
Originally Posted by
Arnenna
All you've described there is players that won't listen to valid instruction. Not all players are like that, in fact, in my experience it's actually quite few, especially after a wipe or two. I've been that hunter screaming out for power, on many occasions, so I know what you're talking about, but when you get a small group of friends working together on a more regular basis, they tend to listen a bit better. The whole game since Mordor has already put t2c out of reach for more players than before it, and that will eventually show in the numbers. The line is very fine on how far they can push that. Too far and the t2c group will be too small, and couple that with upped landscape difficulty, if they increase that too far, they'll have very few casual players left who will be looking to gear for harder content. When everyone stops looking to try, then the game will fall, because the hardcore group will be too small to sustain it alone. I, and quite a few players I know and play with, know when we're going to have time to dip our feet and when we aren't. When we aren't, we don't bother with any of the grinds associated with the top end gear - because we don't need it. Sure, there are some casual players that want that gear, regardless of what their aims are, but that pool will get smaller as the harder stuff becomes out of their reach. With a good way to practise the runs, they may be more inclined to start dipping their feet in, and improving their gear builds and skillset, to try the harder stuff.
Level 85 cap was my favorite time for instances. Everyone was running them on challenge mode and there was no shortage of players to group with. Level 100 wasn't bad either (with the exception of silly exploits and half baked runs). 105 onward, not so much IMO, too much dps racing and such. Take the first boss of tSS for example. Kill boss, control add waves. it takes about 60 secs to learn the kill order, then you've got it. Not very exciting for the first boss of a 6 man. Would have been better to have those add waves maybe hit a little less, but if a player gets the kill order wrong (or is even targeting the wrong mob without killing it) the mobs get a damage buff or something along those lines. That makes it interesting.