Wishful thinking - Redoing raid itemization

[ceall]

Me as a lfr hater, will answer this. Though I will not say anything about removing lfr or anything.

For me, perfect itemization would be:
First tier:
Lfr ilvl = heroic dungeon item lvl
Normal = +10 ilvl
Heroic = +10 ilvl
Mythic = +10 ilvl
(that's 15 or more ilvl saved in the first tier alone)

Second tier:
Mythic dungeons will be introduced again as catchup
Lfr = first tier normal ilvl
Mythic dungeons = first tier heroic ilvl
Normal = first tier mythic ilvl
Heroic = +10 ilvl
Mythic = +10 ilvl

Third tier:
Lfr = normal second tier
New set of dungeons (mythic only) = second tier heroic
Normal = mythic second tier
Heroic = +10 ilvl
Mythic = +10 ilvl

Like this ilvls increase by only 20 between each tier.
Lfr will always be the worst way to catch up, which is really important to me, as it still serves as tourist mode and mythic Raiders will always be able to start a new tier in heroic difficulty.

Now in WoD, we have an ilvl gap between mythic brf and mythic HFC of up to 40!

[SoulSoBreezy]

But with the system you are proposing you could already have all that on your heroic gear, which would mean that mythic gear wouldn't even be a small upgrade.

The huge flaw with your system is that you, with a bit of luck, can get exactly the same gear from Heroic as you get from mythic.

Well, suggestions are appreciated =D, like screw the luck, let's keep the number of upgrades binary.
The goals are still similar to what I stated in the OP, reduce ilvl bloat and differentiate difficulties through increasing mechanics and not primarily numbers.

- - - Updated - - -

What you are doing is removing any reason going to mythic raiding by a vast majority of players. Power rewards from gear have always been the main reason to pursue them. Unless they go all out on the aesthetic rewards to give something interesting to go there for, you should remove the mythic difficulty then since it won't be 1-5% of the playerbase, its going to be less than 0.1%.

There're already mechanics that are way harder without raid speed cooldowns, no need to ask people to stack tertiary stats on gear to do an encounter. Especially since its RNG where you get them.
Catchup mechanics is what invalidates older content. There are better models out there to decrease power creep than making difficulties almost meaningless to do.

The model you have would make:

LFR: 700 ilvl + chance to get 706
Normal: 706 ilvl + chance to get socket
Heroic: 706 ilvl + socket + chance to get useless stat
Mythic: 706 ilvl+ socket + useless stat

Heroic = Mythic in power
Hundreds of guilds clear Heroic mode the first week its out. Hundreds of guilds clear Mythic months after its out. If you remove any reason to go to mythic, only the guilds full of "achievers" that just want to go there for a title that no one looks at and an achievement no one cares will remain after the first week.

Lemme throw that into question then; why do mythic raiding? There're two reasons - one, the other, or both:
1. The gear
2. The prestige

So if this paradigm threatens #1, either undo the change of #1, or buff #2 somehow, through unique transmog models, mounts, titles, ponies, a plaque, whatever.
I feel you on the randomness. As for what tertiaries we get, maybe we can get rid of the randomness altogether, and this could be what the harder encounter design revolves around:

LFR: Base
Normal: Warforged
Heroic: Warforged + socket
Mythic: Warforged + socket + X

This will make it more predictable when designing encounters, as now they can presume that heroic raiders will have this kind of ilvl and this amount of extra secondary stats.
So folks don't like tertiaries, I get it. Beyond maybe buffing tertiaries, what could we see instead? An extra predetermined secondary stat?

- - - Updated - - -

tertiary stats is useless as fuck... I rather 1-3 sockets gears instead tertiary... why? I like pretty mixed and match color sockets and make jewelcrafting useful again. Fuck tertiary bullshit system.

Okay, another gem slot would be cool if that floats people's boats. Feel free to calm down now =D

[High-Chief Greathoof]

Wishful thinking is all this is.

[SoulSoBreezy]

I believe you misunderstand how bosses are tuned. For instance your stamina is much higher on mythic gear than on normal which shifts how healing is done (it's much harder to heal low geared people). If you only give them a tertiary this is a whole new paradigm of tuning that will most likely mean mythic becomes much easier, or normal much harder (they will be similar in any case).

What if some of these new mechanics included stuff like mana drains, healing absorbs, mortal strike debuffs or temp removing a healer from a fight?

[XDurionX]

You didn´t "fix" anything you just killed raiding, so there´s nothing left in WoW.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Me as a lfr hater, will answer this. Though I will not say anything about removing lfr or anything.

For me, perfect itemization would be:
First tier:
Lfr ilvl = heroic dungeon item lvl
Normal = +10 ilvl
Heroic = +10 ilvl
Mythic = +10 ilvl
(that's 15 or more ilvl saved in the first tier alone)

Second tier:
Mythic dungeons will be introduced again as catchup
Lfr = first tier normal ilvl
Mythic dungeons = first tier heroic ilvl
Normal = first tier mythic ilvl
Heroic = +10 ilvl
Mythic = +10 ilvl

Third tier:
Lfr = normal second tier
New set of dungeons (mythic only) = second tier heroic
Normal = mythic second tier
Heroic = +10 ilvl
Mythic = +10 ilvl

Like this ilvls increase by only 20 between each tier.
Lfr will always be the worst way to catch up, which is really important to me, as it still serves as tourist mode and mythic Raiders will always be able to start a new tier in heroic difficulty.

Now in WoD, we have an ilvl gap between mythic brf and mythic HFC of up to 40!

Doesn't solve the OP's reasons:

Reduce ilvl bloat over tiers
Eliminate ilvl inflation within a given tier
Differentiate raid difficulty by increasing mechanics more than just gear checks

And if encounter design remains the same, mythic raids will get absolutely rolled on because of the minimum ilvl difference and too few significant changes to encounter mechanics.

[WarcraftMages]

What if some of these new mechanics included stuff like mana drains, healing absorbs, mortal strike debuffs or temp removing a healer from a fight?

Then forget about all this micromanagement we're doing here on gear and spells and propose to blizzard to introduce Challenge Mode raiding. It's in essence what you propose because gear does not matter, only the spells of the boss being hard and your gear flat. It is though something I don't see them doing because it would take away from the game the feeling of progressive upgrading of a character and it will feel more like a race to the clock which isn't enjoyed by most people in PvE.

[SoulSoBreezy]

- solved by squishes, when Blizz feels like it. No reason to try fixing stuff that is not broken.

Squishes didn't happen between tiers, but expansions. I'm just addressing tiers, and a current system that compels blizzard to create stuff like timeless gear and baleful things.

- why? To benefit whom?

Obviously not you! =)...but perhaps to more closely bridge the gaps that occur over the course of the tier. 4 tiers of raiding is a lot of item level to cover, but apart from eliminating a difficulty, maybe changing them would help, or not.

- no, thank you. Gear is very important, as a reward, as a requirement to enter raids, as motivation to farm and so on. Entering and experiencing raids is a reward in itself, you worked for your gear, enchanted, farmed and finally you have the required ilvl and able to start raiding. This is a great mechanic reinforcing reward for ingame effort.

I don't see much need to "fix" these things as they don't seem broken to me, besides the 4 difficulty bloat, which can be easily solved by a Burning Crusade raid model.

The Burning Crusade model is what started this though, when catchup mechanisms were introduced along with Sunwell.

- - - Updated - - -

Then forget about all this micromanagement we're doing here on gear and spells and propose to blizzard to introduce Challenge Mode raiding. It's in essence what you propose because gear does not matter, only the spells of the boss being hard and your gear flat. It is though something I don't see them doing because it would take away from the game the feeling of progressive upgrading of a character and it will feel more like a race to the clock which isn't enjoyed by most people in PvE.

That's...good. I'm not proposing that either.

[Deleted]

Item level inflation happens because Blizzard wants it to happen. Its a necessity, not a flaw. Simply put, your mythic warforged gear from tier X shouldn't be useable for mythic tier X+1.

Power growth during the same tier is also a necessity. A world 200 guild would never ever kill Mythic Archimonde at 720ilvl and with no legendary ring, no matter what video,tactics or inspiration they would use. But in the current itemization, next week your raid is stronger and maybe you'll have a better chance. If Blizzard would tune encounters for the max ilvl, maybe 10 guilds in the world would kill them if they're truly hard.

Besides, I don't think raiding and guilds would survive such wishful thinking.

P.S. Burning Crusade itemization was a disaster way before they added Island of Quel'Danas. I mean can you imagine being able to craft yourself ilvl 740 gear a few days after you got to 100 at the start of WOD. Because you could in BC

[Lionhearte0]

Hi,
LFR - Base gear, low chance of 1 tertiary
Normal - Base gear + 1 tertiary, low chance of 2nd tertiary
Heroic - Base gear + 2 tertiaries, low chance of 3rd tertiary
Mythic - Base gear + 3 tertiaries

So Heroic raiders who get lucky with RNG will have no need to enter Mythic?

[Deleted]

Me as a lfr hater, will answer this. Though I will not say anything about removing lfr or anything.

For me, perfect itemization would be:
First tier:
Lfr ilvl = heroic dungeon item lvl
Normal = +10 ilvl
Heroic = +10 ilvl
Mythic = +10 ilvl
(that's 15 or more ilvl saved in the first tier alone)

Second tier:
Mythic dungeons will be introduced again as catchup
Lfr = first tier normal ilvl
Mythic dungeons = first tier heroic ilvl
Normal = first tier mythic ilvl
Heroic = +10 ilvl
Mythic = +10 ilvl

Third tier:
Lfr = normal second tier
New set of dungeons (mythic only) = second tier heroic
Normal = mythic second tier
Heroic = +10 ilvl
Mythic = +10 ilvl

Like this ilvls increase by only 20 between each tier.
Lfr will always be the worst way to catch up, which is really important to me, as it still serves as tourist mode and mythic Raiders will always be able to start a new tier in heroic difficulty.

Now in WoD, we have an ilvl gap between mythic brf and mythic HFC of up to 40!

Remove random socket/wf procs and decrease ilvl cap between difficulties to +5ilvls AND HC ilvl = previous tier M ilvl

[ceall]

Remove random socket/wf procs and decrease ilvl cap between difficulties to +5ilvls AND HC ilvl = previous tier M ilvl

The problem is, we as players need some kind of noticeable power increase with new gear incoming, and a ilvl increase of 5 points is not noticeable enough. But you're right, random sockets and wf gotta go. Blizz should reintroduce set amounts of sockets per item for more stat customization.

[Wilderness]

I don't think its a good idea at all.

I also don't agree with the basic "problems" you are trying to solve.

Reduce ilvl bloat over tiers
Eliminate ilvl inflation within a given tier
Differentiate raid difficulty by increasing mechanics more than just gear checks

Why are the first 2 problems? The 3rd isn't a problem, because mythic is already more than just a gear check.

[Khebul]

3rd point is not true at all. LFR has almost no mechanics. Normal has a few, but they are significantly easier than heroic ones. Mythic adds game changing mechanics on majority of encounters.

[Zelendria]

Normal raiders doing NM with Mythic gear would be a joke.
Heroic raiders doing HC with Mythic gear would be a joke
Mythic raiders being max ilvl equipped from HC doing M would be a joke.

You've essentially removed the difficulty at every tier.

[cFortyfive]

Tah dah, I fixed the game. Please post your disparaging comments below =)

No problem you fixed jackshit may your proposal die in a fire.

[friedmudkipz]

Raids would have to be absurdly complex in mechanics or they would be over in less than a week for world first (or even top 10). Gear is such an important part of progression, and this would kill that completely.

[fooliuscaesar13]

I wish they'd re-do itemization in general and go back to giving common/uncommon/rare/epic actual meaning again. One item can have 4x different levels of statistics, eg:

Item: 2H Mace of the Whateverthefuck
Rarity: Common
Stats: 100dps, +25 str, +25 stam

Item: 2H Mace of the Whateverthefuck
Rarity: Uncommon
Stats: 125dps, +35 str, +35 stam, +10crit

Item: 2H Mace of the Whateverthefuck
Rarity: Rare
Stats: 150dps, +50 str, +50stam, +25 crit, +10 haste

Item: 2H Mace of the Whateverthefuck
Rarity: Epic
Stats: 200dps, +75 str, +75stam, +40 crit, +20 haste, +10 epeen

Something like this would give item rarity a meaning again, instead of "green from quests, blues from rare drops / dungeons, purps from all else".
But eh. Just something that pops into my head from time to time.

[Dartz1979]

Hi,

This is one of those "Let's fix everything with a silver bullet" posts.
This idea came while thinking about what'd happen if the difference between heroic and mythic gear was a guaranteed tertiary. Then this.
Anyway I kept it short and sweet:

LFR - Base gear, low chance of 1 tertiary
Normal - Base gear + 1 tertiary, low chance of 2nd tertiary
Heroic - Base gear + 2 tertiaries, low chance of 3rd tertiary
Mythic - Base gear + 3 tertiaries

Tertiaries include Warforged, a socket and a predetermined stat (leech, speed, etc).

Reasons:
Reduce ilvl bloat over tiers
Eliminate ilvl inflation within a given tier
Differentiate raid difficulty by increasing mechanics more than just gear checks

Fallout:
Players will get maaaad
Players will be happyyyyy
Reduces need for catchup mechanisms
Lengthens viability of previous tiers
Gem demand will skyrocket
Crafting will be reworked around the system
Legion CMs will be reworked around the system

Tah dah, I fixed the game. Please post your disparaging comments below =)

that idea is not a very good one and wouldn't work very well, so no.

[ThunderTaco]

Ilvl inflation is not an issue, stat inflation is an issue.