New Tier 3 Marks revealed

[Rocketsurgeon]

Raiding should be its own reward. It is one viable way of progressing your character. If you'd rather spend much more time solo grinding out the same gear, you don't like raiding. So far it looks like Trion's choice to put ID marks into circulation. Even with Trion doing this, the quests listed are still for raids. Catching up to other raiders so you can raid still mostly entails raiding. Raiders will have the best gear first. They will see the content first. They will beat it first. They will have the achievements and whatever accolades they may crave, all first. It's theirs.

People who don't raid are no threat to the raiding population. If t2 planar gear were readily accessible, no harm would befall them. Someone putting in the ungodly amount of time needed to stay close behind raiders with it would in no way be less deserving. Likewise if there were to be some sort of Ultra Master dungeon. Everyone wants to improve their character, and if they know theirs a higher limit they'll try to reach it. You can't blame them for taking paths they actually want to walk.

Me, I'll be in Infernal Dawn paying my dues and getting my loots. Because it's fun to me. Whatever the other players on my server not with me are doing isn't for me to worry about or cast judgment on. I'm having a good time.

[Whitepepper]

But if you don't raid, you don't need the gear, so why is it an issue that raider's get the gear they need to do what they enjoy?

I think it would be a strong argument that getting new and more powerful gear is the overriding incentive for most if not all players to play. Rift has a few different ways to go about it but realistically its just a gear treadmill endgame. If you tell the majority of the player base they can get Tier 1 gear and that's it (because they aren't willing or able to progress) then once they get that gear it's game over. How many people are going to keep playing if the treadmill is removed and they have achieved their final reward?

Raider's getting the gear they need is all well and good but there has to be meaningful upgrades for everyone else too. The idea of previous tier has been around for a while. WoW has gone as far as giving a nerfed version of current content gear. I'm not sure either of those is the best solution. One thing I personally believe is that a big draw for RPG style games is increasing player power over time. If you can play for 6 months at max level and not increase your character's power then most likely you won't be playing for 6 more months.

[Edge-]

Honestly I'd wished they had left it alone more... Hell the Badges of Justice worked out in BC pretty damned fine, and you got those in heroics AND even tier 6 raids. O_o

You did at the very end when you they started adding in the T6 quality loot. Prior to that you got BoJ only from heroics, and it only purchased heroic quality loot. Raiding was the ONLY thing that gave people raid quality loot.

[Deleted]

Raiding should be its own reward.

haha...it should but that's not how rpgs work.

[Edge-]

haha...it should but that's not how rpgs work.

Modern RPG's. Modern games (in general)reward more based on time invested, not actual skill.