You were talking about pre-raid gear, right? But you somehow think that pre-raid gear is unobtainable.
We beat Normal Sire Denathrius the week he came out with a raid-wide ilvl of 187.3.
You can currently get 197 gear, from solo play, with the covenants. That’s 10 ilvls higher than what we beat Castle Nathria with. You can also get 184 gear from non-M+ dungeons.
There’s plenty of easy-to-get gear out there if you want to gear up for raiding.
I feel you, I have been playing since WoW Beta about a million years ago and I have always loved the world, the characters, the story but I gotta say I don’t love what grouping has turned into. Run run run as fast as you can to the end of the dungeon while no one says a word to each other is not my idea of fun group content. I find myself losing interest quickly in this expansion. You can only do the same WQs so many times before you would rather poke your own eyes out with a rusty fork.
In fact the only reason I haven’t cancelled my sub is the 2 lifelong friends I still play with. If not for them WoW would be in my recycle bin.
Have you considered joining a guild and playing with them? I never experience what you’re describing, likely because I never pug.
The challenge for any ‘Theme Park’ MMORPG is creating sufficient content to satisfy the voracious appetite of the players, until more content can be introduced.
This issue is exacerbated by the fact that MMORPG players are a rather diverse lot these days.
I have been soloing in WoW since launch, some expansions have been better for me then others. I always keep a couple other MMORPGs and a stable of Single Player games in reserve for when I need to withhold my money from Blizzard.
I think, perhaps, Blizzard bit off more than they could chew in 9.0. Perhaps they should have done their level squish in 8.3 and worked out its bugs. Then devoted all development resources to getting 9.0 right.
Most of the issues I see complaints about are from a combination of a poorly implemented squish with attendant scaling issues along with a failure to balance Progression to Content.
Why does everyone always think it’s about gear? It might be for some but for a lot of solo/casual players its about something interesting to do that feels like it’s worth the time spent doing it. It doesn’t have to be gear, it could be a cool quest line that rewards a mount or a pet or a cosmetic or a title. Gear is nice but it’s not everything.
People think it’s about gear because the forum has been flooded with “there’s no solo gearing progression path” threads for the past week or two.
Which started PRECISELY when the final covenant gear unlocked, by the way. There IS a solo gearing progression path in Shadowlands, it was just way too fast to complete. Blizzard should have time-gated it more heavily.
I’m in a guild, they raid they do M+ and its the same its slightly less stupid than LFG groups but they are all super hardcore get to the end as fast as possible players and I only joined because my bestie wanted me to but its just not fun. The pace is just too frenetic for my liking.
Then you should find a guild better suited to your playstyle.
That’s true but I don’t think that is what this OP was asking for and certainly I don’t care one way or the other about gear but I am on the side of who cares who has what gear and give casuals an opportunity for higher end gear but personally I would just like fun things to do that aren’t the same thing 500 times over for what seems like a useless reward.
My play style is solo though so why would a solo player need a guild? WQs are mind numbingly boring you know that’s true.
That’s been WoW for the last 16 years, though, ever since we were collecting bug parts in Silithus.
Lmao you seem like a whiny child.
Imagine putting TC and “short” in the same sentence, lol.
You might want to play a single-player game. An MMO can’t create nearly as fulfilling a gaming experience for a solo player as a single-player game.
So the answer to your question is: probably very little, because you’re not a target audience for this genre.
Which you can still do in normals and heroics. But now folks who want 5 man progression have it available instead of being stuck running easy stuff for no rewards. Big win for everyone.
I’m a solo, uber-casual player, & I say that if you think Blizz needs to do anything for players like me, you’re not paying attention. You (& I) may not LIKE the casual, solo player stuff, but you can’t possibly make a rational claim that Blizz isn’t doing things for us or that doesn’t care about us.
That there is the reason why millions of players are no longer with us.
They listened to folks that want to control others in a guild format. I don’t like others telling me what i can do in a guild etc so there is nothing for me this expac. I used to gear up in pugs but now the gear drought and difficulty makes pug success rates very low now. So adios I accept the game is no longer for me. I refuse to be forced into a guild and don’t tell me it was always like this because it wasn’t or Id have left years ago.
Agree about torghast being the most fun content so far.
I really think they should lean into it. Do class-only leaderboards. Make it competitive like keystones. And/or Give cosmertic rewards like mounts / transmog / Pes (like islands of expedition).
I feel like it’s the one thing they have this expansion that could really become a replayable feature for both solo and grouped players. It just seems like such a win to me if they were to give it the proper attention without over doing it (aka making it required farm more than it already is).