Is it time to end gear gatekeeping?

[potis]

Again, agree. I like the fact that i can focus on raids/m+ and once i'm done i have time to do whatever i want. Especially if unlocks are per account, because what i hated the most from Legion onwards is progressing through a long system only to have to redo it all over again on every single alt - which killed all my will to play other characters for the most part.

Yeah, i dont trust them with their words cause they havent announced any systems apart from the pointless dragon soaring which is just "Falling with grace" mechanics from years ago from any other game that has similar things, GW2 basically with quick example.

So the account wide things doesnt mean anything if there isnt anything to actually do , although if they do switch things around, i wouldnt mind 1-2 freebie items with gold from account wide reputations and similar stuff.

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But noooooo, can't have that. We have to design the game like it's 2010.

Cause it works, despite us not like hearing it, there is a number of players thats so slow that doesnt understand they are re-doing the same thing, or it simply brings Blizzard more money.

What i mean by this..I hate refarming the pointless bullshit and spending 8-10 hours just to get the basics out of the way to get my character decent like (for my standards) to rush into M+ as example, and by that i mean instantly with friends to +15s.

For me that knows the game its 8-10 hours, and i actually like playing the game so i will play these 8-10 hours in a week or two, along with my 2-4hr raid logging on my main, which is why i want account wide systems, i like raid logging, i hate refarming things.

For the average player the same thing takes much longer, spread into many more days/weeks, which means subs and $.

Its really annoying, but it brings them money, cause me and you and ColdKill wont log on to play our 3rd alt cause we dont wanna bother, despite the sub is running.

But the average player on his second character, will be forced (without his knowledge, or well because of his lack of knowledge/skill call it wahtever) to pay more months of subs to play more slowly over the patch/expansion.

[Biomega]

Cause it works

I mean, yeah, it's not like everyone instantly canceled their sub because they had to re-do shit on alts.

But these are things that add up.

SOMETHING is causing subs to hemorrhage, and it's very likely not just one single thing - it's an accumulation of various issues, and this one is in there somewhere for sure.

[Popastique]

Because in the end Blizzard has to develop new catch up mechanics otherwise alts and people who don't play regularly will just have an harder time. I agree that people don't need Mythic ilvl gear to do world quests, but then they don't need it to do 15s yet they're rewarded with a weekly 278.

It's exactly why people do M+, because it's much easier/faster than doing raids and you get better rewards.

I am fine with WQ giving out stuff like 15s ilvl loot (upgradable with currency up to 272, exactly how M+ work) but it needs to be staggered over time. Obviously it would be shit if first week we get that kind of loot for killing 10 mobs, but once you're 3 months in the patch, who cares.

The plus is that you don't even need to invent everytime some sort of catch up because it would be baked in the game constantly.

3 months into the patch - i don't mind actually.

[Coldkil]

So the account wide things doesnt mean anything if there isnt anything to actually do , although if they do switch things around, i wouldnt mind 1-2 freebie items with gold from account wide reputations and similar stuff.

And that's may main worry so far. What i've seen about DF all sounds more than fine, but also SL did sound like that.

I mean, they directly said that everything but gear is going to be account wide - which in my head sounds prefectly fine (i have unlocked all the QoL stuff from my main doing the stroy/questline/rep farm but i need to actually do content for gear which is literally what i want - to be able to log an alt and directly go into M+/raid without having to redo a long ass chain quest to unlock the system i actually need to get in the raid); however i don't know what Blizzard really meant with this.

Example: new DF renown with the Dragon Flights u lock various perks and cosmetics with the occasional gear. I do it on my main at the regular "as soon it's available" pace, but then if i log to my alt 1 month later all the perks are unlocked. I can redo the renown path (at the current cap so if i want i can do everything in one day) to unlock even more cosmetics like a different armor type set or get the gear if i really want. Same for M+ upgrade, when i have it done on my main, it's unlocked on all my characters or the raid skip aswell.

It's not like i won't do the content. But i can do it at my own pace especially on additional character i literally play to the sake of it - while i can endure some crappy grind with my main, mostly because it's the new thing to do, once i've done it it has no more value attached.

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3 months into the patch - i don't mind actually.

Which isn't even an unrealistic time frame. You have 12 upgrade levels in m+; it's literally one per week, and you can delay it a couple weeks from the start.

It's not a matter of giving away things for free or to "people who don't deserve it". It's a sort of small/slow progression for people who may not engage in competitive content but still have the committment to do things on a regular schedule - which, very very honestly - it's much harder to find in players nowadays, especially in the self proclaimed "best ones".
Higher tier of the playerbase is all about getting things done fast, and doesn't really matter what's the mean to get it. Which is buying boosts, or getting so much gold to buy drops from other people to be on the edge. Which is fine for them, but it's absolutely not the way the majority of players want to engage with the game.

If anything, one of my major complaints is that being committed to WoW nowadays is unrewarding as hell.

[potis]

It's not like i won't do the content. But i can do it at my own pace especially on additional character i literally play to the sake of it - while i can endure some crappy grind with my main, mostly because it's the new thing to do, once i've done it it has no more value attached.

Everyone is different, i mean as example with the second legendary in the latest patch.

Did quest on main, obviously, then a few days after on the alt 1, and then i simply went to the AH and bought the 291 for the alt 2 and alt 3, cause i aint doing that shit again the couple months after when i started playing them.

And i would be playing more alts but i dont wanna play the few hours required to play catch up, its really not many hours required, i just dont want to, cause i already did those things before along with the fact i dont wanna play WoW, i wanna play one part of WoW to remember/learn the rotation of X spec (whether its PvP or PvE, or w/e it doesnt matter, i am the type that i want my character to have his things ready) and log off to go have my coffee/dinner with friends, or play other games, or watch series.

Or i could be like the average selfish WoW player and enter with a completely useless character and underperform.

[nvaelz]

I love the freedom in gearing that we currently have. No conquest cap. Can even gear alts with conquest boxes and it's not even needed because farming anything in this game(currently) is so EASY and actually enjoyable to me I love gearing new characters it's alot of fun.

But I remember the start of this season like many others. Atleast this season was alot less annoying than the Korthia season, geeeeeeeez.

So much fun being pushed to race against other people in the "WHO CAN GET MORE GEAR FASTERER" race. Blizzard might not understand the negative aspects of competition but they sure implement them in all their activities.

I hate these stupid systems that force players to AFK for a week every week for months and months, and the variety of how much time you have to afk between weeks is hilarious and not even good.

Yeah this whole expansion has been a test of patience, season one! wait for 6 months and farm maw or whatever all the time every day or lose. Season 2 wait for 5 months, farm Korthia every day or lose.

Season 3 farm ZM for a little bit, get some weekly vault caps for sockets, play game fully in 6 weeks of vault caps.

Thank you Blizzard for shortening the amount of time I needed to wait to play the game in Season 3. Now I can log in and play whenever I want and I know that there's not gonna be some new bingo crap next week that I have to care about it's so nice, thank you.

Always good late expansions that's when the game is relaxed. But I can't wait for the next expansion to be rep gated, or currency gated, or gear gated every week for months and months, being forced to farm my daily dose of reputation that I can't exceed with other activities that would make me able to grind the rep like Aldor or Scryers in tbc for example because the "GateS" are so important to keep content fresh and exciting and people excited to play the game the next week again and again.

Garbage game design.

Also I have given up on them making the game actually good, it's no surprise to me if I hate pve for another expansion after this one.

Shadowlands has basically been one long annoyance of Covenant limitations that they later fixed with obvious quality of life changes that they obviously didn't want to release for the longest time because fixing an issue is another HUGE line on that next content patch.

Ez money.

[El Gucaragua]

Gearing has become irrelevant in this game, at least in context to earlier expansions.
Gear in the old days of classic, used to carry a gravitas and a sense of prestige.

Now gear is just something to be discarded with each new season.
It is cheap, expendable, and is relatively easy to do for mythic raiders/plus'ers, and high end pvp'ers.

Because of this, I would assume that the majority of players in high end content are pursuing these goals because of the intrinsic fun involved in the activities, along with bonus titles and mounts.

My question is, does giving max ilvl gear to world/daily questers take away from the experience of high end players, or do they even care?

"I'm not good enough to work for the gear, therefore I should just get it."

That's this point. You don't deserve high end gear just for logging in. If you're doing casual stuff exclusively, you can use casual gear exclusively.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

Feels like the time to remind folks that valor is upcapped and lets you upgrade to 272 (only 6 short of the Vault).

I play a fair amount, 8-10 hours a week spread across a few nights, and I have 4 276+ characters without ever having killed a raid boss outside of LFR. You can get your 4pc set in a day or two with almost no effort!

Gearing has literally never been easier lol.

Anyway I guess I'm the problem because I love seasonal stuff! Gives a reason for friends to come back, play the game a few months, then go do other things for a while before repeating the cycle and catching up. Good times!

[Freighter]

some people are genuinly really bad at this game.

its completly possible in wow and easily achievable.

all you would have to do is nerf game by 60 % and ignore crying and whining of toxic elitest about how game is too easy then for them

cut the cancer out instead trying to cure it with shamanistic rituals and placebo like wow devs are trying to do for past 6 years.

I guess you include yourself?

[Aydinx2]

Because of this, I would assume that the majority of players in high end content are pursuing these goals because of the intrinsic fun involved in the activities, along with bonus titles and mounts.

Bad assumption. People like to flex with their performance the most.
At least you managed to hide the "I want free gear" discussion in a nice new wrapping to make it seem more innocent.

My question is, does giving max ilvl gear to world/daily questers take away from the experience of high end players

Yes, we do care. Because the value of a reward (better gear that lets me do more damage) depends on how hard it is to get said reward. If you can get the same reward from a world quest as you do from a Mythic boss, then the value of that reward from the Mythic boss becomes effectively 0. And no, people aren't just happy with titles, mounts or achievements. 99% of those can be obtained many expansions later, with the exception being a raid mount or cutting-edge achievement/title.

I enjoy being able to do perform well/the best in a given group and increasing my characters power is a part of that.

Why don't you people ever consider the opposite approach? Remove gear rewards from world quests/dailies or even LFR to incentivize people doing Normal, Heroic and Mythic? Because then you're not getting free gear for 0 effort.

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What they should do

Quest gear - > Crafted gear (1) / dungeon gear - > Upgraded crafted gear(2) / Heroic dungeon gear - > Upgraded crafted gear(3) / LFR - > Upgraded crafted gear(4, though limited to certain types (head/shoulder/chest/legs/gloves/cloaks/trinkets) / Normal raiding - > Heroic raiding - > Mythic+ (Should never exceed mythic raiding tier) - > Mythic Raiding.

Bonus rewards from a vault-like system should include a BoA item that can upgrade crafted gear, depending on the unlocking stage in the vault.

Crafted gear (1): Unlocked from the start of the profession.
Crafted gear (2): Unlocked through questlines of the profession.
Crafted gear (3): Unlocked from completing profession leveling.
Crafted gear (4): Unlocked from reputation/factions.

The upgrade tokens should be able to be applied by a non-profession, where the one with the profession can make them and apply them, or sell them on the side, number (4) is one bought from the factions.

9.2 was a great development as world players can get 255 ilvl without actually having to do the raids or M+.

People will literally just skip over crafted gear. Just look at the covenant set that people are rewarded with: everyone just did the Normal dungeons for gear and then went into Heroic.

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Remove gear from all drops, put it on vendors, make it so activities reward currency use currency to buy specific gear you want. Have everything fully accessible - mythic raid from day 1, +30 keys from day 1, rated pvp from day 1.

Promote PLAYING the game than playing the patch for 2 weeks every 6 months.

Completely deterministic loot is boring as hell. It boils down the entire gearing process to a formula where you know exactly what your gearing path is the moment the patch lands.

I would permanently stop playing if they did that.

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I'll predict the next rant will be "you aren't even playing the game so why do you care about gear" lmao

You've clearly been hit with this completely valid argument before and have no comeback for it, so you resort to "predicting" it so you can say "lmao I knew you would say that" instead of actually address the argument.

You sure seem aggravated over a game you don't play, to the point where you get upset on a forum discussion a detail of said game.
You should analyze this behavior and consider if it's healthy. I predict it isn't.

[Tiwack]

What I'm actually eager to see is if we will see gear evolve to use the new talent tree as relics were working during Legion.

We could end up having pieces of gear like bracers, belt and boots give a point in one multipoint talent. Or even having sets for these slots that could give you points in some big talents.

I think this is pretty much a given, diablocraft in the making...

[Dorothyjean]

I think it's time for some players to accept there is no gating, no restrictions, other than the player themselves.

Want mythic gear? Go raid mythic.

Want to compete with the high level players kicking ass in high ranked arena? Go play high ranked arena.

Wow has almost no limits on who can do what other than expansion launch when they try to keep grossly undergeared players out of heroic groups and LFR, but offer them a VERY easy gearing path to obtain that very humble requirement. This is to protect the other 4 or 24 players from carrying you and rezzing you after every pull because you get 1 shot by unavoidable (or avoidable) damage.

Other than that, play the game, and get the rewards.

So much this. Reading through how people want the game to be versus how little people want to put effort into anything seems to be the main issue with people. If gear is irrelevant than why do casual players want higher end gear by basically doing nothing but existing and then they insult people who actually want to achieve higher in the game. Then they blame those people who want to do more and call them "elitists" for wanting to progress and achieve more than existing.

I raid heroic 6 days a week in 3 different guilds and don't do mythic raiding because it's a step up I am not comfortable with. I could probably do it but I'm getting old and just enjoy the comfort of heroic raiding. That being said if I had to drop down to casual play, doing WQs and what not I would stop playing the game. It's so boring just 'existing' and I don't get the concept to be honest.

There is so much to do in this game and most people seem to be utterly lazy and/or ignore it because they don't want to do it and then shit all over the game because it doesn't cater to their existence.

[Hellobolis]

yeah just give all content the max or near max ilvl reward. that really doesn't matter in todays game.

the only thing that matters is the pace at which different content gives the gear. make harder content give gear faster, not better gear.

like honestly anyone who plays any kind of M+/raid has been 265 for months if not 272-278 from the vault. who cares if people who do random heroic/WQs/pet battles can also have a265 gear 3 months orso into the patch instead of 252 or w/e it's currently capped at.

[Lochton]

People will literally just skip over crafted gear. Just look at the covenant set that people are rewarded with: everyone just did the Normal dungeons for gear and then went into Heroic.

You need the lowest tier of crafted gear to make use for professions but also the system of upgrading. My mentioned system gives people the ability to achieve powerful enough equipment without being forced to have to raid without stealing from the "prestige" there is in raiding (Gear design, bonus, benefits). Just better gear to take on the world with a bonus upgrade of rank 5 (Heroic tier (Cap)) to be randomly rewarded from weekly quests or vault.

[agentsi]

Gearing has become irrelevant in this game, at least in context to earlier expansions.
Gear in the old days of classic, used to carry a gravitas and a sense of prestige.

Now gear is just something to be discarded with each new season.
It is cheap, expendable, and is relatively easy to do for mythic raiders/plus'ers, and high end pvp'ers.

Because of this, I would assume that the majority of players in high end content are pursuing these goals because of the intrinsic fun involved in the activities, along with bonus titles and mounts.

My question is, does giving max ilvl gear to world/daily questers take away from the experience of high end players, or do they even care?

You get rid of gear scaling, and all of the casuals will flip their shit.

Overgearing is how most, if not all, players clear content. If you locked every player into a specific ilvl for the content, good chance the numbers drop dramatically in terms of clear percentage.

I mean, outside of world first mythic folks, almost every guild, since legion, was extremely overgeared on their first heroic and mythic kills. Getting rid of that, destroy their chances of clearing that content.

[Coldkil]

Without quoting everyone, i am baffled by the fact that people is mad if high ilvl gear is rewarded by world quests and tell you to do Mythic raids, while most people actually go into 15s and pad their ilvl through that - even better now that you just need an item base to craft your tier.

I suppose these players are not mad at people doing 15s to get mythic ilvl gear (which are in completely different dimensions in terms of effort/difficulty) because, in the end, they're the first to do it and get 272+ gear from M+ to use as a staple for Mythic raids.

[8bithamster]

Without quoting everyone, i am baffled by the fact that people is mad if high ilvl gear is rewarded by world quests and tell you to do Mythic raids, while most people actually go into 15s and pad their ilvl through that - even better now that you just need an item base to craft your tier.

I suppose these players are not mad at people doing 15s to get mythic ilvl gear (which are in completely different dimensions in terms of effort/difficulty) because, in the end, they're the first to do it and get 272+ gear from M+ to use as a staple for Mythic raids.

So Bob the world quester deserves exactly the same gear as the group of 20 who put more time in the game?
Did we seriously get this entitled?

Nobody but you is stopping you from doing the content. So maybe instead of demanding everyone to bow to your will, you take a look at how you can adapt?

[ellieg]

Without quoting everyone, i am baffled by the fact that people is mad if high ilvl gear is rewarded by world quests and tell you to do Mythic raids, while most people actually go into 15s and pad their ilvl through that - even better now that you just need an item base to craft your tier.

I suppose these players are not mad at people doing 15s to get mythic ilvl gear (which are in completely different dimensions in terms of effort/difficulty) because, in the end, they're the first to do it and get 272+ gear from M+ to use as a staple for Mythic raids.

If m+15 are so easy, then everyone can just do that. No need to give max gear to world quests then.

[Elbob]

Without quoting everyone, i am baffled by the fact that people is mad if high ilvl gear is rewarded by world quests and tell you to do Mythic raids, while most people actually go into 15s and pad their ilvl through that - even better now that you just need an item base to craft your tier.

I suppose these players are not mad at people doing 15s to get mythic ilvl gear (which are in completely different dimensions in terms of effort/difficulty) because, in the end, they're the first to do it and get 272+ gear from M+ to use as a staple for Mythic raids.

" i am baffled by the fact that people is mad if high ilvl gear is rewarded by world quests"

"I suppose these players are not mad at people doing 15s"

"which are in completely different dimensions in terms of effort/difficulty"

Imagine answering your own question so obviously but still using the term "baffled". People want the rewards from content to be in relation to the difficulty of the content they are completing. I don't care what ilvl you or anyone else has. What I care about is that gear acquisition is balanced around the difficulty content, the time invested and ability of the player(s) completing it.

Yea people aren't mad at 15's granting sub heroic level gear, they are meant to be repeatable content that can fill out needed character slots. You are correct that 15's are not on par with mythic raid in difficulty but that same relation exists between mythic 15's and world quests sooo doesn't it all make sense that Mythic > 15's > WQ's?

Misleading by saying 15's give 272 is just silly because thats valor not the 15's. Not to mention valor cap in early season prevents you from upgrading much at all for the first few months.

[VMSmith]

So Bob the world quester deserves exactly the same gear

lol, it's a video game. A piece of entertainment. There's no "deserves" to it.