I can’t speak to retail, but in Wrath Classic it is far too easy to mistakenly purchase and equip a tier piece. I wanted to buy [Valorous Dreamwalker Trousers] and I wound up purchasing [Valorous Dreamwalker Leggings]. I didn’t realize my mistake until after equipping it. The names only vary by one word and they are not descriptive enough to hint at what spec they’re balanced for. The stats are nearly identical. They share the same icon. And the set-bonuses are dark grey on a black background. Adding a “Specialization: Specialization Name” line to the item, like is already done for class and race, would help. So would the shop UI allowing the player to sort items by class and spec.
In addition to all of that, the warning message is not adequate. The player has been trained from level one of their first character to click in the affirmative on all pop-up messages. You click “Join Battle” to join a battle ground. You click “Ready” when a ready check is performed. You do something similar when a group member is about to start an event such as an escort quest. And all of those messages share the same format with the “No Refund” warning. A dialog window, a short message, a affirmative button and a cancel button. So the player’s thought process is not, “I’d better double check that I have bought the right item before equipping it.” It is “Do I want to quip this? Yeah, I just bought the thing.”
A more effective warning is the “Delete Item” dialog window. Having to type “DELETE” before deleting a high value item engages the player’s reasoning abilities and reduces the likelihood of an error. Having the item name in the warning is also good thing, but it should be more prominent by following the established pattern for linking items: [Item Name] colored by rarity.
In conclusion, it is far too
easy to buy and equip the wrong tier token due to lack of distinctiveness between items, poor shop UI design, and a warning users are trained to ignore. This can be addressed by
- Adding a “Specialization” line to tier items
- Re-designing the shop UI to support sorting by class and spec
- Using the “Delete Item” warning dialog box for the “No Refund” dialog box