Blizzard invalidating content once again

[Eleccybubb]

Timegate and this superfast gear grabbing mechanism will unironically kill the game if they keep it next expansion

It actually will too lol. On top of the RNG involved people just aren't interested. Hence why the majority quit.

[Dizson]

Blizzard forgot why people play this game, when rewards stop being rewards (gear) becasue its just free then the game stops being fun and I don't think most people play for battle pet and achievemnts. I'm not even going to go into the class design that has been shit since alpha and they promised and didn't deliver either. As bad as it sounds I hope WoW dies at this point and something better will take its place.

[Kralljin]

Blizzard invalidating content, since 2007.

Like this is anything new. In TBC you could get Black Temple gear when Sunwell came out, and gear equal to TK gear when Zul Aman came out. Every expansion has expanded this system further.

You are not the first person to point this out.
However, the crucial difference is here that in TBC (or any other expansion barring BfA) you didn't get Loot on par with the current raid tier via WQ's (or Daily quests for that matter).

That is(at least in my opinion) the point of this thread, it's not pointing out some magically new development, but this is now reaching a point where the gearing as progression system starts to fail because Blizzard provides extremely convenient short cuts to current Raid gear.

I've said it earlier, the catch up mechanics of Wotlk are downright hardcore by BfA's standards.

In Legion it stepped up a bit because of mythic+ and world quest, they wanted stuff to be relevant through the whole expansion, instead of parts of the expansion. Remember when dungeons stopped being relevant after a month? Was that a good system?

Maybe it was better because it didn't devalue actually good content in the game, like the motivation to raid is a two part story, first you have the experience to raid itself, then the rewards, without both people are losing interest in raiding.
After all, history has shown that people choose the most efficient way to gear, not the "most fun" one.

World quests just aren't good content, i don't really play my class while doing those, i just play some ARPG style where the goal is to tag on many mobs as possible without triggering the leash mechanic.

[Osmeric]

Timegate and this superfast gear grabbing mechanism will unironically kill the game if they keep it next expansion

Well, except for PvP. There they just got rid of gear reward for most players.

[Elias01]

Blizzard invalidating content, since 2007.

Like this is anything new. In TBC you could get Black Temple gear when Sunwell came out, and gear equal to TK gear when Zul Aman came out. Every expansion has expanded this system further. In Legion it stepped up a bit because of mythic+ and world quest, they wanted stuff to be relevant through the whole expansion, instead of parts of the expansion. Remember when dungeons stopped being relevant after a month? Was that a good system?

Sure, we got preferences, but this system allows people not only to catch up, but also have a chance to strengthen your character further while you wait for next content. We can agree or not if it's a good system, but this is something that has been in the game for 12+ years.

So you telling us that buying gear from badge vendor which requared like 80 boss kills in heroic dungeon and karazhan + runing 10 man raid Zul Aman is on par with doing 4 faceroll world Q? No it isnt. TBC gear from vedor and raid wasnt catch up. It was progression becouse you actualy had to put time and effort to buy this items. Getting "catch up" gear in TBC =/= getting catch up gear in BFA. BFA is 1000% esyer.

[Doffen]

You are not the first person to point this out.
However, the crucial difference is here that in TBC (or any other expansion barring BfA) you didn't get Loot on par with the current raid tier via WQ's (or Daily quests for that matter).

World Quest reward gives base 370 next reset. 25 ilvl below. Emissaries give the same as normal Crucible, wich is the new current content. If you are going to gear up through emissaries alone that would take several months, if you aren't very lucky. And I guess that's the biggest issue for people, the RNG we have, not the actual catch-up mechanic.

That is(at least in my opinion) the point of this thread, it's not pointing out some magically new development, but this is now reaching a point where the gearing as progression system starts to fail because Blizzard provides extremely convenient short cuts to current Raid gear.

Even in TBC you got gear close to current raid-gear. Some few items were even better. Sure, it's not like it is now, because now you'll get the same gear from so many more sources, compared to TBC that is. See WotLK below. Compare it to Legion and you have warfront as an extra source. In WoD you improved your current raid-gear, through very casual content, LFR and low level mythic dungeons.

I am not saying this system is perfect either, but if they take it back a notch(see warfront) and it will be better.

I've said it earlier, the catch up mechanics of Wotlk are downright hardcore by BfA's standards.

Naxxramas was way easier than Uldir, Ulduar normal mode was just as easy as normal BoD, and you got same gear as current raid from casual content. Even tier-items. Not hardcore, at all.

Maybe it was better because it didn't devalue actually good content in the game, like the motivation to raid is a two part story, first you have the experience to raid itself, then the rewards, without both people are losing interest in raiding.
After all, history has shown that people choose the most efficient way to gear, not the "most fun" one.

World quests just aren't good content, i don't really play my class while doing those, i just play some ARPG style where the goal is to tag on many mobs as possible without triggering the leash mechanic.

Maybe it wasn't. This system changed significantly with mythic+, because they wanted another option to raid to get the best gear. This system got overall a big praise in Legion. We are going with the same dungeon-system now. Did people overall change their opinion about dungeons being relevant through the whole expansion?

If I am not mistaken, blizzard said recently in an interview that they think we are getting gear from too many sourcers, and I'll bet Warfront is the one that goes away in 9.0

- - - Updated - - -

So you telling us that buying gear from badge vendor which requared like 80 boss kills in heroic dungeon and karazhan + runing 10 man raid Zul Aman is on par with doing 4 faceroll world Q? No it isnt. TBC gear from vedor and raid wasnt catch up. It was progression becouse you actualy had to put time and effort to buy this items. Getting "catch up" gear in TBC =/= getting catch up gear in BFA. BFA is 1000% esyer.

Oh it was easy, because we outgeared those dungeons very fast. Not saying it was just as easy as now, but we are talking about invalidating content here. If current system invalidates content, so did it in The Burning Crusade as well. I would take away a zero, and say BfA is 100% easier :>

Do I want the Burning Crusade system back? Hell yeah.

[Redroniksre]

The scrubs that dislike raiding don't need mythic raiding gear, they can go do whatever they like. The scrubs that do like raiding are the ones affected the most by this shitty reward structure

You are right they don't (right now, Blizzard can make harder solo content, they just choose not to). But the game is centered around gearing, so if you make it take only 2 weeks for a casual player to be their personal BiS, then they will quit, en mass. WoD already shows this effect with its raid centered approach.

[Theangryone]

I will never understand why snowflake raiders have cared what gear other people get. If you raid, then raid. If you pvp, then pvp. Just quit your entitled bitching. I do both and could absolutely give a fuck less about the gear other people receive. Great time for alt gearing.

[Elias01]

I will never understand why snowflake raiders have cared what gear other people get. If you raid, then raid. If you pvp, then pvp. Just quit your entitled bitching. I do both and could absolutely give a fuck less about the gear other people receive. Great time for alt gearing.

Becouse you are wrong? It is not high end players what care about this. It is actual casual players what doesnt like this change becouse it ruins their progression. Mythic raiders doesnt give single *** about this.

[Kralljin]

Emissaries give the same as normal Crucible, wich is the new current content.

You really gotta think about what you're saying if you consider an Instance with two Bosses "new current Content".
How many Items do drop per spec? four Items total on my Ele at least, and i think some specs (like Prot Warr) are even at three.

If three items total count as "new current content", then i'm quite frankly at a loss.

If you are going to gear up through emissaries alone that would take several months, if you aren't very lucky.

It's not like there are Warfronts, or the Weekly M+ Cache, which needs like a +5/6 for a ~400 Item, not taking Titanforging into account.

Even in TBC you got gear close to current raid-gear.

And how long did it take in actual playtime?
What did i do to get those badges? I had to raid actual Content, like Karazhan, or ZA (which wasn't that easy until you totally overgeared it).
If you just do heroic (including the Daily heroic) that's still reasonable content, BC heroics (besides Mechanar) were nothing to sneeze at.

And if you're solely limited to Daily quests from the Isle of Quel'danas, it took you weeks to get a single item.

Now look at the WQ content, i log in, check if there's any Emissary that gives me decent loot, do four WQ's if one is up, which takes me about 15 - 20 minutes.
Are those 20 minutes fun? No, they're not, World quests aren't fun.

Because this is the secondary issue i've raised: The content that awards these items is just not fun.

Not hardcore

If you think this is about the difficulty of content, you're missing the point.
Catch up in Wotlk was one tier below the current Raid tier, now Catch up is on par with current raid gear.

Compare this to ICC heroics.
They dropped 232, which was on par with ToTC 10 Nhc.

ICC 10 Nhc dropped 251, so even if people got fulled geared from those heroics (which was kinda difficult due the loot system back then) they still were way off from even the lowest difficulty of ICC.

Now, i can just sit and wait, why bother raiding if i get equivalent with like 1-2 month delay?
Or if i look into the dungeon journal of a raid and a good chunk of items aren't a huge upgrade, that kinda kills the motivation to go into a raid, if you're not in a guild who plays together for the sake of playing together.

[kubaje]

I will never understand why snowflake raiders have cared what gear other people get. If you raid, then raid. If you pvp, then pvp. Just quit your entitled bitching. I do both and could absolutely give a fuck less about the gear other people receive. Great time for alt gearing.

Oh god, this isn't about someone wanting to be a snowflake.

The point is that everything non-mythic raiders did for the past 1-3 months is now 100% wasted time. With this change I'm a retard for putting any effort in trying to gear my characters for the past few months. I didn't get anything I can't get now, so there is absolutely no reason to gear your character as soon as content is released.

Now with this change, I have no reason to raid normal, just because the loot is worse than doing 4 WQs a day, and neither do I have a reason to raid heroic, because I can get full 400+ without even turning my screen on. My only option at this point is to raid mythic, which means I have to at least put 20 hours each week to prepare my main character + pure raiding time. What would I get for that? Loot which will be of WQ quality in 2-3 months, a mount and tmog I can farm a lot easier at the end of the expansion. The only thing I will not get is the achievements. Wow.

Sure, I'll basically get a part time job for 2 achievements. Or I'll just play for one week at the end of the expansion and have everything people have who played 20 hours a week for 2 years.

[Osmeric]

Oh god, this isn't about someone wanting to be a snowflake.

The point is that everything non-mythic raiders did for the past 1-3 months is now 100% wasted time. With this change I'm a retard for putting any effort in trying to gear my characters for the past few months. I didn't get anything I can't get now, so there is absolutely no reason to gear your character as soon as content is released

Isn't that always true of new content, eventually? You're apparently complaining that the content was obsoleted too fast, since you can't be dumb enough to be complaining that it was obsoleted at all.

So, was it too fast? Why do you think invalidating gear after 3 months was no good, but (say) 6 months was ok?

[Elias01]

Isn't that always true of new content, eventually? You're apparently complaining that the content was obsoleted too fast, since you can't be dumb enough to be complaining that it was obsoleted at all.

So, was it too fast? Why do you think invalidating gear after 3 months was no good, but (say) 6 months was ok?

I think you dont understand what invalidation of gear means. Adding new tier with new better gear isnt invalidating. It is progression. Atficial itemlvl bossing rewards for doing trivial content is invalidating content.

[Dilbon]

Just take the GW2 route and have a max level for gear for the entire expansion (like 340 for BfA). Then make different content give different gear.

[Kralljin]

So, was it too fast? Why do you think invalidating gear after 3 months was no good, but (say) 6 months was ok?

Because if you look into the grand scheme of things, nothing matters.

Why play this patch? Next Patch will invalidate it anyway.
Why play this expansion? Next expansion will invalidate it anyway.
Why play this game at all, actually?

Like let's get real, imagine if the Ilvl from every source would increase by +5 every day, would gear still be a motivator to play the game?

Gear needs to retain some value over a given timeframe, right now Blizzard is overstepping a point where the overlooming situation described above becomes far too present to "just ignore it" anymore.

[xRATJARx]

Yea, this bs basically made me stop playing, I raid for loot, no point in playing if I can catch squirrels and get the same ilvl.

Why would you raid for loot upgrades?? Other than for the appearance (which is separate to player power that you strive for), loot is just a tool for completing the raid. What’s the point in playing the hardest content if you only do it to see your ilvl go up??

You’re playing the game wrong brother.

[Onikaroshi]

Why would you raid for loot upgrades?? Other than for the appearance (which is separate to player power that you strive for), loot is just a tool for completing the raid. What’s the point in playing the hardest content if you only do it to see your ilvl go up??

You’re playing the game wrong brother.

Because it's an RPG and character progression is the number one point? Been playing this game for 14 years and have always played for loot #1

[xRATJARx]

Because it's an RPG and character progression is the number one point? Been playing this game for 14 years and have always played for loot #1

I mean, if you’re simple enough to be entertained by a skinner box, then more power to you.

[Onikaroshi]

I mean, if you’re simple enough to be entertained by a skinner box, then more power to you.

Insults eh? If that's all you have to resort to then have a good day.

[Osmeric]

I think you dont understand what invalidation of gear means. Adding new tier with new better gear isnt invalidating. It is progression. Atficial itemlvl bossing rewards for doing trivial content is invalidating content.

And I think you don't understand what's going on here. They are implicitly nerfing content at a late stage in a tier by increasing the gear people can get before doing it. This gives groups a chance to do some final progression past where they crapped out at the "intended" gear level.

The alternative to what's happening now is either explicit nerfs to the content -- which folks like you have thrown extravagant conniptions over -- or just letting those people remain stuck at a wall. Apparently they think this approach is superior to either of those alternatives.