Time to increase gap in raid loot?

[kamuimac]

You are right, but consider it from this angle:
The whole point of TF is to give incentive to run "old" content. So that you don't feel like you wasted your time helping some friends in LFR (or so Blizzard says).

I say that it creates more problems than it solves (that might or might not be the case).

And your counter-argument is that the chance is so ridiculously small that it's as if it wasn't even there. But doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of the system then?
You basically say: TF more than 15 ilvl is so rare that we can just assume it doesn't exist.
How about taking it a step further and make it actually not exist then?

clearly devs do not agree with your opinion as they stated multiple times during their Q&As that they are happy with the resoults it gives.

its like with legacy servers - how many times people need to hear "no " before they accept truth - titanforging works and those 1 % of players with severe ocd should just stop doin content they dont like if its problem for them.

- - - Updated - - -

But the next tier, the chance for you to get a new convergence with 20-30 more ilvls is a few thousand times lower than before. It still has a crappy base ilvl. At some point it stops being a good idea.

When you first get a piece of mythic loot, you only need 3 "forging" procs to get it to cap. Next tier it's 9 forging procs ... the chance for that starts becoming abysmal once you add another 30ilvls on the cap.

problem is statistics and math is hard - and some people dont realise that chances for those titnaforges is riduculously low.

best thing blizzard could do is during next que make a spreadsheet with % chance of geting those titanforges people dream about to shut them up.

unless someone is dumb enough to run contnet for 0,005% chance of the titanforge he wants. then he needs mental help not titanforging

[Meiffert]

clearly devs do not agree with your opinion as they stated multiple times during their Q&As that they are happy with the resoults it gives.

You are right.
I'm not a WoW designer and my view on various features is somewhat narrow (from a mythic raider perspective), I said as much in the original post.

But this is a discussion forum, so I think it's a proper place to share my opinions and the reasons behind them.
Hopefully I can learn other points of view and maybe even change my mind.

Maybe, although seems more and more unlikely , other players will get a better understanding of why some are against it and realize that being salty over Joey getting better trinket in LFR isn't the only reason some players have reservations about the system.

[Raelbo]

I disagree that "any content should be relevant". Why have multiple difficulties in that case? Me doing LFR or heroic dungeons is boring not only for me, but it destroys the integrity of the run for everyone involved. I just run through the dungeon in my 950 dps spec and the other 4 players are observers.



I went more into detail about some of the negative effects of current version of titanforging in my previous post if you are interested.

I took the time to read your long post. You raise a lot of good points and generally make a fair arguments. That being said, there is a central theme running through your post with which I disagree.

You argue that the point of WF and TF is to incentivize players to do that content. The actual point is to reward players who do that content. While I suspect you may think "what's the difference?", it is actually pretty significant, and key to the understanding of the design intent. The difference of course is in the causation, and it's what @Lucetia was driving at when she spoke about the point of doing content not being gear, but about enjoying the content. Gear is simply means to an end (so, yes, gear is important), but it's not an end in of itself. Gear results from doing content, but it should never be the motivation for doing that content.

Essentially I view this entire mess as a player problem: Players choosing to chase rewards instead of choosing to focus on the type of content they enjoy. Blizzard has created a reward structure that allows players to get rewarded regardless of the content they choose to engage in, the objective of which should be that players have the freedom to choose. Unfortunately some players miscontrue that as being forced to do everything they posssibly can until they reach BiS.

The possibility of TF items in LFR serves to prevent LFR players from feeling compelled to participate in progression raiding if they want to ever see any possibility of better gear. It is to prevent players from avoiding non-optimal content that they enjoy on the basis that it is a waste of time in terms of possible gear upgrades. It is not to make normal/heroic/mythic raiders feel compelled to participate in LFR.

Sorry to be so blunt, but this only becomes a problem for immature players who can't regulate their compulsion to chase rewards. For the more evolved player who realises that the point of any game is to have fun, and therefore do what they enjoy, the setup is perfect. Which is why I have an issue with the complaints levelled against TF/WF. This system works well for players who get it right. But the players who get it wrong demand that the game must change in order to solve the problem. You can't fix a player problem by changing the game. All that does is screw things up for those players who had no part in creating the actual problem in the first place.

[Zan15]

you fail to understand the point i made in the first place
i dont care that others procc gear.
i think its annoying that titanforging makes irrelevant old content a possible upgrade if you want to optimize your char. (e.g nighthold set/cof/etc)

the ability of every shit content being able to max procc to 955 impacts lots of hardcore players - if even its only doing heroic every week for possible TF
if someone proccs 955 in heroic im not mad at the person but at the game for having this even be possible in the first place

old content has always had a possible upgrade.

arcano is an upgrade for a lot even at 860.
guldan trinket is an upgrade over a lot of TOS loot even at base loot value
horn of valor....older tier being more powerful then current tier.....
etc
etc
etc

So you don't want it to proc because you don't want to go back and do old content you have absolutely no need to do in order to do current content?

you just want old content to die the second new content is released?
'
sad

[Aaronioslo]

I took the time to read your long post. You raise a lot of good points and generally make a fair arguments. That being said, there is a central theme running through your post with which I disagree.

You argue that the point of WF and TF is to incentivize players to do that content. The actual point is to reward players who do that content. While I suspect you may think "what's the difference?", it is actually pretty significant, and key to the understanding of the design intent. The difference of course is in the causation, and it's what @Lucetia was driving at when she spoke about the point of doing content not being gear, but about enjoying the content. Gear is simply means to an end (so, yes, gear is important), but it's not an end in of itself. Gear results from doing content, but it should never be the motivation for doing that content.

Essentially I view this entire mess as a player problem: Players choosing to chase rewards instead of choosing to focus on the type of content they enjoy. Blizzard has created a reward structure that allows players to get rewarded regardless of the content they choose to engage in, the objective of which should be that players have the freedom to choose. Unfortunately some players miscontrue that as being forced to do everything they posssibly can until they reach BiS.

The possibility of TF items in LFR serves to prevent LFR players from feeling compelled to participate in progression raiding if they want to ever see any possibility of better gear. It is to prevent players from avoiding non-optimal content that they enjoy on the basis that it is a waste of time in terms of possible gear upgrades. It is not to make normal/heroic/mythic raiders feel compelled to participate in LFR.

Sorry to be so blunt, but this only becomes a problem for immature players who can't regulate their compulsion to chase rewards. For the more evolved player who realises that the point of any game is to have fun, and therefore do what they enjoy, the setup is perfect. Which is why I have an issue with the complaints levelled against TF/WF. This system works well for players who get it right. But the players who get it wrong demand that the game must change in order to solve the problem. You can't fix a player problem by changing the game. All that does is screw things up for those players who had no part in creating the actual problem in the first place.

maybe some players don't enjoy the content( as in raids) but enjoy getting best possible gear? and raiding then becomes means to that goal? ever thought of that?

[Raelbo]

The whole point of TF is to give incentive to run "old" content. So that you don't feel like you wasted your time helping some friends in LFR (or so Blizzard says).

It's not about creating an incentive so much as removing an excuse not to.

And your counter-argument is that the chance is so ridiculously small that it's as if it wasn't even there. But doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of the system then?
You basically say: TF more than 15 ilvl is so rare that we can just assume it doesn't exist.
How about taking it a step further and make it actually not exist then?

The chance is enough that there is a possibility of an upgrade, but not so much that you are forced to do it. In other words it moves the choice of whether or not to participate away from feeling obliged to avoid content that doesn't help with progression, towards doing things you enjoy.

- - - Updated - - -

maybe some players don't enjoy the content( as in raids) but enjoy getting best possible gear? and raiding then becomes means to that goal? ever thought of that?

The answer is in my post which you quoted. That is a player problem and cannot be solved by "fixing" the game.

[Deleted]

Don't think there will ever be agreement on this:

The players that don't want to, can't put in the effort or simply don't have the capability of raiding the max difficulty will always argue in favor of titanforging as it is at the moment, because with a bit of luck, they basically get the same out of the game as those that want/can/are capable of doing it.

The players that want to and can do max difficulty will always argue that it dilutes their effort. Which is also understandable: If you raid 2-4 days a week for 2-4 hours, depending on your guild, then it is not really nice seeing another one that raids a total of 2 hours a week in the same gear.

Effort needs to be rewarded, otherwise there will be a time where noone puts that effort in. You can already see that by the amount of non-hardcore mythic guilds (those that actually use the time of a raid-tier until they fully clear it) that die at the moment.

[mbg]

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" - You this entire thread


Get the fuck over it and move on for fucks sake, man.

IKR? I see threads like these and all it is about are people whinging about other people's loot, and trying to put up mathematical explanation. Who cares what loot another person gets. Who gives a frell about it? Why do you? Just get back to playing the game and get your loots. Don't whinge about what other people get.

[Meiffert]

The actual point is to reward players who do that content.

Thanks, this is probably the best answer even if I disagree with some details you went into.

Gear results from doing content, but it should never be the motivation for doing that content.
[...]
Essentially I view this entire mess as a player problem: Players choosing to chase rewards instead of choosing to focus on the type of content they enjoy.

I agree with that personally, but content that didn't offer rewards had historically terrible participation.
Not sure how successful the game would be without the carrots. Despite the fact that ideally players shouldn't need them.

The possibility of TF items in LFR serves to prevent LFR players from feeling compelled to participate in progression raiding if they want to ever see any possibility of better gear.

I don't think this is any systematic solution.
We are talking about the non-ideal situation about gear-based motivation to play here, so I know it's beyond your main point.
Still, if LFR players are not to be compelled to progress into higher difficulty by offering better rewards in their preferred environment, it will compel normal players to go there for those same rewards.
Seems more like a weird band-aid and, (again) a cap on TF, while still only a band-aid as you pointed out, is at least a better one.

Sorry to be so blunt, but this only becomes a problem for immature players who can't regulate their compulsion to chase rewards. For the more evolved player who realises that the point of any game is to have fun, and therefore do what they enjoy, the setup is perfect.

No need to be sorry.

To be blunt right back, as a friend of mine likes to say: You don't pay my sub.
I enjoy progression raiding and goal for me is to get Cutting Edge, or server first. Gear is just a tool. But, even if it wasn't, who are you to tell me what I should enjoy?

This is an (MMO)RPG. The two main selling points of RPGs are the story (which doesn't have much replayability) and improving your character.
I don't think that it's wrong to be after more gear/talents/traits/levels. It will be the goal for many, if not the majority, of players in this type of games.

There are other aspects of the game to enjoy, for sure. But it's not more right or wrong.


I'm sure that TF works ok for most players if Blizzard are satisfied with it.

For me, Killing Garrosh heroic for the first time, or racing for server first on Blackhand, us and the competing guild both extending raid till 3am wiping at 1-3 % on Blackhand while watching their stream on second monitor and finally beating them are some of my best memories.
But to do that, I'm "forced" to min-max farming gear. Even if it's just a tool, sadly it's needed. And while the proposed stat template with fixed item level would work for me personally, I understand that it has no place in this game.

So I'm left trying to find some compromise.

[Raelbo]

I agree with that personally, but content that didn't offer rewards had historically terrible participation.
Not sure how successful the game would be without the carrots. Despite the fact that ideally players shouldn't need them.

Progression is central to how WoW works - steadily defeating challenges that previously were beyond your reach. Once you stop progressing the game becomes pretty pointless. And getting gear is necessary to progress.

So, it is important that players are constantly doing content that gives them an opportunity to obtain better gear. If the content you enjoy doing affords you no opportunities to meet your gear progression needs, then it becomes a lot more difficult to justify spending some of your (limited) gaming time pursuing that content. There does need to be, by design, an intersection between the content a player enjoys doing and the rewards that the player needs to keep on progressing their character.

This is why "carrots" are always necessary.

The mistake that many players make is to focus on maximising gear rewards at the expense of doing stuff they like, when the gear rewards purely from sticking to what they enjoy are actually sufficient. It's about understanding the difference between satisfying your needs, and being a loot-glutton.

if LFR players are not to be compelled to progress into higher difficulty by offering better rewards in their preferred environment, it will compel normal players to go there for those same rewards.

I don't agree. There is a middle ground where LFR can offer sufficient opportunities for gear upgrades for LFRaiders, without compelling normal raiders to take advantage of those opportunities for their progression. This is evidenced by the multitude of players who progress in normal and don't bother with LFR at all (my own guild for example). Of course LFR participation can help normal players to accelerate their progression a bit, but it's certainly not necessary if players don't want to. I have consistently, in every LFR thread I have ever participated in, agreed that LFR participation should never be mandatory for people who don't really want to be there, but are there for the gear. And I strongly hold to the view that there is no evidence to support the notion that the probable gear upgrades from running LFR are insufficient to warrant such a compulsion.

The problem for a lot of people though is that they are just bad at differentiating between what is probable and what is possible. Hence we land up with people claiming that the game "forces" them to run LFR, Normal, Heroic, every WQ, 100 Mythic+ etc (all stuff they hate) in order to maximise their chance of winning the Mythic Raid race. What these people fail to understand is that a proper analysis that includes probability would reveal that even though they could potentially get Convergence of Fates 955 from running LFR every week, there are more productive ways to spend their time that will, on average, result in superior returns.

To be blunt right back, as a friend of mine likes to say: You don't pay my sub.
I enjoy progression raiding and goal for me is to get Cutting Edge, or server first. Gear is just a tool. But, even if it wasn't, who are you to tell me what I should enjoy?

Oh don't get me wrong, I am absolutely not trying to tell you what you should enjoy. I am simply saying that you should focus on what you do enjoy and that the game design supports this behaviour.

This is an (MMO)RPG. The two main selling points of RPGs are the story (which doesn't have much replayability) and improving your character. I don't think that it's wrong to be after more gear/talents/traits/levels. It will be the goal for many, if not the majority, of players in this type of games.

There are other aspects of the game to enjoy, for sure. But it's not more right or wrong.

There are, of course, many "right" ways to play the game. But that doesn't preclude the possibility that there are also "wrong" ways to play the game. And while what constitutes "right" or "wrong" will differ from player to player, a general rule of thumb is this: If you're not having fun doing what you're doing in the game, you're probably doing it wrong.

For the case under discussion, that means pursuing loot at the expense of enjoyment. Which obviously means different things for different players. For example, to the world first raider mindset, you are prepared to spend a significant amount of time working towards getting the best gear possible to give you an edge in the race, and what you spend that time on makes little difference to you, whereas for a more casual raider, you might prefer to stay away from other raid formats and rely solely on loot from mythic raiding to progress, relying more on learning the fights than on gear upgrades.

For me, Killing Garrosh heroic for the first time, or racing for server first on Blackhand, us and the competing guild both extending raid till 3am wiping at 1-3 % on Blackhand while watching their stream on second monitor and finally beating them are some of my best memories.
But to do that, I'm "forced" to min-max farming gear.

For the tiny percentage of players who are super-competitive, yes. This is your reality. But the fact is that this is true of virtually any competitive endeavour. If for you the fun comes from competing to win, then you need to accept that you have to make sacrifices to get there. It is hard work and you don't have the luxury of only doing the things you like. That is the choice.

That being said, I am still dubious that running LFR is a necessary for such players. The objective here would be find the best ways to spend your time in order to get gear upgrades. Of the myriad ways one can get get potential gear upgrades in a week, I don't think LFR ranks sufficiently high to make it mandatory (ie there are likely more effective ways that any mythic raider can spend their available, limited, time in a week than running LFR).

[Spotnick]

IMO it's the opposite, they need to reduce gear inflation, so you don't need to do heroic mode if you're a mythic raider.

Basically heroic Antorus would give you 930 loot, which I believe is what normal will give.

So this way you can jump directly to mythic once its opened and not farm it for 2 months.

[Deleted]

old content has always had a possible upgrade.

arcano is an upgrade for a lot even at 860.
guldan trinket is an upgrade over a lot of TOS loot even at base loot value
horn of valor....older tier being more powerful then current tier.....
etc
etc
etc

So you don't want it to proc because you don't want to go back and do old content you have absolutely no need to do in order to do current content?

you just want old content to die the second new content is released?
'
sad

thats how the game has always been prior to legion and that was good.
some people do everything to optimize their character thats just a mindset - but doing old content for that over and over again isnt fun its very simple.

- - - Updated - - -

how it impacts you when it isnt your gear

why do you care about other people's pixels ?

you also fail to get the point, read above and you might understand. i dont care whoever gets gear as its not impactful towards me
but i care about me in theory having to do old content over and over again for the slim chance of an upgrade - its stupid design.

[Usagi Senshi]

IKR? I see threads like these and all it is about are people whinging about other people's loot, and trying to put up mathematical explanation. Who cares what loot another person gets. Who gives a frell about it? Why do you? Just get back to playing the game and get your loots. Don't whinge about what other people get.

8-9 years ago I was more hardcore and an asshole to players I felt were shit/casual compared to me. It was around 2011 when I came to a realization on how fucking pathetic I was over this type of shit and stopped being an asshat over loot. I started enjoying the game more after that and became a "casual (lol 25,000 hours /played casual)" when I stopped raiding because Blizzard killed my preferred raid size progression and I stopped raiding after five guilds I joined in WoD couldn't keep up with the 20-man mythic roster and fell apart.

The sooner these players understand that the casuals/scrubs pay the most bills and these systems were designed to keep players subbed and engaged longer, the sooner they'll quit or enjoy the game more.

Its pretty simple: Play or die.

[Gsara]

Who cares what someone iLvL is anymore, its not like players who only do lfr are running around at 945+ is a common thing. The percentage of players who have gotten extremly lucky with TF procs out of only lfr is so small it doesnt matter. On average a mythic raider will always be better equipped, and probably a better player, than the person who got so lucky he could have won the lotto 6 times in a row.

[Magical Mudcrab]

No, it's 100% over the current desigers being incompetent as heck.

As someone who does ToS(M) regularly, I've not once been bothered by seeing someone with one or two really good drops from LFR. Am I envious when I see someone with a 940~950 item that's LFR? Sure, but why should I care? The only reason there is to complain is ego, and it's the most pathetic reason to complain. The only thing the system does is make people will less gear feel as though they're progressing more, while people who play more - such as myself, and I take it you as well - will continue to do better overall and have better gear on the whole.

Moreover, attacking the designers and claiming them incompetent for making a system that you don't like and has little-to-no real impact on your experience other than you will sometimes find yourself getting incredibly powerful upgrades when you weren't expecting it - oh, the humanity - is silly.

[kamuimac]

maybe some players don't enjoy the content( as in raids) but enjoy getting best possible gear? and raiding then becomes means to that goal? ever thought of that?

well then those players should find proffesional medical help if their only goal in life is chasing virtual gear and pixels.

and devs should never cater to margin only to majority.

best example is FFXIV which offers people way to get bis or close to bis gear without doing hardest content in game - and in comparison to wow have steadily growing population due to tools they put in game - aka way to judge people's behaviour and offering eveybody chance to progress steadily instead just give contnet to 5 % of players.

[Aggrophobic]

As someone who does ToS(M) regularly, I've not once been bothered by seeing someone with one or two really good drops from LFR. Am I envious when I see someone with a 940~950 item that's LFR? Sure, but why should I care? The only reason there is to complain is ego, and it's the most pathetic reason to complain. The only thing the system does is make people will less gear feel as though they're progressing more, while people who play more - such as myself, and I take it you as well - will continue to do better overall and have better gear on the whole.

Moreover, attacking the designers and claiming them incompetent for making a system that you don't like and has little-to-no real impact on your experience other than you will sometimes find yourself getting incredibly powerful upgrades when you weren't expecting it - oh, the humanity - is silly.

Yes, it does make people that have less gear feel like they are progressing. That is the problem though. They are progressing without putting any effort into the game.
You should reward players for getting better and doing harder content not for doing the same super easy content over and over again.

AFKing in LFR should never, ever have a chance of getting you gear that is even close to mythic gear. No TF, no legendaries. Even the sets should be exclusive to organized raiding much like in WoD.

The designers are to blame though and only them. It's not silly to point out their incompetence when they release expansions such as Legion. The game is a mix of diablo and an online casino now. It's not the WoW many of us have loved over the years.

[Deleted]

The current system is fine. I´ll use my own experience as an example. I play casually, alone most of the time. I mainly PUG Heroic raids and M+ and the WF helps me to access higher M+, that´s my progression. The pieces that WF don´t help me magically become a mythic raider, they don´t give me something that wouldn´t be otherwise possible for me(e.g. like jumping from M12 to M15), and I certainly don´t sport the same gear as a mythic raider. It´s not like if I get 2-3 lucky TF rolls I´m able to steamroll the content I normally do or puts me in the ilvl bracket of the 'big boys'. In the case of a heroic guild the same would apply i presume. Sure, if they are lucky and persistent, they can maybe tackle a mythic boss or two due the overgearing alone, but that´s it(that happens naturally at the end of long tiers/expansion raids anyway). I also don´t see it as a bad thing, that someone can get a taste of a difficulty beyond his current skill. Most of the ppl that whine about 'having to do all the content in order to be on the bleeding edge' aren´t themselves plying at that lvl most of the time, so...it´s basically ''I´m 5/9 M raider and i see some filthy Heroic raider casuals with gear 10 ilvls below mine, how is that fair now I have to do LFR'' kinda argument.

[leviathonlx]

The ilvl bloat is bad enough already without making it worse.

[Doffen]

Taken from Wowhead:

Finally, our Raid Finder item. With a base Item Level of 835, it needs to upgrade 12 times to make it all the way to 895. Long story short, that's a 1 in 4096 chance of being 880. Let's say you get 2-3 items a week from fully clearing Raid Finder. You'd need to run Raid Finder every week for over 21 years in order to have a >50% chance of seeing a 895 item out of Emerald Nightmare LFR. By that time, we'll all be in item level 4000 gear as we play the latest Corgis Unleashed expansion on our VR decks (unlike the rest of this post, this part is entirely factual). But hey, you'll probably have that 895 Raid Finder item. Or you still might not. Still feel mandatory?

This was with made up numbers, and the chance is actually lower but it was written that way to make it easier to explain.

Everyone should read this:
http://www.wowhead.com/news=253854/t...stem-in-legion

How can people honestly go around and complain about this when the chances to even get a lfr item to max is so low is beyond me. Nothing wrong with the game, only players.