I feel like the major issue is that you will have what happened in Legion and BFA with the casual to midcore players openly whining about how they are “forced” to do world content to get competitive gear.
As much as people want to blame the hardcore/elitist groups for that, the majority of that complaint centered around “not have all the time do to chores” that casual community (which I agreed with back in BFA because RNG is not fun or rewarding) complained about for two expacs in a row.
They are to me. Its a subjective term. I am “casual” in the sense the content i choose to play, is not grouped 3 pillar content, and that then makes me a “solo” player.
I see in my last 17 years in this game, my version of “casual” really is the majority of the players.
The problem is people conflate “casual” as “how much time they spend in the game” rather than “what content do they do”.
For instance, how would you define RPers in this argument? Based on time spend – well they could be considered hardcore players but they might not do raids or pvp.
They have the numbers. You don’t. How do you know that “possibly even more than half the subscribed playerbase” doesn’t participate in raids, m+ and rated PvP? Supposition and guesstimates prove nothing. Just because you, the people you know, and a vocal minority on the forums choose not to participate doesn’t mean that the majority doesn’t.
It’s no secret that this game (especially endgame where the good rewards are) is primarily focused on group content. It’s been that way since it launched almost two decades ago, and it’s not likely to change now. Odds are that you knew this when you hit the install button, and if you didn’t, you definitely know now. Play or don’t, but stop getting upset because the game you signed up for isn’t magically changing to suit your whims.
If I play 6 hours a week and make good progress into the mythic raid, and you play 40 hours a week doing RP, who’s the more hardcore video game player?
My question to the OP and everyone else would be. What ilvl do you feel is acceptable for doing open world content only?
Right now, Korthia gear is upgradable to 233, higher than normal raid gear. And with that gear, if you wait for the pieces with the right stats, you’re basically a demigod facing open world NPCs. Enough power to solo rares in Korthia. I know, I did it on my Druid, and now this hunter is on the way up.
So, how high does the ilvl have to be, to be acceptable?
For the amount of gating, and the grinding for hours upon hours/days/weeks, a bit more than a lousy 13ilvls we are going to get in 9.2! They should have kept every bracket on par with Korthias/normal/heroic/mythic raids ilvl increase. Not 13 ilvls for weeks of casual/solo content.
Even with their new “system”, it would just be nice to feel like the grind was worth a lousy 13 ilvls!
Right, I don’t get this gear issue.
I’m a solo player have been for the past few years as a solo player I don’t expect to solo current end game stuff and for that reason, the whole gear pressure thing is pretty nonexistent to me
I do solo content and I don’t need raiding gear to do it if I want to raid then I’m not actually a solo player.
Speaking only for myself and my solo experience in WoW… it’s fine as it is I think (in this area) they have done a really good job giving solo players an enjoyable time.
And how many ilvls do the other content go up? Because if it’s only about as much increase for normal and mythic, what’s the issue?
Random Battlegrounds are the best solo content in the game (for me personally). I have ZERO interest in arenas. I want those MoP/WoD PvP vendors to return so I can return to spamming random battlegrounds from beginning til end of an expansion.
Please dear Blizzard overlords: Get rid of the god**** rating tied to PvP gear.
Yea feels bad that solo and world quest rewards are garbage. It’s weird how group content can invalidate solo progression so easily. So I have started doing mythic + runs. It’s a pita to get groups sometimes on alts. I would rather do gearing solo but it’s all pug life now, to enjoy the solo experience, the best rewards being in premade stuff is really annoying.
I do miss visions of N’zoth runs for my chance at decent gear, I sort of wish torgast had that but alas it’s pugging mythics and switching to a mythic build and then swapping back to play what you actually want to play in solo gameplay. Group content and the timer sort of makes you want to go meta for the loot. And at least we can swap back, but it’s annoying you give up use of the mission table for it.
Based on their content and the difficulty of content and the access to entry…they’re considerable indeed.
Wish granted.
/thread
Torghast (which can be done solo) = highest ilvl gear in game. And in 9.2, you get to have 2 of them!
All able to be done as the solo player 
And yet for past patches in this game, I have had alts that are floating around LFR and Normal raid ilvl and yet I can do big pulls (and sometimes solo elites if the spec’s toolkit allows it) just fine without the luxury of high end gear.
As for legacy content, I expect it to be sorted out over time.
The funny thing is a 2 will give 252 vault loot. So basically anyone who does solo content is waisting there time to get that gear imo. It’s weird how group content can totally invalidate a solo grind.
Group > solo in terms of difficulty
More difficult > less difficult in terms of rewards
Welcome to progression
That’s true to an extent but… not like you have to pay that much gold to access your loot for other content… lol… It’s also 2 pieces out of 19/20 slots…
Doing 15s rn is much easier then doing a flawless torgast run with the low ilvl you get from korthia.
What do you even do then, that requires gear?
Old Legacy raids are a pushover, in even 220 Korthia gear.
(Outside of Mythic Legion raids that need ppl for mechanics, like TOS/Antorus and BFA raids that aren’t considered Legacy yet, and isnt even soloable by ppl in 252 gear, so that complaint is meaningless).
As for soloing rares… its an MMO, Other ppl are probably trying to kill them too (and rares are easily soloable except for the Rare Elites).
Mass pulling mobs isn’t a great excuse for needing gear on par with ppl doing current content. Just pull less?
The entitlement is unbelievable lol.
Edit - I say this as someone who used to raid/M+ and now does none of that.
Sure I do rated pvp, but I don’t care that ppl who do more content than me, get better rewards. (Except for PvP rating giving better upgrades for pvp gear, thats a Joke)
Professions exist in game. You can make yours for free (outside of vendor materials). So you can run torghast, make your legendaries, and equip 2 out of the 15 slots available.
The powers alone make up the power gap between ilvls.
Why do you need to do a flawless run? You can spam 9s over repeatedly with Korthia gear just fine.
They need to just add a tiered system to World Quests that award some kind of token or direct gear upgrades. Have it cap out just under higher M+ and Heroic raid. Nothing in the open world should need anything remotely close to that level gear to be done. If anything, the way to overcome those challenges should NOT be OP gear, but rather coordinating with players… you know, like how we ALL needed help to kill hogger in vanilla. Or those elite orcs in Redridge.
I would like some kind of tiered WQ system with T4 wqs actually quite hard with consequences if you fail them. Make T1-3 conequence free, but harder and more complex.
A T1 WQ might have you just pick 10 flowers.
T2 version would have you pick 10 flowers but everytime you do, two mobs come after you designed specifically to counter your class (so you have to use your full kit to kill them).
T3 version no longer requires the picking of the flowers, but instead you have to now hunt down and kill elite mobs.
T4 version is just like T3 except now there’s a “boss” mob. If it kills you, you suffer a 5% damage done debuff for 2 hours. Only way to get rid of it is through the reward from… I dunno, some other WQ.