Why skilled player got so mad about casual getting better loot?

[Freedom]

You are right, and it is the same issue I'm facing in real life. Haven't been employed for years. I'm not competitive, not strong, not fast, not smart...what chance do I have in this game and in real life? I don't have any friends. I don't think I can ever succeed in anything or find a place in this or any other world.

It's often why I wonder if I shouldn't just cut to the chase and end it all...

I don't know where you are, but I would seriously suggest you spend less time on MMO with toxic idiots like some of the posters in this thread and take a look at these websites, first one is USA, second UK and third for EU. Even if you aren't close to doing anything hasty, it's best to try and nip mental health things in the bud, before they become a problem.

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/fee...idal-thoughts/
https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/Europe/

I am not qualified to talk to you about such things, as I have no training, but as someone who has attempted suicide, don't. It's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Even if you try and fail without permanent damage, it can mess up your life significantly.

Hell, even just looking at pictures of cute cats would probably be a better thing to do with spare time in COVID than browse MMO C. After some of the posters in this thread like gref and Something Wicked, half considering it myself.

On a less serious note, remember Bozzleprogress? I'd love to see "Something Wicked"-progress - a competition/leaderboard with no addons. Probably wouldn't be a huge difference in clear times for top top guilds.

[Tadkins]

Dude, you don't have to compete to matter in the game. Find your niche, like collecting mounts or pets, get some alts rolling. M+ by default is competition against time and it's not for everyone plenty of people are ignoring it fully. No matter what some forum big boys say, it is truly possible not to do m+ and actually do good in the game. Other than that, I am certain there are people who can talk with you about it. It's not weakness.

I have tried that. Honestly toward the end of BfA I was spending most of my playtime on the mount/pet/toy hunt. Every day was a routine of hitting Rustfeather, then Soundless, then certain rares in Uldum/Vale. After that I'd go run some old dungeons, do some old world quests or queue for some random battlegrounds. For the most part I just did my best to try to enjoy myself in the world of Azeroth that I genuinely loved.

Before I ended up having to unsub this was the last screenshot I took.


(Before anyone brings it up, I confess that I bought all that. I'm not good enough or connected enough to earn it on my own.)
It just feels like, only the competition, only the rated organized stuff matters more and more nowadays. Even the devs seem more worried about building e-sports than they do about worldbuilding. I don't feel like I can do random battlegrounds if I came back until I thrust myself into that world. The world of metas, scores, logs, and toxic elitism. Even just killing Sire Denathrius wouldn't matter; you have to kill him with a perfect percentile, perfect footwork, or you are just considered a carry that doesn't deserve it, as every single step you make and every single action is recorded, logged and judged. It's just a depression and anxiety inducing world out there nowadays for that reason.

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On a less serious note, remember Bozzleprogress? I'd love to see "Something Wicked"-progress - a competition/leaderboard with no addons. Probably wouldn't be a huge difference in clear times for top top guilds.

I could compete in that, as someone who's broke down crying in real life because trying to figure out how to use weak auras was stressing me out greatly.

[Dazmalak]

I have tried that. Honestly toward the end of BfA I was spending most of my playtime on the mount/pet/toy hunt. Every day was a routine of hitting Rustfeather, then Soundless, then certain rares in Uldum/Vale. After that I'd go run some old dungeons, do some old world quests or queue for some random battlegrounds. For the most part I just did my best to try to enjoy myself in the world of Azeroth that I genuinely loved.

Before I ended up having to unsub this was the last screenshot I took.


(Before anyone brings it up, I confess that I bought all that. I'm not good enough or connected enough to earn it on my own.)
It just feels like, only the competition, only the rated organized stuff matters more and more nowadays. Even the devs seem more worried about building e-sports than they do about worldbuilding. I don't feel like I can do random battlegrounds if I came back until I thrust myself into that world. The world of metas, scores, logs, and toxic elitism. Even just killing Sire Denathrius wouldn't matter; you have to kill him with a perfect percentile, perfect footwork, or you are just considered a carry that doesn't deserve it, as every single step you make and every single action is recorded, logged and judged. It's just a depression and anxiety inducing world out there nowadays for that reason.

Well, you're not alone in your thoughts on the behavior of the community and the direction Blizz seems to insist on going. The game does cater to a more competitive audience than it used to and I am still not really sure why Blizz seems intent on taking the focus away from the world itself in favor of ever-increasingly complex encounters and gimmicks in instanced content where strangers can incessantly flame and hate one another as they treat one another as steps on their imaginary ladder to greatness.

I would strongly suggest you go try FFXIV if you haven't already. Better community, friendlier content, and more tertiary things to do like housing and crafting that actually still matters at most levels of gameplay.

[Jastall]

Still waiting for an answer on this one; what was wrong with having a powerful but challenging solo gearing option like 5 mask Horrific Visions in BfA? Torghast could easily be repurposed to that.

Because 1) it was the final patch so getting Mythic gear out of solo content wasn't that big a deal, 2) Visions were heavily timegated in practice so you couldn't get 5 masks run week 1, unlike say Twisted Corridors that were trashed week 1 by good players, 3) that came in a later small patch anyway, not 8.3 itself, 4) it wasn't every slot, it was for about 6-7 slots if memory serves and finally 5) and most importantly, in that patch ilvl was a lot less important than what Corruption you had on the gear, so getting a Mythic piece that had a poor Corruption didn't help you much and most had a poor stat spread. That's why it caused little uproar, whereas Benthic gear being BiS for Eternal Palace and being only obtainable via open world grinding rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

[arkanon]

Well, you're not alone in your thoughts on the behavior of the community and the direction Blizz seems to insist on going. The game does cater to a more competitive audience than it used to...

In what way? Take the first tier of any previous expansion, and list of the advantages a "casual" player had then that they dont have now? Im not saying there are NONE, i would be interested to hear what they are.

[Lost controller]

In what way? Take the first tier of any previous expansion, and list of the advantages a "casual" player had then that they dont have now? Im not saying there are NONE, i would be interested to hear what they are.

I guess you could get a normal mode set of tier gear in wrath Toc?

I admit a lot of people here seem to be remembering a time that never was and likely never will be.

[arkanon]

No. It's more like "pass this basic math test, but without a graphing calculator, looking up the answers, or having a team of people solve it for--sorry, with--you."

You keep making these weird statements that directly contradict themselves - multiple times you have insinuated that the only difference between a casual player and a mythic raider is that they "have some addons, some macros, and are getting carried". So i have one VERY simple question for you - Who is doing the carrying, and how?

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I guess you could get a normal mode set of tier gear in wrath Toc?

I admit a lot of people here seem to be remembering a time that never was and likely never will be.

now compare the Ilvl of that gear, to the Ilvl of the full covenant set + legendary, something that is EASILY done solo, and in fact designed to be done solo.

Normal mode drops ilvl 200-207, correct? Because my math is not great, but i believe a solo player can easily get to 206 or 207 without joining a group.

If anything, that gear is TOO easy to get, which is meaning the "casual" player-base, who spend countless hours playing but wont progress in difficulty at all, obtain that gear very quickly then ask "now what?"

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Feel free to go do a mythic kill this week, recording it form start to finish, without you (or anyone else in your world's greatest elite super guild) using any addons or macros.

Prove me wrong. You have the skill. You're the Michael Jordon of WoW. Do it.

Feel free to download some addons and copy some macros, then show us your mythic kill - since thats the only difference between yourself and a mythic raider, it should be no problem at all. You must understand that logic like yours goes both ways, right? The reality is that is absolutely NOT the only difference, in fact its a VERY minor factor - how do i know? Because i have played with MANY people over the years who have every addon and macro known to man installed, and struggle perform even the most basic mechanics in a raid.

[Dazmalak]

In what way? Take the first tier of any previous expansion, and list of the advantages a "casual" player had then that they dont have now? Im not saying there are NONE, i would be interested to hear what they are.

Badge gear.

PvP gear not tied to rating except for weapon and shoulders (or maybe it was head?)

Crafted gear being comparable to entry raid gear.

Raider.io not existing lol

The intangible one would be the community's helpfulness. That is indeed something WoW will never get back, sadly. People were simply more willing to help one another and work through fights without watching videos on it first or being slaves to meta. Guilds can still be like this, but honestly the tolerance for mistakes and the like in today's game are much lower.

Titan forging/warforging.

The game certainly rewards players in the top tier more, which I think is totally fine and is how it should be. I just don't think it needs to be a difference of 20+ ilvl. The best a casual solo player who doesn't do competitive content is going to get after an insane amount of luck with drops, is maybe 200-205. This is inflated only by the legendary and world boss gear. That's all fine and good, but if said player wants to get into competitive content, he's SoL without a guild or people selling carries.

[arkanon]

Badge gear.

PvP gear not tied to rating except for weapon and shoulders (or maybe it was head?)

Crafted gear being comparable to entry raid gear.

Raider.io not existing lol

The intangible one would be the community's helpfulness. That is indeed something WoW will never get back, sadly. People were simply more willing to help one another and work through fights without watching videos on it first or being slaves to meta. Guilds can still be like this, but honestly the tolerance for mistakes and the like in today's game are much lower.

Titan forging/warforging.

The game certainly rewards players in the top tier more, which I think is totally fine and is how it should be. I just don't think it needs to be a difference of 20+ ilvl. The best a casual solo player who doesn't do competitive content is going to get after an insane amount of luck with drops, is maybe 200-205. This is inflated only by the legendary and world boss gear. That's all fine and good, but if said player wants to get into competitive content, he's SoL without a guild or people selling carries.

You are not being specific at all - Name the expansion in which the first tier had better loot, comparable to raid loot, available to the causal / solo player base. I have noticed a trend in this discussion - people are CONSTANTLY saying "but we had ABC at one point, and now we dont - THIS ISNT FAIR!", but they neglect to mention a few things - ABC all occurred during the FINAL PATCH of the expansion, only offered gear for roughly 50% of the slots, and required group play to farm the currency - something many in this thread are entirely against - they want it from solo WQ and dailies.

As to your "insane amount of luck" comment - this is just wrong - no luck is involved at all. full covenant set + legendary. If someone is completely against group content, they can craft trinkets (200) or farm gold to purchase items. I specifically excluded paying huge money for mythic boe's or anything, and getting north of 200 is absolutely NOT luck based at all.

I believe the current iteration of wow offers more rewards, and of a much higher quality than any other time in wow, and for FAR less effort. Even the dungeon sets of old required a fair amount of farming, now you can get a full set of gear equivalent to raid gear, without touching any group content at all. I honestly cannot think of any other time in wows 15+ years where this was the case.

And lastly, PLEASE stop spreading this complete lie that you can only get into "competitive content" if you are in a guild or pay for carries - load up the group finder right now - or any day of the week and you will see normal / heroic groups lfm - dozens of them. Myself and others i play with will often join one of those pugs and get a bunch of bosses down, if not all, on a weekly basis (alts on off days etc)

[Echo of Soul]

You are not being specific at all - Name the expansion in which the first tier had better loot, comparable to raid loot, available to the causal / solo player base.

This has happened time and time again over the years but in recent memory Blizzard seems intent on screwing the casual playerbase.
Crafted gear in TBC was on par with raid gear if not better, I believe I had five pieces that I didn't replace until the middle of the expansion. Reputation gear in MOP was the second best gear in the game and there were lots of pieces. Both these have a very important thing in common, it took a very long time to acquire the gear which meant that it felt meaningful and gave you something to work towards (like badge gear in later patches).

It's not the iLvl that has been taken away from the casual playerbase, it's the meaningful long term progression. In Shadowlands you get your covenant gear in what, 2 weeks? After that you can either move on to premade instanced group content or leave, this is why people are leaving for games like FFXIV where that type of progression exists for casual players, where they don't have to feel like second class citizens and be constantly spat on by elitist gatekeepers.

[arkanon]

This has happened time and time again over the years but in recent memory Blizzard seems intent on screwing the casual playerbase.
Crafted gear in TBC was on par with raid gear if not better, I believe I had five pieces that I didn't replace until the middle of the expansion. Reputation gear in MOP was the second best gear in the game and there were lots of pieces. Both these have a very important thing in common, it took a very long time to acquire the gear which meant that it felt meaningful and gave you something to work towards (like badge gear in later patches).

It's not the iLvl that has been taken away from the casual playerbase, it's the meaningful long term progression. In Shadowlands you get your covenant gear in what, 2 weeks? After that you can either move on to premade instanced group content or leave, this is why people are leaving for games like FFXIV where that type of progression exists for casual players, where they don't have to feel like second class citizens and be constantly spat on by elitist gatekeepers.

I mentioned this a little earlier in the thread, I genuinely believe the covenant gear is TOO easy to acquire, or at very least far too easy to upgrade all the way to 197. Its not that the players in question are lacking gear - a claim made countless times in this thread - its that they got it TOO quickly and feel like they have nothing left to do. Rather ironic considering the heroic and higher raiders faced the exact opposite, and to a lesser extent, normal mode raiders as well.

I have said this time and time again - I am absolutely all for solo progression to an extent. What im against is people being gifted mythic raid gear for doing a few WQ, and making the claim that the only difference between them and a mythic raider is "some addons and macros" and that there isnt a gaping chasm in skill between the majority of players in each camp. Are there some players currently casually playing doing some WQ and random queue stuff who are capable of completing mythic? Absolutely, i know a few of them personally. Are there some mythic raiders who get carried and dont really pull their weight? Absolutely, I know a few of them too. However, in the overwhelming majority of cases there is a dramatic difference in player ability between the two groups, and i firmly believe rewards should match that.

[munkeyinorbit]

Wrath was the peak and had rating requirements on conquest gear.

It also didn’t have any queable PvE content until the last patch, where subs stabilized before shifting to going down.

WRONG
The peak of wow was after WotLK. It might have been in Cata or it might have been in bfa but it was after WotLK.

WRONG
Conquest gear never had rating. Conquest gear was pve gear, not PvP.

WRONG
WotLK still had pve content you could queue for. Subs did not stabelise. They increased.

Nice attempt to shift those goal posts. Unfortunately you were wrong.

[Swnem]

WRONG
The peak of wow was after WotLK. It might have been in Cata or it might have been in bfa but it was after WotLK.

WRONG
Conquest gear never had rating. Conquest gear was pve gear, not PvP.

WRONG
WotLK still had pve content you could queue for. Subs did not stabelise. They increased.

Nice attempt to shift those goal posts. Unfortunately you were wrong.

You are the one that's wrong in the first point, at least.

The peak of WoW subscriptions was in Wrath. It transfered to the Cataclysm launch at which point it started decreasing. So, you definitly can't say Cataclysm was the peak cause it only declined. Wrath was the peak. Look at the sub graph for the evidence.

We do not have data for BfA, so unless you can provide some, i don't know how you can even say that.

Didn't want to jump into the convo, but that first point is definitly wrong.

[phantasiapt]

(Before anyone brings it up, I confess that I bought all that. I'm not good enough or connected enough to earn it on my own.)
It just feels like, only the competition, only the rated organized stuff matters more and more nowadays. Even the devs seem more worried about building e-sports than they do about worldbuilding. I don't feel like I can do random battlegrounds if I came back until I thrust myself into that world. The world of metas, scores, logs, and toxic elitism. Even just killing Sire Denathrius wouldn't matter; you have to kill him with a perfect percentile, perfect footwork, or you are just considered a carry that doesn't deserve it, as every single step you make and every single action is recorded, logged and judged. It's just a depression and anxiety inducing world out there nowadays for that reason.

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And this is why, totally why, everyone from my guild left many expansions ago, during WOD. I've been ever since playing this game mostly to myself. To do whatever I want the way that I want. I step into LFR just to get the gear I want and for lore reasons (which are becoming more and more poor), do my covenant things, previously in BFA it was getting some mounts, more rep with the factions, flying unlocked, etc. When I become bored? I logout and go do other things.
Recently with the announcement of TBC Classic, I am more and more playing in Classic and to be fair, found a good guild, social but with endgame target and it's been going really well.
My recommendation to you? Go Classic. Toxic people are there too, but you have more chances of finding people just wanting to enjoy the game rather than recording every single step.

More importantly, if you decide to start considering ending it all as you wrote. As someone else said, it's just a permanent solution to temporary problems. I totally think it's not worth it at all. But I'm not an expert on this or anything... Just trying to give good advice.
Damm, I even made this account on purpose after over a decade lurking in here to just post this reply.

[Echo of Soul]

My recommendation to you? Go Classic. Toxic people are there too, but you have more chances of finding people just wanting to enjoy the game rather than recording every single step.

@Tadkins I wouldn't recommend this. Classic is toxic in a different way, lots of racism, homophobia, Trumpism etc. I don't think you would enjoy that community. It also suffers the exact same problems that shadowlands does, the initial character progression when you reach 60 is very short and after that it's raid or gtfo, you have no casual progression.

[BeepBoo]

So item levels are absolutely irrelevant, what is relevant is relative player power. Going from 190->210 gave me like 30-50% more dps. This wasn't the case up until WoD (or the first squish in MoP).

This is one of my biggest gripes. Legion saw us grow like 200% in power across the xpac with like a 33% increase in ilvl. BFA saw even MORE retarded rates of growth relative to gear ilvl.

Wotlk saw like maybe 100% across the entire xpac.

The pace of power gain from marginal ilvl increases now-a-days is absolutely insane.

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As for actually addressing the OP: My biggest gripe isn't that scrubs get gear. My biggest gripe is that, in order to maximize power and really get perfection to both eliminate gear as source for underperformance and maximize my personal parse potential, I have to 1) be lucky with the utterly shit random systems and 2) I have to no-lyfe the game, doing a metric fuck ton of chores.

Gearing was best when it was just BIS lists and raid clearing, which peaked in wotlk. IMO the best way they could do it now (if they would bother to use the tool properly, doing weekly tuning passes... clearly too much effort for them) would be stat templates in the competitive environments. Heroic/mythic raids, rated PvP scenarios, +15s, whatever. Save me from the mundane grind life and let me just get my off on competition like I want. People can "experience" their endless power grind out in the open world or in faceroll content, which is where most of the "I must constantly be progressing!" people live anyways.

Yes, I know a lot of guilds that rely on the soft nerf mechanic of their raids getting more powerful with gear to brute-force bosses would suffer. Tough luck, git gud. Or maybe blizz could add a stacking stat buff across the season that is toggled.

[ippollite]

In what way? Take the first tier of any previous expansion, and list of the advantages a "casual" player had then that they dont have now? Im not saying there are NONE, i would be interested to hear what they are.

I'll have a crack at this. But im going to reframe it a bit from 'advantages' because i cant even conceive of a universe where a casual player would ever have an advantage. I mean, i may be wrong or im missing something, but if there is an 'advantage' its probably going to be a time issue: Namely, with something like timeless isles or catch up in general a new player hitting the end of leveling will have to do far less to 'catch up' than a player who played throughout the expansion... oooh, also money i suppose: A new level 120 in bfa at the start of patch 8.3 will have all the previous patch content plus all the catch up at a mere 15 bucks compared to the person who paid throughout the entire expansion.

I guess you could also point out stress and enjoyment. I didnt ever feel compelled to run islands beyond my own personal enjoyment of them, plus i didnt get really cross when my gear didnt titanforge. In fact, when it did, i was just stoked. It wasnt an expectation, but a bonus. So i guess on that existential note, theres a few advantages. I also didnt have to run an alt for split runs and hate every minute of my life gearing them up. In that sense then, i suppose these are some advantages. Titan forge was a bonus, i wasnt expected to run content i dont like, i wasnt expected to do anything i didnt want to do at all. I just played the game until it stopped being fun. Which was weirdly january 20th 2021 (when my 6 month sub happened to run out). Are they advantages i dont currently have? In a way yes, in a way no. In a way no for obvious reasons. I can quit whenever the game stops being fun for me. In a way yes, because it stopped being fun much faster than the previous expansion.

Anyways, thats not the 'reframing' im talking about. Just taking a weird punt at that specific definition first. I guess i'll go to another post to make the point i actually want to make... namely, whats changed, or rather, 'whats so different in this expansion for casual players?'

[Kralljin]

WRONG
WRONG
Conquest gear never had rating. Conquest gear was pve gear, not PvP.

I think from the context it's obvious that conquest refers what has been known in Wotlk as Arena points, which was essentially the former name of Conquest points before they introduced Rated Battlegrounds.

After all, the name "Arena points" for the Rated PvP currency was only used for two Expansions (TBC and Wotlk), from Cata and onwards, Rated PvP Currency = Conquest Points.

And for the record, at least the later Wotlk seasons had a Rating requirement for the current Season PvP items.

[Flurryfang]

It's almost like the people playing wow are the one's killing it. how you may ask? By limiting the content other players get to see because they don't think they're good enough to play it because they don't play like them.

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I mean they can and have before, why can't they now?

When have they ever consoled the differences between each other? Either it is "Why you selfish and want to keep gear from other players, you elitist" or it is " You are ruining the game with letting everybody get gear for free, and now there is no reason to do any content at all!", and i haven't heard those arguments change.

[ippollite]

(Preamble edit: To be clear, when i use the term casual here (i really should stop using that term), im specifically talking of the player who taps out before LFG and is somewhat power driven (RPers and collectors may not be who im speaking of). Im not talking about the player who has x-hours per week to log in, or the player who has only managed to clear +14 mythic dungeons and/or up to SLG in mythic nathria - they are scrubs, not casuals - kidding! But i dont want the endless back and forth on 'what really is a 'casual' - i've defined them accordingly, and i accept this is a subjective definition in the platonic scheme of things.)).

So what's different?
Well, you alluded to one big difference: the speed of capping out in casual content. Another might be how you cap out. If you take renown as a case in point, think about how you'd formerly garner the gear, storylines and power progression behind that system (im ignoring anima as a system since its mostly cosmetics, though it does carry over into renown for those upgrades like gear (and is also one of your core renown upgrade quests every week)).

In Legion it was straight up rep, or engaging in world content (for your artifact weapons). In Bfa it was again rep and general world content + weeklies to upgrade your azerite neck (unlocking the gear dropping in the world and from those world quests). I dont wanna get bogged down in details, but lets also throw in massive RNG in legion (legos) and bfa (warforging/socketing). The main gist is this: The power progression system rewarded you literally for your time investment in game. The more content you did, the more artifact power or azerite power you'd accumulate. In playing the game normally, you'd also have the RNG gods playing alongside you. And for gear, all this activity contributed your rep which unlocked certain pieces of gear or storyline elements. But you HAD to play the core game experience (in the world or in the instanced game).

Now lets look at renown again. What happens? Well, you get three weekly quests each taking <20 minutes a pop (later reduced to two). Throw in a torghast lego (where you'd have been building your ash), maybe an epic calling here and there, and a world boss. You are now completely done for the week. At most its 3 hours of your time. At least, its about an hour. One hour a week of actual progression gameplay. Now compare that to its two prior systems heavy expansions. In both of those, all content was viable, all content helped progress your power. You could do as much busy work/chore farming as you like and still see some progression. It was certainly slower and more tedious. But it gave casual players something engaging to do throughout the entire week (not just for two hours every reset).

So what we have is the complete transformation of the casual players gameplay loop. Thats a pretty big difference, right? We can also ask why did they do this in a very objective and non-blaming way. Who benefited from this change and who didnt? Well, i didnt. Obviously. I just explained why. I want to play the game, but theres nothing engaging to do as a non-lfg player. I mean i COULD farm anima all day for recolours. I could pokemon collect all the lego appearances. I could just grind gold forever using the mission table. But, i just wanna play the world game as ive always done. Now ive no incentive to do it. So it cant have been for casual players like me, because its fundamentally made our experience far quicker to consume (and cap) and far less engaging once you reach that cap. So why did they do it? Who is this change actually benefiting? I bring it up because theres a tendency to blame casuals for being 'catered to with a free normal raid gear set', and that 'we should stop complaining' because blizzard gave us 'free epics for doing nothing'. But it wasnt for us was it? It broke our gameplay loop. It was instead for players who could quickly hit 60 and reach the real end game content (non world, instanced) with as little friction as possible. I did say 'no blame' and what i mean is that this might be the ultimately correct design decision. We really have no idea. But its not a bone thrown to us world non-lfg players as is often assumed.

So i hope thats a fair assessment of what's actually changed in our game play experience. As i say, its not an advantage (though, one might argue time --> power was an advantage we no longer have), but it helps maybe explain why this expansion is in trouble with that playerbase and why the complaints arent just moaning for the sake of it. There is a fundamental difference not only the pace of the cap (which you identify) but also both the cap itself and the means of reaching it.