Should WF/TF have a cap?

[Redblade]

Clearly the game designers disagree with you. And I agree with the game designers. Making it possible to achieve BiS in every slot is a bad design philosophy, for many, many reasons.

By removing the possibility of ever reaching actual BiS, but allowing you to perpetually keep getting closer with dimishing returns the longer you play, it gives players the freedom to choose how much they want to play, without there ever being a mandatory cap.

You're missing my point as I generally agree with you with the exception that it has to be possible to achieve BiS gear while it's current if you put enough time in running the hardest content there is. Otherwise the reward structure is a hopeless endeavor and you lost before you even begun. Basically what I'm saying is that if you clear mythic within a few weeks of launch and keep doing it for the duration of that tier you should expect to be in BiS or close to BiS gear. Then it's something that everyone can strive for if they choose to and if they don't they can put less time in and do lower difficulties but then can't expect to reach BiS gear.

The way you define it is demotivating from the start and I can assure you that's not what any developer wants.

The way to alleviate the problem is for people to realise that chasing BiS is a silly endeavour. Rather set your goals according to reaching achievable milestones that make sense for you.

Which is what people do and thus become bored with the game or "burned out" because lets not kid our selves here, if the rewards feel worth it people rarely become burned out. Basically this mentality will slowly but surely kill the game...or dumb it down to the point where it's no more entertaining than your average Facebook game.

[huth]

You're missing my point as I generally agree with you with the exception that it has to be possible to achieve BiS gear while it's current if you put enough time in running the hardest content there is.

Why? It's never truly possible to get done with gearing until Blizzard stops developing the game anyway.

You're getting demotivated because you chose an impossible goal to begin with.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Its not really caring about the gear other people have, its more so being worried that you're forced to run LFR/Normal/Heroic/Mythic of every tier that's been released if you don't want to miss out on upgrades. I run almost every difficulty of ever raid every week along with a ton a M+ and its pretty shitty at this point lol, but FOMO on gear that'll help with faster ToS progression is pretty real.

Your choice of username is ironic.
The chance of upgrades is so small though, doesn't really seem worth it personally, though obviously it's your choice how much you want to play the game.
That said I liked someone else's suggestion in a different thread that you can only loot a boss on one difficulty per week.

- - - Updated - - -

It's not about other people's gear. It's to provide incentive to push to higher difficulties. If you can get Mythic raid gear without killing one Mythic boss, why bother?

For the same reason you play any game on a setting other than easy: to overcome a challenge.
So it's not about their gear, it's about what they want to do in the game? Why do you care about that?

[uopayroll]

About ~3 last raid. Sold one for ~400k.

If I put effort in something I'm expecting better results. Getting 925 ilvl items from WQuests/LFR/Normal/Heroic is stupid.

Not so stupid as to not take advantage and make profit off it though. How much effort did the person who bought it have to put out? At least to get the item on their own they would have to run an LFR and get lucky on the bonus Ilvl rolls. Nope, they went to the AH or sent a whisper in trade chat and voila....you contradict yourself on effort/reward there.

[Toogoodman]

Your choice of username is ironic.
The chance of upgrades is so small though, doesn't really seem worth it personally, though obviously it's your choice how much you want to play the game.
That said I liked someone else's suggestion in a different thread that you can only loot a boss on one difficulty per week.

Yeah i totally agree with the 1 difficulty once per week, and yeah i chose the username because people used to say sarcastically "wow youre just the lazzzzziest rogue ive ever met".

[Raelbo]

Basically what I'm saying is that if you clear mythic within a few weeks of launch and keep doing it for the duration of that tier you should expect to be in BiS or close to BiS gear.

A better solution is that the more time people are prepared to spend farming the content, the closer they should get to BiS. But it should always be impossible to actually get to BiS.

BiS is not, never has been, and never should be a requirement for anything. By making BiS achievable, it creates an environment in which it becomes perceived that it is a requirement, leading to unhealthy play schedules which try to achieve it.

Then it's something that everyone can strive for if they choose to and if they don't they can put less time in and do lower difficulties but then can't expect to reach BiS gear.

The problem is that as soon as there is a discernable cap on something, then a bunch of people treat that as the objective. But the reality of a BiS cap as used to exist, is that it can only ever be correctly tuned for a small portion of the player base. So, on the one hand, you have a bunch of guilds that reach BiS and then feel frustrated because they want to use their time to continue progressing, but can't. On the other hand you have guilds that struggle to get there and burn themselves out in the belief that this a goal they must achieve.

It's far more preferable to allow guilds to set their own schedules, goals and objectives based on the time and effort they are prepared/want to commit to the endeavour, than compel them to reach some outcome with an indeterminate level of effort attached.

The way you define it is demotivating from the start and I can assure you that's not what any developer wants.

I think it's demotivating to people who don't understand the way the game is intended to work, and feel that they must achieve BiS. Like I say, if people could just step back and realise that there is no need to achieve BiS, then there will be no need for demotivation.

Which is what people do and thus become bored with the game or "burned out" because lets not kid our selves here, if the rewards feel worth it people rarely become burned out. Basically this mentality will slowly but surely kill the game...or dumb it down to the point where it's no more entertaining than your average Facebook game.

People become bored if their ultimate objective is achieved too easily, leaving them nothing to do.
People become burned out because they push themselves too hard to achieve an objective they cannot attain.

Having BiS pretty much guarantees that the vast majority of players land up in one of these two situations.

A diminishing returns reward structure (which is what WF/TF and AP are) allows for flexible objectives, thus allowing players to determine what is best for themselves. While this system can break down if players lack the capacity for self moderation, this is a player problem that can be solved by the players.

[Redblade]

Why? It's never truly possible to get done with gearing until Blizzard stops developing the game anyway.

You're getting demotivated because you chose an impossible goal to begin with.

It's should be possible within the tiers is what I'm saying. You don't have to agree but the lack of a reachable goal as far as gearing is concerned is poor game design.

[Raelbo]

That said I liked someone else's suggestion in a different thread that you can only loot a boss on one difficulty per week.

In principle I have no problem with the idea of only getting a chance at loot from each boss only once per week. The problem with it though is in the practical implementation and how it would end up driving player behaviour.

For example, I may want to run LFR or normal, but I will choose not to because I plan to run Heroic later in the week and I don't want to get loot locked. Even worse, I pass up LFR and Normal and then the Heroic run doesn't pan out. Or maybe I don't anticipate running Heroic (or killing certain bosses) and I end up getting loot locked on a lower difficulty. In the end I would not be basing my decision on whether to run those difficulties on the right reasons, and as a result it would heavily detract from my enjoyment of the game.

Quite frankly I cannot think of a sufficient elegant solution to the problem that works better than just allowing people to get loot from all 4 modes. In the end it's likely that the loot from the most difficult content will be the best loot anyway and that most of the loot from the lower difficulties becomes moot as it is either vendored or disenchanted.


So overall, I dislike the solution of restricting players in this way because it punishes people who might enjoy running multiple difficulties each week in order to cater to people who lack the self discipline to simply say no to doing stuff they don't like for a small chance at loot.

[Eazy]

Not so stupid as to not take advantage and make profit off it though. How much effort did the person who bought it have to put out? At least to get the item on their own they would have to run an LFR and get lucky on the bonus Ilvl rolls. Nope, they went to the AH or sent a whisper in trade chat and voila....you contradict yourself on effort/reward there.

Just because I could've done it it doesn't mean that I like the system.

[Grenor]

Its an issue with the system, because lets use shard of woe as an example, super broken trinket, but most of our casters had it, there really wasn't a reason to ever raid that shit again, especially after it got nerfed. With CoF, they literally said they're not going to nerf it, and with the ilvl scaling, even though i have a 910 version of it, i will always want the highest possible ilvl of it. Same goes for MA relics, and possibility with any gear that has optimal stats for me. That's the draw back to a system like this, they claim they wanted to reduce splits and hardcore farming, yet they made a system that encourages both.

I expect some item nerfs, so yes there is a problem. But if the item is only good on high tf farming it won't be efficient at all. Yes you can try to gamble. You may win. But the small chance won't justify the investment. If it's even strong on lower ilevs, then we will have a problem, because it will be efficient to farm it. Elisandres trinket and some 2pc boni may fall into this category.

I'm so happy the time of OP Arcano Crystal will be over.

[Raelbo]

It's should be possible within the tiers is what I'm saying. You don't have to agree but the lack of a reachable goal as far as gearing is concerned is poor game design.

Well there are reachable goals. You can easily set your sights on some average ilevel. Or you can set your sights on completing a set number of farm runs. And you can adjust those goals as your circumstances change.

Not having an inflexible predefined, absolute gear cap that forces everyone to follow the same shedule is actually good game design. Maybe you don't like it, and prefer having a predictably achievable BiS goal, which is fine. But, for the reasons I have explained it is a much better compromise for the playerbase as a whole to have a more flexible approach where each player and guild gets to decide what their personal goals are.

[Hctaz]

Because the change in heroic is much, much smaller to get that gear piece than in mythic.
If tf would cap below mythic there simply would be no reason to do heroic it all.

Good? That's how it used to be and it was better?

Why the fuck should I, a mythic raider, ever look to heroic for a gear upgrade? That's ridiculously stupid.

[Redblade]

A better solution is that the more time people are prepared to spend farming the content, the closer they should get to BiS. But it should always be impossible to actually get to BiS.

Fair enough, lets remove lockouts and I'll agree with you for the most part...something tells me that's not going to happen though. And it should never be impossible, that indicates that no matter how much time and effort you put it you will never be able to reach the goal, farm NH for the next 5 years and still no BiS gear is basically what you're saying. It should be possible with the max level of skill and dedication within the tiers lifespan.

BiS is not, never has been, and never should be a requirement for anything. By making BiS achievable, it creates an environment in which it becomes perceived that it is a requirement, leading to unhealthy play schedules which try to achieve it.

Never said it was a requirement...and we have been able to get BiS gear for the first 10 years of WoW's existence and the most unhealthy play schedules people had was this expansion, go figure. Your argument simply does not hold up.

The problem is that as soon as there is a discernable cap on something, then a bunch of people treat that as the objective. But the reality of a BiS cap as used to exist, is that it can only ever be correctly tuned for a small portion of the player base. So, on the one hand, you have a bunch of guilds that reach BiS and then feel frustrated because they want to use their time to continue progressing, but can't. On the other hand you have guilds that struggle to get there and burn themselves out in the belief that this a goal they must achieve.

Which is why the WF/TF system is fine as long as those top guilds can achieve BiS towards the end of the tier. That way they have a reason to keep progressing their gear for to prepare for the next tier. Now they have to run split runs in order to get even close to that goal.

It's far more preferable to allow guilds to set their own schedules, goals and objectives based on the time and effort they are prepared/want to commit to the endeavour, than compel them to reach some outcome with an indeterminate level of effort attached.

I could turn that argument around as say that people can set their own schedules even if there is a possibility to reach BiS gear. I'm suggesting that those that put in most time and effort are the once able to reach it...you're saying they shouldn't bother as it's impossible from the get go.

I think it's demotivating to people who don't understand the way the game is intended to work, and feel that they must achieve BiS. Like I say, if people could just step back and realise that there is no need to achieve BiS, then there will be no need for demotivation.

I'm sorry but you're just plain wrong here...I clear mythic and right now the only reason we clear it is for gear and the mount but I haven't seen an upgrade for weeks. I think you underestimate how often mythic gear actually WF/TF up to 925. Like I said earlier, the lower the difficulty you run the bigger the potential gains are.

People become bored if their ultimate objective is achieved too easily, leaving them nothing to do.
People become burned out because they push themselves too hard to achieve an objective they cannot attain.

Ok, then I'd say most people who claimed to be burned out wasn't actually burned out but instead bored.

Having BiS pretty much guarantees that the vast majority of players land up in one of these two situations.

BiS gear has very little to do with this if it's only achievable by playing at the highest level for vast amounts of time...

A diminishing returns reward structure (which is what WF/TF and AP are) allows for flexible objectives, thus allowing players to determine what is best for themselves. While this system can break down if players lack the capacity for self moderation, this is a player problem that can be solved by the players.

Why can't players self moderate when there is an achievable BiS gear set? You're clearly arguing from a biased point of view here.

[uopayroll]

Just because I could've done it it doesn't mean that I like the system.

No, you like the system when you benefit from it, and dislike it when anybody else does.

[Jastall]

So you also do not understand it. If there is a cap, the whole feature is useless and can be removed.
Which obv should not be done.

It worked like that in MoP and WoD and it was fine. I heard few people wishing to expand the system in the first place.

Cap WQ gear at +20 so that people doing only them get some progression. WF is +5, TF caps at +15 so that no loot from a raid difficulty is better than the loot from the next difficulty. Exemption is the M+ weekly chest which works just like now and can go up to the highest ilvl available.

[Deleted]

I don't really care what gear other people have, so no.

proof that the element of a RPG has disappeared completely from WoW apart from certain "underground" aficionados. Sad.

[Redblade]

Well there are reachable goals. You can easily set your sights on some average ilevel. Or you can set your sights on completing a set number of farm runs. And you can adjust those goals as your circumstances change.

Ok, I'm open for suggestions then. I'm at 914 avg i-lvl clear mythic and heroic every week. What goal would you suggest for me, world quest rewards and LFR/Normal is pointless as the base rewards are too low to bother. My next trait cost 1.1b AP and a good token gives about 1% of that so AP farming isn't all that rewarding.

Pretty much the only thing left until next tier is to get BiS gear or as close to it as possible.

Not having an inflexible predefined, absolute gear cap that forces everyone to follow the same shedule is actually good game design. Maybe you don't like it, and prefer having a predictably achievable BiS goal, which is fine. But, for the reasons I have explained it is a much better compromise for the playerbase as a whole to have a more flexible approach where each player and guild gets to decide what their personal goals are.

But there is a predefined, absolute gear cap. It's 925 items in every slot. And people and guilds can set their goal just fine even if mythic raiders on the top end can achieve BiS gear right about the time the next tier raids comes out. It literally changes nothing for 95-99% of the player base.

Edit: What I suggest would even help the majority of players to slowly but surely progress as the more difficult content you do the higher the chance of a WF/TF. This also plays in to how the lockout system works where the higher you go in difficulty the less amount of content you have that is relevant for you.

[Eazy]

No, you like the system when you benefit from it, and dislike it when anybody else does.

Your pressumtions are wrong, you're probably too obtuse to understand what I was trying to say. I just said - if I can get the benefit from it - then why not?

Though would rather not if that would make it more fair for other people.

[Raelbo]

And it should never be impossible, that indicates that no matter how much time and effort you put it you will never be able to reach the goal, farm NH for the next 5 years and still no BiS gear is basically what you're saying. It should be possible with the max level of skill and dedication within the tiers lifespan.

The point is that getting BiS within the tier's lifespan is a bad goal to set in the first place. By making it unachievable the idea is that people will stop chasing it and choose their goals based on better objectives, like having fun, not burning themselves out, sticking to reasonable time/effort committments.

And while people might still choose to be stupid and chase idiotic goals, their argument that this is the bar set by the game no longer applies. The blame, and the power to fix the problem, lies entirely with guilds and players.

And I am far more comfortable with that approach than Blizzard continually trying to place constraints and barriers in the game to try and protect people from themselves, where the primary outcome is to frustrate a lot of people while those it is trying to protect simply find new and imaginative workarounds to defeat anyway (for example split runs).

The real reason top guilds burn out is not that the game demands that they do too much. It's because of the insane amount of competition between those guilds to outdo each other.

[Redblade]

The point is that getting BiS within the tier's lifespan is a bad goal to set in the first place. By making it unachievable the idea is that people will stop chasing it and choose their goals based on better objectives, like having fun, not burning themselves out, sticking to reasonable time/effort committments.

Who are you to dictate what's fun? And as far as reasonable time/effort...We clear mythic NH in 3h and then 2x HC NH in 3h. After that there is nothing left that can give upgrades without an absurd amount of luck. The problem here is that the WF/TF system is like a pyramid, at the bottom you stand to gain lots but the further up you go the smaller the benefits are. When you're at my level the lockout is the limiting factor and not the time/effort I'm willing to spend.

And while people might still choose to be stupid and chase idiotic goals, their argument that this is the bar set by the game no longer applies. The blame, and the power to fix the problem, lies entirely with guilds and players.

Again, who are you to decide what's stupid and not? I could, again, say the same if there was an achievable BiS gear set, if people try to chase it without having the time and skill that's on them...

And I am far more comfortable with that approach than Blizzard continually trying to place constraints and barriers in the game to try and protect people from themselves, where the primary outcome is to frustrate a lot of people while those it is trying to protect simply find new and imaginative workarounds to defeat anyway (for example split runs).

The real reason top guilds burn out is not that the game demands that they do too much. It's because of the insane amount of competition between those guilds to outdo each other.

I don't think you understand how this actually affects players, the current system is the direct opposite of trying to protect players from putting too much effort in, it promotes putting too much effort in.

Split runs only came in to this game when Blizzard tried to limit boss attempts every week, it wasn't a thing before that.