It warms the blackened depths of my heart to see this thread still chugging along, with over 2k responses. I’m glad that people are finally starting to push back against the Raid-or-die mentality favored by the game designers for so long.
I can’t say that I’m jazzed to see that no one in the Community Council has deigned to bring up the issue over there, aside from proposing more solo “challenge” content.
Thank you for your words of encouragement!
That’s the whole point of my post. Many of us have greatly enjoyed WoW for years—whatever solo, world, or queued content was available in each expac. But something very, very wrong happened with the launch of Shadowlands. The devs thought it would be a good idea to axe our content (or the rewards from it) to force us into the premade group hamster wheels. I realize that they were behind in development and did not want to spend resources on non-raiding content, but they easily could have made the item levels of our rewards more reasonable.
You are no outcast. Players like you have been a staple of the WoW population until now. I chat with them all the time.
I hope devs finally realize why WoW subs are free falling and make system changes in 9.2 or 9.2.5 that benefit a wider variety of gameplay habits and preferences. And hopefully, the devs can spare development resources for more solo-oriented or casual-oriented content in 10.0.
Best to you as well!
Can I just point out this makes zero sense when it comes to FF14. Not only does FF14 have hard item level requirements to enter content, something WoW doesn’t really have, the best gear only comes from Savage, nothing else.
The path to gear/adventure on this game (PvE side) is like this: level up (solo), do World content (solo), do dungeons (5-man), and do dungeons (raid). The game has expanded all over the years… rep farming, Mythic + , Soul Cinders legendary farming but if you would summarize the game path to gear/adventure, it would be the same: level up (solo), do World content (solo), do dungeons (5-man), and do dungeons (raid).
The first step is level up usually on Solo. You would spend countless hours/weeks and even months depending on how much time you throw to the game. Of course, the more time you spend, the faster you experience the massive adventure that the game offers. Eventually, you would run out of things to do. You should be max’d level by then.
Then at max level, you would start playing the latest Expansion… the Shadowlands. It has a World Content that you could explore and it has matching rewards. Eventually, after hours/weeks and months playing on it, you would run out of things to do.
Then after getting tired of the World Content, you seek more adventure. You got basic gear from your early adventures and you want to progress. You need to start to do the END GAME.
Shadowlands ENDGAME has too many options to move forward. But people like you feel that Blizz didnt give you enough content. There is a Huge content. You consumed all of it that you can handle. You ran out of things to do. There are more content out there as massive as the initial content you experienced. But it requires group. That’s how this game goes… You need group to progress further. It’s the game mechanics since Vanilla.
And you choose not to do them. It’s your fault. It’s your loss. It’s not the developer’s fault. You are just on a wrong game. You want this game to cater you. You want high ilevel gear by skipping group content. I dont think it would happen. If Blizz made a Solo content that will give very high ilevel gear, everybody including all raiders would have it. Becoz Raiders can Solo everything as they are beyond the Solo content. The Endgame would become not balanced when the raider get high ilevel gear from low difficulty World Content.
I have been with WoW since Vanilla. I do 5-man. I do raids. I have all the contents in my hand. It just depends on how much time I throw to it. I am Casual less play time. But I can do M+15 and some Heroic Boss kills. But I didnt become veteran on this game at start. It took weeks/months harnessing my skill. I wiped and died with PuGs so many times. But I learned and develop skills with my toons, learned from mistakes. Look at me now, I can handle M+15s/ some Heroic Raids. And I am pretty sure if I render more time, I could handle Mythic Raid. Do your part. Learn the game. Accept failures from dungeons, learn from it and improve. This lengthy process seems disappointing at start. But eventually, it would become easier when you learn to play the game. In the end, you would have fun.
Good luck, Solo play is good. Group play is better.
This is the part that really bothers me. I mean, why? Do they honestly think people who don’t do raid or mythic plus will suddenly start pugging Normal Sepulcher for a sword?
What is the actual logic here? If 252 is the world gear cap, then ALL items should be obtainable from world content at that level.
Another thought:
Solo power progression doesn’t have to be from ilvl. I think the Cypher of the First Ones and Cypher gear is on to something here.
If a 252 weapon is “too good” (for whatever reason), then why not a 246 weapon that can be “enchanted” through an open-world progression system? Something that provides throughput equal to a normal or even heroic level weapon, but which “turns off” in all non-legacy instanced content? Similar to the bonuses provided by current cypher gear, but applied to weapons as well.
You guys still going on about your entitlement about gear?
But the issue with SL is that every option involves premade grouping.
I’m not even complaining about the lack of content, just the intentional lack of rewards. Give gear drops to Torghast and 259 iLvl to Zereth Mortis gear, then no additional content is needed.
Right game, but wrong expac. WoW was booming as an MMO when it was innovative with regards to solo-friendly content. I want this game to cater to everyone.
It’s OK if the difficult raids offer one notch higher iLvl rewards than world content, so that the raiders have something to work for (assuming that gear is their primary motivation). But it is not OK if world content is patches behind max iLvl raiding gear in power levels, and devs tune things like Torghast around having max iLvl.
Yes. 
Lots of people get into more competitive content to get things that they want. Some people end up loving that content. I wouldn’t get too worried about the ilvl on a single item. It’s going to make almost no difference. That being said, seeing as it won’t make a difference, I don’t see the harm in it.
God forbid you actually spent the time crying on the forums and actually did some group content.
When the people in said group have an attitude like yours and condescend and insult instead of helping to improve, then yes. And god forbid I get a sword that’s the same level as my armor.
I have no problems helping anyone that’s actually wanting to learn and improve.
I only mock those wanting free handouts for the joke that is solo content.
Again, and no disrespect, but don’t get too worked up over the ilvl. It might be an actual upgrade for you and it might not. Most players will generally have a slot that’s lower than the others as that particular item is just better and they haven’t seen it in higher difficulties.
My helm being a prime example.
I know it won’t make much practical difference. I just don’t understand the design philosophy of excluding a particular item slot just because.
I mean, it’s like if in 8.3 they just said “We expect Ashvane’s Razor Coral to continue being BiS this tier, so no new trinkets will drop from Ny’alotha.”
Okay, but it still feels weird.
Blizzard does it all the time with rating requirements and similar gearing restrictions. I don’t think Visions gave a full set, but I could be wrong about that. They do want to create some incentive to push players into more competitive content. It keeps the subs rolling.
When will the group-play entitlement/welfare gear stop?
Why does the worst player in a raid deserve better gear than a solo player who actually had to earn everything he got?
Raiding and solo content can both be equally rewarding and the game servers would not explode from the injustice to group content.
Raids can be time-consuming, drop rates are low, and the Great Vault is an RNG/timegating scam. So it makes sense for the gear to be good.
But all players should have the right to experience power progression in WoW even if they don’t want to or can’t raid.
I think that 259 gear (in every slot including weapons) would be a fair starting point to maintain the development progress that we made in Korthia, even without tier set bonuses. But if devs insist on capping casuals at 252, at least give us tier set bonuses and weapons to make up for the -7 item level nerf, for Elune’s sake.
The worst raider on your team can probably still do the solo content. I don’t know if the opposite is true.