Nazjatar Gear - A casual player dream?

[Djuntas]

The question OP needs to ask him self; Why do you play wow just to gear up if you aint gonna use the gear anyway. Once Ilvl 400 world content becomes easy, even the worst WQs can be solo'd somewhat.

[Big Thanks]

430 is the same iLVL as Heroic Eternal Palace. Call it catch-up gear, or alternative progression, or whatever. The effect is the same: It makes it pointless to run any content below that level, INVALIDATING it. And a player didn't have to do anything besides wait for a patch for it to be available.

Where is the progression? What content or challenges did they have to overcome in order to access it?

I don't understand why this is a difficult concept for you to tackle.

So in your opinion TIME is of no importance in this debate -__-

What if only on the last day of the patch you were able to get 430 ilvl gear?
Not important...invalidates all content.

You are completely disregarding the timing.

I may be wrong in considering "time" important on the argument...but you are completely ignoring it.

[msdos]

The question OP needs to ask him self; Why do you play wow just to gear up if you aint gonna use the gear anyway. Once Ilvl 400 world content becomes easy, even the worst WQs can be solo'd somewhat.

This is the conclusion I keep coming to that has me staying logged out: the only playground's for the gear left that are any fun are PVP and look at people's opinion on PVP in the PVP expansion. I don't think a single person in my guild even does PVP at all.
*buffs Sub rogue randomly 1 week before PVP tournament*

Nothing to see here folks, nothing at all!

[Wingspan]

430 is the same iLVL as Heroic Eternal Palace. Call it catch-up gear, or alternative progression, or whatever. The effect is the same: It makes it pointless to run any content below that level, INVALIDATING it. And a player didn't have to do anything besides wait for a patch for it to be available.

Where is the progression? What content or challenges did they have to overcome in order to access it?

I don't understand why this is a difficult concept for you to tackle.

If gear is the only reason that someone raids at a certain level, then it was never going to end well.

Gear is a bonus and a facilitator, but if someone isn’t getting something more from the experience worth having (social interaction or whatever), then eventually they will realize that none of this is really as important as we thought it was... which is true, gaming is mostly just meaningless entertainment. But that realization can be a harsh one.

In the long run, it’s probably a good thing to introduce this concept to newer players in hopes that they won’t be as shattered/angry a few years down the line when they realize that all in-game progression and challenges mean almost nothing in the scope of a lifetime.

I played through the entire Zork trilogy back when it was current and there was no internet for walkthrough guides. I had fun... but it was/is completely meaningless when stacked up to the rest of my lifetime. And anything... literally anything that I ever did in WoW is just as meaningless.

Anyone that is truly upset (and not just trolling) over how digital goods in a game are dispensed are probably going to have a rough go of things for a while as they come to terms with how little it all means... I have been there - they have my sympathy.

[Elias01]

If gear is the only reason that someone raids at a certain level, then it was never going to end well.

Gear is a bonus and a facilitator, but if someone isn’t getting something more from the experience worth having (social interaction or whatever), then eventually they will realize that none of this is really as important as we thought it was... which is true, gaming is mostly just meaningless entertainment. But that realization can be a harsh one.

In the long run, it’s probably a good thing to introduce this concept to newer players in hopes that they won’t be as shattered/angry a few years down the line when they realize that all in-game progression and challenges mean almost nothing in the scope of a lifetime.

I played through the entire Zork trilogy back when it was current and there was no internet for walkthrough guides. I had fun... but it was/is completely meaningless when stacked up to the rest of my lifetime. And anything... literally anything that I ever did in WoW is just as meaningless.

Anyone that is truly upset (and not just trolling) over how digital goods in a game are dispensed are probably going to have a rough go of things for a while... they have my sympathy.

Everthing you do in life is also meanibgless yet you still do it.

[msdos]

Everthing you do in life is also meanibgless yet you still do it.

Yeah but there's a giant intangible tier list of meaningless things and some meaningless things are the top and take priority. WoW tiddly winks is at the very bottom of that list.

[Wingspan]

Everthing you do in life is also meanibgless yet you still do it.

We might never be entirely sure of that.

If there is an afterlife, then there is a meaning... if not, then we will never know if there is meaning or not (because we will not be around to make the evaluation).

[SirCowdog]

So in your opinion TIME is of no importance in this debate -__-

What if only on the last day of the patch you were able to get 430 ilvl gear?
Not important...invalidates all content.

You are completely disregarding the timing.

I may be wrong in considering "time" important on the argument...but you are completely ignoring it.

What part of my point about new patch content invalidating old patch content isn't getting through here?

If a player only got 430 ilvl gear on the last day of the patch, that means he's been playing and progressing the entire time up until that point. And all that effort is made pointless the second the patch drops. Progressing, coordinating your raid group, farming mats, learning strats....all of it becomes invalid because you can just solo grind some faceroll world quests.

In effect, if a player is still progressing, he can just drop everything and skip ahead. And that skipping ahead is the problem. It instantly diminishes the value of any previous content. Players don't have the entire expansion to work on or work through. They only have the current patch content.

And that might seem fine to someone who's plugged into the game 24/7 because they've already consumed everything. But those players likely won't get any benefit from Benthic gear or catch-up mechanics. They don't need to catch up. But everyone else? They're actually having value of content robbed from them.

But I guess that's what "Casual" players want? To not have to progress, but instead get jumped forward every couple months and not play the content you're paying for?

[msdos]

People thought M+ was a casual players dream too, but we're realizing it isn't sustainable, well, I realized it a while ago.

People realizing they're gonna have to rebuild their IO score every season and every expansion should be enough to kill M+. The power of M+ is how puggable it is, but if people just completely move to IO and in-house M+, it'll kill it. Treated like a god one season, a scrub the next. Getting declined with a really high IO score because your class isn't in the meta (what was the point then?). There is no skill attrition, you don't get worse at the game over time and the mechanics/prefix they add are all the same: interrupt, dodge, soak, use stupid item, etc.
How is that sustainable? Basically you need a constant flow of prefixes and procedural generation and rewards and tiers of loot.

Whatever WoW thinks it needs to do, it's already being done on Path of Exile and Diablo and other games.

[SirCowdog]

If gear is the only reason that someone raids at a certain level, then it was never going to end well.

Gear is a bonus and a facilitator, but if someone isn’t getting something more from the experience worth having (social interaction or whatever), then eventually they will realize that none of this is really as important as we thought it was... which is true, gaming is mostly just meaningless entertainment. But that realization can be a harsh one.

In the long run, it’s probably a good thing to introduce this concept to newer players in hopes that they won’t be as shattered/angry a few years down the line when they realize that all in-game progression and challenges mean almost nothing in the scope of a lifetime.

I played through the entire Zork trilogy back when it was current and there was no internet for walkthrough guides. I had fun... but it was/is completely meaningless when stacked up to the rest of my lifetime. And anything... literally anything that I ever did in WoW is just as meaningless.

Anyone that is truly upset (and not just trolling) over how digital goods in a game are dispensed are probably going to have a rough go of things for a while as they come to terms with how little it all means... I have been there - they have my sympathy.

The point I'm trying to make isn't to avoid some sort of existential, materialistic crisis. It's to simply recognize that Blizzard is effectively cutting out the value of progressing through an expansion's content by invalidating that content with every major patch. They're so god damned worried about forcing player interaction that they attempt to jam everyone into the current content whether they like it or not, not even realizing that by doing so they make all previous content(which players might stay for) into a ghost town.

It's forced obsolescence on the scale of every few months or so. Is it any wonder why players are steadily leaving the game when there's nothing of lasting value to invest in to keep them interested past the first couple weeks of a new patch?

[Big Thanks]

What part of my point about new patch content invalidating old patch content isn't getting through here?

If a player only got 430 ilvl gear on the last day of the patch, that means he's been playing and progressing the entire time up until that point. And all that effort is made pointless the second the patch drops. Progressing, coordinating your raid group, farming mats, learning strats....all of it becomes invalid because you can just solo grind some faceroll world quests.

In effect, if a player is still progressing, he can just drop everything and skip ahead. And that skipping ahead is the problem. It instantly diminishes the value of any previous content. Players don't have the entire expansion to work on or work through. They only have the current patch content.

And that might seem fine to someone who's plugged into the game 24/7 because they've already consumed everything. But those players likely won't get any benefit from Benthic gear or catch-up mechanics. They don't need to catch up. But everyone else? They're actually having value of content robbed from them.

But I guess that's what "Casual" players want? To not have to progress, but instead get jumped forward every couple months and not play the content you're paying for?

Its a fallacy that "raiding" is the only "worthwhile" content. Says who? Cataclysm? One of the worst and complete raid or die expansions?

Then, you yet again disregard my argument of "timing" (unless my english is so bad i dont understand)

Benthic gear chinese farmers will only get this gear LATE into the patch.
We will only enjoy this gear 1 month or less.

Heroic Raiders will have this gear
1) Playing the content they love
2) Much earlier into the patch

- - - Updated - - -

Is it any wonder why players are steadily leaving the game when there's nothing of lasting value to invest in to keep them interested past the first couple weeks of a new patch?

Benthic gear farm will last months
Yep, its actually perfect to keep players subscribed.

[Thelxi]

I find people's emotional response to this quite weird. 400ilvl is current heroic gear, and any casual today can get over the 400ilvl mark quite effortlessly in 76 days (lol) by just doing emissary quests, warfronts, world bosses, against overwhelming odds, that kinda stuff.

Next patch heroic ilvl will be 430, so relatively it will be exactly what 400 is today. If casuals can get to 430 in 76 days next patch, what is the interesting or shocking difference? Like seriously people use your brain.

Also, can that gear even warforge/titanforge? If not then there is a hard cap on 430 for casuals, unlike now where casuals will accumulate a couple of high ilvl pieces just by repeatedly rolling the dice on the welfare gear.

Also, this reward system is clearly very similar to the timeless isle's burden of eternity system. I imagine this pearl gear is a direct result of feedback about people wanting timeless isle style content again and also wanting less RNG.

The only thing that will be different is that people will potentially be able to farm this gear at their own pace on multiple alts instead of rolling the dice on daily/weekly/monthly lockouts like they do today. Crazy.

[Otimus]

For a casual player, LFR isn't even a good source of ilvl compared to world quests even. I've stopped raiding at all this expansion (not enjoying them or the expansion at all) and I have four toons in gear superior to LFR without touching mythic+

When I was playing, I pretty much outgeared LFR before LFR unlocked. It was like this in Legion, too. And WoD, too, actually. BFA is where I finally got fully tired of it and quit. WoD made me quit off and on. Legion distracted me with compelling content. BFA had nothing for me. When everything very casual feels worthless, and I have nothing meaningful to work toward, games like this become worthless to me.

I want MoP back Aside from a lack of dungeons, I felt it was the most well rounded in how content was designed. Shit came out fast, was feature packed, and had something for every play style. (Well, until the final patch anyways)

All you get now is them dangling keys over your head so you'll get distracted and throw money at them so they can make the content for the hardcore players, the ones they actually care about in a capacity that's larger than superficial.

[kamuimac]

People thought M+ was a casual players dream too, but we're realizing it isn't sustainable, well, I realized it a while ago.

People realizing they're gonna have to rebuild their IO score every season and every expansion should be enough to kill M+. The power of M+ is how puggable it is, but if people just completely move to IO and in-house M+, it'll kill it. Treated like a god one season, a scrub the next. Getting declined with a really high IO score because your class isn't in the meta (what was the point then?). There is no skill attrition, you don't get worse at the game over time and the mechanics/prefix they add are all the same: interrupt, dodge, soak, use stupid item, etc.
How is that sustainable? Basically you need a constant flow of prefixes and procedural generation and rewards and tiers of loot.

Whatever WoW thinks it needs to do, it's already being done on Path of Exile and Diablo and other games.

it was .

and then toxic playerbase invented raider.io and mythic + crumbled.

while there was obvious easy solution - let people choose key difficulty manualy so they could ignore timers if they want.

but no Ion as always had to cater to toxic players wanting to exclue others - so popularity of mythic + dropped .

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Its a fallacy that "raiding" is the only "worthwhile" content. Says who? Cataclysm? One of the worst and complete raid or die expansions?

nobody is making the argument of saying Raiding is the only worth while content ,, only that that 's where you get all the good gear

you 've repeated over and over again that there is other content worth wile... and I agree ! Although i don' t think every other aspect of the game that is not Raiding should give the same lvl of gear that raiding does

you seem to be purposely ignoring Sir Cow Dog 's point about skipping and invalidating content to further your own point , which is that you use the term Casual to justify being lazy

[Big Thanks]

nobody is making the argument of saying Raiding is the only worth while content ,, only that that 's where you get all the good gear

you 've repeated over and over again that there is other content worth wile... and I agree ! Although i don' t think every other aspect of the game that is not Raiding should give the same lvl of gear that raiding does

you seem to be purposely ignoring Sir Cow Dog 's point about skipping and invalidating content to further your own point , which is that you use the term Casual to justify being lazy

I didnt ignore Sircowdogs point...i gave him an answer.

I brought the word "time" and "timing" WHEN you get the gear on the lifespan of the patch.

He refuses to consider the "time" when you get the gear a factor.

[Shadowdance]

What part of my point about new patch content invalidating old patch content isn't getting through here?

If a player only got 430 ilvl gear on the last day of the patch, that means he's been playing and progressing the entire time up until that point. And all that effort is made pointless the second the patch drops. Progressing, coordinating your raid group, farming mats, learning strats....all of it becomes invalid because you can just solo grind some faceroll world quests.

In effect, if a player is still progressing, he can just drop everything and skip ahead. And that skipping ahead is the problem. It instantly diminishes the value of any previous content. Players don't have the entire expansion to work on or work through. They only have the current patch content.

And that might seem fine to someone who's plugged into the game 24/7 because they've already consumed everything. But those players likely won't get any benefit from Benthic gear or catch-up mechanics. They don't need to catch up. But everyone else? They're actually having value of content robbed from them.

But I guess that's what "Casual" players want? To not have to progress, but instead get jumped forward every couple months and not play the content you're paying for?

I agree with this. I understand it's for people who don't have a lot of time to play, and I don't get to as much as I used to or would like to, but still I don't like the idea of skipping steps. For the target audience it's aimed for like you said already, it trivializes their progression thus far. And for the players with more time that might have one or multiple alts it's good in a way but then all of the replay value of the previous tier is then gone. And for a new player that just hit 120 where the incentive to want to raid content that's not current tier when they can world quests and get equivalent of better gear? Pretty much another transmog farm spot. Seems like blizzard designs the game now for people who like the idea of an mmo but don't really want to play an mmo.

[Big Thanks]

Pretty much another transmog farm spot. Seems like blizzard designs the game now for people who like the idea of an mmo but don't really want to play an mmo.

Again the fallacy that raiding = "actually" playing the game.

In every single anti-LFR thread ive made when i was younger, people told me they DIDNT raided for the gear.
Endless people saying they raided for the experience.
Endless people telling me it didnt matter other people had access to raiding through LFR.
Endless people telling me to stop being a snowflake and caring about what other people do/have.

And look at those same people now telling me they only raid for the gear -__-

[Twdft]

The point I'm trying to make isn't to avoid some sort of existential, materialistic crisis. It's to simply recognize that Blizzard is effectively cutting out the value of progressing through an expansion's content by invalidating that content with every major patch. They're so god damned worried about forcing player interaction that they attempt to jam everyone into the current content whether they like it or not, not even realizing that by doing so they make all previous content(which players might stay for) into a ghost town.

It's forced obsolescence on the scale of every few months or so. Is it any wonder why players are steadily leaving the game when there's nothing of lasting value to invest in to keep them interested past the first couple weeks of a new patch?

Are you for real?

If you play the whole time you get each major patch gear at the time that patch is current. Do you really want a new patch that gives you no new gear because your precious old patch gear would be invalidated?

Also: the only lasting value you can achieve is memories. Every single bit of gear will be obsolete and it doesn't matter if it's with the next patch or expansion. What exactly is the lasting value you want to invest in? I play to have fun while playing. I see two ways to get to 430: raid/mythic+ and world quest grinding. I find WQ utterly mind numbing, so I will do what's fun for me instead. Why would I care if another person like OP has fun grinding their way to 430 in the open world? How his char is equipped means nothing to me, he will never be in my raid and he will never be in my mythic+ runs. So really, why do you care?

[Wingspan]

The point I'm trying to make isn't to avoid some sort of existential, materialistic crisis. It's to simply recognize that Blizzard is effectively cutting out the value of progressing through an expansion's content by invalidating that content with every major patch. They're so god damned worried about forcing player interaction that they attempt to jam everyone into the current content whether they like it or not, not even realizing that by doing so they make all previous content(which players might stay for) into a ghost town.

It's forced obsolescence on the scale of every few months or so. Is it any wonder why players are steadily leaving the game when there's nothing of lasting value to invest in to keep them interested past the first couple weeks of a new patch?

Existential stuff aside, there are way too many variables in this for any of us (and possibly even Blizzard) to make that assessment based on anything more than a leap of faith.

Fundamentally, you need to understand EXACTLY why the largest chunk of your audience is dwindling, then you need to know if there is anything that you can actually do to prevent it. For instance, knowing if people are leaving in mass for other MMOs would be a big tell... if yes, then clearly those others games are providing something you are not, so you need to figure out if you can.

On the other hand, if the lion’s share of people are quitting WoW and not seeking out other games, then a driving force could possibly be a mass realization that it’s all just for “meaningless fun” (see the existential post) and there is probably very little that can be done about it. The best you can hope for is to slow the inevitable exodus.

There are any number of other possible variables of course (way WAY too many), but these two alone would require a ton of diagnostics and might never yield a really good result even if they were confirmed.

You mention that you don’t like content invalidation and pushing everyone together, which is a valid feeling/complaint. However, as the player base continues to shrink, this becomes MANDATORY for the health of the game. Less people doing the same things, makes it harder to get people to do them with you when someone needs them... which is far more dangerous than easier gear access, because it creates a legitimate perception that the game is dying. Perception is a beast in MMOs... it’s why Blizzard shouted it from the rooftops when the game was doing great, and it came to a dead halt on it when it started to break.

The more subs decline, the faster people will need to be caught up in order to fill the gaps of those that left... it is self-feeding cycle. There is almost nothing capable of changing the course now. Classic is the best hope, but I’m pretty sure that will be all but dead within a year.

It’s going to be interesting to watch though.