Well here we go again, Blizzard are stretching that taffy...

[Nyel]

WoW is indeed in a terrible state, and it seems like they're only interested in doubling-down.

BFA - The Coffin Nail.

Maybe this is some kind of strategy, make BfA as bad as possible that the upcoming expansion looks as good as possible.

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Agree. "But da balance, mon! its harder!"

IDGAF. Figure it out. Tier sets are WoW.

Balancing three dozen tier sets is harder than balancing hundreds of awful Azerite traits? Uhm don't think so but maybe Blizzard does.

I could see them removing Azerite in 8.2 entirely and just reintroduce tier sets because they're unable to fine a better solution.

[adamzz]

I do wonder if Ghost Crawler would have let Azerite ship as it did, I seriously doubt that any of the devs from that era would have let it go to release like that, they would have delayed it till it was in better shape, heck at least then they didnt try to push early releases.

I personally would have been fine with another 6 months of legion if it meant that Azerite had more devtime to get it in a better state of polish, same for the classes that released unfinished and even as of 8.1 are still not finished.

People cry about long wait times between releases, Blizzard starts releasing new content in a timely manner and now you cry about too early releases. Are you guys ever happy?

[Deleted]

I still can't believe that in those 11 pages i read noone even mentioned the fact that the basis of discussion is so far off. Btw i'm not a native speaker so excuse mistakes i may make.

First of all: Assuming that what he cited is true (which i believe, because i somewhat remember a bluepost stating the same) we're talking about 2-3 weeks for a RANDOM piece of azerite lining up with the level of content you're doing. Even if you don't assume the worst you're talking about a random 385 every 2-3 weeks, with a ~1/6th chance of being the one you want based on the amount of azerite items per slot available in mythic dungeons.

But the actually important part is why this system was introduced in the first place - players who didn't care about their traits or performance or those who are only doing lower tier content i.e. lfr, normal raiding, m+ up to idk lets say a +5, etc didn't complain about the system as much. It was about giving players who want to or have to min/max (sometimes even because of the design of the traits, i.e. rsham pvp is only as viable due to surging tides when it comes to a discussion about traits so they either have that specific trait or gtfo) an option to do so eventually. So if you're not the target demographic of this change and if you dont care about min/maxing or which traits you play in general your opinion does not matter. Its not completely irrelevant in general because it affects you as well but the opinion is not helpful in most cases when it comes to designing a system thats not made for your needs in the first place.

So going by the numbers presented, you can expect to be getting 50-75 residuum per cache between +10 and lets say +17 due to diminishing returns - without adding in scrapped azerites (spoiler, if those amounts of currency are actually considered when the estimates of 2-3 weeks were given, the amount that you might get from the chest might even be considerably lower, so expecting 50+ residuum is actually a best case scenario). That roughly translates into 13 weeks of a +10 for a single specific item and 39 weeks for three while rounding down. Thats 9 months of grinding for a complete set if you exclude scrapping. Even with scrapping the grind will be absurd because if the emissaries will cap at 370 and you're getting 12 residuum per scrap while averaging 2-3 (but lets be optimistic and assume 3) Azerites per week that's only 36 residuum per week. So even if you're going by the 50 form the +10 cache and add those 36 on top you're at 86 residuum per week which translates into 8 weeks per specific item and 24 weeks for a set. That's still 5 1/2 months. And all of that only if they never change a trait and without considering the delayed release of content at the end of january. Just to compare: We're just 3,5 months into the m+-season, so even by now you'd only have 2 of 3 BIS-Items. Even if you raid mythic and get 1 Azerite per week on top of that you wouldn't be done by now.

And i'm still ignoring having other specs, the awful reforging system, the fact that on jan 22 new azerites with a fifth ring will be released and it starts all over again, the fact that they said multiple times that they'll be working on the system constantly and trying to release new traits or reworking old ones, that they'll have to balance traits based on performance, the fact that having BIS-traits has the most value early on in progression (be it a pvpseason where you are pushing for glad or progressing in pve) and so much more.

Even if you argue that you could instead buy the random piece and hope on having luck, the probability to have your BIS-item by week 13 (the worst case in this scenario when talking about luck because if you compare with the 8 weeks for a specific item the probability will be significantly lower due to having less chances to get the item [probability of 37,75% in the 8 week scenario with 1/6th of a chance]) is at only 54,34% (if my math is correct and if we assume we'd need 3 weeks per random item) which is obviously worse than 100%. Even if you double the chance (which wouldnt happen because they'd have to delete 3 out of 6 available items) we'd only be at 82,51%. Even then those numbers are theoretical and too high because i have not considered that you dont actually get "half" of an item. The correct probability should be at 51,77% when talking about the 13 week scenario and 30,56% within 8 weeks. As long as you're not praying for good luck which most min/maxers won't do for a reason (hint: it's why they min/max) the mathematically correct thing to do is grind the specific items.

If you do that you're left with a 5 1/2 to 9 month grind without considering secondary specs, alts, trait balancing and everything else i mentioned earlier assuming that you don't get one of those specific items by pure chance in the weekly chest. And the chances that that happens already have been calculated, are to be found on the internet and were the reason or at least part of the reason for the massive outcry about the system itself.

So it's an addition to the system, but is it good? For everyone outside of the target demographic obviously yes. For everyone else? It's a complete shitshow with current numbers tuning, not even close to being a viable catch-up mechanic and it even fails as a bad luck protection due to the time that content usually lasts outside of the last tier per addon versus the time needed to complete one set. And assuming that my math and therefore the conclusions are correct, this outcome should've been clear to any dev/player within a short time frame after the development/announcement. And even if you only "feel", rightly so, that something about those numbers seems off you're right to complain about that in my book.

And to everyone who wants a solution: the simplest solution would be to increase the amount of currency gained by a significant amount (we're talking times 2-4 here), because increasing the chance is impossible for the reason mentioned.

p.s.: You could argue about trait design so that they only differentiate in utility (i.e. knockback versus stun on a certain spell or even on a certain rotation) to eliminate the problem of having only 1 viable Trait, but even then some things might be worth more due to bosses being stun immune, certain 3v3-comps lacking certain DRs and so on. As long as traits are about numbers, players who want to or have to min/max for whatever reason will only have one option per spec per slot per scenario (which tells you that sometimes even 3 pieces wont be enough which makes the whole system even more ridiculous) no matter how many rings you put into the game because guess what, now it's not only 1 trait that's the best but the combination of 2 traits.

p.p.s.: those numbers assume a weekly +10 clear which is so far away from what the average wow player does by any statistic i could find withing 5 minutes of using google. That means that your average wow player won't even have any real benefit. Going by the presumption that below +10 the amount of residuum per key level increases exponentially (which, according to the citation, it does) the average player will get <20 residuum per week (if that because most aren't even clearing a key every week) and therefore can only buy 355-370 pieces in a non-absurd time frame which they already get from emissaries anyway.

p.p.p.s.: The argument that it's only speculation until it's released is nowhere near worth considering because since blizzard doesn't release formulas for things like that it'll be down to having a sample size big enough to draw conclusions from and even then its just an educated guess on how it's calculated. And even if things change a little bit the outcome does not vary as much as i'd guess you expect. So as long as the statement that it will take between 2 and 3 weeks to acquire the currency to buy a random piece of azerite remains true, the outcome might very well be - on average - within the calculated time frames and probabilities. And that means that it'll be clearly too late by the time it's completely figured out, complained about, and changed. So to some degree it's better to complain now than to complain later.

[FelPlague]

guess I should ask should I get a 415 RNG piece that will probably be shit and make the time it takes to get BiS take 3-4 weeks longer or keep my 385 for 2 months until I can buy BiS 415. Short term or long term for mythic progression what you think?

The option is shit or nothing.. Which one?

well that is for you to decide. cause guess what, that's how it worked in the past too.

[Reivur]

They're recreating an issue that they once perceived as a problem. In particular Azerite Gear originally not being tradable because they didn't want people to feel peer-pressured in giving up side-grades because of 'interesting traits' that you might want to collect for different activities. Okay. So people made them cave on this. I was impartial and didn't care either way because I only like Holy on my Priest, and I only liked Demonology on my Warlock-- so it had no effect on me. This though feels like its going to get a little worse.

Now we're going to enter a world where future gear disenchants into this currency. Even stingy people are willing to give up gear if you toss them a shard or the value of a shard instead of something for nothing. As for people who aren't stingy most people seem willing to give something for nothing in this game because they hope they'll get the same good will here via their alt or other alts; the point is, its easy to substitute a reward. But now suddenly, the hoarding aspect has meaning for everyone. While before maybe multi-specs may have had an incentive to hoard different pieces for different roles you'll now have people who suddenly see these downgrades or duplicates as 35 residuum towards their next BiS; something that isn't replaceable or easily reciprocal at the time the items are dropped.

There's even the potential of having mythic raiders feel compelled to do LFR (lmao) for Residuum, even if its a tiny amount, because it'll add up towards a theoretical min-maxing cap for the week. A behavior they wanted to shy away from. So congratulations are in order; they took an issue most people either people were neutral on or didn't have a problem, and then made a more extreme version that can literally affect everyone with peer pressure. Well done.

[Magnosh]

So basically they are feeding us legendaries without being orange and awesome but as time consuming to farm when you needed a specific one later in Legion?

Can't they like bite the bullet and remove azerite, find a random story and revive artifacts while keeping the neck as the think that gets AP so it unlocks traits across all specs?

[Khallid]

The only big issue I see is that people will choose to scrap instead of trading Azerite gear. So unless the gear drops for you, or you're in a well-organized guild, you will end up seeing potential upgrades scrapped.

I wonder how many people will pretend that they can't trade it just to scrap it later.

[Deleted]

Just bring back the badge system ffs and allow people to gather badges from different activities (not to sell high end all slots obviously). It was simple and clear.

The need to fuck up everything ..

[Mazinger-Z]

Just bring back the badge system ffs and allow people to gather badges from different activities (not to sell high end all slots obviously). It was simple and clear.

The need to fuck up everything ..

Something that adds value to doing content well past its usefulness.

5 days of AP Emissaries

World Quests are worthless. Yes, we're getting Paragons but again, the rewards are spaced horribly.

At least doing them daily was a shot at a Leggo.

The only thing rewarding is the PvP content and that is largely on the backs of the players.

[Zyky]

No, like always, you fail. Fail to realize that not everyone likes the same things as you. Like always you are just complaining to complain, with no proper response. Like always, you fail to actually discuss with people. Which in turn just can't be arsed discussing with you.

You didn't prove shit to him. What you proved is that you got an opinion. Congrats man! You won an opinion!

I take it you didn't bother to even read anything of the conversation going on. We were arguing FACTS that I proved him wrong at every turn. Before you jump into a conversation that doesn't involve you, you might want to take the time to actually read what's being said.

[dcc626]

Who actually thinks adding a second major ring is going to fix anything for min Maxers? All you do now is look for the TWO best traits instead of one. Who thinks simply adding another ring was a good idea?? It just over complicates things even further.

actually, it also makes getting a piece that is completely garbage harder as well. Of course you would rather have 2 good traits, but right now you either get 1 or you get none.

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Just bring back the badge system ffs and allow people to gather badges from different activities (not to sell high end all slots obviously). It was simple and clear.

The need to fuck up everything ..

So they need to bring back a system where you buy gear with some sort of currency. And that will fix the problem huh. interesting.

How about when they bring back badges and the best pieces take weeks to get. You are ok with that right? i mean, who would complain about that.

[Magnagarde]

Getting your BiS Azerite piece is going to settle you for an entire tier. Of course it'll take a few weeks to get the necessary amount of the currency. While the way they handled Azerite hasn't been good at all (especially the completely unnecessary reforging which can only limit players from playing multiple specs), you shouldn't be able to settle 1 out of the 3 Azerite gear slots within a couple of weeks.

Whoever hoarded epic Azerite pieces for the sake of converting to this currency obviously didn't get the memo. There was no way they'd make it retroactive. If they did that, many players would have their BiS Azerite setup complete from the beginning of each tier.

[Jamie081]

Ever since BFA was in beta I had bad vibes about island expeditions and warfronts. They're just glorified features and are a waste of development time. 8.1 brings features and changes. It lacks solid content such as raids or dungeons.

It took 4 months for them to bring 2 expeditions and a warfront. Yet for 7.1 they brought out a raid and a megadungeon within 2 months. It doesn't help that they want this sweet-spot of 4 months for releases, but the actual patch that awaits us at the end of that 4 months brings barely anything.

Don't even get me started on these 'vendors' being labelled as a form of content. It's a trivial feature that bandaid fixes their bad systems at best.

[Powerogue]

The thing is the rate of gain has to be smooth.

In Legion, and you can look at the Wowhead guide, Titan Essences could be farmed for a random Leggo a week if you hit all the sweet spots:

Kill all the Antorus bosses at any level.
Emissaries.
Daily Dungeon.
Daily PvP.

Doing that for seven days gave you just enough essences to randomly open a leggo.

By the same token, with Argus, with the weeklies and farming the rares, world quests and gates, you could get enough Veiled Argunite for several chances at Relinquished gear several times.

It was soul killing to do, but I did twice to get a character raid ready and then to get my BiS leggos on my main.

The point is, week to week, I had actual, measurable progression.

This system needs to enable people to upgrade week to week.

How possible is that with this system?

Now that is useful feedback.

I haven't played the PTR, but I'm curious what could be done to improve the 8.1 changes, which seem to be made specifically to address what you're describing. I've heard for example that the titan residuum should be dropped from more sources, would that help? What is the average time it takes, with similar effort, to obtain progression towards good azerite gear?

[Lighthope]

Point me to even ONE thread demanding the removal of badge vendors.

I'm willing to bet you can't find a single one, because this is absolute horse crap. Hell, we went without Valor Points for ONE EXPANSION and Blizzard touted it as a grand return when they decided to add valor points as an upgrade currency for a patch because people hated not having it so much.

Those forums have been wiped twice by Blizz, so it is unlikely that someone can post a link to them.

I do remember those threads demanding the removal of badge vendors. "Welfare gear" they cried. I loved the badge system as I was able to get a fairly high iLevel (Gearscore back in those days) just by consistent grinding of dungeons. But some people believe that only high level raiders should have high level gear. I never agreed with that school of thought.

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How about when they bring back badges and the best pieces take weeks to get. You are ok with that right? i mean, who would complain about that.

Yes, I would be okay with that. Because I would know that my work would be rewarded. Right now, I can put in months of effort and get nothing.

[Molis]

Instead of a currency to buy targeted Azerite gear we should have gotten a new mailbox that opens daily and mails you gear.

Thats what I get from this opinion piece.

[Mazinger-Z]

Now that is useful feedback.

I haven't played the PTR, but I'm curious what could be done to improve the 8.1 changes, which seem to be made specifically to address what you're describing. I've heard for example that the titan residuum should be dropped from more sources, would that help? What is the average time it takes, with similar effort, to obtain progression towards good azerite gear?

I have nary a clue. I know they're highly invested in trying to draw out play time with RNG mechanics.

I bet adding the Titan Residuum left a taste in their mouth.

[The Stormbringer]

Screw retail, private servers are the way to go.

Listen, as someone who actually enjoyed my time on a private server a couple years ago, it was not in any way ideal. The constant rollbacks and restarts, and then everything eventually falling apart because the leaders had some bullshit drama and a couple were trying to work with gold farmers for $$$? No thank you. I'd rather not start somewhere, lose all progress, and then have to start over every 6 months or so.

[Teaon]

You didn't understand it at all it seems.

I am upset that this new system not only trolls us for doing what we were told to be doing for months now (grinding mulitple pieces of azerite gear) but then slaps us in the face with these ridiculous costs for gear we actually get to choose / want that are only affordable by doing things that we may not want to be doing to progress.

I for one do not enjoy Mythic+ grinding or breaking my skull against raid encounters I have to have stupid feasts, flasks, pots and other expensive time-sinking crap for, with openly hostile PUGs / frustrated guild raiders. I'd rather be able to craft or discover azerite armor out in the world than run through a dungeon listening to people being awful to each other. But nope. Can't do that! Gotta keep that subscription going with OUR way of doing things, or you can just not play at all.

i dont understand? u want the highest loot from raiding or mythic + without raiding and doing mythic +?

how entitled can u be?

[HordeFanboy]

Retail wow is like the ship from the Alien series, it can't be fixed and it must be destroyed.