Item Colors

[DriveKnight]

It's because the game has gotten easier and epics nowadays are just handouts, people complained too much "this game is too hard", now that when the game got more casual people say "this game is too boring and easy idk anymore!".

[vriska]

Its the excitement, the blue-purple text is much more dramatic when shifting through the loot table against other items. Sure many of us can now solo bosses with tons of "epics" dropping, making them feel less epic.. but I remember after 80 or so tries for the Swift White Hawkstrider, and just finally seeing that purple text...well for those that are mount collector's would know "dat feels" of it finally "dropping" sure I had false alarms too, after disappointedly mistaking it for something else, but guess it was that quick suspense I suppose... While, I agree that in WoW, text color it has lost its touch, since personal loot system now and what not. I'd advocate something similar like D3, perhaps, seeing something physically drop, and cause that all too familiar heavy clunk, and watching it glow into a ray of orange or green light. (D3 tier sets are green)

[Vaelorian]

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.

Initially it was rare to see someone wearing ONE epic. This was during the Pre MC time. You could craft a legendary with chromatic scales etc or find some world epic, or have Quel'Serrar. Now those things were pretty fucking rare. In came raids and people that raided got legendary's by default.

So from that moment on they became less rare then before MC launched. True. They were still pretty rare vs the player base though.

Now Darsithis, my guess is that people would find epics - epics again IF (talking from a PVE pov):
1. they remove the vendor epics (valor or other token) and replace them with very nice blues
2. they remove the quest epics unless the quest is very hard and would take a lot of grinding
3. they remove epics from LFR and get blues at the same itemlevel as the epics would have been
4. made blues more meaningful and potentially lasting longer if you had BiS blues
5. made raid epics not climb in stats as hard as they are climbing now. So people in example: tier 15 could still raid in tier 16 heroic if they had BiS epics from tier 15. Be it a bit handicapped, it would be doable. This system was in place in Vanilla and for the most part in TBC. Sure we did not have heroics back then, but one level of "hard". I am sure the big brains of Blizzard could come up with something equally nice.

So to come back to what your saying: Yes color matters. It is childish but it matters to people. They want to be different from another. Some want to feel superior. Some watch people with superior gear with awe and get motivated to gain that status too. There is no loss here.

[breadisfunny]

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

no your gear does not instantly turn purple.

[Deleted]

yep colors are useless now and means nothing when everything is blue or purple.

they did it wrong in MoP that they destroyed greens even during leveling. It shoud be like drop green from zone A should be better than quest green from A. And scenarios should reward you greens + eventually drop blue from random mobs. then blues from dungeons(normal and heroic) and LFR and purple from normal and mythic raiding. And orange should be something extra and lucky only for raiding(easier for mythic than normal raiding but not obtainabe for LFR)

Color of items should mean stat budget and should be related to difficulty of content where it is obtainable and also a little bit connected with rarity(i mean drop green should have higher level than quest reward)

[MrExcelion]

Serves a good purpose for enchanting at least

[Vaelorian]

yep colors are useless now and means nothing when everything is blue or purple.

they did it wrong in MoP that they destroyed greens even during leveling. It shoud be like drop green from zone A should be better than quest green from A. And scenarios should reward you greens + eventually drop blue from random mobs. then blues from dungeons(normal and heroic) and LFR and purple from normal and mythic raiding. And orange should be something extra and lucky only for raiding(easier for mythic than normal raiding but not obtainabe for LFR)

Color of items should mean stat budget and should be related to difficulty of content where it is obtainable and also a little bit connected with rarity(i mean drop green should have higher level than quest reward)

Imo it should be like this:

Quest greens = something you replace your normal raid epics with from the previous expansion
Regular greens= something you replace your gear with from the previous expansion if you did not raid normal on the last tier of that expansion
Quest blues = something you replace your heroic raid epics with from the previous expansion and potentially could make your life easier on maxlevel in the normal 5 man dungeons
Regular blues = something that is just better then quest greens or regular greens
5 man dungeon blues = something that gives you an easier time in 5 man heroics
5 man heroic blues = something that is required before stepping into a normal raid

[LurkerOnly]

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.

Purples and legendaries in hearthstone cause you to overreact with excitement because it's new to you and you don't immediately know what it is.

In WoW, it's likely you've been farming for weeks or longer to get any particular piece of gear, you've looked it up on WoWhead, you're familiar enough with the icon that you immediately know if it dropped or not, and if you've been playing WoW for more than one tier of raiding, your reaction is more likely to be "Sigh. Finally." than 'WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO"

For new players, the excitement of getting a new purple instead of blue, or blue instead of green, is still exciting. For old players, all the gear could be rainbow neon colors with nuclear explosions and we'd still say "meh.", so it's irrelevant to those players. It's more work to remove a feature that at least is useful to a few players than it is to remove that feature because "what difference does it make."

Who would spend time, money, or both on removing something because "what is it even doing anyway." instead of just leaving it.

I can't remember the last time I opened my bathroom window, but I'm not going to spend a weekend and a bunch of money taking it out.

[Itakas]

The epic for everybody is just a way for blizzard to please the bad players. They know that the amount of people who benefit from "rare epics" is so small and even most of them left the game, that there is no use to going back to that path. Even tho that path made the people without the epic strive towards something, but i guess giving everyone a piece of the cake is what blizzards wants.

Also stop saying thinga like the color change is there to show the power of the item, because that is total BS.

5man H - 463 ilvl
LFR MSV - 476 ilvl
MSV H - 502 ilvl

So how come that a jump of 13 ilvl is enough power change in an item to justify color change, but a jump in 26 ilvl is not not enough power change, so there is no need for color change. Any way you look it, the theory that it is ok for LFR gear to be on same color level as Heroic/Normal gear, doesnt hold ground, because the so called power difference is too big.

And yes color means something to me, call me a jerk, a prick, a special snowflake, but i dont wanna look the same and have same color items as some handicapped who facerolls the keyboard for 2h in a lfre**ds group.

[Deleted]

Imo it should be like this:

Quest greens = something you replace your normal raid epics with from the previous expansion
Regular greens= something you replace your gear with from the previous expansion if you did not raid normal on the last tier of that expansion
Quest blues = something you replace your heroic raid epics with from the previous expansion and potentially could make your life easier on maxlevel in the normal 5 man dungeons
Regular blues = something that is just better then quest greens or regular greens
5 man dungeon blues = something that gives you an easier time in 5 man heroics
5 man heroic blues = something that is required before stepping into a normal raid

for me:

1. Grey and white
2. Pre-event gear = normal endgame gear from previous expansion
3. Quest Green = best possibe set for previous expansion(only as good as first zone quest reward)
4. Craft Green = Vendor green(requires min lvl for next zone)
5. Drop Green(same iLVL as quest greens for next quest set) = Scenario reward
6. 5man Blue(from quests, dungeon rewards, boss drops) = Drop Blue(world drops or things like Lobsmourne)(item ilvl of quest items for 2nd next zone)

-------------------------requires for max character lvl---------------------------------

7. Heroic Scenario reward = Craft blue = Dungeon Tier(from tokens, and things obtainable from 5 mans and scenarios or reputation)
8. 5man Heroic Blue = LFR reward blue
9. Craft purple
10. Normal Raid Purple(raid rewards + boss drops)
11. Raid set = Drop purple(rare drop from 5man heroics and normal raid trash)
12. Mythic set = Mythic purple(from rewards and weaker bosses)
13. End bosses purple(from last 2-3 bosses)
14. Orange(from grind/quest/etc. where you need to kill normal or mythic endboss)

ofc pre-max lvl should repeated in every zone(drop green from zone A should be as good as quest green from next zone) and same for max lvl for next raid tiers.

[DemoBytom]

Why does nobody ever bring enchanting when discussing item color/rarity? Items are a source of enchanting mats, which then turn into enchants that EVERYONE needs and that doesn't change during expansion's lifetime.
Green items DE into Dusts and Essences
Blue items DE into Shards
Epic items DE int Crystals

Dust and Essences are used for lowest quality enchants. Shards are used for medium quality enchants and Crystals are used for end quality enchants, mostly high-end quality weapon enchants.

At expansion launch, when our stat budget is generally low, enchants like Dancing Steel, in comparison to gear we have are very powerful. A proc alone is worth 1-2 gear pieces (bit of a made up number, I don't remember overall gear numbers from MSV items). That, coupled with a fact that epic quality items came only from raiding really winded up the price on Crystals, and thus enchants that only high end raiders could afford them, the rest used lower quality ones.
As expansion progressed, the relative power value of Dancing Steel dropped, compared to gear. It's worth now about half a gear piece (again, bit of a made up number), main stat-wise.
If Crystals only came from high end raiding (like some people want), their price would still be very high, the price of enchants would be high, and that could, potentially, vastly favor enchanting as money-making profession, especially for those that do have acces to crystals. The main source of those would be a daily CD and AH, that'd drag the price up of the end product.

That's the "problem" with alchemy and living steel ATM - which still sell for quite a lot of money, even though their half products are much easier to come by (even lower level alt can mine ore, you don't need to be a raider) and come in much higher quantities, you still can make considerable amounts of money just by transmuting ores..

Without an increased source of epic items, available to any enchanter, even those who are not raiders, when enchant-power compared to gear DROPS, enchanting would be further and further ahead and that could, potentially, destabilize the market. Overwhelm it in mid-range enchanting mats, that are useless, and underwhelm it with end-range ones.
That's the reason why the further we are in the expansion, the more epic quality items we get. Blizz expects, that at the beginning, those expensive enchants would be used only by end-raiding minority. By the expansion's end those enchants should be available to anyone to compensate their relative power loss.

[Keile]

Basically the colors should be looked at like this (since MoP):

Whites = starting gear
Greens = Questing Gear
Blues = Better Questing/Dungeoning Gear
Purples = Raiding gear (in rare cases, simply an exceptional item as there are epics between level 85 and 90).
Oranges = Exceptional item obtained via raiding (usuallly).

Nothing more.

[Vaelorian]

Why does nobody ever bring enchanting when discussing item color/rarity? Items are a source of enchanting mats, which then turn into enchants that EVERYONE needs and that doesn't change during expansion's lifetime.

Actually at first in Vanilla and TBC we had a blast this way. Raiders had access to the mats and thus controlled the flow of enchants. If you weren't a raider (pugger or not), you would not likely have access to these high end enchants.

Did you need those? No you did not because you did not raid. And if you did not raid, you paid a lot of gold for those. How did guilds repair their items? They sold BoE and enchant mats, duh. They still do it that way, but it is far less profitable.

So yes I agree enchanting and the economy should be looked into if we change the colour of the items. But imo it is far from important to look at the non-raiders and feel sorry for them.

PS: I am not a raider (anylonger)

[Deleted]

Without an increased source of epic items, available to any enchanter, even those who are not raiders, when enchant-power compared to gear DROPS, enchanting would be further and further ahead and that could, potentially, destabilize the market. Overwhelm it in mid-range enchanting mats, that are useless, and underwhelm it with end-range ones.
That's the reason why the further we are in the expansion, the more epic quality items we get. Blizz expects, that at the beginning, those expensive enchants would be used only by end-raiding minority. By the expansion's end those enchants should be available to anyone to compensate their relative power loss.

there are and will be other harder ways of getting mats like buying them, getting from garnisons or exchanging them for some kind of tokens or other grindable currency + maybe some kind of bag of mats/entchanter as drop or random dungeon/bg reward. ofc it would require more time/grind but it's fair.

[lando627]

It has never meant rarity, yet you just explained in detail why epics meant rarity.

....bahahahahaha

[Kryos]

It is about how difficult it is to get. It is easier to get green compared to blue or purple compared to orange

[Darsithis]

Initially it was rare to see someone wearing ONE epic. This was during the Pre MC time. You could craft a legendary with chromatic scales etc or find some world epic, or have Quel'Serrar. Now those things were pretty fucking rare. In came raids and people that raided got legendary's by default.

So from that moment on they became less rare then before MC launched. True. They were still pretty rare vs the player base though.

Now Darsithis, my guess is that people would find epics - epics again IF (talking from a PVE pov):
1. they remove the vendor epics (valor or other token) and replace them with very nice blues
2. they remove the quest epics unless the quest is very hard and would take a lot of grinding
3. they remove epics from LFR and get blues at the same itemlevel as the epics would have been
4. made blues more meaningful and potentially lasting longer if you had BiS blues
5. made raid epics not climb in stats as hard as they are climbing now. So people in example: tier 15 could still raid in tier 16 heroic if they had BiS epics from tier 15. Be it a bit handicapped, it would be doable. This system was in place in Vanilla and for the most part in TBC. Sure we did not have heroics back then, but one level of "hard". I am sure the big brains of Blizzard could come up with something equally nice.

So to come back to what your saying: Yes color matters. It is childish but it matters to people. They want to be different from another. Some want to feel superior. Some watch people with superior gear with awe and get motivated to gain that status too. There is no loss here.

The part in bold I want to address first. I know I only speak for myself but I can't imagine most people would be happy running more than one tier in the same gear and having no incentive on some bosses to do the fight because the gear is so epically awesome that you can't replace it. That's happened with trinkets from time to time (I kept my heroic Heart of Rage through Firelands) but I would hate to see most of my gear not needing a single upgrade from tier to tier.

I get that epics were more rare in the beginning (as was anything). I'm just arguing that it was never intended to be that way. The high entrance to raiding and raiding being the only source of epic drops made it difficult to get them distributed to the masses. As the game became more accessible it was inevitable that epic items would become as commonplace as they were intended to be. The goal was that everyone would progress to end game and everyone would eventually end up geared. Of course that isn't how it works in real life but the concept is there. I should be able to achieve the same things anyone else in-game can.

At this point it is too late. Far too late to change anything. The game caters to a huge variety of players of all different skill levels and offers rewards based on item levels of epic quality to everyone who participates in end-game content. That's a good thing, to me, and something that I don't think can be changed any more.

[Ryme]

I'd be in favour of Mythic gear being artefact level quality, since they've never been in the live version of the game, you don't need to adhere to the artefact > legendary thing since there's no precedence.

Perhaps have the "thunderforged/warforged" things being artefact level?

[kamuimac]

I
5. made raid epics not climb in stats as hard as they are climbing now. So people in example: tier 15 could still raid in tier 16 heroic if they had BiS epics from tier 15. Be it a bit handicapped, it would be doable. This system was in place in Vanilla and for the most part in TBC. Sure we did not have heroics back then, but one level of "hard". I am sure the big brains of Blizzard could come up with something equally nice.
.

here the thing there is no way of recreating that system without removing at least 2 difficulty setting in game which will never happen - people in game need to feel that they are geting stronger with each month else they will never stay subbed - those "passionate" who raid for difficulty ale maybe top 2-5k players vs milion of other who do want to get stronger by acquiring gear and dont give a f...about difficulty as long as it drops them loot in resonable intervalls of time.

besides its not only problem with epics - for me personally much worse is that blue quality gear doesnt feel like blue anymore only feels as usless as quest greens :/

[Baphomette]

Not sure where the vanilla nostalgia really factors in. Not every epic was a gift from the heavens.

Ex.1: half of the world drop BoE epics were terrible, using more than their extra budget on useless stats (thinking of that mail chest in particular with 5 Agi and 24 Spirit). The only thing they were good for was selling for lots of money because people paid money for purple.

Ex.2: Some of the items in MC were awesome, but a lot were not. Nobody was happy to see Vendorstrike drop. Sure, it was a 2H from a boss towards the end of the instance, but nobody got there without a better weapon. Arcanite Reaper was leaps and bounds better. Any of the i63 blues from the top 5-mans were better.

And yeah this changed over time; TAQ and Naxx weren't terrible in this regard, but even during TBC there were some bad items. I don't think it was until Wrath that you could be sure an epic was actually an upgrade. Interestingly that's right about when people stop looking at epics as having some sort of special status.