The 4.2 Nerf

[GS Sailor Saturn]

So, Blizz have announced that when they release 4.2, all the existing normal mode raid content will be nerfed by 20%.

I'm worried by what this implies for the quality of raiders going forward, as well as the potential impact it will have on future tiers (people going from the nerfed tiers into un-nerfed tiers and whining about it being too hard, causing them to be nerfed as well).
I'm also concerned that it will make progression largely meaningless: I am currently only at 8/12 normals, and don't expect to get to 12/12 before 4.2 Afterwards it might be possible, if I go back, but with such a massive nerf it won't feel like I really earned it.

TotalBiscuit has announced his intention to pull out of the game immediately, and explained why, and I can agree with at least some of his arguments.
Mostly I'm concerned that the whole thing will get boring, at which point I'll probably unsub, since raiding is the only thing I log in for these days.

What are other people's thoughts about it?  

[TiddyBonBon]

This is actually ironic. I was watching TB's videos a while back when the expansion released and made a bet with myself that if Blizzard continued to nerf Cata's content, then he would sure leave sooner or later (because he always talks/rants about easy-to-hard content and whatever).

Sorry, but to me, there hasn't been much of an accomplishment to raiding since the end of Burning Crusade; Blizzard has basically taken the quality of raiding so low that it's depressing. Sure they implemented the Heroic version for boss fights but it won't be shortly after that they nerf that fun out of Heroic mode(unless it was that necessary).

Whatever. I unsubscribed long ago but it's always typical what things Blizzard does to their content.  

[ringboy]

Speaking of TB, all I can say is that I completely agree with him. With more and more nerf, the skill of raiders will gradually decrease, as there are no challenges. The players who ARE good will simply burn through the content that much faster. Blizzard has said that they plan to release more content faster, but I think this will actually have a negative effect on raiding. Players who prefer to take a little more time with raiding will find it hard to keep up with current raiding... well, I guess not if the difficulty is going to decrease constantly.

All Blizzard is doing at the moment, is catering to the players who aren't good. I can't recall what game it was, but I do recall TB mentioning in one of his MailBox videos that (a company of an Mmo that i can't recall the name of)'s philosophy was pretty much "Here's the bar for difficulty. You can't reach it? Too bad, looks like you'll have to get to it yourself."
But this company isn't full of complete jerks, they have implemented ways to make it a little easier if you're having trouble with it. That's something I think Blizzard should take into account.

They should be making content that's REALLY hard, but not only that, they should be making content for players of all levels of skill. Instead of simply a Normal mode and a Heroic mode, they should have a couple, like Easy, Normal, Hard, Heroic. That way, players who aren't as good, have a chance to do some raiding and get better at their own pace, while the really good players can start on Hard, then slowly progress through Heroics. The longer the content lasts, the longer Blizzard has to release more, better content.

Btw, when I say several levels of difficutly, I don't mean of a couple bosses like it is now. I'm thinking, for example. Blackwing Descent. I personally would rather NOT go through BWD, kill all the bosses on Normal mode, then, as a reward, be able to fight the SAME bosses all over again, with a new mechanic or two.... Oh joy, what fun (sarcasm intended). I would personally rather have the 4 different difficulties of a raid like BWD, but each difficulty has different bosses and different mechanics for EACH boss in EACH difficulty.

Is this too much to ask?  

[Archangel Tzadkiel]

TB....meh

I don't see what the problem with the inc nerf is. They've done this before, and its fine tbh. Theres always new players joining, old players unsubbing etc. These new players or old players getting back into the game need a way to catch up on gear. There won't be many guilds doing old content, other than going to gear alts, friends, or for achieves. The more you feed something the bigger it gets right? It's the same deal here, you feed new players gear (20% nerf) and the progression guilds can recruit more gear ready people, to replace the nerd rage quitters. How many people do you think are quitting 4.2 cause of something dumb like a 20% nerf on old content you WONT be raiding? If they don't nerf these at all, the gap will only get bigger in future tiers and there will be less people to recruit. Besides isn't it about time you hand down your old toys to your little brother? Grow up.

That aside, 20% is a little large, maybe a 10%, the content is already easy anyway.  

[Pouncey]

Enh, nerfs happen naturally so long as better gear comes out. And then what was hard as nails, becomes easy as pie. Regardless of nerfs.

I think that Blizz expects the people raiding older stuff to have gear good enough to start clearing newer stuff once it comes out. So they're taken care of, as they should be raiding the new stuff, not the old stuff.

People who start raiding for the first time this expansion AFTER new stuff comes out will find it hard to get a group together for the old stuff. After a couple of tiers, no one was clearing Naxx anymore. Groups did the weekly, or they did achievements. If they did the weekly, they did the absolute bare minimum, then it was back to Dalaran. If they did achievements, it was often with absurdly high requirements - 5k GS to clear Naxx kind of absurd.

If they did manage to get into Naxx, it was often with a group that was overall over-geared for the raid. So it was basically the same as nerfed. This just makes the process quicker. Instead of seeing that nerf happen naturally with time, we see it happen right away.

I watched the TotalBiscuit video as well. I didn't comment on it, but I remember one part where he mentioned that at least 500,000 people had cleared a certain - presumably significant - boss in some raid. That sounds impressive, until you realize that those 500,000 people make up less than 5% of WoW's total playerbase of over 11,000,000 people. It's not a hugely significant portion of the population.