Current gearing systems are not casual friendly

Community General Discussion
85

I feel like the systems are definitely casual friendly, but BfA has two things in that regard that are different.

  1. Dungeons don’t drop any kind of usable currency. Tidal and Hydrocores are pretty much a joke
  2. Random battlegrounds are completely worthless

I myself enjoy random battlegrounds and did basic dungeons in Legion also. At least the Bloods of Sargeras were useful for all kinds of things. Random Battlegrounds were crap then too. These are very casual, and could use some help being relevant.

I would agree with other comments that loot is too RNG in general, but I don’t think that’s a casual specific problem.

86

Wha…? My DH has never stepped foot into a raid and is 391 itemlevel, and rarely runs keys over +5. I think that’s pretty damn generous.

Were you expecting ilvl 400 without doing any content? Well, other than Warfronts and world bosses, ahem.

87

This is EXACTLY my biggest gripe with the current looting system, my priest is at 385 when 1,5 days played. all base level of content is completely irrelevant reward wise already.

6 Likes
88

Welcome to Millenials literally whining about anything… this is 2018 in a post. Your entire argument is that you DON’T do high end content, but you still get the same rewards… /facepalm

2 Likes
89

If you are just playing for gear then you are going to keep running into problems where you out gear casual content. I personally do BGs because they are fun.

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90

Why on Earth do you believe that you deserve the same gear as someone who plays at either a high rating in PvP, or a high key level in M+?

You do not deserve the same ilvl as someone who plays at a higher difficulty. You dont NEED the gear if you are not.

91

For Bliz,

What OP is trying to say is that he would like to do content at his level of time availably/commitment (which for him is Heroic Dung, LFR, etc) and have that content feel like progression for his character. This loot drops ~ 370 ilvl.

His problem is that due to weekly “handouts” of heroic raid gear (400 ilvl, from WF Quest, DS WB, etc) he can no longer progress his character through this casual content as these handouts have boosted his ilvl beyond his gameplay/commitment level.

Without them he would be able to meaningful run LFR/M0 for weeks to get his character from 360->370. This would feel good.

With them he’s already beyond 370 before LFR wing 3 even opens. This feels bad.

That’s fine for people who are also running Normal/Heroic, but not so great for people doing only casual content. They have nothing left to do.

Item drops need to be equal to difficulty / commitment. I feel community has been telling you this for a while. Not sure why it’s difficult to understand.

This is the problem.

Change all “handout” content to 370 (or better 355).

Alternative would be to place it on the emissary scale system, so WF Quest only drops 400 if I’m already 395.

16 Likes
92

The current system just makes it so people want you to have a ilvl equivalent of the gear that drops in the raid you are trying to clear and it sucks. Why do I need a 400 ilvl just to pug a heroic that drops 400 ilvl gear? It’s just craziness and needs to be fixed.

4 Likes
93

I play the game to improve my character doing content I am comfortable doing. Improving my character doesn’t always mean getting higher ilvl gear.

I don’t expect to have the greatest gear in the game. I am happier not pursuing it. I find warfronts, incursions and emissary rewards keep my gear at a reasonable level in order to be effective in what I do.

I am more concerned with how my character looks than what ilvl they are.

I have no reason to do LFR or low level Mythic dungeons right now. With any of my characters.

94

I don’t think that aligns with the OP’s thoughts though. You are saying you need to do everything to tread water but the OP was saying by doing everything, even casually, things are being outgeared. That isn’t treading water which I would equate to falling behind.

If you are doing casual content like WQs and Raid Finder, what are you trying to get that you aren’t getting? If you just do these two things for 3 months, what are your expectations on what gear you should have?

In your specific case, (and this is all just hypothetical and part of a discussion folks!) how long should it take to be done in a given content cycle?

1 Like
95

I see OP’s point. For example, it’s hard to see much point in LFR, which drops 370s on a weekly lockout, and has a gated release, when emissaries drop 385s.

9 Likes
96

There’s plenty of sources for rewards that casuals would enjoy doing and that’s not necessarily the problem. The problem is that the sources give me too much gear and too high level gear for what I’m doing. With how fast you can gear up, I outgear the casual content too quickly.

I want to gear up at a slower pace so I can play through the casual content for a longer period of time before I hit a wall. Past progression systems have been better, such as token systems which allow you to slow down the gearing process while ensuring people feel rewarded for everything they do, without handing out gear like candy.

My playtime tends to be mostly weekday evenings, but not always for an uninterrupted stretch, and sometimes I will log on for 30 min-1hr in the morning before work to get extra time in. So things like raiding are off the table because committing to two, 3 hour stretches a week just isn’t possible.

So the content I do varies from day to day and week to week. I never do everything, but randomly pick a couple things from a variety of activities I enjoy such as - Emissary quests, usually the weekly event quest, weekly PvP quest. None of this takes very long. I’ve only done lfr a handful of times (also not a huge time investment) and while I enjoy M+, I only do 2-3 of these a week (this is a bigger commitment). I’ve capped out Conquest points a few weeks via a few daily BG/Epic BG wins, the weekly PvP quest, and occasional Invasion when I am online while they’re up and happen to notice it. I don’t enjoy Arenas, nor do I collect anything. I just do whatever content I feel like I want to or can do each week, trying more than anything to get M+ cache and properly rewarding emissaries done. Oh I also do Islands most of the time on usually just one character per week - lately I’ve been focusing on this one. I do one Warftont every few weeks for the quest that rewards higher level gear if it’s an upgrade.

The increase in ilevel since Season 2 has sped this up too much which is why this Priest is 389 out of nowhere in the past few weeks and I also have 4 other 120’s at varying lesser gear levels that I was playing more of earlier in the expac.

19 Likes
97

I get what you’re saying, you get so much easy gear that you leave the actual casual content behind? Right?

Correct me if I am wrong tho.

Anways, well that’s Blizz giving 400 per WF to any1 just so people can do their rotten gamemode, thank goodness Azerite that comes from IE is useful otherwise they’d have to add 400 so people would do it too.

But yeah, the problem is while there are casuals who enjoy their content, there are others who think they should get the same gear as dedicated players, hence Blizz spoonfeeding them gear.

Also yeah, just leveled an alt, doing BGs for gear is so meaningless once I hit 120 because even WQs gear (not even emissary just a single mission) is higher than a BG reward…

5 Likes
98

No definitely not doing all of that in a week. Think of it like a buffet where you pick some to do and some not to do. It’s a lot of options but no way do I have time for all of it.

I don’t have a checklist of things I need to do each week. I do different things every day or every week. I just do what I feel like doing each day. So I often achieve different things each week. I haven’t capped Conquest for a couple weeks now, Heroics and LFR I haven’t done, either. WFs and low level M+'s I’ve done this week, along with things like Emissaries.

1 Like
99

Looks like you are wrong, but nice try! :slight_smile:

100

I actually like the past system where you got purples instead of blues. That only for an enchanting reason. Otherwise, the gearing system keeps me at a nice enough level to do things. Without too much commitment to things.

As I see it. I do not do anything at the high end. I do not plan on doing much lfr. So my gear is good enough for me. I can see where people get burned out. It took me 6 months of luck to get to this point. I just prefer a more 2 to 8 hour play week. Other imagine whould really get upset. I was getting lots of multi items for a long while.

101

I almost exclusively do world content and I don’t have the problem OP experiences and I can almost guarantee I play more hours a week than them as well.

There are separate gearing paths so that the people who prefer to do just one type of content can now. I like that. The current system is far better than one that forces people into content they don’t like to do just because OP likes to get gear from all sources.

If they changed all ‘handout’ content to 370 or 355 then people like me would be forced to go into content they don’t like or quit. I don’t approve of your suggestion.

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102

My main has almost twice the achievement points you do, does that mean my opinion is twice as valuable.

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103

If you only do World Content and islands lets say, why do you even need gear? Both of those scale with your ilvl, so getting more gear barely make them easier.

Actually why is most content aimed at casuals scales with ilvl at all? What’s the point of them getting more gear if they can’t farm a mount they want from Islands much faster or complete WQs much faster?

2 Likes
104

Yes, this is a valid question. One I have been asking myself of late. However, chasing that ilvl has in the past given motivation to keep playing, just to keep my options open, i.e. in case I decide to raid.