No Item Upgrades, 5.2 LFR Item Level, PTR Class Balance, Blue Posts, Weekly Roundup

[JIMM-]

item upgrades are fine actually, for justice , valor and honor really, but it is absolutely horrible for conquest gear due to obvious reasons.

If they dont want raiders to be forced to cap max valor everyweek .. why not just give more valor for each boss kill or
they need to come out with something like a scenario within a raid, like what we had in ICC (e.g. lady deathwhisper a random add dude spawn that needs to stay alive throughout the fight or u fail the objective or the stone giant thing( the stone giant one sucks though it didnt happen during boss fight )) in order to get some reward. That was kinda challenging and new back then, didnt know why the idea got scrapped later on in cata.

They could grant some special item / currency that allows u to upgrade ur item if u manage to complete the objective while killing raid boss , makes the encounter more interesting and less dull. (for 10 / 25 raids only , not for LFR)

still waiting blizz to remove 10 and 25 and make all raids 15 man ..

[malletin]

atleast i wont feel like i need to be valor capped each week ( im usually capped by thursday just by doing lfr,mogu'shan vaults normal and usually 3/6 HoF, after those raids all i need is a daily heroic and maybe a daily scenario ) so in reality i can log on wednesday and thursday and then not log on until monday evening if i so desire.

[Inahu]

5.2 has a new season, so everything you said doesnt really matter to pvp at all.

Also is hilarious how many of you pay 0 attention, the Item upgrade is planned to come back in none raid patches (i.e. 5.3) acourding to GC, so it will stilll serve as a good catch up for returning players. Please do research before you make walls to blindly complain.

I did catch something a while back where they said they would give us plenty of notice if a season was ending. I haven't seen that, maybe I just missed it or something. To give you the benefit of the doubt, I tried googling heaps of combinations of "pvp season 12 ending/end date", etc. Didn't return any results. I even checked the current PTR patch notes to see if there was anything about season 13 starting. Nada. I didn't PvP during Cata, so maybe I've missed some things, but I do know that other content that has been datamined from new builds on the PTR (Heirloom rings besides the Kalu'ak Derby one) haven't always been included in the PTR, let alone made it to live.

As for the rest of your angry rebuke, I'm not concerned about 5.3. That's going to be released at an indeterminate time in the future, and as others have pointed out, they haven't confirmed that the NPC is returning.

Why are you being so dramatic? Far and few between are the times Blizz has ever sold its playerbase down the river, so please cut this apocalyptic talk out.

"Dramatic"? "Apocalyptic"? I was just pointing out a pattern of neglect for PvP. You're putting words in my mouth, I never said anything about them "[selling their] playerbase down the river", all I said was that if they're looking at making a change to balance something in PvE, and it inadvertently imbalances something in PvP, that they are either unaware of the imbalance or unconcerned about it.

There's a lot of QQ about how players were "forced" to valor cap. That's absolutely ridiculous. You're not forced to do anything in WoW, but if you want to have better things, you have to be willing to put the time in. Some days I think of doing dailies, and the idea just repulses me so much that I don't bother with them. Other times, I'll do them because I want something from them (not because I enjoy them).

Nobody's forcing you to cap points to upgrade your gear, you just want better gear - or, alternatively, for other people who are willing to put more time into it, to have that advantage denied of them. You don't want to cap your points, but you don't want anybody else to be able to either so they can't do more damage than you, or take your precious raid spot. It's pure envy, and it's really, really pathetic.

[Nathiest]

Expect long lines in front of the Item Upgrade guy before he goes on spring break.

[Kaeth]

So, the upgrade system is on its way out in 5.2. Such a great change for all of you claiming to be "forced" to cap valor every week. Have no fear, in 5.2 you'll instead be back to having absolutely no incentive whatsoever to farm valor after a few weeks of raiding. Get used to seeing one-hour queue times on 5-mans on your alts per early-to-mid Cata when only alts have any reason to care about them.

Odd how it's the "hardcore" crowd -- some of whose members frequently denounce the "casuals" for not wanting to put in any effort for anything -- who are complaining about being "forced" to do something to aid in their progression. And those "casuals" (and alts, as well) be damned if removing this system just happens to hinder their progression. A few thousand people don't like it.

Good design move, dev team. A vocal minority complains about "having" to do something in a game, so you break the entire system to compensate. Bravo.

[Zhenne]

I'm confused as to why the ability to upgrade gear is going to be removed in 5.2 when it was just introduced. I thought this was supposed to be a way to use Justice and Valor points when we have all of the gear that we need.

Why is it going to be removed?

[theturn]

Thank you for removing item upgrades. Felt as a necessity. And endless grind.

-Heroic raider-

How so? If you truly are a raider then you would know that raiding gets you about 65% of the way to cap if you do dailies you easily hit cap and since tokens are near required you are doing dailies. As for the upgrade, its anything but required. Besides weapons its such a tiny upgrade, about 2% dps gain, and even less valuable for tanks and healers. And if you really thought you were going to upgrade every piece of gear then you're clearly not good at math. If you want a necessary grind then dailies for tokens are still in play.

I'm happy they aren't allowing you to upgrade new gear in 5.2 but not letting you upgrade you old gear is dumb.

[Zace]

For those of you saying "upgrade your gear while you can" they already said the upgrades are being removed from gear once 5.2 hits so there's no point of rushing to upgrade your gear since it will be gone anyway (even from gear you already upgraded).

[Venant]

For those of you saying "upgrade your gear while you can" they already said the upgrades are being removed from gear once 5.2 hits so there's no point of rushing to upgrade your gear since it will be gone anyway (even from gear you already upgraded).

It seems like in the 3rd tweet they explicitly stated that items that have been upgraded already will not be reverted

[nekobaka]

So, the upgrade system is on its way out in 5.2. Such a great change for all of you claiming to be "forced" to cap valor every week. Have no fear, in 5.2 you'll instead be back to having absolutely no incentive whatsoever to farm valor after a few weeks of raiding. Get used to seeing one-hour queue times on 5-mans on your alts per early-to-mid Cata when only alts have any reason to care about them.

Odd how it's the "hardcore" crowd -- some of whose members frequently denounce the "casuals" for not wanting to put in any effort for anything -- who are complaining about being "forced" to do something to aid in their progression. And those "casuals" (and alts, as well) be damned if removing this system just happens to hinder their progression. A few thousand people don't like it.

Good design move, dev team. A vocal minority complains about "having" to do something in a game, so you break the entire system to compensate. Bravo.

GC made mentions about having to make choices between the VP gear and gear upgrades which is something that affects those who dont do raids more than those who are hard core progression raiders. He also tweeted that players shouldnt feel like it is mandatory to VP cap every week. This change and your rant points more towards the system not being friendly for "casual" players who have other things to do with their time while the "no lifers" ether hard core raiders or not, dont have an issues with hitting VP cap and are the ones who are loosing out.

Sounds more like you are one of those no lifers who have a hatred against those with a life and are making raiders your scapegoat.

[Captiosus]

A few thousand people don't like it.

Good design move, dev team. A vocal minority complains about "having" to do something in a game, so you break the entire system to compensate. Bravo.

I don't believe they're responding to a vocal minority at all.

I'm willing to bet, though I don't have any way to prove it, that they have actual statistics that show the exact opposite of what you've written. I'm betting their data shows that only a very small percentage of people are actually using the upgrade option. Anecdotally, I know very few people, outside of my core raider friends, who have bothered with the upgrade process. It seems meaningless for JP gear, seeing as there are a myriad of different ways to replace 463 gear with 476 or better gear including heroics and scenarios, LFR, and dailies for rep gear. By the time someone upgrades a bunch of 463 to 471, they could have had mostly 476 gear or better. If you're a raider, it seems like a chore rather than an optional part of the game.

GC is right about the fact that this adds another layer of burden on everyone. As previously mentioned, we already have gemming, enchanting, and reforging to do per gear item. An upgrade process is overkill. GC has already tweeted that there will be more VP gear which also implies a shifting of the current tier of gear so the gearing path for alts should be fine.

Upgrading felt like a band aid and the system itself a was a mess. I'm glad it'll be gone and hope it stays gone. That said, Bliz didn't do such a stellar job with the JP/VP currency values this time around and, hopefully, they can learn from their mistake and fix it with subsequent tiers.

[grexly75]

For those of you saying "upgrade your gear while you can" they already said the upgrades are being removed from gear once 5.2 hits so there's no point of rushing to upgrade your gear since it will be gone anyway (even from gear you already upgraded).

You obviously did not read or understand what was written in that tweet.. https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...21071555846144

Greg Street @Ghostcrawler

@perculia Upgraded gear will not lose its upgrades. Upgrading will likely return after 5.2, but we'll evaluate all the feedback and see.

As you can see current gear that you have upgraded keeps it's upgrade status. It is that new gear acquired in 5.2 will not be able to be upgraded.

Not sure where you got the idea of currently upgraded gear would lose it's upgraded status and you may want to post links next time.

[Freia]

I did catch something a while back where they said they would give us plenty of notice if a season was ending. I haven't seen that, maybe I just missed it or something. To give you the benefit of the doubt, I tried googling heaps of combinations of "pvp season 12 ending/end date", etc. Didn't return any results. I even checked the current PTR patch notes to see if there was anything about season 13 starting. Nada. I didn't PvP during Cata, so maybe I've missed some things, but I do know that other content that has been datamined from new builds on the PTR (Heirloom rings besides the Kalu'ak Derby one) haven't always been included in the PTR, let alone made it to live.

5.2 is when the new season is starting. New tier also brings a new season. They wouldn't be posting the pvp gear if there was not a new season. They will give notice but it will probably only be like 2 weeks.

[Idletime]

I quite enjoyed the upgrade system. I upgraded an item whenever I got within cap of valor points. Through LFR, dailies, dungeons, and scenarios I was capping 2-3 characters per week with relative ease since mid-November. My priorities were weapons, trinkets, then everything else. Dominance Offensive has my best upgrades at this time so I'm unfortunately saving points for the belts and boots from them across these characters, and I don't think I'll make it in time for patch to upgrade those slots to 502.

I haven't seen the ilvl offering for LFR 5.2, which all of my characters will easily qualify for immediately (provided it's 480-483 minimum), but I'm relatively certain LFR will be granted 489/496 drops simply because we've been following the +13 model with regular raid gear since Wrath.

I'm not a hardcore raider anymore (I prefer to play on my own time schedule) but I still like pushing my characters as far as I can with what I have access to.

I think the message right now for casuals is less ominous than people make it out to be. There's no new annual pass offering (wonder why? although I saw through that last year), linear progression is back, if you worked at it long enough in 5.0-5.1 you would be in in full BIS+6, and they are going to continue to gate certain gains only casual players would need behind reputation. PvP gear will never reach ilvl requirements for the next tier, too. If you unsub for a few months, you're going to start almost where you left off when you return. The real answer is Keep You Logged In. You know what? When I started playing back in Classic, this was the message up until T7. I don't understand the business model at this point however.

They've long since destroyed the playerbase that was around in Classic and TBC (those people moved on to other games or other endeavors) who would relish such a system, today's players cannot be asked to do anything beyond current raid tier. Adding flavor to the game is looked at as nothing more than "required content" among the new hardcore group - who yesteryear would be nothing more than serious players. I do hope their decision to do this works out for the best given very few people today are like me who enjoy being given new things to do in the game, only to have a very vocal group of people come down with the "NOT FUN" hammer.

[Ponkie]

Why don't they just keep the upgrade NPC but have the new tier items not be able to be upgraded. It's basically the same.

And how are we supposed to spend our JP on 5.2?