The Gear Cycle Problem in WoW

Community General Discussion
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As a disclaimer to this post, I understand this is a topic that gets addressed a lot, and not much has changed. Perhaps Blizzard disagrees with its philosophy.

Overall WoW has suffered for a number of years of player burnout or lack of player retention, and I think the cyclic nature of gear acquisition plays a massive part in this.

Right now, a player gears themself up for the current patch and tier, at the start of that tier. The efforts you make for gearing at the end of the tier are not only frivolous but also discouraged. Why care about gearing your character when he is going to be set back so massively in such a short span of time?

The root of this problem is that in it’s current iteration, WoW is not a linear game. You play the patch, not the game. You don’t need to do A to get to B or B to get to C. While some would argue the catch up mechanics and this seasonal way of play makes it attractive for players who may have missed a season because they can just jump into the current action, this argument is a bit misguided. If a player missed a whole season, that means that player missed an entire raid. That entire piece of development time and content is now in the void never to be touched again. This is not good for the developers nor the player. A more linear structure would offer each player more content for a longer period of time.

Imagine a world where people are doing an Abberus run TODAY because they want to hop into Amidrassil before the season ends and they are gearing for it.

Instead if a player is returning today and wants to get into Amidrassil, they do some quests, get higher ilvl than they even would from heroic Abberus, maybe get a crafted piece or two and boom LFR ready.

Is that really good gameplay?

I feel like maintaining a more linear progression in the game would be an overall win for keeping all raids in an expansion relevant, respecting player time and effort while also creating a healthier player retention. No one feels the drive to gear when they know it won’t mater in merely a few months.

TLDR; WoW needs to return to the linear structure of the game, in order to boost player retention and interest. This needs to be done on an expansion by expansion basis.

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They did have that system before m+ waaaaay back one it was tier to tier. It’s absolutely not as fun as you would think and it also forced you to do content maybe you do not want to do.

I’ll use cataclysm as an example xpac. So you go through bwd and bastion while also hitting throne of the four winds. To gear for heroic you have to do normal right?

Then Firelands comes out and keep in mind lfr wasn’t a thing until dragonsoul. So you repeat this process again and then oh what’s this? Dragonsoul. So you do that but now lfr is a thing so there is absolutely 0 reason to repeat old tier because what benefit would that be?

Or would you rather the vanilla/tbc system of attunements where you have to clear the previous tier before you can move on? Again that’s in a before lfr world and you couldn’t pug your way to the Shiney stuff.

There’s literally more to do now and allowing players to gear however they wish if it’s through raid/mythic+ whatever thats a boatload better than 3/4 days a week raiding to maybe get one side grade in a gradually toxic environment.

<3

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so you want to go back to the days where we have to run through kara before we can do Black temple?

no thanks

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While I respect the idea you have in saying “it also forced you to do content maybe you do not want to do” because of course that’s bad for the game as well, I feel like ultimately it doesn’t solve the universal problem with the solution we currently have in place

Right now what the game lacks is meaningful and lasting progression, If there was some middleground way to work around not having your gear completely reset practically on a patch that is what I would advocate for

And in terms of the raid/mythic+ dilemna I could make an entire extra post on the problems surrounding that.
For example If you don’t like to raid, you don’t have to. you can m+ for amazing gear (even in some cases better gear)
Now if you don’t like to m+, but like to raid. That’s a different story.
See the problem?

The game has a bit of an identity crisis and it doesn’t really feel like a game, more like a treadmill you can never seem to feel satisfied from. And Mythic+ seems to be WoW’s focus now, which unfortunately forces players to do content maybe they don’t want to do D:

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You can pretty much say the same thing about any seasonal game. You pretty much play the season none of the gear you got in the previous season even matters at all really. For example Blizzard makes you make a new character in Diablo 4 and your old char can’t do the new seasonal content so all that gear you got doesn’t matter.

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True, but Diablo 4 is not WoW and WoW should not aim to be like Diablo

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The game lacks meaningful progression, that is true. But it’s not as simple as it is to you know…solve that.

As mentioned, requiring players to run old raids to be able to do new ones sounds great. but that only benefits those who are constantly playing. If I’m new or making an alt, I am now running uphill to try and gear up to do content I want to do.

Then you have modes like mythic+ that exists. Would the game be designed to require you run all of DF M+ before being allowed to run TWW M+? Because no, just removing M+ wouldn’t be an option.

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I do see what you’re saying

Honestly, that’s partially the reason I didn’t include a direct solution in my OP because, I genuinely don’t have one. WoW dug this hole for itself and I don’t know how they can fix it

I just hope the ones who work on the game see the way players like me feel, and find a solution that creates a healthier game environment overall

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I came back after a 10 years and at the time I remember thinking I’ll never play again mop was the final nail.

My reason for quitting at the time was I was spent on the raid scene/bonechewer died. I found for PvE it was a slog of dailies which I hate and raid.

When I came back all of this is new to me so I was pretty happy to see 5 man content is relevant and I no longer had to raid unless the content interested me.
The seasonal system isn’t my favorite way to play any game and I understand what you mean about making previous gear vendor trash but I’ll take this over the old stuff.

A perfect example of gear relevancy would be classic, I ran around in tier 2 right into last burning crusade leveling. Guilds who cleared naxx wore tier 3 in kara and that to me was when gear meant more than just stats.

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Hard Pass. I don’t think a return to the old days of a linear gearing progression will help with player retention. A player your trying to retain… has already progressed. The linear gearing over the course of an expansion hurts new players, new to this expansion players, and players who enjoy playing alts.

People want to play with their friends and their guild is not going to want to go back and continue to run everything for the entire expansion when the vast majority of mains get nothing out of it.

That was the problem in th epast. You had no way to gear a new to the raid player unless you carried them in current content or you instead ran old content that your way over geared for and had no challenge. Either way its zero fun.

Expecting those players to enjoy needing to either PUG or find a different guild in a lower bracket of progression to raid with till they get geared for the higher teirs just didn’t work. Guilds don’t want temporary people leaving with their gear. Players don’t want to raid with strangers they want to play with their friends.

The real culprit to what your main complaint seems to be really is that it’s too easy and quick to get comparable gear. A lot of that stems from how popular M+ is and how good the gear is. That mythic + is a parallel progression to raids rather than a ramp to raids. You either end up with a system like heroics where at a certain point the content is absolutely pointless similar to previous teir raids… or you end up with extremely fragmented demographic of players spread out across to many different activities such that its hard to fill large organized activities.

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If you got the legendary ax or evoker legendary at least you can upgrade them in S4 and continue to use them so that is something.

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That world was vanilla, and please no. Do these dungeons to prepare for this raid. Now go farm this gear with specific life damage reduction for the next raid, but wait! Now go get the fire gear for the next raid… about those alts…

No, the gearing is in a good spot. It’s a progression based game, now with catch up for new, returning, and alt characters.

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“A Player your trying to retain… has already progressed”

The problem is, less players feel obligated to progress, because of the complete reset of gear. So in turn you’d have more player retention FROM more player progression

<3

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I am just sorta tired of the gear resets every patch gets a tad old

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Forcing everyone to always start at square 1 progressionwise, alts included, to get caught up would absolutely increase burn out.

“its gonna take me 8 months to get caught up with my friends. nah. i will just quit”

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From an alt perspective I think warband gear can still mitigate this issue quite well

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I don’t think we can go back to doing the first raid to get to the last.
Can they make the last raid before the new one a bit more relevant toward gearing? Probably having the option when M+ still exist wouldn’t be too bad.

Personally I think they should stop resetting gear as hard between each patch, maybe that would help a bit feeling like your gear is worth a bit more and won’t be all replaced in the new season as quick.

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Sounds like removing progression to push the gear cycle system.

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That’s the whole concept of Fated that your talking about. The iLvl shift and then recycling content. Yes, that does make it where there’s a hypothetical mental line where you end up taking a break or working on Alts because you know that extra 5 ilvl wont matter in two weeks.

But in that regard it has nothign to do with the questing and what not its entirely has to do with the whole recycling everything and shifting all the ilvls. I’m fine with catch up mechanics that get you in the door for Normals. And as expansions go on that is needed more each tier. However, recycling the same raids people have done and bringing them back as cheap “content” with a new coat of paint. Doesn’t motivate players to stay interested. New raids, new dungeons, new cosmetics (not recolors). Those are the things that keep players interested.

explitive here we pay a monthly subscription to play here AND we still have microtransactions. There’s no reason they can’t afford to have new dungeons and raids each major patch at least each season.

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You could always pug your way to shiney stuff I’ve never been a part of a non friend guild and i have sulfurous you just had to put in the time.