The gear gap is larger than it has even been. Why all the complaints about LFR gear?

[Mormolyce]

Yeah, Brawler's Guild to be sure. It is painful trying to kill the rank 9 bosses in LFR gear, and maybe impossible. Gear does make every aspect of the game faster and easier, save the few areas where items are scaled down like arenas, proving grounds, and challenge modes.

I think all of BG was possible in the current LFR gear when each rank was released. But really hard in some cases, depending on your class. I personally couldn't beat Big Badda Boom until SoO came out and I got my cloak (I'm a Rogue... maybe I just suck at target swapping though).

When I say LFR gear, of course I mean VP gear ie NM-equivalent ILVL :P

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Actually addressing the original question, one could argue that many see LFR and the large gap you spoke of as primary concern for gear inflation, and while many don't care too much about gear inflation many others do. I personally find it laughable that you can have a mil hp nowadays, and all attempts to fix it such as ilvl squish seem odd now that we're used to it when more linear scaling in the worst place would have avoided both the inflation and the weird feeling.

Vanilla ranged from 65 to 90 ilvl in raid gear with a difference of 25.
Best Vanilla gear was 25 ilvl lower than worst BC raid gear.

BC ranged from 115 to 164 ilvl in raid gear with a difference of 49.
Best BC gear was 36 ilvl lower than worst Wrath raid gear.

Wrath ranged from 200 to 284 ilvl in raid gear with a difference of 84.
Best Wrath gear was 75 ilvl lower than worst Cata raid gear.

Cataclysm ranged from 359 to 416 in raid gear with a difference of 57.
Best Cata gear was 60 ilvl lower than worst MoP raid gear.

Mists of Pandaria ranged from 476 to 574 with a difference of 98.

Wrath had 4 tiers with 10 and 25 split in gear as well as normal vs. hardmode/heroic. If any expansion was going to have a high ilvl range within raids, that was it and it had 84. MoP has 98 among only 3 tiers. That is because LFR isn't placed far lower than other difficulties so much as the other difficulties are inflated far higher. The current model leads to mega stat inflation and we can't keep going at this pace. Fortunately, I believe they are going to fix it at earliest in 6.0 and at latest in 7.0

All true, but also Blizzard has mentioned that ILVL gaps increase as time goes on because more of a differential is needed to make DPS seem like a big improvement when the base numbers are high.

[Vargur]

Why? Do you pay more for the game than them?

It's nice you have all the free time in the world to dedicate to the game.

But others out there have a busy schedule that would like to play this FULL game.
So they should just run the boring dungeons and dailies forever?

The gear is hardly free. All I see is raiders complaining that LFR is a wipe fest and frustrating.
It seems to me people that put up with that nonsense earned the gear more than you did.

1. You're free to play WoW and any game as you choose
2. Full game? No such thing in MMOs.
3. If by raiders you mean those that progress current content normal and heroic raids, I agree.
4. You have confusing points of view.

[cFortyfive]

What are you "What-ing" at, exactly?

The odd sentiment about schools or something.

[Grand Crusader Absalom]

Its what the ilvl brings to the gear that is huge.
The difference between a valor geared person in ICC and a 277 geared person was big, but negligible. The difference between 543 and 583 is astounding in both HP and damage done.

[Deleted]

Why? Do you pay more for the game than them?

It's nice you have all the free time in the world to dedicate to the game.

But others out there have a busy schedule that would like to play this FULL game.
So they should just run the boring dungeons and dailies forever?

The gear is hardly free. All I see is raiders complaining that LFR is a wipe fest and frustrating.
It seems to me people that put up with that nonsense earned the gear more than you did.

This is yet another example of the lamest excuse ever.
If you pay for something it's your own responsibility to exploit as much as possible, not Blizzard's.
If you buy a car and don't use it, are you going to be a douchebag and complain that it's the fault of the sller that you don't get to use it that often because "you have a life"?

Ofcourse LFR is frustrating and more time consuming than any other difficulty, because people expect the gear to fly right into their pockets without putting effort into doing it right because they have a life..

[velde046]

(BTW I am personally not part of a raiding guild at the moment, and while LFR is fun to play through once for the storyline, I personally think it is the least enjoyable method of "grinding second rate gear" that Blizzard has ever introduced).

On the other hand, lots of people do enjoy it. And seeing content thorugh LFR is a lot different than watching it on YouTube. Just like being at a rcok concert is a whole different experience than watching it on TV. And your remark about the 'watering down and brain dead and no challenge' also is very short-sighted.
The fact that it's 'watered down' is nothing new, although I would call it 'made easier'. This is nothing new and is inherently a necessary thing. In LFR people have no Vent/Teamspeak, some people that are new to raiding have never used an addon like DBM or haven't heard of it. So to compensate for that you need to water it down, plus the fact that this is an environment for people that do not raid a lot or don't have the time for it.
I do disagree with it being brain-dead and no challenge. If that were teh case there would hardly be any wipes in LFR and yet still there are. While I do agree that this has more to do with player skill/experience, this also proves the fact that LFR is a good product to enable everybody to see the content.
Clearly you are not the targeted audience, and perhaps you should have avoided it then.
It's like visiting a ladies night at the cinema and then bitching about the fact that they showed chick flicks and not movies with scantily clad women. Some preparation can avoid disappointment...

[jedijesse]

Look at it in relative terms with your numbers 261 is 94% of 277
543 is 94% of 576
550 is 94% of 583

So...it's actually exactly the same...the gap got bigger, but so did the overall numbers

[Zelerena]

Your typical "Lets bash the casuals because they don't do as much as we do" thread. Move along >_>

[Zka]

Why? Do you pay more for the game than them?

It's nice you have all the free time in the world to dedicate to the game.

But others out there have a busy schedule that would like to play this FULL game.

Clearing NORMAL MODE raids doesn't need more than 1x3 hours of raiding per week. Unless you're literally retarded or crippled or something. Yes, you won't clear it in 1 reset, it will take 10-15 resets, you will be raiding each week between content patches, that's not a big problem, is it?
People are never satisfied, they want more for less all the time. That's why we find epics scattered around on the ground in Timeless Isle. The next step is literally getting epics mailed for logging in. This is a failure of game design.

[Deleted]

the gear is not the problem. The problem is that the gear is given for free, and they still get to see content

they don't deserve gear, they don't deserve to see end game content

I'm with this guy.

I'm so evil, huehuehue.

[owbu]

actually we have seemed to reach the point where the "lfr sucks!" discussions are slowly dying down, because everyone who really hates it, can just go flex now. (And
Which means it will probably take another 3 month, till the "why is there so many lfr threads!" will be gone.

It might be a good idea to watch out for the next thing thats destroying WoW. Maybe Blizcon will give us something to talk about for the next year or so!

[skulmar]

Isn't the relative difference between iLevel 113 versus 100 much greater than the relative difference between iLevel 513 versus 500?

It is possible that throughout expansions iLevel difference between tiers has remained the same nominally, but corresponds to a much smaller percent difference.

Again, I do not know how iLevel translates into stats, which is what matters.

If you compare casual stuff that I would put at 240 item level in ICC days to Heroic 277 gear we're still looking at 15% difference. You compare that today and you have 540 ilvl (mainly timeless upgraded with 2 559 tier pieces) to 580 fully heroics. That's actually LESS of a gap percentage wise. It is a greater gap item level wise...

Something to consider.

Look at it in relative terms with your numbers 261 is 94% of 277
543 is 94% of 576
550 is 94% of 583

So...it's actually exactly the same...the gap got bigger, but so did the overall numbers

Guys, as I have said again and again READ THE FOOTNOTE in my OP. Item level does not work like that. Every items level corresponds into a +0.9% increase over the previous item level. Only the absolute numbers matter when evaluating the stats on gear. A 513 piece is ~11% better than a level 500 piece, in exactly the same way that a level 113 piece is ~11% better than a level 100 piece. That is the formula blizzard uses. Item level represents a percentage, not an absolute value, so looking at the ilevel percentage of two pieces is meaningless, you need to look at the absolute difference in ilevel as a % of stats the items gives.

If ilevel was actually a linear function gear would hardly matter at all at this point, and we would see someone in full heroic gear only doings ~10% more DPS than someone in in LFR gear rather than the 2-4x difference you actually get.

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you seem to forget though, that those BoEs were the most expensive items of the tier, and the casual players being discussed here would only have played a handfull of hours a week, not the endless hours daily that many raiders did. they wouldnt have had the resources to afford such luxury items.

I never said casual, I said non raider. Personally when I play WoW I devote tons of time to it, but I don't have the consistent schedule or social skills to maintain a spot in a heroic guild. I am neither a casual nor a hardcore raider. During ICC I had all of the 264 BOEs within a few weeks, but I didn't get any 25 man gear or heroic gear until the expansion was almost over

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Your typical "Lets bash the casuals because they don't do as much as we do" thread. Move along >_>

Hardly. If I am bashing anyone, it is the people who themselves bash casuals. And people who are insisting my math is wrong without reading my footnote or understanding what ilevel actually represents.

[LeperHerring]

Why? Do you pay more for the game than them?

Your money buys you precisely one thing: the ability to log into the game. That's where your entitlement ends.

It's nice you have all the free time in the world to dedicate to the game.
But others out there have a busy schedule that would like to play this FULL game.

That's a ridiculous excuse, the fact that there is more content than you have time to do is not a problem. It's a good thing.

[Raiju]

This expansion has beaten wrath (previously the mos ridiculous gear scaling) by a fair margin.

[Glorious Leader]

Your money buys you precisely one thing: the ability to log into the game. That's where your entitlement ends.

This particularly bit of absurdity gets thrown around alot on these forums likely because the legalese at the beginning when you sign up requires you to agree to as much. Forum lawyers like to point to that and say AHA YOU GET NOTHING!!! Well fine tmmrw at Blizzcon the developers can sit down, a bunch of lawyers can get on stage and proceed to bore the audience by the reading the terms of use aloud and see how many people buy their expansions.

This is of course to say that while you may feel very comfortable hiding behind the eula it is not a means to design content for people. The guy your quoting is exactly right when he makes his case about the time requirement in this game. His money does not buy him the EULA agreement and of course nobody in their right fucking minds thinks this is the case except for obnoxious forum lawyers who like to defend some absurd decisions by saying HEY LOOK MAN THE EULA DOESN'T ENTITLE TO YOU SQUAT...

[Deleted]

Most raiders are not skilled gamewise. They just have a guild that cooperates and understands teamwork. I'm sorry but this game is not hard at all and never has been. Want hard? Try Ninja Gaiden on MASTER NINJA difficulty. People say its one of the hardest games on normal difficulty, let alone hard, very hard... but master ninja.

Yesterday I was doing general nazgrim, the raid keeps wiping and afk'ing. Woah that is quite challenging indeed, mentally challenged.

[LeperHerring]

This particularly bit of absurdity gets thrown around alot on these forums likely because the legalese at the beginning when you sign up requires you to agree to as much.

It has absolutely nothing to do with any legalese. It comes from the fact that this is a game, a multiplayer game. You buy access to the game. You didn't buy a book, you didn't buy a movie, you didn't buy an interactive story. You bought a game.

[A Dark Knight]

at this rate, next xpac we will see 2 million hp tanks, thats why I am 99,99% convinced that the item squish will happen.

blizzard talked about it, they they stopped, which means they are working on it.
its not idle,but its something that NEEDS to happen

[Glorious Leader]

It has absolutely nothing to do with any legalese. It comes from the fact that this is a game, a multiplayer game. You buy access to the game. You didn't buy a book, you didn't buy a movie, you didn't buy an interactive story. You bought a game.

Nobody buys the game on the principle of just getting access. If they did that then the game may as well simple be a log in terminal with a congratulations you logged in! They obviously buy it to be entertained and if they aren't they leave and most don't come back.

It is the most ABSURD argument in the universe to simple say oh you got a complaint? TO BAD you just payed for access because the reality is that it obviously not going to entertain anybody nor is it workable design criteria. You can defend pretty much any shitty system on the grounds that you don't like it? to bad you just get access. Like 40 man raids or daily quests or whatever you don't like (and i'm sure theirs something you don't like in the game) well to bad. You just pay for access. Now of course nobody in their right mind accepts that as an excuse for poor design except forum lawyers.

I'll reduce to the plainest and simplest terms I can. 60$ + 15$ is a shit load of money just for logging in. f2p offer more than that.

[LeperHerring]

Nobody buys the game on the principle of just getting access.

That's exactly why you buy a game. If you bought a game thinking it's a movie, well then you have some personal issues.

It is the most ABSURD argument in the universe to simple say oh you got a complaint? TO BAD you just payed for access because the reality is that it obviously not going to entertain anybody nor is it workable design criteria.

Who made that argument? Or are you just beating strawmen here?

Now of course nobody in their right mind accepts that as an excuse for poor design except forum lawyers.

Why are you whining about "forum lawyers"? I can't see any in this thread. If that's something you like whining about, you should make another thread about it.

I'll reduce to the plainest and simplest terms I can. 60$ + 15$ is a shit load of money just for logging in.

It's logging into a game world, you have no guarantees what you will experience or do in that game world, that is up to you.