Why gearing in Timeless Isle is worse than new dungeon.

[PrairieChicken]

Do you have some sort of secret data that says people enjoy dungeons more than timeless isle?

Sub numbers will be out in month, so we will see soon

[Gheld]

Why gearing in Timeless Isle is worse than new dungeon?
-people are just walking on an isle, killing mindless mobs,

Really? I see people scramble constantly for the boss mobs and for the world events.

-they can get gear just after they find chests(don't even need to kill mobs),

The weekly chests rarely have any loot in them, and it's simply not possible to get to the 1 time chests without aggroing a ton of mobs (some of which are elite). And if you aren't geared yet they'll stomp you.

-new dungeon means boss fights, so people would be more prepared for a raid,

What if they don't want to prepare for a raid?

-new dungeons would be overall better than Timeless Isle, which is grind fest(of course doing dungeons is also grinding, but not as much as Timeless Isle, people enjoy more doing dungeons),

So you speak for everybody now?

I just came to this conclusion after seeing many people in LFR with Timeless Isle gear, they were doing less than 50-60K DPS and they were just bad.

This was the case with Dragon Soul LFR as well. The Hour of Twilight heroics did nothing to prepare them for it, mentally.

I think that Blizzard was just lazy, they just made an isle with loot all over the place, which is pretty stupid for me.
What's your opinion?

My opinion is that you are either flamebaiting or have never actually been to timeless isle.

This thread isn't LFR vs Flex, LFR vs Normal/Heroic.
It's thread about gearing though timeless isle vs gearing in a new dungeons.

No. It's pretty much an LFR vs. Normal thread. You dressed the argument differently, but you're essentially crapping on content that is helpful toward casual players.

[PrairieChicken]

In the long run, VPs are a more powerful tool, especially with the "4 ilvls for 250 VP" tuning. Sure, in the short-term, it's great to get yourself a tier piece nice and quick with VP, but in the long-term, the item upgrade system is significantly more powerful - with a significantly longer lifespan, to boot.

So wouldn't having BOTH be even better?

[Eats Compost]

And I can clear LFR once, see everything, and unsub. What's the differnce with dungeons?

There isn't really a difference with dungeons, which is why it's problematic. LFR is a byproduct of other raiding modes, designed to allow it to reach a broader audience and be less exclusionary, but dungeons are originally created with those progression problems built in. That needs to give way to something. Challenge modes are a start, but there needs to be more.

[Aqua]

Prefer the Isle, its faster , more fun , theres lots of vanity stuff and pets/mounts. Imo its more content than 3 dungeons...

And OP, LFR is full of bad people no matter how much gear you give them.

True that.

And I also agree with the former, it's been a great boon to getting my alts ready for flex faster. Dungeons are...fun from a lore and guild party stand point, and challenge modes are excellent (if lacking the competitive scene that was promised) for really pushing yourself if you feel up to it, but sometimes you just want to do things on your own, and get something for it other than a pet. And running around the isle hunting the rares is kind of soothing.

[Hubbl3]

Oh yea. Let's take that gear off the island and see how many people prefer it.. the content cannot stand on it's own merits obviously

Let's take gear out of dungeons and see how many people will play them constantly. Oh, and you can take gear out of raids. I don't care about gear anymore. I play this game not to collect gear. I know that all my gear will be worthless with the next patch and the next expansion since ever.

[Glorious Leader]

Interesting.

So you support highend/elitist players who not only get gear to make their characters strong, but actually learn to play their characters to their maximum potential to make them strong?

And you support those players who value the HALLMARK of rpg's enough to invest their time into honing their skill and downing HM bosses to make their characters among the strongest in the game?

I suppose you and I are on the same page then. I was just mistaken based on your previous posts, I guess. My bad.

I have no care what those folks do and IMHO far to much time and energy is focused on what they do. They can do whatever they like so long as it's not to the detriment of others.

[Eats Compost]

So wouldn't having BOTH be even better?

Not necessarily "better". Blizzard seems to like how LFR and Flex gear are being distributed, with VP serving as a way of everyone to upgrade their gear equally. It's possible to give people gear that's too good too quickly, and they may be more comfortable offering equivalents through other means, like Burdens of Eternity and similar things.

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Oh yea. Let's take that gear off the island and see how many people prefer it.. the content cannot stand on it's own merits obviously

This would happen for absolutely any form of content that Blizzard implements, not because gear (and rewards in general) are absolute, but because people will naturally gravitate towards the rewarding content even if it's less fun.

It exists to stream line raid production.

Is that meant to be different from what I said?

[Glorious Leader]

In the long run, VPs are a more powerful tool, especially with the "4 ilvls for 250 VP" tuning. Sure, in the short-term, it's great to get yourself a tier piece nice and quick with VP, but in the long-term, the item upgrade system is significantly more powerful - with a significantly longer lifespan, to boot.

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And who said you needed every item to get through to make it count? In raids (not talking about LFR, here) people will generally need items from within the raid itself to complete it. Dungeons and LFR, conversely, are designed with the assumption that you can and will complete it the very first time that you're there, and with no gear from the dungeon itself. It doesn't have internal gear progression, whereas raiding very much does.

The world's top-end guilds clearing normal mode within a week doesn't break that design for the other 99% of the raiding population, and even they very much need gear to get heroic progression completed.

No they are not more powerful they are severly NEUTURED. The system is backwards, it awards the top players even more because their gear will reach even high item levels. The ilvl upgrade guy is fine but his existence should not preclude the valor vendor of the past. Valor and certainly justice are worth far less then they were before for players who didn't raid.

Current raids (well certainly tot at any rate) didn't have an internal gear progression either. You had one boss and then brick walls and not enough build up. The reality is that for a large chunk of players raiding was never a thing and dungeons had become a form of progression for them. Not everybody is obviously interested in difficulty as the only form of progression. For some simple buying gear and making their characters WAS MEANINGFUL PROGRESSION in and of itself. It did have gear progression, through the valor vendor which was an alternative to those players who didn't want to raid or had no designs on raiding.

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Let's take gear out of dungeons and see how many people will play them constantly. .

Effectively that's what they have done. That's the entire fucking point.

[Khaza-R]

Dungeons are quick to be trivialized and quickly get easier as the current tier moves on. And in particular, ones like the DS heroics were never challenging to begin with. The Timeless Isle is actually the opposite. It will get harder as less people frequent the TI.

Not to mention, trying not to die from Cindefall, Golganarr, Celestials, etc is far harder than anything in the current heroics have to offer.

[Glorious Leader]

This would happen for absolutely any form of content that Blizzard implements, not because gear (and rewards in general) are absolute, but because people will naturally gravitate towards the rewarding content even if it's less fun.

Exactly. It's why everyone calling TI an alternative is off their fucking rocker. It's not an actual alternative. It's just to shove you into raiding. If it was an alternative the reward would have to POTENTIALLY pull players from raiding which it doesn't and can't do and which dungeons WERE doing because raid content had become harder and raid content in general always had little appeal.

[Louis CK]

I have no care what those folks do and IMHO far to much time and energy is focused on what they do. They can do whatever they like so long as it's not the detriment of others.

I see. I was definitely mistaken then. It just seemed like seeing you posting that making your character stronger is the HALLMARK of rpg's which is preceeded by many posts from you saying that the gear gaps should be smaller or nonexistent just seemed to contradict one another. It's almost as if you were just egging on arguments or that you change your mind on topics to whatever suits you the best.

Well, I'm glad that's cleared up, and I'm glad that both you and I agree that it's completely valid to want to make your character stronger and having better gear to be rewarded with as you move through raids is a good set up. After all, it's the HALLMARK of rpg's.

You're not so bad after all.

[nehunter]

Ok, I see people in this forum that haven't figured out how to get a decent weapon. You buy mogu coins for 1k timeless coins, you spam ToT LFR and use the coin at exactly the boss you want. You can repeat this as many times you want per week until you get what you need. It's not the best, but 502 weapon upgraded is good enough to start Flex.

[Ferocity]

Glorious leader I can see your point here somewhat, but the problem with VP IMO is that it really didn't feel epic just buying an item with points, like who actually remembers buying tier gear in wotlk? lol

What does it need to be epic? Having 15% chance to drop from weekly lockout, and then having queue from 10 people for it? WotLK did it right, it is just so happened that WotLK (it started shortly before WotLK with SWP) brought all kind of people, who shouldn't have played MMORPGs at all, and who started to whine "Tier for Emblems is outrageous".

If people want that epic feeling, there is always EverQuest I out there. I am not sure why some people are sticking with WoW and keep tainting it by their whines - there is still EQ 1 which answers all their needs, including super no-life drop system. Are those people too soft? Or like to sh*t in the beds where they sleep? How much time should pass before developers will understand that they listen to wrong kind of people? There is no need to put RNG on each and every step in WoW, and that's what awaits fresh lv90 - RNGfest, and to move anywhere, you are heavily subjected by RNG to get even the crappiest of crap items. And Isle is just example of that. Character progression systems are going downhill more and more with each next patch.

In the long run, VPs are a more powerful tool, especially with the "4 ilvls for 250 VP" tuning.

Let me put it straight. There are 16 item slots. To upgrade each of them, you need 8000 VP or 2 months of capping VP. To upgrade item, you must first obtain it, unless you will be using upgrades on 496, which you won't as you understand that VP is heavily limited by time, it can't be just farmed. Upgrading it now, you are just waiting resource, which can be replenished only in 3,5 days.

VP capped (hard cap of 3k VP) and hoping for RNG to drop something for you to upgrade? With tough luck, you either waste it on some junk item or let it go in complete waste.

You need to get something first, to use VP on it (and if you are upgrading non-raid item, value of VP becomes abysmal), meanwhile preMoP it was other way around - you can use VP to get something. I hope it is more clear now.

It is like coming to shop with milk and paying price of liter of beer to get some beer added in your milk. You want to buy beer? No, you either come to us with milk, and we add a bit of beer in it (in the end wasting both - beer and milk), or you come to us already with beer to buy some more. I hope people will get analogy.

[Glorious Leader]

I see. I was definitely mistaken then. It just seemed like seeing you posting that making your character stronger is the HALLMARK of rpg's which is preceeded by many posts from you saying that the gear gaps should be smaller or nonexistent just seemed to contradict one another. It's almost as if you were just egging on arguments or that you change your mind on topics to whatever suits you the best.

Well, I'm glad that's cleared up, and I'm glad that both you and I agree that it's completely valid to want to make your character stronger and having better gear to be rewarded with as you move through raids is a good set up. After all, it's the HALLMARK of rpg's.

You're not so bad after all.

I said nothing about raids. The gear gap ought to be smaller by awarding the bottom end more. A smaller gap is not the elimination of the gap as it would still offer some characters at higher ends advancement (especially with the ilvl upgrade guy). Their is no contradiction. Making your character stronger is indeed the hallmark of rpgs and that's almost all done in RAIDS these days. The alternatives are severely lacking.

In short it's completely valid to want to make your character stronger REGARDLESS OF THE ACTIVITY. It's a terrible set up to not provide or severly curtail alternative methods of doing this especially if it's all in service to streamlining raid production.

[Eats Compost]

No they are not more powerful they are severly NEUTURED. The system is backwards, it awards the top players even more because their gear will reach even high item levels. The ilvl upgrade guy is fine but his existence should not preclude the valor vendor of the past. Valor and certainly justice are worth far less then they were before for players who didn't raid.

Current raids (well certainly tot at any rate) didn't have an internal gear progression either. You had one boss and then brick walls and not enough build up. The reality is that for a large chunk of players raiding was never a thing and dungeons had become a form of progression for them. Not everybody is obviously interested in difficulty as the only form of progression. For some simple buying gear and making their characters WAS MEANINGFUL PROGRESSION in and of itself. It did have gear progression, through the valor vendor which was an alternative to those players who didn't want to raid or had no designs on raiding.

It awards everyone equally; a 4/8 ilvl boost is a 4/8 ilvl boost and grants the same amount of stats.

Stronger characters for the sake of stronger characters only goes so far, and one of the biggest problems is just how limited it is in the case of valor vendors and 5-mans. You grind 5-mans, you get the gear. You grind valor and get the VP gear. Great; THEN what? What's the player going to do then? Progression in the form of simply making a character stronger is great right up until you can't progress them any more. This is one of the bigger walls that Blizzard ended up hitting with their old model, and it's a serious problem for player retention. A 5-man progression system, with the current structure of heroics, runs the big problem of being short-lived.

It needs an overhaul if it's to be seriously implemented as an alternative.

[Syfy]

Less work for blizzard, easier for the fail casuals to gear quick with no effort, blizz happy, casuals happy.

[nehunter]

Oh yea. Let's take that gear off the island and see how many people prefer it.. the content cannot stand on it's own merits obviously

That's just bad. Lets take gear off raids... wouldn't you end up with the same result?

[Skorpionss]

Exactly. It's why everyone calling TI an alternative is off their fucking rocker. It's not an actual alternative. It's just to shove you into raiding. If it was an alternative the reward would have to POTENTIALLY pull players from raiding which it doesn't and can't do and which dungeons WERE doing because raid content had become harder and raid content in general always had little appeal.

Who the hell used to run only dungeons ? even in tbc you had pugs for raids... LFR only made it easier and now ppl will skip all dungeons and jump right into lfr with a few crafted gear from the AH. Only purpose dungeons have anymore is story and even that is being replaced with scenarios. heck U don't even need to step into TI to get into the first raid... u just buy a few pieces of gear from the AH for a few thousand gold and bam you're in lfr... And no casuals don't choose between raiding and dungeons... not since LFR anyway. And heck as a casual I never was satisfied running only dungeons, and in fact never ran them after I got whatever gear I needed.

[Glorious Leader]

It awards everyone equally; a 4/8 ilvl boost is a 4/8 ilvl boost and grants the same amount of stats.

Stronger characters for the sake of stronger characters only goes so far, and one of the biggest problems is just how limited it is in the case of valor vendors and 5-mans. You grind 5-mans, you get the gear. You grind valor and get the VP gear. Great; THEN what? What's the player going to do then? Progression in the form of simply making a character stronger is great right up until you can't progress them any more. This is one of the bigger walls that Blizzard ended up hitting with their old model, and it's a serious problem for player retention. A 5-man progression system, with the current structure of heroics, runs the big problem of being short-lived.

It needs an overhaul if it's to be seriously implemented as an alternative.

No actually it doesn't. The current valor system awards higher end raiders far more than the previous ones. Your comparison isn't valid. a 4/8 ilvl boost isn't as good as tier pieces. The upgrade system is better for people who raid but it's a far cry from the strength of the valor vendor of the past who was better for pretty much everybody just not as good for raiders I guess. Even then if you were missing a tier piece as a raider buying that shit through valor was awesome to.

As for then what it depends on the player. It's a serious problem for NON CASUAL PLAYER retention which isn't what they've been struggling with. For hopeless addicts they simple reroll alts and do it over agian. For casual players it's probably just about right as the next patch should be on it's way out.

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That's just bad. Lets take gear off raids... wouldn't you end up with the same result?

Of course you would.