The problem with farming rares, fun as it is, is that this is RNG same as a lot of other problems with this expansion. You CAN get a weapon from rares, that does not mean you WILL.
So let’s say while grinding rares you’ve gotten enough cyphers to get level 6 (however you claim to have done that in one day I’d be very interested btw), so all you need is the weapon, right? Let’s say it never drops. There’s no reward loop. It’s just you, the player, yet again banging your head against the wall the devs built into this game, no reward for the time you’re putting in, the effort you’re putting in, it’s just hollow, and unrewarding, and when you log off, you’ve wasted ALL of that time.
I know that Can probably do 15s but will you get accepted into groups doing that high keys pugging? Probably not. The cypher gear is good starting gear for 8 or higher keys.
If your argument is just I need to have better gear than the content drops because other random players have unrealistically high expectations to get in a group, I find that to be completely unconvincing.
I am not arguing that. I am arguing that the design is for that gear to be starting gear/catch up gear to get into premade content. Only premade content gives you stuff from the vault worth anything.
The zone is missing slots of gear that you get from other content. Most notably trinkets and weapons.
I think the OP has some valid points but it all somehow rubs me wrong way (Even after reading some rather valid counter-arguments from them).
Best I can do is reference a game where casuals and high-end players are perfectly content with the content. That being FFXIV.
FFXIV manages to give “casuals” a notch below end-game gear through daily grinds. They run “roulettes” for a specific currency. That currency can be used to buy the 2nd best game in the gear behind the current savage raid tier (It may only be the first savage raid tier).
Said players have zero desire to step into the savage versions of raids. They mindlessly grind out their gear every day without a single complaint. Then walk around proudly showing off their achievement.
They have no desire to die countless times in difficult content. That may be the common ground we’re missing here. They would rather waste their time for something than bear through the brutality of it.
Would it really be so bad to give casuals good gear if they have zero intentions of using it in the hardest content in the game?
You seem to think of gear as only being useful for hard group content? But getting more gear also opens up solo progression to be able to solo old raids as time passes. Or do farms faster, or whatever we want it for (wpvp?).
Like right now the way Zereth Mortis is designed it gives you a way more chill to get to 252 gear and then start at a bit higher keys then going through low keys where people might not know where they are doing.
I criticize shadowlands because it affected solo progression in old raids, making them harder to solo. That hurt transmog farming and other such activities related to that as a way to spend your time.
Making 278 the new floor in S4 just seems like a stupid idea. Tossing out all the gear players earned from this season at the very start is going to make no one happy.