Wowhead recently posted answers to the Q@A that weren’t answered at Blizzcon. Most of them were pretty good but their response to the Titanforging question shows how out of touch they’ve gotten.
The response we get from the devs on TF is always something like “if someone gets a 390 out of raid finder it doesn’t matter because Mythic raiders as a whole will always be better geared.” This is true but this isn’t the problem at all. It is annoying to think that Mythic quality gear is just handed out for being lucky, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter. Here are the real problems:
Titanforging essentially forces guilds to run content they outgear. Most Mythic guilds still run Heroic every week because it’s a quick and efficient way to fish for Titanforging. I’m not a huge fan of this as it devalues Mythic raiding. You can easily be 380 item level without every going into Mythic or high rated PVP right now. And if you just care about getting gear, you are probably better off not Mythic raiding and just do Heroic, M+, and PvP. If you just spammed those it would most likely be more efficient than spending a week or two progressing on each Mythic boss.
This is the big one for me. Blizzard devs say they want people to get a surprise and to get joy out of an unexpected Titanforge. This is all well and good but you have to look at the other side. I was watching Jdotb’s stream the other day and his guild killed a boss he needed a staff from on Mythic. He bonus rolled the staff and responded with “385 and no socket, complete trash.” This is the reality. If it’s a 1% chance (it’s probably less) that your item will drop, titanforge, and roll a socket, that means that 99% of the time you’re going to be disappointed. Is that really worth that one time everything rolled perfect? I don’t think so. Titanforging actually takes the excitement away from item drops because the majority of the time it won’t titanforge and players will be disappointed.
What do you guys think? Also I want to point out that I have been really lucky with Titanforging, I have 3 395 pieces and one with a socket, along with a 380 weapon with a socket from M+. I still think the system is an overall negative on the game though.
I think different people have different perspectives on this particular issue. Some people are into TF/WF and some people are vehemently against it.
So exactly how can the development team be “out of touch” with an audience with divergent viewpoints? No matter how they land, they’re going to be annoying someone.
Titanforging gets geared, knowledgeable raiders into weaker content in hopes of getting lucky.
That helps the lower end and upper end of the community merge together.
People have offered the idea of capping warforging/titanforging to a certain item level, but eventually, all the high end raiders would filter upwards and never touch heroic/normal again, taking away a lot of the smooth runs you can find in the group finder.
I hate it. Luck can entirely invalidate any reason for doing harder content.
First week my guild killed Mythrax on normal, I got a 370 trinket with socket. Doing it on Heroic has become pointless unless I get lucky. Crap system.
But being out of touch? Eh’. Frankly, they’re catering to the folks that don’t have interest in stepping foot into Mythic and have left behind the idea that harder content should be the only way to get the best loot. I personally hate this, and would rather go back to something like what we had in MoP with small dumb luck upgrades.
I say they are out of touch because they never look at the other side of things. They see Titanforging as a nice bonus when it happens, most raiders see it as “this NEEDS to titanforge or it’s not good.” It would be nice if they recognized both sides.
I feel like this is the biggest thing we lost with TF’ing - gear used to have a lot more meaning.
At the same time, there’s a very large contingent of players who want to still progress without being in guilds that “essentially force” you to do stuff.
People’s perspective matters, and as far as “if it doesn’t socket and TF its junk” is kind of dumb really. You run content for x ilevel gear. Thats what you expect. Getting higher? thats extra icing on the cake.
Honestly, I’m someone who enjoys putting in effort and getting something out of it for the effort I put in. Never in WoW prior to WF / TF was I disappointed when a piece of loot dropped that I wanted. I showed up to my guild raids, paid my dues, and was awarded loot for the effort I put in. I was also loot master, and typically, on the list last for loot, as I was concerned with getting other people gear first.
WF / TF makes me annoyed when I actually get loot that isn’t WF / TF because in the back of my brain, I always feel like: “Well, it could have been better.” Similarly, I feel like WF / TF makes it so people are awarded for less effort than they put in, which results in a sense of entitlement, and otherwise, people thinking they’re improving, when they’re really not.
If little Timmy gets a piece of loot on an alt he barely plays that TF’s to mythic item level, he will still not pull the numbers he should, nor will he actually improve at all, despite numbers getting bigger. If he does the wrong rotation the same wrong way every time, of course, getting that TF of 90 item level is going to make him hit larger numbers (especially if it’s a weapon). But is he truly improving? No. And that’s bad juju.
WF / TF should be retired. We should be rewarded for the effort we put in. Bosses have never been defined as “Well maybe that lucky WF / TF will make us down it” before. This has been a line Blizz has used. That sometimes if you’re stuck in mythic progression, re-running heroic may give you a WF / TF and give you that little extra bump you need. I disagree with this mentality heavily. Rather than that, people should simply become better because they played better.
Honest opinion? Ditch this nonsense about WF / TF, and bring back master looter. Let guilds run their raids as they see fit.
Basically what you’re saying is “blizzard is in touch with the majority of the fanbase, but out of touch with mythic raiders”. Which, ps, isn’t out of touch, it just means they aren’t doing what mythic raiders want in order to give others what they want. I personally don’t see a problem with tf. Mythic raiders don’t need them and others could use them, but still won’t be skilled enough to run mythic. So the only thing that it does is give 80%-90% of the playerbase slightly better gear to run lower content with.
Not what I said at all. Also, Mythic raiders are part of the fan base, some of the most loyal fans out there. Not recognizing the issue that TF brings to the hundreds of thousands of Mythic raiders is being out of touch in my opinion.
I’m not confident this has really been an issue. WF/TF chances reaching Mythic Raid level from LFR are low enough to make this practically not worth the effort, and I would think that people at that level of play would be better served running Mythic+ dungeons. They might do it as an easy piece of content to run for a particular trinket (which I feel is a problem of trinket power balance, not WF/TF specifically), but I doubt they would feel “forced” at this point. Maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe I’m just from an old school environment, but this doesn’t seem much different then we had a approx 1% chance to get a drop at all. Only difference is that now we get a tease of having our BiS instead of not getting anything at all.
I think my personal gripe with this system is that I miss being done with my itemization. I saw a set of gear, I went after it, I got it, done (until the next content drop). Instead I feel like nothing ever really ends, because I can’t really finish anything. There’s always more grinding to do, and I kind of miss a time when I had good stopping points.
I disagree with this. No one is forced to run lower ilvl content, for the simple fact that neither loot, nor warforging/titanforging is guaranteed and that is the simple truth of the matter. If any guild master or raid leader is ordering you to run LFR or any content that you’ve outgeared for a ‘chance’ at titanforged gear (which depending on the level of content you’re doing may not outgear your stuff even if it does titanforge) then they are in the wrong.
I’d say this is behaviour more fitting of the top tier guilds pushing for world first, but the reality is that by the time all the wings of LFR are available, most guilds have already claimed their spots on the unofficial leaderboards, so even they wouldn’t need to do this.
This honestly is fine, the perception is the problem. Titanforging was implemented as a bonus, an ‘unexpected upgrade’ which you got pretty happy over when you got it. But it’s since become a ‘requirement’ by the community, meaning that if it doesn’t titanforge then it’s trash and that perception is the problem, because it was never intended to be seen that way.
IMHO some changes could be made to the system. For example, I don’t think sockets should be random. I think you should be able to see what gear has sockets, and you can choose to aim for that gear if you want that, or you can go with a different piece that might have an additional effect or higher stats instead of a socket.
If you assume that all 465 “guilds” that cleared 8/8 mythic are 20 unique players each, that’s less than 10,000 mythic raiders, hundreds of thousands is a bit of an exaggeration.
I do not have a problem with TF…there really are no surprises in this game other than a nice bit of luck here and there with TF. Your example of the streamer
So you are complaining for someone else? Look I hate all the RNG but at least there is one shining lining and that is that there is a chance the item will be cool. If this screamer/streamer would of rolled a titanforge with a slot would you still use him as an example? Probably not! No one complains when it works in their favor just when it doesn’t so this is just another “I didn’t get something post”.
I like it as a casual. Cause it doesnt happen all the time and it makes content relevant more often. I also like the occasional lucky upgrade. I dont do high end content. Sounds like more of a guild problem. They tend to create lots of problems. I dont think blizz balances around everyone being titanforged so if there pushing for a few percrntages of advantage for the next rsid tier for gear that your going to replace anyway… That seems silly and shortsighted.