critizing the community for having a "Doom and Gloom" outlook on the current state of the game, saying that people come and go, but the game itself was in a good place.

This week, you proved me wrong, Blizzard. I now feel compelled to add my voice to the chorous of the discontented.


Lord Rhyolith: Call me Admiral McROFLStompyPants



And it's because this week saw the introduction of significant nerfs to the Firelands bosses, crippling each boss - in both normal and heroic modes - anywhere from 15 to 25 percent in damage done and health, as well as simplifying several of the more difficult mechanics. This was done in an unprecedentedly brief time period since the raid was released.

Regardless of what your intention is, the significance of this change is instantly and universally understood by your player base: If you didn't clear Firelands before this nerf, you failed. Here are your free charity epics.

This is the exact same message that was sent regarding Tier 11 when Tier 12 came out. Didn't clear it before? No problem, let me hold your hand and walk you through it. Don't worry, the Internet Dragons are toothless now, so you won't get hurt. Just try to stay awake, okay?

At least back then we had a new, full-difficulty raid tier to busy ourselves with. Reducing the difficulty on previous tier content in order to allow more people to see it makes sense, at least. And it worked; raids were able to go back into Tier 11 and cut through the bosses like a they were barely there, and mechanics that were previously raid killers became irrelevant.

These changes to the current tier are completely inexplicable and inexcusable. They go too far, much too soon.

I mean, it's not as if people were complaining that the Firelands bosses were too hard. Quite the reverse, really; early on a lot of people were complaining that Firelands was decidedly too easy and that Raid Teams were blowing through it far too quickly. And it wasn't just the elite raiding guilds that were expressing this opinion, either.

Our raid team, for instance, is not at the cutting edge of progression. We are never likely to compete for a Realm First but neither are we at the bottom end of progression. We are probably the poster children of your average raiders; a casually-oriented guild that raids 6-8 hours a week. We expect to tackle the encounters, learn them and defeat them as they were originally designed.

Why aren't you giving us the time to do this?

My guild and I have been raiding Firelands from the day it was released. We were a new guild then, still gelling as a team, but we went in and got things done. Some of the encounters were really challenging and tested us; we wiped more than a few times on some of these bosses, which made downing them that much sweeter. I don't cheer out loud - causing my wife to give me strange looks - when we down an easy encounter. No, that is saved for when we overcome a significant obstacle that has stood in our path blocking our progression like an obstinate traffic cop. I like cheering, Blizzard, but where are the obstacles?

Wednesday night we went through Firelands after the nerfs and did six bosses. The difference in the level of difficulty is painfully obvious. It's actually invasive. Bosses that previously required precise play, good communication and teamwork even at good gear levels are now simplistic and easy. Lord Rhyolith, for example, lasted less than 10 seconds into Phase 2. I didn't even have time to get into position before he died. The burn phases of Shannox and Beth'tilac, which were previously heavy-damage phases that required the use of healer and tank cooldowns as well as skillful play to get through, are similarly laughable. As a healer, it seemed like Health Bars barely moved in those phases.

There is no thrill or enjoyment in beating up crippled children, Blizzard, and that's what you've turned these raid bosses into. You might as well give Fandral Staghelm a wool cap and a cane and rename him Tiny Tim. I actually felt sorry for Rageface the other night because he died so quickly, and his whole purpose for living - to Rage on Faces - was no more painful than a puppy dog licking ice cream off your toes. It does not qualify as something to be concerned about any longer. PETA will be hearing about this.

I think that in the pursuit of the noble goal of making the game more accessible to a larger variety of people a large chunk of the challenge of World of Warcraft has been removed. Many aspects of the game have fallen victim to this, with the endgame being the most notable and most damning, but even levelling is now so quick and painless that there is no sense of danger left in the game. Even without heirlooms, enemies fall over dead with little more than a mere glance, and there is a distinct lack of worry that something is actually dangerous. Low level dungeons are, even with poor gear, ridiculously easy, which is especially obvious when the vast majority of boss fights last under 30 seconds.

In fact, there is so little challenge left in WoW that your players are taking it upon themselves to make the game more difficult. Your very intelligent and creative players are coming up with things like the WoW Ironman Challenge and the Naked Dungeon Challenge just so that they have something to do that doesn't involve one-shotting the poor denizens of Dun Morogh on yet another overpowered Alt.

Thomas Paine said, "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value", and I think that is a lesson that has been forgotten. There is a benefit to difficulties, a benefit of failure. Overcoming adversity is how people learn and improve, and it's how fierce emotional attachments are created. Raiders who raided Molten Core don't look back on the gear that they got with such love and devotion because getting it was easy, but rather because the blood, sweat and sheer red-hot effort that they expended to get it has branded it into their souls.

I think it's time to put the challenge back into the World.

BALANCING ACT

I understand that balancing the many different types of players and trying to make everyone happy is a difficult, if not impossible task. I can't think of a more thankless job that trying to please eleven million people, all of whom want something different, and at the same time trying to feed the corporate overlord's insatiable lust for profits.

I know that there are quite a number of people who are happy with these changes to the raids because it gives them a chance to finally see the content. But I think that there is a difference between seeing the content and experiencing the content.  The idea of merely seeing the content reminds me of a tourist: Someone who comes to visit and see the sights, but wants to have a good, relaxing time and not really get their hands dirty. While experiencing the content implies slogging through the worst that the raid can throw at you and working through the inevitable failures and hardships. These are two very different types of players who want two completely different types of gaming experiences.

However, nerfing current content when there is no alternative, higher-end content available means turning everyone into the Tourist.

I know that Patch 4.3 is brings us the Raid Finder tool and a new difficulty level that caters to the Tourists, PUGers and people who just want to see the content but are, for whatever reason, unable to raid at the normal difficulty levels. I'm sure it's your hope that this elmininates the need for nerfs such as these, and I'm optimistic that it will work very well. But that doesn't change the fact that in this patch, on this raid, you took away my challenge.

We're going into Firelands to kill Ragnaros for the first time this week. Last week it was an exciting prospect, now it's just something to do on a Sunday. Oh, we'll get the achievement, but the accomplishment has been made lesser. Like Roger Maris, I will forever have an asterisk next to my 7/7 achievement.

Sincerely,

Fannon

Dwarven Battle Medic and Dissatisfied Raider.



Ragnaros: Still tough, but 25% less satisfying.