Currently stated game design philosophy
- Someone who just focuses on one activity (game theater, here) should get about 95% of the power [Link: Interview w/ Ion (07/09/20)]
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Personae
- Zoidberg is a min/max mythic raider that lives exclusively in azeroth (50+ Hours/week)
- Fry is a raid logger that invests minimally in the game between scheduled raid times (10-15 Hours/week)
- Bender is on a M+ push team, has little interest in raiding, and enjoys PvP when not dungeoneering (20-30 Hours/week)
- Amy is near-exclusively interested in PvP, who’s other time spent is to support this goal (20-30 Hours/week)
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User Stories
- Zoidberg wants to be utterly dominant in all game theaters, and will do whatever it takes regardless of time or penalty to do so. He realizes that he won’t be mechanically perfect in all theaters, but his abundance of loot carries him to glory in times when he’s not as crisp as other players.
- Fry only enjoys Raiding, and dislikes being pressured into the M+ or PvP game theaters in order to remain successful in Raid scenarios.
- Fry believes that Raiding is inherently more difficult than M+ or PvP, and should be rewarded with more dominant gear that applies to all game theaters.
- Bender mostly enjoys M+, and dislikes being pressured into Raiding in order to remain successful in M+ scenarios.
- Bender wants to be able to have something to directly work towards throughout the week, by targeting potential loot upgrades in dungeons and feeling rewarded when you’re successful.
- Amy exclusively enjoys PvP, and dislikes being pressured into either Raiding, or M+, in order to remain successful in PvP scenarios.
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Current Itemization
Raid Theater
Intra-week reward structure:
- Attainable Gear - Power Range: 187 - 233 [LFR: 187-194 | N: 200-207 | H 213-220 | M: 226-233]
- Gear Scarcity / Availability: 1 loot chance per Boss kill per week (Historically ~ 25% / kill for personal loot)
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M+ Theater
Intra-week reward structure:
- Attainable Gear - Power Range: 187 - 210 [+1-6: 183-197 | +7-14: 200-207 | +15: 210]
- Gear Scarcity / Availability: Non-diminishing loot chance, available at the end of each completed m+ dungeon
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PvP Theater
Intra-week reward structure:
- Attainable Gear - Power Range: 158 - 190 (+20% offensive Vers Modifier in PvP Theater, applicable to Vers gear attained outside of PvP as well)
- Gear Scarcity / Availability: Currency attained from Daily / Weekly & Non-diminishing reward from repeatable PvP Activity (Arena, BG, etc)
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Great Vault
End of week reward structure
- Attainable Gear - Power Range: Up to 226 for all theaters (+233 for M Raid?)
- Gear Scarcity / Availability: One chosen option per week hard cap
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Solvable Problems / Unsolved Problems
- Due to compounding math of itemization scaling (simplified, below), Bender and Amy are not within the 95% intended power threshold of Zoidberg or Fry, and require supplemental raid gearing (to achieve 95% intended power)
Power Outcome (continuously compounded) = Attainable Gear (Intra-Week, Great Vault) * Gear Scarcity (Intra-Week, Great Vault)
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Solved Problems
- Zoidberg retains power-fluidity between all game theaters. The early power achievements available from intra-week Raid gearing, predominance of thus gear, and additional specificity awarded from weekly-options allows him to be utterly dominant in all formats while wearing said gear
- Fry retains power-fluidity between all game theaters. Without requiring supplemental gearing, the early power achievements available from intra-week Raid gearing, predominance of thus gear, and additional specificity awarded from weekly-options allows him to be mostly dominant in all formats while wearing said gear
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Solution Framing [Proposed Solutions]
- Apply diminishing returns to loot + currency chances of intra-week M+ and PvP. Consider a hard cap/lockout per week if needed (or just an aggressively increasingly punitive DR chance)
This is to address the Scarcity issue of the three theaters, and allows for further manipulation on gear power - With scarcity addressed, allow increased gear scaling beyond what currently exists. Power could be considered to be absolute (applicable to all game theaters) or relative (additional power only “active” in select theaters: see below)
Relative power increase exist as gear scaling above normal ranges, for specific gear theaters
Example:
- Mythic +: Running a +XX awards the following [iLvL 210 + up to 23 in M+ only]
- PvP: Conquest gear awards the following [iLvL 190 + up to 33 in PvP only, rating locked + maximal currency]
- Gear set expansion to address power scaling (if other relative power options not to be considered)
Note:
Relative power resolves fluidity issues of M+/PvP items “flooding” Raid [Most affected user: Zoidberg]
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Known Issues / Bugs [in current game design, based on stated game design philosophy]
- Bender & Amy must Raid for gearing opportunities in order to stay within the 95% intended power threshold of Zoidberg or Fry, in non-raid game theaters
- With the removal of Master Loot, intra-raid gear optimization is more difficult, and unintended player behavior is present
Blizz current solution: 8-point iLvl reduction to end of M+ gear power, to curtail unintended player behavior within the raid theater (and in support of said theater)
Note: If it is pointed out that details in the text above are wrong, they will be edited and corrected