Is having everyone on the same tier better?

[Ghostile]

I started playing sometime during TBC, Black Temple was already out. I had no idea what I was doing, did some things called tanking dungeons along the way. Joined a guild, got attuned for a bunch of different things, saw people wearing awesome looking gear and decided I want that! Completed Kara, Gruul's Lair, Mags, moved onto SSC, TK, hyjal, eventually at some point I made my way into the Black Temple. Was a long journey that I earned, wasn't given to me automatically like raids these days. Having everyone on the same raid tier imo from experience is not better.

Running people through attunements and gearing them for current content was a pain in the dick while trying to progress.

Being able to get new guys into gear with m+ is godsent.


Without a catchup poaching will flourish and everyone goes back to hating eachother

[justandulas]

Running people through attunements and gearing them for current content was a pain in the dick whole trying to progress.

Being able to get new guys into gear with m+ is godsent

I don't agree with that at all.

For me, M+ is just the same few dungeons repeated for years ad nauseum. It is about as lazy as one can get from a design POV.

I'd take attunements, and guild poaching every day if it meant a real progression system again, and multiple tiers on the ladder to work my way up on.

You know what's worse than attunements and having to carry others? Boring, one size fits all content.

[Ghostile]

I don't agree with that at all.

For me, M+ is just the same few dungeons repeated for years ad nauseum. It is about as lazy as one can get from a design POV.

I'd take attunements, and guild poaching every day if it meant a real progression system again, and multiple tiers on the ladder to work my way up on.

You know what's worse than attunements and having to carry others? Boring, one size fits all content.

For a raider the progression system would be the same as always. For a nonraider its a pain in the dick to pug yourself enough gear or find a guild that gears you (no sane person will progress from the beginning).

Being able to catch up helps the new raiders but doesnt do anything but remove annoying chores from recruiting new guys

[Doffen]

I don't agree with that at all.

For me, M+ is just the same few dungeons repeated for years ad nauseum. It is about as lazy as one can get from a design POV.

But you repeated dungeons in Vanilla too, but then it was awesome amirite. Mythic+ is the best system they could do with dungeons from a design PoV. Forgetting about dungeons after the first month in an expansion is lazy from a design PoV. Make them and get done with them. Now they actually have to pay attention to them, tune them, fix them, change them. So what's more lazy? Just stop with this nonsense. Now, making dungeons drop stuff that makes your raidgear better(yes you WoD), that's lazy ass design.

The only thing that is wrong with Mythic+ is that the gear is a tad too good. That's it. All this coming from someone who actually do love Attunements. When they made so you had to get certain rep/point of story in Suramar to be able to do the Arcway and Court of Stars, a glimpse of the good old days.

[justandulas]

For a raider the progression system would be the same as always. For a nonraider its a pain in the dick to pug yourself enough gear or find a guild that gears you (no sane person will progress from the beginning).

Being able to catch up helps the new raiders but doesnt do anything but remove annoying chores from recruiting new guys

I don't agree with that notion AGAIN, at all. We can agree to disagree tho, i won't insult or say "my opinion is the only one" i respect your opinion and understand what you're saying as i've been there too, but i still fundamentally disagree and that's ok.

For a raider, the progression system is NOT the same as always. You are doing the same content on a higher difficulty, over and over. It's about as boring and lazy as game design can get. There's no beat A to get to B, B to C, etc. Everyone is just on different levels of A, and next patch makes everything A again etc etc.

I want to beat this raid, to unlock the next, and beat that one to push into the next one. I want it more EQ than Diablo 3. I don't mind an MMORPG world of haves and have nots.

I prefer an MMORPG world where you have to rely on others to get raid gear, and not just que blindly for it. I prefer an MMORPG with actual different raids with different difficulties, complete with different gear in each that creates a tier of players so to speak. You always knew what kinda player someone was or where they stood by what they had beaten, and that's OK.

We just won't agree on this

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But you repeated dungeons in Vanilla too, but then it was awesome amirite. Mythic+ is the best system they could do with dungeons from a design PoV. Forgetting about dungeons after the first month in an expansion is lazy from a design PoV. Make them and get done with them. Now they actually have to pay attention to them, tune them, fix them, change them. So what's more lazy? Just stop with this nonsense. Now, making dungeons drop stuff that makes your raidgear better(yes you WoD), that's lazy ass design.

The only thing that is wrong with Mythic+ is that the gear is a tad too good. That's it. All this coming from someone who actually do love Attunements. When they made so you had to get certain rep/point of story in Suramar to be able to do the Arcway and Court of Stars, a glimpse of the good old days.

When you finished the vanilla dungeons gear wise, the only reason you go back is to help others which felt 10x more fulfilling when they got their rare item than M+ dungeon number 4785819 where they got a higher ilvl of the same item they have already, that replaced the same item from earlier in the tier, that was the same item the tier before, that was the same item they started the expac with early on.

That's a bad system IMHO, and has done more damage to the raiding scene than almost anything ever put into WoW

[Gavll]

Or time passed and people stopped subbing for other reasons. Your argument is based on the assumption that if the game didn't change people would have stayed still.

It's clear from the PServer community and Classic's upcoming release, that this is in fact true for many people. How many? We don't know and never will I expect.

[Aggrophobic]

Just looking over the game and how it has changed over the years and I am left to wonder. Is the concept of trivializing content and as a result destroying the mid tier between mythic raider and lfr player good for the game as a whole?

It's a topic that I only know one side of and that is as a progression minded player not one who was stuck running dungeons and kara just for an example.

To me it feels like the game has progressively gotten more and more shallow as a result with a greater and greater emphasis on grinds to stretch out the sub of those who would otherwise just complete the easiest difficulty and leave. It also seems to rely heavily on replayability and I doubt I'm the only one who grows weary of doing the same mythic + dungeons over and over again.

What is your take on it? Is there a pressing need to allow everyone to at least view the content or is it better if we have real progression through increasing difficult encounters?

Yes, it is better. Thats why they are using that system now.
For the players that stay on top, it really doesn't matter but it really sucks to fall behind and having no way to get back on track without being carried as all serious players are already done with the old content.

You are simply wrong here. The game is not more shallow, you just grew old and bitter.

[justandulas]

It's clear from the PServer community and Classic's upcoming release, that this is in fact true for many people. How many? We don't know and never will I expect.

Blizzard would be foolish to announce anything about wow classic population as it would discourage people from BFA, and if successful would point out their own glaring failures as devs.

If not successful, they won't point it out for obvious reasons.

There's a reason they tied the subs together though and made it so you can't be primarily one sub or the other; the last thing they want is to see classic overshadow BFA

[Doffen]

When you finished the vanilla dungeons gear wise, the only reason you go back is to help others which felt 10x more fulfilling when they got their rare item than M+ dungeon number 4785819 where they got a higher ilvl of the same item they have already, that replaced the same item from earlier in the tier, that was the same item the tier before, that was the same item they started the expac with early on.

That's a bad system IMHO, and has done more damage to the raiding scene than almost anything ever put into WoW

Sure, getting gear felt better, not disagreeing with that. What I disagree with that mythic+ is lazy from a design PoV. It makes them use more resources on that compared to making them and they are relevant for 1 month of the expansion, if that even. I do help people in dungeons now, levelling(yes you Stonecore mount that shitty guildies() gets when I boost them), mythic+ for alts etc because they need it. How is that any different when it comes to the feel of helping people now? Did that feeling change for you or what? It never changed for me, and it still feels good to help people when they need it.

[justandulas]

Yes, it is better. Thats why they are using that system now.
For the players that stay on top, it really doesn't matter but it really sucks to fall behind and having no way to get back on track without being carried as all serious players are already done with the old content.

You are simply wrong here. The game is not more shallow, you just grew old and bitter.

You are wrong man, the game IS more shallow. Different difficulties of the same raid DO NOT make it more content. That's like saying Madden is a different game because you increased the difficulty and they give you slightly better Ultimate team rewards.

That is about as lazy as a game dev can be is to create one tier of content at a time in an mmorpg, and put multiple difficulties in.

It does not feel the same as a progression ladder of beating dungeon A to get to B, B to C, etc like the good ol' days of WoW.

WoW needs to be more EQ than Diablo 3 like it originally was, but somehow it has devolved into more D3 than EQ thanks to the d3 team moving over to WoW at the end of MoP.

It is more of an MMO ARPG than an MMO RPG today. It is NOT exciting to go through higher difficulties of content you've already been playing for months, to just get the same gear with a + ilvl on it. That is not fun, and it sucks and is a far cry from the old system. It is shallow as shallow gets in terms of MMO game design. One size fits all WoW i call it. They didn't even bother giving unique gear to higher difficulties because everyone has to have the same gear /eyeroll

There's nothing wrong with an MMORPG having haves and have nots.

[ls-]

I'd take attunements, and guild poaching every day if it meant a real progression system again, and multiple tiers on the ladder to work my way up on.

TBQH, you sound like someone who'd never truly experienced rampant poaching and more like a person who's pretty much carried through the content to get you attuned ASAP, esp given that you started playing after BT went live.

For you it's a nice journey, but for people who had to re-clear those lower tier raids again, again, and again just to attune newcomers/replacements it's a PITA, and if they couldn't clear a higher/current tier raid successfully it meant that people would leave and/or a guild would disband. Heck, people would leave their guilds because they're fed up doing older raids.

And plenty of guilds were stuck in that limbo, they couldn't progress any further because their core members, esp tanks and healers, were constantly poached. It's destroying the raiding scene, removal of attunements by the end of TBC was a godsend.

P.S. Ah, shit, it's Biggles Worth who started after BT went live >_> My bad, my point still stands though...

[justandulas]

Sure, getting gear felt better, not disagreeing with that. What I disagree with that mythic+ is lazy from a design PoV. It makes them use more resources on that compared to making them and they are relevant for 1 month of the expansion, if that even. I do help people in dungeons now, levelling(yes you Stonecore mount that shitty guildies() gets when I boost them), mythic+ for alts etc because they need it. How is that any different when it comes to the feel of helping people now? Did that feeling change for you or what? It never changed for me, and it still feels good to help people when they need it.

I don't play alts, i'm a one character kinda guy. Because it doesn't feel rewarding to see them get a literal upgrade of an item they already have, that they already replaced 2-3x with the same piece of a higher ilvl.

I personally feel it's lazy game design. REAL game design would introduce a whole new batch of dungeons each season in M+ and make it fresh, rather than re-hash the same dungeons for an entire expac but just increasing the ilvl.

Why not introduce NEW items at least into each M+ seasons dungeons? At the very least add new items as incentive...

it is not exciting for me personally either when I get an upgrade for an item i have that's just an ilvl increase of the same item. It breeds resentment for me, and oozes Diablo 3 not EQ/old WoW.

It lacks that "OH YEA!" feeling of seeing THAT item drop off a dungeon/raid from back in the day.

Plus, gear was also more rare back then. 3-4 items per 25-40 people meant that gear wasn't handed out to you every single raid. It practically showers you in gear now when you play, and that kinda doesn't feel good either. There's no sense of earning any of it because it's like playing an oprah version of WoW where "You get a gear! and you get gear! EVERYONE gets gear!"

[Afrospinach]

One of the most immediate things noticed when this was in full force back in WotLK was you could actually pug if for some reason your raiders never showed.

I generally think the game has lost a lot because of it.

Then titanforging came and well, you are just sort of here for whatever it is you like doing in wow. Certainly not here for a well designed raid/gear setup with some kind of goal in mind. Whoops, just accidentally stepped in a brutosaur shit and it titanforged real good. Now you are wearing it, probably forever.

[justandulas]

TBQH, you sound like someone who'd never truly experienced rampant poaching and more like a person who's pretty much carried through the content to get you attuned ASAP, esp given that you started playing after BT went live.

For you it's a nice journey, but for people who had to re-clear those lower tier raids again, again, and again just to attune newcomers/replacements it's a PITA, and if they couldn't clear a higher/current tier raid successfully it meant that people would leave and/or a guild would disband. Heck, people would leave their guilds because they're fed up doing older raids.

And plenty of guilds were stuck in that limbo, they couldn't progress any further because their core members, esp tanks and healers, were constantly poached. It's destroying the raiding scene, removal of attunements by the end of TBC was a godsend.

I was a high end raider in both vanilla, TBC, and WOTLK. i'm familiar with guild poaching and have been on both sides of it. While it sucks, and we took a hit right before illidan and had to redo TK/SSC for others; i'd STILL take that system today in a heartbeat over todays one size fits all WoW.

Again, there is NOTHING wrong with an MMORPG world of haves and have nots.

It's a hell of a lot more interesting than a world where everyone is special, so no one is


EDIT: For the record, these are just my opinions and 2 cents. i'm not claiming i'm right and you're wrong; we can agree to disagree and i respect everyones opinion as equal to mine

[Katchii]

You are simply wrong here. The game is not more shallow, you just grew old and bitter.

I disagree with this.

It seems pretty objective that the game has gotten shallower, in a sense.

Back when there were no catch up mechanics for everyone, all the raid tiers were still technically relevant to some people. In TBC Karazhan was just as relevant at the end of the expansion as at the beginning because there was no catch up mechanic to get people geared enough to get into Gruuls Lair, SSC, Mag's, etc... so all of those raids were relevant to people who hadn't done them.

Now, that's not true. Past raid tiers are irrelevant pretty muchy as soon as the new one is released. There's virtually no reason at all to go back and do the older raids.

That means there's objectively less relevant content which means it's "shallower."

That's my interpretation anyway.

I understand the desire to not go back to the TBC era of raiding where guilds were constantly having to do the old raids because they had newbies that needed it and all the poaching that occurred because of it. I do miss having a more long term goal of getting into the current content. Even if the requirement that you only had to complete each raid once in order to progress to the next one I think that would feel better than what we have now where the previous raid tier because almost instantly irrelevant.

[schwank05]

I thought that Raiding was in the best place back in BC, Vanilla was great, but 40 people is just to damn hard to get online at one time. BC had 10 mans and 25 mans separate and they were all current content through the entire Expansion, I remember running Kara the entire Xpac for pieces of gear and gearing alts/ new recruits it was a blast. I hate the new cycle where you run the new raid get BIS and log off until the next raid releases and do it all over again, instead of going back and doing the older raids for gear.

[Doffen]

I don't play alts, i'm a one character kinda guy. Because it doesn't feel rewarding to see them get a literal upgrade of an item they already have, that they already replaced 2-3x with the same piece of a higher ilvl.

I personally feel it's lazy game design. REAL game design would introduce a whole new batch of dungeons each season in M+ and make it fresh, rather than re-hash the same dungeons for an entire expac but just increasing the ilvl.

Why not introduce NEW items at least into each M+ seasons dungeons? At the very least add new items as incentive...

it is not exciting for me personally either when I get an upgrade for an item i have that's just an ilvl increase of the same item. It breeds resentment for me, and oozes Diablo 3 not EQ/old WoW.

It lacks that "OH YEA!" feeling of seeing THAT item drop off a dungeon/raid from back in the day.

Plus, gear was also more rare back then. 3-4 items per 25-40 people meant that gear wasn't handed out to you every single raid. It practically showers you in gear now when you play, and that kinda doesn't feel good either. There's no sense of earning any of it because it's like playing an oprah version of WoW where "You get a gear! and you get gear! EVERYONE gets gear!"

When I get my best trinkets or a good weapon upgrade I do go YES! now as well. Haven't really changed in that regard. The WQ/emissary gear I see as scrap/disenchant fodder, it's gear I don't care about. I do agree on some points, gear is too easy to get, but getting the good gear haven't changed for me at all. I haven't changed like that, but changed in other ways so I guess that's why we don't agree on some specifics. The system is better imo, but can it change for the better? Sure.

They could maybe change the loot-tables for the dungeons through the expansion/seasons, but I don't think it will change much. I do understand you though, seeing I want some of the good stuff back myself, but mostly about gear in particular because so much of it are useless depending on the player. But I guess that's why we got so much of it. I don't particularly enjoy everything about the system we have now, I do understand why it is like this, but hopefully it will change a bit. You always got classic, and personally, and I have said so before, I am glad you and the other ones who really miss vanilla get to see it again. I don't miss vanilla(TBC ftw), like at all, but I will level my troll hunter now and then because that have some charm to it.

Bolded stuff was funny, Oprah in a nutshell. Maybe Ophera Windfury is the reason why we went this way.

[justandulas]

I thought that Raiding was in the best place back in BC, Vanilla was great, but 40 people is just to damn hard to get online at one time. BC had 10 mans and 25 mans separate and they were all current content through the entire Expansion, I remember running Kara the entire Xpac for pieces of gear and gearing alts/ new recruits it was a blast. I hate the new cycle where you run the new raid get BIS and log off until the next raid releases and do it all over again, instead of going back and doing the older raids for gear.

100%. TBC was, IMHO, by far the best progression system in the game.

I think vanilla overall is the better game because it has more to it, and TBC basically made all the 60 and under content irrelevant (kinda like a bigger scale version of how we jump from patches now) but TBC endgame was WoW perfection for me.

It had something for everyone, and everyone had a chance.

I hated guild poaching, and i was on both sides of it during TBC at one point, but there was a real depth to the endgame content that kept it relevant until the very end. Now, the only thing that's relevant is the current patch.

[ls-]

I was a high end raider in both vanilla, TBC, and WOTLK. i'm familiar with guild poaching and have been on both sides of it. While it sucks, and we took a hit right before illidan and had to redo TK/SSC for others; i'd STILL take that system today in a heartbeat over todays one size fits all WoW.

Again, there is NOTHING wrong with an MMORPG world of haves and have nots.

It's a hell of a lot more interesting than a world where everyone is special, so no one is

Whatever floats your goat, I guess. As I said earlier in this thread, my guild wasted at least 30% of our raiding time re-attuning replacements for our poached members, eventually, we started poaching as well, it's faster and we couldn't care less about issues of lower tier guilds.

I was extremely happy when Blizz announced that the attunement system wouldn't make a comeback in WotLK. In WotLK you could take a break for a tier, then come back, spend a week or two doing heroics, and you're good to go. No attunement BS.

[justandulas]

When I get my best trinkets or a good weapon upgrade I do go YES! now as well. Haven't really changed in that regard. The WQ/emissary gear I see as scrap/disenchant fodder, it's gear I don't care about. I do agree on some points, gear is too easy to get, but getting the good gear haven't changed for me at all. I haven't changed like that, but changed in other ways so I guess that's why we don't agree on some specifics. The system is better imo, but can it change for the better? Sure.

They could maybe change the loot-tables for the dungeons through the expansion/seasons, but I don't think it will change much. I do understand you though, seeing I want some of the good stuff back myself, but mostly about gear in particular because so much of it are useless depending on the player. But I guess that's why we got so much of it. I don't particularly enjoy everything about the system we have now, I do understand why it is like this, but hopefully it will change a bit. You always got classic, and personally, and I have said so before, I am glad you and the other ones who really miss vanilla get to see it again. I don't miss vanilla(TBC ftw), like at all, but I will level my troll hunter now and then because that have some charm to it.

Not trolling so plz don't take it as that <3, but what role do you play? I only ask because i play tank and tank trinkets and gear is SOOOO HELLA dull this expansion. it's mind numbingly bad.

Even the recent tank essences suck so bad compared to the DPS/Healer ones... /sigh.

My DH tank in legion could legit single handedly cut through a 40 man raid of my exact DH Tank in BFA like he was Sauron in the LOTR opener.

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Whatever floats your goat, I guess. As I said earlier in this thread, my guild wasted at least 30% of our raiding time re-attuning replacements for our poached members, eventually, we started poaching as well, it's faster and we couldn't care less about issues of lower tier guilds.

I was extremely happy when they announced that the attunement system wouldn't make a comeback in WotLK. In WotLK you could take a break for a tier, then come back, spend a week doing heroics, and you're good to go. No attunement BS.

I don't necessarily miss the attunements man TBH. I just miss having a real progression system of content.

Not necessarily the grind for the content, but the content itself. It kept everything from KZ to Sunwell relevant until the very end of TBC.

I prefer TBC endgame over all other versions of WoW, but that's just my 2 cents and i understand why you and others wouldn't want that back.

What your talking about is taking tiers off, coming back and within a week of heroics your raid ready kinda invalidates all the previous content. You basically skip the other climbs up the ladder to make it to the top, and that's what doesn't feel good about todays wow to me.