Is the current Benthic gear horrible game design?

[Big Thanks]

I have played Soccer my whole life.

Understandably I am better than you at Soccer, much better. Therefore I deserve to play for the 2nd grade team whilst you would probably play for the 7's. This is a reward and prestige for me putting in the work to get better at the game. I also deserve all the rewards that come with playing for the Reserves.

That's how the world works champ.



Before you even choose to roll a die in Baldurs Gate 2. You decide how to position your characters and which angle to take the fight at. You decide which spells to cast to counter Undead or use flame spells etc. This is player skill.

How baffling you still need this explained.

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Way to cherry pick my entire response. At this point you should probably stop replying if you aren't going to engage in discussion.

Im engaging in the conversation, you are the one avoiding it

and ALAS the downsides are in this very post i quoted.
The "saltyness" and "tears" of noobs having good gear because thats just how the "world" works.

Fine, i used to think that way, i give you that, Mythic raider will have 445 gear and benthic player 425.
Is this not justice enough for you?

No, you want us to eat dirt. You want us to be dogs.
Be real and stop caring about what other people have...which in this case is already LOWER than you got...but No...you want it to be even LOWER.

[niil945]

I dont see anyone having an issue with non-raiders and non-pvpers having a progression path. Some of us object to that path rewarding gear that matches or even exceeds the quality of items being rewarded for objectively far more difficult content. That is all.

Individual pieces of gear, sure. Considering there are 15/16 slots and people who do mythic raiding can also get the same rewards from other content, this argument falls apart. No one who does only solo world content is going to be comparably geared to a mythic raider. If individual pieces of forged gear are tripping you up, that's a you problem and not a game problem.

Sure, lets change that then since being professional apparently changes the argument.

Are you one of those guys that goes for a jog once a week, and then sees mr Bolt at the Olympics clear the 100m in under 10seconds and say "hes not better than me, i could do that, i just dont want to"

Hes not a professional, so how will you explain your way out of this one?

Uh what?

"Usain St Leo Bolt OJ CD is a Jamaican retired sprinter. He is a world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4 × 100 metres relay."

Did you spend your entire life playing WoW and then retire on that endeavor now? I'm not sure what ridiculous comparison you're trying to make. Clarify it for me won't you. Derp!

[Musta]

hey guys i got another leak, this is a huge one, prolly already posted, but whatever: https://imgur.com/a/0isO9sG

[niil945]

That's how the world works champ.

Sure, if you're Method or Limit or Pieces or any other actual world competitive player. But you're not.

Before you even choose to roll a die in Baldurs Gate 2. You decide how to position your characters and which angle to take the fight at. You decide which spells to cast to counter Undead or use flame spells etc. This is player skill.

Sure there is tactics involved in playing tactical combat games. Duh? Notice I said physical dexterity. You're the one who intentionally neglected to include that part of my response. The entire point was that player skill is intentionally ignored by RPG's in a LOT of ways. When you have a social interaction with someone in an RPG it's not your personal ability to deceive someone, or convince them, or seduce them, or antagonize them into attacking you. It's a skill on a sheet that you roll a die and see if the result is what it needs to be. The game intentionally ignores that you (the player) might be extremely socially awkward or shy or quiet or many other things. That's a fundamental aspect of RPG's. Tactical combat is a tiny portion of the game in D&D. Many games run without combat mats or miniatures, they're entirely narrative combat. Of course a computer iteration is going to have tactical combat as a replacement for storyteller-esque gaming. But again, I never said player skill had no bearing. That's just what you're slippery sloping my position into because you know you're wrong and can't hack a legitimate argument.

How baffling you still need this explained.

See above.

Just because it's still in the game, does that mean it's good for the game? What point are you trying to make here?

You said you were winning. Winning what? You can't win the argument because it's subjective, at least how you want the progression system to be. And you certainly aren't winning in game because they aren't changing the game to suit your opinion of how it should be. In fact they've gone farther and farther into catering the game to casuals despite the protestations of the sobbing mythic crowd. So you said I was losing and you were winning. I'm looking for context here because I'm not seeing it. What, exactly, are you winning?

All you're really pointing out is that Ion really is as dumb as he looks.

Oh man, that was good, how long did that take you to come up with?

The fact that they are even looking into TF alternatives or removing it should show you that they have finally realized that the playerbase doesn't want this stupid system. That it is not good for the health of the game.

Playerbase? Most of the playerbase doesn't care. The number of people who killed Mythic Jaina was just over 1% of active characters and that's higher than mythic final boss kills usually are. Anyone arguing from your angle isn't speaking for the playerbase. You're speaking for a very, very small number of people who no one really cares about. They are worried about the casual folks who are leaving because they're the ones that actually pay the bills.

Are you next going to try and tell me that BfA is a healthy, great expansion that has no issues and hasn't caused a mass exodus?

I mean, if you have data that says why people are leaving I'm happy to look at it. But the reality is no one does except maybe Blizzard. Everyone I know that quit playing the game since vanilla quit due to real life priorities shifting, not because of the game itself. Everyone likes to pretend that it's because of things they don't like because clearly that's what everyone is bailing over. We could have a discussion about whether I like BfA, what I like about it, what I dislike, but that's not the point of this thread.

[Musta]

Sure, if you're Method or Limit or Pieces or any other actual world competitive player. But you're not.



Sure there is tactics involved in playing tactical combat games. Duh? Notice I said physical dexterity. You're the one who intentionally neglected to include that part of my response. The entire point was that player skill is intentionally ignored by RPG's in a LOT of ways. When you have a social interaction with someone in an RPG it's not your personal ability to deceive someone, or convince them, or seduce them, or antagonize them into attacking you. It's a skill on a sheet that you roll a die and see if the result is what it needs to be. The game intentionally ignores that you (the player) might be extremely socially awkward or shy or quiet or many other things. That's a fundamental aspect of RPG's. Tactical combat is a tiny portion of the game in D&D. Many games run without combat mats or miniatures, they're entirely narrative combat. Of course a computer iteration is going to have tactical combat as a replacement for storyteller-esque gaming. But again, I never said player skill had no bearing. That's just what you're slippery sloping my position into because you know you're wrong and can't hack a legitimate argument.



See above.



You said you were winning. Winning what? You can't win the argument because it's subjective, at least how you want the progression system to be. And you certainly aren't winning in game because they aren't changing the game to suit your opinion of how it should be. In fact they've gone farther and farther into catering the game to casuals despite the protestations of the sobbing mythic crowd. So you said I was losing and you were winning. I'm looking for context here because I'm not seeing it. What, exactly, are you winning?




Oh man, that was good, how long did that take you to come up with?



Playerbase? Most of the playerbase doesn't care. The number of people who killed Mythic Jaina was just over 1% of active characters and that's higher than mythic final boss kills usually are. Anyone arguing from your angle isn't speaking for the playerbase. You're speaking for a very, very small number of people who no one really cares about. They are worried about the casual folks who are leaving because they're the ones that actually pay the bills.




I mean, if you have data that says why people are leaving I'm happy to look at it. But the reality is no one does except maybe Blizzard. Everyone I know that quit playing the game since vanilla quit due to real life priorities shifting, not because of the game itself. Everyone likes to pretend that it's because of things they don't like because clearly that's what everyone is bailing over. We could have a discussion about whether I like BfA, what I like about it, what I dislike, but that's not the point of this thread.

Impressive. Everything you just said is wrong.

[Archmage Alodi]

Found another believer of "ilvl is king". Wish you were right.

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How about 3 or 4?

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They made them easier than heroic Conclave though. I miss Emerald Nightmare when heroic was actually easier than mythic Nythendra, and vice versa, mythic was actually a step up from heroic. Having people pugging mythic Taloc before killing heroic Zul and mythic Champions before heroic Conclave shows how bad is the tuning of content. Gosh, even Skorpyron was more challenging than these 2.

There's just one with correct stats for my spec.

[niil945]

Impressive. Everything you just said is wrong.

Care to expand upon that or should I take that to mean that your lack of providing anything substantive means that you can't?

[munkeyinorbit]

Blizzard messed it up royally. I'm serious that Mythic champions is easier than Normal jaina. And I'm not on unemployment.. You seem to be really upset. Calm down dude.

Lol. Calm down. I'll calm down when you get your story straight. To be so wrong is bad enough, but to also backtrack on what you said shows either even you don't believe your own lies or you are so gutless that you start back tracking as soon as you are called out. So which is it? Mythic Champs is easier than normal bosses or it's easier than normal Jaina? Once you make up your mind, justify your reasoning in deciding what a Mythic boss is. Is it defined by the difficulty of the dungeon or is it defined by an arbitrary cut off point you invented to support your argument.

[GreenJesus]

Lol. Calm down. I'll calm down when you get your story straight. To be so wrong is bad enough, but to also backtrack on what you said shows either even you don't believe your own lies or you are so gutless that you start back tracking as soon as you are called out. So which is it? Mythic Champs is easier than normal bosses or it's easier than normal Jaina? Once you make up your mind, justify your reasoning in deciding what a Mythic boss is. Is it defined by the difficulty of the dungeon or is it defined by an arbitrary cut off point you invented to support your argument.

Normal jaina is a normal boss.. So I'm not backtracking here... I obviously didn't mean EVERY normal boss was easier.... I looked up your post history and you are swearing or being extremely toxic and rude in nearly every post. Blocked.

[Linkedblade]

225. Only the first benthic item lets you use only 5 pearls to upgrade from 385 to 400, but thats for quest purposes.

I used some today and this is how it was:
385-400 = 20
400-405 = 10
405-410 = 15
410-415 = 25
415-420 = 50
420-425 = 100

Full info here: https://www.wowhead.com/guides/benth...fects-nazjatar

So for a full set at max ilvl would cost 2070 pearls(5xpiece, 225x per to get 425 ilvl) That's quite a bit of shenanigans in Naz for that.

[Musta]

Care to expand upon that or should I take that to mean that your lack of providing anything substantive means that you can't?

It was already provided several times in this post. You can think whatever the hell you want.

[niil945]

It was already provided several times in this post. You can think whatever the hell you want.

Cool I will. Have a good day! Oh, and have fun with your "leak". Lol

[Super Kami Dende]

"few pieces".

Yeah nah. People take issue with WQ heroes running around in full Heroic raid quality gear. You know, the second highest difficulty in the game.

The fact that People take issue with that is entirely my point of buttmad pseudo-elitists. "Oh no, People are wearing Gear that is comparable to gear that is not even the highest tier of Gear. Time to start autistically screeching."

[arkanon]

Can someone please clarify, since I'm a little bit confused.

So some Benthic pieces with sockets are BiS for some classes. And mythic raiders themselves are bitching about them having an easier way of obtaining a BiS item in some slots, bypassing the random nature of drop, TF and socket rng? They would still have to raid, to populate other slots with their respective BiS items.

What seems to be the problem here? It's not like you can deck yourself in all benthic gear and have no need to do mythic raiding.

The concern i have (i wont speak for others although i know some agree) is that Blizzards solution to people being poor is to print more money and give it to everyone. It seems like a good solution to those who have no money, but my concern is that it is actually devaluing not just the benthic gear, but all gear for this tier.

People talk about the 3-4 items being BiS for certain specs including mythic, but forget that even base level (no gem, no bis proc), the majority of this gear is simming better than normal and heroic, so there is absolutely a concern that outside of social aspects, there is almost no reason to raid normal or heroic, and for SOME, less reason to push for mythic.

Thats my opinion, that recent Blizzard decisions have hurt normal and heroic raiding quite badly, and their latest patch has only made matters worse.

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So for a full set at max ilvl would cost 2070 pearls(5xpiece, 225x per to get 425 ilvl) That's quite a bit of shenanigans in Naz for that.

Actually, not all gear can go to 425, so a bit less. But yes, that is a lot. However some peoples concern isnt about full sets - but rather that 1-4 items are BiS. The argument is all over the place, but essentially the concern isnt that people have access to "good" gear, that term is quite relative. There are two camps i see - one group who are players who dont complete any group content or limited to LFR saying its a great system and there is nothing wrong, and the other camp saying it devalues their efforts with dedicated endgame raiding, and devalues loot.

Both side seem to be arguing with extremes - defender claiming its ONE piece and not even that good, and others saying its full set bis. Both are wrong. Its somewhere in between.

[niil945]

The concern i have (i wont speak for others although i know some agree) is that Blizzards solution to people being poor is to print more money and give it to everyone. It seems like a good solution to those who have no money, but my concern is that it is actually devaluing not just the benthic gear, but all gear for this tier.

If your concern is not being geared enough in comparison to other people, that's a you issue and not a game issue.

People talk about the 3-4 items being BiS for certain specs including mythic, but forget that even base level (no gem, no bis proc), the majority of this gear is simming better than normal and heroic, so there is absolutely a concern that outside of social aspects, there is almost no reason to raid normal or heroic, and for SOME, less reason to push for mythic.

The majority of this gear might be simming better than normal or heroic gear. It doesn't mean anything because we're the amount of time you need to invest farming pearls 1-2 at a time to max them out is extreme. And that's not counting the cost if you want to keep rebuying pieces until you get a socket on each of the ones good for you. And even then it's 3-4 items out of 15/16 pending whether you use a 1h or a 2h weapon. There's no reason to raid normal or heroic because you can get 25% of your gear from farming pearls all day for a couple weeks? Such an argument is so hyperbolic it's silly.

Thats my opinion, that recent Blizzard decisions have hurt normal and heroic raiding quite badly, and their latest patch has only made matters worse.

Expand on this. What, explicitly, is hurting normal and heroic raiding here? That 25% of people's gear (if they're playing certain specs, otherwise it's far lower) comes from Benthic? What about the other 75% of their gear? This is the typical handwaving answer that people give when talking about things like forging ruining the game. It's just the same old tired arguments that go nowhere. I raid normal and heroic each tier as well as run my 10 weekly. I'm just not seeing how more options to getting gear is a bad thing. In fact, all this does is increase my playtime because I can play alts and get decently geared on them each tier.

and the other camp saying it devalues their efforts with dedicated endgame raiding, and devalues loot.

We know that's not the case. It's not a split dichotomy of people who don't do organized group content love it and people who do hate it. I'm in the latter group and I'm perfectly fine with Benthic. It's a handful of salty people who it doesn't matter what the source is, they're going to be triggered by people who don't do raid content getting individual pieces of gear that are raid comparable even if people who don't do organized group content can't get a comparable overall ilvl. That's why they cry about forging. That's why they cry about this. Their issue is about e-penis size, nothing more or less.

[Emerald Archer]

But then again your way of judging someones raiding potential was through a sim so I guess that speaks miles for how you view debates.

It's a perfectly valid way to get an idea of his current progression. Which with a sim like that, is extremely low. Meaning he doesn't raid at a decent level when I thought he did based on previous comments he had made.

Also,
pyreYesterday at 1:05 PM
benthic gloves are no longer recommended and pin/faq has been updated to reflect it

https://imgur.com/a/QfL4oQv
https://i.imgur.com/hVpnFZ9.png
https://i.imgur.com/ItpOsGu.png

They did say that.

Can you just admit that at the time of your posting, it had been changed since the time you checked before that?

Though with your screenshot, it looks like you checked affliction faq? vs affliction pins. So maybe it was what you said, you just looked at the wrong place. I can concede that too.

[munkeyinorbit]

Can someone please clarify, since I'm a little bit confused.

So some Benthic pieces with sockets are BiS for some classes. And mythic raiders themselves are bitching about them having an easier way of obtaining a BiS item in some slots, bypassing the random nature of drop, TF and socket rng? They would still have to raid, to populate other slots with their respective BiS items.

What seems to be the problem here? It's not like you can deck yourself in all benthic gear and have no need to do mythic raiding.

The problem you just said isn't really a problem for mythic raiding. It is a problem for normal and heroic raiding. Mythic raiding is special. The act of completing a raid is the goal. If there are pieces outside mythic that you can get, so be it. The process of clearing a raid should be the ultimate goal. At this end you have the best players with the most time doing the harder things. They are dedicated. For normal and heroic it is very different. These are not the best players with usually less time and less dedication. It is usually about the loot here as there is a lively PUG scene where people join strangers in a time that suits them. Among strangers an individual is more focused on loot because they don't owe anyone in the raid anything except being competent and to not be a dick. Some pugs require skill and communication. Some need warm bodies. But it is basically a single player game for pugs.

If you can get your better than heroic gear from daylies then what is the point of raiding lower levels? There isn't much point and this causes the pool of players to deplete. Times change and people move on but because of the heroic gear being handed out for nothing, raiding has got a lot harder for small guilds. The player volume is gone and what's left are assholes who know better than anyone else (mmo-c members) or they're simply not good enough for heroic raiding.

I say that this bullshit with handing out her like candy is cancer to the game. I accept M+ dungeons even though I don't like it but bethalic gear has gone too far.

[niil945]

Can someone please clarify, since I'm a little bit confused.

So some Benthic pieces with sockets are BiS for some classes. And mythic raiders themselves are bitching about them having an easier way of obtaining a BiS item in some slots, bypassing the random nature of drop, TF and socket rng? They would still have to raid, to populate other slots with their respective BiS items.

What seems to be the problem here? It's not like you can deck yourself in all benthic gear and have no need to do mythic raiding.

You answered the question when you spoke about Mythic raiders still having to populate the rest of their slots. Exactly how Mythic raiders have to so does everyone else. The line that you keep being fed about how this hurts normal/heroic raiders is a pile of manure by people salty about reward systems. I'm a normal/heroic raider. I still clear the raids each tier with my casual guild. We still do our M10+. I'll still have to fill out 13 other slots even though Benthic gloves and boots are BiS for me when maxed out. The actual answer is there isn't a problem. While it might only be 2 items for my main (more if I do off specs) what it does do is allow me to tinker with alts and gear them up pretty decently. That's it. Prettymuch the same answer since mid Legion.

[Jester Joe]

It's a perfectly valid way to get an idea of his current progression. Which with a sim like that, is extremely low. Meaning he doesn't raid at a decent level when I thought he did based on previous comments he had made.

Also,
pyreYesterday at 1:05 PM
benthic gloves are no longer recommended and pin/faq has been updated to reflect it

https://imgur.com/a/QfL4oQv
https://i.imgur.com/hVpnFZ9.png
https://i.imgur.com/ItpOsGu.png

They did say that.

Can you just admit that at the time of your posting, it had been changed since the time you checked before that?

Though with your screenshot, it looks like you checked affliction faq? vs affliction pins. So maybe it was what you said, you just looked at the wrong place. I can concede that too.

I mean, when the FAQ literally has always been the spot to go for the BiS list, where else would I bother checking first? It's always been the quickest way to look, and I checked earlier in the day and rechecked even to be sure that's still what it said there.

[Gaidax]

Shieeet this thread has gone places. Chillax it's just some silly pieces of gear. Like you have one item that is really considerably out of whack there and to be honest everyone giving enough damn will get it anyway.

I can understand the sentiment and as Mythic raider myself I share it somewhat, but let's not get over our heads there.