How I want gear to be in Shadowlands

[docterfreeze]

So mythic raid gear would just save you time rather than giving you a permanent upgrade over lower difficulties. The gear rewards from mythic are hardly worth the effort as-is, this would just make it even less rewarding. Having random 1/3 upgrade procs is fine but mythic gear should always be better than normal/heroic. Doesn't even have to be via ilvl, you could have increased effects from mythic set bonuses vs lower difficulties set bonuses.

[Kendros]

Good thing that what you want doesnt mean shit.

[Polarthief]

Love the idea for many reasons:
- Upgrades: Any piece of gear, even gear you can get from LFR or Normal can be viable for Heroic/Mythic raiders. The piece is what's important, not necessarily where you got it from, but getting it in Mythic or getting a little lucky in Heroic can save you some Valor. I'd imagine M+ would be roughly the same way, too, maybe with 6 upgrade levels each one costing about half as much as raiding ones, since you'd need scaling from base Mythic all the way up to +10 (or +15 if they do that as the cap moving forward).
- Enchants: This one I don't like as much, but I would like a few more pieces to be enchantable than just weapons and rings (excluding profession-utility glove enchants and Enchanter-only bracer enchants that barely matter). That's boring as hell.
- Sockets: Them not having to be randomly procced is very nice. The RNG of saving points is totally fine. I'm not sure on my thoughts of socket colors returning.
- Set Bonuses: Yeah, why not.

All in all, I love this feeling of gear mattering and not just tossing it because you got the same piece or a different piece but it "procced better" with TF, Socket, or Corruption. It's annoying and gives this strange disconnect to gear where you don't really value or appreciate it in any way. Sure the tooltip may be huge and daunting to a new player, but they can always just ignore all of it if they don't want to deal. It's a fun thing to jump into when you're ready.

So mythic raid gear would just save you time rather than giving you a permanent upgrade over lower difficulties. The gear rewards from mythic are hardly worth the effort as-is, this would just make it even less rewarding. Having random 1/3 upgrade procs is fine but mythic gear should always be better than normal/heroic. Doesn't even have to be via ilvl, you could have increased effects from mythic set bonuses vs lower difficulties set bonuses.

Saves you time and points that you can invest on unlocking sockets or upgrading other gear that you can't get to drop in Mythic. Honestly, I don't see how it's such a bad thing if other people eventually get Mythic iLvl with a lot of time, patience, and grinding. Instead of giving you nothing for your effort in grinding out World Quests and Emissaries every day, the player should get *something* and some Valor for their hard work would seem like a progress bar to fill and feel good about. Meanwhile, Mythic raiders don't need to do all that grinding they don't want to, as I'd imagine Mythic bosses also drop valor and sockets unlocking wouldn't be nearly as expensive as iLvl upgrades would be.

Overall, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to gear up and the focus is then put on fully upgrading and decking out the gear instead of trying to get the one vital piece you absolutely *need* to be competitive, but it also needs to roll decent enough iLvl and socket, and corruption and etc nonsense RNG bullshit.

[docterfreeze]

Saves you time and points that you can invest on unlocking sockets or upgrading other gear that you can't get to drop in Mythic. Honestly, I don't see how it's such a bad thing if other people eventually get Mythic iLvl with a lot of time, patience, and grinding. Instead of giving you nothing for your effort in grinding out World Quests and Emissaries every day, the player should get *something* and some Valor for their hard work would seem like a progress bar to fill and feel good about. Meanwhile, Mythic raiders don't need to do all that grinding they don't want to, as I'd imagine Mythic bosses also drop valor and sockets unlocking wouldn't be nearly as expensive as iLvl upgrades would be.

Overall, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to gear up and the focus is then put on fully upgrading and decking out the gear instead of trying to get the one vital piece you absolutely *need* to be competitive, but it also needs to roll decent enough iLvl and socket, and corruption and etc nonsense RNG bullshit.

Mythic raiders deserve better rewards because they put in not only time, but effort. You could log in every day and do world quests, weekly LFR, etc. You're putting in time but that content takes very little effort.

[Advent]

Mythic raiders deserve better rewards because they put in not only time, but effort. You could log in every day and do world quests, weekly LFR, etc. You're putting in time but that content takes very little effort.

Effort to me is relative, and doesn't mean anything at all in this game in the slightest. High end raiders had their time in the sun where all roads lead to content they could effectively cut people out of, and now that people have more lucrative alternatives it's suddenly time to snatch it back for them? I don't think so. MMOs don't require some meaningless trophy for people to feel good about themselves because I believe that the game won't live or die if they don't feel "adequately rewarded".

[docterfreeze]

Effort to me is relative, and doesn't mean anything at all in this game in the slightest. High end raiders had their time in the sun where all roads lead to content they could effectively cut people out of, and now that people have more lucrative alternatives it's suddenly time to snatch it back for them? I don't think so. MMOs don't require some meaningless trophy for people to feel good about themselves because I believe that the game won't live or die if they don't feel "adequately rewarded".

The more difficult the content the more effort it takes to complete, that's clear. Take effort out of the conversation and I could say that beating the most difficult content deserves the greatest rewards. That's game design 101

[Kaver]

Yes but you're only choosing to see problems instead of solutions. For example if instead of 3 upgrades there were 5 or even 10, then "getting lucky" wouldn't have as big of an impact. This is just a concept, you don't have to rage against a made up system like it's something set in stone. Lots of others in this thread have had issues with different aspects but they've offered alternative solutions, which I for one appreciate.

Okay, I get your point.

But you did present the original post with very little explanation and with the headline “How I want gear to be in Shadowlands”. So I got the impression that this was a set-in-stone description of how you specifically want the gear to be.

[bloodmoth13]

The upgrade tiers would be a great addition!
unlocking slots is also nice. I dont think every piece needs to be invested in from enchanting, scribes and jewelcrafters. Maybe make different items take different slots.
You could also make it so that crafters can unlock their slots faster, so they get a higher gear floor but the same end ceiling.

[Echocho]

The upgrade tiers would be a great addition!
unlocking slots is also nice. I dont think every piece needs to be invested in from enchanting, scribes and jewelcrafters. Maybe make different items take different slots.
You could also make it so that crafters can unlock their slots faster, so they get a higher gear floor but the same end ceiling.

I agree. Having armor crafters being able to craft BOP iLvl upgrade tokens is a great idea too, there has to exist a weekly cap obviously but it would actually give those professions a purpose.

[klaps_05]

So many years have passed, people dont even remember the shitshow and mountains of complaints about valor points that they even call them now a perfect system. its ok, im sure even if blizz implements exactly the OP picture or any other system people will bitch about it.

[Advent]

The more difficult the content the more effort it takes to complete, that's clear. Take effort out of the conversation and I could say that beating the most difficult content deserves the greatest rewards. That's game design 101

That already is the case. But when you lock the best rewards in an MMO behind content almost no one can do with no other alternatives, the game begins to edge closer towards the raid or die design. And no one wants that. The best thing the devs did was offer alternative progression outside of raiding imo. Because raiding is generally not a friendly or inclusive activity, not anymore.

[bloodmoth13]

I agree. Having armor crafters being able to craft BOP iLvl upgrade tokens is a great idea too, there has to exist a weekly cap obviously but it would actually give those professions a purpose.

I didnt mean an ilvl upgrade but rather, say, normal gear has no gem slot till its upgraded to t1, jewelcrafters however can unlock that slot at t0, so they get their slots a tier early.
Do the same with enchants etc.

[docterfreeze]

That already is the case. But when you lock the best rewards in an MMO behind content almost no one can do with no other alternatives, the game begins to edge closer towards the raid or die design. And no one wants that. The best thing the devs did was offer alternative progression outside of raiding imo. Because raiding is generally not a friendly or inclusive activity, not anymore.

It's somewhat the case now, titanforging and corruptions muddied the waters, but with the OP's proposed gear it wouldn't be the case.

[DemonDays]

Feel free to flame me as you see fit!

We had the solution to the Titanforging problem in Mists of Pandaria. The Valor upgrading path you propose here.

Hilarious that it has come to this - Corruption.

[Advent]

It's somewhat the case now, titanforging and corruptions muddied the waters, but with the OP's proposed gear it wouldn't be the case.

I'd argue that it is too deterministic, and makes the game feel like more busywork, to me.

[Azerate]

I feel we are past the "farm some badges all day every day to upgrade the item" design. I was actually a proponent of this solution back in the day (when all the "pro players' claimed that badges are the worst thing on planet earth by the way) but I just love the newer systems way more than that.

[Echocho]

I'd argue that it is too deterministic, and makes the game feel like more busywork, to me.

I think there's a sweet spot where things like the ones I propose can proc on their own at a reasonable level and the ones that don't you can work on upgrading if you want

[Divineovic]

Personally, I would love to see PvP gear and PvE gear separated again. I am so sick of being forced to do raids/mythics just to get gear for PvP. Makes ZERO sense for PvE (Player vs Entity) to be good in PvP (Player vs Player). I would love to see PvP vendors brought back into the game where you actually have to PvP to get good PVP gear. It just makes way more sense. If this doesn't happen in Shadowlands I can guarantee you I will not be playing it.

[Schattenlied]

I can already hear people already cry about the grind this would bring with it.

Personally I kind of like the idea. Glyphs should do something again.

The thing that makes this different is it's a controlled grind, with a clearly defined end.... Not an RNG shitfest where everything is based on luck or an infinite grind with no end.

This is a "good" grind, good grinds have a clear end to them where you know how much effort it will take going in, and when you're done you get to sit back and appreciate the reward you got from it... What we have now is bad grind, where you never get to sit back and enjoy your reward unless you got amazingly lucky, because it's designed to never end under normal circumstances.