I think scaling started in Legion, IIRC.
That’s when they did that “You can level in any zones in any order” stuff, where mobs would always be your level regardless of which zone you picked to start from off the map in your class hall.
WoD had a linear progression where you started in either Shadowmoon or Frostfire and went to Goregrind, and then to Talador, the levels remained as they were, and there was no scaling.
Please, show me where you got this definition.
But I digress. Semantics aside, whatever you call the way I’ve been successfully playing this game with enjoyment for the last 16 years that is no longer present (plenty of other posts going into specifics)…
I’d like that back.
I think the greater point is what you implied:
Some of us were having fun, and now, we’re not because of various stuff that has been talked about earlier.
“M+, Raid, or log off” just doesn’t work for us.
We want, and miss, gradual power growth that is attainable by solo. Dunno about you, but I never asked for gear comparable to raids. I’ve been playing sine 2005/2006 (about the time Dire Maul came out) and I never once thought I should get my hands on raid gear.
I just wanted goals to work towards, stuff I could do on my own time without having to form bonds with other people. It was okay if I met people and got into the occasional Q’d dungeon run or met people in the open world, that was usually fine, but I don’t want to have to try and form personal connections.
I’m just not really that social of a person, to be honest. And I certainly don’t want people randomly poking me wanting to do stuff. I don’t want to log on and someone goes “hey, we need you to tank (blah blah)” if all I wanted to do was fish, or archaeology or pet battles.
I don’t need people guilt tripping me if I should try to say no, and/or they’ll go “but we helped you get (blah blah)” … it’s why I generally avoid interactions with people online, other than just Qing up with randos.
Nah, man. I raid when the rest of the content is good. I even do M+ when the rest of the content is good.
But those aren’t my draws. They’re side things for me. The game I’ve been playing solo, the RPG that I’ve been enjoying, that’s my draw. It’s just not feeling good to do right now, so I’m not doing anything on retail.
And you would have had that if the covenant armor didn’t exist.
The problem with Shadowlands is that Blizzard was TOO generous for people who don’t do a whole lot in-game, which invalidated all the stuff they would normally be doing.
None of these “there’s no progression path for casuals!” complaints would exist if Blizzard hadn’t stuck that damn suit of 197 gear in the game.
It’s amazing to me how the playerbase takes the best and easiest casual source of decent gear ever put into the game as a bad thing. Since ICC used 13 item level gaps between its difficulties it’s fairly comparable to Castle Nathria. Covenant gear would be the same as giving 249 gear in 9 slots for questing while ICC dropped 251/264/277.
Hope Blizzard listens and next patch makes the 223 (3 item levels under normal Sanctum of Domination) require months of farming dungeon currency and farming 5 reps to exalted to get 1 item per rep.
I’m sure the forums will be super excited about their constant progression.
I love how you take one side of the argument, and instantly jump to the conclusion that we want the polar opposite.
There is something between 1 and 100.
It’s called 50.
Yes, yes, I know Blizzard devs don’t understand this, where 100 of something is overpowered, they think the obvious solution is 10 instead of something in the middle like 40-50.
I think I pretty much already agreed with this, on one stipulation:
The outdoor content and its scaling.
Reduce the pain of scaling some and I’d be fine with the 197s not existing and/or a bit more gradual path to obtaining it.
Or heck, give us maybe a full suit of 160-180 and then allow us to do heroics to bump it up to 197 with something similar to badges.
Nobody likes ilvl scaling except ion.
I-level scaling works for low levels, but once you get up to, say, Normal Dungeon level, it needs to stop then and there.
Let the players feel the growth of their power. I’m fine for reducing difficulty for undergeared players, nothing sucks worse than leveling too fast and finding out you can’t kill anything because of low ilevels, but yet I hate how I put more gear on and stuff doesn’t get any easier.
That robs me of my reward for effort gratification. I don’t want instant gratification but some gratification would be nice.
It’s the lack of the build up. If we got a low piece of gear or something and gradually built it up to the exact same thing (at a reasonably steady pace) by working on it, I bet it would’ve felt better.
This is an RPG, man. I like working on my character. I don’t like weekly gates. I don’t like just getting things dropped on me for seemingly nothing.
I just like feeling like I’m working on my character when I play, and that it’s going somewhere. But the work has to have a steady payoff too.
Although i like shadowlands. I agree with this.
Yeah, once you get the 197s in all slots from your covenant (which happens rather quickly), your character progression just… halts unless you do M+ or raids.
You either do those, or grind anima for mounts and pets, and… well, gaining a couple thousand a week when you need some 200,000 just… eugh.
No thanks.
I haven’t felt this demotivated since WoD .0.
So, instead of this smooth progression curve, you get a really high spike at the beginning and a sharp drop off and then a flatline.
If you have been doing higher end content in SL, you would know that iLvl 195-200 is merely a starting point for grouped endgame content, and some groups require even more, even for relatively easy content.
Yet you would have casuals grinding even longer and still be far below baseline, as covenant gear does not even cover all slots? Sounds malicious to me.
If casuals are to be grinding for weeks/months just to earn their covenant sets, the sets should cover all slots and be at least iLvl 207. Such gear could be bought/upgraded through anima, grateful offerings, etc.
Vieria and Vitalia need to duke it out to be Champion of the Casual Playerbase.
Vieria wants a steady power growth curve and seems disinclined to do anything that can’t be done solo, while Vitalia wants to be jump-started to Normal raid quality gear so they can do end-game group content.
You guys figure it out and let us know what you want! 
The point is more, if you ding Level 60 today, you can get full Covenant gear within a week or so of some solid play, like 2-3 hours a day.
Once you get full Covenant gear, you just need a little anima grinding to bump it all up to 197 and then you have the 8 main body pieces and a 194 (?) weapon and then you just need rings, neck (you get a 164 from an early covenant quest), and trinkets.
Then, once you get that… if you’re not the type to do social manual matchmaking, you have nothing left. You’re done until the next patch.
It’s a week of activity followed by mindless boring grind for anima after.
What Dirtyfurry and I are talking about, is we’d rather this activity be more spread out, with actual goals to work towards. Something that keeps us enthusiastic about logging on, gradual rewards we work for and enjoy.
EDIT: And let’s not forget, we’d like to actually notice the growth in our character’s power. Slower progression would be awesome if it weren’t for ilevel scaling.
“seems disinclined to do anything that requires manual matchmaking”
FTFY.
Since using the anima currency to upgrade it clearly wasn’t rewarding or fulfilling enough they should probably gate it a bit more.
Maybe some dungeon currency that’s weekly capped and takes 3-4 weeks per item.
Some can be from exalted rep rewards.
Something to drag it out.
What if upgrading it had required anima AND stygia. Now we’re talking.
I like it.
Ew, God, No.
How about Valor and Stygia?
Or just Valor.
I’d like to remove Anima from covenant gear.
Valor, for someone who doesn’t do M+, is useless. Why not put it to some use, and save us precious anima we’d like to spend on other things?
What about the people who want gear without doing dungeons at all? Just from quests?