Actually, if you use the raid finder the difficulty is lowered... but you get raid finder (read: nerfed) versions of gear drops and none of the bigger achevements. The idea is that even if you're not in a raiding guild you can still experience the endgame content this way.

[url=#user_comment_97667]@Domie[/url]: I thought heroic was the new normal >.> since Blizz keeps nerfing the freakin game, glad i left :D

Perhaps it is economically, we'll see.

Subscriptions are at an all time low and they just lost 800k? subs in the 3rd qtr ?? yeah maybe its the right move

Purple was the New blue like 3 yrs ago

I dont think this is a fair sight on the game. yes they make it a lot easier so everyone can see the content, but the heroic modes aint for everybody, and the serious players (such as myself) wont be satisfied untill they get the heroic modes, and there is plenty to work on if you like :)

Gee how do you get sooo hardcore running heroics on WoW? Do you listen yourself?

Most of you scrubs still can't kill heroic Sinestra or Ragnaros, even after the nerfs, so I don't know why you're complaining that D- players are now up on your C- level.

@Nando Rock: ooops, 7 years after, ma bad engrish!!!

in past, i dont work, have time, no woman, living in my parents house, 7 years before,i have a wife, 3 dogs, make Pos graduation, work 9 hour per day in a school... This raid tool is for me, noob or nom hardcore gamers!

Scratch that, they're the new grey.

I'm on a... car?

Legendaries are the new blue.

I'm on a horse

People have been crying about "purples becoming the new blues" ever since the honor point system was first introduced and you could get the unstoppable force by afking through a few games.

It never really happened.

Blizzard wants to be the hyper-casual game that everyone and their grandma can play, and that is their decision. I can't say if it is the right one. Perhaps it is economically, we'll see.

(read my posts from the bottom up to get them in the right order)

As for "bad design", I'm a professional game developer, and let me tell you that having a target audience other softcore gamers and their grandma is not bad game design. It is perfectly possible to make great profits with a different audience.

World of Warcraft has long since lost me and most my friends due to the reduced difficulty.

I'm not a hardcore player, but I demand a challenge.

Oh and instituting premium services for "whales" is something that worries most engaged players. There have been complaints about Activision not reducing server transfer, why switch to a game with more premium scamming rather than more difficulty? Grind = RuneScape, Graphics = Rift.

Cogzwoll, merely pointing out that "epics" were only "epic" in Vanilla WoW, the preceding and proceeding games they were available to everyone. Andrew Hall, repetitive grinding is not directly comparable to designing end level content for 1% of the player base. Want a real challenge? Max Ach points!

Jo, you should totally make that NO NOOB LEFT BEHIND pic. Make it all ARTY too. With boobs, so the Seagulls have something to circle.

About sums it up. Wow is for babies. It was always the easy mmo but it has gone from accessible to easy to even a 3 year old could do it easy.

Hell, splash mountain is more exiting and that one has no minimum height.

I consider more players able to do raids and get good gear a good thing. Having content only available to a small fraction of the player base is bad design.

To me it seems like a lot of the opponents of these changes just fear they won't be special anymore if casuals get to do "their" raids.

@Andrew Hall: Heh. I played that, some years back. Got to about level 25 (I was determined to at least get to the flight threshold!) a couple of times before resorting to buffing passing people and watching the world go by, then gave up on it.

[url=#user_comment_96794]@BrigitteAbbendis[/url] Wow, that's some serious butthurt over a comic.

Honestly I don't mind. The idea that some of these companies think a many-hour length raid is acceptable game design prevents me from ever wanting to play. If I know I'll never have time to play the "whole" game I'm not going to do it. And neither I suspect will many other productive adults.

Sick of WoW's nerftacular madness? Want a real challenge?

Play Flyff instead, or any other "freemium" game with a vicious microtransactional backend. I dare any of you to make it to level 90 (out of 150, by the way) without ever spending money on the game once.

http://flyff.gpotato.com

"In WC3 I had three legendaries per character!"

...You mean those items you just pick up while playing the game? Yeah certainly those have comparable importance to a massive competitive online game.

but that raids are difficult to organise. Flitting attention and no desire to socialise in game? That's precisely what the comic is decrying.

hypocritical that Jo presents his own take on a game's difficulty as an objective standard (obviously partially done for populist reasons [this comic has garnered more comments than fanservice], partially for comic effect). Oh and “Meh” it's funny that you say that epics are easy to get...

Saying that Deathwing has been killed like a normal mode boss is another error. LFR mode difficulty Deathwing isn't even out yet and normal (or “easy” mode Deathwing) would have only survived longer than a day with gating. Finally, it would be forgiving to say that it's ironic rather than...

Ragnaros as killed heroic Kil'Jaeden but as the population gets bigger, assuming the percentage of skilled players is proportionate, more people kill the end boss of any given raid (absolutely, rather than relatively). Bitter veteran players assume more epiced players = easy raids.

Vanilla made epics much harder to get. In WC3 I had 3 legendaries per char. The joke is that thee is a “kiddy” mode version of raids now. Devinity, 76% of Rag kills came on 10 man, so I just went for the lower percentage. At any rate, a comparable percentage of the playerbase killed heroic...

Along with MutantCarrot and taytay, I didn't get the joke either. Someone please explain...

Anybody remember Naxxramas in vanilla WoW?

Now THAT was endgame.

Cont: It's a bit of a shame that our only real endgame difficulty will be a semi difficult heroic raid, and then we're stuck with PvP. Let's hope the time trials in MoP are competitive enough to be fun.

[url=#user_comment_96718]@Sanguis[/url]: But did the excess difficulty translate to more fun? I'm aware that a vast majority of raid encounters in say, Vanilla, required almost all if not all your guild to REGEAR for enough resistance for said fight for example.

but... purple was the new blue a long time ago...

Don't worry, soon WoW players can have all the pandas and pokemons they want with the epix!

The thing I despise about raids in some games is the need to herd 20+ people for a run. Takes ages to organize and one asstard can ruin it. PUGs also have a high chance of ninja looting. Ugh.

I am a WoW player, and my guild just defeated deathwing on 25 normal (harder than the LFR mode or even the 10 man normal). It is required that you actually have a coordinated group on the 25 man encounter, last fight alone takes about 12 minutes.

[url=#user_comment_96715]@CosmicKirby[/url]: it is pessimistic if you don't know just how weak raids now are compared to original content. it is just sad if you raided in vanilla wow and look at what raids and loot are like now

A BIT pessimistic here. Heroic raids are still going to be difficult enough to required an organized group.

That is... until the nerfs that are bound to come in at around the 1 month after mark.

I like the way I can raid now. Since my raid team have been, erm... "prejudicated" by the leader from my ex-guild, I´ve lost my oportunities to raid. Nice to see me and my friends raiding togheter for the first time, but yeah, it was realy sad to see Deathwing dying like a dungeon boss

purple is already the new blue (if that hasn't already been said)

@ BLU Medic & BLU Pyro
Entire team is babies!

@BLU Pyro: I miss those days

[url=#user_comment_96692]@Davtwan[/url]: Now if only more people understood that in politics. "Oh my god, he's Left-leaning, but he was just praising a Right ideal! And now he's trying to mediate between the two parties! He clearly must not have a fucking clue what to do!"

Hey NerfNow, did you ever played Terraria?

[url=#user_comment_96682]@Cubey[/url]: Maybe because there's... a MIDDLE GROUND. I know this sounds crazy, but there's apparently more to life than two different sides. It's amazing!

you are saying that epics will come new blues.. Epics have been new blue long time ago

Remember the old days when this comic series was about my misadventures.

did 4/7 LFR today (second wing isn't open on my server yet). To say it's easy is to say nothing, nobody even tried going anywhere except for hiding behind the shards on Morchok, and half the raid died on Hagara's first ice phase, meaning we killed her in effectively 10 man. She did get into berserk

Funny how you can whine about WoW being too casual now and also complain Starcraft II's competetive multiplayer is too hard and full of no-lifers who play to win and not "have fun".

I enjoy your comics for funny and fanservice, not for your opinions on gaming.

[url=#user_comment_96602]@BrigitteAbbendis[/url] Lol@people thinking 25man is harder than 10 still... 10 man is actually considered harder by most high end guilds - less raid buffs, less versatility, less room for error and less battlerezes. The only thing "more difficult" about 25 is scheduling conflicts.

Purples are already the new blues... Look at classic, very few players had epics, most people had blues.

Look at it now, everyone has epics.

Just fyi, one of my most competent guildmates is an old woman. She tanks really well because she has more time to dedicate to the craft.

[url=#user_comment_96661]@HotShotGG[/url]: Nah. WoW pretty much plays itself.

not a wow player, didn't get the joke. what is wrong with deathwing? it is too easy now or what?

the comic looks like a patapon game to me.

"When I see WoW now, I picture a bloodied soldier, extending his arm to a scared player and screaming "NO NOOB LEFT BEHIND"."

PLEASE DRAW THIS! :D

Eh, the insane-scheduled man in me says "Yay, at least now normal people can actually glimpse the end content", but the player in me remembers how utterly tedious the instances have become at times.

People still play WoW?

Well, really, granted they are easier, there is a difference in the item levels of the resulting gear. I believe the current Raid Finder gear is marked "Raid Finder" and is i384, whereas the gear from doing an actual "guild drama" raid is i397.

It means more people see more content.

This comic was sheer brilliance.

Good job.

Brings new meaning to the term "Themepark MMO."

Purple is always the new blue at around this time in an expack's life cycle.

Playing WoW nowaday is like paying a hooker for sex. Easy and accesable for everyone, no matter how unskilled or scared.

[url=#user_comment_96624]@usbfridge[/url]: the fuck? How can you have more talent at one point than another? That defeats the purpose of the word talent.

Since jo has gotten more efficient, aswell as occasionally switching between shading and not, is able to draw big comics while drawing a quick one about a new topic. It takes about 2-3 days to draw a big comic, about 1-1/4 a day to draw one like this. Jo has alot of talent, especially now.

And this is why you'll never again enter into PVE. If I go back to the player-coddling carebearfest that WoW is now, I'll be in RBGs and Arena.

FLyff !!!!! let me puke first ok now im done lets talk about Flyff XD

Wait so the evil people are on the old ladies and children's side? What have we done?

The funniest thing about the comments on this thread is going to be watching all the WoW statbabble. :D Thank God I play Flyff instead.

[url=#user_comment_96602]@BrigitteAbbendis[/url]: 1% OF PLAYERS HAVE 90% OF EPICS! OCCUPY STORMWIND!

what's the female Representative of GoG doing playing WoW?

Actually purples already turned into the new blues in wotlk. Almost everyone and their grandmum had killed the LK -.-

Have completed 25 man heroic Rag. That's a similar proportion to guilds that got to see Naxx (the holy grail). Even if you were in one of the top 100 guilds that killed him within a few weeks of starting pulls, we haven't seen DS heroics + why care that other people get nerfed raids and gear?

It's simple, the real difficulty rating is heroic and has been since Uld. Two weeks ago, 4.2% of guilds in Firelands had killed heroic Ragnaros, which is 2% of the WoW population and 10% of the guilds that had killed heroic Majordomo. Also, only 24% of them had done it on 25 man, so 1% of WoW Guilds

Every Raid I have gone on: Hour and a half or MORE of waiting to start the Raid- some one explains the 3 or more fazes of the boss.- some ass dies and wipes the raid b/c they had a hard time keep track of 3 thing and doing there main roll- repeat till you fell brain dead or boss dies. real fun.

I can see floor at blizzard pit, something's wrong, it supposed to be completely covered with moneys, I guess it may mean troubles for blizzard

Poor Deathwing, I remember him since Warcraft II : Beyond The Dark Portal

He didn't deserve this shitty end

I don't really get the joke.....

Available to you since Burning Crusade.

Purples were the new blues since the first expansion.

The new epic items really mean "taking three months at a time to get one."