Belluar put it best, the system needed is one where people can feel like they are progressing towards a goal. Some only do world/solo content and their progression is blocked under the current system.
It can be s snail’s pace, it can still be inferior gear, but there needs to be that sense of progression to keep people interested and playing. Few are asking for mythic level gear, like that long grind I mentioned would still be heroic ilvl at best.
The other part of the argument for such is that people are putting in the time, should they not get some reward for that, or are only those that put forth the effort and get all slots mythic level in a month or 2 worthy of that gear?
I don’t know what the solution is. I don’t think people should be handed max level gear by any means, but what has ‘worked’ for the last 17 years appears to not be working now. The game is more dead than I have ever seen it. More ways to earn great gear is not a bad thing. What of a fourth way to grind gear? You currently have raiding, m+ and pvp. What if they added max level solo content gear to the mix through something like Mage Tower, soloable world bosses, Torghast? If you were concerned about the person’s gameplay, don’t invite them to your keys or raid if you saw they were fully equipped in solo gear. They don’t bother you, you don’t bother them.
But you’re not going by difficulty, but by time. If you’re going to incentivize players to take the long road, you de-incentivize players to raid, M+, or PvP.
World content should set players up to engage in late-game content. The entire point of the game is to play in group content with other players.
Heck, I’d argue that Korthia is way too rewarding. Korthia had damaged the “middle” of WoW. The true beating heart of WoW is the Normal/Heroic raiders. It simply is. This is one of the largest sources of consistent revenue for Blizzard based on the size of the group and how long they sub (fickle tourists who sub for 1-2 months may slightly outnumber them but tourists don’t and were never going to play long-term). The people who log on, have a few beers, jump on Discord, and kill some raid bosses with the boys. This is "pure WoW’ at this point. Millennials / “30 year old boomers”.
Korthia killed Normal raiding and raised the minimum expectations for gear for players who are new or returning to get kitted out to play. Korthia also trivialized the gearing curve and made AOTC much faster than in prior tiers. The sub drop-off is very likely largely accounted for by this core players.
The fact that Blizzard is pulling back hard on open-world gear even when 9.2 is the “Fan Service Patch” is proof that this open-world gear was so poisonous that Blizzard will take the heat from open-world players to ensure the game is more fun for the important part of the fan-base.
I agree with this. IME, as soon as Raiders get the final kill, the group starts dwindling quickly. Many of them quit playing until shortly before the next raid comes out. After the final raid, those same people disappear until a new expansion is released. Player’s that stay between peaks are definitely paying their fare share of game developing costs.
Imagine Korthia if it only gave the minimum ilvl gear, and the ways to upgrade it but provided a more universal currency for upgrading. For ones like me, who raid, do M+ and things like Korthia, we would still be encouraged to raid and get the gear but if we ran into a streak of bad luck (no drops or only duplicates) we still had a way to improve our gear. FOr those that only do solo/world content, they can still progress at the rate they want.
If Korthia damaged the middle of WoW, it is because people make gear their be all, end all, for ones like me beating Sylvanas and having fun is the be all, end all. The gear is just a tool to get me there. I don’t mind even killing the last boss of a patch repeatedly, as I am doing it with my guild/friends.
Not really, the gear coming up is fine ,it’s just raiders and mythic dungeoneers don’t want solo player to have the same as they do, which it isn’t. I would more likely know why ,digging into it and it has to do with the world boss or they wouldn’t be complaining about it.Which can drop a tier gear yet it’s rnged.
It’s a bit under Normal IIRC. Good, but not enough to undermine raid content, which is the sweet-spot.
Of course, the problem is that a lot of players, once they’ve got a taste, will never stop hungering. “Casuals” (anti-social players) still demand the return of titanforging to this day even though it has almost universally been considered a good move to remove it from the game (in fact, look at the threads of people excited that the guy behind titanforging is no longer with Blizzard). This thread exists essentially because some people aren’t satisfied with a gear progression model - they have to have gear that undermines part of the game because… I don’t know honestly. I actually don’t know why open-world / anti-social players feel they need gear to be so strong.
It always bothered me that gear was, generally, obsolete in a few months and I had to grind it out again. It never felt that good and irked me. What felt good was doing the content I wanted to do and getting mounts/achievs - things like that felt good, not the gear.
I still don’t get it. If people want to play solo content and get the best gear in an MMO, why even play an MMO to begin with?
Are you Discording with your friends while they play different games?
Is your guild there for social fluff?
Why are you playing an MMO and wanting to get the highest level gear all by yourself? Why even spend a monthly fee on a genre meant to provide a multiplayer experience?
What would WoW single player even look like? A one time buy where you beat the story and never play the game again?
No, that would be the extremes of both ends, solo and group… MMOs are supposed to cater to a wide range of players, including those that are solo.
Very few solo players with working want max level gear from solo content, keep in mind, solo players are quite often the ones that are paying when group content runners are done because they finish the patch, without that money the game is dead. Is this not enough reason to toss solo players the occasional bone?
Actually,soloers do the content they like not for the best in raiding -mythic gear but the best they can get to the content they play. World questing gear goes up because they difficulty does with each zone they add. If a solo person wishes to do group content they are free to do so ,even if people try to force them to do so they don’t have to.
