That’s why forging is great, you can continue doing the content you want to do and still have a chance to get better gear instead of just being hard-stuck like it was in the past
Lfr isn’t a progression path anymore, and I say good riddance. You would find that same amount of time you committed in lfr could get you somewhere in lfg normal and you can come and go as you please. Tons of groups going on with different progression levels and expectations
Cool. I know what I could do and I know what I like doing. If I wanted to do normal I would but I don’t.
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I don’t understand it either. It seems like the TL;DR version is ‘It’s too easy to get gear doing casual content, which is bad for casual players because…’
I can’t figure out the because.
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Then don’t make it sound like time is your restraint when it’s not
It’s bad for casual players who want stuff to do that feels rewarding, but are running out.
It’s not bad if your goal is ‘get high ilvl gear’, it’s bad if you are finding that you’re losing interest in the game because there’s nothing you can do with your available time that has a chance of reward. Sure, you could go play another game, but the point of the original post seems (to me) to be that it’d be nice if that wasn’t the only option.
Coincidentally, I found myself thinking just this morning that there wasn’t really much point me doing anything that I actually had time for in game. Legion kept me playing constantly even when I couldn’t really get upgrades because of artifact level, BfA seems to lack that.
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And then…NO AND THEN!!!
Is .5% dps really that much better than 2 ilvls?
If it makes you happier, yes?
(Edit - To be fair, there were other reasons I kept playing Legion without feeling that way, today I just looked at what I could do with my available time and felt less like it was worthwhile than it did during Legion.)
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Why would that make anyone happier, I don’t get
Doesn’t really matter, as long as it does.
We all get our sense of accomplishment and progression from different things. I believe the original post was saying that the speed of gear upgrades in BfA has created that perceived end of progression faster than previously. The post I replied to didn’t seem to understand that that was the reason the original poster was stating.
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I think the problem is content feels unrewarding if there’s no character power progression behind it. This was a sentiment lore had (before he was at blizzard) in relation to battlegrounds in cataclysm – once he got full bg gear, it felt pointless to do the content.
I somewhat agree, but I feel like the ‘casual’ content (for lack of a better word) is trying to serve two masters - first it’s the primary content for casual players, but at the same time it’s trying to be a catchup mechanism. As a catchup mechanism it works great primarily due to its speed, but as the primary content for a set of players, the speed in which you can gear up works against these players.
At least, that’s my take on it. I think the content just above the queue/wq content is pretty accessible too, and is probably where blizzard is trying to gently nudge players.
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My personal opinion is that there are too many sources, and granting too high rewards.
Currently in BfA we have an abundance of weekly/daily “requirements” to obtain higher than expected rewards.
It is content that provides an illusion of choice but instead determines how players should play in order to maximise their results/rewards.
For example, off the top of my head I can think of M+ cache, Island Expedition bonuses, Invasions, Embassy quests, weekly turtle quest, warfronts, PvP cache, and PvP bonus piece at the least which all have this design.
They are all guaranteed content rewards that grant rewards higher than the standard rewards of content required to complete them.
This gives them a false equivalence of reward. Your highest M+ is of higher value than any other, your first 1650 conquest points are worth more than any subsequent, you first 12,000 azerite is worth more than those that follow and so on.
It changes the value of content to many people depending on their current situation. In a way it a similar (although less severe) case of raid locks, in that situation it is very much less incentivised for a player who has say 3 raid locked bosses to re-run those to do the next bosses, instead of just continuing from where they left off, opposed to other players who may also need the first 3 bosses also.
In smaller guilds this can potentially cause issues between players not “being on the same page” as players desire to do certain content fluctuates based not on want, but on reward.
For example whilst a guild might be a PvP guild, they would be encouraged to do all their island expeditions, embassies, and a M+ each week.
For some who are time limited, that could potentially be an issue, perhaps they aren’t able to get their conquest done because everyone else is trying to get their M+ and Islands done, or vice-versa.
This was the state of my guild previously, we were unable to all keep up with the reward systems (especially PvP which is exceptionally punishing if you aren’t able to play each day). Now instead of being a PvP guild which we were initially, we do a couple of days raiding and then some M+ as people try to ensure they have one done for the week (regardless of difficulty)
As someone who myself has very limited play time I feel this all too well. I have accepted that I won’t complete the island expedition weekly, and I have accepted that I won’t complete any of the PvP caches/rewards.
But because of that I don’t participate in them at all even though I do enjoy them.
Instead I’m chasing that warfront when it’s up, or those WQ embassies, or trying to quickly get in a M+ after raid one night so I don’t miss out on my cache. I can’t afford to do a battleground because I know it means not only do I not get that reward, but I miss out on the other reward as well that could have been obtainable, same with islands.
It has created a substantial problem in the game with “opportunity cost”, that is the price to do content (because over rewarded) generally means that an associated action with have to be neglected, typically those that you would do for fun, not rewards. (who has time to run old dungeons/raids for mogs these days? Or level new alts?)
I think these affect players without an excess of time more than they benefit them from granting them better gear. As it’s those people who have to choose, not the people who have an almost unlimited amount of time.
It’s not fun when I have to run a warfront every time it’s up because it awards me heroic equivalent gear. It makes it a chore.
I would rather be rewarded less, equivalent to the content that I was completing, but not feel like I’m punished for choosing to do content that I find fun, rather than what is significantly more rewarding.
Overall it’s not the accessibility of the content that provides these rewards, it’s the shear quantity of them, alongside their value compared to regular content that I see as being the issue.
TL:DR - There is higher opportunity cost involved when considering the increased rewards for certain “cache” rewards. It creates an incentive “laundry list” to tick off each week for optimal rewards which in turn makes it feel more like a chore, while consequently reducing the incentive to do things just because you find them fun.
I think we would benefit more from having less incentive guaranteed rewards allowing us to play the game in the way we deem to be fun, without having to worry about “losing out” or “falling behind” because we didn’t leap for the carrot.
Edit: Slight update but won’t go into it. A lot of “low tier” content is substantially devalued by world content and aforementioned cache rewards.
Things like LFR, M0, M+2 - 6 (even normal BoD imho) are significantly devalued in terms of reward based on what you receive to difficulty (LFR not so much difficulty).
The rewards of all of these forms of content can be negated through things like WQs, embassies, warfronts, or invasions.
I’m all for content for everyone but I would rather see the rewards equivalent to difficulty. More casual/solo difficult content would be awesome.
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So what? I play casually as hell now when I play at all it makes it feel so unrewarding to get a 400 ilvl piece from afkable content. When the game was at it’s peak was when the majority of content was actually inaccessible to the average player it gave people something to push for. The highest period of growth for the game was bc. It only started to level off and then drop once the idea of everyone should be able to do all content became a thing. Now we have 4 different raid difficulties all of which honestly feel unrewarding. The whole idea of titanforging is an abomination to the rpg genre.
By reading the thread, probably.
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I completely agree with the OP on this one.
The content I used to enjoy when I was a more casual player was mainly Heroic Dungeons and LFR, and some random BGs or even low ranked arena from time to time. In BFA those systems become irrelevant too soon simply because there are so many other sources of “free” high item level gear (by “free” I mean almost no challenge involved).
A lot of players complain revolves around they not enjoying the stress of the M+ timer (which is valid, M+ is not casual content) but the current Heroic and M0 dungeons are not challenging like in past expansions, and then provide TBC and Cataclysm dungeons as good examples of “challenging” dungeons…
The thing is, that’s not exactly what’s happening, I did tons of M0 dungeons early on in the expansion and they were as challenging as those TBC and Cata Heroics but that’s because my gear was around 310 to 315 item level, they stay decently challenging up to 325-330 and then start to become easy ride.
What’s happening now is that players are able to take advantage of multiple rewards that are frankly overtunned for the level of challenge they present so in no time their item level skyrockets to Normal or even Heroic Raid levels, so ofc that M0 and LFR are no longer relevant both in terms of rewards and in terms of challenge.
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I’m years retired from extremely hardcore raiding.
I’ve been casual since early MOP when I took time off and came back mid WOD.
I’d say this game and it’s systems are TOO casual friendly.in regards to gearing and “seeing the content”
I despise Mythic+ thus don;t do them, I don’t have a schedule that allows me to even join my guild’s alt/casual team regularly, somehow loot is thrown at me in a way I can easily pug normal/heroic and even a bit of mythic if I want. (truthfully I don’t have the patience to deal with bad in pugs, and prefer to know my raid team. I usually jump in with alt night on Saturday when I’m off work. Heck I even pugged AHOTC a bunch of teirs. since I’ve come back gear systems are disappointing with the lack of effort it takes, sense of progression there existed 10 years ago is gone. catching up is nice… but perhaps professions being more relevant would be cool.
I loved the TBC crafting, (and yes I was hardcore then.)
Legion was a little better in some aspects, I liked what they did with fishing, there was a sense of community there. (which has been lacking for YEARS)
all in all if I put forth any effort being 393 with zero work and a few minutes on fatboss and tweaking weakauras/bigwigs successfully pugging normal or heroic would be and has been 100% in reach.
For me nowadays it’d lack of drive, perhaps the ridiculous welfare systems are part of that.
lol opps posted on alt, got a few more in 380+ range, main is 393 all with minimal work)
I feel things things like Warfronts, World Bosses, and Emissaries are over rewarding for both their level of difficulty and how often you can obtain rewards from them.
(Soon ilvl 400 Conq gear is going to contribute as well)
The 370 tier and 385 tier of gear rewards gets leapfrogged in BFA by far too many nonequivalent sources.
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BfA is incredibly alt friendly, the leveling speed has never been faster, the rate at which you obtain gear has never been better. You can literally deck yourself out in heroic raid gear items just by doing a world boss that takes 5 minutes of your time a week. I don’t see how this game can be friendlier than it already is.
OP’s comment is a real head scratcher… That it got upvotes is even more confusing. ![:thinking:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/thinking.png?v=6" ":thinking:")
It’s really not difficult to understand. What you describe isn’t playing the game… It’s being spoonfed the game, and a lot of people dislike that.
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