I want to make this post for Blizzard game designers/developers.
There is a super important difference between an OPTION and a REQUIREMENT.
Examples:
1.) If activity X is the only way to get ilvl 450+ gear then activity X is required, its not optional.
2.) Cloak quest is per character so its required not optional.
3.) Essences aren’t account wide until rank 3, so grinding them out to rank 3 is required.
4.) Corruptions are breaking damage meters so even though I have ilvl 470 for example, my DPS would skyrocket with the right corruptions, so grinding endlessly is a requirement and there arent any options to get corruptions I want.
What I’m getting at is that there are too many requirements and not enough options.
—I want more options to gear up outside of raids besides mythic+
—I want the option to play alternate characters and not be required to regrind things I already spent a lot of time on.
—I want to be able to choose what corruptions I get on an item.
The only option we have is how much time we put into the game to grind out the requirements set by the playerbase. Want to do pug M+ or raiding? Well, the requirements are sky high but our options are limited. Increasing the options for the players will naturally reduce requirements set by players.
So your first statement, not even reading the rest of your post, why is it required? Required for what? Living? No. Doing quests? No. LFR? No. What? What is 450+ gear required for?
Technically the entire game is optional, can just unsub.
I took the optional route more than a year ago.
Like, you do realize that doesn’t change the fact it’s still optional right? I mean you are making the choice to do it but you also have the choice not to. You know, optional.
Then that’s your choice? Normal raiding very much is an end-game activity and it drops 445 item level by default. No, you don’t get to just unilaterally say “i don’t do this content so it isn’t end-game”. You are choosing to do heroic content, you choose to thrust those requirements on yourself. A need by definition is something that you cannot exist without. 450+ item level is not needed to exist in the game, sorry.
I play WoW for end game. Its very very very difficult to get into end game right now. I come from WOTLK days… I could get a raid guild easy back then. Now, for whatever reason, cant find a serious raiding guild. Either my ilvl is too low or I dont have a HEROIC RAIDING ACHIEVEMENT.
I have given up and I dont play anymore. Been posting on the forums with my WoW time waiting on steam games to release. Done with WoW. Shadowlands will most likely not fix any of my issues with the game.
There are multiple paths to 450 even outside raiding AND mythic+. Emissaries and assault go to 445. The neck and cloak are high item level and help bring your average up.
Weekly events are 445 in a lot of cases and occasionally 460.
Heroic dark shore is 460.
World bosses are 445.
Visions go to 470.
Essences you don’t have to regrind on alts if you already did it on your main to R3.
The cloak is a little annoying, but you would want it for the stats anyway.
Not being able to find a single guild doing heroic without having aotc sounds extremely far fetched.
This is such a silly complaint. This is like saying it’s not optional to be level 120 to do end game content.
Things have prerequisites, of course, but that doesn’t suddenly make the activity mandatory. Right now I don’t feel like doing a lot of what I’d need to in order to raid competitively, so I just don’t raid. Raiding is optional. If it’s something you’re so passionate about doing you should spend more time meeting the requirements and less time complaining about the existence of the steps you’d need to take.
No, it is difficult to take an 8 year break and come back months into the last patch and expect to just waltz into end game or joining a mythic farming guild.
You know what is also optional? Playing a game that you seem to overly dislike.
You’re so smart and intellectual, dude. If your goal is to raid it’s entirely optional to do all of the things necessary to gear up for raids. That’s how words work! It’s optional!
I mean. You need better than 432. But no. You don’t. And you can always start your own group inviting the bare minimum ilvl requirement to get it done.
This is a game, so you can’t apply those definitions. Like when people say they are “forced” … they aren’t implying they are being held hostage.
Except it is. You can get 445 ilvl from WQs alone.
445 is the floor. Full stop.
This is a different argument. If normal drops 445 and you can get 445 from WQ also, is blizzard trying to phase out normal or were WQ rewards scaled too high.
End game is optional, if you’re unwilling to spend 2 hours getting a guaranteed 470 item then raiding is not for you since a lot more time is spent in preparation.
How many times has he been told he can start a group and set the requirements? Also how many times has he been told that the neck and cloak inflate total IL which makes the requirements seem like they are above the drops, but actually aren’t?
The OP is is fundamentally correct and this isn’t so much a player problem than it was more than us trying to fit into the systems that we are presented
An example of this is old school runes scapes content can be consumed by a max level player and a lower level player and the content in there doesn’t get washed away each xpac
WoW has the best skeleton of an MMO and it carries it through thick and thin however the potential of this game is unrivalled and under developed
your just being dramatic now…there are tons of ways to gear your character, you do have to put some level of effort into your character if you expect to get into higher level end game content. if this is your main character you haven’t done almost anything with your neck, your cloak is rank 5 and your gear looks to have minimal effort put in to upgrading it. I mean what do you expect?
even after all that there are plenty of casual raid guilds that would still take you and help you learn and gear but if you don’t want to put in that effort no ones gonna do it for you. the whiny attitude im betting is whats keeping you out of guilds…not your ilvl. if you really hate it just don’t play, there are lots of solo instant gratification games out. BTW you can get into a heroic darkshore run with almost no ilvl at all iv done it plenty of times on plenty of alts, you also have the option of just making the group yourself…all comes back to effort.
These are the worst types of posts. Your initial post is an attempt to call out and educate Blizz devs but your examples are either flat out wrong or missing important details. Here let me fix your post.
"There is a super important difference between something being optional or something being required. The only thing in game required to play WoW is to log in. Everything after that is optional.
More specifically I would like to participate in endgame heroic raiding and so requirements include running normal raid or mythic + dungeons around a 7, completing the cloak quest on any characters that want to kill N’zoth, and having a major essence.
There are optional aspects of the game that would great help my odds of killing heroic N’zoth including: getting multiple rank 3 essences, acquiring corrupted gear to increase DPS, grinding more keystone for better loot.
Because I am struggling to succeed at heroic N’zoth with the current Ingame options I would like alternate ways to get raid competitive gear.
Because I want to play different classes without sinking hours of play into them I want to be given essences and the cloak that I earned on another character.
Because I do not enjoy grinding to get BiS gear I want to be able to pick what corruptions I get on loot. "