The Weekly Marmot -- Cataclysm Making Warcraft Too Easy?

[Mwawka]

I think there is some confusion here about what making the game easier means. Playing the game will require the same set of skills as it does now. Which buttons you press and when may change, but the fact is that skilled players will remain skilled players. What may change is that perhaps those players who don't want to have to set up spreadsheets, spend hours sorting through posts on Theorycrafting forums and plug all their gear into simulators, but are still skilled at game play, may be able to get more out of their characters. That is a change I actually welcome. Less time figuring out what to wear means more time I can be doing other stuff, in game or out.

These proposed changes may close the gap at the bottom to middle end of player skill, but won't likely affect the most skilled players. I realize that a lot of people love the theorycrafting aspect of the game, but I am sure their still be things to discuss and explore on this front.

[Razzdango]

For those of you that weren't around at the start (or don't recall), WoW has always been more user friendly (catering to a larger group) than it's competitor's. When it was released originally it was one of a very select few MMO's that allowed for solo play (and thus more people at max level). It has only moved more towards the larger group since then. If you are hoping Cataclysm will move towards less groups capable of completing end-game content, you are probably going to be disappointed.

Blizzard is first and foremost a large company, the goal of which is to make money. Catering to the elitist MINORITY is not a sound economic decision when you can cater to the "casual" MAJORITY. Not to mention all those poor TBC Devs, whose content was never seen by 90% of the player base because it was tuned only for the elite.

And blizzards new way of focusing on the "casual majority" is exactly why they havn't had growth in over a year....

If they are any good of a business they will go back closer to a TBC or Classic model when they were actually growing. This new model is unsustainable and I can't be the only one that is waiting to see if cata will bring us back to the good days....

And about the 90% of the people seeing TBC content.... first where did you get that statistic, and second that doesn't say that people were not RAIDING they just didnt see that specific instance, and thats not a bad thing, MMO's are about a carrot on a stick and thats a great carrot. Those not on the bleeding edge of content done NEED new content every patch because they still have things in the game that are new to them. New instances should be for the bleeding edge where they need that new content.

[Kahmal]

Hmm I think I read the same post but it was not meant as being too hard but too big. It was big beautiful but a bitch to get all the way through. For someone who had the time it was no trouble getting through it but for someone with limited time it was very hard. After a while it also got a bit monotonous.

As for Hard modes I think they are a brilliant concept but they have not been handled well. The simple UI shift is a little boring and too much of the hard mode is just more Health and Damage. Now this move can work with some encounters (Saurfang and the Queen come to mind) but to truly make an encounter harder, and thus split the cream from the milk, the mechanics of the fight has to change in some meaningful way. Sartharion still stands as a poster child in this respect. A fairly simple fight on its own equal to Onyxia or most of MC and BWL in difficulty. However add the drakes and the fight gets a lot harder. Suddenly you have a hard dps timer, more adds, a portal mechanic with powerful debuffs (or buffs for the boss) and you still have to deal with the flame waves and the normal adds. In Ulduar you saw lots of these kinds of things too: Flame Leviathan, The Assembly of Iron, Thorim, Freya, Mimiron and of course Yogg'saron herself (XT also had a hardmode that changed the fight radically but in my opinion that just made the fight easier and not harder) These are fights where the hard mode is not just some small thing but a really big thing and that is how it should be.

I completly agree here has to this is where the issue in Wrath comes. Many people argued about Hard Modes but from 3D Sarth to Ulduar the system was working fantastic in my opinion. Activating them in a special way made thing interesting and the encounter usually changed dramatically, more reminiscent of old school fights where your task wasn't just to kill the boss while avoiding fire. The activation also worked as a gear check in some cases as well, such as Thorim and XT, perhaps a change they should make for hard modes like Thorim is that after you activate his HM and wipe you have the option to just turn it back on, since failing on tunnel and having to wipe can be tedious. When ToC came out all they did was had Health to the bosses and the chance that your tank could actually get globaled. Granted many people cheat there way through Twin Valks, and Anub 25 actually is a challenge, you can really be satisified with only one actual hard encounter in a raid with only 5<snip> bosses. (I still want an apology for the Abomination that is ToC)

ICC25's Hardmodes kept the same model, with a few exceptions, my question however is whether Blizzard wants the bosses to be easy, or if dramatically changing the enounter is just too much work for them while they are working on other projects. After all Ulduar was well in the works pre-launch I believe, and ToC just proves they were tight on time. (I would have toiled in Ulduar longer though for a real raid though)

[Lakshata]

Cataclysm will not bring about a different mindset encounter-wise.
I read in a blue somewhere that they think Ulduar was too hardcore, which in my opinion was the best made instance of the expansion (for many reasons).

/Agree with ulduar being the best instance this expansion.

[mavfin]

Those not on the bleeding edge of content done NEED new content every patch because they still have things in the game that are new to them. New instances should be for the bleeding edge where they need that new content.

Blizzard said it makes no business sense to develop whole raid instances for only the bleeding-edge to see and feel special over. That's not coming back. Hardmodes are all you're getting. If that's not good enough, then you're barking up the wrong tree. All raid instances will continue you to be highly accessible to groups that aren't stupid, as well as 'baseline starting gear' to get into them, I would imagine. How they do hardmodes will probably continue to be experimented with, imo.

[Dreadheart]

I think that when many people comment on the game being easier they always referring to the boss fights. I have found, and am finding, many of the boss fights to be fun and challenging yet I still have the feeling that the game is easier than it used to be. No, I haven't killed the Lich King. I think that the feeling of reduced challenge is coming from how accessible everything is now. Getting to a certain point in the endgame used to take a lot of effort, rep grinding was more time consuming, attunement made for a progression pathway, and the distinct lack of class-defining abilities like CC due to over-easy heroic dungeons are what are making the game feel easy. The boss fights are ok for the most part.

Having identical 10 and 25man raids does make the content sterile much quicker for guilds who run both groups - add to this hard modes of the same bosses and there definitely can be a feeling of resentment towards the content after a few months. Even if they don't go back to the way the game was in BC (which I really enjoyed) I hope they consider using the exclusive 10man and 25man raid model of TBC - including multiple raids that drop the same tier level of gear. I remember being involved in raiding BT, Hyjal, Tk and SCC, whilst still running Gruul's for the elusive Dragonspine Trophy and even hitting Kara for badges... I didn't ever get bored of raiding in BC.

[Hammerfists]

I think most people have misused the word "easy" in this discussion. This is after all a video game. The long rep grinds did feel rewarding but in the end werent hard just time consuming. I myself dont have the time anymore to go back to the days of TBC between my job and school, im sure most people can agree. The pigeon holding of certain abilities to certain classes like CC was a nuisance. I like that hex is different from sheep but does about the same job. This promotes you not having to be a specific class and more of a general class ie ranged when a guild scouts for you. TBC had more of a stringent raid make up in order to be successful that Wrath.

I second that Ulduar had a very nice design between Normal and Hard mode as well as some of the most challenging hard modes of this x-pac. TBC though in comparison had one major flaw in progression, towards the end content was coming out for a small percentage of the players. This also created the problem of recruiting for those guilds since few people at this point had gear capable of the content who werent already in a guild or having to gear them.

Ultimately i find Wrath made the game more acessable that easier. You can now also play whatever class you want more freely. Hard mode design has been iffy but its new and i imagine in Cataclysm it will be more polished. I wont judge Cataclysm till it ships since everything we heard till now can and might be changed, beta isnt out yet so these are all brain storm ideas to see how the community reacts.

[Terthon]

Hard Modes are going to be fine to keep the very high caliber players happy if there's done like Ulduar, not necessarily the gimmicky triggers, but actual mechanics which change the way an encounter has to be done. Things like Mimiron's Fire-fighter or Yogg+0 made a fight which originally complicated a ton more complicated and really hard. Those are the kind of chances that elite players want, not the "boss hits 25% harder and does 25% more damage" which is 95% of what's being done in ToGC and ICC, along with one small added ability. I think we'll also see more Hard Mode only bosses as well instead of Tribute chests.

Weaning off casuals from simply AoEing their way through an 5-man dungeon and requiring them to use and respect CC is going to be driving those using the random dungeon system insane. Hopefully we'll get some kind of glyph/talent which says, "Will not break Polymorph due to your lousy Paladin tank dropping consecration right on top of your target."

[Kahmal]

I think some Wrath raiders are in a sense cheated out of becoming capable raiders, AoEing your way throught Heroics and Naxx aren't giving you nearly as much experiance as TBC Heroics did.

On top of that DBM practically steers for you, I mean I know I can play w/o the alerts, like when it wasn't updated for new wings, but others may not have developed their own raid awareness.

[Flexthetroll]

Fist things first, if a vast majority of these posts think wow is to easy; leave go to EQ2 like where most of you came from. Then see how easy it is doing end game on dying servers. Every patch/expansion I have to listen to you want-to-be elite/ elite complain about this game, I have a great idea for you. If the game is not up to your mad skills, turn off all your add-ons. You know like DBM, DC, Healbot, Grid, ECT; all of them then go after these encounters. I would love to see how bad you fail when you don’t have add-ons telling you when to move. Go to EQ they don’t let anyone make any add-ons for their game, so then maybe you will have a match for your epic skills. The community will not miss you, and your guilds will flourish without you. You just have to remember that you are not as important in this world as you think you are. Remember you're self proclaimed good at a video game that does not matter. If you think anyone really cares about what you think should happen to the game, let me rest your mind at ease. Blizzard nor other players care what you think should happen to the game, so next time you want to speak up about something don't. Blizzard tells you they care because they want you "elitists" to think you have some say in the game so you keep coming back for more. Disclaimer this is not an attack on Tankspot this is an attack on the people that every patch/expansion complain about wow getting easier. I have always wondered why the bedrock of these kinds of post usually are how "good" players can set themselves apart from "bad" players. My main question is how much could possibly be missing in your life (you know that thing we all live in) that you would need to establish you greatness on something that well... DOESN'T REALLY MATTER.......... Most of you will come back with, "we are just playing the game right, cant help it if people can't figure out how to play it right." or something similar to this, I am guessing much more arrogant. The thing is now you have to stop and ask yourself why you play a game to be the best. Why don’t you play the game to just have fun, and if being the best if fun for you; you should probably try to get psychological help.

[Notavi]

An interesting post. The Mastery system certainly does worry me a little in terms of its potential to over-simplify gearing, but given that they are leaving some of the other stats in the game, it's a potential that need not be realized.

With respect to talents, I believe they have said before that they want people to have more 'free' talent points to spend on utility talents. That would certainly serve to make talent spec a more interesting area than it is now, where cookie cutter builds that leave few points spare are the norm.

Although I see that this has gone a bit into the old elite vs. "casual" debate, where casual is either defined as "we have a life" or "lazy and unskilled" depending on which side you ask. It's a lovely exercise in pointlessness as while there are players at either end of the scale, (who either want to be the only ones who can clear content, or who want content to be more of a scenic, easy loot experience), IMHO it's not the most meaningful way to look at the issue.

There are players who want the content to challenge them at every level of it. If you look at some of the raider interviews posted lately, the encounters they recall most fondly are the ones which they struggled with continuously, where blood, sweat and tears were expended to bring them down. It's the very effort required to accomplish the goal that in the end makes it worth it. And you can see this in the less progressed guilds as well, there were more than a few posts in the thread on the 5% buff from people in guilds at various levels of progression in ICC feeling cheated because the kill they were working for got handed to them. They simply didn't feel they earned it.

And there seem to be players that just want to be able to go in and get the loot. They're about the destination and the reward, and not about the journey getting there.

I'm not the most raid-experienced player out there, my TBC experience is one Kara raid, days before Wrath was released. My Wrath experience is alot of Naxx 25 and some Ulduar, which was followed by an absence from the game due to IRL matters. I'm only just getting back into raiding.

But the thing is, I want the content I face to require effort, to test my mettle, to force me to learn and become better. I want my boss kills to take effort, and to feel a sense an accomplishment when I conquer them. I want to feel the rush those raiders talked about in those interviews, and I don't particularly care if it comes from downing Arthas, or it comes from downing Marrowgar.

And I suspect I'm not alone in my sentiment.

[Hammerfists]

An interesting post. The Mastery system certainly does worry me a little in terms of its potential to over-simplify gearing, but given that they are leaving some of the other stats in the game, it's a potential that need not be realized.

To throw my two cents in here, i think its just clears the clutter. As far as armor break down we all know some plate need armor pen and others need more haste or crit, for rogues even some specs need haste others need armor pen, and we all know the shaman vs hunter problem. The biggest problem blizz has right now is they can create a piece of gear for everyone but there will be times when loot drops that nobody can use. Or you can get the bis item which might be better for someone else of your gear caliber making for dps disparities. Mastery paves the way for blizz not needing to make multiple armor sets per raid as well as not take tickets of RLs asking for a diffrent armor piece. You still will have to juggle the stats to understand what makes you the best. Its just that my shaman can finally get stats catered to him instead of taking a subar stat because it happens to be the "bis" item of this raid.

Also mastery is a nice lever when "buffing" or "nerfing" classes. I assume that we will see more minor patches dealing with class balancing than the current method of finding the right talent to tweak.

[Flexthetroll]

An interesting post. The Mastery system certainly does worry me a little in terms of its potential to over-simplify gearing, but given that they are leaving some of the other stats in the game, it's a potential that need not be realized.

With respect to talents, I believe they have said before that they want people to have more 'free' talent points to spend on utility talents. That would certainly serve to make talent spec a more interesting area than it is now, where cookie cutter builds that leave few points spare are the norm.

Although I see that this has gone a bit into the old elite vs. "casual" debate, where casual is either defined as "we have a life" or "lazy and unskilled" depending on which side you ask. It's a lovely exercise in pointlessness as while there are players at either end of the scale, (who either want to be the only ones who can clear content, or who want content to be more of a scenic, easy loot experience), IMHO it's not the most meaningful way to look at the issue.

There are players who want the content to challenge them at every level of it. If you look at some of the raider interviews posted lately, the encounters they recall most fondly are the ones which they struggled with continuously, where blood, sweat and tears were expended to bring them down. It's the very effort required to accomplish the goal that in the end makes it worth it. And you can see this in the less progressed guilds as well, there were more than a few posts in the thread on the 5% buff from people in guilds at various levels of progression in ICC feeling cheated because the kill they were working for got handed to them. They simply didn't feel they earned it.

And there seem to be players that just want to be able to go in and get the loot. They're about the destination and the reward, and not about the journey getting there.

I'm not the most raid-experienced player out there, my TBC experience is one Kara raid, days before Wrath was released. My Wrath experience is alot of Naxx 25 and some Ulduar, which was followed by an absence from the game due to IRL matters. I'm only just getting back into raiding.

But the thing is, I want the content I face to require effort, to test my mettle, to force me to learn and become better. I want my boss kills to take effort, and to feel a sense an accomplishment when I conquer them. I want to feel the rush those raiders talked about in those interviews, and I don't particularly care if it comes from downing Arthas, or it comes from downing Marrowgar.

And I suspect I'm not alone in my sentiment.

I don’t think I could agree with you more, just because you are not on end game content doesn’t mean people don’t get enjoyment out of the game. The way I look at it is the people who just play this game for world firsts, server first, best gear. These are the people that are really hurting the game and the sad part is they don’t know or care that they are. By demanding all this new content with new ideas in raid mechanics, and still want it to be hard. Then don't raid 4 days a week, go outside, get a tan, hang out with friends, do something other then raiding. By forcing the content to be released as fast as blizz can you are in fact nerfing the encounters. They need time to come up with this "new stuff", the ideas that blizz has had do not come over night; it requires time. I have looked at some of the top end guilds and even the little better then average guilds. It is like applying for a job, the sad part is it is set up like a job. We raid 4 days a week mon,wed,thurs,fri, from 7pm server time to 10pm. you must attend all raids, we do 10 mans on off raid days; you must supply your own flash and gold for repairs. Know your class. I mean that is one day shy of a full time job, I use to be in a raid guild I left because it was like another job. If people did not do things like this and just took there time, you would see an increase in good content. I personal think all the content has been good, but I guess some people always think they could do better.=/

[Hargood]

For those who complain about it being easy, it can make you feel better if you think of "Heroic Modes" as Regular and "Normal Modes" as Easy/Novice. (alilttle Better Anyways)

Thats pretty much it i think. Not everyone can / could do WOTLK Heroic/Hard Mode Content on all of these raids. But if Easy Mode means "Everyone Will Get To See ALL THE CONTENT!!!!!?" ..yeah, so? Who cares?

[mero12513]

As an anecdote, I don't personally find actual boss encounters to be any easier (from a tanking perspective) than they were in the Burning Crusade. What has changed is the attitude and experience of the WoW community to focus more on raiding in general. I tanked and raid led everything through Illidan in BC, and I can't recall anything truly difficult about it. You had to stance dance on Archimonde. You had to hit shield block on Illidan. Pick up 3 adds on Akama. Move out of D&D on Rage. The mechanics we're seeing in ICC (normal and hardmode) are really the same type of things. Cider gave a fantastic explanation of why raiding so easy these days, and it's not really because the encounters themselves are easier. It's because the player base is more experienced, more willing to raid, and it is orders of magnitude easier to put together a synergistic raid group than it used to be. 10-man raids help this too. We've seen these encounter mechanics before, in some form or another, and that makes them feel easier because we understand how to deal with them. The leveling up experience and the 5-man and heroic instances give players reasonable training for raiding and access to the gear required to raid.

I also don't agree that hard-mode encounters should have new and exciting encounter mechanics. One of primary joys of designing anything, and maybe especially a game, is letting as many people as possible experience and appreciate what you have designed. Blizzard wants to allow everyone who wants to the ability to experience the content they create because that is satisfying for both the designers and the customers. More hardcore players who want a challenge should be given that challenge, but should they also be given entirely new encounter mechanics (which requires significant design and testing time) that the huge majority of the population will never see? Personally, I think not.

In perfect world of unicorns and rainbows, blizzard would have the time to design truly interesting content for every level of raider, to have that content available very frequently, and present both challenge and proportionate reward to everyone who plays the game. That is actually a pretty unreasonable goal, and yet Blizzard has come very close in this latest expansion. Are there decisions I don't agree with and problems to be solved? Of course. But the fact remains that there is still challenge in the game everyone. If you say that there is nothing in this game to challenge you, you are lying. Perhaps your current challenge is finding the right people to raid with. I know that every group and guild has players that are leaps and bounds better than the rest, and that can often be a major frustration (one that I've personally felt many times). However, the best players in the world have still not completed every challenge, so it's completely false to say that the game is too easy. Perhaps you, personally, don't feel challenged. If that is the case, then it's likely the fault of group of people you raid with, not the designers.

I'll take the time another day to talk about why the best guilds in the world defeating content quickly is in no way a sign that the content is too easy. However, the current wall of text is tall enough.

[Mangea]

There are a couple things we should remember.
1. The game gets easier by players figuring it out, creating raiding guides, theorycrafting, establishing priorities and rotations, and discovering the formulas that make the game run. The information that a handful of really smart players uncover gets disseminated to the rest of the player base, and we all get better at the game as a result. Thus the game gets easier, even if the game itself hasn't changed.

2. Like Ghostcrawler keeps saying, we don't have all the information at this point to make an intelligent opinion. The most any of us can do is speculate or simply wonder. There isn't a single person outside of Blizzard who can make a legitimate argument that the game is going to get easier or harder based on what we currently know about the Mastery system or anything else Blizz has told us about.

We won't know about how talent trees are going to change, we don't know how the combat ratings will change between 80-85, we don't know what new spells we're going to get are, and we don't know much at all about the Path of Titans. And these are just things that pertain to our characters. There's nothing about new boss fights, damage intake, mechanics, or anything! We simply don't know.

[Bashal]

I think folks who are worried that simplification of gearing choices and (possibly) simplification of talent trees will somehow make the game too easy are a little off-base. That didn't make the game hard, it made it cookie-cutter. Use this EJ spec cause it's highest DPS. Follow this BiS guide. Following guides and copying a spec and rotation someone else worked out isn't hard. It's fairly brain-dead, and it's why I'm able to have 6 alts that can all raid fairly effectively. That's just spending about 15 minutes doing some reading or loading your armory character into a spreadsheet and listening to what Rawr! says you should do. How is that difficult?

Sure, you can throw all that out the window and math some (or all) of it out yourself. But how many people here actually bother with that when you can just look it up quickly?

As far as raiding goes, boss mechanics and the visual environment is what makes it cool. Patchwerk-type fights will always be boring after the first time (or even during the first time), and how you made your gear choices and spec to fight Patchwerk didn't make killing him more interesting or challenging.

If gear and spec decisions will in fact require less use of auxiliary resources to make decent decisions, I welcome it.

[Hammerfists]

Great post mero i look forward to your next post.

[Notavi]

More hardcore players who want a challenge should be given that challenge, but should they also be given entirely new encounter mechanics (which requires significant design and testing time) that the huge majority of the population will never see? Personally, I think not.

I think they should, for the simple reason that just buffing the damage \ hit-points alone is not an effective way to keep content challenging for those who have learned it. They need to add new elements to the encounter, something new that must be practiced and managed, or even something requiring the fight itself be approached entirely differently.

Just buffing the boss a bit is lazy, and does little to keep the content interesting.

And, as has been pointed out, players are getting more experienced with the game. The size of the community that can attempt hard modes will increase as time goes on. It would be a mistake to skimp on this part of the game just because there aren't enough people to attempt it yet.

[Darksend]

The stat changes are not what people need to be focusing on, we need to make sure blizzard continues the trend they set with loot in ICC (which I saw the flaw in not doing even as far back as maly and 3d sarth and KT being higher ilvl where this all really started). If you are going to provide hard mode higher iLvl items, EVERY SINGLE SLOT must have a hard mode option in addition to a normal mode option. This was only a problem until TOC when the drops became mirrored instead of creating unique items like the 3 previously mention encounters and ulduar hard modes, but even TOC left itemization gaps for people who are in 10-man only guilds.

Take a loot at Ulduar and ToC itemization. Take leather and plate for example ( http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.2&fi...=239;maxle=239 http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.4&fi...=239;maxle=239 ). Right away we see a DPS leather chest, but no DPS plate chest. The leather AP boots from 25 ulduar are 226 easy mode drops but the plate STR boots are 239, why? Plate get STR belt and bracers but leather only gets AP bracers, the belt 239 drop is SP. There is also no 239 leather helm period AP or SP. The same trend continued in TOC. I could not help think to myself "How does blizzard decide which items will be hard mode drops, who gets which slots as easy mode vs hard mode, why are there places where plate can choose to use a leather item because the leather is better but then have plate items where leather does not even have a hard mode drop at all in that slot, and how come some slots have two AP leather items one normal mode one hard mode, but another slot has NEITHER a 226 or 239 drop?" Obviously some of this only applies to ulduar where hard mode and normal mode items where not mirrors, but even in trial there were things like no 10 man leather AP belt or bracers (unless you count the crafted bracers) but 10 and 25 both dropped leather AP boots.

When it came time to make my ICC best-in-slot list, the very first thing I noticed what that there were 8 leather AP items, not a single case of 2 AP items in the same slot and not a single slot without a drop, in both 10 and 25. Meaning without ever running a 10 man you could have a full 8-pc leather set, or for 10 man guilds you never had to run a 25 man to fill in an itemization gap. I checked this for almost every spec (8 mp5 pieces vs 8 spirit pieces vs 8 haste/crit pieces with no regen, 8 leather spellpower pieces vs 8 leather AP pieces, 8 plate crit/arp etc pieces vs 8 def/dodge/parry vs 8 spellpower plate). Every single spec had a full 8 pieces of dropped loot in addition to the badge vendor and set items and crafted items. This is what needed to happen in ulduar and did not, and it caused a lot of problems when gear inflation started. People would be forced to wear a 10 man normal mode for an entire tier because it is the only item in that slot that dropped for your spec that entire tier.

They did acknowledge they made a mistake this expansion but then continued to inflate it even more, which really leaves me very little hope for cata. The 10 normal mode ICC loot should have been 245, with less sockets than the 245 trial hard mode 10 man loot. NOTHING in 10 normal ICC should have been an upgrade over 25 hard mode trial 258 gear, but this was not the case. I understand they want the playing field to be evened out but what was the point of doing hard modes if the 10 man normal loot from the next tier is going to be just as good.

I could care less about what they do to the stats, that really has no impact what-so-ever in today's game of higher iLvl=better. You cannot have whole tiers that completely miss some slots it just sets those classes back way to much until the next tier. if they cannot fix item inflation, and if they do not continue to provide 8 drops per spec in both 10 and 25 (have I mentioned how happy I am blizzard finally did this after seeing the itemization gaps in TOC and ulduar?)

p.s. I rewrote this 3 times so I probably repeated myself some but to me this is one of the biggest problems with the game right now.

TLDR: When it comes to hard mode itemization, blizzard needs to continue to mirror the normal mode drops on hard mode so the same item slots/armor class drop off the hard mode as the normal mode (unlike 3d sarth and Ulduar hard modes which not only created unique drops for hard modes but in almost every case those drops where for armor slots/armor class that did not drop off the normal mode) and continue to provide every spec with a viable 8-pieces of offset loot in both the 10 and 25 man versions of every tier like they finally did in ICC. It is unacceptable to for a strict 10 man raider to run a 25-man because plate tank bracers only drop in 25 and there are no 10 man plate tanking bracers in that tier. Likewise the drama caused by trying to fit a strict 25 man guild into 10-mans because of itemization gaps should be avoided as well.