How to Improve the Gear Rewards Systems of WoW!

[Soon-TM]

Blizzard wants to push players into non-queueable content, but somehow it’s such a huge scary wall for these players to even try to group up manually…

Given the high toxicity of the M+ environment, I can hardly blame them. Sure "get a guild" yadda yadda, but the thing is, your guildies aren't available 24/7, nor they should be. Sometimes you have to pug, and it's easily one of the worst gaming experiences you can think of, especially in the middle echelons (roughly M7 to 12).

[Wuusah]

Given the high toxicity of the M+ environment, I can hardly blame them. Sure "get a guild" yadda yadda, but the thing is, your guildies aren't available 24/7, nor they should be. Sometimes you have to pug, and it's easily one of the worst gaming experiences you can think of, especially in the middle echelons (roughly M7 to 12).

Can people stop with the toxicity bullshit? I see way more toxicity in random normal dungeons during leveling than I see in M+

Just play decently well and you won't see much toxicity.

[Zyky]

So you're comparing 20-30% damage increase to a single ability versus 5-20% stat increase across the board?
That affects Str/Agi/Int + Mastery/Haste/Crit + Stam.
And I'm the one trolling here?

See just caught you, you are trolling, you don't even know what you're talking about because essences didn't increase a single ability. You don't even have basic knowledge of the game or the systems and you want to put in more trash that just passively increases overall damage instead of fixing fundamental problems with the current systems and class balance.

[ohwell]

I actually do think they should shift gear progression to WQ, but I think it would mean deleting heroic dungeons and trying to collapse the raid difficulties. Four is just too many. Let's make two raid difficulties and have some gear progression from world quests overlap with mythic dungeons, but only if the difficulty of world quests progresses with you. You can make that only apply to the actual quests that drop gear, so the anima ones or whatever are still easy. That way those "elite" quests are actually a challenge and you get rewarded with gear.

I think the PVE gear progression has gotten away from Blizz; it's a "stove-pipe" solution that just has a ton of little pieces connected together that don't really make sense. Compare it to PVP: where you just literally play rated and unrated games for two different currencies, then you spend on gear. If you get higher in rated you get access to better gear. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's really simple at least.

That's the problem with these "casuals" though. They should have never given gear so easily that eclipsed the actual progression of gear that they seem to want. Cov sets should have been maxed at 177 or 180 and then slowed the rate at which world quest rewards increased. Instead they seem to somehow think that world quests should magically give them gear on par with heroic raids because they already have gear practically on par with normal. You can have 197 by week 1 of lvl 60 and nullify any meaningful progression that the OP is "craving". In 9.1 there's gear on par with normal mode last 2 bosses of the raid, but potentially slower and guess who is complaining. That's right the people claiming to be "casual".

[Soon-TM]

Can people stop with the toxicity bullshit? I see way more toxicity in random normal dungeons during leveling than I see in M+

Just play decently well and you won't see much toxicity.

How can you even see toxicity in levelling dungeons, where people barely talk to each other? ROFL

Go pug a M10 or so as a tank, and prepare to get flamed into kingdom come if you ever do the slightest mistake. Also, your "gitgud" comment... the oldest excuse for tryhards

[aceperson]

can't we just go back to the simple system that worked for 10 years? you kill bosses, you get loot. for pvp, you pvp to get a currency you spend on gear. the better rating in pvp, the better the gear.

it doesn't need to be so complex.

[Surfacin9]

How can you even see toxicity in levelling dungeons, where people barely talk to each other? ROFL

Go pug a M10 or so as a tank, and prepare to get flamed into kingdom come if you ever do the slightest mistake. Also, your "gitgud" comment... the oldest excuse for tryhards

May be the problem is you, indeed. Like the person, you're replying to, I barely see any toxicity in m+ in SL. And I did pug my way all thought low keys to +15s as a blood DK tank. Even when I used my own routes that were different from the 'conventional', it was always fine by the group, as it always accomplished the goal. Even recently I was in a tyrannical +15 ToP where the healer couldn't always keep up with the damage on the lich boss (wiped 2-3 times), mage died throughout the run and we wiped about 7 times on the last boss before giving up, there was absolutely no flaming, and our tank and rogue were somewhere above 1700 rio.

Yes, there can be toxicity here and there, but in my experience it only happened when people performed really bad.
@Clash the DK: I'm sorry, but its a really bad idea. It puts people doing various content at a disadvantage. I don't want to gather even 2 different sets for 1 spec on main and alt. The beauty of current gearing system is that you can get loot frmo everywhere and it can be useful. Check the raid loot tables. There's about 1-3 items that drop from every boss. Some slots are only represented by 1 item in the whole raid, and it can have crappy stats for your spec. Without trading you can end up with 1-2 items per raid clear, which can have the less desired stats. Weekly vault and dungeon loot table offer great compensation for that system. Obviously the way things are right now exist because we have M+ as a gearing option. And previously there was a lot more variety in raid gear. But I like the current system much better as it makes dungeons worth running. And I never felt forced to run PvP for easier ilvl or good gear (the pvp trinket is considered bis for my class), and I never did run it.

The easier solution for the non-group players (apart from looking for other games to play since this is not a single-player game) is to give stronger set bonuses for outdoor content or just the Maw but keep ilvl around normal raid or even LFR. Lower the item acquisition rate to stretch the time taken to get the full set so that there is a sense of progression. If you are so eager to collect several sets - have Maw vendor sell gear with Torghast gear with a set bonus that helps bridge the ilvl gap and let you do higher levels without raid gear. Make that set cost the regular maw currency. This solution gives casuals gear progression that helps them become stronger in the content that they do without interfering with the end-game crowd and making their earned gear less valuable. In the open world a person with mythic raid gear and a solo player will be roughly at equal power level pve-wise (the set bonus should not be active during pvp in warmode shards), but inside raid or dungeon, high end players will be much stronger as they are now. Plus this change will only touch the solo players, who actually are the ones demanding changes, while raiders, pvpers and m+ players can keep gearing as they are.

[Soon-TM]

May be the problem is you, indeed. Like the person, you're replying to, I barely see any toxicity in m+ in SL.

I'm glad for you, but my experience begs to differ. I'm sorry that not all of us can be as awesome as you, who never make any mistakes whatsoever and always get nice groups. But as I said, I'm glad for you

[Surfacin9]

I'm glad for you, but my experience begs to differ. I'm sorry that not all of us can be as awesome as you, who never make any mistakes whatsoever and always get nice groups. But as I said, I'm glad for you

There's no need to get bitter. I'm just talking about my own experience in general. You claim there is a high level of toxicity in m+ pugs, 2 people have said otherwise. Compared to BfA the difference is huge. And no, I'm not awesome, make mistakes and don't always get nice groups; this passive aggression won't lead to a decent conversation. I can give various examples of toxicity or people leaving mid-run, but they are a drop in the ocean and 90% of the time they happenned because people were just too bad. If you indeed are this unlucky, not a bad player and play on EU servers, message and you can run some dungeons with 1 less toxic player.

[Soon-TM]

If you indeed are this unlucky, not a bad player and play on EU servers, message and you can run some dungeons with 1 less toxic player.

Awww, thanks for the offer but I play in American servers. Maybe I'm being unlucky because my tank is in Ragnaros, and I've heard it has quite a bad reputation /shrug

[Clash the DK]

See just caught you, you are trolling, you don't even know what you're talking about because essences didn't increase a single ability. You don't even have basic knowledge of the game or the systems and you want to put in more trash that just passively increases overall damage instead of fixing fundamental problems with the current systems and class balance.

I wasn't trolling. I was thinking of Azerite Traits instead of Essences. There were way too many temporary systems in BfA...

Nevertheless, my point still stands. Those are still not comparable to the example I provided (+5-20% to all stats). And honestly, that amount may be too much for any system to provide. That might double or triple your damage output. But go ahead and call it trash if you like.

Also, I like the idea of the system. You are rewarded extra power for progressing, just not in the shape of gear. The higher you achieve, the more you are rewarded. The bonuses are simple so that they can easily translate between Raids / Dungeons in PvE and then Arena / BGs for PvP. You wouldn't want something like this to be too complicated or narrow in how it applies to the game. It's something you plan around, but the intent is for it to be passive.

As I've said before, the problem with other current systems is when they try to stack too many on top of each other. Otherwise, they are fine. And I'm not sure why bring up class balance into the conversation, because that will never be balanced. They slot them in a preordained pecking order. And then they rotate things throughout every expansion. It's not like they forget about something. They do it on purpose.

[Wuusah]

How can you even see toxicity in levelling dungeons, where people barely talk to each other? ROFL

Go pug a M10 or so as a tank, and prepare to get flamed into kingdom come if you ever do the slightest mistake. Also, your "gitgud" comment... the oldest excuse for tryhards

I did ksm pugging as tank, then got to 10-14s on a heal alt, then got to 10s on a dps alt.

That “git gud” comment is my experience. If you don’t play like a moron then people won’t call you a moron.

During leveling, players of vastly different experience clash together and you get toxicity because some experienced idiot has no patience for newer players. Raider.io gets rid of that problem in M+ and that’s why I see barely any toxicity in M+. You know what I see more than toxicity? Players calling themselves stupid for making rookie mistakes. I’ve seen way more “omg, I’m so bad” than toxic remarks at others.

[Clash the DK]

@Clash the DK: I'm sorry, but its a really bad idea. It puts people doing various content at a disadvantage. I don't want to gather even 2 different sets for 1 spec on main and alt. The beauty of current gearing system is that you can get loot frmo everywhere and it can be useful. Check the raid loot tables. There's about 1-3 items that drop from every boss. Some slots are only represented by 1 item in the whole raid, and it can have crappy stats for your spec. Without trading you can end up with 1-2 items per raid clear, which can have the less desired stats. Weekly vault and dungeon loot table offer great compensation for that system. Obviously the way things are right now exist because we have M+ as a gearing option. And previously there was a lot more variety in raid gear. But I like the current system much better as it makes dungeons worth running. And I never felt forced to run PvP for easier ilvl or good gear (the pvp trinket is considered bis for my class), and I never did run it.

The easier solution for the non-group players (apart from looking for other games to play since this is not a single-player game) is to give stronger set bonuses for outdoor content or just the Maw but keep ilvl around normal raid or even LFR. Lower the item acquisition rate to stretch the time taken to get the full set so that there is a sense of progression. If you are so eager to collect several sets - have Maw vendor sell gear with Torghast gear with a set bonus that helps bridge the ilvl gap and let you do higher levels without raid gear. Make that set cost the regular maw currency. This solution gives casuals gear progression that helps them become stronger in the content that they do without interfering with the end-game crowd and making their earned gear less valuable. In the open world a person with mythic raid gear and a solo player will be roughly at equal power level pve-wise (the set bonus should not be active during pvp in warmode shards), but inside raid or dungeon, high end players will be much stronger as they are now. Plus this change will only touch the solo players, who actually are the ones demanding changes, while raiders, pvpers and m+ players can keep gearing as they are.

Check out the "alternative idea" at the bottom of the first post. That addresses the problem of not having gear translate to other areas of the game while keeping PvE and PvP separated as they should be IMO.

I have considered your idea of just putting the bonus on the world content gear. But then you have the problem of explaining where it does and doesn't work. Does it only work in SLs? Does it also work in the Maw? What about Torghast? And then there is warmode which becomes a very sticky situation. It would still have to work there because that is indeed world content. So how is that balanced against other players in PvP gear? If any potential problems with warmode were solved, then that might be the best route to take. But, I don't have a definitive answer to that big question mark.

[Soon-TM]

I did ksm pugging as tank, then got to 10-14s on a heal alt, then got to 10s on a dps alt.

That “git gud” comment is my experience. If you don’t play like a moron then people won’t call you a moron.

During leveling, players of vastly different experience clash together and you get toxicity because some experienced idiot has no patience for newer players. Raider.io gets rid of that problem in M+ and that’s why I see barely any toxicity in M+. You know what I see more than toxicity? Players calling themselves stupid for making rookie mistakes. I’ve seen way more “omg, I’m so bad” than toxic remarks at others.

Assuming that a random poster you don't even know is being flamed in M+ because he/she is bad is as toxic as it gets. Maybe that's why you don't notice the toxicity, you are already part of the crowd, who knows. Not that I particularly care

[Wuusah]

Assuming that a random poster you don't even know is being flamed in M+ because he/she is bad is as toxic as it gets. Maybe that's why you don't notice the toxicity, you are already part of the crowd, who knows. Not that I particularly care

I don’t think people log into the game and want to be toxic that day. I think people are just frustrated and let that frustration out. And they target the person who messes up with stuff that shouldn’t happen anymore at decent M+ levels.

[Surfacin9]

Check out the "alternative idea" at the bottom of the first post. That addresses the problem of not having gear translate to other areas of the game while keeping PvE and PvP separated as they should be IMO.

I did check it. And I'm not trying to be dismissive, but here's the problem I see: not only Blizzard will have to increase the rewards for open world from somewhere, but they have to create this whole new system of the pve and pvp buffs, which have be to progress based and balanced. Then a player who's been away on vacation/sick/quit/personal life/other reasons, comes back to his raiding team who have done some progress while he was away, and he is at a disadvantage because he didn't pass the treshold for the next step of the buff. Or when a guild does team rotation, or when a raider switches to a good geared alt because its more useful on a particular fight. Our guild, for example, doesn't do mythic reclears or does them rarely after we're halfway done with the raid, since we raid only 2 days a week, we need max time to progress harder bosses. So it will create problems, not even talking about the top end guilds. The way I see it, it will impact the race. And for what? To give non-raiders extra progression. You know its not worth it as it creates more problems than it solves. There may be other problems, which didn't pop into my head right away. Also the community doesn't really like new game systems. I doubt raiders will be happy with doing X amount of damage in raid or dungeon, then 10-20% less in the open world.

Which is why I emphasized that what I proposed doesn't touch raiding or rated pvp community, it only changes the non-raid/dungeon/pvp gear and is much easier to implement, and doesn't need that much balancing since its non-competitive content. People do not care about the damage of others, they care about their damage. If it decreases for them in the open world, its not good. On the other side, the 'casual' people, who want better gear, they don't intend on doing instanced content, so they won't feel the drop in their power when the set bonus stops working, since they won't get into those situations.

I have considered your idea of just putting the bonus on the world content gear. But then you have the problem of explaining where it does and doesn't work. Does it only work in SLs? Does it also work in the Maw? What about Torghast?

'while in outdoor areas in Shadowlands and the Maw' - that note should be enough to explain it. I think the current covenant set bonus has a similar description, didn't check. Toys have similar descriptions about their restrictions. Where exactly it will work, its up to developers to decide. But the way I see it - its shadowlands gear, so it works in all the outdoor zones that are part of the expansion. Non SL zones don't need bonuses, since we outlevel those. If the zone is released in SL expansion but not as a part of Shadowlands themselves (like were Nazjatar, Argus, Vale/Uldum in 8.3) it is still covered by the set bonus, since its the current expansion's content.

Torghast? I did mention it as well. I would make a separate gear set with its own bonus (can be a smaller set than a regular outdoor one, like a 6-8 piece) that is sold by Maw vendor, like Ven'ari seels Torghast improvements right now, for the Maw currency. That will make doing the Maw more desirable to do, and with mounts allowed there in 9.1, my proposed bonus set increasing performance there, no eye of the jailer, Maw will be much less annoying to do. The set bonus will be rather simple, aimed at bridging the ilvl gap between raiders and soloers, by increasing the latter damage, stamina, healing. As a result, these players will be able to complete higher levels, will have a sense of gear and content progression and still avoiding any group content.

And then there is warmode which becomes a very sticky situation. It would still have to work there because that is indeed world content. So how is that balanced against other players in PvP gear? If any potential problems with warmode were solved, then that might be the best route to take. But, I don't have a definitive answer to that big question mark.

Again, I did mention it, the bonus will simply not work while in combat with other players. They can easily add that restriction. It can potentially cause some griefing issues, but not like there aren't any now; and if someone is bothered by it, they can switch WM off. Also, I think the type of players we're discussing here are the ones who want to play a solo sandbox game, so pretty confident, they won't play with warmode to begin with. On the other hand, its world PvP, all is fair, if high levels can gank the crap out of lowbies, obliterate enemy faction's quest hubs, if a geared PvPer can grief casual PvEer with WM on, why disable the set bonus at all? Depending on their design, they can even give the solo player an edge, and let them fend for themselves. Why the hell not )))

To each their own, of course, but I believe this is the better solution for the solo player gear progression (not trying to diminish the effort you put into yours). Mainly, because it doesn't affect performance of end-game players in any way, compared to what you were proposing. I'd be pretty happy if such system was implemented, even though I'm not a solo player, but if it will make a chunck of the community happy and make the world more alive and relevant, I'm all up for it.

[Clash the DK]

Thanks @Surfacin9 for the really good feedback and discussion.

Then a player who's been away on vacation/sick/quit/personal life/other reasons, comes back to his raiding team who have done some progress while he was away, and he is at a disadvantage because he didn't pass the treshold for the next step of the buff. Or when a guild does team rotation, or when a raider switches to a good geared alt because its more useful on a particular fight.

This indeed could be problematic. You have a very good point. In some ways, I imagined it being something similar to attunements from the past. Something that adds to the strategy of raiding. But it could possibly cause more grief than good with the way things are today. People hate any inconvenience.

Also, similar things have happened to me in the past in relation to gear. Twice, I missed the kill for this one particular boss that dropped my BIS weapon. And then the guild decided to push into the next tier of difficulty. That was so frustrating.

'while in outdoor areas in Shadowlands and the Maw' - that note should be enough to explain it. I think the current covenant set bonus has a similar description, didn't check.

Unfortunately, Covenant gear doesn't work in the maw. I'm not sure why they chose to go that route. Personally, I think that was a missed opportunity because many players at that ilvl just refuse to go there because it can be a pain until you get better gear.

To each their own, of course, but I believe this is the better solution for the solo player gear progression (not trying to diminish the effort you put into yours). Mainly, because it doesn't affect performance of end-game players in any way, compared to what you were proposing. I'd be pretty happy if such system was implemented, even though I'm not a solo player, but if it will make a chunck of the community happy and make the world more alive and relevant, I'm all up for it.

Keeping players subbed and active in world content should be a big priority. Blizz makes more money and we get that good feeling of being in an active and busy world. That's supposed to be one of the big draws for MMOs. So hopefully they take some sort of measures to make something happen.

[Echo of Soul]

They should just copy the badge gear system from FFXIV. That's all the casual players really want. Run some LFG, some LFR, some daily quests and slowly work towards the second best gear in the game.

[Zyky]

I wasn't trolling. I was thinking of Azerite Traits instead of Essences. There were way too many temporary systems in BfA...

Nevertheless, my point still stands. Those are still not comparable to the example I provided (+5-20% to all stats). And honestly, that amount may be too much for any system to provide. That might double or triple your damage output. But go ahead and call it trash if you like.

Also, I like the idea of the system. You are rewarded extra power for progressing, just not in the shape of gear. The higher you achieve, the more you are rewarded. The bonuses are simple so that they can easily translate between Raids / Dungeons in PvE and then Arena / BGs for PvP. You wouldn't want something like this to be too complicated or narrow in how it applies to the game. It's something you plan around, but the intent is for it to be passive.

As I've said before, the problem with other current systems is when they try to stack too many on top of each other. Otherwise, they are fine. And I'm not sure why bring up class balance into the conversation, because that will never be balanced. They slot them in a preordained pecking order. And then they rotate things throughout every expansion. It's not like they forget about something. They do it on purpose.

I'm sorry but you're part of the problem if you think it's too much work to actually design systems properly, period.

[Wuusah]

They should just copy the badge gear system from FFXIV. That's all the casual players really want. Run some LFG, some LFR, some daily quests and slowly work towards the second best gear in the game.

What is the second best gear in WoW? Do you realize that WoW ilvls are a spectrum?