Originally Posted by
Thetruth1400
Agreed 100%. That's actually been my biggest gripe with WoW since Cata is there overuse of catch up mechanics. Vanilla - WotLK, if you fell behind it was fine, there would still be people your speed doing all the content that there was. Now, Blizzard's stance is, "If you're not doing the cutting edge of the current tier, you're behind." They say they want people to play at their own pace, but what they put in the game tells a whole different story.
For me, one of the biggest contributors to that is the 4 or 5 different modes of dungeons and raids. Do away with that, bring back 2 max, and the problem will clear up over time. Also, ditch all the catch up mechanics or severely limit them. Gear, for example, maybe only give 4 slots worth of gear as vendor catch up protection. Even then, choose the pieces of gear that are usually just stat stick pieces. Enough to help the catch up, but you're still going to have to actually play the game to get the rest of the stuff.
Back in Vanilla especially, if you saw something with better gear than you had, you were in awe. It also motivated you to keep going, to try and get better and get into those raids to get the same. Likewise, we didn't have much to do besides raiding back then, and again, as you said, we didn't see people complaining about they couldn't keep up.