In WoW Classic, the beta for Wrath of the Lich King has just started, but the developers have already announced that they are going to make some changes. So WotLK will not be exactly as you know it from before. Some features, like the dungeon finder, won’t even exist. But they also want to make adjustments to the raids. The first raid from WotLK will be harder than it was back then: Naxxramas.

What was said? In the developer update for Wrath of the Lich King Classic, plans have been talked about. So they have had some thoughts on what could be changed in WotLK Classic, such as a higher difficulty of heroic dungeons or the same loot in 10- and 25-player raids. However, neither of those things will be coming. Instead, there will be an adjustment to Naxxramas. The raid will be harder.

What are the changes? Concrete changes have not been mentioned yet, but at least the rough direction. The health of the monsters in the raid will be increased, as well as the damage they deal. In other words, fights will last a little longer and it will happen more often that a few players die.

Why is Blizzard doing this? The answer to this is simple: Naxxramas was too easy at the time and even much easier than Blizzard intended. Therefore, the difficulty is raised. This not only makes the raid more interesting, but also stretches the time a bit until the next raid tier with Ulduar starts. Literally, it says:

Our design intent for [Naxxramas in] 2008 was to make it a little easier than the 2006 original, but we overshot the mark and made it much easier than we had planned. The slight increase in difficulty will make for more exciting and interesting challenges […]

In fact, the Naxxramas in Wrath of the Lich King was there for two main reasons. First, Blizzard didn’t have to create an entirely new raid and could simply “copy-paste” it, and second, only a fraction of players had experienced Naxxramas in the original WoW before even The Burning Crusade expansion launched.

What about “No Changes?” No matter what changes are made to WoW Classic, there are always a few players who hope for a purist experience and view every change as negative.

However, Blizzard has been deviating from this for a long time and seems to make compromises every now and then when they are beneficial to the gameplay of the larger crowd. The adjustments to Naxxramas seem to be one of those changes.

What do you guys think about Naxxramas becoming more difficult? A good thing? Or should Blizzard just keep their hands off balancing?