So, item levels are getting spiked for no reason. Again.

[kamuimac]

Isn't this contradictory?

its also a myth perpetuated by people who never moved out from their;s parents basement to justify wasting their lives year after year

people never though "i want to be like him " - people thought " where is this gear from because in content i do it doesnt drop - oh hey its from X - np i dont have time or will to so so i wont get it its ok "

and then come transmog so 99% of people started to think " ok this looks nice gonna wait till next expansion to easily farm up this mog"

at this point there exist a whole subsection of players who never do endgame content and focus solely on farming old transmog - and its ok too.

[Alphatorg]

That's actually not true. Only characters that don't belong to a guild and don't ever post anything in the auction house or don't have a single guildie post anything in the auction house aren't tracked. So maybe 1% aren't tracked.

A timeline would make those numbers even worse. My calculation only shows the max amount of possible subs, not the actual sub count. That means the sub count can only be lower than 2.85 mil.

How do you know how large that group and the number of low level players is?
How do you know that this site is actually accurate? Because they say so?
How do you know how those numbers compare to Legion or WoD?
How do you know how many people play in Asia?

Even if the numbers actually are beyond terrible, how do you know that's because of an ilvl shift that hasn't even been implemented yet?

[kubaje]

proof? I want actual, legitimate proof of exactly what you are saying. and if it is a website which measures such a thing then you better have a damn good one

https://realmpop.com/

There you go. Try to invalidate that data.

[Kumorii]

Not at all.

Time consuming != difficult

Agree with that.
Not sure why someone would think somsone is awesome for spending so much time though. Usually if you think someone is awesome it's because they are good, which it seems in this case that he conflates the two. Hence the confusion.

[FelPlague]

I'll actually show you how bad the situation is.

Theres 5.7 mil lvl 120 characters. Lets say people have 2 max lvl characters on average (even though this number is probably way higher), that makes no more than 2.85 mil subs in EU and NA.

You can deny it and act like this isn't true or just embrace it and try to make it better by giving productive feedback.

except those are shitty numbers that have been proven wrong many times as it misses chardecters and counts charecters multiple times.

[SinR]

Let's go back to the Vanilla days with no catch-up mechanics.

Guild doing AQ40: "Well one of our tanks just quit, i guess we need to run MC and BWL again and gear another newbie up... oh hey we can poach from that other guild struggling to do BWL, maybe convince one of their tanks to join up!"

[kamuimac]

except that you have no idea how many people still play without max level characters and Asia would like to say hello, stop pulling numbers out of your ass you are wrong....let's play Make Believe for a minute that you're not a complete idiot and your numbers are 100% correct, the vast majority of those players are happy and blizzard is making a profit so you can accept it in clay or move along... It's not going to change for you

first of all nobody knows any certain numbers since wowcensus and other tools gather only partial data - for example i have no used AH in months meaning i wont be in this data from this angle . if i didnt group up with people using certain addons i dont exist according to this site.

its flawed method like hell - nobody sane who has basic analysis data would ever use such thing for any serious statistics.

but since forum warriors dont give any fuck about basis of statistics lets spread false rumors because other idiots will belive it since it fits their narration.

[Drewbacca]

I still don’t understand why anyone should give a crap about item level. It’s just a freaking number! I’d be fine with item level 1,000,000. How does this change the game in any meaningful way? Just play the game and ignore the number.

[burek]

People quit at a rate the game hasn't seen before.

That is total bullshit. Wow has reached 100 million players 5 years ago, while never having more than 12 or something million concurrent subs. That means 90 million players have quit the game long time ago, or basically 90% percent of total player base, and all of that happened during those 'glory' days of classic, tbc, wotlk.

[FelPlague]

https://realmpop.com/

There you go. Try to invalidate that data.

it skips Asia servers which weas always included in wow sub count, and is one of the bigger locations.
also these numbers could be entirely made up, it does not show where ANY of its data comes from.

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People quit at a rate the game hasn't seen before. Sub count is down to around 3 mil. That's the most important metric. If many people want to play the game, the game is good. If people quit, it's bad. Can't really argue with that. People won't quit a game that's good.

except you have given 0 numbers on how many are quitting, and how many are playing, you remind me of the guy who lied over and over about how much content he had done and how long he had been subbed

[kubaje]

first of all nobody knows any certain numbers since wowcensus and other tools gather only partial data - for example i have no used AH in months meaning i wont be in this data from this angle . if i didnt group up with people using certain addons i dont exist according to this site.

its flawed method like hell - nobody sane who has basic analysis data would ever use such thing for any serious statistics.

but since forum warriors dont give any fuck about basis of statistics lets spread false rumors because other idiots will belive it since it fits their narration.

What you just said is incredibly dumb. You didn't even read how they gather their data. To not show up you would have to not be in a guild and never use the auction house. How many people are playing WoW in 100% single player mode and the more important question: of what value are those players to the community? they are basically ghosts you don't even know exist.

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it skips Asia servers which weas always included in wow sub count, and is one of the bigger locations.
also these numbers could be entirely made up, it does not show where ANY of its data comes from.

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except you have given 0 numbers on how many are quitting, and how many are playing, you remind me of the guy who lied over and over about how much content he had done and how long he had been subbed

Since you're having a hard time reading:

"How - To get the list of characters for a realm, first we record all the characters who posted to the auction house. Then we fetch and record their guild rosters. This should cover the majority of characters on a realm. To avoid getting listed, a character must never post to the auction house, and never belong to a guild where a guild member posts to the auction house."

[FelPlague]

That is total bullshit. Wow has reached 100 million players 5 years ago, while never having more than 12 or something million concurrent subs. That means 90 million players have quit the game long time ago, or basically 90% percent of total player base, and all of that happened during those 'glory' days of classic, tbc, wotlk.

yep.
12.5
the 100 million players was in 2014
so over 10 years they lost 10 million a year basically.
so yeah, if legion entered with 5 million like everyone has said, and lost 2 people for every 1 person it gained, and this lasted all the way to current year, it would still be better thenthe entire history of wow.

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What you just said is incredibly dumb. You didn't even read how they gather their data. To not show up you would have to not be in a guild and never use the auction house. How many people are playing WoW in 100% single player mode and the more important question: of what value are those players to the community? they are basically ghosts you don't even know exist.

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Since you're having a hard time reading:

"How - To get the list of characters for a realm, first we record all the characters who posted to the auction house. Then we fetch and record their guild rosters. This should cover the majority of characters on a realm. To avoid getting listed, a character must never post to the auction house, and never belong to a guild where a guild member posts to the auction house."

Yes, but they do not allow us to personally search, they do not show us the phsyical perople, so they could literally make up any fucking number they want for the fucks of it without any show of proof.

and again, alot of people are guildless, and alot of people dont post to AH.
also how they even collect this data is fishy... I understand the auction house... but then everyone in their guild? what, how doers that work? the guild API is not connected to the AH in any way...

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Let's go back to the Vanilla days with no catch-up mechanics.

Guild doing AQ40: "Well one of our tanks just quit, i guess we need to run MC and BWL again and gear another newbie up... oh hey we can poach from that other guild struggling to do BWL, maybe convince one of their tanks to join up!"

or just "We get our backup tank to tank for abit while we carry this new tank through blackwing lair and the AQ bosses we have on farm, maybe craft em a few pieces."

[Kumorii]

and again, alot of people are guildless, and alot of people dont post to AH.
also how they even collect this data is fishy... I understand the auction house... but then everyone in their guild? what, how doers that work? the guild API is not connected to the AH in any way...

Get player from AH, Get players guild, Get roster of guild.

I imagine it goes like that. BUt yeah, I wish the site gave a more in-depth look on the process rather than, "we just grab people from API and here's number".

[kubaje]

yep.
12.5
the 100 million players was in 2014
so over 10 years they lost 10 million a year basically.
so yeah, if legion entered with 5 million like everyone has said, and lost 2 people for every 1 person it gained, and this lasted all the way to current year, it would still be better thenthe entire history of wow.

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Yes, but they do not allow us to personally search, they do not show us the phsyical perople, so they could literally make up any fucking number they want for the fucks of it without any show of proof.

and again, alot of people are guildless, and alot of people dont post to AH.
also how they even collect this data is fishy... I understand the auction house... but then everyone in their guild? what, how doers that work? the guild API is not connected to the AH in any way...

Dude, that's really not that hard to understand. They check the AH. If you posted something, they also check your guilds roster and all characters, including your, get into their data base. Same happens for your guildmates. They post, your guilds roster is checked, your character gets into their data base. Really fishy. Just fucking take off that tinfoil hat.

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it skips Asia servers which weas always included in wow sub count, and is one of the bigger locations.
also these numbers could be entirely made up, it does not show where ANY of its data comes from.

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except you have given 0 numbers on how many are quitting, and how many are playing, you remind me of the guy who lied over and over about how much content he had done and how long he had been subbed

You do realise that this would lower the number of possible subs even further, right? Do you actually even understand basic maths?

[cparle87]

Sorta? People have foggy memories about Sunwell badge gear. It only existed for three or four slots. You couldnt just completely gear a toon that way (well, you could, but youd have a weird mix of iLevels - mostly of the base badge gear level, 2-3 pieces of the T5 equivalent, and 2-3 pieces of Sunwell/T6 - and no weapon better than a dungeon blue unless you were a fee very specific specs that could get drops from a Heroic or you ground your face into Thrallmar rep (or the Alliance equiv) for a Heroic-level caster weapon).

It was NOTHING like what we have now.

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Not really. You just need to not have giant iLevel leaps. Vanilla-LK we only went through 264 iLevels. Because there werent massive iLevel gains from tier to tier. It made going back to do older content completely viable, because sometimes a weapon, or other item was better for a certain spec or class than a “current tier” item because of a proc, better stat allocation, etc... because it was only 13 iLevels different, not 60.

Thing is if we introduced something like that we'd simply have a repeat of Legion. Only the hardcores would be interested in running old raids after new ones are out for a chance at an upgrade, and yet they'd bellyache every moment of the day for being "forced" to run old content to remain "competative". Remember things like Usroc's trinket from EN? Folks were running EN until the end of NH hoping for a good tforge that would make it better than many current trinks.

[Touchthereaper]

The problem is that we're back at square one. Our item level has increased but so has the hp of the old mobs.

By increasing everything by 30% they're effectively item level scaling the entire game. Patch 8.1 is effectively patch 8.0 timewalking, patch 8.2 is effectively patch 8.1 timewalking, patch 8.3 is effectively patcg 8.2 timewalking, etc. It gets to a situation where you just go "what's the point?".

Compare that to previous expansions where there was none of this scaling. It was fun overpowering old content. You saw a tangible result from all your progression. Now? The feel of everything is going to be the same as it was day 1 of progression, with the same content. It's like all my progression so far led to no tangible difference in gameplay. Not my cup of tea.

This is such a joke, I've played the PTR and equipped all of the gear. At 415 Ilvl the mobs die so fast. I was having to pull mobs with lightning bolt because my Lava Burst and Flame shock were not even half off cd. Don't "assume" anything, the scaling is not a 1:1 ratio. Try going back and reading the actual information before you say something as dumb as this in the future.

[Axxil]

Nobody is saying stat values didnt increase with each raid...

We just didn't have these ridiculous catch up systems. In Vanilla and TBC you had to progress through the previous content in order to gear up and earn the right to do new content. We had some small catch up stuff at end of TBC but nothing even close to todays standard and it didn't negate old content in the gearing path, guilds were still progressing through SSC and TK at the end of TBC. What is the point in raising the entire item level of the game by 30? All it does is negate Uldir and allow easier access to Dazar’alor. What's the point?

The gear treadmill is just so obvious these days, it breaks all RPG elements of the game to be a dungeon on Tuesday getting 325 gear and then logging in on Wednesday and suddenly it's dropping 340 gear and the difficulty has scaled up... they should be making new dungeons with higher item level drops, enough with this scaling bullshit.

Catch up makes the game better. Otherwise new players would never find groups.

[Fabinas1]

BLOODVINE? YOU MEAN THE BIS TILL AQ? LOLOL
and alot of the replacements for bloodvine were very far in AQ. but sure lets take a look online hmmmmm

weird that this vanilla guide has vloodvine in the tp 2 or top 1 in every slot it fills, and with its set bonus in consideration is the top choice for every slot
(this is a "top BIS zul gurub patch" set.

You're quoting a spreadsheet with info from a private server? Guess we won't need to talk anymore. Noone in their right mind used that gear back in the day.

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New warfront cannot be compared to a new dungeon? lol ok i mean, i can literally afk in dungeons, and solo all dungeons right now, but ok, they are actual content while warfronts are not.
but if warfronts are not content and dungeons are not, but you dont want dungeons to scale, how are they even worth mentioning if you rather 1 week in have them be entirely useless?
How many new world quests? about 120 ish new world quests
yes the about 3 hour war campaign along side the intro to darkshore quest line that was about a total of 1 hour 30 minutes.
no, but you seem to be crying about how you want new content, for... some...reason, what does that have to do with ilvl increasing?


and yes, it did, legion very much went that far, are you fucking crazy? it did literally the exact same thing. mythic plus in legion was on level and in some cases EVEN HIGHER then mythic gear.

So, the rest 4 people in the dungeon keep you and don't kick you when you afk? SPECIAL!
You're considering content an afk loot piniata every 2 weeks. Yes, thank god it exists, i'll sub right now! Thank you for opening my eyes for such engaging and fun content!

Need the quote for the 120 new world quests, else you just farted that number out of your back orifice. And even if so, it's not worth to wait for them to spawn for me so i can play them as "new content"

Legion didn't raise NORMAL, HEROIC and MYTHIC0 ilvl dungeon rewards. 8.1 did and it's a first low for Blizzard.

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You are purposely distracting from the argument and I don't believe you unless you are talking about AQ20. Guilds with AQ40 on farm would have people in full T1/T2 flooding their forums with applications so why the fuck would they accept a pleb in crafted blues and greens.

Regardless - in Vanilla/TBC all the raids stayed relevant from start to finish. In BFA the previous raid tier is negated as soon as a new one comes out and the entire game moves up in item level, leaving that content in the dust. Which is dumb.

Exactly. Back in the day, noone crafted ZG gear for AQ40. AQ20 had some upgrades from BWL.

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Darkshore wb and wf quest will have 400(?) as their rewards, open world stuff 385. Get some titanforges to that 385 and you're above 400 in no time. I really don't know why you're so stubborn.

He is not stubborn. That's a character trait. He has a compulsive disorder that, if i type it, i'll get an infraction (because mods are so sensitive...). The disorder was admitted by the same person it concerns, it's not my opinion.

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I still don’t understand why anyone should give a crap about item level. It’s just a freaking number! I’d be fine with item level 1,000,000. How does this change the game in any meaningful way? Just play the game and ignore the number.

It reflects (or it should) power character and progression. But not anymore since you can get heroic raid ilvl from warfronts, a literal afk loot distributor.

[Forogil]

You don't necessarily aspire to be the one to do hard content. Exclusivity creates Desire. Vanilla content wasn't difficult by any means. You saw people with Naxx or Sunwell Items in the capital cities and had one of two possible thoughts. Either "wow this guy is awesome, i really want to be like him" or "wow he has to have no life to have those items".

Ehmm… No, many didn't notice - and cared even less.

I actually remember that I did notice the gear of just one player in Shattrath (during TBC); and none before that.
Yes, only one - and that was a troll called Rotgut.

Was he wearing dungeon items?
Was he wearing arena weapons?
Was he wearing T4?
Was he wearing T5?
Was he wearing T6?
Was he wearing SWP-gear items?

The correct answer is none of the above.

[Pua]

So I'll have to form my own hypothesis based on what you've said thus far and the common themes that crop up here regularly (and please correct me if I've got it all wrong):

My apologies for crap responding, my family and I are currently moving home which is eating up the majority of my time.

I’ll get to it tomorrow, though, as your post is one I enjoyed. Most of the other quotes of my post are mindless drivel that make no attempt to understand a view that differs, so they’re easy to ignore.

My apologies again.