STOP making the game for the top 0.01% of the players! It’s killing this game

[NineSpine]

Because doing hard content should give the best gear so you can crush those that are bad at the game. Easy content shouldn't give any rewards at all, maybe some cosmetic shit that nobody cares about.

If people can't perform at a high level they should unsubscribe and play some kids game instead. If you don't do premade group content yet still feel like you deserve gear you should play a single player game instead.

Notice how you didn't explain why it should be that way. Instead, you just kept declaring that it should be. The game is not your personal creepy way of vindicating yourself. It's a product for having fun.

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Downside is fact that most people will quit becouse everone will just do easyest type of content to get those rewards. You are truly delusional if you think people will do harder content just to get same rewards as some world q hero.

If people don't want to do hard content, then why is Blizzard spending so much resources making hard content? You just admitted that the content is garbage that people don't want to do.

Funny how people what do harder content should be doing just becouse they find it fun. But when comes to casuals and their boring easy faceroll type of world co then no oh no those people need bis gear to have fun but nono mythic raiders should have fun just for sake of it but we casuals those need gear to have fun.

YOU just said that without better rewards, nobody would be doing the hard content.

If you need bis gear.to have fun dont jusutifi reasob to do harder content with worlda like people should do it becouse they find it fun when you clealrly need rewards to actualy enjoy what you doing.

But... YOU just said that without better rewards, the hard content wouldn't get played.

[Biomega]

Sounds like the people that only do something they don't enjoy to lord it over others are the ones with a problem. Maybe they should be doing difficult content because they enjoy the challenge, not the status.

That's not usually how it works. Sure there's people who enjoy the prestige of the community - but those exist at all levels, from the casual mount farmer to the xmog fanatic to the all-mythic-gear raider. It can be a problem if done to excess, but it's a problem in its own right. It's not an inevitable consequence of difficult content being rewarding.

There's other reasons more important than "I want everyone to know I did this" that make people want rewards in high-difficulty content. A sense of accomplishment; power progression; optimization; performance competition; and so on.

If you took all the gear away from mythic raiding and said "just enjoy the challenge!" chances are it would collapse. That doesn't mean people don't want a challenge, it just means they want a challenge, and be rewarded for conquering it.

There's other solutions to the problem. One being that if gear/power is the main/sole reward, then of course everyone will measure everything by that standard. You may not NEED mythic-level gear to do your weekly family raid night on normal mode, but if it's the only way to measure your power then that's the measure you go by. The key term here is horizontal progression - something to do that feels like progression but isn't necessarily a straight power gain (which would be vertical progression). WoW has historically been rather bad at this. Throwing in a mount or pet or maybe a toy is about as creative as they've gotten with it. There's tons of design space to explore, and tons of things that could help shift the focus away from gear for people who aren't into difficulty, but still want to get something substantial for their effort.

[Relapses]

This is such an ignorant thing to say. If enough of a seafood restaurant's customers want their take on hamburgers then they'd be well served to add a hamburger to the menu and most likely will do so rather than "laugh" their customers out of the door.

You do realize that pizza restaurants sell chicken and sandwiches and salads, right? McDonald's, a burger joint, has yogurt and ice cream and chicken and ribs and who knows what else.

Successful businesses diversify rather than telling their customers to fuck off if they don't like what's available.

Way to completely miss the point of the analogy (which I'm sure you intentionally didn't include in your reply): Before diversifying your business to such a degree that you're trying to appease literally every single fucking customer that's ever existed (or might exist), you should probably consider that some voices simply aren't worth the listen. WoW is a game with a vertical progression system. It has been built and has thrived on it. Changing one of the core aspects of the game's DNA because other MMOs offer less verticality in their progression systems is not the way forward.

I digress -- let's go back to the seafood restaurant analogy: I hear there's a pretty sweet sushi restaurant down the road that offers a mean hamburger. :^)

[Echo of Soul]

If people don't want to do hard content, then why is Blizzard spending so much resources making hard content? You just admitted that the content is garbage that people don't want to do.

For the rewards? Nobody actually likes doing hard content but if there's gear behind it that scubs can't get it becomes fun. It's very important for WoW to have players segregated so that the good and powerful players don't have to deal with the bad and weak ones.

[arkanon]

For the rewards? Nobody actually likes doing hard content but if there's gear behind it that scubs can't get it becomes fun. It's very important for WoW to have players segregated so that the good and powerful players don't have to deal with the bad and weak ones.

Out of interest, do you include CM and MT cosmetics in this? Obviously MT got easy later on, but was challenging for the most part to begin with, depending on a LOT of factors (legos, which boss, which spec, etc).

[ifrah]

I don't see how this game today would be more for the top 0.1% than that of the past decades? Raiding, look at whatever metric, has never been the casual magnet while still being the relevant content. At least for a decent time now it has not been the sole source of relevant gear.

And some people do like hard content, why else would there be any people doing m+ beyond 15? Surely it's not the entirety of the player base, but looks quite popular to say the least.

[Coldkil]

Why would they want mythic BiS gear if they can't beat the boss?

It's always been like this, but now you can literally get those rewards by spamming 15s. I'm not saying "X is better than Y" but in terms of loot acquisition, M+ is just so much faster and better overall. Raids are obsolete in their structure (though while i have ideas i don't know what kind of solution there can be).

[Paperfox]

Why do M+, raiders and PVPers need better gear? I thought they love hard content.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and vice versa.

[Coldkil]

I don't see how this game today would be more for the top 0.1% than that of the past decades? Raiding, look at whatever metric, has never been the casual magnet while still being the relevant content. At least for a decent time now it has not been the sole source of relevant gear.

And some people do like hard content, why else would there be any people doing m+ beyond 15? Surely it's not the entirety of the player base, but looks quite popular to say the least.

To me the issue lies in the fact that you have two competing PvE progression systems, Raids and M+. Raids are still tied to the old "beat the difficulty, get better gear" tier, while M+ approach a way more modern and fluid progression system that's way more granular and gives relatively easy access to "best gear" to everyone while still providing a challenge to people who want to progress further.

Also really worth noting: Raids are kind of "expendable" content. The way they're made makes players just try to beat them once and then they're done. There's a lot of drop off when a guild clears Mythic, not many people actually likes farming. M+ instead provides a constant challenge - you can always go up and improve your rating, so people interested in pushing have a consistent path to go through.

Raids are really outdated in terms of structure. I think they could make use of a revamp so you can set the difficulty through an NPC before any boss to a specific level like M+, just without the key systems and the affixes. Instead, like in M+ at certain level thresholds bosses do additional mechanics. You don't need seasonal affixes or so, because by structure and gameplay itself every new tier is a new affix. This would allow for more granular progression, comparable item progression to M+ and possibily a similar way of dealing with higher diffculties (meaning gear caps at 15 and then it's all skill based). You could use an identical upgrade system aswell (just with a different currency because of the raid weekly lockout, you can only farm a limited amount of it). I can already see "problems" like managing flexible raid sizes, or certain bosses being easier than others or wonky scaling situation, but it's part of the game.

It would be a lot of work. But at this point i think it's something that would integrate much better with the modern playerbase.

[Biomega]

Why do M+, raiders and PVPers need better gear? I thought they love hard content.

It's called progression. Gear has always been the chief factor in that, that's just how WoW is built.

There's a handful of guilds in the world that can clear a raid in day 1 gear (though that wasn't even true this tier), for everyone else gear is a necessary component of the progression through a tier if you want to avoid either massive frustration or overnerfed content. And in the case of M+ it's even more relevant, as certain key levels become outright impossible without more gear due to the timer. Without gear progression you'd have capped M+ progression.

What's more, it's been consistently shown that rewards increase participation tremendously. Yes difficulty is important to a lot of people, but so is being rewarded in some way for taking on that difficulty.

That's not to say WoW couldn't use some kind of horizontal progression system to go alongside its very vertical model; but to abolish or curb vertical progression is probably unrealistic at this point, for both historical and mechanical reason. That's just not what WoW is.

[Coldkil]

That's not to say WoW couldn't use some kind of horizontal progression system to go alongside its very vertical model; but to abolish or curb vertical progression is probably unrealistic at this point, for both historical and mechanical reason. That's just not what WoW is.

And i think it's a big part in the M+ huge success coupled with the non-existant entry barrier and granularity of difficulty/commitment required.

[Biomega]

And i think it's a big part in the M+ huge success coupled with the non-existant entry barrier and granularity of difficulty/commitment required.

M+ is actually a great COUNTERexample against removing rewards, because participation drops precipitously past the reward breakpoints. And mind you, that's still with SOME rewards left after that.

There's always going to be some people who don't need rewards, but by and large there seems to be a very clear indication that rewards scale up participation, and not by a little.

[Echo of Soul]

M+ is actually a great COUNTERexample against removing rewards, because participation drops precipitously past the reward breakpoints. And mind you, that's still with SOME rewards left after that.

There's always going to be some people who don't need rewards, but by and large there seems to be a very clear indication that rewards scale up participation, and not by a little.

Yeah because nobody likes doing hard content for the sake of doing hard content. Without the rewards the content isn't fun and isn't worth doing.

[Gorsameth]

M+ is actually a great COUNTERexample against removing rewards, because participation drops precipitously past the reward breakpoints. And mind you, that's still with SOME rewards left after that.

There's always going to be some people who don't need rewards, but by and large there seems to be a very clear indication that rewards scale up participation, and not by a little.

M+ is popular not because its 'fun' but because its the easiest way to get the gear. Which is why participation falls off a cliff after the reward breakpoint.

What ever happened to making things fun, so people want to do it. Rather then making them do it to complete the chore?

I've noticed the same thing with raids. In 'the good ol days' you'd clear a raid and then farm it every week for a couple of months having fun hanging out with the guild on comms. Argus, G'huun, Denethrius. The most recent raids I've done its always been "fuck it, weren't not doing those fights again. We'll take a break until the next tier, see you in x months".

[ellieg]

M+ is popular not because its 'fun' but because its the easiest way to get the gear. Which is why participation falls off a cliff after the reward breakpoint.

What ever happened to making things fun, so people want to do it. Rather then making them do it to complete the chore?

I've noticed the same thing with raids. In 'the good ol days' you'd clear a raid and then farm it every week for a couple of months having fun hanging out with the guild on comms. Argus, G'huun, Denethrius. The most recent raids I've done its always been "fuck it, weren't not doing those fights again. We'll take a break until the next tier, see you in x months".

Its not too hard to make stuff fun. But I'd argue its pretty hard to make the same things fun over and over again. Its the rewards that keep players coming back after the initial fun wears off.

[cparle87]

I love reading posts like this. and specifically the comparison to WotLK - an addon that didnt have 4 difficulties for raids yet. It's fine the way it is. If you can't clear heroic or mythic, then you ain't good enough. You won't need that gear anyway, as you most likely won't be able to clear future mythic raids aswell.
There is SO much content for casual and less skilled players out there, with rewards that exceed the difficulty of and required dedication to the content anyway.
It's already sad enough that there is no unique gear for the hardest content (I really hope possible Dragonflight legendaries wont be obtainable at Normal/RF difficulty), other than recolors. The best and most dedicated deserve so much more imo.

10, heroic 10, 25, heroic 25. Looks like 4 difficulties to me. Especially considering they all had different loot tables and ilvls too.

[Coldkil]

M+ is actually a great COUNTERexample against removing rewards, because participation drops precipitously past the reward breakpoints. And mind you, that's still with SOME rewards left after that.

There's always going to be some people who don't need rewards, but by and large there seems to be a very clear indication that rewards scale up participation, and not by a little.

I'm kinda on the opposite side on this. I think gear progression only should work so far - mostly because you cannot setup everything around it. I like how M+ caps gear rewards at a relatively easy level and then it's all about skill. If someone wants to partake in it is free to do so and gear isn't a staple anymore to let people do progressively hard content. However i think past 15s M+ need a lot more rewards for people who want to go past that. Right now there's literally nothing but bragging rights.

Point is, the competitive part of WoW (Mythic and high M+) is appealing to only a small fraction of the total playerbase. I'm not saying it's bad or it doesn't need to exist, but it just shows how majority of people like a lot the gear progression because it makes their character more powerful and they don't really care about anything else than that - nor story, challenge, competition, anything. It's literally the same reason why people play mobile games and buy stuff to see the numbers go up.

My point is that since you cannot simply combat that, it may just be more worth to have all gear progression cap at 15s/HC raids (with the same ilvl and everything) and have everything after that to be a truly competitive environment. May be appealing for less people but in the end all people partaking in it would be interested for what it is and not because they want the better reward. If for example Mythic would reward the highest ilvl gear across the board, people doing competitive M+ would be literally forced to do Mythic raids to compete in M+, and that's not a thing anyone wants.

Raids need a bigger overhaul in structure though to make them more "modern". As i said, ideas are a thing, actual implementation is only in the hands of Blizzard and they may agree or not with what i'm saying. Dragonflight could just have the same system it's ingame now, though fram what we hear they're going for a broad revamp of the game apparently.

[Daffan]

Not really. It there is no point in doing them in the first place in terms of gear. Zereth Mortis gives better gear than LFR and any dungeons. It will also be quicker just to make your tier gear than the 20 times you would have to clear the raid to get your 4 set. I only cleared LFR once to get the quest done and just to see it. That is why so many people dip out after patches. If you are a queuer and don't like running that same few dungeons ad nauseam you do the quests and get the exalted rep then tap out till the next patch. I guess that is why they are trying to make riads and what not relevant again in the next patch. All content in wow is pointless as soon as a new patch drops.

And who are the people who championed this game idea with Zereth Mortis or other catchup the past 10yrs? The same people who do LFR, the same people I'm talking about. It all circles back baby'. The people are literally creating their own problem than posting about it but never add it up.

No. This needs to be more balanced. We actually need more content and a bit easier gameplay so that everyone can take a part of it.

Everyone understands that more content is always better, but saying that is quite irrelevant because resources are limited. What extends the content so it's not run over in 1 day is either grind or difficulty.

What ever happened to making things fun, so people want to do it. Rather then making them do it to complete the chore?

You ever thought that part of the fun was your brain being happy at the sense of progression and reward and that means basically nothing these days.

[Karawaka]

M+ is popular not because its 'fun' but because its the easiest way to get the gear. Which is why participation falls off a cliff after the reward breakpoint.

What ever happened to making things fun, so people want to do it. Rather then making them do it to complete the chore?

I've noticed the same thing with raids. In 'the good ol days' you'd clear a raid and then farm it every week for a couple of months having fun hanging out with the guild on comms. Argus, G'huun, Denethrius. The most recent raids I've done its always been "fuck it, weren't not doing those fights again. We'll take a break until the next tier, see you in x months".

Raids are definitely more difficult than they used to be. Instead of being tuned around the gear you'd start with and gearing being a form of soft nerf, they seem to be tuned around the gear you'll end up getting. SotFO is a prime example. Return of tier sets and double legendaries, people look at it like previous, similar tiers where its balanced around one legendary and previous raid gear, this tier us balanced around people having tier and double legendaries. It's not fun where gearing just makes the bosses feel killable, not easier. Is this a sign of the game being casual unfriendly? Possibly. I look at it more as a failing of the devs, esp when you look at the final 3 bosses. No testing, constant tuning after release, top guilds just not clearing for the tier or breaking apart completely.

How I miss the days when I could get a toon to max level, run a few dungeons and buy/craft some pieces, and jump right into normal with a similar group of dumbasses and clear in 2-3 hours. Or build a raid of half alts and half mains and mow down heroic. Now you need gear at or higher than what the bosses drop just to kill them.

[potis]

How I miss the days when I could get a toon to max level, run a few dungeons and buy/craft some pieces, and jump right into normal with a similar group of dumbasses and clear in 2-3 hours. Or build a raid of half alts and half mains and mow down heroic. Now you need gear at or higher than what the bosses drop just to kill them.

Yes and no, but this is more once in the last 12 raids problem, and when multiple guilds clear most of Heroic the first weeks without the tiers, its not really a "problem" but more like "These players are literally carried by gear only" problem.

Sepulcher is a bit overtuned compared to other raids because the mechanics are a bit more tighter and personal, but DPS/gear is a player problem.

We killed HC Jailer last week, 2 wipes at 8% cause of enrage, then he died with 45 seconds remaining, so somehow they did 8% damage + 45 seconds of damage, so averagely 18-20% health of the boss more DPS, one try after the other.

This is obviously the fact that my raiders are inconsistent and terrible, not a game problem, and when my top DPS does 12k, and the average of the lower ones on the best try and kill was 8.5K, thats a massive difference, aint it?

What i mean by all this, same as the last 8 years i play with these guys, the gear is carrying the weaker players, if the gear didnt carry the weaker players, i wouldnt be playing WoW anymore.

Mythic were the gear eventually caps and it wont carry them , is something the better players in my guild refuse to do, cause they/we know its gonna be more tiring than rewarding, and its easier to keep the balance we have this way.

None of the above is a game problem