Define Trivial

You see the post title.  Simple, two words only, and as small as it is those words sum up all the problems with warcraft as a whole.

Defining trivial is different for all players.  It could even be different for one player depending on the role they are currently playing.  A true definition of trivial and how it is used in game are two completely different things.

Doing marrorgaw is a pug now, that is trivial for most groups.  You do not even need to move from the fire.  Just blow him up and it is no problem.  The healing required from people standing in it is minimal, the tank takes almost no damage and if your DPS is capable and you have a full or near full group the fight will only last 30 seconds at most.  That is trivial.

Morchok is not trivial.  95% or more of the raiding population likes to call it that but it really isn't.   If no one gave a crap where they stood, no one followed mechanics, it would not get done.  It is not trivial.  Maybe, just maybe, if you have enough DPS to kill it before the first black phase you might be able to call it trivial.  However, I doubt your healers would be happy about you not running to the bubbles and making them heal their asses off.  So nope, not trivial even then.

See, that is the problem with the game.  The perception of difficulty.

The day cataclysm came out and everyone was still in their questing blues and greens and just barely 329 the original heroics were a nice challenge.  They where doable, but the people that were already in them were, for the most part, the more capable players on that first day.  So they were doable. 

Anyone that did them then, looks at them as trivial.  They were capable players and did them at the lowest possible gear level without the experience and knowledge of doing them many times and got it done.  So now in high level gear, experience of doing them many times, plus the nerfs to them and to us, that is now trivial content.

It is a misuse of that word however.  The content itself is still not trivial.  Never was, never will be this expansion.  It all depends on who is doing it.

There are some bosses that have turned into trivial content if you have the appropriate group to make them such.  I was running a guild mate through some to gear them up the other day on my tank and we basically ignored 90% of the mechanics because we had me on my tank doing 18K, and three DPS doing over 30K.  So nothing was going to live that long anyway.  It was a starting healers dream.  But there were still times when we needed to follow some mechanics, just in case.  So while we acted like it was trivial, it really wasn't.  It was just easy for us, maybe even super easy, but not trivial.

I think that is a huge problem with people in the game.  They confuse easy with trivial.  Add to that, they all think that because something is easy to them it should be easy to everyone.

If you have never done a fight before it is not easy and most definitely not trivial.

I've heard people say that in randoms.  How could you mess this up, it is trivial content.  It is one of the few times I wish I were capable of reaching through the screen and slapping someone upside the head.  No content is trivial for someone that has never done it before.

Even harder stuff, people seem to misuse the word for.  If someone has downed heroic whatever a few dozen times they say, it is trivial content, if you can't do it you suck.  They seem to forget that someone that has never done it doesn't know how to do it.  They also seem to forget that it is not trivial for them either.  They are following mechanics.  They are with people that know how to do it.  That is what makes it easy for them.  It doesn't make it trivial however.

I find some fights easy, super easy, laughable easy even, but I would never say they are trivial.  Until they are.  Just because you can beat a boss in 1 minute that used to take you 4 minutes, it does not make it trivial.  Just because you have done something with the same group so many times that you can do it without even needing to call things out, it does not mean it is trivial, it is just easy for that group.

The problem is with people calling everyone names and insulting them in random dungeons and raid finder is because people like to think that content is trivial and anyone should be able to do it.  That is the problem with the game.  That is the problem with looking for raid.

Put 25 people that have never seen dragon soul in looking for raid and that content will be challenging content.  Even more so if the skill level of those people is only equal to that level of content and their gear is at minimum, it could very well be downright hard.

Now for those 25 people, all in minimum gear, lower skill levels, no previous knowledge or experience, looking for raid is not trivial.  Not even close to trivial.  It is an actual challenge.

This is what used to get me when I ran the looking for raid and no one would switch to the bloods and someone was bound to call out, "its only looking for raid".  Just because it is easy for you does not mean it is easy for everyone else.  Yes, it is only looking for raid, it is also only people with lower skill levels, lower gear level, lower experience levels, and only people that need to kill that 3rd slime because they can not handle all three hitting.  "But the damage they do is trivial".  Slap.  For a group of 6 healers pulling 25K HPS and with no mana issues it might feel trivial.  For a looking for raid group where you might have one person doing 20K, three people doing between 10-12K, and two people that couldn't break 8K if they tried, it is not trivial.  It is a wipe waiting to happen.

Trivial, usually said as easy but thinking easy means trivial, is a personal thing for most current content.  It is based on your gear level, your skill level, your experience level and if it is group content, it is based on the same factors of the people in your group and how long you have run with them.

So while it might seem trivial for a group of healers all pulling 25K HPS in looking for raid if all three hit, it still isn't.  They still need to compensate for all three hitting.  They still need to heal for that larger amount.  They make it easy.  They don't make it trivial.  Perhaps it comes trivial for the damage dealers because they just stand there are pew pew but not for the healers.  So the use of the word trivial is wrong.  It is easy and it is only easy because of over geared and well skilled healers.  Not because it is trivial.

Like my first example.  Marrowgar.  It is trivial, you can ignore mechanics if you are going to kill it in 20 or 30 seconds.  It is not trivial if it is going to live for 3 minutes.  You can not ignore the spiked people if it is going to live that long.  You can not stand in the fire if it is going to live that long.  It is not trivial if it is going to live that long.

A perfect example of how I see what trivial would be is Corla in BRC.  If you can kill her without blocking the beams before any of them turn, you have made the content trivial.  If you need to walk in and out of the beams, even once, to keep them from turning, it might be easy but it sure as hell is not trivial.

One more good example, and not a group one, is soloing SC and VP for the drake.  I've been doing it since the expansion started.  Got the VP one, still no SC one.  But being I've been doing it so long and have not only mastered my route and how to do the bosses, but I have gotten a crap ton more gear since my first time. 

So I would consider them trivial, for me.  Even more so the drake in VP.  When I started to do it in low gear I needed to FD breaths, I needed to deterence breaths, I needed to use readiness so I could do it again.  It was hard, it was all about timing.  Now, I just go in and blow him up.  Let him hit me with his breath, who cares, he will be dead way before he can hit me with enough breaths to kill me.  So now it is trivial.  For me.

I would never tell someone how to do it and tell them it is trivial.  I will tell them it is easy if they follow my instructions.  I will tell them it will get easier the more they do it.  I will tell them that by the 30th time they too might consider it trivial.  I would not tell someone it is trivial right off the bat because it is not.  Just because it is trivial for me does not mean it is trivial for everyone.

So, by my own definition this is how I would define trivial as far as content goes.

Trivial:  Content that you can ignore mechanics and just brute force with no consequences.

That is why VP is trivial for me now.  I can just brute force it with no consequences.  When I was lesser geared it wasn't trivial.  When I was first learning where to stand and when to burst, it was not trivial.  For most people, even in my gear, if they have never done it before, it is not trivial.

So what brings me to think about the word trivial and the use of it in game?  Someone in trade yesterday said that deathwing heroic was trivial.  Okay, I have not downed it on heroic yet, then again, I've never even tried to.  So you can say that I do not have first hand knowledge but I feel secure that even without first hand knowledge it is safe for me to say, with 100% accuracy, that it is not trivial.

I looked them up on the armory, just because I was interested to see how often he has downed it that made it get to the point it was so easy for him.  He had downed it for the first time this past week.  Trivial and it took you until the 30% buff to down it, I thought to myself, doesn't sound that trivial to me.  I would never say that, not my style but I thought it.

Another interesting fact was that he had only 2 other kills on heroics in DS.  The first boss and the blood boss.  So he must have joined a group for the heroic kill.  Looking at his history he had only completed it three times on normal too.

If I were the type to call someone out I could have a field day with this guy.  Normal would be hard for him, if judging by experience only.  The funny thing is, no one in trade went after him either.  A few people did make some comments, mostly to inflate their own epeen type comments like, I would not go as far as trivial but it was kind of easy.  Another one said, compared to spine I guess you could call it trivial, spine was really the hard fight.  Which would have made some sense if that guy had ever beaten spine.

It just makes me wonder what do people consider trivial.  I don't think anything in DS is trivial.  Even if we can blow through normal in a little over an hour now I would not call any of the fights in there trivial.  Even ultraxion which went from my favorite fight because it was a race against the timer is now boring because we beat it before the second crystal even comes out, but it is still not trivial.  If a tank does not go out they could die without a cooldown.  If the tanks mess up the in and out rotation we could wipe.  As easy as it has become it is still not trivial, not even close.  You can't go at it with reckless disregard for mechanics and have no fear of the consequences, thus, not trivial.

I understand that the person in trade was just trying to extend his own epeen by calling it trivial and this is not about him really, it is about the word trivial, it made me think about the word.

Would you consider anything this expansion as trivial?  And why?

Personally there is nothing raid wise and very few dungeon wise this expansion that I would consider trivial.  Perhaps it is because unlike a large portion of the player base, I don't think that everyone should know what I know.  I understand new people, lesser skilled people and people with very little experience also play this game.  Most think... if I know how to do it, everyone should, its trivial.

Why do people think easy and trivial is the same thing?

Also, why do people think just because something is trivial (read as easy) for them that it should be trivial (read as easy) for everyone?

How would you define trivial?