9.1 seems to be addressing the casual gearing concerns

[arkanon]

snip

No, this is a bunch of people who only want to go to the gym a once a week for 30 minutes, but are getting angry at the full jacked guys who spend 6 hours a day there, follow a strict diet, follow instructions and proven techniques, learn and improve, start by lifting light weights then incrementally increased the weight to the heavy weights they are lifting now, complete cardio, weights, various classes, spot each other and work together to learn, grow, and improve.

The skinny kids say "but thats not fair!!! sure, i dont want to lift weights, and i dont want to follow a diet, and i dont care what the experts and guides say, and i want to do my own thing, without committing to a schedule or roster, but i DEMAND that i become as jacked as the hard working bodybuilders, with a tiny fraction of the input. Why wont those dedicated, committed, hard working big guys let me compete in Mr Olympia?"

[ippollite]

No, its what i said it is. Its a gym that once appealed to a massive amount of people for a multiplicity of individual motivations becoming into a gym that only listens to the full jacked guys who spend 6 hours a day there, follow a strict diet, follow instructions and proven techniques, learn and improve, start by lifting light weights then incrementally increased the weight to the heavy weights they are lifting now, complete cardio, weights, various classes, spot each other and work together to learn, grow, and improve bending the owners ear for nigh on two decades and feeling satisfied that "their space" is now only for the full jacked guys who spend 6 hours a day there, follow a strict diet, follow instructions and proven techniques, learn and improve, start by lifting light weights then incrementally increased the weight to the heavy weights they are lifting now, complete cardio, weights, various classes, spot each other and work together to learn, grow, and improve.

Its not a gym for everyone now, just the people who agree with the the full jacked guys who spend 6 hours a day there, follow a strict diet, follow instructions and proven techniques, learn and improve, start by lifting light weights then incrementally increased the weight to the heavy weights they are lifting now, complete cardio, weights, various classes, spot each other and work together to learn, grow, and improve, who strangely conflate their interests as a general interest and see anyone who disagrees with them as jealous skinny kids say[ing] "but thats not fair!!! sure, i dont want to lift weights, and i dont want to follow a diet, and i dont care what the experts and guides say, and i want to do my own thing, without committing to a schedule or roster, but i DEMAND that i become as jacked as the hard working bodybuilders, with a tiny fraction of the input. Why wont those dedicated, committed, hard working big guys let me compete in Mr Olympia?"

Those are some patronising meatheads eh?

[Echocho]

No, this is a bunch of people who only want to go to the gym a once a week for 30 minutes, but are getting angry at the full jacked guys who spend 6 hours a day there, follow a strict diet, follow instructions and proven techniques, learn and improve, start by lifting light weights then incrementally increased the weight to the heavy weights they are lifting now, complete cardio, weights, various classes, spot each other and work together to learn, grow, and improve.

The skinny kids say "but thats not fair!!! sure, i dont want to lift weights, and i dont want to follow a diet, and i dont care what the experts and guides say, and i want to do my own thing, without committing to a schedule or roster, but i DEMAND that i become as jacked as the hard working bodybuilders, with a tiny fraction of the input. Why wont those dedicated, committed, hard working big guys let me compete in Mr Olympia?"

It doesn't really matter in the end. Casuals are getting a meaningful long term gear progression in 9.1. They'll spend months getting slightly worse gear than a heroic raider gets in a fraction of that time. If that somehow breaks the game I guess it's better off broken.
We can only hope that the casuals who left for other MMORPGs in 9.0 will consider coming back. If it's a "too little too late" situation it will hurt the game since more subscribers means more money to the development team.

[arkanon]

It doesn't really matter in the end. Casuals are getting a meaningful long term gear progression in 9.1. They'll spend months getting slightly worse gear than a heroic raider gets in a fraction of that time. If that somehow breaks the game I guess it's better off broken.
We can only hope that the casuals who left for other MMORPGs in 9.0 will consider coming back. If it's a "too little too late" situation it will hurt the game since more subscribers means more money to the development team.

Then why are some "casuals" still complaining that its not enough?

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Snip

Answer this question (and please, not some rambling, convoluted wall of text):

Name a time in wows history, when solo players have had access to as much gear, at such a high ilvl compared to raids, in such a short amount of time, during the first tier of an expansion. Answer that question, without going off on some meaningless tangent, in plain English, with a specific tier. Not single pieces, but close to an entire set of gear.

Its a simple question - you have claimed the Gym has changed in favor of the muscle-heads - PROVE that it has changed for the worse for "casuals".

I have suggested multiple times that the best solution is if they had kept covenant gear the same ilvl, but made it a MUCH slower and more involved process to level up. Some have agreed this would be a great idea, some are still asking for heroic or even mythic gear for solo play. And i dont mean Mage tower early after launch solo play, i mean farming WQ solo play.

[Frozenbro]

Casuals want gear because gear rewards are the signal from the game that you don't suck.

A central design goal of SL is to keep the casuals in their place, to ensure they understand that they do mostly suck (compared to the top players).

Not surprisingly to anyone who isn't Ion, this hasn't gone over very well.

Thats a very hateful way to see the game when it has been that way forever, casuals never had the best loot, so the game has reminded them that they suck for 14 years, thats what you are saying?

[mysticx]

Then why are some "casuals" still complaining that its not enough?

Some people, "casual" and "hardcore" alike, are just never satisfied, focusing on that tiny minority and railing against them is just a strawman argument by now.

[arkanon]

Thats a very hateful way to see the game when it has been that way forever, casuals never had the best loot, so the game has reminded them that they suck for 14 years, thats what you are saying?

This has been something i have desperately tried to explain - nothing has changed from a loot perspective. I have played since day 1, and like many, have swing through the entire spectrum from ultra casual noob, through to "super 1337 h@ardcore G4Mer kid", and everything in between. In all that time, I am not aware of a time in wows history where the first tier had a system allowing the very, VERY easy acquisition of normal raid quality gear, without completing group content.

There HAVE been various times in wows history where there have been different solo play features that are more involved than what we have right now, such as warlock green fire quest, some class order hall stuff, the solo parts of the rogue lego chain, etc etc. But they never really encompassed the ENTIRE solo playerbase, and were reserved for a very select few. Many if not most/all also involved substantial GROUP play components, that were complete roadblocks with no solo alternative.

There have also been numerous times throughout wows history were very powerful gear was farmable over time, but it was always in later patches, in particular final patches, which is a mistake countless people have made when trying to name a more prosperous time for the casual solo player in wows history, from a gear perspective.

[ippollite]

Then why are some "casuals" still complaining that its not enough?

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Answer this question (and please, not some rambling, convoluted wall of text):

Name a time in wows history, when solo players have had access to as much gear, at such a high ilvl compared to raids, in such a short amount of time, during the first tier of an expansion. Answer that question, without going off on some meaningless tangent, in plain English, with a specific tier. Not single pieces, but close to an entire set of gear.

Its a simple question - you have claimed the Gym has changed in favor of the muscle-heads - PROVE that it has changed.

Vanilla.

What? There was 168 days between vanilla launching and the first Raggy clear. Thats 168 days of everyone in game in the same dungeon blues as everyone else with only a few bits and pieces of purples. That's five months where there existed both VERY competitive loot systems (limiting the speed of inflating ilvel and the spread of said gear), and far fewer players running this content as a proportion of the wider playerbase.

See, thats your trouble. You dont see the big picture, you get bogged down in the weeds.

But if that's too esoteric for you:

Things that existed in patch 8.0 that did not exist in 9.0: Titanforging; warforging; a power progression system that rewarded time played with power over a meta system that rewards access to purchase cosmetic items; Warfronts? Wheres my weekly piece of 325 gear for very casual content? No renown cap for the first 17 weeks of the expansion. If i wanted to run islands all day for my azerite power, i could do exactly that. And sure, i can do that for anima too... for what? Cosmetics? Whoopee!

Like, i dont understand why you think this question hasnt be answered or its some kind of gotcha? I keep seeing you say this. I already gave you a tonne of stuff in the thread you posted on it. But you focused instead on my jokey post that preceded it. What else though? oh for heavens sake! How could i forget, my emissary rewards literally increased on 5 ilvl increments. That was awesome. There were FAR more world quests available with FAR more equipment rewards available to me. That means so long as my ilvl was say 301, id get drops around 300 always. I wouldnt be locked behind waiting for my renown to catch up to some arbitrary level.

I hope this helps. And if it doesnt im so curious why not? Like are you just saying "name another tier in wow history where casuals got a tier set given to them for free?"

Well, yeah, thats a dungeon set 0 for you. Which also had incredible staying power and motivation for players to collect it.

Like, im so confused what youre trying to even show with this anyway? That the game is handing out free stuff to casuals at x incremental period (aprox 3 months), and this is GOOD design? Hey ipps! Congrats, you have hit rank 19 in renown, you can now artifically upgrade all your pieces in one nice movement to 197. You're very welcome! What do you mean 'what for?'

Im so perplexed what youre trying to establish from this line of thinking. Can you please tell me so i can answer the actual question you want to ask.

[arkanon]

Some people, "casual" and "hardcore" alike, are just never satisfied, focusing on that tiny minority and railing against them is just a strawman argument by now.

I have made this clear many times, but for the sake of clarity: I would not identify myself as "hardcore" - certainly not these days. I really dont think getting AOTC or CE really makes you "hardcore" if you are getting it DEEP into the patch cycle, or possibly even not at all (CE).

I try not to identify as either, i think they are entirely useless 'brands' that have entirely subjective meanings, despite what some try to claim.

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Vanilla.

What? There was 168 days between vanilla launching and the first Raggy clear. Thats 168 days of everyone in game in the same dungeon blues as everyone else with only a few bits and pieces of purples. That's five months where there existed both VERY competitive loot systems (limiting the speed of inflating ilvel and the spread of said gear), and far fewer players running this content as a proportion of the wider playerbase.
.

Classic wow absolutely 100%, without a doubt proved this to be completely wrong - in every possible way. It was far, FAR worse, with the haves and have nots. Absolutely TERRIBLE example. Also, i believe it was in the early 150 days, not 168, but i could be wrong.

[ippollite]

Eugh, you asked for an example. Then completely dismissed it on some arbitrary ground. I have no idea what you want. Can you please just spell out the point you want to make nice and clearly and not try and hide behind some question with a falsifiability test known only to yourself.

[Frozenbro]

The only thing that remains to be seen with the new maw touched gear system is how hard/easy is gonna be to get the stuff to upgrade the gear (renown aside), its very important to set a decent pace so its not plain boring but at the same time you dont get everything asap on a tuesday after getting the renown, 2 ilvl below heroic as a goal would be a jump from 200 to 211 in 9.0 , thats way better than current iteration, and for that minority of "self proclaimed casuals" that arent satisfied cause its not mythic ilvl, you are rightfully ignored and blizz will continue to ignore you.

[arkanon]

Eugh, you asked for an example. Then completely dismissed it on some arbitrary ground. I have no idea what you want. Can you please just spell out the point you want to make nice and clearly and not try and hide behind some question with a falsifiability test known only to yourself.

I did spell it out, VERY clearly, and you completely failed to answer the question. Why you ask? Because countless people want higher ilvl gear, from SOLO play - not dungeon blues, not dungeon sets - SOLO PLAY.

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The only thing that remains to be seen with the new maw touched gear system is how hard/easy is gonna be to get the stuff to upgrade the gear (renown aside), its very important to set a decent pace so its not plain boring but at the same time you dont get everything asap on a tuesday after getting the renown, 2 ilvl below heroic as a goal would be a jump from 200 to 211 in 9.0 , thats way better than current iteration, and for that minority of "self proclaimed casuals" that arent satisfied cause its not mythic ilvl, you are rightfully ignored and blizz will continue to ignore you.

I havnt done the math myself, but many have, and it seems you can comfortably get to 206/207 without doing group content. That does include things like trinkets from either darkmoon or similar, and a max rank lego, but both can be achieved easily through solo play. I try to avoid adding in buying gear, as many consider that copping out.

[Revamp Man]

No, its what i said it is. Its a gym that once appealed to a massive amount of people for a multiplicity of individual motivations becoming into a gym that only listens to the full jacked guys who spend 6 hours a day there, follow a strict diet, follow instructions and proven techniques, learn and improve, start by lifting light weights then incrementally increased the weight to the heavy weights they are lifting now, complete cardio, weights, various classes, spot each other and work together to learn, grow, and improve bending the owners ear for nigh on two decades and feeling satisfied that "their space" is now only for the full jacked guys who spend 6 hours a day there, follow a strict diet, follow instructions and proven techniques, learn and improve, start by lifting light weights then incrementally increased the weight to the heavy weights they are lifting now, complete cardio, weights, various classes, spot each other and work together to learn, grow, and improve.

Its not a gym for everyone now, just the people who agree with the the full jacked guys who spend 6 hours a day there, follow a strict diet, follow instructions and proven techniques, learn and improve, start by lifting light weights then incrementally increased the weight to the heavy weights they are lifting now, complete cardio, weights, various classes, spot each other and work together to learn, grow, and improve.

i mean yeah but only if athe gym junkies you are talking about are telling the gym to not make it hardcore and the owners go MOAR HARDCORE!!!!

[Frozenbro]

I havnt done the math myself, but many have, and it seems you can comfortably get to 206/207 without doing group content. That does include things like trinkets from either darkmoon or similar, and a max rank lego, but both can be achieved easily through solo play. I try to avoid adding in buying gear, as many consider that copping out.

Yeah but thats adding some more stuff into the equation, if you add that stuff to the maw touched gear, they are probably gonna be 239-240 while an heroic raider would be way higher cause they usually complete at least the weekly +14, so its a good middle point imo, the catch is that its renown locked so its not gonna be a progression path that any raider/m+/pvp player will consider at all for being too slow, so the paths arent gonna be mixed, which was 1 of the concerns.

[munkeyinorbit]

Eugh, you asked for an example. Then completely dismissed it on some arbitrary ground. I have no idea what you want. Can you please just spell out the point you want to make nice and clearly and not try and hide behind some question with a falsifiability test known only to yourself.

It's pretty simple. There has never been a time where you can get raid gear set from solo play. Winning the lottery and TF is not reliable. Running dungeons is not solo play. If this was a test your answer would get a score of 0. Right now you can get at least 12 pieces of raid equivalent gear just by doing questing level of content. This is unprecedented for a first patch.

[arkanon]

Yeah but thats adding some more stuff into the equation, if you add that stuff to the maw touched gear, they are probably gonna be 239-240 while an heroic raider would be way higher cause they usually complete at least the weekly +14, so its a good middle point imo, the catch is that its renown locked so its not gonna be a progression path that any raider/m+/pvp player will consider at all for being too slow, so the paths arent gonna be mixed, which was 1 of the concerns.

I guess all im saying is in none of that equation requires group play, and obviously in no scenario, past, present, or future, would you calculate it with empty slots. And if for some weird reason someone DID do it that way, SL would still come out on tops (in this one very specific area).

I have used this equation to TRY and cover all of the varied (and at times contradictory) criteria that the self proclaimed 'casuals' have put forward in various threads.

[Frozenbro]

I guess all im saying is in none of that equation requires group play, and obviously in no scenario, past, present, or future, would you calculate it with empty slots. And if for some weird reason someone DID do it that way, SL would still come out on tops (in this one very specific area).

I have used this equation to TRY and cover all of the varied (and at times contradictory) criteria that the self proclaimed 'casuals' have put forward in various threads.

Yeah all in all they are definitely gonna be on heroic ilvl after a few months, which is miles ahead compared to now and its supposed to be progressive cause its renown locked, so at plain sight it seems to adress the 2 main concerns for casuals, cap too low (which helped making the power gap too big) and reaching said cap too fast, so like i said if some1 actually genuinely complains, its better to ignore him cause those would be the "i want mythic ilvl" andys, hence why blizz ignores them.

[ippollite]

I really dont understand why this is some kind of end of discussion argument? There also has never been a covenant system either? There also hasnt been a weekly vault system? A build a bear legendary system? What of it? Is my gameplay now much more fun? Do i have more reasons to log in? Is the game any more interesting for it?

What is the point youre trying to make other than 'the game changes with each expansion'? There was no Mythic dungeons before Wod; no mythic plus system before legion and no weekly chest before legion. There was no weekly vault before shadowlands. There was no mythic raiding before, i want to say wod, but apparently soo. There was no heroic raids before WotLK. There were no heroic dungeons before TBC.

If you ask me whats going on, id say that blizzard have deprioritised normal raiding. Not that they've suddenly given casual players raid gear. But this is pure gestalt. The problem they're clearly attempting to address is inflation over the consistent increase in multiple difficulty levels and setting a fair entry level point. They're also addressing that skilled players are pushing higher levels in both mythic raiding and mythic dungeon running. In Legion 10 was the core benchmark for your completion reward in mythic plus, now its 15. In Legion very few guilds were seriously pushing more than the first couple of bosses in Mythic (if they attempted it at all - heoric was an end goal in itself, not just a stepping stone to the real endgame raiding), now aotc is gateway, and groups are pushing the mid level bosses more frequently. The pressure is clearly going to result in the following: Mythic 20 is going to be the next move for the mythic plus system as the final reward. Mythic raiding is going to be pushed into an even more challenging system by the next expansion (or tested with the final raid of this one). There is upward pressure from the core game community. And that upward pressure will result in blizzard pushing even more challenging benchmarks. Who knows? In two expansions, heroic might be the new entry level core raid system? And then we can all discuss about how blizzard have never given players such high level gear yet again as if it means anything at all.

Its end game, entry level gear. Thats it. Thats all it is. Just like your dungeon tier 0 mixed in with greens and your devilsaur was entry level end game gear back in vanilla.
The big difference is that back then it took WAY longer and required more input from the player to get it. Now it requires 3 x 5-15 minute quests for 6-8 weeks. On top of this, everyone did it for 168+ days upon release. And the loot that dropped from mc was what? 6 item levels higher than your tier 0? And you had to share that over multiple multiple clears with 40 people in your raid fighting over 20 or so drops per clear (even when it was on farm!). Resulting in a far longer period in game where the sheer bulk of players were all still in and around the same relative power level for a far longer period of time.

So again, what is it about this question you believe important? Ive no idea why any of this actually matters. The game has changed. If the bar for entry level gear now hits normal raiding, this indicates only blizzards feelings on normal raiding and its position in its end game design. They are always very cautious to make sure that world gear doesnt disincentivize players from playing in their core end game experience, so it thereby stands to reason that the LEAST EFFORT gear ive ever received in game for the absolute least input by me would precisely do exactly that. If they wanted to protect the prestige of normal raiding, they wouldnt have given away the same ilvl gear so cheaply. That they did strongly indicates that Blizzard no longer consider normal raiding to be part of their end game philosophy.

[mysticx]

I have made this clear many times, but for the sake of clarity: I would not identify myself as "hardcore" - certainly not these days. I really dont think getting AOTC or CE really makes you "hardcore" if you are getting it DEEP into the patch cycle, or possibly even not at all (CE).

I try not to identify as either, i think they are entirely useless 'brands' that have entirely subjective meanings, despite what some try to claim.

I never assumed you were of either (Indeed too broadly defined to be useful) groups, i just meant that those groups aren't hive minds, the majority of "Casual" players (Mostly-soloers? Non-raiders? Let's just stick with "Casual" for brevity) will be very pleased with what seems to be coming, but there will be a few out there who want the very best gear for running WQs, just like there are mythic raiders who don't want those same "Casual" players to have *anything* beyond 5-man heroic level until they "Step up" and join the raiding rat-race.

[ippollite]

I never assumed you were of either (Indeed too broadly defined to be useful) groups, i just meant that those groups aren't hive minds, the majority of "Casual" players (Mostly-soloers? Non-raiders? Let's just stick with "Casual" for brevity) will be very pleased with what seems to be coming, but there will be a few out there who want the very best gear for running WQs, just like there are mythic raiders who don't want those same "Casual" players to have *anything* beyond 5-man heroic level until they "Step up" and join the raiding rat-race.

i can absolutely tell you that i couldnt care less about the gear gap. I care deeply about the skill gap. I also think the casual game is and has been awful since panda. Legion wasnt some heroic casual patch (unless you loved running your class halls). BfA was super fun but only because of meta achievements like allied races (FOR ME, you understand). That kept me playing my characters far longer than i would have otherwise. I also really enjoyed mechagon because it was loopy fun. I really want to love torghast. But for reasons i cant quite explicate, i cant. I also cant stand that all my power is literally thrown at me in an 8 week period from 3 trivial quests per week (literally invalidating doing anything else). Its terrible design. If i could fill up a renown bar like the azerite power/artifact power from the two previous expansions, over the course of the week just playing the game, i would have much preferred this - EVEN IF it meant i was 20 renown levels off the pace of even the average core player.

Oh, and this may or may not be important. But even when im offering alternatives, or 'improvements', i will always try to do so with the understanding of blizzard's current design goals (Mythic/Arena is top, mythic plus 15/heroics are next, and here be dragons (everything else)).
I dont want to change a single thing for the current actual end game system. Just look for ways more players can access it. And that no doubt irritates other casuals who dont even want to LFG in any way at all and want their own progression system with their own gearing process. (Thus explaining why casuals arent some monolith with contradictory requests; i no more speak for that player than they speak for me. We want different things because we arent a hive mind).

And thats probably where this is all going, by the way. Unless of course they can up revenue per individual player (more paid services ("value added transactions") and more 6 month sub ("net bookings") incentives to replace the downturn in actual subs (mau).