What is the point of raiding?

[SoulForge]

Dude, the vast majority of players in an MMO play PVE to get gear to use in PVP. It's not about the item level or min-maxing shit, but about how hard you hit the other mofo in pvp.

In TBC, pvp gear was better for pvp than pve gear, but starting with WOTLK, that changed entirely.

No. They don't. PVP in this game is a sideshow and a complete waste of time.

[Garymorilix]

What exactly is the point in raiding when you have m+ ?! Unless of course you're precisely interested in the raiding experience.

There, you answered it for yourself.

But I can throw you some answers in the form of satirical questions:

What exactly is the point in M+ when you can do the same dungeon in normal? Unless of course you're precisely interested in the additional challenge.
What exactly is the point in playing WoW when you can play CoD? Unless of course you're precisely intersted in playing WoW.
What exactly is the point in breathing when we will all die anyways? Unless of course you're precisely interested in not dying before a certain age.

[Marrilaife]

WoW is a 2000s generation Western MMORPG, this means, reachable max level and the end goal is to kill the big bad boss of the storyline, aka through raiding, Western MMORPG design = Max level Raiding, rest irrelevant.

Eastern MMORPG of the 2000s generation were all about "Spend an insane amount of time leveling and grinding for +1 to "PvP", aka whoever played the most, won by default, Eastern MMORPG design = Leveling/grinding with no apparent/actual end game apart from as i said before, "PvP" through "Better gear always wins".

So raiding, is basically WoW itself, just because they added 200 different things over 15 years to keep people subbed to do pointless shit for them to make money, thats good business.

It feels to me like a lot of forum posters here want this "eastern style" game i.e. whoever has more time on their hands wins. Preferably content that can be solo grinded and doesn't require much skill. So I guess they're all playing the wrong game.

[clevin]

Dude, the vast majority of players in an MMO play PVE to get gear to use in PVP. It's not about the item level or min-maxing shit, but about how hard you hit the other mofo in pvp.

another child who thinks everyone is like him. This is tiresome... grow up, realize people are different.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Dude, the vast majority of players in an MMO play PVE to get gear to use in PVP. It's not about the item level or min-maxing shit, but about how hard you hit the other mofo in pvp.

Citation needed.

[Puri]

I don't know, we stopped raiding altogether after Uldir. In Legion the sets made heroic raiding at least worthwhile, in BFA there is nothing to gain from raiding unless you start raiding mythic. And even mythic only helps you gear up faster, in the end we are talking 2 to 4 itemlevel difference to someone who is doing one m+10 per week.

But for people who don't want to invest the time and effort for mythic raiding there is no incentive given to even do heroic raids. Unlike in Legion it's not even worth for the AP, there are no sets, any cosmetic drop from heroic is either a random drop - which means you can farm it later solo - or a guaranteed drop which in turn makes it worthless as everyone is having it. So currently only the essence would be worth farming, and while the essence is very strong for most specs in m+ there are better alternatives, so we are back to where we started.

[taheen74]

...to actually play the game and experience the content?

Seems like you're only interested in shiny purplez and staring at iLvls on your gear.

This.

If you're just raiding for gear instead of an actual challenge exactly why are you raiding?

[trapmaster]

Mythic+ has been way too too lucrative for gearing and really kinda defeat purpose to raid. Why even bother raiding when you can get mythic+ gears that are way too good to obtain over garbage raid gears loots? "To Overcome your challenge?" Lol, let me tell you something about challenge.. "Challenge" in this wow has died a while back. There's no point to raid anymore in retail wow anymore. The enjoyment is just freaking gone.

[Ryzek]

To me gear is a tool to raid, I don't give a fuck where it comes from. Back when I started in TBC I wanted to raid to see the story not for the gear. Now I raid because its still fun overcoming a challenge with the raid group, many of us have been raiding together since TBC and raiding is what we all love to do together. So I have plenty of reasons to continue to raid than just gear.

[Phon]

This is a good example why M+ has ruined wow. The game should've stayed revolving around raiding, not M+. Clearly M+ is too lucrative a route to gear.

They should have made +10 give normal raid tier loot and +15 heroic raid tier loot.

[ceall]

I have a better question :

What's the point in NOT raiding?

[potis]

It feels to me like a lot of forum posters here want this "eastern style" game i.e. whoever has more time on their hands wins. Preferably content that can be solo grinded and doesn't require much skill. So I guess they're all playing the wrong game.

The actual problem with the forum posters is that many are new, or dont have an idea what they are actually playing.

You see many newer posters that literally want "Skyrim in WoW story and graphics" because they started somewhere after Skyrim, and Skyrim is that godly single player 300hr solo experience (lol).

You have others that want <Insert here when they believe they actually did something important in WoW> expansion again, its irrelevant if it was good or not for others, they were amazing or had some amazing friend because they had fun, so that expansion was the best.

You have others that basically want PvP where only gear matters, they dont remember how the higher geared player destroyed them every single time, they just know they were middle of the pack, and they get to destroy just dinged characters, so that PvP is better than actual chance for everyone.

[Alvito]

Dude, the vast majority of players in an MMO play PVE to get gear to use in PVP. It's not about the item level or min-maxing shit, but about how hard you hit the other mofo in pvp.

In TBC, pvp gear was better for pvp than pve gear, but starting with WOTLK, that changed entirely.

PvP is the minority in WoW. You might pve to use gear in pvp and I am sure others do as well. The vast majority of player do not, the vast majority don't pvp at all. How hard you hit somebody is a direct result of min maxing and item level too. Your posts seem to revolve around this idea that people only do content for gear so if they can get gear one way they wont do anything else and that isn't as solid of a reason as you might think. People play the content they enjoy, they will occasionally do things they might not enjoy as much to provide themselves a way to do what they like easier, more often or in a different way. Your confusion on why people raid when there is fast loot to be had elsewhere pretty much tells you why they do it. They want to, they enjoy it.

- - - Updated - - -

I have a better question :

What's the point in NOT raiding?

There are a few people in my guild that only run WQ and stuff like that. They used to raid, run arenas or other end game sort of things. Now they just jump on gear up via WQ for the sake of doing WQ and log out. In my mind that is like making the bed in a guest room in your house every single day just out of habit. To each their own I guess, but holy hell does only playing WoW to grind rep and do WQ sound like hell.

[GreenJesus]

Dude, the vast majority of players in an MMO play PVE to get gear to use in PVP. It's not about the item level or min-maxing shit, but about how hard you hit the other mofo in pvp.

In TBC, pvp gear was better for pvp than pve gear, but starting with WOTLK, that changed entirely.

Wrong. Most players don't even do PVP.

[Queen of Hamsters]

To experience the content.
To beat the content with a team of likeminded people.

Same as my reasons for raiding as they have been since I started playing. I also used to enjoy the concepts of getting tier set bonuses and full appearances before the content's outdated by X years, but that sort of fell away with BfA. The Eternal Palace's "tier sets" are just a return to WOTLK visuals-quality gear below Mythic, and at Mythic they're maybe MoP quality...

I hope we'll return to a system where you could actually deck your character in BIS and consider your character maxed out... one day...

[whywhatwhowhenhow]

Since mythic+ became a thing, no point really.

I don't have to schedule my time like a fucking job for mythic+.

[-aiko-]

The better question is, what is the point of 4 levels of raiding difficulty?

There is nothing wrong with M+ or its reward structure, imo. It's very difficult to get exactly what items you want, so it takes a hell of a lot of work to get as geared as a Mythic raider.

The problem in my eyes is that raiding has become fractured. Current Normal really has no purpose as most of your average guilds will progress Heroic, and LFR has even less of a purpose. It needs to be removed with just two difficulties again, Normal and Heroic. If they insist on a "story" mode raid difficulty, do LFR, Normal and Heroic with LFR rewarding only cosmetic gear or badge gear that you can save up for Normal raid preparation (e.g. lower ilevel than Normal).

Just my thoughts.

[Alvito]

The better question is, what is the point of 4 levels of raiding difficulty?

There is nothing wrong with M+ or its reward structure, imo. It's very difficult to get exactly what items you want, so it takes a hell of a lot of work to get as geared as a Mythic raider.

The problem in my eyes is that raiding has become fractured. Current Normal really has no purpose as most of your average guilds will progress Heroic, and LFR has even less of a purpose. It needs to be removed with just two difficulties again, Normal and Heroic. If they insist on a "story" mode raid difficulty, do LFR, Normal and Heroic with LFR rewarding only cosmetic gear or badge gear that you can save up for Normal raid preparation (e.g. lower ilevel than Normal).

Just my thoughts.

Normal does keep some of the dead and dying servers afloat. There are a lot of servers that even with mythic opening up to cross server at some point don't get any or many mythic kills. Each tier there ends up being a few that still have zero or back into getting 1 or 2 bosses down server wide. So on those servers progression comes from normal and into heroic for months. Now Blizzard could and should fix the issue of ghost town servers and at the same time could deal with some of the extra raid nonsense. It has been a long time since they merged servers and for many that didn't really help then, things have only gotten much worse over the years. There are 120 individual or connect servers for NA. Depending on which site you look at the top 25 to 30 of them have more people than the bottom 90 to 95 combined, there are several servers that still haven't finished heroic, others that having not done any heroic and only working on normal puts you in the top 10 for raiding on your server. The worst of that being Tol Barad only 7 guilds that have registered a kill of any kind in normal or heroic.

TLDR Populations need to be addressed before raid difficulties can be fixed without leaving people out in the cold.

[Kokolums]

If you're a pugger and don't raid mythic, then yes, you're right, raiding has no point. At least EP has some decent trinkets in comparison to previous raids this xpac.

It's quite naive to think majority of playerbase doesn't do exactly that, chase the best shiny they can get with minimal effort. And it's not just in wow, all the "looter shooters" and arpgs are about the same thing, namely, loot. Very small amount of games provide "fun" that isn't just another spin of a skinner box.

Actually, when WoW was growing like a weed, it was about enjoying an in-game community. WoW didn't start to fade until they altered it into an antisocial game where you chased the loot for minimal effort.

[Toby451]

Unless of course you're precisely interested in the raiding experience.

Answered your own question.