You cannot change gear in a M+ dungeon anymore.

[Sliske]

thank fuck. I hated having 6 different equip sets in CMs

[Polarthief]

Personally I like this. Wasn't fond of having 4 different gear sets for different DPS scenarios, in addition to a speed set and a survivability set

Yup, and I didn't even go to that extent. Good change IMO.

Might be "boring" to some but it's definitely a positive change.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

I like how your goal posts keep moving in your responses. Find a gaping hole in your response and call it out, you change your argument. Now you've shifted from skill and gear set to class balance. It's okay to lose an argument, do so with grace.

Class balance is precisely the sort of change this particular M+ change can help with. Before your head spins around and you start spraying pea soup everywhere, understand it allows developers to watch an entire instance from start to finish and determine where a class/spec/gear set either excels or struggles. It reduces the variables for the developers to track down. Great, now that they have that, they can take it back and recreate it in a test environment (usually with tools that reproduce the fights and spit it out like SimCraft does). They can then either tweak the instance, the gear (less likely, but has happened), and/or class/spec.

The faster they can turn around class balance issues, the better. Adding to the argument, it's an eSport - sure, I guess I can buy it (I don't watch eSports anyway). In most sports, they don't allow players to completely change out the the fundamentals (unless supported by the game) mid-game. I see no reason this should be any different IF that is their methodology, but I suspect it is not.

It won't be pruning and separation of pvp/pve gear were suppose to do the same thing but they didn't. It not at all I gave you different examples they're going to find some new way to cuck themselves they fucking always do somehow.

[Armourboy]

They are covering this on the livestream now


Quick answer : they view the dungeon as if it was one raid boss and they want you to make the same decision you would on a raid boss. So they want you to make the choice in talents, gear, etc. just like you would a raid boss. Balance will be done around this idea and if the success rate is too low they will adjust.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Another goal post shift. I thought you ran out of them. Pruning of abilities wasn't specifically about PvP (or even M+ as that wasn't even a thing). So, in context, that isn't relevant here either. Indulging your additional movement of goal posts, pruning was actually to address a completely different problem: Ability bloat. More buttons to use than toolbars to use them and needing to have add-ons track what you could/couldn't do was not for the betterment of the game. Their stated goal is that classes should be "easy to play, harder to master". That wasn't about PvP. I know you want it to be, but it really wasn't.

Splitting PvP and PvE gear had a completely different objective than anything else and again isn't part of this thread (nor is it related to the M+ change). That was to increase the ability for players to participate in both/either without additional gear sets for both/either. Was it a good change? I don't know. I haven't really done PvP since vanilla (I'm not a fan of it, but it doesn't bother me if others are). My friends who do both tell me they like it. *shrug* I can't answer that. What I can say is it is not relevant to the context of this M+ thread.

Please stop throwing more irrelevant arguments to the M+ issue. You may have a point, but it isn't valid in this context.

It's fucking not they tried this shit in pvp and it didn't fucking work. Pvp balance is still shit and Pve isn't even balanced. The problem is them not following through on there promises period.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

M+ gear sets != PvP. If you need that spelled out more clearly, Mythic+ gear sets are NOT equal to PvP. They do not equate. Please stop derailing this thread.

I'm starting to not care. They promise balance every expansion and don't deliver that's my point. The problem is that they don't put the effort into to balancing. In a year the game won't be balanced and we'll end up with less choice. I'm 100% confident in this claim.

They split pvp/pve in legion and balance in both is terrible. This is just sacrificing more control in the hopes they we'll balance the game which they constantly fail to deliver on. If they do this time, Ill admit I'm wrong but they we'll probably fuck this up like they always do.

[Tech614]

Funny how many scrubs here applaud this change and critique the amount of "tedious min/maxing", while they probably didn't even run a key over 20. That's all that's wrong with WoW right now, noobs who push their agenda on topics that don't impact them, out of some sort of sad internet activism.

Oh boy you won't be able to show off your "leet skillz" by hitting a gear preset macro every once and while in the dungeon. This literally added jack shit to the game, and did not take any skill to be worthy of being rewarded.

[shaunika123]

"having to press macros is not good gameplay"

ion hazzikostas 2018

[Armourboy]

Yep. That's pretty close to my thought on the subject. They've added color to it being a raid boss equivalency. Fair enough. I tended to do this anyway, but that's the kind of player I am as a rule.

What it translates to is a simple concept: Developer intended use vs Player Use. Sometimes they align. Sometimes they do not. Devs will realign use until it aligns with their design.

Pretty much. There will still be reasons to get extra gear sets, you just will need to make a decision about them before you start.

I think his example was phases on a raid boss. Most of the time you would love to be able to switch sets going from a single target phase to an AOE heavy phase but you can't. So before the fight starts you make those choices about what would be best overall as far as spec, talents, and gear. So basically that is how they are viewing a 5 man now, trash would be your AOE phase, boss more single target, and things like survivability will need to be thought about as well.

[Narzok]

i think the whole one-gear-for-every-situation thing is something blizz did not take serious at all.
looking back at some gear-related "fixes":

Havoc DH full mastery gear with chaos blades on prepull -> change chaos blades to static % instead of mastery
arcane mages using old tier set on prepull for cheap arcane power buff -> disable all tiersets of older expansions.
Rune of Re-Origination and feral (the trinket was one of the best for the rest of the expansion) -> completely disabled the effect for higher lvl players
Convergence of fates for fury warrior -> propably the most nerfed item this expac, still stronger than some of the supposed-to-be-superior choices

seeing how gear changes mainstats since legion (WoD? can' remember) they are pushing the one-fits-all narrative,
while "overlooking" the fact that switching gear yields better results.
and as we know whenever a top-class player does something in a certain way, everyone has to do that or be branded a noob.

regardless of what i personally think of this change, i fear there will be more like this.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Another goal post shift. I thought you ran out of them. Pruning of abilities wasn't specifically about PvP (or even M+ as that wasn't even a thing). So, in context, that isn't relevant here either. Indulging your additional movement of goal posts, pruning was actually to address a completely different problem: Ability bloat. More buttons to use than toolbars to use them and needing to have add-ons track what you could/couldn't do was not for the betterment of the game. Their stated goal is that classes should be "easy to play, harder to master". That wasn't about PvP. I know you want it to be, but it really wasn't.

Splitting PvP and PvE gear had a completely different objective than anything else and again isn't part of this thread (nor is it related to the M+ change). That was to increase the ability for players to participate in both/either without additional gear sets for both/either. Was it a good change? I don't know. I haven't really done PvP since vanilla (I'm not a fan of it, but it doesn't bother me if others are). My friends who do both tell me they like it. *shrug* I can't answer that. What I can say is it is not relevant to the context of this M+ thread.

Please stop throwing more irrelevant arguments to the M+ issue. You may have a point, but it isn't valid in this context.

I know it wasn't just about pvp, I used it as an example. They pruned abilities and separated pvp/pve but balance is still shit. They removed snap shotting, break points and other fun mechanics but balance is still awful the problem is with them and it won't go away with this change.

It wasn't at all we asked them for years to separate both because we'd though it helped balance but it didn't because they find new ways to fuck things up. They've added things like baseline resilience and templates to increase participation. It's not irrelevant if, I'm using it as an example. We've lost a lot of mechanics in the hopes of balance but it never works out. This change won't fix it either the problem is with blizzard because we lose more and more but balance doesn't change.

[HawtFist]

Omg the elusive white knight! What are the chances I'd find one here? What argument is there to be made that hasn't been made? It's a shitty change. Why would anyone want to gear pure single target for an entire dungeon? Why would you want to gear pure aoe? What's fun and engaging about a tank having to wear his pure defensive gear to counter 1 pull, or one boss, for an entire dungeon? Making a macro and setting a gear set isn't a subjective level of difficulty; it's just not difficult. The halftard I've been replying to initially talked about how they can now focus on balancing specs instead of trinkets and gear pieces. Do you believe trinkets and gear pieces are the reason so many specs are dead in the water for higher keys? I'm sure you do, since neither if you seem to have any idea about competitive m+. This change doesn't fix that problem, as your damsel in distress insinuated. There are your examples, since you couldn't be bothered to read the rest of the forum, hero.

I'm not white knighting anyone, I'm a noob at the game and have no idea if this is a good or bad change. I am, however, a professional at arguing. You, however, suck at it. Hopefully someday you'll learn how to have a reasonable argument without making strawmen or ad hominems. Until then I'll occasionally put in the effort to make fun of people like you.

[Heavy Gains]

I'm not white knighting anyone, I'm a noob at the game and have no idea if this is a good or bad change. I am, however, a professional at arguing. You, however, suck at it. Hopefully someday you'll learn how to have a reasonable argument without making strawmen or ad hominems. Until then I'll occasionally put in the effort to make fun of people like you.

Well you admit to being trash at the game so that's step one. I guess I missed your professional arguing skills. All I saw was an idiot level attempt to deflect. The opinions of an LFR player don't really mean much when it comes to high end difficulty content, and a statement from a moron who googled the terms ad hominem and strawman just to repeatedly say, "hurdurr strawmanz hurrdurr ad hominem" despite getting examples relevant to the discussion has even less value. I'm sure that one semester of junior college you took to learn about debate and rhetoric make you feel empowered, but rest assured you're still an idiot and it's on display.

[HawtFist]

Well you admit to being trash at the game so that's step one. I guess I missed your professional arguing skills. All I saw was an idiot level attempt to deflect. The opinions of an LFR player don't really mean much when it comes to high end difficulty content, and a statement from a moron who googled the terms ad hominem and strawman just to repeatedly say, "hurdurr strawmanz hurrdurr ad hominem" despite getting examples relevant to the discussion has even less value. I'm sure that one semester of junior college you took to learn about debate and rhetoric make you feel empowered, but rest assured you're still an idiot and it's on display.

LOL. This BS might work on people similarly situated to you, but I just find the level of effort you're putting into this to be amazing under the circumstances. Don't you have some gear sets to make so you can enjoy swapping them out for the next month or two before that's no longer an option?

[Jyggalag]

That's a completely different point than one I was making but ok... I said collecting gear is part of a role playing game to get rid of it would be stupid just like the massive pruning was dumb idea.

I never said it wasn't

- - - Updated - - -

You're obviously the type of player that isn't in the target audience for competitive m+. If macros and gear sets are too difficult for you stick to your world quests, LFRs and daily heroic dungeons, little one. Don't force tour lack of competitiveness on us by getting together with your shitty troll friends and crying to Big Poppa Bliss on every forum that mentions m+ about how omgdunjunzR2harddddd.

You can tell what sort of player I am by me being able to make an arguement from someone's perspective who doesn't use macros to swap gear in M+? By your own statement i can tell you're the type of player that isn't the target audience for WoW. M+ should be for everyone. The competitive aspect shouldn't be gated behind completing gear sets that allow you to cheese content where most of the best items won't even come from that particular content, and it certainly isn't determined by being able to click a macro if you think that's an indicator of skill then you really have no argument here.

- - - Updated - - -

I agree with your sentiment. But, I think there should be a bit of a delineation here as it will help the discussion.

One group argues that there is skill involved in gear sets.
Another group argues that there is skill in how to play the character.

Here's the rub, both groups are right. That's really not the point of the change. The point of the change is as all restrictions are designed to do: Make everyone play by the same rules. If folks are changing gear mid-instance or between fights, developers have a hell of a time trying to figure out how balance is working on those instances. If you lock everyone to the same rules (not changing gear), the devs can analyze an instance from start to finish and determine from where the issue that they're trying to investigate is originating. Can they do it with multiple gear sets in the dungeon? Sure. Can they do it in a timely fashion, surely not.

When you're using applied diagnostic methodology, you want to remove as many variables as possible. Locking people to the same gear set is not ideal for some - no argument there - but, it is extremely helpful in determining if a player is struggling and shouldn't be (i.e. are the pieces you've come up with shoring up an existing problem for the class or is it an undisclosed/unknown exploit?).

Yeah, it sucks. But, you know what, it is still better in the long-term to do it this way. It may be permanent or it may just be for a set time period so they can do their debugging.

Exactly my argument (what it was supposed to be at least). I can also appreciate the other PoV that it limits player creativity somewhat at the very top end and make for less exciting possibilities.

[MiseryIndex]

Blizzard with the trash changes catering to the trash players who like to wallow in trash, while spewing trash reasoning and trying to justify their trash mentality.

"Stop overreacting! They'll balance around it!!!!". Yeah, just like they balanced specs for mythic plus in legion right? The only people for whom mythic plus was balanced were the ones who did their once a week for cache. You could bring double carries to a 15 and not worry. Try Hyrja on a 23 tyrannical and above without defensive trinkets on a non tanky dps class. Blizz never balanced no matter how skewed demographics were at the 22 and above level, what the fuck makes you think they're going to ace balance in BFA? All this is doing is making it so that the shit tier players don't feel pressured to think about how to approach the dungeon.

[HawtFist]

You can tell what sort of player I am by me being able to make an arguement from someone's perspective who doesn't use macros to swap gear in M+? By your own statement i can tell you're the type of player that isn't the target audience for WoW. M+ should be for everyone. The competitive aspect shouldn't be gated behind completing gear sets that allow you to cheese content where most of the best items won't even come from that particular content, and it certainly isn't determined by being able to click a macro if you think that's an indicator of skill then you really have no argument here.

Look at that above, Heavy Gains. See that? I don't know if Jyggalag is right, but that's a decent argument. Your "argument" just makes people dislike you, whether you are right or not. And because of that, I'm now 90% convinced Jyg is right. 50% from what I do know about the game, and the other 40% because Jyg is coherent and logical, and not just attacking you - though I did enjoy the occasional jab from him or her.

[MiseryIndex]

M+ should be for everyone.

Mythic plus is for everyone. Anyone with a pulse can do a 15, which is the cap for reward scaling. If you think that macros (which you keep bringing up like they hurt you at some point) and gear changes are the reason that higher keys are doable by what you seem to think of as tryhards, then you obviously haven't even attempted to push keys for fun, and maybe should step back for a second and think, "this argument is not for me".

[Eosia]

The main reason to switch, Legendaries, is irrelevant now so the change is fine.

[Jyggalag]

Mythic plus is for everyone. Anyone with a pulse can do a 15, which is the cap for reward scaling. If you think that macros (which you keep bringing up like they hurt you at some point) and gear changes are the reason that higher keys are doable by what you seem to think of as tryhards, then you obviously haven't even attempted to push keys for fun, and maybe should step back for a second and think, "this argument is not for me".

Nope. I never once brought up macros. It was put to me as a counter argument that such a macro added a layer of skill and i disagreed. I've been quoted several times since, just like you have done.
No idea where you're getting that view from that I think M+ min/maxers are tryhards. I'm an avid follower of Drjay and Method PogChamp in general, having raided with Sebsi and spent the entire opening few months of Legion pushing M+ with him. I thoroughly enjoy the M+ scene and can't wait for the invitationals. I've played since Vanilla and raided at world top 30-40 level at 4 nights/week. Can't say i'm a stranger to macros, and can't see how in any way they're in any way an indicator of player skill.