Preach on the broken gear treadmill

[ShadeknightX]

Its funny how many people claim he is just doing it for that sweet sweet youtube money, considering that his videos are demonetized.

Yeah....out of curiosity, when was the last time he made that claim, the whole demonetization thing...I find it funny how conditioned some of these comebacks are....

Last time I was following him he kept getting that issue on every video a few times, and he was only doing like 10-15 min tdp rant videos every now and then, incidentally it was near him and Ghosty splitting.

Now he is putting in effort and time making 20-30+ min videos every few days or once a week.

He isn't some WoW saint doing it for the greater good of wow players.....

[Donald Hellscream]

Yeah....out of curiosity, when was the last time he made that claim, the whole demonetization thing...I find it funny how conditioned some of these comebacks are....

Last time I was following him he kept getting that issue on every video a few times, and he was only doing like 10-15 min tdp rant videos every now and then, incidentally it was near him and Ghosty splitting.

Now he is putting in effort and time making 20-30+ min videos every few days or once a week.

He isn't some WoW saint doing it for the greater good of wow players.....

He is funded entirely through patreon since his content really isn't advertiser friendly.

[Kaver]

I'm in the same situation, it just doesn't feel satisfying and there's definitely no point in putting in more effort.

All I want is for the effort to match the reward and for catch-up mechanics to only get you so far. Normal BFD should be what you catch up to so normal Uldir gear should be the level of gear I get. Getting mythic Uldir gear just feels demotivating.

Exactly. And there is no need for a player who does heroic raiding and +10 keystones to run around in 410+ ilvl gear. It has no purpose. The player is only outgearing the content appropriate for him which makes the experience he has boring and meaningless.

[ShadeknightX]

He is funded entirely through patreon since his content really isn't advertiser friendly.

Well that doesn't clear up my specific question, it just adds another "Cynical" approach, pardon me...

So you are saying that he doesn't make money of youtube, but makes money of patreons, in essence people who could and do drive the possible narrative and approach of these videos....Bus 101, keep them happy, keep the money flowing?.....isn't that a WORSE argument on his behalf

I am sorry, but the cynical part of me, from being around so long on the internet.

[Zantera]

His latest video is kinda a sad reflection of the state of human kind in 2019. He makes a video discussing issues he sees with a game he's been playing for 13 years to get a conversation going and then the feedback to that is people making fun of him and throwing toxic insults, talking about how he's only doing it for XYZ reason, people diving into a "classic VS current" discussion and the few who actually get into the discussion are either defensive, toxic or answer something like "it is what it is".

Personally I'm a bit conflicted on the topic as I think the current system has both positives and negatives. I started in TBC and honestly I was never a fan of the JP/VP system. To me, buying a piece of item from a vendor just felt like the lowest level of hype for a new piece of loot. People say RNG this RNG that but I'm still feeling a little bit of excitement before opening my weekly chest, even though in many cases it's not an upgrade. Buying a new piece of Azerite gear from the vendor.. not so much. I mean sure, an upgrade is an upgrade but it doesn't feel as "earned" to me.

If they ever were to reintroduce VP/JP (which I don't hope for) I would definitely prefer if we used it to upgrade current loot so it was more like a titanforged (kinda like in MoP) than buying gear for it. I think WotLK was probably the worst when it came to that, I know TBC had it too, when you could buy raid equivalent gear from currency. Yes I know it wasn't every gear slot, but it was still pretty unsatisfying IMO.

[orochimaru22]

i would just remove the item level

[MrLachyG]

I think he's touching on a very important subject. With how the reward structure is set up right now it means that there's really no incentive for anyone to replay the content and progress their character after seeing the content, regardless of at what level you play the game it'll all be completely reset after 3 months anyway.

Here's how I would fix it (spoiler: it's linear):

• Normal/Heroic dungeons are removed, only mythic and mythic+ remain. They always drop the same iLvl loot regardless of it being a +1 or a +10, HOWEVER at the start of each reset you get a number of upgrade tokens based on your highest completed key with which you can upgrade the gear you got from the previous week to heroic raid quality. For example 1-6 could award you one token, 7-9 two tokens and 10+ three tokens.
• Remove titanforging and instead reduce the amount of loot we get from various sources in order to make the things we do get feel more meaningful. In a perfect system you'd get all the gear you want from your raid difficulty of choice a couple of weeks before the next raid comes out (on average).
• Valor points and honor points are re-added to the game and and have a cap that should net you one piece of gear per week (two pieces if you cap out both valor and honor). Honor vendors also sell upgrade tokens that cost as much as a piece of gear, you can use those to upgrade your gear to heroic raid item levels.

These things ensure that you have a meaningful and rewarding progression path through gear that isn't instantly invalidated when a new season starts. The base dungeon gear increases every season, that's your catch-up method to get you in to normal raiding. There is no overlap in difficulties and with titanforging gone there's no reason to start off a new season by clearing or split running a difficulty that's trivial to you because of upgrades. Normal mode raiders continue progressing normal from day one, heroic raiders continue with heroic and so on.

This is your second thread on this topic within the last 2 months. Getting old dude, move on. I don’t get why people are still upset that people, mostly casuals, have similar gear to the hardcore players? Does it somehow affect the hardcore player base? No, not in the slightest. It actually helps, makes it way easier to gear up alts for mythic progression. So who does it actually affect?

[Lillemus]

I believe that one of his main points, especially in the "reading the thread" video was actually asking the very question of "do casuals truly benefit from this system?" He claims that he was being messaged by various "casual" players who aren't exactly thrilled with this new system either and I can certainly see that. Some people, however, assume that every "casual" has to love this new approach.

There's a big difference between catchup mechanics - thus allowing people to tackle the newest content without months of grinding - and what we have now. Preach is very much for the former and even if he wasn't, he realizes it's pretty much impossible to remove it from the game at this point. There are some people who advocate this, but it's usually the "well, back in Vanilla..." types. They'll have Classic soon - and some of them are quite bitter toward retail, so their opinions are heavily biased.

There aren't any real statistics about people truly benefitting from this system. Oh sure, we do get numbers, but it's the usual forum guesswork, with "1% Mythic raiders, 99% everyone else", which is largely meaningless. Blizzard never reveals such data, we are merely guessing and have no idea to know how it really works. It's quite possible that the % spread is completely different, with people only caring about achievements, pet battles, transmogs, PvP and so on. Unfortunately, the thread was - at times - about "these damn elitists" and "they are hurting The Casuals". We had the self-proclaimed Defenders of Casuals commenting in the same tone, completely misrepresenting Preach' points and very few actual "casuals" posting ... with (almost?) none of them explaining the true joy they (supposedly) get from this system.

But that's how it always goes with threads about the guy. In some people's mind, he's a mythic raider = he's the enemy, regardless of what he actually says. There's no possible way his viewpoint could be anything other than elitist and that's how they're going to "discuss" it. I honestly am surprised he spent 3+ hours browsing this thread, what a waste of time.

Just to clarify, I never meant that last paragraph as saying that casuals asked for or indeed appreciate this seasonal approach, it was more the idea that what I consider "casual" is something closer to the more average player rather than someone who exclusively (or almost) plays WoW. And as I said the current "video game meta" is very much based around seasons across a number of genres, so to me it sort of makes sense that they are trying out this seasonal approach, even though I agree with the sentiment that this is not an positive approach to a MMO.
Personally when I leveled/geared up I was surprised at how quickly everything went and how quickly I was able to jump into Mythic+ and HC/Mythic raiding and I certainly wouldn't describe the experience as positive.
So overall I am not disagreeing with his stance that season approach isn't good, it's more the fact that he attributes this change to a certain subsection of players which I personally believe is very much a minority (Depending on the definition of "Bads").

[Zantera]

This is your second thread on this topic within the last 2 months. Getting old dude, move on. I don’t get why people are still upset that people, mostly casuals, have similar gear to the hardcore players? Does it somehow affect the hardcore player base? No, not in the slightest. It actually helps, makes it way easier to gear up alts for mythic progression. So who does it actually affect?

I don't think of it this way myself but I know some (a lot) of people seem to view the gear the same way I would look at progress. It's the thing separating a great player from a mediocre player. For me personally, I don't mind that some casual guy who is HC raider and has only done a +10 key depleted at best has 5-10 ilvls less than me as a mythic raider who's doing higher keys in time, because for me the progress is what matters. But there's definitely people who don't care as much about mythic progress or raider.io score and they look at the ilvl and thats why they dislike how it works now.

[Echocho]

This is your second thread on this topic within the last 2 months. Getting old dude, move on. I don’t get why people are still upset that people, mostly casuals, have similar gear to the hardcore players? Does it somehow affect the hardcore player base? No, not in the slightest. It actually helps, makes it way easier to gear up alts for mythic progression. So who does it actually affect?

It's the complete opposite. Me, a CASUAL player want less high quality loot for doing almost nothing. It doesn't feel good to be rewarded with things you didn't earn.

I couldn't give two shits about what mythic raiders are getting, I just want a reward structure for my level of play that actually makes sense.

I don't put much effort into the game anymore, I shouldn't be over rewarded for that.

[Chillside]

It's the complete opposite. Me, a CASUAL player want less high quality loot for doing almost nothing. It doesn't feel good to be rewarded with things you didn't earn.

I couldn't give two shits about what mythic raiders are getting, I just want a reward structure for my level of play that actually makes sense.

I don't put much effort into the game anymore, I shouldn't be over rewarded for that.

[Redroniksre]

Creating exclusive rewards from mythic raiding doesnt hurt anyone except entilted 40y old dudes with 12y old mind what have 6 kids and feeling he should have everthing in the game no matter of time and effort.

Atleast Blizzard could remove mythic items, mounts,etc.. from the game when content is absolote so it keeps its value. But whats the point of giving mythic only mount when i can solo farm hom next expanaion.

Do you know what is most badass lokking gear with actual valu? It is mop challenge mod set + mage tower weapon skins. Do you know why? Becouse you can no longer get thos items like ever. Mythic need exclusivity. Extra mythic boss, unique set for completing mythic, unique spell animations or w/e.

Mythic raiders already keep their unique looking tier for a year and a half/two years. Not to mention the mounts drop down to 1% drop rate so in reality they are still very rare. Things don't need to be gone from the game to be considered a rarity. And yes creating exclusive rewards can actually hurt the rest, given it takes resources and time from more widely accessible things.

[Redsnow612]

I preferred cata and MOP the most in terms of gearing. I just don’t think having something to do at all times to progress your character is a good model it feels like there’s no end goal. The fact that gearing is even more RNG now with TF and WF just makes it worse. In cata once I was done with the content I was done with it unless I was doing it on an alt. Raid nights for the first month and a half were just normal mode dragon soul, once we cleared that it took us another 2 months or so to get down heroic. I didn’t have to log in everyday and spam dungeons I’ve already run 50 times. those dungeons still had a purpose because people still cared about alts so they would still get run by anyone who didn’t have a team to carry them through raids. I know there are people that like the current gear system it’s just not my cup of tea and I think it promotes an ever inflating I level economy that pretty much forces you to play every day or you fall so far behind that it’s almost pointless to come back to the game until the next patch.

[Kaesebrezen]

There's a big difference between catchup mechanics - thus allowing people to tackle the newest content without months of grinding - and what we have now.

Catchups have to be fast. That's their only requirement.

If you go back to WoD, recruitment was an abhorrent nightmare. You had the majority of guilds being your catchup farms. They spent several weeks gearing up players, just to have geared players poached the guilds at top which are actually progressing. In the past you started at the bottom and had to work your way up, but such an approach only works if you have a steady stream of new players entering at the button. WoW doesn't have that.

You also can't have a gear progression that takes several weeks to a few months in a world where a raid tier only last 5-6 months. Even back in BC, going back to Black Temple to gear up new players for Sunwell wasn't a fun task.

What people in this thread, and also Preach, should be asking is why do we have the system we have now? What problems did the previous system have?
For whom was the previous system actually a problem?

[Poppincaps]

So Blizzard introduced Titanforging to incentivize players to continue to raid even after they've clear all the content so that they could always have a chance of getting better gear, but they also created a system where if we look at Uldir, the max titanforge was 395 and Heroic BoD dropped 400, so most people would end up replacing even the best gear incredibly quickly. So, really you're just getting better gear... to kill the bosses you've already killed faster and maybe kill the first few bosses, which are always easy, a bit easier too? Seems like a complete waste of time. So yes, the treadmill is absolutely broken. I don't see how you could argue otherwise.

The ability to spam Mythic+ and get Heroic quality loot also exacerbates this problem. Overall, they are increasing the power of loot per tier too much and giving us too much loot as well.

[justandulas]

Mythic raiders already keep their unique looking tier for a year and a half/two years. Not to mention the mounts drop down to 1% drop rate so in reality they are still very rare. Things don't need to be gone from the game to be considered a rarity. And yes creating exclusive rewards can actually hurt the rest, given it takes resources and time from more widely accessible things.

What tier? Secondly, the gear is replaced nearly the first week of new raid in BFA.

Also, mounts and pets are no longer worthwhile rewards to justify the time jump and effort from heroic to mythic.

Give real incentives such as.... A wing of the raid that only shows up in Mythic. Certain items only dropping on certain difficulties (higher you go, the more loot table opens up), or the only legendary in the expac dropping off mythic jaina, etc. Real, tangible rewards that have meaning and won't be replaced 3 months from now.

Mounts aren't really worthwhile rewards anymore (unless they added affects to them like dragons having aoe breath) because we have HUNDREDS of them. The pool is so deluded that i honestly haven't even rode the last 20 mounts i earned in game. They don't mean much anymore compared to back in the day. To make matters worse, the best mounts of the expac are all store bought so... there's that.

[crono14]

There are smarter people than him. You should not listen any idiot that is on you tube. His name fits his story - Preaching nostalgic bullshit that no one wants except nostalgic players. Luckily, not everyone is nostalgic.

At least he cares enough to suggest possible alternatives to a problem more than just a minority of people have. Instead of logging into some forums and calling people out like you are doing, he is at least trying to be constructive and provide valid feedback.

[Nasuuna]

It's the complete opposite. Me, a CASUAL player want less high quality loot for doing almost nothing. It doesn't feel good to be rewarded with things you didn't earn.

I couldn't give two shits about what mythic raiders are getting, I just want a reward structure for my level of play that actually makes sense.

I don't put much effort into the game anymore, I shouldn't be over rewarded for that.

I got insulted for saying I didn't earn 400ilvl on my monk, doing like, 2 +10s and 1 7 boss clear of BoD.

[justandulas]

I got insulted for saying I didn't earn 400ilvl on my monk, doing like, 2 +10s and 1 7 boss clear of BoD.

There are just two schools of WoW currently, and neither is right/wrong and there's room for ALL of us in WoW. There's the crowd of WoW players who prefer a slower paced RPG style of WoW where gearing is slower, but means more.

Then there's the other school of WoW players who prefer it like it is now with Diablo 3 loot systems everywhere and a more 'seasonal' approach to gearing up. To each their own.

As for suggestions to fix the current loot treadmill; it's hard because once that genie is out of the bottle it's nearly impossible to put back in.

My suggestion: Keep all the raid difficulties as is, maybe separate the ilvls a bit more, but change the loot tables so that certain pieces only drop on X difficulty, so that the higher you move up in difficulty the more items become available as drops, cultimating at the top with a single legendary off the last boss in mythic each tier.

[Puremallace]

Original post

Since Preach asked for this feedback. Here is my current impression of the game as someone who just came back and leveled from scratch. You have walls that Blizzard puts up, the community puts up and wall created by difficulty.

After TBC when they removed attunements and effectively nerfed raids to be casual friendly the community started to step in where they felt Blizzard was failing. It started with achievements and then morphed into gear score. I was there and saw how it was destabalizing servers and saw people quiting in droves who were excluded from content.

The response to raiders who wanted hard content was the Mythic difficulty wall. Preach has complained about this but fails to mention this wall was specifically put there for guys like him. Not all guilds were supposed to see it but this is poorly communicated by Blizzard. I specifically remember patch notes that were pages and page long of nerfs that I no longer see. It was normal to see Heroic raids beat with a nerf bat.

This was normal. All seasons are is moving the below curve. That is all Blizzard does nothing more and nothing less. They decide where they want a majority of the community to be and move the curve there. The community on the other hand responded with Raider IO where the curve does not move. It is a set score that last an entire season and is based on time.

All I see is the same gear treadmill but with more people intervening to either make it easier like Blizzard or harder such as the community. In Vanilla and TBC the one wall was the raid itself with Attunements, resist, gold requirements to respec and raid size.

Things like Titanforge and Warforge throw a wrench into the below system. It takes someone who is unguilded and throws them a piece of 415 loot and sets the expectation that this is normal. In reality that 415 gear would come from you joining a guild and doing Mythic raiding.

Get rid of Warforge or Titanforge that wall is hard and you do not get over it unless you run with a guild. This system has killed more guilds then it has helped in a very backwards way. It has led people to think they no longer need guilds to get over these walls.

Preach the reason you will see noone say anything positive about this system is because of the below walls. You can be wearing all 400 ilvl from Titanforges but if you do not have the correct Raider IO then you are rarely going to pug a +10. You can be wearing all 425 lvl Titanforged gear somehow but if you do not execute mechanics you are not Mythic raiding. Skill is the current gauge used by the community while Blizzard still thinks gear is the cookie. It is but not NEARLY to the extent it has been used as a carrot.