Just go back to MOP gearing

[Jessicka]

It's simple, intuitive, you had options to work towards when drops didn't happen, you weren't plagued with a ton of grinding unless you were particularly hard on raiding and really needed gear fast.

It had its faults, but it's a million times better than RNG, unlimited endless grinding, and having to change up how your character plays half a dozen times a tier.

[Nobleshield]

I would have to agree. All these systems they are adding are all just bandaids because they don't know how to keep people interested, and want to keep the idea that you can only have vertical progression. The older system was IMHO much better than each expansion having its own stupid gimmick that only lasts as long as the expansion does and then becomes useless garbage because they don't know how to properly implement Alternate Advancement levels for the game itself rather than an expansion. So the legion weapon, heart, etc. are all poor ways to do AAs, while the RNG gear is just.. I'm not even sure what the idea is anymore. D3 style gameplay is terrible and feels unrewarding.

Sure, i get the idea that you might get your "BIS" gear and feel you don't need to do anything anymore, but I'd still prefer that infinitely to having an item that's supposed to be an upgrade be considered meh because whatever random assortment of abilities it gets isn't the "best" one.

[skynet1990]

I doubt Blizzard will listen as deterministic Gear Systems have a realistic Point where the Player can say "I am done". But with RNG you'll never reach that.
RNG ist not a bad Thing. Corruption would be a nice system if they had the "nice to have" status but not must. 25% Percent of the current thoughput the do is absolutely fine

[Nobleshield]

I've always been fond of the idea if you are going to RNG gear, the RNG part should be the most minor parts not the major parts. I liked the way the Benthic gear worked, for example, other than the fact some of the RNG ones could be bonuses to damage or stats. They should all be minor or cosmetic things so it's cool if you get them, but its not "Aw man" when you get that piece you wanted and it has ABC bonus instead of XYZ which has been decided as "the best".

Of course the real underlying problem is the idea everything has to be mathematically "the best" or its useless/not worth doing which results in everyone just parroting the theorycrafting.

[kranur]

MoP system in particular, nah.

But I do agree that cutting down on the rng would be awesome. That would involve maybe redesigning the loot system entirely.

Shadowlands sounds a little more promising with the option to choose between 3 items of different slots for the weekly but with nothing to support it it's still not going to be enough. A vendor and a currency similar to the azerite one would be ideal, obviously not for all slots but for 3-4. And make raid gear more targetable somehow.

The sad truth is that they care for the exact opposite with less chances to achieve what you want and rng at every step to show MAUs to investors.

[Elias01]

They cant go back to MoP gearing becouse forums would be full of players screaming they have nothing to do. Just like they did in past. And that was time we didnt had stuff lile world q, mythic+, welfare gear ala warfronts, weekly pvp and pve chets etc,.... If in MoP people had nothing to so after like 3 months of progression with current systems they would have nothing to do in like 2-3 weeks. There is just way too many gear sources to use determenistic rewards.

Game become just way too acessible. More acessible game = players will finish game faster. New progression systems are introduct to off set it (essences, cloak, ap grind, etc,..). But in order to keep them casual friendly so any noob can do them they have to be acessible. And how to make this type of progression long lasting ans acessible? You desing it so anyone can do it by facerolling content but you gate it and put it behind grinds.

Its just goes down to Blizz cant hold players interest for very long anymore thanks to ultimate chase after making game more and more acessible.

[Nerovar]

They should just rethink their positions on a lot of their core game systems and go back to more simple and intuitive design.

[Jessicka]

They cant go back to MoP gearing becouse forums would be full of players screaming they have nothing to do.

At least the forums were screaming, because they were populated.

I think they misplaced what 'something to do' is. Content, isn't, grinding gear with nothing to use it on. Nor is completing your gearset finishing the game. The reality is that people who 'finished their gearset' usually had something to do, while people who finished the content didn't really have a need for finishing their gearset.

I think Legion gave us this idea that finishing the content is the means to the end of finishing the gear, rather than the other way around. That seems somewhat misplaced.

I don't personally like open-ended systems such as there is now, I like a series of goals, and MOP gave us exactly that, I felt like each step along the way was a step forward; I've never felt in Legion or BfA that anything means anything or anything actually gets anywhere beyond hitting the next item level gate. I have precisely zero interest in what my Corrupted gear does, just that it has a higher item level; except it isn't making the process easier because it does annoying things...

Gearing up shouldn't be annoying. A chore, maybe, but flat out annoying? No.

[MoanaLisa]

Mists of Pandaria Gearing System! isn't something you can put on a box as a feature.

You can't go back. And it wouldn't matter if they did. I'm all for a more deterministic system for gearing but it's not a selling point. The systemic portion of how players are geared isn't something that people really think much about on a macro-population level.

I agree with @Nerovar that a simpler, more intuitive design would be welcome but it won't change much about how popular the game is with non-players.

[Zantera]

MoP gearing was pretty good and the item upgrade system was nice. I also think warforged (thunderforged back then when first added) was the perfect amount of RNG where you can get an item slightly upgraded, but we're not talking massive differences either, just a small bonus.

As long as we don't go back to the mindlessly boring "daily HC for currency" because I always thought that was way worse than any other daily 'chore' in the game. Some sort of weekly cap on the item upgrade system that you can achieve from multiple sources like m+, raids, islands, or whatever else.. that could be cool.

[spleen1015]

Maybe the problem here isn't the system but the players. Everyone is looking for perfect gear, min/maxxing when it doesn't matter for 99% of the players.

[Jessicka]

Maybe the problem here isn't the system but the players. Everyone is looking for perfect gear, min/maxxing when it doesn't matter for 99% of the players.

I’m not looking for perfect gear. I’m looking for an incremental process where I feel like I’m getting somewhere that doesn’t have weird caveats that are hard to understand and gives me setbacks that are disguised as progress.

[Craaazyyy]

Mists of Pandaria Gearing System! isn't something you can put on a box as a feature.

You can't go back. And it wouldn't matter if they did. I'm all for a more deterministic system for gearing but it's not a selling point. The systemic portion of how players are geared isn't something that people really think much about on a macro-population level.

I agree with @Nerovar that a simpler, more intuitive design would be welcome but it won't change much about how popular the game is with non-players.

yeah it will.. with all the other necessary changes it will make people stay subbed

like regardless of them having all the box features and selling points even if they just released a new expansion and changed nothing about it(besides just releasing new raids and dungeons) a lot of people would still buy it and resub

what Blizzard need to do is keep these players from unsubbing and changing stuff like gearing system will absolutely help

also it doesn't even need to be a selling point.. you can create other things that will attract players

[Florena]

Personally I never felt like getting your BIS for a tier and then being 'done' outside of helping your guild etc was such a bad thing that they needed titanforging and similar rng systems to keep the grind going. If titanforging were to stick around, IMO it should be a really rare thing. A nice bonus you sometimes get, but too infrequent to expect it to happen. Probably capped at a small bonus to ilvl, nothing crazy. But then I haven't really consistently raided since SoO, only dipping my toes back into it briefly in the last few expansions (and not at all in BFA) so take my opinion with a grain of salt I guess.

[Milfshaked]

Maybe the problem here isn't the system but the players. Everyone is looking for perfect gear, min/maxxing when it doesn't matter for 99% of the players.

No, the fault is always with the system, not the users of a system. A system that does not account for human behaviour is faulty.

[Elias01]

Maybe the problem here isn't the system but the players. Everyone is looking for perfect gear, min/maxxing when it doesn't matter for 99% of the players.

Majority of players is not looking for bis gear. Actualy they are not looking fot gear at all. Becouse majority of players do not play to gear their characters. They play to experience content and gear is nothing but tool how to achieve it. But current content can be literaly finished in 1 week after hiting max level and there is not really any reason to try bother farm gear becouse everything els is nothing but repeating same stuff all over again on just high difficulty which is for majority of players most boring thing to do. So fixing gearing is nice but as long as there will be no use for it people wont care.

Back in TBC you want t4 becouse you needed it to clear t5. You wanted t5 so you can clear T6 etc,.. But it was becosue players wanted to experience content no for gear itself.

[clevin]

Mists of Pandaria Gearing System! isn't something you can put on a box as a feature.

Irrelevant. Not everything needs to be an on the box feature to be a good idea.

You can't go back.

Of course they can. Aren't we told that it's their game and they can do anything they want?

And it wouldn't matter if they did. I'm all for a more deterministic system for gearing but it's not a selling point. The systemic portion of how players are geared isn't something that people really think much about on a macro-population level.

Again, irrelevant and misleading. No, most people don't think explicitly about this, but they do know whether they feel satisfied that they've completed things (VP for the week, gotten the best weapon available, etc). Incidentaly, it could be phrases as a minor selling point but even if it's not that does not affect whether it's a good idea.

I agree with @Nerovar that a simpler, more intuitive design would be welcome but it won't change much about how popular the game is with non-players.

Who cares about non-players? If you mean ex-players, it might entice some back, esp those who recently left.

The reality is that people who 'finished their gearset' usually had something to do, while people who finished the content didn't really have a need for finishing their gearset.

This is the key point I think. They should stop trying to make everything a little treadmill with a carrot that you never quite reach and think about what would make the game fun enough that people keep playing even if they were done with their gearing and it was 2 months until the next raid patch. As at is, they'll end up with only the people who like playing as hamsters, running on their wheel to try for the next bit of slightly better gear from the RNG gods. I hated that... and play Classic only. Wait... here's a sub they've retained, but for a version of the game with... more deterministic gear. Hmm...

[Elias01]

Of course they can. Aren't we told that it's their game and they can do anything they want?

Yeah they can but only if they would go back also with dungeon/raid desing and its reward structure. So no mythic+, no worldQ, no seasonal resets etc,..

[dewd]

all i want is reforging to be back. id rather go to the reforger with every new item, let the addon figure shit out and have at least a 2/3 as good an upgrade instead of going to the scrapper

[dieiamgi]

Im not interested in pve. I don't mind having to do some quests once and a while. But I think you should be able to gear up from buying honor and conquest gear. I also don't like the idea of having higher gear level gear drops that actually kills you because of corruption on it.