Bring "normal gear" back?

[Kaver]

P.S. if you disagree I am going to be irrationally hostile.

Oh the irony..

[jellmoo]

I'd prefer that they move away from gear being the motivating factor to do content to be honest. Make it so that LFR gear is the same as Mythic. Mythic let's you get prestigious titles, mounts, transmog sets, that sort of thing.

[Aresk]

As the raid flex player who also casually does M+ and BGs, I'd really prefer simpler gear solutions. Going back to "classic" tiers would be a nightmare, since that's 3-4 tiers across three activities with 8-piece bonuses putting us at 96 slots of gear. That's not counting trinkets and weapons.

Now if you wanted to stick with the most recent tiers that updated per spec, pull them out of specific activities, and make them available to all people via some vendor, sure, I could stomach that. But I also have no issue with titanforging and corruption gear and benthic gear (Azerite armor has the same issues as tier sets assuming you don't want to pay astronomical reforge fees).

As an aside, does anyone know a good add-on for managing talent/Azerite essence loadouts to swap all selections with the click of a button?

[MoanaLisa]

A variety of different kinds of gear is fine for a game with a wide variety of content and different styles of play.

Character progression shouldn't all be lodged in the clothes you're wearing on any given day. I'd prefer an entirely different progression path (more like D&D) and have all gear be cosmetic.

[whytetree]

I voted no. I want gearing to evolve in World of Warcraft but for the better. Currently one of the biggest turn offs for me is the current gearing system takes me out of an MMO and RPG and into something else. Diablo 3 (current gearing in WoW is far too close to Diablo 3) to me is not an ARPG. RPG gameplay to me has always had elements of RNG in it, from pen and paper DND gear dropping as magical items with +1-3 damage modifers or what you have. So I might get a sword of +3 damage or I might get a sword of +1 damage. The difference being that World of Warcraft is an MMO with a persistent world. In the DND campaign the game ends once the campaign is finished so I only need gear good enough to complete the campaign, however in a persistent world I can desire to have the best gear possible and my attempts at getting that gear are not gated by the DM/play through of the campaign (ie fixed amount of loot chances).

World of warcraft used to have a fixed amount of loot chances per week, but that has changed with modern systems like mythic+ and the different levels to raiding. I want to see gear reflect RPG elements and simpler power curve, ie the better sword is the +3 one, however the +1 sword might be good enough to clear the hardest content. The problem I have is blizzard acting like the DM and dictating to me what loot I should receive and be happy with. A lot of their systems come back to this issue of player agency versus choice.

A lot of you have suggested that moving forward they need to allow a player a way to improve their gear over time, and blizzard I think believe that they already do this, however their method is through acquistion from their systems and not through giving the player agency aka allowing them to use a currency to upgrade the gear, or reforge stats, or add gem slots etc. They tried this out with the benthic gear system and low and behold people hated the acquisition aka, rolling on gear until the right piece procced with a gem slot, but once it did, it was simple enough to upgrade it with mana pearls and be done with that gear slot. I honestly believe they took the feedback as overall negative and that players didn't like benthic gear as a whole because people complained about acquisition rather than the actual agency of increasing the power level over time.

The newest iteration of gearing with the corrupted system has the same issue as previously stated. People don't like the method of acquisition that blizzard offer. Acquistion used to be straight forward, the item dropped from the content you were doing and you received it or it didn't. Now we have this issue of did the item drop, did we receive it, did it proc said bonus we want, did it come with a level of manageable corruption? This acquisition feels punishing to the player as it clearly makes them do content past the point of desire to get "lucky" or finally see what they have desired.

Lastly I strongly feel that MMORPG need to let players have choice in acquistion or control over it, this is similar to the old gear system, but as I said, I don't exactly want that. Here is something I have been toying with in my big brain. Have gear be completely customisable through a system and not have drops anymore, give players currency to imbue or change the gear to how they want and gate it behind RNG so that say over 1 month players have x amount of currency to attempt x amount of stat changes or rerolls or whatever. Next is to have automated ilvl upgrades and stats bump up once a player gets an achievement for killing a boss/level of content. This way players who clear the best content have the biggest +modifier to their gear, but stil have the longevity of tinkering with their gear to find the best balance/best performance for whatever they like to do. This way my method of acquiring the best gear is to clear the content that most suits me, aka high level mythic plus or mythic raiding and i get the gear that corresponds to that, then i can roll for the item bonuses I want and eventually see that +3 mythic sword of gating which has crit mastery or whatever stats I want/raidbots tells me.

[Denymeplz]

I'd prefer that they move away from gear being the motivating factor to do content to be honest. Make it so that LFR gear is the same as Mythic. Mythic let's you get prestigious titles, mounts, transmog sets, that sort of thing.

I disagree with this tbh, personally i dont raid for gear, gear for me is just something that helps my objective, not my goal, my goal is clearing the tier, when im done with it i literally stop playing the game until next tier, you can call it like taking little breaks, but making all the gear the same would remove the feel of progression from people, and thats a mistake, i dont understand either the mentality of gear/loot whores, but you know what they say "you do you".

[Byleth]

Everyone agrees RNG needs the boot.

No one agrees on what the replacement look like...

Great job forums >.<

[Kaver]

Everyone agrees RNG needs the boot.

No one agrees on what the replacement look like...

Great job forums >.<

Probably because the replacement potentially can be a million different things.

[Beefkow]

Removal of RNG and a sense of progressing to get your next gear.

[Aoyi]

I would want it to be back to the old way or keep warforging with a vendor that can update a piece for a farmable currency. That way the warforge would be a bonus if you get it, but something you can still earn eventually if you don't. It's one of the reasons I stopped playing. I'm tired of never being able to really earn the "best" gear even if you farm the top content. I'm fine not getting a drop. I'm not fine with the system where you DO get the drop, but it's considered not good because it didn't titan forge an additional 20 levels.

[Beefkow]

Everyone agrees RNG needs the boot.

No one agrees on what the replacement look like...

Great job forums >.<

Easy, valor points to upgrade your gear and bring back gem sockets.

[Rendark]

Blizzard won't make a good loot system ever again. All they know how to do it make crap.

[docterfreeze]

Predetermined sockets on gear, no 10+ ilvl/socket/secondary stat RNG procs, blacksmith belt buckle, inscription shoulder enchant, tailoring/LW leg enchant... that would be the best.

[Denymeplz]

I'm tired of never being able to really earn the "best" gear even if you farm the top content. I'm fine not getting a drop. I'm not fine with the system where you DO get the drop, but it's considered not good because it didn't titan forge an additional 20 levels.

I dont get this argument, granted i havent asked everyone, but im still yet to see a mythic raider (that completes tiers, not the 3/8M heroes) that consistently farms to have full titanforge, no one does this, you either lie about doing the top content, or you just do normal/heroic and expect your gear to titanforge to 455, which would explain the 20 levels you mentioned.

[Thetruth1400]

Yes, I think we'd all love to see that, but Blizzard has kind of dug themselves into a hole that means that kind of gear can't exist anymore.

With 4 raid difficulties and essentially infinite dungeon difficulties, they all have to have rewards or they can't claim they're successful. You can bet if a M+10 offered the same reward as a M+0, very few people would do them. Likewise the same for raids; if all the difficulties offered the same gear but were just progressively more difficult, people just wouldn't care.

RNG on top of RNG gear makes that possible and claims success as a result because of the nature of human behavior. We always want the best we can get, so we'll do things we don't like to get that inkling of a reward.

[EskwyreX]

Imagine getting your enjoyment from RNG procs instead of actual gameplay.

Which you can't get without, you know, doing the actual gameplay.

[Tradu]

Would be great, but unfortunately people will just point you towards Classic as if that's a solution.

- - - Updated - - -

Which you can't get without, you know, doing the actual gameplay.

Too bad the actual gameplay has suffered massively over the past few expansions, coincidentally the same expansions where gearing has become more and more RNG.

[VinceVega]

OR... Blizzard input this system to exploit people that have a gambling issue, and those people are clueless to their addiction and only see said system as fun, meanwhile back at the legion of doo... Blizzard HQ, the upper brass sit pretty as said people defend them, just as those who defend parthfinder, meanwhile investors are happy with MAU reports.

But yes, RNG is what defined this game and also; arguably, became a contributor to it's decline considering it was added in what the tail end of MoP? Yep.. MaJoR SuCcEsS!

Na sorry. How is this gambling related? I don't loose anything. I just get out. Different rewards yeah. But this has nothign to do with gambling. If it would the whole loot system since vanilla is gambling because you never know if you get something at all.

Also Pathfinder is an opinion. Both sides are valid. There is no right or wrong here.

[Black Goat]

No, thanks. If you want a boring, outdated game, classic is there for you.

Yes, please. If you want useless gear thrown at you 24/7, a soulless game, and a loot casino, BFA is there for you.

[Vintersol]

I'm so sick of these special gear thing with limited time use.