Can we meaningfully make "Epic" mean "Epic"?

[Kolvarg]

There are things they simply can't go back on. This would be flying all over again.

Making most items blue, and rare procs purple will only serve the purpose of making players (who care about the color anyway) feel less powerful even if they're not. Plus it rewards luck on RNG and nothing more. Item color is not associated so much with rarity as it is with quality. It doesn't mean so much "this item has a very low drop rate" as it means "this item is not as easy to obtain".

Even if you can make every player understand that the color doesnt matter, stats do, and the color only means how rare it is, it will still mean mostly nothing.

The most they can do, is simply replacing the mythic tag with a new Mythic rarity with a different item color.
If they're feeling frisky, they might make most of LFR drops blue, so you'd have blues from LFR and HC dungeons, epics from Mythic dungeons and Normal/Heroic Raiding, and mythics from Mythic raiding.

The whole "epic items aren't epic" thing is one of the greatest non-issues ever talked about on these forums.

The Mythic tag on your items is the new epic. Deal with it.

^ If you want to show of about RNG drops you already have some gear and mounts. Otherwise you have Mythic gear.

[Deleted]

The feeling obtaining an epic, legendary is long dead...

[deadman1]

Yeah this is not gonna happen, unless you just forgot about the last 2 expansions where they gave Legendaries to LFR cruisers

It's been like this since TBC stop acting like it hasn't been. You could get purps in dungeons and buy them off vendors.

and in the next expansion everyone is getting Ashbringer... They are going in the complete opposite direction to what you're suggesting and they always have been.

It's a lore item, lorewise you are the only hero, it's character progression, how dare they progress characters, what a horrible thing.

[Kolvarg]

The feeling obtaining an epic, legendary is long dead...

You can't be a newcomer enjoying and exploring the game for the first time forever, sadly.

But if you're not a downer about it, and open your mind to change, you can still enjoy the game

[Raelbo]

Are you honestly arguing that players don't chase gear as a reward in and of itself, or create BiS lists in order to get there?

No. Nothing I said even remotely suggests that I am saying this.

What I am saying is that players who do so are playing the game wrong. I am saying they miss the point.

Honestly?

15 posts and the trolls descend.

Could be a new record.

I made a serious point (that IMO cuts to the core issue of your problem with warforged gear) and you dismissed me as a troll instead of bothering to apply your mind to that point. Grats dude, your entire "counter" argument consists of a strawman followed by an ad hominem squeezed into less than 40 words. I suspect that may be some kind of record...

[Dawon]

Cant we just color all items the same color and stop this rare,magic,epic,artifact,legendary,superawesome,uncommon,common--whateeeeever and just simply have different items with different stats... the more/better stats, the better item,,, no need with this stupid color-coding... common already!

[thilicen]

Take epics out of LFR, stop making them buyable from dungeon currencies, make crafting them require hard earned mats through success in pvp/pve and not grinding felblights and whatnot.

Epic items should come from two sources: High-level pvp (Not sure if this should be rated only or not) and PvE raids. LFR / Dungeons / Heroics / Mythics should offer blues at various item level increments, maybe a symbolic text addition like "Warforged", "Baleful" etc today to mark their power. No reason blues can't be upgrades, and leaving the purple epics for the people who actually work for them. I'd love this even though I'd get like 2 or 3 max these days, it would make people stand out more, maybe bring back some of that golden "those awesome guys" from back in Vanilla / TBC

[Pua]

It's noticeable that most posts haven't bothered to consider the issue beyond "colours are meaningless".

I suppose it's true; people tend to read thread titles, draw a conclusion, and then comment without bothering to read the opening post.

[Wildtree]

So, here’s the idea:

All endgame gear is now blue by default, raid gear included. Rather than a Warforged proc, you get an Epic proc with a tertiary or a socket.

This is to stop item level bloat, remove some of the RNG from achieving your BiS, and to return “Epic” to actually meaning epic (as opposed to “expected”).

1. color has nothing to do with item level per say...
2. you giving the whole thing way too much weight... Means the problem (if there is one to begin with) is not the system in place but the player who misinterprets it.
3. Epic has a different meaning for different folks.

I find it "epic" how we have essentially the same thread every other quarter of the year.
Get over it. The system is in place ever since WoW exists.

Vote goes to option 3..... Leave things the way they are.

[knight of thorns]

So, here’s the idea:

All endgame gear is now blue by default, raid gear included. Rather than a Warforged proc, you get an Epic proc with a tertiary or a socket.

This is to stop item level bloat, remove some of the RNG from achieving your BiS, and to return “Epic” to actually meaning epic (as opposed to “expected”).

But this change will change nothing for players and how the game is played. So, it will be a change for change's sake.

Besides, endgame bosses dropping epic quality items are quite logical, especially from the classical RPG point of view.

- Greens are uncommon which are magical items, but you can find them easily, even in a small town in a shop. These are the equivalent of +1 items in D&D and similar games.
- Blues are rare. It is possible to find them, maybe for sale in a magic shop in a big city; but you have to be either rich, or very lucky to find one, so you have to work hard to obtain one. These are the equivalent of +2 items in D&D.
- Epic items are powerful items, they have names and history, and usually carried by powerful entities. These are the equivalent of +3 or stronger items in D&D.

The bosses we encounter in raids are powerful entities, the strongest in their kin or the best at their job; so, it is logical that these bosses carry equipment relevant to their power. So, it is only logical that these entities carry only epics.

1) I believe Warforged is a problem. I dislike the fact that it’s yet another double-random reward, but I also have problems with the power creep that it introduces to the game. Item level inflation has gotten out of hand within the space of a single expansion, and probably needs reined in yet again.

I don't understand why people care so much about item levels so much. What is the problem if item levels rise up too much? If numbers get out of hand, we can always have another item squish to get them back into the line again.

2) The other issue I have with Warforged is that it artificially extends gearing lists. The excitement of seeing your best item drop is diluted when it isn’t Warforged, and doesn’t have a gem socket. It’s frustrating when the only Warforged procs you ever see come in the gear you’re sharding because nobody needs it.

Right now, if an item you want drops and it has no sockets, it is a bummer. But in your suggestion, if an item you want drops and if it is not epic, it is still bummer. Ok, we got rid of warforged, but other than that, this change accomplished nothing.

3) It’s confusing. What’s better; a Warforged item, or one with a socket? Fuck knows. Unless you run simulators, which only a tiny percentage of players do, you’ve no idea what the better choice is. It’s a toss up. Simplifying the system seems like a good way to make gear more readily understandable.

I agree with the issue here, but it can be solved with Diablo 3's solution, by giving you information about how much raw damage you will gain or lose. There is no need to remove anything for this.

[PuppetShowJustice]

The feeling obtaining an epic, legendary is long dead...

I dunno. I still get pretty amped when I get a weapon that ends up being Warforged + Socket. And that definitely isn't commonplace for me.

[Pua]

What I am saying is that players who do so are playing the game wrong. I am saying they miss the point.

So you're also saying that you get to arbitrarily choose how other people play the game, and whether that's right or wrong.

There aren't enough words for how wrong, and actually poisonous, that approach is.

I made a serious point (that IMO cuts to the core issue of your problem with warforged gear) and you dismissed me as a troll instead of bothering to apply your mind to that point. Grats dude, your entire "counter" argument consists of a strawman followed by an ad hominem squeezed into less than 40 words. I suspect that may be some kind of record...

Not really.

You've just not bothered to think about anything beyond the obvious. For example, let's take your premise:

"Players want their characters to advance in power, in order to defeat more powerful challenges".

Now, while many players do that, it's not a categorical imperative. Far from it, actually. There are a great many players who want their characters to develop in power for its own sake, and nobody could reasonably argue to the contrary. Not even you. Now, we've found out in this very post that you like to apply your beliefs onto others about how they should play the game (laughable, considering a recent conversation you and I had where you took the exact opposite stance), but it still leaves your premise without a leg to stand on because it's already been disproven.

And by your own admission, because you've accepted that some players want rewards for the sake of having rewards.

I actually think, given the contradiction between your position in this thread and position in the other, that your only intention is to start an argument. It's a shame, then, that you don't have a coherent one to start with.

[Wildtree]

I don't understand why people care so much about item levels so much. What is the problem if item levels rise up too much? If numbers get out of hand, we can always have another item squish to get them back into the line again.

That is a problem caused by changes made...
Remember the times when we did not see an item level displayed on the gear? Life's been a lot better back then, in my opinion.

You give the players something to track, and they turn it into a competition.
Item level became just another rank ladder, another carrot many chase mindlessly, and often even completely wrong too.

The issue is therefore not with the numbers themselves, but with the false usage. If I have had any say at Blizzard, I would have long done away with the ilevel display again. It was revealed to have especially new players being able to distinct between upgrades or not. In my opinion that intention failed.

[Jewsco]

Another one of these threads?
How many will this site allow?
Another thinly vieled attempt to try to keep the precious purples away from those the OP sees unfit for them.
Get over it already.
Who cares?
Purple normal, heroic and specially mythic is better than purple lfr gear.
Get over the color hang up.
Add in transmog no one even sees this precious purple gear anymore anyway.
Will this ever end?

[Armourboy]

Do people really find the random warforged and gemslot an issue?

When I make my BiS list I make it without the WF and gemslots and whenever something with extra stats drops I'm excited because it's like a bonus to me. I don't understand the mindset of being disappointed because you didn't get the bonus straightaway.

Frankly I don't mind it, minus the gem slot thing. Now I'm not sure I want to go back to the days of needing 3 gems on every piece of gear every time you get an upgrade, but I wouldn't mind having gem slots be something you can earn and add on to gear.

Doubt they do it though, goes against that whole idea they came up with of being able to put it on right then. Although with Valor coming back, that goes out the window too for people doing anything but mythic.

[Bigbazz]

It's been like this since TBC stop acting like it hasn't been. You could get purps in dungeons and buy them off vendors.

It's a lore item, lorewise you are the only hero, it's character progression, how dare they progress characters, what a horrible thing.

It's been like this since TBC? In TBC the top ranked guild in the world didn't have any legendaries.. Yes that's exactly the same as 100% of players having guaranteed access to legendaries. Amazing work you have done in comparing to the past here, unmatched.


And lorewise? We're not faction leaders, we're elite grunts. It is a horrible thing when you turn an MMORPG into a single player RPG by giving the players the most powerful weapons in the universe, the weapons that belong to the main lore characters in the series. You are not Thrall, or Tirion Fordring, Varian Wrynn or Jaina Proudmoore.

[Deleted]

No. Stinky snowflakery is given more than enough feed already.
Also, a casino epic replacing "welfare" epic is exactly as retarded as it sounds.

[Varaben]

You're probably not going to want to hear this but... you're playing the game wrong.

The objective of the game is to progress your character through the content. While getting better gear certainly helps with this objective, getting the best possible gear in every slot is in and of itself a meaningless objective because that goalpost is always moving. Gear is simply a means to an end, never intended to be the end itself - or the actual objective of the game.

The whole point of Warforged and socketed gear is that as long as you are working at it, you can continue to improve your character's power, thus bringing you a bit closer to defeating the next encounter. It was specifically designed to NOT be a checklist that you tick off.

I'm pretty sure the ilevel progression is meant to be end game character progression. I can't tell if you're kidding or not, but the ilevel hamster wheel IS the objective, as much as clearing content. Getting gear has always been a main goal of the game. Look at challenge modes. They normalize gear and no one really participates. It's not about clearing content for a lot of people. It's about character progression, and the only way to do that right now is by getting better gear.

[The Kao]

Basically you want good RNG to equal better gear. Considering how shitty the RNGs they use in WoW are(try using their summon favorite mount sometime and watch it pick the same 5% chance 6x in a row reliably) I wouldn't want to see it happen. Even more so if they implement more bad luck protection as all this would do is artificially extend the grind. I have NEVER had full BiS. Always had a piece of two missing because of bad luck with drops already.

And that's absolutely intended. We are not supposed to have everything we want in the game since that would mean we're legitimately out of things to do. A thing that best never happens. The trick is to not let it bother you - so you don't have BiS in every slot. Who cares? Next year by that time you've got entirely different gear. Most player who claim they are bored and have nothing to do in-game in fact still have a lot on their plates, they just don't want to do what's left. That's a genuinely different thing.

BTW there no such thing as "Blizzard RNG". There is no chicanery algorithm that knows what items dropped for you and which item you want, and keeps dropping everything but that item just for you. It's just absolute RNG - every possible result has the same chance to happen every time, completely uninfluenced by previous results, and this means that of course the same results can happen multiple times in a row. It's totally within the realm of possibility. Their "bad luck protection", which is only active for bonus rolls as far as I'm aware, merely says that, if you have a 20% (1 in 5) chance to get an item you're guaranteed to get one after the 5th attempt (and resets after a drop happened), but it doesn't say that you get the item you want dearest. That's just not how it works.

[Pua]

Do people really find the random warforged and gemslot an issue?

A lot of people don't, and that's okay. It's a purely subjective issue, and one that I talk about because I worry about power creep. Someone mentioned somewhere on the forum that doing the previous tier currently feels like it's from a past expansion. I don't think that's okay.

I must admit, though. It's very telling that this community argues that colour doesn't matter, but kicks up a hell of a stink if someone suggests taking their purples away from them.