When did WoW convince itself Raiding is the only thing that's important?

[jeezusisacasual]

Your assertion that WoW's endgame is "a lot more difficult" than FFXIV is suspect. I know they have 8-man instead of 20-man raids, but from what I have read, the Ultimate fights are very difficult(100s of pulls) and are for cosmetic rewards not player power.

Even if I concede your point that FFXIV endgame is easier than WoW endgame, your argument for having only ONE path to maximum player power(Cutting Edge Mythic Raiding) is that players would eventually achieve maximum power, and then complain they couldn't beat the hardest content after having reached the maximum power level?

Seriously?

So because some people MIGHT complain about content being too difficult, instead we should keep the current system where 99% of the player base is locked out of full power progression?

I play FF14 and one of the easier classes ( Machinist ) and i have a blast when i play it. Every so often i stop playing wow ( normally after getting KSM ) and go play a season of FF14 until wow has a new mythic plus season to get the title / mount / fun then back to FF14 which in turn has me something new to do. I absolutely love the fact that the player power difference is not much due to how they handle gear venders which wow should do with valor. Would Mythic guilds live in a world where they are only what 5 item levels above Heroic raiders? Would they start to say why bother? and if so i thought people did it for the fun of it all?

There is no reason as to why we cant just save points and buy gear and have a clear ending date on our toons. Perhaps they are afraid of that? Not having an endless loop but i contest that games are seasonal at best now and less years long subscribing.

[Sucralose]

Your assertion that WoW's endgame is "a lot more difficult" than FFXIV is suspect. I know they have 8-man instead of 20-man raids, but from what I have read, the Ultimate fights are very difficult(100s of pulls) and are for cosmetic rewards not player power.

Even if I concede your point that FFXIV endgame is easier than WoW endgame, your argument for having only ONE path to maximum player power(Cutting Edge Mythic Raiding) is that players would eventually achieve maximum power, and then complain they couldn't beat the hardest content after having reached the maximum power level?

Seriously?

So because some people MIGHT complain about content being too difficult, instead we should keep the current system where 99% of the player base is locked out of full power progression?

I don't see player power as the end state of the game it is a tool to leverage and break down the game into different difficulties. It is a "should you really be here yet" system and little more. If you give people doing daily quests mythic raid gear all you do is make the next step in progression for them mythic and they would be sorely ill prepared for that.

It just makes everyone miserable it is better to just call out the greedy whiners and move on.

[Miffinat0r]

I don't see player power as the end state of the game it is a tool to leverage and break down the game into different difficulties. It is a "should you really be here yet" system and little more. If you give people doing daily quests mythic raid gear all you do is make the next step in progression for them mythic and they would be sorely ill prepared for that.

It just makes everyone miserable it is better to just call out the greedy whiners and move on.

This is nothing more than this works for you therefore there's no problem. Despite what others are saying.

[ReesePieces]

If you give people doing daily quests mythic raid gear all you do is make the next step in progression for them mythic and they would be sorely ill prepared for that.

It just makes everyone miserable it is better to just call out the greedy whiners and move on.

Now you start with the name calling("greedy whiners") because your straw-man arguments are being exposed.

IF they allowed mythic raid level ilvl through daily quests, why do you assume that player would even want to even try Mythic raiding?

And if they did just suddenly jump into Mythic and die to mechanics, so what? That's EXACTLY what was happening with the Mage Tower.

This obsession with keeping full power progression locked behind one niche activity is one of the things that pushes players to other MMOs most notably FFXIV.

[Sucralose]

This is nothing more than this works for you therefore there's no problem. Despite what others are saying.

I mean what others are saying is akin to wanting to be in diamond league in dota while being in bronze. It is fine to want it but simply putting them in diamond league wont make the game better for them or others. If you want to climb up the risk reward ladder you have to actually climb up it not jump up and down on the bottom rung over and over again.

- - - Updated - - -

Now you start with the name calling("greedy whiners") because your straw-man arguments are being exposed.

IF they allowed mythic raid level ilvl through daily quests, why do you assume that player would even want to even try Mythic raiding?

And if they did just suddenly jump into Mythic and die to mechanics, so what? That's EXACTLY what was happening with the Mage Tower.

This obsession with keeping full power progression locked behind one niche activity is one of the things that pushes players to other MMOs most notably FFXIV.

To be fair I called them morons and parasites before that im hardly breaking character now.

see above for the rest.

[ReesePieces]

I mean what others are saying is akin to wanting to be in diamond league in dota while being in bronze.

This is completely inaccurate comparison. Diamond vs Bronze is a RANKING. The players in both Diamond and Bronze leagues have access to the same POWER.

What we are talking about here isn't "everyone gets a trophy". Gear isn't a trophy, it is a tool.

Trophies don't make you more powerful. They show off your accomplishments.

[Sucralose]

This is completely inaccurate comparison. Diamond vs Bronze is a RANKING. The players in both Diamond and Bronze leagues have access to the same POWER.

What we are talking about here isn't "everyone gets a trophy". Gear isn't a trophy, it is a tool.

Trophies don't make you more powerful. They show off your accomplishments.

WoW using difficulty as rating and gear well at least it used to you can argue the amount of freebie gear was what effectively showed your rating.

If giving out free rewards was a good idea wow should of only been improving ever expansion since tbc instead the second you overgear someone they stop caring about any content below it. Even if that content is where their skill level is.

[ReesePieces]

If giving out free rewards was a good idea wow should of only been improving ever expansion since tbc instead the second you overgear someone they stop caring about any content below it. Even if that content is where their skill level is.

Again with the straw-man arguments.

1) Who said "giving out free rewards"? Who is asking to login and just have a vendor where you pick your best-in slot items from a vendor for free?

2) People don't just "stop caring" about content if there is no power related to it. How many people run older raids on multiple difficulties for mounts and transmog?

And finally you bring up the obsession i mentioned earlier with power being locked behind skill. You just can't get over someone with lower skill having the same POTENTIAL power?

I feel like that is the root of elitism in WoW. Skilled players don't feel like lesser skilled players "deserve" to have their button presses do the same amount of damage and should be reminded they are inferior, not only because they have lower skill, but less potential power as well.

[Sucralose]

Again with the straw-man arguments.

1) Who said "giving out free rewards"? Who is asking to login and just have a vendor where you pick your best-in slot items from a vendor for free?

2) People don't just "stop caring" about content if there is no power related to it. How many people run older raids on multiple difficulties for mounts and transmog?

And finally you bring up the obsession i mentioned earlier with power being locked behind skill. You just can't get over someone with lower skill having the same POTENTIAL power?

I feel like that is the root of elitism in WoW. Skilled players don't feel like lesser skilled players "deserve" to have their button presses do the same amount of damage and should be reminded they are inferior, not only because they have lower skill, but less potential power as well.

How many people run heroic dungeons?

[Glorious Leader]

I don't see player power as the end state of the game .

Then you shouldn't have a problem because its just a tool right. Furthermore you'd have no problem if mythic raids stopped dropping gear entirely because its just a tool right.

[Sucralose]

Then you shouldn't have a problem because its just a tool right. Furthermore you'd have no problem if mythic raids stopped dropping gear entirely because its just a tool right.

I see it as a tool and like any tool I can easily see the problems that can be caused be its misuse...

Gear paces out content and allows difficulty level to exist within the same difficulty. It lets people push themselves slowly and improve over time to overcome obstacles. If you gave it out randomly people would try to leap frog into content they were in no way ready for. If you removed it from mythic you would cause problems with its progression cycle as each boss would more or less need to be tuned identically.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

To answer the OT, I'd say since Cataclysm? Incidentally, Cataclysm was a catastrophe for the playerbase. Raiding only aim to please a small group of players, which themselves are too divided to really push something that'll please everybody.

Raiding isn't for me, so I don't play anymore. I loved when you could farm valor emblems in Wotlk through dungeons. But that's not the same game anymore, so I guess Wow decided to become more niche and that's fine. Just not for me.

[Soon-TM]

Skilled players don't feel like lesser skilled players "deserve" to have their button presses do the same amount of damage and should be reminded they are inferior, not only because they have lower skill, but less potential power as well.

It's the classic (not the game) PvP mentality, where many of the top dogs aren't actually interested in skill and class knowledge/synergy deciding the winner, but rather the massive disparity in player power.

It's no surprise that this mentality appeared first in PvP. PvP, due to its very nature, was always (except maybe during Vanilla) the competitive part of WoW. And devs have done their best to turn PvE into another competition as well - thus we see now in many self-styled PvE pros the same gatekeeping attitude and the same desire to enforce the statu quo via the game's systems rather than personal merit (or lack thereof, in many cases).

[Sucralose]

It's the classic (not the game) PvP mentality, where many of the top dogs aren't actually interested in skill and class knowledge/synergy deciding the winner, but rather the massive disparity in player power.

It's no surprise that this mentality appeared first in PvP. PvP, due to its very nature, was always (except maybe during Vanilla) the competitive part of WoW. And devs have done their best to turn PvE into another competition as well - thus we see now in many self-styled PvE pros the same gatekeeping attitude and the same desire to enforce the statu quo via the game's systems rather than personal merit (or lack thereof, in many cases).

Maybe? It isn't hard to pug a 15+ then hit mythic raiding ive done it before on alts without any guild or buddy support

[Soon-TM]

Maybe? It isn't hard to pug a 15+ then hit mythic raiding ive done it before on alts without any guild or buddy support

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consensus_effect

[loras]

Well there's the issue of loot defining player power, thus forcing people to prioritise whatsver gives good loot if they want to play the game in a remotely fun way.

I mean that's all that's been keeping raiding's pants up for the last few expansions.

[okanial]

Well, I agree and disagree as Raids being the only important thing.

On the one hand, I dislike removing PVP items so even the PVP players have to do mythic raids/dungeons to have the best item possible. If someone just wants to do PVP they should be able to get their best set by doing PVP.

Content wise, mythic only phases and cutscenes sucks as not everyone is in a raid, these are not that common and lfr helps so you can still see what happened for the lore but I wish we didnt have to wait for weeks to do that.

But, they are trying to add new stuff to the game other than Raids, its just that people don't enjoy them for long and it becomes a wasted energy. This expansion we had Torghast. At the beginning everyone loved it. It was new and exciting. In just a few months people mentioned it as a grind, something to do, boring and repetitive. Last expansion we had Isle expeditions and warfronts, they didn't even stand a chance for most people after the first round. Playerbase wants the best loot so they can do mythic+ which is also coming from mythic+ so it is an endless cycle of raiding. There is nothing stopping you to try and do other stuff. Play it for pet battles if you like. But players themselves are choosing to focus on raiding. I would like to see the numbers on convenants and how many players chose the optimal one and how many chose the one they liked the most. I bet optimal number would be higher.

Blizzard sucks but not everything is their fault, this is coming from someone who quit the game and just checking lore updates

[T-34]

It's no surprise that this mentality appeared first in PvP. PvP, due to its very nature, was always (except maybe during Vanilla) the competitive part of WoW. And devs have done their best to turn PvE into another competition as well - thus we see now in many self-styled PvE pros the same gatekeeping attitude and the same desire to enforce the statu quo via the game's systems rather than personal merit (or lack thereof, in many cases).

Could you be so kind to explain how someone can "gatekeep" you in WoW?
As far as I know everybody has the same right and possibility to make a group.
As far as I know everybody that makes a group has the same right and possibility to take down content.
The only thing that stops you from doing content in WoW are your social and in-game skills.

- - - Updated - - -

I feel like that is the root of elitism in WoW. Skilled players don't feel like lesser skilled players "deserve" to have their button presses do the same amount of damage and should be reminded they are inferior, not only because they have lower skill, but less potential power as well.

That is utter bullshit. Anyone competitive doesn't want "lesser players" to have less options.
WoW is an utterly egalitarian game where the only thing holding you back is your own skill - in-game as well as social.
But nobody competitive wants to carry players worse than themselves and nobody competitive wants rewards giving out for free.
That is what is really discussed here:
Should rewards be (somewhat) based on your skill/effort or should rewards be doled as free Christmas presents.

[Soon-TM]

The only thing that stops you from doing content in WoW are your social and in-game skills.

WoW is an utterly egalitarian game where the only thing holding you back is your own skill - in-game as well as social.

Sometimes I have the impression that you are either answering to the wrong person or throwing out random assumptions and ad hominems haphazardly put together. It's hard to take you seriously m8.

[T-34]

Sometimes I have the impression that you are either answering to the wrong person or throwing out random assumptions and ad hominems haphazardly put together. It's hard to take you seriously m8.

You still didn't answer me how you can be "gatekept" in WoW.