The 800lb Gorilla

[Joyride]

Gear inflation.

If the previous tier remained relevant people would not be "forced" to go back in for points. The jumps are too step for the gear design to compensate. Meaning gear with stats alone become worthless as soon as the next tier comes out within this current model(as we all know).

Either gear needs to fundamentally changed, or the ilvl needs to be decreased in between tiers, OR there needs to be more content. The middle seems to be the easiest to do of the 3.

Imo the best thing that could be done is create more items like Illustration of the Dragons soul. Items/gear that last 3 tiers.

In summation, trying to making the previous tier "relevant" for the sake of points is a fail. Deflate the gear or make better gear. Blizzard take the easy or the hard way. Get it done, but dont take the a cop out in order to extend the life of the content.

How is anyone forced to do anything in Warcraft? You hear that all the time. "Blah blah blah, Blizzard is forcing, blah blah blah."

Gear is working as intended, working as usual.

This is the game the way it is, either play it, or cancel your subscription.

[Rennix]

Yeahhhh there we go.

[Flaks]

Its really awesome seeing the difference between a 372 weapon and 359 weapon is an entire 50 dps and nearly 500 top end. Its absurd. And they said they'd be fixing this with Cataclysm.

The solution is simple. No attunments. Just huge gear checks on the first few bosses of every new tier. This means a person in avg ilvl 359 gear would stand no chance against heroic beth'tilac. This would in turn force people to progress through raids instead of jumping to the newest tier. Oh and the difference in gear should be no more than 7 ilvl's. 359-367. Makes a helluvalot more sense and provides less of a gear discrepancy.

[Nobleshield]

You know the more I think about it, the more I want to say the solution is to go back to Attunements. Now hold on before you get the pitchforks. Everyone I've talked to who has played TBC said there never was this kind of "oh god not again" mentality back then among the majority of people, there was never this "If you aren't in the current tier you're a scrub" mentality either. There were guilds for the duration of TBC running Kara and having fun, instead of being frustrated because they weren't in BT or SSC or Hyjal or whatever was current at the particular time. There were guilds doing SSC that were excited to get closer to clearing it and being able to proceed to the next raid.

What's the difference between then and now? Ever since the badge system really came into play in the middle of Wrath it's been the idea that A) there should be no need to go back to the old tier when a new tier comes out, and B) because the new tier is all that matters there has to be a way to allow everyone to gear up ASAP to get there. There's no more "personal progression" like there was in TBC where a particular guild didn't care if another guild was in BT and they were working on TK still, it's all about "keeping up with the Joneses". Now I understand that Blizzard wants people to see their content, and not have it be accessible to just the creme de la creme of raiders, but I think that the current way of doing things is more dangerous than the fact only what, 3% of people got to see Sunwell or BT or Naxx40 or whatever, because of the impression it gives to the community.

It's like if you are part of a club that owns a particular model car. Every few months the car maker comes out with a new version of the car that adds some new features to it, and says "Okay, everyone can have a payment plan to upgrade to the new model." Some people rush out and buy the new car really quickly (analogous to the high-end progression raiders) while others take their time (analogous to the casual raiders). The TBC model had people with the older model of car perfectly happy to meet and discuss their cars and improve it and drive it, while the people with the newer cars had fun doing things with it. The Wrath/Cata model is where the new people ridicule and laugh at the people in the older model cars, because they aren't using the newer model cars yet, and the car company seeing that only a small amount have been able to make the payments for the new car, so they end up saying "Good news, everyone! We are making it easier for everybody to get on a payment plan for the new car, because only 3% of car owners have been able to drive the new model. So now everybody can choose a payment plan for themselves that they can afford, and get into the new car!"

That's not a sustainable model either.