Tuning hasn’t been the best choice to be honest. We actually were having fun with hard trash and not “lol aoe it all” from Naxx. I understand that Blizz wants to make the game more accessible, but in some cases it’s a “lolwut” to me. I’ve heard my guild and even friends in other guilds that aren’t as “hardcore” say, “Wait, that was hard before?”

I wholeheartedly agree with your closing statement Namthe. I may be hardcore because I min/max to an extent, but I’m casual as when I log on at raid time, I do so to play with friends and maybe down a few bosses and toss back a few beers. It’s a game. I enjoy raiding in that game. Hardcore or not.

“Hardcore” can mean:
- intense focus on achieving victories
- puts a lot of time into achieving victories
- no-life person who has no focus or time outside of WoW

“Casual” can mean:
- only casual interest in achieving victories
- spends little time toward achieving victories
- unfocused person who will accomplish nothing in WoW

Ignoring the dangrous words, it’s still possible to talk about guilds and raids in terms of progress and achievements. Let’s assume that every raiding guild is able to kill Sarth+0D. If your guild was able to kill Sarth+3D and this puts you in the top 20% of guilds, congratulations. You are capable of a high level of progression, and by the end of Tier 8 you will probably be able to do most of the hard modes in Ulduar. (Not right away, of course, but I bet you didn’t kill Sarth+3D during the first few weeks of Tier 7 either.)

But consider the raiding guilds that have not killed Sarth+3D. Blizzard still needs to decide what to do with these guilds. It’s not a wise business decision to let ALL of them clear Ulduar, because that isn’t what the gamers want. The gamers want a game that grows gradually more difficult. So, you can bet that Blizzard has set a goal, has established a fraction of raiding guilds which “ought” to be successful in clearing Ulduar.

Choosing this fraction is a part of the game design, because the “success” fraction is essentially a measure of how hard Ulduar is. By the end of Ulduar and the release of the next raid, you will be able to look back and say “X % of the guilds which cleared Naxx+Malygos were able to clear Ulduar”.

The tuning you seen over the past two weeks are a result of Blizzard examing their encounter data and seeing whether guilds world wide are on-track for the “success” fraction which was chosen. If too many people are dying on Razorscale and nobody is even fighting Ignis, Blizzard will look over their data and adjust the encounters until the statistical average of all guilds is back where Blizzard wants it to be.

I’m okay with this. I’m sympathetic that you personally want more challenging fights for yourself, but Blizzard has been quite clear that they are choosing a generous “success fraction” this expansion, and it appears they need to nerf the normal mode fights to achieve this.

I’m confident I’ll see you posting about hard mode victories in the future.