Since this is a long post and me posting on a lvl 1 character might discourage you to invest the 5 minutes to read what I put my whole heart into, I will explain.
I am a EU-Player and came humbled to the US-Forums, because I belive here my voice could actually stumble upon some open ears!
For the ones curious this is my main: https://worldofwarcraft.com/de-de/character/draenor/Primeapex
Intro:
There is a number of issues with the current state of the game, a lot of them have been stated by streamers, youtubers(asmongold, preach, bellular,az), players and adressed by Blizzard aswell.
I have recently whitnessed alot of those being adressed by other players as how to fix/improove them, but I am yet to find someone, who has had a specific idea on how to fix what i am about to adress.
Main part:
A lot of the frustration in the playerbase comes from other players, it seems. It may have a variety of different reasons, but there is one in particular I think: the gearing process. (free loot and titanforging and on the other hand underwhelming rewards after getting those titanforges) Furthermore, the player recieves rewards( WQ-loot/emissary) based on his current ilvl( which means how lucky he got on titanforging riding the warfront welfare) and not on the base of the difficulty of the content he has actually done.
We all know how it goes down in the current system as soon as you hit max lvl and it is neither particularly interesting, nor is it making the player feeling good about gearing up this way in the long run!
Another sideeffect this process is causing: people gear up for doing litterally nothing but spend time in the game (warfronts, weekly quest rewards, world bosses, titanfroging etc...), which leaves them with a reward yet not the skill necessary to aquire that reward under normal circumstances (for that 340/355/370 ilvl gear youd have to go mythic0, n/hc uldir, or 6+ keys)
Which leads to a lot of frustration to the entire playerbase, not only the ones who were prepairing themselves (watching guides, practice rotations, get the right enchants/consumables etc...), but also for the ones who dont know who to play at the level their "free" gear is telling them to be.
It is absolutely a joke to get to 350 you can do that in max 1 week, faster if you get some dropluck. So the next step for an upgrade is either raid or a +6 key.
Now imagine a player never having to interrupt/stun/kite/cc/soothe getting into a +6 key.
Then if this player finally manages to get to that level where he beats the +6 key and pushes his limits further, he gets awarded with a 355ilvl piece of loot, but wait he got a free 370 ilvl piece from that warfront he queued last night at 3am and fell asleep but he still got it done, because it didnt matter he wasnt participating... This feels terrible if you get a reward for actually playing the game, that is far worse from the one you got for doing nothing.
The point is not bad game design in particular, but the choices on the developer end. Blizzard is giving everyone the tools and also the necessary process to learn how to use the tools(the dungeon design is great, mechanics are easy to learn and there is all insentive to learn them aswell), but alongside they also provide the player with a cheatcode (just simply outgearing mechanics with all the welfare gear in content you can queue up to), where all this begins to be a problem.
Well as a mythic raider having outgeared heroic uldir and +10 keystone locked gear aswell, it should not bother me, what problems occur on the low to mid area of the gearing spectrum, but it ties into my problems aswell... There is not much i can do to get my character further ahead but to raid mythic. Tecnically I could run content I already outgeared because of the chance on a titanforge, but that is just not fun at all. So what am I going to do when I log in? (beisdes pvp, but i dont want to be a burden to the pvp players, so i dont bother)
So there we have 2 problems sitting on both ends of the ilvl spectrum and i came up with a solution, maybe this is already in work or someone else has had the same/similar idea, I dont know that, so no hard feelings if that is the case please.
How to fix the gearing problem (does not include azerite, this is a whole other issue for itself):
1) Reward players with loot they deserve, based on the hardest content they have succeeded and not itemlevel of their current gear. Example: I have done only mythic+0 and some lfr so the reward i should get would be around ilvl 345-350 max. So instead of going into a warfront and getting free 370ilvl i would get a 350ilvl piece. This will push players to actually follow the game mechanics, create own groups and get better at the game. Furthermore it would reward players, who actually ding 120 and instantly clear +6 and above keys with faster gearing expirience and greater feeling of being rawarded because of the difficulty someone has done and not the "every body gets a trophy day".
2) Make every Keystone done in time drop loot for each player insted/alongside of azerite power, I know it sounds stupid right now but you will understand why after you red all the points. This will lesser the frustration and will players a good insentive to push keys with a guarantee of loot. Furthermore it will decrease the frustration of completing a key and instead of having a chance on having a chance to get something desireable you could be actually certain you could get something you want/need.
3) Make gear scrappable, but in a meaningful way for character progression:
- Mythic keystone gear could be scrapped for "MYTHIC KEYSTONE DUST" or simply "MKD" the higher key you obtained this item from, the more dust you should get the ammount of dust should rise exponential with the keystone level NOT ITEMLEVEL.
-Raidgear scrappable to "RAID DUST" or "RD" which followes the same rule, the higher difficulty you got it from, the more dust
-Example:
keystone level 2 scrapped gives 25 "MKD" and keystone 10 gives you 300 "MKD"
LFR item scrapped 40 "RD" and mythic difficulty item scrapped 500 "RD"
4) So now you got the dust you could be able to use a stack of 1000 dust to upgrade an item +5 itemlevel with the following rule:
-"MKD" only works on items from keystone gear and WQ`s gear
-"RD" only works on raidgear, except lfr gear!
-the itemlevel upgrades should have a cap ofc but not a "use" cap like we used to have with the badges, instead the cap should be an ilvl-cap
-you cant use the dust from keystones on your raidgear and vice versa, raidgear should be something special since there is a limit on how much of it you are able to get a chance on aquiring per week.
-Example:
keystone gear could be upgraded up to an ilvl of 385
raid gear (independent of aquired difficulty, except lfr) up to ilvl 395!
Up to here you would get a solution for keeping players engaged, yet not force them to play a constant slotmachine, but a in small steps and constant feel of progression and rise in power. Even helping out friends running lover keys would still progress your character in a meaningfull way.
Additionaly, if you really need to implement RNG and "lucky upgrades" into the game, this system would be perfect for that aswell:
-Example: instead of gear titanforgin you could get additional dust from scrapping on a proc (20% extra or something in this direction)
You could use this system to additionally reward players for farming rep from worldquests after they have reached exalted with a certain fraction, like the exalted paragon reward in legion.
Same goes for the busy work quests whic reward you 80 gold/ 40 warressources.....
-Why did i include Worldquest Rewards in being upgradable by keystone dust?
For many classes world quest rewards are very good but you would have to get insanely lucky to get them to an ilvl where it does not feel bad to use them...
-Example: according to Simcraft, alot of the used trinkets are blue wq-items titanforged all the way from 320 to 370ilvl, this is ridiculous it will never happen to anyone and you have no chance on actually target those trinkets with that itemlevel. Compared to those, the trinkets from m+ and raids feel lackluster at best, if you know there is an actually good one out there somewhere. But you have no real chance of actually getting it..... This is just frustrating.
With this system you would give players a constant feel of progression without very high spikes in ilvl increase followed by a period of disappointment and frustration without bringing in new vendors and weekly cappable currencies like the badges in the past. Furthermore, players getting above 380ilvl would still get a chance on improoving their character outside of the weekly raid lockout, this giving them something to do around the clock, wating them to waste their lifetime, to get the BIS weapon they got from that +9 key to 385 and actually get the most out of their character. It would also help people stuck on progression bosses, without blizzard having to nerf them directly.
Logging in for for high end geared players would still have purpose other than running around dalaran, not knowing what to actually do, cause nothing feels rewarding enough to actually spend their time on it and waiting for the next raid night. (this is a big problem for me: i cant motivate myself runnign 10+ keys for the chance on a chance on a titanfroge(chance)....
Ending word:
I am not a developer and I have not the intention to tell anyone how to do things.
I love this game and I love the players and I want this game to be so good, people would quit their jobs to play it! This is to bring out my idea into the world and if I manage to inspire even the slighest change in the better future of this game, I'll thake the time and the potential backlash to do so.
Thank you for reading,
*Moderation note - Edited title and post - please refrain from calling out other players in your titles of your threads in the future. Thank you!