Gear score is boring and outdated, and it creates a hostile mechanic that segregates players in grouped content. No other successful game relies on it as a metric for player power, it’s time for wow to catch up to the current year. The mythic+ core and rated scores are more than enough to judge where a player is skill wise. Along with warcraftlogs, dedicated players already have a good understanding of where the people they can potentially invite to their groups are at.
Pvp is better when everyone has the same power level and the only difference is skill. Gear as a power enhancement should never be factored in when doing rated pvp and is abused by boosters and streamers alike who do pvp as a lifestyle.
Pve is easier when people are judged on their mechanical ability and social skills but having fun systems like Corrupted and Azerite gear would still keep us on our toes.
Items levels also break the auction house. Have you ever tried to favorite a piece of transmog just to find out it has dozens of different item levels? A lot of items from Vanilla to Cata have a stupid amount of variations and clog the AH down with how many there are. Razorwind crossbow alone has 35+ different versions of itself, none of the appearances are different. Do these ilevels matter to anyone? No. If this was consolidated into one, single item, we’d have a lot less clutter under the hood.
A system introduced in Shadowlands would remedy this. If you’ve ever killed an elite rare in Zereth Mortis, you’ve probably gotten yourself a BoA transmog-only item that disappears once learned. This is added to your Appearance tab and is usable by any character on your account who meets the requirements. Since mog is soulbound on use, this system would work to clean up a lot of the old mogs that have way too many versions of themselves. Yes, this would affect the twinking community, but it’d be no different if a top-level change was made that negatively affected the world first raiders.
We shouldn’t cater to the 1%ers any longer. End item level segregation.
16 Likes
what do you mean “outdated” ? it’s how all present and future gear is designed and balanced.
14 Likes
Item level is so boring to get and then it’s useless next patch. I don’t think you need it for keys and whatnot but it always helps. +1 OP
4 Likes
Item levels determine the power of the gear. It’s how gear progression works. It’s basically a fundamental part of the game system. I guess if you just want all gear to be identical, they could remove item levels…
5 Likes
Its just a number that indicates overall gear strength?
Are you suggesting me make all gear the same or just remove a number thats provided us with convenience.
1 Like
Also…its their main gold regulator now for older gear sales. its not going away for this reason as well.
its how they fixed legacy raw gold farming. Up to pre SL squish code application day WOD was a magical place.
5000 gold passes of vendor sales alone. Fun times. I miss it tbh.
POst squish…sad times.
ilevel sets gold value of item now. what was say 100 gold in BFA presquish is now like 3 gold. Ilevel was why. ilevel 60 drop…2 gold 50 silver or whatever.
DF will get this too. to not have 10.1 have SL dungeons solo farming fests. If not sooner once raiders get their season 1 gear slotted.
How would I solo old raid and dungeon content? 
Legion Mythic is still a bit difficult, especially Antorus.
1 Like
Keep the stats, obviously. Turn anything from not the current expansion into a tmog token.
High marks for creativity, too bad it’s wasted on a terrible idea.
4 Likes
Blizzard should remove everything that isn’t a queue simulator. The only thing you get is a dungeon queue interface with a picture of your character in the upper left hand side. You don’t even get to actually play said character, it’s simulates dungeon and raid runs for you.
6 Likes
Does that mean you want all gear to be equal in stats from every bit of content?
Does this mean you want everyone at Mythic raid gear level at all times?
Maybe tomorrow, I’m tired
WoW is in a very limited class of MMORPG still clinging to this type of bracketed stat tiers. Every MMO with this system in place is shrinking, and every MMO without it is growing. The world at large has moved on, mainly because it don’t work.
2 Likes
I don’t know all that many MMORPGs. Old Republic, GW2, ESO, Final Fantasy, Rift. That’s all I know of, personally. Or at least can think of. Aion still exists, I think ArcheAge does, too.
I know Old Republic and Rift still have gear that goes up with level and difficulty. Aion and ArcheAge did, too. Do the others not do this?
1 Like
I think it works fine. I like it.
you know even if there is no visible ilvl, we’re still going to look at your gear and reject you if you don’t have the gear we want people to have.
are you suggesting we have no gear progression at all?
I hope not. that’s a fantastically awful idea.
4 Likes
GW2 never had item levels or anything like it
ESO gave up on them after F2P and adopted GW2’s system
FFXIV top end raiding is stat normalized, they’re as anti-WoW loot as it gets
Rift is barely operational because they clung to WoW’s failing systems
AA is more like a Korean grinder, like Lineage with boats, not the same game type
2 Likes
Rift didn’t die because of “WoW’s failing systems.” It died because Trion didn’t put any effort into end game and went off to make other games. There was nothing to do and they halfarsed it while working on three other games instead.
2 Likes