Blizzard invalidating content once again

[psiko74]

im just going to sub for last patch of the expansion from now on.

[Minikin]

Except there's two issues with that.

First off, an M+10 isn't exactly "easy". Maybe to a player like you and I, sure it's quick and simple to fit in.

But consider how far your average player will get in those. Hell, go check guilds with casual players and see how many M+10s they've done. I'm sure you'll quickly see a lot seem to just drop off near the 6-8 range.

Second off, an M+10 itself only drops 400, and you have to hope that it actually titanforges or warforges higher, which isn't extremely common like people want to think. Which also includes that weapons at most can only go up to 410 from M+, and M+ can't drop azerite gear.

Hitting 400 isn't difficult with effort. Getting to 410 isn't as easy as you think. And you can't really claim it is if you haven't even reached there.

You are right. Given that I haven't actually gotten 410 I can't say much on it. But at the same time if instead of me queueing for a 10 I just log on for a heroic pug (there are so many) get me that 410? Which is not that far no?

[Granyala]

It's an RPG, the major part of an RPG is gearing and making your character better

Yes that is fun but only if you actually do content that requires said power level. Seeing a boss die more easily that once gave your group a hard time sure is satisfying in it's own way. More so if the tactics run fluently and flawlessly than bruteforce overgearing it, if you ask me.

If I don't raid though, why put work into my char? World mobs evaporate when I merely look at them angrily anyway. There is no point in dumping in all that time, esp not when I know that the acquisition of, e.g. artifact power will be nerfed into oblivion come next patch.

[Benedictu]

Well that is why you don't raid for the purplz.
You raid because you like your team and find tackling challenges fun.
Gear is merely a tool you need to be ready for the next boss and, if it looks good (rare in recent years) that's a nice bonus.

I think all of that is true. However, in practice, most raiders don't think like this in Everquest/WoW-style MMOs. Everyone wants to be the best. The best gear, the best stats, etc. A lot of this is due to ranking metrics like dps and healing meters that pretty much all raiders use. You want to get that extra 5ivl upgrade so maybe next week you'll edge out Bob the Mage. This is why people cry and cry and cry about dps class imbalance every xpac because there's a .2% difference in dps sims of so and so class.

Of course there are plenty of people who genuinely don't care about gear much and just raid for raiding's sake, but I don't think that's the norm.

[MoanaLisa]

im just going to sub for last patch of the expansion from now on.

It's a decent strategy and one that I'm sure a lot of players follow. They they stick around for the release of the next expansion, level up and leave soon after. It's very sensible. As long as people buy the next expansion I'm pretty sure that Blizzard is OK with that.

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Of course there are plenty of people who genuinely don't care about gear much and just raid for raiding's sake, but I don't think that's the norm.

Many of those are in LFR now.

[Onikaroshi]

Yes that is fun but only if you actually do content that requires said power level. Seeing a boss die more easily that once gave your group a hard time sure is satisfying in it's own way. More so if the tactics run fluently and flawlessly than bruteforce overgearing it, if you ask me.

If I don't raid though, why put work into my char? World mobs evaporate when I merely look at them angrily anyway. There is no point in dumping in all that time, esp not when I know that the acquisition of, e.g. artifact power will be nerfed into oblivion come next patch.

I mean, your second point is why I quit, I love getting purples but I love using the purples, so...... BfA kinda was like "you can get all the purples from not doing anything at all!" and I was like... what's the point of putting the extra work in to raid then....

And I don't do mythic, never been a fan of large group raiding as a raid leader.

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It's a decent strategy and one that I'm sure a lot of players follow. They they stick around for the release of the next expansion, level up and leave soon after. It's very sensible. As long as people buy the next expansion I'm pretty sure that Blizzard is OK with that.

If Blizzard was OK with that everything in the game wouldn't be RNG and time gating.

[Kralljin]

Many of those are in LFR now.

LFR?

No one gives a shit about LFR anymore.

I ran once with my character LFR - then i didn't need any more gear from it, because both Invasion, Emissaries, World quests (thanks Titanforging) and most importantly M+0 brought me above 370.

LFR is an entirely optional thing to gear yourself even if you have no friends at all that carry you.

[Soisoisoi]

This is why raider.io needs to go, because a healthy and thriving game needs to encourage people to help new players. The game doesn't need selfish efficiency whores who play purely to improve their own character, stand on the backs of others' work, and put others down.

You realise you're describing people who DON'T put the effort in with that comment, whilst at the same time expecting people who DO put the effort in to carry them... Right?

If you want people to work together and help each other then both halves have to put effort in and I think people more on the lower end seem to forget that part. You can't expect those who aim high to drag the rest along with them and call them "selfish efficiency whores". That's the entire point of the system, to filter out those who either aren't putting in effort or simply aren't capable, in a much quicker and faster way. It's not perfect but it's better than nothing. I agree with your sentiment, but the execution requires input on both sides or it is never equal.

On the topic of helping people, the majority of people (in my experience, and others posting here from reading comments), those who NEED help are the ones most likely to spit in your face when you try to help. Offering advice has become "offensive", "elitist" etc, because people like you seem to think people are "efficiency whores" because they are simply better at the game than them and put in effort to be as such.

[lordjust]

Emissaries won't immediatly drop ilvl395/400. It will still increase by 5 ilvl above what you currently have. If you're 385 (current maximum of emissary) now, with the next reset your max from emissary will be 390. After hitting 390 your max will be 395 and after 395 azerite gear will go up to 400. Doing mythic+ and raids will still be faster especially because not every emissary gives you gear and if it does it's either normal gear, azerite gear or if it's the tortollan one a ring or trinket. Also ilvl isn't everything. The emissary gear isn't that good especially the azerite gear is bad because of the azerite traits.

[Granyala]

I think all of that is true. However, in practice, most raiders don't think like this in Everquest/WoW-style MMOs. Everyone wants to be the best. The best gear, the best stats, etc.

Yeah, sadly that is the most common mindset.
Guess who does the most drama / worst attendance when there is the necessity to choose between progress and lootz? >.<

[MoanaLisa]

If Blizzard was OK with that everything in the game wouldn't be RNG and time gating.

Sure it would. The two things are not mutually contradictory. As a business Blizzard would like for you to stay around. If you aren't interested in being there for the long haul of an expansion, Blizzard would at least appreciate it if you come back. The simple proof of that--and this is undeniable--is that they make it very, very simple for anyone to play 1 month a year, 2 months or whatever. You can return easily and pick up where you left off.

[Taeldorian]

Blizzard has been going down this rabbit hole for years starting with Wrath. It will be interesting to see what changes they make next Xpac and what gear sources they cut or lower. They've already opened Pandora's Box and they can't close it now.

I don't really know the solution. If they cut certain gear sources, people who enjoy doing that content for gear will quit. They're not going to be able to strongarm everyone back into doing raiding and mythic+ for gear that is the most powerful by a large margin.

One possible bandage could be going back to designing amazing-looking tier sets and making them only drop in the more challenging content (PVP and PVE). There are other ways to make people who do challenging content feel rewarded and accomplished than just ilvl.

Yeah I fully agree. Honestly I’ve been thinking about cosmetic rewards for a while. Cosmetic seasonal rewards for PVE (PvP already has a seasonal mount, armor set, title, etc) would be nice. Like maybe a mount for mythic and a title for heroic, mythic+ could get a mount for completing all 15s on time or something. Obviously brainstorming but this would definitely help.

You’d get a lot of people crying about how these rewards are mythic only or heroic only and they “cant” possibly get them like we had with challenge modes but I think that’s fine. Better than removing 1 specific gear source that would cause them to outright quit.

[munkeyinorbit]

Well my warrior is 381 abd i dinged lvl 120 2 weeks ago. I didnt do single dungeon or even LFR raid yet.

You are right. You are mythic geared after 2 weeks. Oh no your not. Your not even normal geared. Maybe after this change you will be mythic geared. Let me know in a couple of days.

[Granyala]

I mean, your second point is why I quit, I love getting purples but I love using the purples, so...... BfA kinda was like "you can get all the purples from not doing anything at all!" and I was like... what's the point of putting the extra work in to raid then....

And I don't do mythic, never been a fan of large group raiding as a raid leader.

Totally understandable, I think, for me, the quick progression / hard nerfs also were a major motivation killer when it comes to the toleance of "putting in work to get stuff" (esp, since that work usually means "braindead and super boring grind" like badge grinding or WQ farming.

It actually hits non raiders far harder than raiders, because raiders raid and get their gear anyway. When I raided, I never even cared what happened in the "non raid department" because automatically my gear was already way ahead of any welfares they got tossed.

You don't know what you missed. Man I loved 25man raiding in the olden days. I do understand that it gets very taxing when you are in a leading position.

[Onikaroshi]

Sure it would. The two things are not mutually contradictory. As a business Blizzard would like for you to stay around. If you aren't interested in being there for the long haul of an expansion, Blizzard would at least appreciate it if you come back. The simple proof of that--and this is undeniable--is that they make it very, very simple for anyone to play 1 month a year, 2 months or whatever. You can return easily and pick up where you left off.

I mean, you have other games that DON'T do that that do just fine. Open the story from day one, don't time gate everything into existence, don't time lock their LFR for 2 months, don't have RNG on top of RNG. People have been putting up with it in wow for a long time but it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Who thought the 7.2 "story" was a good idea? Why can't you do LFR off the bat?

They need to accept that subs are cyclical and stop trying to force it.

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Totally understandable, I think, for me, the quick progression / hard nerfs also were a major motivation killer when it comes to the toleance of "putting in work to get stuff" (esp, since that work usually means "braindead and super boring grind" like badge grinding or WQ farming.

It actually hits non raiders far harder than raiders, because raiders raid and get their gear anyway. When I raided, I never even cared what happened in the "non raid department" because automatically my gear was already way ahead of any welfares they got tossed.

You don't know what you missed. Man I loved 25man raiding in the olden days. I do understand that it gets very taxing when you are in a leading position.

I used to when it was required. I 40 man raided in vanilla, and 25 man raided until Cata, but I much preferred the 10 man raid style after that, you got to know everyone and it was much more tight knit.

I honestly never had an issue with 25 man existing either, or the "bonus's" to 25 man, like overall faster gearing. But moving to 20 man only was the wrong move imo, killed far too many good guilds.

[Thetruth1400]

they don't increase m+ itemlevel

They did when 8.1 hit, they will most likely do it again when 8.2 hits. M+0 will then drop 400 gear, and M+10 will drop whatever item level Heroic raid gear is for 8.2 with weekly chest gear piece of Mythic quality.

When that happens we will also see the jump of WQ to 400 gear and emissary gear will be 425.

After all, you don't want people to have to actually play the content to gear up when you can just hand it out to literally everyone so gear no longer feels like a reward or an accomplishment.

[Niroshi]

The fact that I can have 12 characters that essentially can't get upgrades from Heroic BfD despite never stepping into that raid on 10 of them is wild. I can't even imagine the response people would have given in Legion if someone suggested they should give Heroic level Tomb or Antorus gear from Emissaries when they were the current raid tier.

[Keristrasza]

Well, if you raided mythic, you did that to have a 10-15 ilvl advantage over people who are now getting their welfare items.

That is by far the most pathetic reason I have ever heard to raid. Seriously? "I wanna raid so I can have a higher item level than the plebs." Yeesh.

[Kralljin]

You are right. You are mythic geared after 2 weeks. Oh no your not. Your not even normal geared. Maybe after this change you will be mythic geared. Let me know in a couple of days.

I doubt most people care about getting mythic gear, they just want to progress within their bracket.
The problem is that Blizzard creates short cuts that basically undermine that progression.

Like Mythic raiders do not give a shit about this, people that are within the Normal / Heroic bracket are affected by this, because their progression is undercut.

[Raugnaut]

Normal BoD is a waste of time at this point, especially when it takes more effort to complete than doing 4 world quests.

Heroic BoD is even more of a waste of time. Effort and difficulty are so much higher than 4 world quests a day that it's absolutely not worth getting into that.

People who did any of that could just have waited until now and accomplish the same in a single week. Doing it from now on is a waste of time aswell.

If that's not invalidated content I don't know what is.

You get 1 emissary each day. You have a 1/4 chance for that emissary to reward gear, as it can reward AP, gold, or resources.

Out of that gear, you have a 1/5 chance for it to be one of either - Azerite, Trinket, Rings, Weapon, or rest of the slots.

Yea. Nobody is going to get to 410 ilvl JUST doing world quests ANYTIME soon. 400 is pushing it, and even that is due to the bloated ilvl the neck and azerite pieces can give you.