Raiding feels meaningless currently with to many forms of different progression

[HolyCowBro]

Normal dungeons > Heroic dungeons > Mythic dungeons > Mythic+

LFR raid > Normal raid > Heroic raid > Mythic raid

You could literally not step foot into a raid and play Mythic+ as your main way of gearing, never seeing any content in raid beyond LFR just to experience the story, and you can hit item level 475.

Want to experience harder content? time commitment. Grinding dailies. RNG gear drops. find a guild. find 20 other people for mythic. Do visions. Do world bosses. Farm for gold to afford to raid. ect.

There is a reason that WOTLK had the biggest player base ever in Warcraft history, the game was easy. There was meaningful progression, when you were done gearing in dungeons for that patches current gear, you would look to find a 10 man or 25 man normal raiding guild. The content wasn't that hard, people had fun being able to clear the content, or learn the content together with their guild. I remember Naxx being easily puggable, Ulduar also wasn't half bad.

The point I am trying to make is that there's simply to many ways to get gear. Raids used to have this feeling of curiosity and people wanted to explore them. Instead of making it widely available via LFR, you had no other choice but to either commit to a guild to see the content, or you didn't get any better gear. It was that simple.

I'd rather see a system like this again then the current. I came back after a 5 year hiatus, found a guild to do Mythic+ and start raiding, and cleared LFR Nyalotha to see the content because I'm so many months behind on my cape. SO many trolls in LFR now, just ridiculous that this game mode is even still in development.

What are your thoughts on how raiding/gearing is laid out?

[Zantera]

I think the game could do with a few less raid modes (is there even a need for BOTH normal and HC to exist?) but I'm enjoying raiding overall. Being a mythic raider now feels a lot more prestigious/challenging than it did when I did it in WotLK for example.

[Ange]

Post on your main account.

If you cant deal with the difficulty and time commitment with current WoW, play Classic or any non demanding games/genres.

M+ is popular no shit, its easy to get groups that match your own gear/skill-level, you can push or farm what ever you want. And while the external rating is by far not perfect it is a honest personal rating to gauge players you dont know if you want to push keys. Hidding in a raiding group with FOTM classes is much easier by comparison, because personal liability is that low in raiding.

Dont play the game if you dont like it. Asking for stupid easymode as the main game does not work with the current playerbase that is asking for more skill-demanding modes.

[Saltysquidoon]

I'll throw in a quick hit list

1. How does M+ existing diminish raiding? If you want to push high keys you're going to need trinkets from raids and if you want to raid at your best you at least need the 15 chest for gear.

2. Wrath's popularity is a conflux of Arthas, WoW reaching a natural peak, a lack of market competition (in the sense of mobs) and being relatively casual friendly. Raiding essentially had nothing to do with it, it's been shown like 5000 times raiding before LFR had vanishingly small participation.

3. How is getting 20 men for mythic a problem when in wrath (and explicitly in wrath) 25 man was the 'real' raid?

4. Who gives a shit about lfr if you have a guild?

5. I'm not judging you, but people who raid primarily for gear are not people I want in my raid. If those people have transitioned exclusively to m+ then they never really wanted to raid in the first place, did they?

[Brostin]

There is a reason that WOTLK had the biggest player base ever in Warcraft history

The actual reason was Arthas, coupled with the age of the game it's also why the playerbase declined after WOTLK. I cannot believe people are still struggling with this concept.

[BSwitch]

Normal dungeons > Heroic dungeons > Mythic dungeons > Mythic+

LFR raid > Normal raid > Heroic raid > Mythic raid

You could literally not step foot into a raid and play Mythic+ as your main way of gearing, never seeing any content in raid beyond LFR just to experience the story, and you can hit item level 475.

Want to experience harder content? time commitment. Grinding dailies. RNG gear drops. find a guild. find 20 other people for mythic. Do visions. Do world bosses. Farm for gold to afford to raid. ect.

There is a reason that WOTLK had the biggest player base ever in Warcraft history, the game was easy. There was meaningful progression, when you were done gearing in dungeons for that patches current gear, you would look to find a 10 man or 25 man normal raiding guild. The content wasn't that hard, people had fun being able to clear the content, or learn the content together with their guild. I remember Naxx being easily puggable, Ulduar also wasn't half bad.

The point I am trying to make is that there's simply to many ways to get gear. Raids used to have this feeling of curiosity and people wanted to explore them. Instead of making it widely available via LFR, you had no other choice but to either commit to a guild to see the content, or you didn't get any better gear. It was that simple.

I'd rather see a system like this again then the current. I came back after a 5 year hiatus, found a guild to do Mythic+ and start raiding, and cleared LFR Nyalotha to see the content because I'm so many months behind on my cape. SO many trolls in LFR now, just ridiculous that this game mode is even still in development.

What are your thoughts on how raiding/gearing is laid out?

This is a big reason I only play Classic. I never really raided past Wrath, largely because this became the problem - gear was REALLY easy to get (even if not actually BIS), and all the difficulties made the value of raid gear much lower to me. I cleared Deathwing LFR on day 1 of the raid (remember, this is when LFR and Heroic launched on the same day). I got the LFR-level BIS sword off the end boss. Essentially, in one day, I was done with that expansion raiding. I just didn't care, and never started caring for any other expansion.

Classic though? One raid difficulty. One item level for a piece of gear. The stats are what they are, no RNG. It feels SO good! I'm missing maybe a few actual BIS pieces right now, but generally I have the best of what's available right now. AQ launches in a month, and I'll get to replace nearly every piece. Then, when Naxx comes, same story. Raiding feels worth it, and having actually attainable BIS lists is such a good thing for the game. No forced gameplay loops trying to get the 50th drop of the same item to bonus roll with just the right extra stats. That's fun in Diablo. It's not fun in WoW.

For me, raiding is a big reason why Classic has been so much fun. I expect the same feeling to maintain through, presumably, TBC and Wrath Classic releases. While Wrath was the start of super easy gear to acquire, and Heroic versions of the same loot, it was at such an early stage of that type of gameplay that it didn't feel bad. Once Wrath is "done", so will I be. The Retail version of the game would need to learn lots of lessons before people like me would return. Gameplay just feels more like a waste of time in BFA, and that's not what a game should be. I hope very much that things get better in Shadowlands and beyond - I do.

[A Chozo]

If raiding feels meaningless just because there are other forms of gear progression available, then it deserves to die.

Luckly people do raids for more than gearing so there's hope.

[Zeek Daniels]

Normal dungeons > Heroic dungeons > Mythic dungeons > Mythic+

LFR raid > Normal raid > Heroic raid > Mythic raid

You could literally not step foot into a raid and play Mythic+ as your main way of gearing, never seeing any content in raid beyond LFR just to experience the story, and you can hit item level 475.

Want to experience harder content? time commitment. Grinding dailies. RNG gear drops. find a guild. find 20 other people for mythic. Do visions. Do world bosses. Farm for gold to afford to raid. ect.

There is a reason that WOTLK had the biggest player base ever in Warcraft history, the game was easy. There was meaningful progression, when you were done gearing in dungeons for that patches current gear, you would look to find a 10 man or 25 man normal raiding guild. The content wasn't that hard, people had fun being able to clear the content, or learn the content together with their guild. I remember Naxx being easily puggable, Ulduar also wasn't half bad.

The point I am trying to make is that there's simply to many ways to get gear. Raids used to have this feeling of curiosity and people wanted to explore them. Instead of making it widely available via LFR, you had no other choice but to either commit to a guild to see the content, or you didn't get any better gear. It was that simple.

I'd rather see a system like this again then the current. I came back after a 5 year hiatus, found a guild to do Mythic+ and start raiding, and cleared LFR Nyalotha to see the content because I'm so many months behind on my cape. SO many trolls in LFR now, just ridiculous that this game mode is even still in development.

What are your thoughts on how raiding/gearing is laid out?

Without titan forging you cant really gear in M+ anymore. U get 1 item per week where as if you were mythic raiding you could get multiple items per week depending on how fast your guild progresses.

Also in M+ you get 1 item per week for doing just 1 dungeon. Thats kinda boring and no challenge from a competitive perspective. You only need to do one 15 to get a 475 piece. Any higher is a waste, where as almost every boss in a raid could have loot until you get that piece.

At the end of the day when you have the strongest gear what is the point after that. Its prestige. Its trying to go for that top parse, its trying to beat your best score, its trying to be #1 in your guild, its trying to go for the mount, its trying for achieves.

Why do ppl push past 15 in M+ this late in the xpac? They dont get anything for it but a higher IO score. Thats enough for them. So who cares. It gives you no better loot from the dungeon itself or the weekly chest. So whats the point. Yet ppl still do it. Why? Prestige.

So at the end of the day. All that really matters to the top end players is prestige. Because the loot carrot only lasts for so long.

[Greyvax]

People wanted options.

Back in WoD, the phrase was "raid or die".

Now you can get upgrades by doing dungeons, raids, or even PvP.

[Nobleshield]

I honestly think they should have never focused on the super difficult. That to me is the outlier. But I think they could take a page from how FFXIV handles their content.

[Rappy28]

Basically OP is upset people have more options for gearing than being stuck with 9 other people 3 nights a week. Don't you love having less options? I sure do!

[Twdft]

There is a reason that WOTLK had the biggest player base ever in Warcraft history, the game was easy. There was meaningful progression, when you were done gearing in dungeons for that patches current gear, you would look to find a 10 man or 25 man normal raiding guild.

Only 10% of the player base raided back in WotLK. You gotta come out of your raider bubble.

And post on your normal account, don't hide behind a burner.

[Kralljin]

Having up to four difficulties, essentially seasonal (soft) gear resets don't help there very much.

I mean, it makes sense, if previously 100% of endgame gear source was raiding and now it's only like 50%, it obviously does feel meaningful.

I think the game could do with a few less raid modes (is there even a need for BOTH normal and HC to exist?) but I'm enjoying raiding overall.

The game would become even more top/down focused if you remove these two modes.

I consider it a big problem that fewer people sit between the LFR and Mythic raiders nowadays [As organized groups], because those represented the "middle ground" in the past.

Quite frankly, as far as actual rewards are concerned, LFR is the most pointless one.
It gets artificially staggered by weeks and by the time of its full release, people already got the LFR Ilvl by just farming M+0.

Being a mythic raider now feels a lot more prestigious/challenging than it did when I did it in WotLK for example.

Each to their own i guess.
I think overall Mythic raiding is barely worth the effort in terms of rewards / time investment anymore.

1.Titles / Mounts just aren't cutting it anymore as rewards.
that may have been the case when these things were a bit rarer in general, but nowadays people just know that all you have to do is wait and then kill said Mythic boss one expansion later.
Yeah, Mount is 1% dropchance, but compare that to banging your head against a boss for 300+ attempts.

Then again, does that one mount from a mythic boss really sweeten the deal for you?
Most of them land in your 200-300+ Mount collection anyway.

2.Actual power upgrades are minimal.
It has become a rather concerning trend that hardcore guilds just don't farm the final boss until it gets heavily nerfed if the rewards aren't good enough.
Examples such as KJ, G'huun & Jaina highlight this behavior.
If these bosses just drop loot that doesn't stand out any fashion or simply gets slapped a bit of Ilvl on it - neither of it feels really good.

A lot of people that are able to farm M+10 / 15 can pretty much achieve Mythic Ilvl by just waiting awhile alongside a bit of luck from the Weekly chest, without abiding by a 2-3 raid/week schedule.

3.The difficulty curve is fucked up.
Too often nowadays, Raids become "One boss tiers" where most guilds that clear Mythic spend most of their time on a single boss (usually the final boss).
That is not very healthy, going at a quick / reasonable pace through most bosses, then bang your head against a 300+ Wipes wall is not fun.

Difficult Bosses are cool, but if you load the difficulty of a raid into a single boss, it's not cool.
Final Bosses shouldn't be as challenging but the bosses leading up to them should be harder.

The sole prestige i can see here is that Mythic final bosses have become extremely difficult and you are able really take this a show of your skill - this however comes at the expense that Bosses require multiple nerfs before less hardcore guilds are able to kill it, which to some degree invalidates your achievement.

The Famed Titles exist but those cannot compensate the fact that Final Bosses used to drop Insane gear / more unique rewards.

[Bigbazz]

Currently? It's been this way for the best part of a decade in regards to raiding. And really WoW has evolved into a single player game with bonus multiplayer content these days and a lot of people play that way, it's past the point of no return. TBC Classic coming though, less grindy and better balanced but still the traditional MMO.

[GucciWarr]

I think you’re wrong, everyone knows that normal and heroic aren’t challenges and boys become men in mythic and if you can’t do mythic you’re bad at the game, been that way for 2 expansions.

[Denso]

I'd rather they ditched raiding altogether and focused on 5-mans, maybe re-add 10-mans. That's why WotLK was played so much. Ask most people in 20-man guilds if they'd pick up and play smaller dungeons with everyone in their guild and they would not be too psyched about half the guild (exceptions obviously for long lasting guilds, of which there are comparatively few).

[Kyphael]

Blizzard had to introduce a variety of different difficulties to appeal to their very diverse player base. Just worry about what mode your current play style falls into, and don't worry so much about the rest. One mode alone doesn't fit all. If it's too easy, you alienate the more hardcore player base. If it's too hard, players who can't devote all that much time or don't care to be that good at this game can't experience raid content. There's something for everyone at every level and I'm perfectly fine with that.

[msdos]

I did Mythic in Legion and some in BFA and it didn't feel any more challenging than Heroic, the timings just felt tighter. People blow how hard mythic is out of proportion because they wanna gatekeep the top for exclusivity purposes. It's a big cool kids club circle jerk. That's why there's ever increasing hoops you have to jump through and people only care about world 1st.

I equate this to Path of Exile players at the top. They've become so bored of the game that they have to go do SSF HC Race to 100 World First Uber Elite Sudden Death Doom Mode and anything below is undesirable.
Video games just create this ever increasing bar now, it's ridiculous and a bit masochistic.

[Akka]

There is a reason that WOTLK had the biggest player base ever in Warcraft history, the game was easy.

No, the reason was that it came on the back of the success of TBC, which did the heavy lifting while WotLK saw next to no growth, and which actually was pretty hard.
Also the multiple difficulties crap came during WotLK so it's not really the best example.

[Belloc]

If other people having content that they enjoy makes your preferred content feel meaningless, then you're way too focused on gear. You need to realize that gear is a means to an end, not the end itself. Gear allows you to progress through content. If gear is your primary motivation, then you might enjoy games like Diablo 3, where the entire point is the loot treadmill. WoW is not that game and will hopefully never be.