Read the rest of my post and respond to that. Cherry picking and responding to the part I said doesnt matter and I dont care to argue because it has nothing to do with the point while avoiding the question I have been asking this entire time is ridiculous. I have no idea why I am even continuing this conversation lmao, you have no points and no reasons for anything you are saying. You cannot even answer the question of why this would be bad to do.
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You being unable to comprehend that I answered the question already is a you problem bud.
First of all, I think gearing is totally fine and doesnât need to change. However, I also wouldnt be upset at all if they made the conquest spoils of war a bigger buff or happen sooner.
Lotta thoughts about this topic, but I think this is a really important point to address.
You may THINK thereâs no downside, but there is one. Gw2 (which has 0 player power) tried a similar system to buff reward track progress later in matches. The system is a little different, but it was functionally catch up. It was âperfectâ in that if you missed one match (week of cap equivalent), youâd get a 100% gain. 2 matches was a 200% etc so you would reach whatever the cap is whether you played the weekly match or not.
This DRASTICALLY decreased participation. Part of what makes people play is having to grind, even if we think we donât enjoy it. They tried to compromise and nerfed it to a 50% catch up. Didnât help.
Eventually they removed the whole thing and just left the reward track progress tied to playing the game and that was the only way they saw participation return.
I personally believe that catch up systems are good. I know I wouldnât âexploit themâ or just wait until the end of the season to play/gear.
That being said, data has shown that the majority of people will and do do that when catch up systems are too strong.
That reduces overall activity DURING the season when most people WANT to play and has an extremely negative detrimental effect that leads to mass âomg season deflated!!!â Comments which continue to doom spiral.
Itâs not a simple fix with âno downsidesâ.
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Tagging you in man. Youâre far more patient then I am.
Okay, but that isnât a thing anymore, and it is not a rated reward because you do not need to play any rated to get the set, it just takes much longer. Which again, is fine early on but bad mid season for returning players.
As for this, what are you even saying? You think class developers/devs that do tuning are going to go in and increase honor/conquest levels for unrated pvp? and even if they do, you actually think this is going to take time away from them fixing issues they have yet to fix? Always funny to see people think that other issues being present means new ones cant be discussed lol.
edit: you arent patient. You started off the thread saying absolutely nothing of value or substance. Its clear your goal is just to argue.
There you go. Now if youâll excuse me I got nerds to farm with my huge gear advantage right now!!
This is a good explanation. So essentially what happened there was a decrease in participation because people grinded less? That does make sense. Do you think there is an area they can hit where gains would not necessarily outpace doing rated arena for conquest? As in, the process doesnât get sped up, but you have the choice of doing rated or unrated for gear at the same progression rate? Or would that be too difficult to figure out
if thats what the data shows color me surprisedâŚi would play every single day if i knew i was logging in to the same fair and fun experience i had yesterdayâŚbut if i try to just pop in every now and then in this game i know 100% that i will get demolishedâŚthat isnt fun at all. I find it very shocking to know that if people have equal gear they quit playing the game but i guess if thats what the data says then so be itâŚi am just fundamentally on the opposing side of that viewpoint.
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Yes thank you for quoting someone who is actually responding with the intent to discuss, which is not what you came here to do obviously lol. Enjoy mindlessly arguing somewhere else.
To a point. But at which point does it stop feeling like progression and begin to feel like a chore? I can tell you, as someone who didnât store honor on a bunch of alts like the more hardcore players did, that I went from thinking BGs blew on Monday to where I queued a handful tonight for fun in spite of not needing honor (because I was able to play to the limitations of my potential instead of feel like Iâm getting swarmed).
To be honest, Iâd like to level/gear a 2nd healer to play with but I donât have time to cap 2 toons a week Via BGB, plus do PVE on a Ret. I just think OP is right in saying gearing could be improved upon.
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Yes, exactly!
I personally want to believe in a world where weâd all play for fun and gearing wouldnât have to be a part of pvp, but the tournament realm and its complete nonexistence has shown that that is not the case.
Weâve also seen what it looks like when thereâs no cap (slands s4) and you can grind all your gear asap and that is the MOST MISERABLE because it feels like thereâs a giant wall to the starting line and if you donât no-life at the start of the season, itâs like you canât even walk through the door.
People like to complain about grinds understandably - i do it too sometimes. However, a healthy weekly grind ends up being really valuable because it encourages consistent participation. That consistent participation makes the whole process encounter more positive reinforcement and feel more positive and players improve due to playing more regularly and end up having a much better experience overall.
Positive, moderate play is significantly more reinforcing to better game health and the reverse is also true
Yes, absolutely, and I think theyâre pretty close to it but, as you said, it should ramp up maybe a bit sooner or at a higher rate mid to late season.
Also, not to be elitist, but I think itâs totally okay to encourage people playing a rated game mode to get conquest gear (even though it is useable in casual modes).
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Agree with all of that for sure. I donât think farming unrated content should ever supply conq at a faster rate than rated content, I just think it should be a bit more viable of an alternative than it is now because right now it is almost there but after the first win of the day for each unrated bracket you get a bit too little it seems.
I think its definitely fine to encourage 100% but I do believe based on the complaints constantly popping up that the other alternative needs to be just a little bit better/faster than it is right now. As you said it is definitely almost perfect, just a small ramp up later on would probably be all that is needed for the people returning. Nothing that speeds anything up, the grind ideally should remain at the same pace, and rated should still remain better as well ideally.
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Even in pvp, most people donât play for the pvp; they play for the rewards. For some people thatâs rating. For some people itâs grinding the conquest set to unlock the mog.
The majority of people arenât trying to push rating or get glad/titles.
I totally hear you on that! I main raid and pvp with what free time I have until raid is cleared and then scramble to catch up to grind elite sets and I do this all the time. I would personally LOVE a stronger/faster catch up. However, it brings up ANOTHER issue that if itâs significantly easier/faster to gear, you just see infinite âfotm rerollingâ which also alienates and frustrates people.
I think warbands are a step in the right direction and making things more account-wide is a positive, but thereâs for sure a line to be drawn somewhere between ease of access and being detrimental to the gameâs health.
This is already becoming a natural issue unfortunately. Probably better to have it as we do now then go back to a system like SL though.
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Also, to expand on this a little more, itâs not JUST because of people taking the path of least resistance.
Setting up a reason to log on is habit forming. Thereâs a psychological aspect of it that makes you want to come back and play more. I donât want to get all, âblizzard money grubbing conspiracyâ here, but there IS a mutually beneficial reason for them to do this; a regular grind keeps people playing regularly and subbed.
It also gives players something to do with their time and a literal reward for logging on and engaging with the game.
The same way that people feel good when they go to the gym a couple times a week and see the numbers on their weights go up or their time improve etc, it feels GOOD to be rewarded for the effort and time you put into things, and wow is no exception.
Theyâve done similar research into paychecks and when people are paid annually, monthly, biweekly, weekly, and hourly, and the highest satisfaction and work engagement comes from weekly pay; where you can see an immediate âprogressâ, but donât need to keep track of every single minute youâre engaging. Similarly, when people have biweekly or monthly pay, theres overall lower engagement, performance, and positive association with the work in the middle ~2/3rds of the pay period.
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I feel like I should make it super clear I didnât mean that I wanted the grind to go faster, just for the alternative for returning players to be able to pick between unrated and rated for gearing to be better ideally with no increased gearing pace. I think rated should still offer more and be the faster way, but the alternative should be more viable than âjust queue 1 game a day and thats itâ. And only for returning players, not right away at season start. Possible I didnt get that point across well when I started this.
I am usually in favor of grinds, that applies here too. The only grinds I really dislike or have disliked in this game were the infinite style grinds ie azerite and artifact power (was ce raiding at the time not sure how much it mattered in pvp). I love the gear grind and SL was atrocious compared to DF/TWW gearing in pvp.
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I see that now, and I kinda got that vibe when reading through the thread as a whole, but how you opened sent a different message - or at least I perceived it differently.
This just felt a little absolutist to me and I was like, âokay? Whereâs he going with this? I feel like itâs okay to make people to do the rated content to get the âratedâ rewards. Thatâs what mmr is forâ.
I agree 100% and I think just about everyone would agree with you here as well!
Iâm just genuinely unsure on what to draw the line and where. Do you make it so if you have a main with full gear that an alt can gear faster? Or does that promote too much fotm rerolling or make people feel that they need to play alts instead of a main they love?
Do you just buff the catch up mechanic? If so, how do you handle the passive attrition and âzomg deflationâ comments?
Do you make the catch up mechanic happen sooner, but at a lower value so you can still gear faster, but to ameliorate reverse-degening by not Qing until catchup is in full swing? That may work, but thats a lot closer to what we have now in that it doesnât help anyone who misses half the season because theyâre pushing for CE instead of PVPing.
I think this is the best gearing has ever been in pvp by a long shot. Iâm also never opposed to talk about ways/stratgies to improve even more on things; perfection is always a moving target! However, I think itâs REALLY important to look at the big picture and try to think about unintended consequences as well.
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If thats how you were interpreting all that then I almost certainly did not make my point clear/well enough. My bad on that, I didnât even say anything about the pace when I definitely should have mentioned I didnât want it faster.
Where to draw the line is an interesting point, ideally the devs figure that one out lol. The only bit of feedback I can provide them from what I have heard and seen here that I imagine they probably have seen as well is that it feels pretty bad to have the only alternative to rated content be worthwhile once a day (1 epic/1random).
When to introduce the catch up mechanic is also a solid question, probably when they get rid of the cap they can add the catch up at the same time so anyone who returns can start out in unrated if they want, get a few pieces and head into rated. Could possibly even increase mid season participation because people will be more inclined to jump into rated if they can get a few pieces within their first week of return from unrated, then jump in to rated. Thats just an assumption though ofc I dont actually know for sure.
I agree this is the best gearing has ever been as well at least in the short time since Iâve pvped since late bfa and SL. Especially sl, coming from that to what we got in DF was fantastic. I dont think much needs to change at all outside of just helping the unrated alternative slightly, maybe 3-4 games of epic/random should be worthwhile per day rather than 1 later in the season or something like that seems like an ideal number. From that you might get 2-3 pieces, then jump into rated.
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Thatâs another tough part too, though. Every player has different ideas on what they want. I think at least once a week I see a ânerf or remove all CCâ post or some wild take. Those takes usually get several âlikesâ as well. I think that the majority of players, even those who think they would want that, would end up hating that change.
Some people want no gearing. Some people want pve gear to matter in pvp. Some people want a longer grind or more options for gearing. Some people want rewards to be more exclusive, others less.
WoW casts an EXTREMELY wide net that caters to hundreds of different opinions and no matter what change you make, youâre always going to upset a vocal minority.
At some point you have to question, âis this a concern on the radar compared to other more important things?â
Personally Iâd say yes, because gearing does impact everyone, and I know Iâd personally benefit from a catch up that came in ideally halfway before people were fully geared, not a week or four after theyâre fully geared. Iâd also like a bigger spoils of war buff, and if you wanted to help prevent the entirely casual play route sucking participation, you could have the buff be bigger for rated modes (i.e. a 100% increase to conquest over 50% for casual modes).
That being said, I donât have the data that blizzard does. Maybe 95% of the playerbase does keep up on gear and is +/- one gear piece and buffing the gains wouldnât make a stailtistically significant difference in playtime whatsoever. I know how I personally feel, but that doesnât mean that thatâs whatâs best for the game overall, you know?
What I WOULD really like more than anything, though is more dev communication or AMA/community interaction where they even talk about this stuff and itâs not cherry-picked PR fluff.
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Yeah thats something I do not envy about the job the devs have. Iâve always thought about that because we have quite literally seen the devs respond to player feedback by implementing it in the game only for the group that liked how things were previously to complain. This happened with moving from non stop grinds like ap, people now say they want something to do (citing ap as the example) for player power lmao. Different groups of people though.
This has happened with other things too, its pretty crazy to watch and any time it happens I feel for them. Must be difficult to decide on what changes to make sometimes, and it doesnt help that their communication is lacking heavily still. Its gotten better, but still not great. I know wow players or people in general can be cringe online and that leads to devs not wanting to interact much, but they at the very least have moderation on the forums so this would be a good place for watercooler type posts. AMAs would be my preference though for sure.
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