Can WoW Please Everyone?

Wrath was easy. - People complain
Cataclysm was hard - People complain.

I've complained at both.  I complained because wrath taught people nothing.  I complained because cataclysm is trying to teach people but it is not working.

Most people are in one group or the other.  I ride the center line.  I want the best of both world. 

When I first do new content I want to be challenged.  I want to have to learn a fight and the dance steps needed to survive it.  I like trying to figure out how to time my cooldowns, know when I am moving, figure where I am going before I get there.  I like the little game within the game.

Once I've mastered that little dance I want my runs to be as quick and painless as possible.

This did not happen in wrath because there was never a challenge and even the more challenging ICC 5 man dungeons had limited dance steps.  It is not happening in cataclysm either because you will always get someone that either does not know the dance yet or is not capable of doing the dance at all.

Where does this leave us, the gaming community?

The majority of people will just pick a side. 
- I like it hard, screw the bads. 
- I want it easy, basement dwellers shouldn't be the only people with gear.

Blizzard will never be able to please these people.  If they make it harder some people will be happy.  If they make it easier others will be happy.  Both will never be happy.  But could they?

I think Blizzard needs to rethink their design and set it up so that way there are tiered dungeons.  This would make people happy.  Both groups happy.  It will even make people like me, those that ride the thin line between wanting my content hard but wanting my grind easy happy as well.

Lets play pretend and release 9 new dungeons.

Dungeon group A
3 Dungeons, 4 bosses each.  2 tank and spank.  1 with lots of movement and staying out of fire.  1 with some sort of AoE that can put a little pressure on everyone but nothing much. Trash has no notable skills and can be burnt down.

Dungeon group B
3 Dungeons.  4 Bosses each.  1 tank and spank with a tight enrage timer.  1 gimmick fight with minimal mechanics that can hurt, a lot. 1 heavy AoE fight.  1 extremely situational awareness fight. Some trash mobs will need to be focused or it could cause trouble.

Dungeon group C
3 Dungeons.  4 Bosses each.  All fights have enrage timers.  One has situational awareness, interrupts, and heavy movement.  One is a gimmick fight that will require people pay close attention, a 3 second mistake and the fight gets twice as hard, 2 mistakes and you will be lucky to last another 3 seconds.  One huge test of timing fight where interrupts, movement and pressure on the healer to heal and the DPS to avoid as much damage as possible.  One fight that has no less then 4 different mechanics that need to be watched at any given time, each one could cause instant death if not reacted to correctly.  Some trash comes in packs that have mechanics that can not be over geared and will need CC whenever possible.  IE:  Hits for 80% max life, not hits for XX amount of damage.

Dungeon group A would cater to the bad player.  The one who thought that wrath heroics were fine and cataclysm ones are way to hard.

Dungeon group B would cater to the average player.  The type of player the can handle a few things going on but does not have a good internet connection or fighter pilot reaction speed to deal with anything that is unforgiving.

Dungeon group C would be for raiders basically.  The type of fight that will give you a little bit of a challenge until you get the fight down.  It will hone your skills and ready you for raiding by keeping you sharp on your off days.

Now all types of players are happy.  The bad player have their bad dungeons.  The average player have their dungeons.  The good player have their dungeons.

Having both in normal and heroic would also mean that both also get the chance to up their own personal level of ability.

A(N) -> A(H) -> B(N) -> B(H) -> C(N) -> C(H)

It would allow even people new to the game to have a learning curve.

It even helps people like me.  People that love the Dungeon group C dungeons but when I just want to get a daily in and move on I want a Dungeon group A dungeon for a fast and easy run.

Wouldn't you think that it is in a businesses best interest to make as many people happy as possible?  Wrath alienated a large amount of players by making things too accessible.  Cataclysm is now alienating even more people by making things less accessible.

A tiered dungeon system would be good for the game in a sense that you can now cater to multiple types of players and keep more people happy at one time.  I would not go so far as saying that tier raids should be the same as the newer content and newer gear will make the previous tiers raid easier on its own for those that might be having problems with them now but for dungeons it makes sense. 

Dungeons are the basic end game for the non raider.  Having three tiers of dungeons gives a non raider a feel of progression.  The same feel that you or I have when we first down a boss we just spent 2 hour wiping on.  It is an adrenaline boost that can not be explained.  It is why we play the game.  That rush is like crack, it is a drug, it is why we are addicted to playing.  We want that rush.  We crave for that rush.  It is why we keep wanting to push further.

It would be in the best interest of Blizzard to adopt a system like this now.  It would ease a lot of the anger being thrown their way from many people, myself included.

If we were to take what is around now I would suggest to nerf the hell out of all dungeons except DM, SFK and GB and make the nerfed ones Dungeon group A.  Make DM, SFK and GB dungeon group B and the new Zul dungeons can kick off Dungeon group C.

When each new patch comes, add a few new dungeons.  A new A, B and C.  So each type of player gets something new instead of just the raiders.  They are going to add new dungeons anyway, why not allow everyone from the worst player to the causal player to the serious player have a chance to get something new when a patch comes.

The game will never be able to please everyone but a tiered dungeon system holds the possibility to please most of them by allowing everyone to experience some content specifically designed for them.

There will still be people that will complain.  Why do we need to cater to the bads, they should get better?  Why should we cater to the basement dwellers and not be able to play content because we have a life?

Now you can say, every class of player from the below average, the average and the above average have their dungeon end game.

Raids can then be made even harder and left for the elite. 

Let the gear from the next patch be the way raids are nerfed.  Allowing people to experience the older content with better gear.  Tweak them a little if need be once they are outdated as well.

You can't please everyone, but you can at least attempt to make it look like you are trying to please more than one class of player.

More people would be happy if they where not always feeling like everything is being designed for the other class of player. 

Would you give one of your kids a cookie and tell the other one to go screw themselves?  Nope.  So don't do that to the players, which pay the bills, either.

Tiered dungeons need to be implemented for the betterment of everyone's gaming experience.