Thread: Item Colors

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  1. #1

    Item Colors

    I dont get their purpose anymore. Once you ding max level everething is purple.

    in hearthstone for instance, finding an epic card makes you excited, finding a legendary makes you go OMFG and wait with anticipation to see what card you've got.

    But in WoW everething is the same collour they might as well remove it.

    Imo all bosses should drop blue items and green should be from trash. Purple items should be from the last boss in the instance and they should be rare drops. It would add to the excitment when you finally get one. Otherwise there is no point in having the system.

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by veehro View Post
    I dont get their purpose anymore. Once you ding max level everething is purple.

    in hearthstone for instance, finding an epic card makes you excited, finding a legendary makes you go OMFG and wait with anticipation to see what card you've got.

    But in WoW everething is the same collour they might as well remove it.

    Imo all bosses should drop blue items and green should be from trash. Purple items should be from the last boss in the instance and they should be rare drops. It would add to the excitment when you finally get one. Otherwise there is no point in having the system.
    I wouldn't be too surprised if LFR quality gear is Blue in WoD, seeing as how there will be a separate loot table for WoD LFR. To get real epics you would have to step into at least Normal raid difficulty.
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  3. #3
    The Lightbringer leaks's Avatar
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    That was never the point. Item color just determines it's stat budget.
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  4. #4
    Not since Cataclysm it hasn't. A rare and epic of the same ilevel have the same budget.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by leaks View Post
    That was never the point. Item color just determines it's stat budget.
    No it doesnt. Even their name tells you it doesnt

    its Common that means the item can be found alot
    Uncommon that means its a step up from common
    Rare That means its a rare item to be found
    Epic well ok the name doesnt tell you but judging by the previous its safe to asume that its an epic story on how youve found the item
    Legendary well its an item that legends are told of. An incredibly hard to come by item

    Obviously the stats go hand in hand with the rarity. It would be ridiculous to have a legendary item that is far worse then a blue item that drops from the same tier.

  6. #6
    The Lightbringer leaks's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jrch5618 View Post
    Not since Cataclysm it hasn't. A rare and epic of the same ilevel have the same budget.
    Yeah, this is true currently. I was talking more about how it used to be and how color was rarely a real indicator of it's rarity or it's usefulness.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by veehro View Post
    No it doesnt. Even their name tells you it doesnt

    its Common that means the item can be found alot
    Uncommon that means its a step up from common
    Rare That means its a rare item to be found
    Epic well ok the name doesnt tell you but judging by the previous its safe to asume that its an epic story on how youve found the item
    Legendary well its an item that legends are told of. An incredibly hard to come by item

    Obviously the stats go hand in hand with the rarity. It would be ridiculous to have a legendary item that is far worse then a blue item that drops from the same tier.
    If anything, those apply to the means available for getting those items. Not the actual rarity.
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  7. #7
    Honorary PvM "Mod" Darsithis's Avatar
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    I don't get why people are so focused on color. It's ridiculous. The gear tag and item level is what makes it awesome. Last week in raid a heroic WF shoulder dropped for me that was a direct upgrade of the normal version I have. I was super excited. Both items were purple but obviously the HWF one was considerably better (by like 600 in primary stats) and had me excited like a little girl.

    Ignore color. Forget color. The item level and tag are all that matters. Oh, and for the record: legendaries are still pretty awesome and rare, save for the cloak.

  8. #8
    Pit Lord Blithe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Darsithis View Post
    I don't get why people are so focused on color. It's ridiculous. The gear tag and item level is what makes it awesome. Last week in raid a heroic WF shoulder dropped for me that was a direct upgrade of the normal version I have. I was super excited. Both items were purple but obviously the HWF one was considerably better (by like 600 in primary stats) and had me excited like a little girl.

    Ignore color. Forget color. The item level and tag are all that matters. Oh, and for the record: legendaries are still pretty awesome and rare, save for the cloak.
    Purple's were what defined "Epics" though. I think he or she is more concerned as to how the rarity of a Purple doesn't feel "Epic" anymore which I can agree with.

  9. #9
    Honorary PvM "Mod" Darsithis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Blithe View Post
    Purple's were what defined "Epics" though. I think he or she is more concerned as to how the rarity of a Purple doesn't feel "Epic" anymore which I can agree with.
    Rarity != color and shouldn't. There are common epic-quality items and there are very very rare epic-quality items. The color has always referred to the power of the item relative to other items, not the rarity. The only reason they were so rare in the beginning of the game is because, one, no one had them (obviously), and two, the original and only source of epic items was raiding, a decision changed as early as just before TBC. They haven't been "epically rare" for going on 9 or so years now.

    Aside from the term uncommon and rare, epic has never meant rarity. Rare and uncommon really should be changed in terms of names as it makes it sound like items should be divided up in this way.

  10. #10
    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    by Eyonix | 15/10/2007 14:26:36
    Eyonix
    Yeah, red is the item color text we designated for artifacts, but at this time there are none in the game.
    So the next color should be red.
    Last edited by Darsithis; 2014-06-16 at 07:14 PM.
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  11. #11
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    Higher quality of item used to provide more stats at the same item level, but it's not been that way since I think the pre-wrath cata patch and stats are purely item level. The system started out with higher colours being better quality, but they moved away from that.

    Colour of name is more an indicator of where it drops. Green is mostly just trash drops from mobs, uncommon. Blue is mostly from cheap vendors and 5 man bosses. Purple is expensive vendors and higher end (raiding) content.

    It's not so much about how rare it is (though that is the case with world drops), more about where you obtain it from (generally speaking, not as a hard and fast rule)
    Last edited by Rixis; 2014-06-16 at 07:24 PM.

  12. #12
    Color is an arbitrary designation - you should be looking at the stats.

    What if white meant epic and purple meant common/vendor trash?

    We would still have the same discussion, save for ctrl + F on the colors.
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  13. #13
    The Lightbringer Bosen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Blithe View Post
    Purple's were what defined "Epics" though. I think he or she is more concerned as to how the rarity of a Purple doesn't feel "Epic" anymore which I can agree with.
    I understand and agree with this. Color did mean something and it brought about a feeling of excitement and satisfaction. I think it shows how successful that design choice for gear description really was. People get an emotional response from it so it DOES matter.

    If we're going to take it to saying that it doesn't matter, you could say none of the game matters.

    I don't know that introducing a new color or reducing the "value" of others will help make things "feel" better, though.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by DomesticViolence View Post
    I understand and agree with this. Color did mean something and it brought about a feeling of excitement and satisfaction. I think it shows how successful that design choice for gear description really was. People get an emotional response from it so it DOES matter.

    If we're going to take it to saying that it doesn't matter, you could say none of the game matters.

    I don't know that introducing a new color or reducing the "value" of others will help make things "feel" better, though.
    No it didn't. Color never meant rarity. It just meant power, at the time. There were rare purple drops that were more powerful than items of the same general level that you could find but epics were found by the bucketful if you were a raider. It's just that now that raiding is so open to everyone and crafting produces comparable items that epics can be found on just about every person.

    Again: epic doesn't and never did mean "rare". It just referred to the power of the item. Item levels now handles that because of multiple levels of the same items exist due to raid difficulties.

  15. #15
    An interesting idea would be to have a spectrum for epics to legendary. Like, the higher ilvl they get, blend from the standard dark purple to a brighter violet, to magenta, all the way up to orange. Legendaries could still be the brightest orange, but as the expansion progresses, gear names would get brighter just for a bit of flare

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by det View Post
    I would expect that you feel "epic" if you beat HMs. I swear you feel epic if your guild beats 14/14 HMs. Now..what about the fact that guilds beat all these HMs 7 months ago? Do you feel less epic? No..because it is all about YOU and YOUR FRIENDS beating an encounter TOGETHER.

    So..wtf does the color of an item matter. You beat content 7 months later than somebody else. So why the hell do you care that people who are again different from that got their own, lower ilv epics in flex or normal?
    And then expand this for previous expansions, I took a fresh alt to ZG recently, to get the little pet and to see if I could kill all the bosses; it's content 2+ years out of date, nothing there could in anyway be useful. But, when you smash the last of Hakkar's chains (in my case after a few wipes), you get a little climactic scene, and then loot Jin'do, the fallen would-be-god of the Troll Empire.

    I hadn't done ZG in ages, but to do it again.. Breaking into a fortified city, assassinating the leaders one by one, alone, and then taking out the biggest boss, after a difficult fight.
    That felt Epic.
    And I got some purple rewards, "Epics", to prove that.
    It doesn't matter how outdated, how useless the gear to your character, Epic gear can still be Epic, even if it's only 50g after 5 min, it's a lovely little confirmation.
    Who could hate that?
    Epics are items that at any one point were Epic.
    Take a fresh alt to timeless isle, the 496 in place of 450 will feel a little Epic.
    LFR 476, 483, 502, 528, they all felt Epic at the time, and it would be silly to change LFR MSV because it's old now.
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  17. #17
    This is how my view on item colours is, past and present.

    The Burning Crusade (pre sunwell)

    Green = Vendor fodder/disenchant materials
    Blue = Common but Quality entry level raid gear, initially desireable. Some very much (Hourglass)
    Epic = Somewhat uncommon - some more than others.. Getting "full epic" was a worthy achievement to many, some items could/would last entire expansion.
    Legendary = Very rare, often frustratingly so, a Legendary was something that could cause people to flock around a player in awwe.

    Mists of Pandaria (Launch) - For obvious reasons Epic gear has inflated value at launch.

    Green = Vendor/Disenchant fodder, unchanged
    Blue = Initially desireable entry level raid gear
    Epic = Initially somewhat uncommon (due to lack of availability at launch) - Only 1 raid and many slots locked behind reputation + valor.
    Legendary = None available

    Mists of Pandaria (Post Launch)

    Green = Vendor fodder - Not actually worth disenchanting on most servers.
    Blues = Vendor/disenchant fodder
    Epics = Extremely common, only latest tier has real value, rest is vendor/disenchant fodder
    Legendary = Most common item of all due to availability of quest.




    MOP was a strange one because at launch you only had the one raid, and a lot of item slots did not drop from the raid. So you were actually forced into farming to revered/exalted in various reputations in order to spend your valor points on upgrades, that made epics pretty valuable for a while. Other options came in a once per week (I believe) spawn of a rare world boss with a faction tag. Though LFR eventually opened up, it was pretty tough to get good gear at the MOP launch.

    Obviously they removed all those requirements and have gone the opposite direction with it now, handing epics on a plate to you in many different flavours, with only the latest tier being even remotely worthwhile, which is fine because that is handed to you on a plate too. Legendaries for all is an interestingly bad design choice that made the crown jewel of WoW item quality the most common item in the game.
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  18. #18
    Honorary PvM "Mod" Darsithis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bigbazz View Post
    This is how my view on item colours is, past and present.

    The Burning Crusade (pre sunwell)

    Green = Vendor fodder/disenchant materials
    Blue = Common but Quality entry level raid gear, initially desireable. Some very much (Hourglass)
    Epic = Somewhat uncommon - some more than others.. Getting "full epic" was a worthy achievement to many, some items could/would last entire expansion.
    Legendary = Very rare, often frustratingly so, a Legendary was something that could cause people to flock around a player in awwe.

    Mists of Pandaria (Launch) - For obvious reasons Epic gear has inflated value at launch.

    Green = Vendor/Disenchant fodder, unchanged
    Blue = Initially desireable entry level raid gear
    Epic = Initially somewhat uncommon (due to lack of availability at launch) - Only 1 raid and many slots locked behind reputation + valor.
    Legendary = None available
    I don't understand why people keep equating color with rarity. Again - color never had anything to do with rarity. It originally meant power. An epic item at level 40 was more powerful than a green or blue item at level 40 or had a unique look or on-use proc. The only reason why epics were initially rare was because the only place to get them at launch was raiding outside of some very rare world drops. As more and more tiers were added along with heroic-mode dungeons and crafting, epics became more common. Eventually the power of an item was changed by the item level, not the color, as multiple difficulty levels were added for the same content.

    It has never meant rarity. It was originally power and now stands for any end-game item above dungeon blues.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Darsithis View Post
    I don't understand why people keep equating color with rarity. Again - color never had anything to do with rarity. It originally meant power. An epic item at level 40 was more powerful than a green or blue item at level 40 or had a unique look or on-use proc. The only reason why epics were initially rare was because the only place to get them at launch was raiding outside of some very rare world drops. As more and more tiers were added along with heroic-mode dungeons and crafting, epics became more common. Eventually the power of an item was changed by the item level, not the color, as multiple difficulty levels were added for the same content.

    It has never meant rarity. It was originally power and now stands for any end-game item above dungeon blues.
    It has never meant rarity, yet you just explained in detail why epics meant rarity.
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  20. #20
    Honorary PvM "Mod" Darsithis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bigbazz View Post
    It has never meant rarity, yet you just explained in detail why epics meant rarity.
    You're misconstruing it. Epic was a color that referred to power (as did all other colors). Blizzard didn't create epic items specifically to be rare, that's just how it turned out at the start due to the difficulty of getting into raiding and raiding being the only source. Rarity was never intended. People calling for a return to "rare epics" don't understand why that is impossible and why that's not desired by Blizzard.

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