I’m largely fine with the most “hardcore” of players having the game tell them in a million ways that they’re the only players that matter, who get the shiniest gold stars and the pretty mounts and the gear with seething smoky bits and the fun titles and when they hit a thing their numbers are the biggest. Yay them!
I, and the other eighty-ish percent of the people who play the game, though, would like to do the things that we do in an expedient fashion, despite the modern game design tactic of putting RNG on top of grinds to make extra sure that we stick around paying our monthly account fees for an indefinite period rather than getting our shiny things and doing a kickflip out of the game until the next major content patch like most raiders. I want to work up in increments to being able to mow down mobs faster and have my daily “chores” of world content go quicker. The game designers obviously want me and people like me here, paying them my money to work out my general sense of aggravation on the creatures of Azeroth and/or the Shadowlands and be rewarded by the dopamine of working towards something that will make that process slightly faster and more convenient, you know, the core feedback loop of all MMOs ever, so it would stand to reason that they would offer us progression on a more minor scale than people whose preference is to be “challenged” by high-end content.
I am completely fine with the rewards that I can scrape out of the game with the sweat of my own brow being lowly, as befitting of my status as a player who isn’t interested in formal group content to get the shiniest of things. But given that WoW has set itself apart from other MMOs from literally day one as being one that you can solo at your own speed and make your own progress using the kind of content that you enjoy, I don’t think that pitching that core feedback loop into the trash to force people into content that they don’t enjoy is the move.
So, if I must be punished with my gear being of low enough arbitrary numbers so as to label myself not worthy so that the Mythic raiders and high key-runners can feel extra super special, that’s fine.
Turn off iLvl scaling for open world content, then. Or set the scaling curve lower. Raiders aren’t out here doing their dailies anyway, one-hitting elite rares with their massive numbers.
Casuals are the golden goose, squatting out eggs of consistent monthly fees, subscribing through content lulls and buying pretty things in the store. They keep hitting us with sticks, trying to keep the eggs coming, not caring that in the long run it’s going to burn us out and drive us off while they chase short-term gains and “tradition”.