The lies and misrepresenttions of Titanforging

[DisposableHero]

There have been times in previous xpacs where a previous raid tier trinket remains BiS thru the next, but this is the first xpac where they have remained BiS thru all tiers simply because of TF.

Factually incorrect, see: Rune of Re-Origination.

[HuxNeva]

You're only partially correct. While an 860 Arcano beats 900 trinkets, a TF 910 Arcano can become BiS over all base level trinkets in ABT. That's a TF problem. Without TF, those base ilvl Arcanos would get replaced with heroic/mythic trinkets. My base relinquished Arcano at 910 is now BiS for my MM Hunter, with no replacement in sight.
There have been times in previous xpacs where a previous raid tier trinket remains BiS thru the next, but this is the first xpac where they have remained BiS thru all tiers simply because of TF.

I hear what you say, but it is not a TF issue. Blizzard opted to keep trinkets from the whole expansion available at near current ilvl. Your own BiS Arcano is not titanforged at all, but at its base level. It was an extreme outlier to start with, and even though it didn't scale that hard it was still BiS for many classes for a long time (although for many specs late ToS or ABT you have access to better).

You're 2nd point is still only partially correct. I went casual as my guild started doing H NH. I did m+ in my free time and pugged normal runs for the hell of it. Just doing those and my emissary dailys, I stayed right on par with most of the guild members who did mythic raids. There were some big disparities, naturally, as other guild members also got TF, but on average I was within 2-3 ilvl under/over most of the raiders in the guild. The main difference being I had endless opportunities to TF and acquire gear simply they doing m+, where most of them were using their time dedicated to raiding with loot being divided between 20-30 people, and that "rare" TF going to different people.

Can't remember the M+ ilvl's of NH, but was it comparable to now (ceiling at just below HC and 'the chest' at start M)? If so, while your tier pieces and trinkets would be N and theirs HC/M, they further would probably have a plethora of choices to pick BiS stats gear, whereas you were probably decked in whatever you managed to TF, regardless of stats. As I said in the beginning, I've run a lot of M+ and just up to HC ABT, but nearly all my equipped gear in most of my sets comes from the latter. I have one relic that comes from a M+ end of dungeon, 2 or 3 pieces depending on the set from 'the chest' and one ABT N TF piece. All the rest is from ABT HC. M raiders spamming M+ for loot seems like a bad investment. Ofc, doing one +15 for a weekly chest is definitely worth it for everyone.
Rewards/effort raid wins hands down by miles. Now it is normal that spammable content like M+ has a far diminished chance of TF over gated once a week content. However, in this case the dev's seemed o have erred a bit strong on the side of caution.

[Eazy]

Unfair on who? Why do you need this strict stratification?

Unfair for everyone. People who are doing HC raiding shouldn't get Mythic ilvl items etc.

[HuxNeva]

Unfair for everyone. People who are doing HC raiding shouldn't get Mythic ilvl items etc.

Sorry, realy trying to understand, but why not? Why is it 'unfair'?
I can see a point if it was like wathever you do you get the same loot, but that is not how it works.
Yes, someone making 2 to 3 months of kills on a certain N boss will have a decent chance of ending up with a TF piece that is base ilvl HC. Good for him. Mean time the girl that started HC week 1 will have moved on far from there. What's the harm? Who's 'hurt'? Where is the 'unfairness'?

[Kaligon]

Partially, of course. But getting a perfect statted 985 chest is also a damn big thing. But I honestly see it less and less these days. I feel like they already shadownerfed TF cap/chance ratio.

I raid like mad, 95% attendance full clear Heroic + most of Mythic (as we progress) every tier this expansion. I'm a loot officer, so I watch the entire raid. These are not all scientific, but this is my report:

All the raid tiers combined this tier, I have seen 2 normal pieces roll 'perfect'. We typically see ~1 piece in a normal raid each week roll at Mythic base level (20-30 people raids).

In Heroic we get an average of maybe 3 pieces per clear that roll at or above Mythic base ilevel.

In Mythic? By the end of a tier, none of our main raiders want a piece unless it's at least +10 WF. Our raid ilevel in Mythic atm is like 969. That's 9 above Mythic base. Even taking out the bump from weapons and legendaries, we still average better than 960 ilevel across the raid and we're halfway through the tier.

You might have 1 or 2 people in Heroic guild that end up with item level on the low-end of a Mythic raid. But even the luckiest (or greediest) of Heroic raiders will struggle to hit even the average ilevel of a Mythic raid and won't be anywhere near the high-end Mythic raiders (we have a 977 equipped and other guilds have higher).

I like the war-forge system. I might cap it at +45 hard cap on TF so normal would max out at 975, but I have no issue with a few very lucky Heroic raiders meeting the Mythic raid average ilevel.

I like that in theory if you spam enough M+ you can match raid ilevel. Same thing if you PVP like crazy. Blizzard seems to like this too. In the expansion they're dropping sets, which will erode the last hard advantage from Mythic raiding. Mythic raiding will still result in fewer hours played to get geared than M+/PVP, but M+/PVP is much easier to set up and can realistically be infinitely played. The best geared people out there are the hardcore M+/PvP players who also raid. I think this is appropriate. The more you play, the higher, on average, you'll be.

For the purposes of progression content, it doesn't matter diddly squat that *eventually* the PVP and M+ players will have higher ilevel than the raiders through weeks and weeks of rolling TF gear. During the World First race, where ilevel really matters, the Mythic raiders will have higher ilevel than the M+/PVP players. The tail end is where the ability to endlessly roll for TF in M+/PvP sees them edge ahead, but it all gets erased next tier anyway.

[ramayana1423]

Titanforging is an absolute cancer on this game. It makes balancing impossible, because things like trinkets can never be balanced while titanforging exists. It rewards people completely at random. Items should be rewarded due to the difficulty of the content. It shouldn't be rewarded based on just pulling the handle on the slot machine and praying as many times as possible.

[HuxNeva]

I raid like mad, 95% attendance full clear Heroic + most of Mythic (as we progress) every tier this expansion. I'm a loot officer, so I watch the entire raid. These are not all scientific, but this is my report:

All the raid tiers combined this tier, I have seen 2 normal pieces roll 'perfect'. We typically see ~1 piece in a normal raid each week roll at Mythic base level (20-30 people raids).

In Heroic we get an average of maybe 3 pieces per clear that roll at or above Mythic base ilevel.

In Mythic? By the end of a tier, none of our main raiders want a piece unless it's at least +10 WF. Our raid ilevel in Mythic atm is like 969. That's 9 above Mythic base. Even taking out the bump from weapons and legendaries, we still average better than 960 ilevel across the raid and we're halfway through the tier.

You might have 1 or 2 people in Heroic guild that end up with item level on the low-end of a Mythic raid. But even the luckiest (or greediest) of Heroic raiders will struggle to hit even the average ilevel of a Mythic raid and won't be anywhere near the high-end Mythic raiders (we have a 977 equipped and other guilds have higher).

I like the war-forge system. I might cap it at +45 hard cap on TF so normal would max out at 975, but I have no issue with a few Heroic raiders meeting the Mythic raid ilevel.

Thank you for the data point. Those figures are ballpark my experience as well (I don't have acces to M as I'm only in HC) I wish one of the fansites would publish a comprehensive in-depth number supported article on this.

[Eazy]

Sorry, realy trying to understand, but why not?

Because it's unfair. Getting normal/heroic/mythic ilvl items for doing LFR/normal/heroic raids. If you want reward - put some effort, not just pray for the luck.

Why is it 'unfair'?

If you can't see the reason why it's unfair then I have seriously no idea how to explain it simpler... No one deserves better gear than the one who put more effort.

I can see a point if it was like wathever you do you get the same loot, but that is not how it works.
Yes, someone making 2 to 3 months of kills on a certain N boss will have a decent chance of ending up with a TF piece that is base ilvl HC. Good for him. Mean time the girl that started HC week 1 will have moved on far from there.

I get your point, but it doesn't work that way 2 to 3 months compared to one week? Seriously? Most of the raiders I see have much higher ilvl than it's expected for the difficulty they're doing.
What's the point of it anyway? What's the point of getting WF/TF gear if you're just doing normal raids? Are you going to be happy because HC ilvl item dropped? Why, if you're just doing normal raids? It just won't help you in anything.

What's the harm? Who's 'hurt'? Where is the 'unfairness'?

Being able to get OP ilvl items from the easy content only because of the luck is harm for everyone. Just before "Who cares about what other people wear?"
Yes, I care about other people gear. Why? Because of a few reasons:
-whenever I'm making a group I expect a high ilvl players to be skilled, they have high ilvl means that they have knowledge, I met a few +955ilvl players with full LFR/normal gear who didn't have idea about heroic mechanics(nowadays I'm just checking their logs/raider.io/progress etc.),
-most of the people in LFG care mostly about the ilvl, why someone who has knowledge and skill but worse gear shouldn't be prioritized to the one who had luck?
-it's overall UNFAIR that people who don't put effort get better gear - if they're not going to do normal/heroic/mythic then why they are even getting higher ilvl items? What's the point? So they're going to kill NPCs 0,5s faster?

[Eapoe]

Factually incorrect, see: Rune of Re-Origination.

If you spent any time thinking about that, you would know it is factually accurate. RoRo came out in ToT, the 2nd to last raid tier. As stated, there have been times where a trinket carries over from 1 raid to the next, but not from the start of an xpac all the way thru, especially based on TF. RoRo also only remained BiS for 1 spec, namely feral Druids, maybe Rogues but I think even they replaced it with SoO. Hunters replaced it with SoO trinkets at appropriate ilvls.

[HuxNeva]

Because it's unfair. Getting normal/heroic/mythic ilvl items for doing LFR/normal/heroic raids. If you want reward - put some effort, not just pray for the luck.




If you can't see the reason why it's unfair then I have seriously no idea how to explain it simpler... No one deserves better gear than the one who put more effort.



I get your point, but it doesn't work that way 2 to 3 months compared to one week? Seriously? Most of the raiders I see have much higher ilvl than it's expected for the difficulty they're doing.
What's the point of it anyway? What's the point of getting WF/TF gear if you're just doing normal raids? Are you going to be happy because HC ilvl item dropped? Why, if you're just doing normal raids? It just won't help you in anything.



Being able to get OP ilvl items from the easy content only because of the luck is harm for everyone. Just before "Who cares about what other people wear?"
Yes, I care about other people gear. Why? Because of a few reasons:
-whenever I'm making a group I expect a high ilvl players to be skilled, they have high ilvl means that they have knowledge, I met a few +955ilvl players with full LFR/normal gear who didn't have idea about heroic mechanics(nowadays I'm just checking their logs/raider.io/progress etc.),
-most of the people in LFG care mostly about the ilvl, why someone who has knowledge and skill but worse gear shouldn't be prioritized to the one who had luck?
-it's overall UNFAIR that people who don't put effort get better gear - if they're not going to do normal/heroic/mythic then why they are even getting higher ilvl items? What's the point? So they're going to kill NPCs 0,5s faster?

But the in-game reward/effort equation favors people tackling higher content waaay over those trying to grind rewards from lower difficulties.
You are trying to use ilvl as a proxy signal where there are way better signals out there.
Gear is not dropped 'need based'. It is the ultimate carrot reward in a character progression game. TF makes it so that there's always a carrot, even if chances of catching one diminish over time.
And are you seriously trying to argue people shouldn't care about getting upgrades 'because they don't need it', while you yourself are making a big hoola about even other people getting a reward?

[Eapoe]

I hear what you say, but it is not a TF issue. Blizzard opted to keep trinkets from the whole expansion available at near current ilvl. Your own BiS Arcano is not titanforged at all, but at its base level. It was an extreme outlier to start with, and even though it didn't scale that hard it was still BiS for many classes for a long time (although for many specs late ToS or ABT you have access to better).




Can't remember the M+ ilvl's of NH, but was it comparable to now (ceiling at just below HC and 'the chest' at start M)? If so, while your tier pieces and trinkets would be N and theirs HC/M, they further would probably have a plethora of choices to pick BiS stats gear, whereas you were probably decked in whatever you managed to TF, regardless of stats. As I said in the beginning, I've run a lot of M+ and just up to HC ABT, but nearly all my equipped gear in most of my sets comes from the latter. I have one relic that comes from a M+ end of dungeon, 2 or 3 pieces depending on the set from 'the chest' and one ABT N TF piece. All the rest is from ABT HC. M raiders spamming M+ for loot seems like a bad investment. Ofc, doing one +15 for a weekly chest is definitely worth it for everyone.
Rewards/effort raid wins hands down by miles. Now it is normal that spammable content like M+ has a far diminished chance of TF over gated once a week content. However, in this case the dev's seemed o have erred a bit strong on the side of caution.

They had/have the same chances of itemized stat gear as I do. The difference is I could run the same m+ over and over and over and over going for 1-2 perfect pieces of gear and the only limiting factor is keys being posted. On the flipside, raiders have 1 chance a week at a mythic piece of gear, requiring it to drop, be the only person that needs it, and have it be a TF piece while being the only person that needs it.
I've since come back to raiding and have been progressing in mythic Antorus. With the exception of tier, my gear is a hodgepodge of m+, mythic, and heroic/normal TF. I'm still using t20 2p, not because it is just that good, but because it isn't that good AND it forged up (that's a similar yet different arguement altogether).
The point is, while TF isn't itself a huge problem, it does create issues that can be rectified with just a little thought on the devs part. I'm not saying get rid of it, but have it deactivated in certain situations, have m+ gear that TF's remain TF for m+ but goes to normal ilvl in raids, and vice versa. Make them true alternatives while leaving the bonus "oh boy" feeling of a TF piece while not having them affect other aspects of the game.

[HuxNeva]

If you spent any time thinking about that, you would know it is factually accurate. RoRo came out in ToT, the 2nd to last raid tier. As stated, there have been times where a trinket carries over from 1 raid to the next, but not from the start of an xpac all the way thru, especially based on TF. RoRo also only remained BiS for 1 spec, namely feral Druids, maybe Rogues but I think even they replaced it with SoO. Hunters replaced it with SoO trinkets at appropriate ilvls.

Keep in mind that Relinquished Arcano was a ToS tier trinket. It came into the game at the opening of Argus. Not saying the original EN tier 860 Arcano didn't last 'till NH, so that is carying through a tier.

- - - Updated - - -

They had/have the same chances of itemized stat gear as I do. The difference is I could run the same m+ over and over and over and over going for 1-2 perfect pieces of gear and the only limiting factor is keys being posted. On the flipside, raiders have 1 chance a week at a mythic piece of gear, requiring it to drop, be the only person that needs it, and have it be a TF piece while being the only person that needs it.
I've since come back to raiding and have been progressing in mythic Antorus. With the exception of tier, my gear is a hodgepodge of m+, mythic, and heroic/normal TF. I'm still using t20 2p, not because it is just that good, but because it isn't that good AND it forged up (that's a similar yet different arguement altogether).
The point is, while TF isn't itself a huge problem, it does create issues that can be rectified with just a little thought on the devs part. I'm not saying get rid of it, but have it deactivated in certain situations, have m+ gear that TF's remain TF for m+ but goes to normal ilvl in raids, and vice versa. Make them true alternatives while leaving the bonus "oh boy" feeling of a TF piece while not having them affect other aspects of the game.

I've heared the proposal for silo-ing PvE content from others as well. It certainly made sense when they separated PvP from PvE. But should the same reasoning apply to put a wall between M+ and raiding? I'm not sure. Here's another question/solution: Should top-end raiding be templated, all gear availability and ilvl normalized for Mythic raiding? PvP is, and competitive M+ is, so why not top end raiding? (Maybe that is food for another tread)

[daiceman]

I will be 100% fine with titanforge staying the same in bfa so long as they exclude azerite pieces, weapons, and trinkets

[Eazy]

But the in-game reward/effort equation favors people tackling higher content waaay over those trying to grind rewards from lower difficulties.

The grind is part of the MMO, I know, but there should be skill-cap in getting gear. People who don't put enough effort shouldn't get best gear. Period.

Gear is not dropped 'need based'. It is the ultimate carrot reward in a character progression game. TF makes it so that there's always a carrot, even if chances of catching one diminish over time.

Yes... and no. You cannot finish harder content with worse gear. But also - what if you clear the whole content(for example, a whole mythic raid?) what else it's there for you? Probably just collecting gear.

And are you seriously trying to argue people shouldn't care about getting upgrades 'because they don't need it', while you yourself are making a big hoola about even other people getting a reward?

These are two totally different things.

[Fappy]

But why? What is the problem with rewarding people for playing? Do you want them to effectively promote unsubbing?

- - - Updated - - -



Use the +15 (or whatever you think is appropriate farm level) rule of thumb, and you have your 'BiS'.

The amount of farming required to get +15 in all slots is not comparable to the time it took to get BiS during the pre-TF era. You can farm Heroic and Mythic for the entire tier and still not achieve that. I raid relatively hardcore, but that doesn't mean I want to run the same raid on the same toon on multiple difficulties every week for an entire raid tier in order to "complete" my character. Titanforging doesn't make me want to replay the same content over and over again, it makes me feel obligated to do so. When you're pushing Mythic progress, skipping out on Heroic for a week means you're missing a chance to get something you need that's titanforged. To me, if you have baseline Heroic gear already and you're pushing Mythic, you should have no reason to continue farming Heroic. It just doesn't make sense to me that you'd do obsolete content like that. It feels like a step backwards.

[Fabinas]

Sorry, realy trying to understand, but why not? Why is it 'unfair'?
I can see a point if it was like wathever you do you get the same loot, but that is not how it works.
Yes, someone making 2 to 3 months of kills on a certain N boss will have a decent chance of ending up with a TF piece that is base ilvl HC. Good for him. Mean time the girl that started HC week 1 will have moved on far from there. What's the harm? Who's 'hurt'? Where is the 'unfairness'?

Skill in game should be rewarded accordingly. An afk-LFR TF+30 item is an unfair reward. Especially compared to the rewards of a skilled mythic player.

[Alkizon]

I have already said enough in other threads that RNG system is by definition quite unfair and complicating it entails only more negative consequences and etc., so here I will only remind you of a simple and, I hope, understandable for all factor: abnormally fast growth of attributes in course of One addon is one of consequences of introduction of such stupid system (the same for M+ and more types of difficulty).

Well... and of course: (luck > skill) =/= fun, it should be controlled at least manually (through professions, currency and special vendors, universal items that can be farmed and each tied to its "level complexity") = RPG-customization - only this way system can at least somehow be called "rewarding". It can also be RNG, but only taking into account that there is alternative way of improvement and spread of levels shouldn't exceed 2/4 (even this is already bad).

ps. Don't say nonsense, it's stupid and wrong system (together with item-scaling (lvl+class) and personal loot) for game like this. Too many fundamentally negative consequences affecting organization and balance in the game. It's wrong even by lore.

and yet besides few whining on forum people people like it and enjoy it - same shit as loot boxes in other game- few poor scrubs complain and majority spends hundreds of dollars on it monthly - just because they can .

game evolve - if you dont like it play other game - for example for me wow evolved into something that i wont ever again spend month after month in only will drop when major content is put it - and i play other games - suggest you to do the same instead fighting pointless battles.

So am I, 3 years already for "USER LOST" for other reasons (see the signature), but... This isn't battle, just a discussion of concept. It's foolish to take conversation in this way. You calling this evolution, I'll use word "degradation" agreeing that many people really like it. May be we should stop at a simple and neutral word "changes"?

[Sparklelord]

Happy to see that there are reasonable people still in these forums.

Titanforge is good thing that makes things interesting, even killing the same boss for the 54th time. The problem was(is) with the ceiling, not the basics of it.

I don't think that there are people who actually believe in full mythic gear level LFR runner, but 980 Arcanocrystals still happen. And this exact issue is being fixed in BFA.

I don't think they do. Highest base level Arcano is 910. So, 970 is highest. The 980+ your seeing are fakes.

[HuxNeva]

The amount of farming required to get +15 in all slots is not comparable to the time it took to get BiS during the pre-TF era. You can farm Heroic and Mythic for the entire tier and still not achieve that. I raid relatively hardcore, but that doesn't mean I want to run the same raid on the same toon on multiple difficulties every week for an entire raid tier in order to "complete" my character. Titanforging doesn't make me want to replay the same content over and over again, it makes me feel obligated to do so. When you're pushing Mythic progress, skipping out on Heroic for a week means you're missing a chance to get something you need that's titanforged. To me, if you have baseline Heroic gear already and you're pushing Mythic, you should have no reason to continue farming Heroic. It just doesn't make sense to me that you'd do obsolete content like that. It feels like a step backwards.

Let's do some math (not a professional mathematician, but feel free to correct me as we build a join model)
Some assumptions:
The chance of getting loot from a kill is 1 in 5: 0,2
The chance of a 'forging roll' succeeding is 1 in 3: so 0,33 for a +5, (O,33)^2= 0,11 for a +10, (O,33)^3 = 0,037 for a +15

Lets take a scenario that the item you're after can drop for anyone, and that no-one but you needs it, so if it drops for anyone you'll get it.
Let's say there's 20 in your group
Let's say there's 6 items on the loot table for this boss for everyone

So the chance of your item dropping is 20x(1/5)x(1/6)= 2/3 chance of the item dropping
Plug in the TF factor, and the chance of the item dropping with +15 is 0,025

So you have a 2,5% chance each week of running 1 tier lower and getting base ilvl for that item the higher tier.

Someone 'only' running the higher tier has a 66% chance of getting the item
Someone running both the lower and the higher tier has a 68,5% chance of getting the item.

You decide if that increase in chance is worth the raid night.

[andy123456]

Skill in game should be rewarded accordingly. An afk-LFR TF+30 item is an unfair reward. Especially compared to the rewards of a skilled mythic player.

and whats the chance of a lfr gear being more better than mythic gear ??
a lfr doing player will never out gear a mythic raider.
titanforge is luck and it makes doing a raid at a particular difficulty still meaningful for a guild that has cleared the raid at the difficulty level