Originally Posted by
Razion
First of all, how are you handling PvP gear then? We going back to lootboxes? Some people loved it, some people hated it. Catch-up, as people are discovering right now, is kind of a bitch with the currency system and leads to large time-to-power disparity the more patches there are and constantly requires them to adjust upgrade-levels and honor/conq rates in order to fix. (We'll probably be back to lootboxes before too long once people figure out again the problem lootboxes were trying to solve.)
But anyway.
Alternative progression paths reward players for doing the content they like to do. If loot only ever dropped from M+ and Raiding, you'd be more forced to do both in order to stay at a relevant gear level. With sources like the Vault and more, you can more focus on your preferred area of the game and get extra loot and loot options for doing the things you want. Sure, encouraging people to do everything via giving a ton of options isn't ideal right now. That part might have to be removed so it'd be closer to how the old Chest was but just allow for PvP & Raiding in the Chest as alternative clear conditions for the weekly loot rather than adding in options. But for now, I think the Vault in principle of rewarding you for doing activities you choose to do is a fine concept once the options thing is axed from it.
Getting rid of other loot options would basically kill all other content. If you're ONLY having gear drop, you're killing not only world quests, daily quests, you're also killing reputation, and you're also killing general story questing. Hell, you're killing literally everything that isn't Raiding or Dungeons. And that's not EVERYONE'S jam. SOME people love doing only those things, logging on and doing those things and logging out. But it isn't for everyone. That's basically the definition of a lobby game. Some lobby MMOs are successful, but one of WoW's strengths is that it has a TON of variety in content to do so it can appeal to a wide audience.
If WoW only focused on raiding and dungeons, even if they are arguably some of its strongest content, it would be alienating a lot of other players -- and especially more casual players who don't progress as far or see new drops after a certain point. This kind of situation happened in WoD, even, when people basically had nothing to do but log on and raid every week because the Garrison did everything else for them. Did it appeal to everyone? No. Not for everyone, obviously. Lots of people quit during WoD. Frankly, more the Garrison & Naval Yard's fault. But, again, anyway:
They need other ways to progress so they have stuff to do and can stay subbed. Some people want to enjoy the game and stay subbed. Not everyone wants to raid for a week, fully kit out, and quit for six months like clockwork every patch. That kind of mentality I'd argue is more an indicator imo of burnout. Of maybe not being satisfied in your challenges or friendships or whatever it is you should be getting out of the game.
If you want to focus on dungeons and raids, that's a fine thing to want to be able to do in the game. If you hate leveling, for example, and wish you could JUST be doing dungeons or raids the whole way through instead of leveling, maybe ask for more dungeon and raid like experiences for leveling -- like, actually being able to level with appropriate raid content for an expac, or leveling with M+ or something. There's still a lot of ways they can accommodate players who want challenges in areas of the game they aren't provided, so ask for that instead of asking to just remove things from the game. Removing things from the game rarely goes well unless it's universally hated, and despite how polarizing some things can be for SOME people, a lot of the community still would get upset over the removal of a lot of the extracurricular content if it were taken out.
Some people complained about the removal of Archaeology, some people would complain about the removal of other professions. Fishing, Pet Battling... like, you'd be advocating for the removal of ways to play the game which are for some people the ONLY reason they play. It wouldn't force these people to play other activities, it just forces them to feel like they have nothing to sub for.