At the very least in MoP/WoD, the casuals and BG only players could play arena and lose a lot but still get their cap faster. In the end they had their max ilvl gear to take into BGs and play with.
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I provided literal proof that random BG gearing in WoD was extremely generous compared to every other wow expansion.
Is shadowland as good as WoD was for people that just do Random BGs? not even close.
Out of all expansions we have:
- Two expansions (WOD, Cata) that were significantly more generous to Random BG Gamers
- 3 expansions (Legion, MOP, BC) that are close to Shadowlands
- Two expansions (Wrath, BFA) that were massively worse than what we have in shadowlands
Is shadowlands being a middle of the pack expansion for Random BG gamers a sign that everything is the worst itâs ever been? I donât think so.
In TBC I had to grind dungeons at first to go into bgs to be able to play somewhat effectively, especially as a healer. Then when moving up I could eventually get epic pieces. I could of sworn there was also ways to obtain crafted pieces and bgs that would give gear or honor, like WoD and MoP. Which seemed great. I guess not everyoneâs cup of tea 
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Weâre going from being one tier behind the top with scaling in BfA to being two tiers behind the top with no scaling in SL and we donât know why. Were there people who complained about random BGâs being too efficient/strong a gear path in BfA?
I donât think it would be disruptive to the reward structure or for rated incentive for us to be able to grind out the best or near-best gear from random BGs as long as it takes much longer to do and as long as itâs contingent upon your team winning rather than just being there.
It stinks that the gear you get from randoms isnât good enough to make you feel competitive in the environment that you earned it from. You canât say that about any other content environment (LFR gear is suitable for LFR content, rated PvP gear is suitable for rated PvP content, WQ for WQ content, etc.).
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You are only comparing ilvl between rated and unrated. If that is all you want to say, then sure. But ilvl is only part of the gearing system. You have completely ignored how players acquire gear in this ranking system of yours.
Unrated PVP no longer awards conquest at all. I donât remember another expansion with a blanket rating gate like this.
TBC and Wrath didnât give you conquest/arena points either, and to be fair they did say Wrath was one of the worst expansions for random BG players ilvl gap wise.
One tier isnât an overly meaningful distinction, itâs better to use the gap in iLVL as each iLVL is equal to an approximately 1% increase in power.
So even though wrath had a âone tierâ gap between honor and conquest. That cap was an almost 38% increase in power.
On your other point, being a fresh player thatâs forced to play against better geared players is a legitimate issue. Especially now that high rated players are going to be incentivized to queue many Random BGs.
Adding an âiLVL balancedâ matchmaking rule to Random BGs would be an immensely good feature for everyone involved.
Was it just honor and then rating to buy shoulders or weapons?
You had to earn arena points to buy ALL current season gear in wrath, and every piece had a rating req on too. Helm was like 1900, weapon 1800, t2 weapon at 2200, and shoulders 2050? Iâm old and likely forgetting the exact numbers but itâs close.
Just speculation, but perhaps they decided that Heroic item level gear was a tad-bit too high for content that can simply be afked thru (random bgs).
LFR can be afked thru as well, but, well⌠that gear tops out at/stays at LFR-level, so no one really cares.
Maybe theyâre just trying to bring LFR and random bgs âdown to the same levelâ. Again, just some speculation/theorizing. I donât have any proof that this was their intention, but it seems to line up with their new âloot will be lootâ philosophy.
It was a bit worse than that.
In S4 of burning crusade.
- All Brutal gear had rating requirements
- Vengeful gear still required conquest and could not be purchased with honor. (Weapon and shoulders had rating requirements)
- Merciless gear was 2 seasons behind and was purchasable with honor
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Ya ty for clarifying. Itâs been so long that my memory of what exactly they all were is kinda fuzzy.
That matters when PVE and PVP gear is equivalent, but much less so if PVP gear is differentiated like it was for most of WoW.
âGear is gearâ is bad for PVPers.
Just bombarded with factually incorrect statements. Not going to waste time on this one.
Weâve been over this, Iâve already conceded that this was true in WoD and only in WoD.
And it was still possible to win fights in TBC even if you were a season or two behind on gear. GL doing that in BFA, yeah?
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I wrote an entire bullet point on how BFA was the absolute worst expansion for BG gearâŚ
The only thing Iâm trying to say is that you absolutely canât draw any valid comparisons between what happened in early expansions with what is happening now or SL.
Your bullet point is correct, but will have to be amended once SL goes live. 
So, a mythic raider telling random bgers that extreme imbalance against their favor in their preferred game mode is fine and normal. What a surprise.
The thing is, the cat is out of the bag. Random bgers have tasted parity (or close to it). I think this will backfire on Blizzard. I suspect battlegrounds will not be as populated as they once were. Either that, or theyâll be filled with rated PvPers farming honor for their conquest gear upgrades. Either way, it is possible casual bgs as we knew them are going the way of the dodo.
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I disagree, I think you absolutely can.
Iâm thoroughly confident that the gap between Random BG gamers and Rated PVP gamers will be similar to what it was in BC/MOP/Legion.
Thereâs no metric Iâve seen on this forum to convince me otherwise, but Iâm open to having my mind changed.