Preach on the broken gear treadmill

[Alvito]

Pointing out that it is silly to have almost all if not all of your raid gear from weeks to months of progression tossed out instantly from WQ, auto win scenarios and the first week of raiding sure is catching a lot of flack from people here. How many people here really enjoyed having your azerite gear being swapped out instantly when the last patch hit? Who likes farming gear over and over hoping for some traits you want only to have to re do that when you bump to the next item level bracket of that gear?

[kamuimac]

This post and few others mentioning Asmongold remind me of the argument preach and Asmongold had over gear and essentially their views on the game.

Neither could really comprehend the other's pov. Yet people think they're the same (I'll admit though in that argument I fell on team preach)

i liked that argument - mainly because Asmongold repeated few times something which i have been writting on forums for years now - that its not only guilds trying out trial but also trials checking if guild is worth their time while preach is clearly a follower - "trials should do everything to make guilds happy no matter how demeaning this shit is because later on they will be the ones who will do this shit to new trials"

and yes neither of them could agree with other because they come from very different guild backgrounds.

[Mightytasty]

And? That doesn't change the point that Mythic gear isn't replaced by LFR gear of the next tier. Can it be? Sure, if you get an extremely lucky forge. Is the blanket statement I was commenting on true? No, no it's not.

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They do. They just don't listen to the very loud minority on the forums who think they represent the majority.

Let’s assume you are 100% correct and I am 100% wrong. Even take titanforging out of the equation. Normal mode gear replacing mythic with a 30iLvl jump is ridiculous.

[kamuimac]

Pointing out that it is silly to have almost all if not all of your raid gear from weeks to months of progression tossed out instantly from WQ, auto win scenarios and the first week of raiding sure is catching a lot of flack from people here. How many people here really enjoyed having your azerite gear being swapped out instantly when the last patch hit? Who likes farming gear over and over hoping for some traits you want only to have to re do that when you bump to the next item level bracket of that gear?

you are suggesting that in past you werent replacing all you gear when new tiers came.

which is a blatant lie.

unless you were in one of guilds which progressed in speed of 1 new normal / hc boss kill per week.

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Let’s assume you are 100% correct and I am 100% wrong. Even take titanforging out of the equation. Normal mode gear replacing mythic with a 30iLvl jump is ridiculous.

but its not replacing mythic gear . in order to replace basic mythic piece from uldir you need at least wf/tf piece from normal .

in order to replace it you need boss kills on hc not on normal .

which is working as intended.

[Philomene]

lmao gear was much harder to get. lmao replayability is much longer despite blizzard giving free gear to everyone. lmao see see. lmao hike hike.

gear was “harder” to get but it was more meaningful and also you’d keep it for longer as it was not invalidated by the next lore patch world quests. tier sets / currency cap was what kept people playing, obtaining gear at a steady rate while playing interesting classes

now people need titanforge bc random loot is getting showered for any random activity you do in the game (have you ever played borderlands ?), classes are dumbed down while 99% of the playerbase is still unable to perform properly, there’s no tier set or raid/leg quests anymore and raiding lost some appeal in favor of mythic+ where a lot of people play for rio score. so yeah better keep them playing and doing the same crap again and again hoping for that 415 to turn into a 425+socket

do you need help to figure out which design is healthier for the game ? I think millions of people did, why don’t you ?

[Alkizon]

Are we going back to all those topics again?

2. Characteristics (&shame to PvP talent system + time-gate/catch-up, item-case) +(+/+/+/+/+/+)+/+/+
5. About dungeons&requirements also M+/modes (+RNG+g.tokens+t/wf) +(+/+/+/+)+(+/+/+/+)+(+/+/+/+)+(+)+(+/+/+)+
10. Threat philosophy & badge+system & W.Boss mechanics (it's not mine, but I won't do this better) +/+/+

I believe that I have not much more to say than I already did, ...except ...may be. Well, that upgrade system (if any) should be controlled by players, because it's part of RPG customization (literally element of choice, how and what). Whether it'll be done through professions (but not as during WoD, it was too clumsy and simple there, we need joint work of several crafters for spare parts, we need a CD system with rare reagents (extraction of which could also be tied to (for specific items, to specific...) dungeons and raids), because this is how "catch-up" will be achieved due to excessive accumulation (banks+auction) of "old" upgrades to middle/end of expansion (which in some sense requires them to be BOE or could be somehow usable the same way as enchants do), which means it's decided by ordinary cash infusions, will naturally affect economy within the game, “usefulness” of professions) or through badges/tokens (which is also appropriate, but somewhat boring). However, I continue to believe that ilvl upgrade shouldn't exceed value of "relative insignificance" (2/4, but 1/2 even better and enough) while abnormal growth is bound to be controlled by rating “non-reinforcing” characteristics, which were once abundance in the game and coped well with their task of limiting growth of player strength (and at the same time naturally differentiating item's content area use, yes, I'm talking about PvP vs PVE characteristics and degree of their need for a particular activity) and so on and so on...

But! Here goes a little off topic.
We had some discussion (not here, not on forum) about game tokens. It doesn't matter in principle about what it was in general or how it happened at all, and besides, I don’t intend to defend statement... In short, meaning is that Blizzard in some way turns out to have formally solved problems of "selling gold": they took and so to say "headed" black market themselves. Naturally, from money point of view (if no one deceives anyone about essence of this item, about how they appear in the game) it's profitable for them, because tokens as a subscription are more expensive and in some way even get rid of "excess" in-game gold (although, as for me, this theme could be solved by a dozen other less unsuccessful ways). But, after all, it turned out from discussion that, not looking at some advantages, tokens constrains devs' ability to satisfy normal, adequate players in terms of upgrads and RPG customization freedom. Look here, it was relatively easy to earn gold, but if normal productive professions existed (and you can see that they obviously deliberately downplay and devalue them), then with excess/excessive relief of production of “reagent component” in-game progress could be “bought for real money” (yes, by means of buying tokens; it's not pay-to-win, but it still strongly devalues ​​other people's already made efforts, but this isn't the most important thing, since it doesn't matter to devs), and since all content is available easily and naturally at easiest level of complexity, then this phrase smoothly turns into game walkthrough could be “bought for real money” (which is only confirmed by incredible spam (judging by forums) about “sale raids” and other stuff in latest expansions (⇒ more gold demand ⇒ potentially more tokens), that is, they didn’t really get around that, only discovered how to make more own money on it) so to slow it down RNG system was introduced (it had to be less predetermined (=less rewarded), not crafted or something). What happens: they don’t want to give up extra money as tokens, this is direct profit and solves problem of illegal circulation of gold (although, I repeat, black market is unbeatable, here they're fighting with windmills, because they didn’t solve any in-game problems, only added them, here they literally “skimp on security system”, which again = (service) money), but if players are given opportunity to have unobstructed flexible upgrade system and RPG customization, then game will be done (in current state) by means of elitists and fat wallet for a couple of evenings and doesn't require subscription for more than a month, won't needed more (I repeat, they didn't solve this problem, they just think they do, but they don't, by the way if they really think so, they are even more stupid than it seems, it being just slowed down/veiled this process). If we simplify all of above, then it turns out that all these "tricky", "new-fangled" systems and additions don't have any sense to discuss within framework of design in general, none sence, they have no long-lasting and significant design potential even in head of devs themselves, and there're just only (really matters for them) such ordinary and banal "game tokens" (already in form of some kind of microtransactions' complex ⇒ in-game shop ⇒ potential profits)... yes, money. Conclusion itself isn't much new, but I'd rather like to show process logic, as well as fact that tokens aren't so “painless” for in-game design, as many argue...

Niwes
this is a typical concept of a smart cash grab system. game design supports this system. this means: Blizzard change their game design in a way, they support their profit making smart cash grab system. and thats the diffrence i meant in my last post: Blizz has this ability, to change the game. Goldsellers do not. often that game design change not results in a better product (for us). but in a product that better supports the smart cash grab system.

--- Edit ---
...and now let's take negative component in relation to “legal real money” and project on Classic-in-development (it'll have game token influence on in-game financial and progress component due to shared subscription (design itself is mostly out of danger here, because of promised = required authenticity there)), since it have determined and controloble by players "RPG customization", what would you say about this

[MoanaLisa]

Pointing out that it is silly to have almost all if not all of your raid gear from weeks to months of progression tossed out instantly from WQ, auto win scenarios and the first week of raiding sure is catching a lot of flack from people here. How many people here really enjoyed having your azerite gear being swapped out instantly when the last patch hit? Who likes farming gear over and over hoping for some traits you want only to have to re do that when you bump to the next item level bracket of that gear?

While it's true that the reward/obsolete cycle has accelerated I'm of the opinion that you raid because you enjoy raiding and the feeling of accomplishment of getting down the most difficult content in the game. Obsoleting gear has always been a thing. It's quicker now. It's also true that very special raid gear is only being received by a small minority of players. The outrage that casual players can catch up and at least "gear qualify" for the next raid is one result of the normal-heroic-mythic raiding community being rather small (and getting smaller). Another result is that the other 85% or so that never see anything like mythic raiding are a bigger audience for that nice drop than people want to admit.

The devs still pay lip service to the idea that the most difficult content has the highest chance of rewards for the best player but it's been a while since they paid any lip service at all that raiders should have a permanent head start on progression. Catch-up mechanics are designed to keep the vast bulk of their paying audience around. The best approach is to not overly worry about other players and whether or not you imagine they are "deserving". That idea is gone, has been gone for some years, and unlikely to return.

[Mightytasty]

you are suggesting that in past you werent replacing all you gear when new tiers came.

which is a blatant lie.

unless you were in one of guilds which progressed in speed of 1 new normal / hc boss kill per week.

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but its not replacing mythic gear . in order to replace basic mythic piece from uldir you need at least wf/tf piece from normal .

in order to replace it you need boss kills on hc not on normal .

which is working as intended.

Later tier gear is usually better at equal iLvl, has more Azerite rings for example.

[niil945]

Let’s assume you are 100% correct and I am 100% wrong. Even take titanforging out of the equation. Normal mode gear replacing mythic with a 30iLvl jump is ridiculous.

Is 385 gear higher ilvl than 385 ilvl gear? Hrm, I dunno. Can anyone check on a calculator for me? lol

Later tier gear is usually better at equal iLvl, has more Azerite rings for example.

You do realize that the amount of Azerite rings have nothing to do with what tier we're on right? The additional ring was added to address a problem with Azerite gear not providing enough choices, it had nothing to do with BoD.

[niil945]

They wouldn't end up with this broken and completely uninteresting version of game if they did

Not interested in the vast majority of suggestions from people on the forums, thanks.

[arkanon]

It added value to your character. Every second spent progressing even if it was something braindead like weapon skill made your character feel more valuable to you because of the time and care you spent essentially checking off boxes.

I Absolutely agree when it came to things like def cap, hit cap, etc etc etc/

But i think weapon skill, something with zero immersion, zero difficulty, zero skill involved - thats the worst possible example of it.

[Chillside]

He said it cost 10k a night to be a mythic raider. Now I know it's been a couple years since I was myself a mythic raider, but I find that extremely hard to believe.

Could anybody here 6+ mythic confirm/deny?

It could cost more, but there are alot of variables involved

[Alvito]

While it's true that the reward/obsolete cycle has accelerated I'm of the opinion that you raid because you enjoy raiding and the feeling of accomplishment of getting down the most difficult content in the game. Obsoleting gear has always been a thing. It's quicker now. It's also true that very special raid gear is only being received by a small minority of players. The outrage that casual players can catch up and at least "gear qualify" for the next raid is one result of the normal-heroic-mythic raiding community being rather small (and getting smaller). Another result is that the other 85% or so that never see anything like mythic raiding are a bigger audience for that nice drop than people want to admit.

The devs still pay lip service to the idea that the most difficult content has the highest chance of rewards for the best player but it's been a while since they paid any lip service at all that raiders should have a permanent head start on progression. Catch-up mechanics are designed to keep the vast bulk of their paying audience around. The best approach is to not overly worry about other players and whether or not you imagine they are "deserving". That idea is gone, has been gone for some years, and unlikely to return.

It has always been a thing, but a much slower thing that effected classes and specs in different ways. In the past it was very common for people to hold onto the entire 4 set or a 2 set as long as possible and swap out all at once or something like that. Azerite gear was dead in the water the second they bumped up the item levels for it and added a new ring. Insane TF/WF, the auto 400 gear from warfronts out of control WQ rewards all chip away at the reward system for raiding. For me this is much like EN. In EN for my character there were 3 items out of the entire place that I would have used in any shape or form all other items that I wanted were from dungeons or crafted. Now that is fine except the huge time and gold cost that goes into raiding. I do agree that the raiding community is certainly getting much smaller, for many reason. One being the change to PL loot, now that people can't earn DKP or whatever their group did on progression nights you are only rewarded for kills. So for guilds stuck on a boss for awhile it is harder and harder to get people to stick around for that. Catch up mechanics are a good thing and they should have them, but there are far too many and they give too much now. One of my friends just capped a new 120 the week before BoD launched, it has a 42 neck and counting thanks to the massive leveling you get from the big 1 time AP pay out quests that others did months ago for nothing. It is also at 398 or something like that for item level, it has never been in a mythic 0 or higher dungeon, no raids, no lfr, just WQ and warfronts. Having an alt zip to where a heroic geared raiding character is and having their neck fly past older characters because of the wacky way they did AP and the week to week cost changes is a big miss. I don't worry about if other players deserve gear, nor did I mention anything like that. Having gear just fly at people for little to no effort starts to degrade the system though, that I do care about. As people realize they don't have to do content to get rewards the entire thing starts to fall apart.

[Chillside]

I'm curious but how? What are you spending 10k on a night?

Well, I believe that most raiders have alchemy/inscrption/cooking on their characters (alts), so even if we excude food/flask/pot/tome costs just raw gold required for repair is too high on progression nights, also consider the fact that some players might have to go back and change traits ( which, if you do it frequently we all know how nasty it can get )

I'm not joking, few weeks ago we were progressing on conclave and we made two rogues go back to assa, I believe it costed around 25k for one of them to reforge his azerite pieces

[Alvito]

I'm curious but how? What are you spending 10k on a night?

He said it cost 10k a night to be a mythic raider. Now I know it's been a couple years since I was myself a mythic raider, but I find that extremely hard to believe.

Could anybody here 6+ mythic confirm/deny?

Potions alone can easily run you that much in a night. It isn't uncommon for them to go for 500 g a pop on my server, that is 1k a pull just on potions. Repairs easily hit 600 to 1000 on progression nights too. If you are popping runes or even worse vantis runes than things sky rocket. God forbid you ever want to change traits on your gear or run multiple specs in the group. It is a very extreme case, but one of the Method priests reforge costs got up to 3 million per switch so they had to stop doing it.

[niil945]

I wish they would tone everything down just a bit, like this for example. Also no mythic drops from WF or anything like.

Uldir LFR = 340, Normal = 355, Heroic = 370, Mythic = 385
BoD LFR = 355, Normal = 370, Heroic = 385, Mythic = 410

The other thing is M+, which I have far more fun doing yet I'm not sure if tossing out gear at that rate is good for the game. And my experience is someone who has done some mythic in the past, but mostly am a heroic raider.

So I'll agree there, I think if someone finishes normal and farms it out they shouldn't require catchup mechanics to get them prepped for the next tier of normal. A 30 ilvl gap is too large between tiers to not have a catch up though. I don't know if that was a typo there and you meant 400 ilvl from Mythic BoD but if you didn't a 25 ilvl jump is bad news.

But for M+ weekly chest or warfronts every 3 weeks or emissary quests. I'm perfectly fine with the rewards as is. If someone raids normal and does solo content they'll gear faster than someone just doing world content, but unless they progress into heroic they'll hit a cap for the tier. And after a while a casual can catch up due to forging and solo content awarding time gated gear of equivalent quality. Odds are people won't end up heroic geared if they just do solo content over a tier, they might get close though (~395ish) but the odds of someone peaking over 400 are slim unless they're doing heroic/mythic content. And I'm a big fan of M+ content.

I'd be fine with thinning the amount of loot we get as long as the progression isn't slowed, less pieces but better quality or more control over what we get. But I'm not a fan of removing content or slowing the pace of upgrades.

[Xath]

There are smarter people than him. You should not listen any idiot that is on you tube. His name fits his story - Preaching nostalgic bullshit that no one wants except nostalgic players. Luckily, not everyone is nostalgic.

Yeah that's why Blizz stopped publishing sub numbers so they wouldn't embarrass their old numbers because people just want play the patch and don't find it boring as hell that they could quit for months and then come back and basically instantly have it not matter.

[Alvito]

you are suggesting that in past you werent replacing all you gear when new tiers came.

which is a blatant lie.

unless you were in one of guilds which progressed in speed of 1 new normal / hc boss kill per week.

You would replace it, just not nearly as quickly. As I pointed out Azerite gear is the biggest part of this. Your 3 core pieces of gear were instantly swapped out because even equal item level stuff that might have had worse traits on it now had a bonus trait so it was better. So in week 1 even without raiding you could have dumped it all. If you compare that to tier gear that would have never happened, in many cases it was very common for people to hold onto set bonuses until they could completely switch over which would take awhile, in some wacky cases old set bonuses got even better thanks to new things in the next raid. Hell the top frost mage parse on Zul in Uldir, had on their ToS 2 piece, sure that is a broken set, but it proves the point nicely.

[Echocho]

This post and few others mentioning Asmongold remind me of the argument preach and Asmongold had over gear and essentially their views on the game.

Neither could really comprehend the other's pov. Yet people think they're the same (I'll admit though in that argument I fell on team preach)

The truth in most cases probably lie somewhere in between. They're two extremes, most people probably care a more balanced amount about progress and gear.

[Emerald Archer]

Well that's cuz that dude is spam reforging for some reason. And every single mythic guild I have ever been in provided guild repairs, if not free food and cauldrons at times. 10k gold a night is just absurd.

You realise pots are like 500g a piece right? 40 wipes on a prog night is relatively normal, so even if you aren't hitting the point where you use your 2nd pot, that's 40 pots.

500g per pot x40, that's 20k for a single raids night. 40k if you're progging on a boss that see's both pot uses somewhat early in the fight.

If I was to buy the mats now, for 20 pots i'm looking at 160 sirens, going about 4k on my server, and then riverbudx200 which is anywhere between 5k and 10k.

So lets assume bare minimum, that's 9k, that'll get maybe 10 procs on average. Just spent 9k on 30 pots, still need 10 more for a single night of single pot wipes.