Quote Originally Posted by Ronduwil View Post
That's not what I said. If a game is designed properly, it can provide a challenge without having to rely on enrage mechanics and arbitrary timers. WoW was at the height of its popularity during WotLK, which happens to have hit that sweet spot where you could take anyone regardless of skill. Granted, you might have been prevented from successfully doing some of the hard modes, but those were completely optional.
Eh, there's a lot where your argument falls apart. Enrage mechanics and timers are integral in this—and quite frankly any—genre for challenge. The difficulty of MMOs is executing the mechanics correctly and dealing out high DPS to defeat bosses. If you take away enrage mechanics and timers, you just need to not have your entire raid die to one-shot mechanics. Without enrage mechanics and timers, one tank and one healer can literally solo bosses. That's not hard. Secondly, outside of the 25-player hard mode, WotLK was a complete joke. You could take almost anyone you want because the game never challenged you in any substantive way. Do we all not remember, barring a few minor exceptions, that 10-player hard modes were pushovers? Citing WotLK does not make your argument in this, friend.

If Mythic+ is "the best MMO system that we've seen in a very, very long time," then why aren't you playing WoW right now? Personally, I didn't even attempt it because I was late to the game, and I didn't want to deal with the stress of preventing someone from making their weekly quota (literally a quota) while I was trying to learn.
Oh, I love this argument. Another MMO has a great system, and if I think it's great, I must want to play it because that's all that matters! Please. No one stays subscribed to any MMO because of one singular system. But to answer the question: I'm not playing WoW right now because there is more bad than good (and FF XIV is more good than bad). That doesn't mean that M+ is "bad." You really should have tried it. Assuming you don't get power leveled, anyone with a functioning brain can succeed at M+.

As for "second job," I was recalling my Cataclysm/MoP experiences. I have not attempted high end raiding since MoP because of the frustration of watching three guilds fall apart, fending off recruiters, and the guilt of costing my guild their weekly raid every time I chose to support my kids' extra-curricular activities. I know I made the right choice, but I still felt guilty doing it, and I don't play games to feel guilty.
All of that is self-inflicted. Sure, the schedule didn't work for you anymore, and that's fine, but in both WoW and FF XIV, almost everything but the hardest of the hard is puggable, easily, assuming you have a functioning brain.

People really need to understand that MMOs are not that hard, unless you're doing the end bosses of Mythic and ultimate raids.