How can loot even work without warforging/similar systems?

[Recovery]

They only like it being a rp when it hinders the top end of players.

Wow was never an RP game. Its always been an MMORPG that had some aspects available for people who like the RP scene. MMOs are defined as just that. RPG is secondary. As soon as you play a blood elf paladin, you are hitting the roleplaying aspect.

post mop or maybe post wod wow became and MMOGRINDFEST rather than an MMORPG

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This is a thing im worried about since quite some time now, we know so far there will not be a warforging or similar system in SL.

However, how do they keep the incentive for mythic+ and raids once you got most of your important stuff up?

Love or hate it, the introduction of thunderforging in mop and the advancing of that system was a necessary evil because otherwise a lot of players would have been "done" and quit way too fast, creating problems not only for the devs but also raiding guilds.

Im not here to discuss wf/tf or if there could have been a better solution (dead horse), but how you guys think they'll handle it in SL, i can't imagine they'd just let it be like right now -20% drop chance on everything and call it a day.

M+ needs a longterm incentive.
First few bosses in a raid need a longterm incentive.
Casual, non-instanced content needs a longterm incentive.

I really don't want to go to the wod days and before where realisticaly im only motivated to do that one boss at some point because it's the only upgrade i could still get..

Bruh, please look up how long it took for 100 guilds to complete mythic Ny'alotha. Go ahead. Look it up.
Im down with non instanced content having longterm incentives, but im NOT down with those incentives being imperative to grind in order to compete at the highest level in the game. That goes for mythic+ as well.

Mythic plus should maybe be used for gearing outside of raiding.. Maybe have up to a +10 drop gear thats 20 ilvl less than mythic raid gear. +5 drops gear 20 ilvl less than heroic. Anything over +10 becomes like the old challenge modes and rewards cosmetics.. Challenge mode only transmog, mounts, titles, etc.. Same as Arena rewards.

What youre not understanding is that i believe the vast mojority of wow players WANT to have a point where "they're done". People are tired of endlessly grinding. We want to see sunlight every now and then and not feel like were falling behind and cant catch up.

[TheLucky1]

Read back to yourself what you just wrote.

So what? this is exactly what happend to me and my guild in mop/wod(okay, wod had other problems..) and there was already the miniature system of forging.

First of: thanks for all the answers and perspective's guys.

I think this is pretty subjective but i'd lie if i would say that wf/tf in Legion didn't motivate me to go and raid more or do more keystones, i don't particular like wf/tf itself and im fine if it gets replaced by something else like an upgrade system but there should be something for longterm progress imo., the devs explained this in mop why they introduced it and im pretty much on their side there.

As for the people saying less loot will fix it, mop already had thunderforging because the devs thought they needed to and there wasn't even M+ in the game, for this to work like in "the olde days" they would have to cut down on loot drastically, maybe even go half what you currently get in raids and somehow cap how much you can get from spamming M+ i don't see any other way, it's just not comparable to "back in the days", loot works entirely different now.

And to the just go gear an alt 5heads: yes, i think this is a good idea and some players naturally tend to, but if most players would have done that we wouldn't have gotten thunderforging to begin with, there are also a lot of players i think that want to progress their main character more and more every week.

The communitys demand for removal of warforing and similar systems feels like the request to play less, weird tbh.

[schwank05]

I've been wondering the same thing and honestly I don't know what are the upsides of removing WF/corruption. Less drops is a solution? I'm so looking forward to go weeks without weapon upgrade at all...

I remember the healing Mace from KT dropping only once for our guild back in Wrath, we all saved up our DKP and had a massive bid off for it when it dropped, in the end it cost me all 2k of my saved up points to get it, and it was almost immediately replaced in Ulduar. But guess what that shit was a blast and I loved every second of it. I hope for moments like this to return if they ever decide to get rid of the dumbassery that is personal loot.

[Raelbo]

I think the people complaining are mostly lfr/world quest players. They will simply never get overpowered gear easily again with these changes.

Nice ad hominem. I guess you couldn't really come up with a counter for the arguments, so you choose to try and ridicule the players themselves.

Also I don't think you're correct. If anything, I think the the only people who really concerned themselves with lfr/world quest players getting "overpowered gear easily" were a small group of elitist who somehow believed that it diminished them in some way.

Personally my biggest objection to the removal of WF/TF is that I think it was a decent system that achieved a good outcome for the vast majority of, removed on the basis of poor arguments by a highly vocal (as usual) minority.

[schwank05]

Wow was never an RP game. Its always been an MMORPG that had some aspects available for people who like the RP scene. MMOs are defined as just that. RPG is secondary. As soon as you play a blood elf paladin, you are hitting the roleplaying aspect.

post mop or maybe post wod wow became and MMOGRINDFEST rather than an MMORPG

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Bruh, please look up how long it took for 100 guilds to complete mythic Ny'alotha. Go ahead. Look it up.
Im down with non instanced content having longterm incentives, but im NOT down with those incentives being imperative to grind in order to compete at the highest level in the game. That goes for mythic+ as well.

Mythic plus should maybe be used for gearing outside of raiding.. Maybe have up to a +10 drop gear thats 20 ilvl less than mythic raid gear. +5 drops gear 20 ilvl less than heroic. Anything over +10 becomes like the old challenge modes and rewards cosmetics.. Challenge mode only transmog, mounts, titles, etc.. Same as Arena rewards.

What youre not understanding is that i believe the vast mojority of wow players WANT to have a point where "they're done". People are tired of endlessly grinding. We want to see sunlight every now and then and not feel like were falling behind and cant catch up.

Exactly what he said, we all want to have a point where we know we are done.

[Recovery]

So what? this is exactly what happend to me and my guild in mop/wod(okay, wod had other problems..) and there was already the miniature system of forging.

First of: thanks for all the answers and perspective's guys.

I think this is pretty subjective but i'd lie if i would say that wf/tf in Legion didn't motivate me to go and raid more or do more keystones, i don't particular like wf/tf itself and im fine if it gets replaced by something else like an upgrade system but there should be something for longterm progress imo., the devs explained this in mop why they introduced it and im pretty much on their side there.

As for the people saying less loot will fix it, mop already had thunderforging because the devs thought they needed to and there wasn't even M+ in the game, for this to work like in "the olde days" they would have to cut down on loot drastically, maybe even go half what you currently get in raids and somehow cap how much you can get from spamming M+ i don't see any other way, it's just not comparable to "back in the days", loot works entirely different now.

And to the just go gear an alt 5heads: yes, i think this is a good idea and some players naturally tend to, but if most players would have done that we wouldn't have gotten thunderforging to begin with, there are also a lot of players i think that want to progress their main character more and more every week.

The communitys demand for removal of warforing and similar systems feels like the request to play less, weird tbh.

There you go! You finally understand. Thats exactly what we want. We want to BE DONE.. Yo im done, cy@ in x.2. Thats precisely what we want.

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Nice ad hominem. I guess you couldn't really come up with a counter for the arguments, so you choose to try and ridicule the players themselves.

Also I don't think you're correct. If anything, I think the the only people who really concerned themselves with lfr/world quest players getting "overpowered gear easily" were a small group of elitist who somehow believed that it diminished them in some way.

Personally my biggest objection to the removal of WF/TF is that I think it was a decent system that achieved a good outcome for the vast majority of, removed on the basis of poor arguments by a highly vocal (as usual) minority.

WF / TF gave people who werent getting rewards at the highest level of progress a change to stay semi relevant with players who were. It WAS good for those players. IT became bad when people started requiring ilvl only obtainable from WF /TF in order to compete at the highest level. People had to no life wow due to this. This also caused people to require insane ilvl for trivial content just for the sake of downing it quicker.. or what- not. Lord forbid you started 8.2 - 8.2.5 in gear you obtained in 8.0. IF you didnt have some friends willing to carry you for 12-24 hours, and pass gear they didnt need to you, i have no idea how you caught up and achieved relevance. Thats precisely what happened to me. I quite after reaching 380 ilvl in uldir. Came back like mid to late 8.2 and all my friends were above 430. I had to grind stupid pearls to upgrade benthic gear and grind essences, azerite traits.. then grind out that 430+ ilvl to even almost begin to be relevant. And when i say 430+ ilvl i mean 430+ ilvl with correct stats and traits.. Everyone knows ilvl isnt enough. Secondary stats are too strong. I literally gave up on end game progress due to it. Thankfully, in 8.3, i was able to regain relevance due to the ilvl increase of rewards, since i was ready to hit it hard as soon as the patch dropped.

[TheLucky1]

There you go! You finally understand. Thats exactly what we want. We want to BE DONE.. Yo im done, see you in x.2. Thats precisely what we want.

How can you speak for everyone though? I could understand the argument of falling behind with the AP grinds but i never had that feeling with gear in Legion/Bfa simply because at some point it was only a nice bonus, if you grind out and fish for that super high forged item you could maybe get an average itemlevel increase of like 1-2 points compared to someone who farms the raid at that point and does 1 +10/15 key and is also "done" for that week.
Again, Ap as a system sucks in that regard because you could easily fall behind, wf/tf was only a nice little extra imo.

[Accendor]

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M+ will still be a great way to chill with guildies and gear up alts

I mean gearing up alts will most likely be the main thing for many people as it currently looks like as there won't be much to do for mains. In my opinion that is the completely wrong approach, but many people see that differently I guess.

[Raelbo]

What youre not understanding is that i believe the vast mojority of wow players WANT to have a point where "they're done". People are tired of endlessly grinding. We want to see sunlight every now and then and not feel like were falling behind and cant catch up.

What you're not understanding is that the game cannot possibly set a single "you're done" point that is appropriate for everyone. Therefore each individual needs to be able to set that point for themselves.

That is why arguing for BiS as a "you're done" objective is not very smart. It sets a bar that the vast majority of players can't even reach. And even for the tiny fraction who can, you're still going to have those who end up only doing it because they're OCD and then burning themselves out, as well as though who want to keep on playing for longer. In the end it satisfies maybe 1-2% of the playerbase at most.

The whole point of an "endless gear progression" as you guys like to call it (although it's more of a diminishing returns converging to a point you can get close to but never reach progression) is that by not having any definitive end point, you get to choose your own end point.

I think the only real advantage of a definitive end-point like BiS is that it allows the people at the top to walk away from their compulsion to compete with others, whereas with TF/WF, people who don't know how to walk away are going to get themselves into a vicious cycle of competition that can only end in burnout for someone. Personally though, I would rather advocate that people should be given the responsibility to manage themselves, rather than the game planning nanny.

[Saltysquidoon]

How can you speak for everyone though? I could understand the argument of falling behind with the AP grinds but i never had that feeling with gear in Legion/Bfa simply because at some point it was only a nice bonus, if you grind out and fish for that super high forged item you could maybe get an average itemlevel increase of like 1-2 points compared to someone who farms the raid at that point and does 1 +10/15 key and is also "done" for that week.
Again, Ap as a system sucks in that regard because you could easily fall behind, wf/tf was only a nice little extra imo.

I saw a ret pally on the first day EN opened with 5 pieces of titanforged gear, he's probably an outlier but if I was in his raid I'd feel bad that I had no hope of ever competing with him because even if I got the same drops his are better because of something out of my control.

The DK in the other mythic guild got the op unholy leggo (which was broken OP, like a 35k dps dps increase just for equipping them) before EN opened, that felt bad because I could never compete with him because of something out of my control.

In BFA I had three SS azerite traits in uldir, that felt bad for the other rogue in the guild because he had no hope of competing with me because of something out of his control.

I didn't play 8.3 but I can't imagine corruption felt better.

That is why arguing for BiS as a "you're done" objective is not very smart. It sets a bar that the vast majority of players can't even reach. And even for the tiny fraction who can, you're still going to have those who end up only doing it because they're OCD and then burning themselves out, as well as though who want to keep on playing for longer. In the end it satisfies maybe 1-2% of the playerbase at most.

The whole point of an "endless gear progression" as you guys like to call it (although it's more of a diminishing returns converging to a point you can get close to but never reach progression) is that by not having any definitive end point, you get to choose your own end point.

This argument makes no logical sense.

An endpoint some people can reach by definition contributes to less burnout then one no one can reach. That logic is axiomatic, I cannot see how you can think otherwise.

The retort that players need to determine their own endpoint is equally fallacious. The exact same players who would burn out grinding bis for no reason are the ones who burn out grinding upgrades forever when they've cleared all the content. It's the same incentive obviously it attracts the same players.

[Recovery]

Exactly what he said, we all want to have a point where we know we are done.

exactly, or we at least want to get to a point where we know we only need 2-3 pieces that are GUARANTEED to drop and we will eventually get them. That titanforged Gettikku may NEVER drop. You could run it 10000 times during the patch and literally never see it drop, much less of a chance to actually be the one that gets it to drop. lol

[shoc]

All the terrible loot design since -forging came out is a symptom of psychology-minded game design, intended to keep you addicted by pinging your reward centers at very controlled intervals. Just like a casino does. Seeing your raid members get megaforged uberloot makes you feel like you have a chance if you just keep playing more and more and more. It's the style that makes King mobile games net billions of dollars, being applied to a game that should never have subscribed to those conventions in the first place. But at the end of the day it just makes you no better than those old people mindlessly and hopelessly gambling their life savings away.

[Recovery]

What you're not understanding is that the game cannot possibly set a single "you're done" point that is appropriate for everyone. Therefore each individual needs to be able to set that point for themselves.

That is why arguing for BiS as a "you're done" objective is not very smart. It sets a bar that the vast majority of players can't even reach. And even for the tiny fraction who can, you're still going to have those who end up only doing it because they're OCD and then burning themselves out, as well as though who want to keep on playing for longer. In the end it satisfies maybe 1-2% of the playerbase at most.

The whole point of an "endless gear progression" as you guys like to call it (although it's more of a diminishing returns converging to a point you can get close to but never reach progression) is that by not having any definitive end point, you get to choose your own end point.

I think the only real advantage of a definitive end-point like BiS is that it allows the people at the top to walk away from their compulsion to compete with others, whereas with TF/WF, people who don't know how to walk away are going to get themselves into a vicious cycle of competition that can only end in burnout for someone. Personally though, I would rather advocate that people should be given the responsibility to manage themselves, rather than the game planning nanny.

Please explain to me how the vast majority of players cant hit their personal bis in a system without WF / TF? Are you a casual normal only raider? OKay your bis is a mix of M+ gear and normal raid gear. Easily obtainable. The same can be said for heroic as well as mythic. Where are you coming to the conclusion that its not possible to obtain?

[Ninix]

it worked fine in vanilla, tbc, wotlk, cata and half of mop

So basically when lfg and m+ with out of control requirements from group leaders weren't a thing

[Raelbo]

Again, Ap as a system sucks in that regard because you could easily fall behind

Not really. With the way AK works catching up is pretty easy, because the value of effort put in in the past diminishes very rapidly. Secondly, with the way in which advancement increases in cost exponentially, you have to be putting in significantly more effort to get meaningfully ahead. The result of which is that even people putting in significantly less effort are not going to fall very far behind at all.

With AP, most of the significant power gains are achieved with moderate effort. While there may be no limit on the upper end, at some point the extra effort really isn't going to translate into very much at all. So unless you're being completely OCD, you really don't need to worry too much about falling behind.

For example, if you're putting in 40 hours a week grinding AP for 10 weeks while I do nothing, but then in week 9 I can and spend two weeks catching up at a mere 50% above normal effort (ie 60 hours) I will have caught up entirely.

[Eazy]

How can loot even work without warforging/similar systems?

Just as it worked before MoP.

[Raelbo]

Please explain to me how the vast majority of players cant hit their personal bis in a system without WF / TF? Are you a casual normal only raider? OKay your bis is a mix of M+ gear and normal raid gear. Easily obtainable. The same can be said for heroic as well as mythic. Where are you coming to the conclusion that its not possible to obtain?

I hadn't really considered it from that angle because the argument for BiS is generally made by Mythic raiders, and it's never seemed to be an issue at Heroic or Normal. Regardless, it really doesn't change much in my argument, because it would still be setting a homogeneous goal for a diverse group of players, all of whom don't necessarily want to spend the same amount of time grinding for some arbitrary number just because it exists.

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This argument makes no logical sense.

Or maybe you need to work on your logic....

An endpoint some people can reach by definition contributes to less burnout then one no one can reach. That logic is axiomatic, I cannot see how you can think otherwise

I wrote it quite clearly: You get to choose your own endpoint

If the game is dictating the end point then the game becomes responsible for those who burn themselves out trying to get there. If the game forces you to choose your endpoint, then you really have no one to blame except yourself if you can't set it appropriately.

The retort that players need to determine their own endpoint is equally fallacious. The exact same players who would burn out grinding bis for no reason are the ones who burn out grinding upgrades forever when they've cleared all the content. It's the same incentive obviously it attracts the same players.

The key difference being that the responsible party shifts from being the game to the individual. I think it's infinitely preferable to have people burning out as a result of their own foolish decisions than because that is where the game is telling them to go. At least individuals can and should be able to learn and adjust.

[facefist]

Did you watch the interview with Ion about loot? He basically said that they made more loot drop during the days of WF/TF so we will be seeing less drops in SL which means hitting your best in slot gear will take a similar amount of time. As for m+ that will stay the same, scaling with the difficulty of the dungeon

No, it won't take similar amount of time. With WF/TF bis gear farm was infinite, with this system it is finite. And I personally like it, because now there is no infinite possibility of upgrades for your main, so can focus on alts instead now.

The game was way more popular before any of this lottery crap, so apparently it can work excellently.

This is the best reasoning ever, can't believe people are actually so naive. Yes I don't like WF/TF, yes I like the loot system of earlier expansions. But how in the hell can anyone say that "game was way more popular than thing X, so it is fine to remove it". There are thousands of changes that has happened in 1) WoW 2) In the demographic of a typical player etc., and you are so certain that this is one of the reasons the game was popular.

I mean, using your reasoning we should probably remove m+ totally, because WoW was way more popular before they implemented it. And should probably remove all the new classes and races. And remove all the new skills. And remove everything that wasn't here during WOTLK, because that is when WoW was the most popular.

[Unholyground]

RNG in gearing like it is on live now is a literal nightmare of a system especially with azerite traits on top of it all. Being able to target a specific upgrade allows you as the player to work towards something you ACTUALLY WANT rather than burning out and hating the game because you keep getting shafted repeating the same bullshit forever.

Many mistakes were made with modern gearing and they finally realized that copying how mobile phone MMO's do loot was a horrible idea in a game like WoW.

Side note: I even had the solution to azerite traits before BfA went live by having one empty trait on each ring that would be sockets with the professions making the socket items and some dropping from content, it was the best possible solution for the corner they painted themselves into and they didn't do it. (just a rant about how they didn't give a fuck and now they are realizing we were right on many levels.)

[Belloc]

How is that problem solved? Now you run endless dungeons to receive nothing.

Less =/= none. Furthermore, the game already has a bad luck loot protection mechanic and they can applied it to any source of loot if they want.


Here's a better solution, though: Upgrade currency. All loot drops at a standard ilvl but, by farming content, upgrade currency can be obtained that will upgrade an item's ilvl. The amount of currency and strength of the upgrade can be tuned to keep the content relevant for as long as necessary. Problem solved.

Or players can do what they've always done and just enjoy the game for the content, not the loot.