Aren't casuals are getting better gear than ever? Was calling it Valor the mistake?

[RobertMugabe]

The new valor system is good and fine as it is. Personally I just think that M+ as a whole systems sucks and it affects the game negatively, since the dungeons alone are also extremely dull. Having dungeons be perfectly executed, while also speed running is a neat thing for competitiveness, but outside of that its just a toxic, tedious and yet somehow super boring thing. They should've just kept challenge modes and let dungeons be dungeons.

[Argorwal]

This game is built for casuals, as they're 90% of the player base. The nerds who raid mythic and constantly do M+ 15 and above, are a very small subset of players. Not all of us nerds who do those things are considered casual, so while we're working harder for loot and getting it faster, the casual player can still earn it at a slower pace. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion.

And after reading your entire post, you don't even make sense. They can call it any name, it doesn't change what it does.


Side note... Really wish folks would proofread their titles when creating a post.... It isn't that hard.

So anything below mythic is casual?

Normal/heroic raids

Up to probably +10 keys

Up to 1800 rated PvP

And everything else, all available for the 90% of the playerbase casual masses?

Sounds like a good deal to me. I think we are in agreement.

[RobertMugabe]

Yes, last 3 expansions have been the most casual friendly in WoWs history. Its always amuses me how someone would complain that modern WoW is not casual friendly at all compared to before, ignoring the raid or die mentality we had until Legion, and that casuals and hardcore players have never been as close power wise in current content as they have been from Legion and until now.

This valor change was mostly for those who do mythic+ only as they were very limited item level wise besides getting gear from TGV. Casuals have enough ways to gear up in SL, before this change.

I fully disagree. Wrath was far more casual friendly than any of the last 3 expansions and so were WoD, MoP and Cata too. It was extremely easy and straight forward to get into raids and in these expansions there were multiple sources that awarded normal raid level gear (dungeons, professions and even open world content). After the normal raid ilvl gear the only upgrade was heroic raiding gear and that's it. In SL for example you can casually get to let's say ilvl200, but somewhere at this point most people get "stuck" and progressing further (M+, heroic, mythic raiding) becomes much more difficult.

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Was Blizzard's mistake calling it Valor? I've seen people asking for Wrath style badge systems & MoP/WoD style upgrade systems, but I don't really think either are the answer. Thinking back to 3.3.5 when the group finder was added, if you did nothing but LFG random dungeons & some professions, you were getting nowhere near the item level of a normal raider at the time, even if you could buy a few items from the vendor - Hell, you'd struggle to get near the item level of someone who raided the previous tier (I should know, as I played super casual during that period, struggling to pug past 7/12 ICC N each week )

You could get T10 (ICC raid gear; ilvl253) by doing only dungeons, although there was a cap, so it took a while. You could however spam dungeons indefinitely and get T9 (TOC raid gear; ilvl245)

[ohwell]

Since you just flat out made up that number... ok.

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You don't have any data to back this up. Casual players might be more likely to stay subbed than raiders. You have no idea. Just because something sounds intuitive to you doesn't mean it's true.

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There's only two camps here:

1. The reasonable people that understand that "casual" is about how serious you take the game, not about time logged.

2. The irrational people who know that the reasonable definition of casual is bad for their arguments, so they dishonestly try to reframe it in order to win arguments by defining themselves into being correct.

And you don't have data to back up the casuals claim that was made about them existing more.

Much less it's been said more than enough on these forums that the claim I made was the case as testimonial which while anecdotal, the casuals are most often the ones not staying subbed.

Also love the fallacy use later in your post there saying "the reasonable people" are the ones I agree with whereas the others are irrational. That literally just proves yourself wrong.

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This game is built for casuals, as they're 90% of the player base. The nerds who raid mythic and constantly do M+ 15 and above, are a very small subset of players. Not all of us nerds who do those things are considered casual, so while we're working harder for loot and getting it faster, the casual player can still earn it at a slower pace. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion.

And after reading your entire post, you don't even make sense. They can call it any name, it doesn't change what it does.


Side note... Really wish folks would proofread their titles when creating a post.... It isn't that hard.

Casuals are possibly the bigger playerbase, but most certainly not the bigger income base. The game is most certainly built to give them something, but it isn't built specifically for them in the long run nor should it be. They want who brings in the big bucks and it isn't casuals.

[Frozenbro]

Classic ego issues of some Mythic raiders. In some of their minds there is now way mythic+ can more difficult than mythic raid.

+15s arent xd those mythic raiders partake in both progression paths, so they dont speak out of their ass like u.

[baskev]

Any thread related to the Valor system is bound to have a fair few posts in it complaining about how casual players are being left behind by the game, but is that really the case? Without joining a single premade group & just using the queue system you can get the following:

• 197 Order Hall Items
• 207 World Boss Items
• 200 Reputation Items
• 200 PvP Items (that are actually usable in PvE unlike earlier expansions)
• + more BoEs than in any previous expansion I can remember

To counter the above, it's fair to say professions are absolutely dead for casual & non-casual players alike, apart from perhaps the Darkmoon trinkets which can be another handy +iLvl 200 piece.

Based on the above, without stepping into a single form of non-LFG content (or even buying BoEs), someone can achieve an average item level similar to that of Castle Nathria normal... & this is supposedly Blizzard leaving the casual playerbase behind? Where you can completely nullify the need to raid the normal tier for iLvl progression? This is also working under the assumption that player is doing zero M0s, low M+ keys, low rated arena, etc. And without meaning to sound harsh, if you're doing absolutely none of that content, for whatever reason could you need higher than normal Nathria iLvl loot for?

Was Blizzard's mistake calling it Valor? I've seen people asking for Wrath style badge systems & MoP/WoD style upgrade systems, but I don't really think either are the answer. Thinking back to 3.3.5 when the group finder was added, if you did nothing but LFG random dungeons & some professions, you were getting nowhere near the item level of a normal raider at the time, even if you could buy a few items from the vendor - Hell, you'd struggle to get near the item level of someone who raided the previous tier (I should know, as I played super casual during that period, struggling to pug past 7/12 ICC N each week )

As for a MoP style system, all it does is add gear inflation to the game, which either leads to massive powerspikes between tiers (& also forces the need for stat-squishing earlier on), or makes it so people raiding the higher difficulties are already going to be far ahead of what the casual players can hope to achieve in the next patch.

So, was Blizzard's mistake simply just calling it Valor? Is there something I'm forgetting? It's been a long 15 years or so playing this game, so forgive me if I've left something important out.

PS: I don't care what gear anyone has, as to me it's just a tool rather than the reward. I'm making this thread because the pity party going on right now just makes no sense to me, as I can't remember a time where players across the spectrum would get as much gear as this.

Cheers

Yes and no. When i used to raid HC and Mythic ( when it changed to mythic). Then i did the best content very fast. But right now there are some problems with it. Lets take your list.

- Order hall items
Nice, but they take anima to upgrade to the max. And if you are alt leveling, or just come back. It takes a while to get that anima. Anima is not super easy to get. But still doable. But still a bit not as easy as it looks

- World boss items
They drop items? i for real have had 1 item since the first boss on 2 alts and my main. ( a ring for my druid of paladin i think).
Drop change is very low/or bad rng?

- reputation items
Again, far and almost non spotted. So would not call that a source.

- pvp
It forces you to play a decent amount of pvp. But a valid option.

- BoE
again on 3 of them i have 2 off them. And they go for 100K+ easy
So would not say "easy" to gear.


But i think you are missing the point. They added, it to make gearing easy for m+.

But there is a easy to get gap between pre m+ and m+.

[NineSpine]

And you don't have data to back up the casuals claim that was made about them existing more.

But we do. We know that the community that pushes hard content is extremely, extremely small.

Much less it's been said more than enough on these forums that the claim I made was the case as testimonial which while anecdotal, the casuals are most often the ones not staying subbed.

Anecdotes aren't evidence of anything except "This anecdote exists".

Also love the fallacy use later in your post there saying "the reasonable people" are the ones I agree with whereas the others are irrational. That literally just proves yourself wrong.

The reasonable people are the ones who agree on a definition. The unreasonable people are the ones that want to play definition games to avoid the argument. That's a generally true statement, not just in this debate. If your concern with the "casual" debate is trying to find a way to define "casual" in such a way that it defines you into being correct by allowing you to equivocate the statements others are making, you are by definition being unreasonable.

If I say "casual" and explain how I define it, and then all you can do is go "Well, I'll define it this way, and now since your argument doesn't work when I implant my definition into it, I WIN!" you aren't interested in a good faith conversation about anything. You are interested in internet tough guy debate points. It's as pointless as saying "Well 2+2=4 isn't true because I DEFINE A PLUS AS A MINUS SO THE ANSWER IS REALLY ZERO! GOTCHYA!"

Casuals are possibly the bigger playerbase, but most certainly not the bigger income base. The game is most certainly built to give them something, but it isn't built specifically for them in the long run nor should it be. They want who brings in the big bucks and it isn't casuals.

You have absolutely no idea if that is true. You are just making it up.

[Deadite]

I can assure you most people aren't going off the dictionary definition of casual lol.

My definition of it has nothing to do with time. I don't do M+, Raid, or ranked PVP, I play 10+ hours a day though. In my book I'm casual, in others I'm not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Could be better to say queuers and non-queuers. If i can't hit a button and do it then i ain't gonna be doing it.

[Zyrinx]

Completely agree, this won’t make me go into m+ I hate m+ and only ever did it for the one or two quest that required it..

To be fair, M0, aka non timed, mythic gear is upgradeable (this was abundantly not clear in the notes, but is true).

So for 400 vp, or about 1.5 weeks of callings, you can upgrade one slot, by 3 item levels. To 187.

...

Happy hunting?

[GreenJesus]

Classic ego issues of some Mythic raiders. In some of their minds there is now way mythic+ can more difficult than mythic raid.

Mythic raid progression you might be spending hours without killing a boss or seeing any loot at all. If you fail a 15 you still get loot and you can try again in another dungeon. Some bosses require 100+ pulls to go down and you keep the lockout so you don't have to reclear all the previous bosses again. It's not like you just waltz in there, kill every boss and get 226 loot.

[Tadkins]

This is also working under the assumption that player is doing zero M0s, low M+ keys, low rated arena, etc. And without meaning to sound harsh, if you're doing absolutely none of that content, for whatever reason could you need higher than normal Nathria iLvl loot for?

As it stands I don't do random battlegrounds or turn on warmode anymore because the gear I'm allowed to have is just going to get me eaten alive in any form of PvP content. That is why it was good to have gearing options if you can't join a raid or m+, because PvP requires it. It's depressing and it has made me lose interest in this game more and more every day because I feel like Blizzard has only contempt for players like me.

I wish we had ilvl brackets or templates or something to ensure not every PvP encounter is a hopeless slaughter.

[agentsi]

So anything below mythic is casual?

Normal/heroic raids

Up to probably +10 keys

Up to 1800 rated PvP

And everything else, all available for the 90% of the player base casual masses?

Sounds like a good deal to me. I think we are in agreement.

I don't think you can raid mythic, successfully, and label yourself a casual. I'm sure I can be proven wrong with that statement, but overall, that's a huge time commitment for that type of content.

But yes, Normal/Heroic raiding can be very casual, in my opinion. You can log in once or twice a week to raid, do random stuff whenever, and go about life without being fully committed to a schedule and still be successful in that content. There are a TON of people in guilds that raid mythic and are ilvl 220+ on average, and still can't clear Mythic. And we know it can be cleared at ilvl 206*, if you're good.

Arena below 2200 is also casual in my opinion. Especially with how OP some comps are these days you don't need a ton of time/synergy/practice to make them work. ( Think DH or UDK / Prot PLD in BF )

So I'm perfectly happy with Blizzard building the game for the casual folks, and not the mythic folks.

[Azerate]

The main problem with valor as a system is that people thought it would be a system that would help them gear themselves across the board. Some apparently hoped this would become their main gearing method throughout the expansion.

The reality is that this system is a catch-up system mostly targeted at people exclusively doing m+ and will mostly help bring their lower / less lucky slots up to par with the rest of the items.

If you're someone who at least does both the raid and the dungeons, and even more so a person who also do ocassional pvp - valor will be mostly useless for you.

As for the "casuals"... SL offers quite nice progression for players only doing world content, including a set with a bonus that actually helps with said world content by providing bonuses while in the open SL world. If heroic raid ilvl is 213, then I think it's perfectly fine for someone who never does any raids to peak at about 205 ilvl.

[msdos]

The people "putting in all the work and effort" are gonna find themselves feeling good about themselves alone in a dead game lol.

The casuals will all migrate over to a game that ticks MMO boxes but caters to the solo player at the same time and doesn't hold arbitrary prejudices that bleed over into the community.

Eventually WoW will stop attracting new players because word of mouth will explain that everyone who plays for end game is mostly toxic.

[MoanaLisa]

Casuals getting better gear is not an existential problem. It never has been. It never will be.

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The people "putting in all the work and effort" are gonna find themselves feeling good about themselves alone in a dead game lol.

The casuals will all migrate over to a game that ticks MMO boxes but caters to the solo player at the same time and doesn't hold arbitrary prejudices that bleed over into the community.

Eventually WoW will stop attracting new players because word of mouth will explain that everyone who plays for end game is mostly toxic.

That boat sailed years ago. The game is now mostly people who check in for new expansions then check out after leveling and long-haulers. You could have written that post 10 years ago in the frantic days of "New MMO X will be a WoW-Killer." It's as wrong now as it was then.

[msdos]

Casuals getting better gear is not an existential problem. It never has been. It never will be.

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That boat sailed years ago. The game is now mostly people who check in for new expansions then check out after leveling and long-haulers. You could have written that post 10 years ago in the frantic days of "New MMO X will be a WoW-Killer." It's as wrong now as it was then.

I didn't really believe it back then, so I wasn't writing it 10 years ago. I'm writing it now because I believe it, I'm a part of it and I can see it in my gaming communities, not just the echo chamber forums.

Even Preach and Bellular have flipped. Your definition of wrong must just be wrong lol. (I didn't use any "wow killer" term, you inferred that with your own brain, which has nothing to do with my post. WoW dying on its own and WoW killer are 2 different things)

[agentsi]

And you don't have data to back up the casuals claim that was made about them existing more.

Much less it's been said more than enough on these forums that the claim I made was the case as testimonial which while anecdotal, the casuals are most often the ones not staying subbed.

Also love the fallacy use later in your post there saying "the reasonable people" are the ones I agree with whereas the others are irrational. That literally just proves yourself wrong.

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Casuals are possibly the bigger playerbase, but most certainly not the bigger income base. The game is most certainly built to give them something, but it isn't built specifically for them in the long run nor should it be. They want who brings in the big bucks and it isn't casuals.

You contradicted your own statement several times. Think before you type. Seriously.

If there are more players playing casually, which there are, the monthly fees alone are going to support the game. As they have, for years. Considering that less than 4-5% of the entire player base ever kill more than 1 bosses in a mythic raid environment.

But by your statement, those hardcore/mythic players that makeup 4-5% of the player-base, bring in more money than the 95-96% of players playing casually? Really?

Let's say only one million folks are playing wow currently. I know more are playing, but let's use that number. Excluding taxes, please explain to me how you came to that conclusion?


5% = 50,000 x $14.99 = $749,500 x 12 months = $8,994,000

95% = 950,000 x $14.99 = $14,240,500 x 12 months = $170,886,000



How is $9* million, more income than $171* million?

[Argorwal]

The main problem with valor as a system is that people thought it would be a system that would help them gear themselves across the board. Some apparently hoped this would become their main gearing method throughout the expansion.

The reality is that this system is a catch-up system mostly targeted at people exclusively doing m+ and will mostly help bring their lower / less lucky slots up to par with the rest of the items.

If you're someone who at least does both the raid and the dungeons, and even more so a person who also do ocassional pvp - valor will be mostly useless for you.

As for the "casuals"... SL offers quite nice progression for players only doing world content, including a set with a bonus that actually helps with said world content by providing bonuses while in the open SL world. If heroic raid ilvl is 213, then I think it's perfectly fine for someone who never does any raids to peak at about 205 ilvl.

I agree about some players expectations about valor, but Blizzard was extremely clear it was for mythic+

Below is the first blue post announcement regarding valor, and it’s explicit it’s mythic+:


“We’ve seen a lot of feedback about the pros and cons of the various sources of gear in the Shadowlands endgame. After a rewarding first few weeks, we know that many dungeon-focused players reached a point where the only relevant rewards from the system come from the Great Vault. While the Vault should represent a major goal and the source of the best rewards the endgame has to offer, we want to find a way for the loot from the chest at the end of a challenging Mythic Keystone run to feel relevant, without bringing back random upgrade systems such as Warforging, which partially solved this problem in the past. We also want to provide a more consistent reward for the effort for players who do not receive an item at all.

The framework for a system that attempts to address these goals should be present in this first PTR update, subject to ongoing tuning and refinement. Gear from Mythic Keystone Dungeons is now upgradeable, initially with a cap of item level 200, which players can raise to item level 207 by completing all eight Shadowlands dungeons at Mythic 5 or higher. This will award a new “Keystone Explorer” achievement, while the existing “Keystone Conqueror” achievement (for all +10s or higher) will increase the cap to item level 213, and then to item level 220 by completing the “Keystone Master” achievement for all +15s in time. The currency used to upgrade Mythic Keystone gear is Valor, which is earned from completing Mythic Keystone dungeons, or by doing covenant Callings, with a weekly cap. Upgrade costs will vary by item slot and will be consistent across all item levels.”

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I didn't really believe it back then, so I wasn't writing it 10 years ago. I'm writing it now because I believe it, I'm a part of it and I can see it in my gaming communities, not just the echo chamber forums.

Even Preach and Bellular have flipped. Your definition of wrong must just be wrong lol. (I didn't use any "wow killer" term, you inferred that with your own brain, which has nothing to do with my post. WoW dying on its own and WoW killer are 2 different things)

Streamers basically survive by being critical and describing issues of a game. There is no drama and interest to just say something is good.

This appears as flip-flopping, but it’s just a normal entertainer protocol.

And people have quit the game forever for a million different reasons, it’s normal and natural for any video game (or hobby in general).

[msdos]

Streamers basically survive by being critical and describing issues of a game. There is no drama and interest to just say something is good.

This appears as flip-flopping, but it’s just a normal entertainer protocol.

And people have quit the game forever for a million different reasons, it’s normal and natural for any video game (or hobby in general).

Thank you for the obvious info everyone already knows and the most utmost pointless post, thank you for that. (Bellular isn't even a streamer.)

[Argorwal]

Thank you for the obvious info everyone already knows and the most utmost pointless post, thank you for that. (Bellular isn't even a streamer.)

Glad you agree that you initially bringing it up was pointless.