Is it time to end gear gatekeeping?

[BeepBoo]

It's interesting that the gear gatekeepers keep resorting to this argument. They take their masks off so frequently to expose that what they really want is for everyone they deem lesser than themselves to just go away. They make no bones about the fact that they want WoW to have as small a population as possible, made up of only people like themselves.

You might be reading a bit too much into it. I'd call myself a lazy elitist. I have the skill to do (and have been) a top tier world wide player, but I just no longer want to bother with the loot, the bad lore, the bad rental systems, etc. However, I'd say the poster you replied to isn't deeming you lesser. I'd say a VAST MAJORITY of players want constant gear progression for whatever reason (so they have a mindless goal to chase that keeps them interested instead of having to have a brain or do things just for fun... most online gamers now-a-days seem to just be hunting for a sense of satisfaction and success through little dumb things like gear upgrades since they probably struggle to get that type of satisfaction out of real like.. I digress).

It also happens that the way is currently designed and functions is not to your liking, but is to theirs, so they're saying "instead of demanding my thing that I like change to fit you and turn into something I don't like, how about you go find something else."

I'd say that's normally fine, except wow has been through so many iterations of trying to figure out the loot train and keeping everyone happy that it's no longer something sacred that is set in stone, so they're off-base saying "it's not for you" like it has always been the same and hasn't changed "who it's for" over time.

[Caerrona]

Garbage tier players wanting mythic gear... typical entitled Karen's.

Do the content that rewards the gear and stop being unskilled and lazy.

[Finlandia WOAT]

.

I have specifically said that if you are making money at something then that's great, that's something worthwhile.

So let's say the Boston Marathon, Wimbledon and the Masters decided to stop giving out cash prizes. This means winning these things is no longer an accomplishment to you? Why?

.
But just playing? Nah. That's watching TV levels of accomplishment.

....
I never said entertainment is worthless, I said it's not an accomplishment. So how about you folk try arguing against what I've actually said rather than the strawmen you erect in your minds.

Do you think that, idk, progressing Mythic Kil'jaeden in ToS pre nerf on the one hand, and watching an episode of Breaking Bad, Season 2 on Netflix on the other, are the same level of accomplishment?

Because that seems ridiculous to me.

[Goatfish]

Nope, haven't said any of that at all. Which you'd know if you'd actually read anything I posted.

I have specifically said that if you are making money at something then that's great, that's something worthwhile.

But just playing? Nah. That's watching TV levels of accomplishment. Playing chess in the park is for personal enjoyment, not to strut around the park with chess medals. Same with sports. If you and your buddies play backyard football, literally no one is impressed that you scored ten touchdowns. Or that you dunked on Jimmy from down the block.

I never said entertainment is worthless, I said it's not an accomplishment. So how about you folk try arguing against what I've actually said rather than the strawmen you erect in your minds.

The issue is that you see running Mythic raid or competing for high keys as the same thing as playing chess in the park. The people who do that content definitely don't. They view the gear as a reward (similar to getting paid or getting a trophy), whereas you would essentially come into a local chess tournament at the park and start bitching because someone got a medal for first place and they didn't give out a participation trophy to everyone, it's just a game where people have fun for entertainment after all. Beating Jimmy from down the block is your world quest rewards, a couple pats on the back from your friends. Why do you think that if you beat Jimmy from down the block 100 times that you should get an NFL trophy/Mythic Raid rewards?

That's my whole point, your argument sucks and seems to intentionally attack people who put in effort to get recognition. Why do you deserve the same reward for doing far easier content? I don't get a chess grandmaster title for playing 5000 games of chess, I earn it by competing at the highest level. WoW is doing the same thing in a digital environment, and it's already far less strict than RL because there isn't a limited number of reward spots. Anyone can do Mythic raids if they have the ability. You refusing to put in the time and effort does not somehow justify you getting the rewards anyway. Using the "it's just a game for entertainment" is complete dog shit, and I think you know it.

PS: I didn't build a single strawman, I just asked a few questions for clarification. You were the one coming in saying that anyone who doesn't want people doing the easiest content to get top end gear it means they are gatekeeping elitists. I just want you to justify your stance, and you're doing a piss poor job of it.

[Revamp Man]

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?

It gives a sense of progression and keeps players from thinking "ya know I don't get upgrades from normal raids or +5s despite never doing either so I should just do the higher content with no experience" then they fail and blame the game because it said that they were ready for that content

[arkanon]

The problem with this entire thread, and all discussion within it is it is based on the objectively false claim that players are controlling who can or cannot obtain mythic raid gear (gatekeeping). As I said, this is entirely false and a crutch created by players unable or unwilling to raid mythic.

If mythic raiders all got together once per tier and voted on a minimum standard for entering mythic raids, and blizzard then implemented that restriction, or the players were somehow able to control that across all servers, guilds, and factions, then maybe there would be an argument to be made.

But there are so, so many solutions to this made up problem that already exist in game. It's no different to those who complain that the requirements in group finder for a m+10 are too high. This is a REALLY simple "problem" to solve - just start your own group with lower standards. But these players don't want to do that, they say they shouldn't have to, or openly admit the dungeon would be very tough with 5 players at an equal level to them.

Can't get an invite to a mythic pug? Join a guild, join a community, start one yourself. But again, the complainers won't do that. They all want something different, but there is always a common theme; "this is blizzards fault, it's the communities fault - someone should fix this problem for me".

I never thought we would see the day where players openly and genuinely ask for mythic raid gear for doing dailies. From outrage over some welfare epics from pvp that were not a complete set and fell short of the top raid gear by a long margin to "give me loot for logging in and doing a couple of mindless dailies, and if you say that's a bad idea, it's your ego that's the problem and you shouldn't worry about what gear I have, it doesn't impact you at all"

And that's the ironic part of all this - it's a common theme - "my gear doesn't impact you so let me have the same gear as you". But why can't the same be said the other way around? Why do these players care so much about what gear a mythic raider wears? The excuse of "well I did a big once and some guy was in there in full bis gear and he killed everyone". Ok sure, that can be frustrating, but there are systems already in place that offer you the same gear - no restrictions at all - you just have to do the same content as that person, not even at the same difficulty. Grab a friend or 2, and do some arena - the matchmaking isn't perfect, but you won't see many if any bis glads in low brackets.

If rbg and arena didn't exist, there would be more to discuss, but they DO exist, and they are there specifically to match players up against comparable players.

It's a storm in a teacup - there is NO GATEKEEPING.

[Relapses]

If keeping WoW's vertical gear progression system intact means I'm a gatekeeping elitist I'm perfectly fine with this label. It ain't broke, quit trying to fix it.

[arkanon]

It gives a sense of progression and keeps players from thinking "ya know I don't get upgrades from normal raids or +5s despite never doing either so I should just do the higher content with no experience" then they fail and blame the game because it said that they were ready for that content

This has been a problem in the last as well. I vividly remember putting together a heroic pug in BFA for friends. Wanted to go with 15-17 players as a few always bail early. We took 2 friends who had the highest ilvl in the raid group, a ret pally and a dps warrior. They claimed to know all the fights etc so off we went. They somehow died on nearly every trash pull, and never made it through the first rotation of boss abilities, often taking 1 or 2 players out with them.

This happened because they had taken advantage of every system in the game to boost their ilvl as far as possible, without actually doing a raid. Well, they had done it on lfr so "knew the fights".

[Revamp Man]

This has been a problem in the last as well. I vividly remember putting together a heroic pug in BFA for friends. Wanted to go with 15-17 players as a few always bail early. We took 2 friends who had the highest ilvl in the raid group, a ret pally and a dps warrior. They claimed to know all the fights etc so off we went. They somehow died on nearly every trash pull, and never made it through the first rotation of boss abilities, often taking 1 or 2 players out with them.

This happened because they had taken advantage of every system in the game to boost their ilvl as far as possible, without actually doing a raid. Well, they had done it on lfr so "knew the fights".

yeah my alts were heroic geared in 9.1 just from the warfronts and free pvp gear and i can promise you i had NO IDEA how a ranged dps would do some of those fights
it is part of why im glad they got rid of TF so theres no huge ilvl jump and that illusion of being ready for content

[loras]

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 still need to satisfy that rpg aspect though, so some progression is required.
That said i do agree gear plays way too prominent a role in performance, personally i would advocate just reducing the gap between the best and worst gear by reducing the amount of gear "qualities" per tier from four to two. Just make LFR drop fewer pieces, and let mythic be tuned to heroic hear (that ought to allow them better tuning and thus better fights as well).

[Celement]

This has been a problem in the last as well. I vividly remember putting together a heroic pug in BFA for friends. Wanted to go with 15-17 players as a few always bail early. We took 2 friends who had the highest ilvl in the raid group, a ret pally and a dps warrior. They claimed to know all the fights etc so off we went. They somehow died on nearly every trash pull, and never made it through the first rotation of boss abilities, often taking 1 or 2 players out with them.

This happened because they had taken advantage of every system in the game to boost their ilvl as far as possible, without actually doing a raid. Well, they had done it on lfr so "knew the fights".

I still believe gear being decoupled from difficulty was a mistake. It really does make the worst of a lose-lose situation from a gameplay point.

It isnt even like bigger number chasers are happy as anything but the highest number to them is garbage.

[Jinpachi]

Yeah man, you found the solution, the whole game didnt change for exactly what you described, cause people hate going back to irrelevant content to unlock/gear new recruits, combined with guild poaching and whole destruction of guild after guild.

Playing the old version which is considered a joke after 15 years and claiming you know what you are talking about without even knowing jack shit about the game history really boosts your opinion.

Do you enjoy the fact you have 5ms, and 150 FPS and a 5 ability boss fight, that was designed with 2007 standards? Good for you, doesnt mean you are correct about it.

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Game is all about gear chasing, it always was about gear chasing through raids, that shifted to other things like M+ and higher rated PvP to keep people playing cause its 2022 and not 2005 and the gaming standards have changed, it doesnt mean you are gonna slay 5 pigs and get the best weapon in the game cause you feel entitled to it.

If you arent playing the game to gear chase every patch, you are literally playing the wrong game and you are the problem, not the others, especially that the gear chasing was converted to easy mode-seasonal gameplay.

No logical human being cares about "prestige" or whatever other delusional excuses the bad players have on here to blame the better players, maybe when you are an immature 18 year old you think there is any prestige to pixels or titles like every player goes through cause of stupidity, but if you guys dont understand why raiding exists, you are really have no clue what game you are playing.

Or in easier words to understand, WoW is not a single player story game, or a story game, its a raiding simulator with 10 other things that were introduced to make more $, they arent the main content.

If you are not raiding, you are literally the jack ass in the situation, and Blizzard aint to blame, but its really hard for people to accept this part.

early wow was about gear chasing. If you're chasing gear and not getting paid for it at this point, you've played yourself. I'm not chasing shit anymore. If there's a tier that i like (aesthetically speaking), I'm not chasing it, I'm buying the runs until i have it. I give two shits and a fuck about mechanics or difficulty anymore, there's no reason to ever sink that kind of time into a game that you're not making money from.

[arkanon]

yeah my alts were heroic geared in 9.1 just from the warfronts and free pvp gear and i can promise you i had NO IDEA how a ranged dps would do some of those fights
it is part of why im glad they got rid of TF so theres no huge ilvl jump and that illusion of being ready for content

Yeah it's one of the few situations where I think Blizzard were somewhat to blame - it's not that I don't want players to have access to gear, not at all, it's that at the time, we had no clear measure of a players actual ability, other than asking for achievements and inspecting.

It only really impacts pugs, so I'm not crying about it, it was just a reality for a lot of raid leaders - they picked people for pretty straightforward content based on straightforward measures like ilvl, only to find out the player had farmed mindless content endlessly to obtain an ilvl that FAR exceeded their skill level. And blizzard encouraged that, imo.

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yeah my alts were heroic geared in 9.1 just from the warfronts and free pvp gear and i can promise you i had NO IDEA how a ranged dps would do some of those fights
it is part of why im glad they got rid of TF so theres no huge ilvl jump and that illusion of being ready for content

Agreed, see above.

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You still need to satisfy that rpg aspect though, so some progression is required.
That said i do agree gear plays way too prominent a role in performance, personally i would advocate just reducing the gap between the best and worst gear by reducing the amount of gear "qualities" per tier from four to two. Just make LFR drop fewer pieces, and let mythic be tuned to heroic hear (that ought to allow them better tuning and thus better fights as well).

Why though? What is your issue with the gap being where it is now? Not explaining how "big" the gap is, but why do you think that's a problem and needs solving?

[Utrrabbit]

Anyone who thinks they deserve any gear ivet 200ilvl for just doing open world content are just extremely bad at the game.

This is just fact and no one has a good excuse against it.

The follow excuses will not be allowed

1. No time to play
2. No guild
3. No friend
4. Do not raid
5. Do not do m+

[Coldkil]

its not that i don't get it, its that its bad. 15's give proper rewards, wq's give proper level rewards. If 15's or WQ's gave 278 people would have a right to be annoyed. People like being justly rewarded for hard work and being overly rewarded for minimal work cheapens the rewards.

Exactly. The only issue is people getting annoyed because they cannot put themselves above other players and cannot get their validation, which is as stupid as it sounds.

However there's also truth in what you say. I'm fine woth is not agreeing on a fundamental level, but there are points as yours that should be mantained. Reason why in my head open world content should give better rewards over time but at a 15s level and over a long period (like 3 months). Also notice how i don't mention world quests, because i think open world needs something more challeging and also rewarding.

The reason is simple: three months in nearly all the people who care about this kind of stuff are already done with the game. So at that point really doesn't matter who has what because the competition has ended already. Would be also a better way to make players catchup instead of putting a new vendor in every patch to give free gear.

Is it needed because the game doesn't work now? No. Does this make the game better? Yes imho.

Feel free to disagree, but it's how i have seen the game devolve from the very start.

[arkanon]

Anyone who thinks they deserve any gear ivet 200ilvl for just doing open world content are just extremely bad at the game.

This is just fact and no one has a good excuse against it.

The follow excuses will not be allowed

1. No time to play
2. No guild
3. No friend
4. Do not raid
5. Do not do m+

6. Its just a game
7. I dont want a second job
8. I COULD do mythic, but no one will invite me even though im better than them
9. Im a multi glad world first raider but I have a kid now

Do we need to go on?

I find it REALLY interesting that I honestly dont think I have ever seen a player say "Im simply not good enough at the game to complete a mythic raid, but would like access to the same gear" - why is that? Why does no one say that?

[Coldkil]

If keeping WoW's vertical gear progression system intact means I'm a gatekeeping elitist I'm perfectly fine with this label. It ain't broke, quit trying to fix it.

Personally speaking, i agree that vertical progression is fine. But i also think that since the introduction of M+ gearing is basically "do whatever fits bets your playstyle" i don't think that adding open world content that's relatively difficult and rewards adequate gear is going to be an issue - if anything it's an improvement.

I think a lot of detractors are just against the "do braindead content and get your free gear logging in" - which i agree with in full - but this is not what at least i have in mind. There are a lot of ways to make higher ilvl gear available outside of raids and M+ that doesn't break the game flow.

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Anyone who thinks they deserve any gear ivet 200ilvl for just doing open world content are just extremely bad at the game.

This is just fact and no one has a good excuse against it.

The follow excuses will not be allowed

1. No time to play
2. No guild
3. No friend
4. Do not raid
5. Do not do m+

And Blizzard itself adds vendors to get free catchup gear every patch because of this. So your point is invalid.

Everyone needs gear because it's the gear progression that makes you play over time. There are multiple ways to make it work.

(and 9.2 has a decent system like this in place, it just needs to be slightly extended).

[Biomega]

8. I COULD do mythic, but no one will invite me even though im better than them

I feel your pain.

I COULD be in the NBA, but no one will draft me even though I'm better than them.

I also COULD get a Nobel prize, but no one will publish my papers even though I'm better than them.

Life just isn't fair to us overachievers, is it.

[ellieg]

So James the 15s runner deserves exactly the same gear as the group of 20 who put more time in the game?

That group of 20 gets better weapons and trinkets, as well as 6ish 285 pieces.

They are, so most people do them for easier gear. I don't see the numbers of M+ in Mythic raids.

My point is if they are so easy, then its redundant to add those rewards to world quests. Just do the m+. Unless of course they are harder than world quests and thus shld reward better gear.

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It's interesting that the gear gatekeepers keep resorting to this argument. They take their masks off so frequently to expose that what they really want is for everyone they deem lesser than themselves to just go away. They make no bones about the fact that they want WoW to have as small a population as possible, made up of only people like themselves.

And then claim they are not gatekeepers or elitists

This is just you being over dramatic. All they are saying is if something is a certain way, and has been for years, you're better off going and finding a different game if you don't enjoy it.

[Coldkil]

That group of 20 gets better weapons and trinkets, as well as 6ish 285 pieces


My point is if they are so easy, then its redundant to add those rewards to world quests. Just do the m+. Unless of course they are harder than world quests and thus shld reward better gear.

Can agree on first point, not really on the second. The (or at least mine) point is not "if it's easy, you can do X instead". It's "people don't care about the content and just do the easier stuff". Which is pretty evident with the current system.

It's always relative to something else. I can agree that higher ilvl weapons are an upgrade but it's a sidegrade in most cases and trinkets are not always better - there are plenty M+ ones (not really in this tier, but was the case before) that are BiS also for raids. Ilvl unfortunately is not the end-all (my HC sylvanas dagger is the BiS due to the proc and the only better option is the Mythic version).

Mythic raids should reward 285 for every single boss if compared to M+. It's another scale of difficulty not much due to the fights themselves but to the effort of mantaining a 20 people roster.

Taking the opposite point of view about the "redundancy", i'd put it in this way: if we already get high ilvl loot from M+ compared to Mythic, where's the issue in adding it on Open World content? Again, i fully agree it needs not to be "log in for your free reward".

It's fun how WoD was criticized for its "raid or die" mentality (but raids were awesome) and the game is just the same right now and people actually want it to stay like this. Maybe it's me that is seeing things that don't exist, but i think the actual request is to add to the open world more relvant activities to tackle on. Think about Thorghast but gives you relevant gear related to the difficulty levels.