Simple things Blizzard could do for non-raiders

[purebalance]

You could do that with Apexis, more or less. There just needs to be a way to get enough Apexis Crystals from 5-mans to buy a piece of current tier raid gear every 1.5 weeks or so.

The fact that we get a free random piece of raid gear every couple of weeks isn't really as awesome as getting a piece that you can choose that you actually need to do some casually social gaming for.

Why do you deserve a piece of raid gear every 1.5 weeks?

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I disagree with this. I think I know where you are coming from - it's difficult to match 33 specs evenly to each other, 33 is just too big of a number, but the thing is - this is not required. You have to make it so that for any spec of every class every other class has at least one spec that can reasonably beat it - that's much simpler in that it's fine if, say, an ele shaman can't ever beat a sub rogue, as long as enha shaman can have a fair match, it's OK.

They'd need a dampening on healing massively there since their stance is a healer should be able to beat 2 dps.

[Woobels]

Why do you deserve a piece of raid gear every 1.5 weeks?

I don't get why a non-raider wants a piece of raiding gear, I don't care if they 'deserve' it.

What does it do for them? How is that content for you? I mean if it's that easy to satiate non-raiding players then I'd know what I'd do as Blizzard but surely you don't consider that content? I mean stuff like that and being able to equip more crafted equipment is more content for raiders, not for non-raiders.

Like you don't mind if you are given the stuff, I'm fine with that, I just don't see why you would want to have it.

[l33t]

I am a raider, but I do agree with all this stuff, except 1v1 arena, which is bullshit.

[Ainyan]

I don't get why a non-raider wants a piece of raiding gear, I don't care if they 'deserve' it.

What does it do for them? How is that content for you? I mean if it's that easy to satiate non-raiding players then I'd know what I'd do as Blizzard but surely you don't consider that content? I mean stuff like that and being able to equip more crafted equipment is more content for raiders, not for non-raiders.

Like you don't mind if you are given the stuff, I'm fine with that, I just don't see why you would want to have it.

This is my confusion. Why do you want to nerf an aspect of the game that you clearly aren't interested in to begin with. Your title specifically states 'non-raiders'. If you're a non-raider, that generally means that you're... not raiding. If you are a casual who wants to raid but is having trouble coming up with the gear to join the decent PUGs in the raid finder... that's a different issue, and not one that should be solved with nerfs. I have five 100s. My main and my main alt have both done raiding with my guild, but the other three only had what resources I could scrounge from crafting/the AH/dungeons/LFR. Yet the shaman is 660+ and the other two are 640+, easily capable of joining HM PUGs if I wanted to. All it takes is some smart crafting, some LFR running, and watching the pug finder for world boss/garrison boss groups. Voila. Problem solved.

If all you want is the shiny gear... again, why? How does it help you? Increasing your ilvl with raid gear isn't going to help you in PvP. It might make extreme world soloing a bit easier, but honestly, that's as much about skill as it is about powering through. Old-world raids don't care about your ilvl, only your natural level. And if you want the shiny gear to show off what you've accomplished in the game - news flash. Blizzard basically handing you shiny gear means you've accomplished nothing.

Personally, I don't care who has gear. I want my content. I enjoy my content. What other people do with my content is immaterial to me. But I sure am not going to enjoy my content if Blizzard nerfs it into the ground to satiate a group of people who have clearly stated they don't want to do my content just by adopting the title they have adopted.

[Niwes]

you could add much things to that list. i.e. a second non-raid small progression of your gear like upgrades from mop you earn with valor points / appexxis crystals, so you have something meaningful to achieve besides raids. note: i wouldnt do that exactly like the upgrades in mop, maybe more like a 30 % chance per item that counts as upgradeable and get rid of warforged, cause you have something to do, when upgrading, to get your upgraded "warforged" item instead only get it as warforged and say yeaaah, like it is at the moment.

there are so many things that could be done easily without much effort by blizz to get the feeling back, that there is always something meaningful to do or to progress, and that you can get the currency for it, whereever it fits best for you (pet battles, pvp, scenarios, dungeons, raids, dailies, outdoor stuff and so on). that part was really good implemented in mop, which is the main reason many people liked mop even if they were in "pandaland".

BUT... blizzards laziness (and greed) reached such a high level that there will nothing of it. look at the blueposts: silence, look at the news: silence. look at 6.1 or wod in general. they have stopped to put any things in, that could be on the above mentioned list of things. they simply do nothing. so its useless. even if you put all the comments made about that things in their suggestion forum, nothing will happen. either they totally lost the interest in wow, or they are work on hs, hots, overwatch, and just use wow as a cashcow to milk it with no effort. i dont know it. but nothing happens. so its useless to dream from a list of simple things....

[Ballrug]

If all you want is the shiny gear... again, why? How does it help you? Increasing your ilvl with raid gear isn't going to help you in PvP. It might make extreme world soloing a bit easier, but honestly, that's as much about skill as it is about powering through. Old-world raids don't care about your ilvl, only your natural level. And if you want the shiny gear to show off what you've accomplished in the game - news flash. Blizzard basically handing you shiny gear means you've accomplished nothing.

Do people really still ask that question? "If you're not raiding, what do you need the gear for?"

I don't want to raid. Yet, I want to have something to do when I log in other than maintain 1600 auctions, play garrisoncraft, and try to talk myself into grinding reps 6 points at a time.

I'm not going to run heroic 5-mans if all I get at the end is gear that is worse than what several months of garrisoncraft have given me.

I'm not going to go kill mobs for 800-1000 Apexis thingies at a time, because, my God, boring.

I'm fucking bored.

Also, I'm never, ever, ever, going to participate in any group content where I have to deal with people who take the game "seriously." Been there, done that, never doing it again. You can do it if you like though.

[iriecolorado]

Make this game something other than a pointless loot treadmill. Right now loot is the only way to advance your character and frankly that just sucks.

Raid to get loot.. to raid to get loot.. to raid to get loot... to raid to get loot.... kill boss.. get loot.. move difficulty slider... kill boss again... get same loot but slightly better.. move difficulty slider again... that formula is played out.

[Eurhetemec]

Was trying to think of things that could be done with a conceptually simple patch and/or hotfix ...

(1) Change the GR reward for 1st daily heroic 5-man to 2500 Apexis shards (plus some gold). 1250 shards for 2nd and following heroics.

(2) Bring back the rep gain check box from MoP, for WoD factions.

(3) Increase Warlords craftable unique-equipped to 4 or 5.

(4a) Remove the bodyguard death mechanism entirely. Your bodyguard will respawn next to you when you're out of combat.

(4b) Fix it so your bodyguard gets smart heals.

(5) Nerf boss and trash health and damage in Normal by 10-25%. Adjust scaling of Normal mode to favor smaller groups.

(6) Make the stuff from the Engineering "barn" about 5x as useful.

(7) Automatically put you in a raid in Ashran.

I came here to say bah... but, no, those are good ideas, though the first is a bit over-the-top. Even a few hundred crystals per heroic would be great, though. I wish I had more to say, but yeah, good stuff.

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Why do you deserve a piece of raid gear every 1.5 weeks?

For putting in many hours in Heroics? Doesn't seem unreasonable. How it worked in WotLK, more or less (even in TBC, kinda).

[Schmeebs]

Make this game something other than a pointless loot treadmill. Right now loot is the only way to advance your character and frankly that just sucks.

Raid to get loot.. to raid to get loot.. to raid to get loot... to raid to get loot.... kill boss.. get loot.. move difficulty slider... kill boss again... get same loot but slightly better.. move difficulty slider again... that formula is played out.

I think that you need to find a game that isn't an MMO. MMOs have always been and will always be loot treadmills.

[Eurhetemec]

I don't get why a non-raider wants a piece of raiding gear, I don't care if they 'deserve' it.

What does it do for them? How is that content for you? I mean if it's that easy to satiate non-raiding players then I'd know what I'd do as Blizzard but surely you don't consider that content? I mean stuff like that and being able to equip more crafted equipment is more content for raiders, not for non-raiders.

Like you don't mind if you are given the stuff, I'm fine with that, I just don't see why you would want to have it.

WoW is about gear progress. End of story. If gear-progress stops or becomes utterly dull, game might as well stop - which is why the need for this kind of thing, why it existed in WotLK and TBC and so on.

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I think that you need to find a game that isn't an MMO. MMOs have always been and will always be loot treadmills.

You're wrong, actually, Schmeebs. You're particularly wrong about "always have been". Nope. I've played MMOs since 1999, and they were originally more about being virtual worlds and adventure-y social places than loot treadmills (and encouraged RP in many cases!). Some, like DAoC, explicitly rejected loot treadmilling (it was the second-most-successful for a long time.

Some still aren't, like GW2.

WoW is, though, and always will be.

[Deleted]

These are quite good -

(1) Change the GR reward for 1st daily heroic 5-man to 2500 Apexis shards (plus some gold). 1250 shards for 2nd and following heroics.

(2) Bring back the rep gain check box from MoP, for WoD factions.

And perhaps they could add some more Apexis gear options, while at it.

(3) Increase Warlords craftable unique-equipped to 4 or 5.

Too much power creep. I don't like that one.

(4a) Remove the bodyguard death mechanism entirely. Your bodyguard will respawn next to you when you're out of combat.

(4b) Fix it so your bodyguard gets smart heals.

(5) Nerf boss and trash health and damage in Normal by 10-25%. Adjust scaling of Normal mode to favor smaller groups.

Sure, those feel reasonable, though I'd say 25% is too big of a nerf. Let's say 5-15% instead. But adjusting scaling to smaller groups would be great.

(6) Make the stuff from the Engineering "barn" about 5x as useful.

(7) Automatically put you in a raid in Ashran.

Engineering has never really produced anything useful, but sure, why not.

I'd add:

(8) Buff Heroic Difficulty with 5% and reintroduce a raidID locking (keep the flexible group size scaling though)

[Linri]

World PvP events!

[Deleted]

I'd completely remove the limit on craftables at this point. They still cost a lot to make and with BRF and the ilvl boost they are not that OP anymore. They could maybe limit you to 3 stage 4 crafted items.

Actually a very good idea

[Deleted]

Add back scenarios as large group content. I somehow thought the idea about a large group farming apexis could lead to something like that. It should be ongoing groups you always could join, and happen in a environment in the open world. You even could do repeatable quests and gain rewards from them. There would be events as like in Ashran. Occassional bosses would drop nice extra loot for the players.

[Vargur]

1vs1 arena

That sounds berry balanced.

[Annarion]

Put ads in the game for other games that are centred around individual or small group content, instead of trying to change wow from being a large-scale group endgame game, like it always has been (Come on, they even toned it down from 40.) into a small-group game like it never was.

[Deleted]

Put ads in the game for other games that are centred around individual or small group content, instead of trying to change wow from being a large-scale group endgame game, like it always has been (Come on, they even toned it down from 40.) into a small-group game like it never was.

Or cater the game to the biggest part of its players. Those who dont play in large groups.

[iriecolorado]

Cms are mythic 5 mans

Hardly. CMs aren't about overly-difficult content. They're about class stacking and gimmicks to avoid trash packs while you try to blast through an easy 5 man in record time. That's not at all what Mythic modes are about.

[Vestig3]

if you think any of these ideas are new, and have not been discussed at blizzard hq, you have a pretty fertile imagination.

take my money!

[iriecolorado]

I think that you need to find a game that isn't an MMO. MMOs have always been and will always be loot treadmills.

GW2 would like to have a word with you. WoW might have always been a loot treadmill, but that isn't remotely true for the MMO genre as a whole, especially before WoW. MMOS traditionally have been about about socializing, exploring, adventuring and overcoming challenges in a fantasy role playing environment, not "raid to get loot.. to raid to get loot.. to raid to get loot..." It was all about the journey and your friends, not the loot. You progressed your character and story simply by playing, not by moving a difficulty slider in a raid to get the same item you have before, but this time with 2 more int and crit.

What you're suggesting is patently and demonstrably false. Although, in all fairness, I can see how it might seem that way if your entire exposure to MMOs has been WoW and WoW clones, but that's it.