Titanforging and Warforging make me upset

[Vëx-turalyon]

any update on classic alpha/beta?

[Saffren-amanthul]

I really agree with everything you’ve said here.

My guild is progressing through heroic at the moment, we are only 6/9. Already I’m feeling like we kill bosses, I hover over the loot they drop, and much of it is not an upgrade at all, if it is, it’s like 1% or something.

It’s just not exciting and really takes away from the thrill of downing a new boss.

It’s telling that I hover over the loot in the dungeon journal as well. Back in the day, I would know exactly what gear I really wanted, and be excited about killing those bosses for the chance.

Now I just don’t care, it’s all meaningless and I just rely on an addon to tell me if it’s an upgrade. I far, far, far preferred having a BiS list and the sense of progression and goals met when filling a slot with a highly desired piece, rather than this random, oh yeah, I got a 2% upgrade and my ilevel went up. Even when I get a 15% upgrade from WF/TF, it just feels like random luck, not progression.

[Taélyn-aerie-peak]

For me, TF and WF, cheapen the actual raiding experience. So it makes my hard earned M gear feel bad when I see a LFR 425 piece. It also makes me have to play more with hopes of getting a TF and WF piece, in order for me to stay competitive on my raid team.

There are not more BIS pieces, just RNG for TF/WF that you can get in lfr.

[Orctang-area-52 (Orctang)]

But that’s only half of it. The other half is when you’re facing a boss you haven’t defeated yet, and even if something drops, you know your reward is likely to be nothing, because you already have gear that’s as good as the base level drop, and of course, the odds of it warforging or titanforging are pretty low.

That’s the other side of the coin. Doing challenging content you haven’t finished yet and outgearing the reward already.

If you can’t get rewards from killing a boss that is because you over gear it. This would mean your (guild group or pug group) performance is not good enough to kill it before you over gear it.

This is another area where I find Titanforging good for the game. One of my guilds was not able to kill Heroic G’huun until the final week of the raid and it was finally due to over gearing the fight that we were able to down it (yes, we do have several carry members and we accept it for what it is)

Also, some bosses generically don’t have any gear you want or need (not because of over gearing) so it is not fun to kill them right?

[Rethumtv-tichondrius (Rethumtv)]

As an avid PvPer this current iteration of loot is very frustrating.

Some history: I was your typical 3-4 day a week raider all throughout Vanilla-WoTLK with a guild focusing on DKP to distribute loot. It wasn’t perfect but it worked, and for the most part everyone put in the work for the pieces they got with that system.

Fast forward to today. I spent the first part of this expansion rejoining a raid guild to clear Normal/Heroic with the plan to progress into Mythic Uldir. The way the loot system was built for the start of BFA it seemed necessary that players who had any serious hope for PvP would need to be farming PvE content. This is largely because PvP had (and still has) very limited ways to get direct upgrades in Season 1.

Now we are currently in Season 2 and despite adding more “options” on the weekly conquest gear, PvPers are still sub-par to players who PvE yet again. PvP players are time gated by conquest weeklies as the only reliable way to get Azerite Armor, with an RNG chance to pull a piece out of the weekly chest. Compare that to the fact that just about every boss in BoD has a chance to drop Azerite. We are now 5 weeks into the season and PvP players only have 2 pieces of Armor, and if you choose the wrong piece… your screwed. We are also limited to the stats the developers have pre-determined to be in our conquest weeklies, otherwise: more RNG

So what does PvE have?

• Raid bosses, chance on almost every boss for Azerite Armor and pre-defined stats on offpieces.
• Tokens are usable to get a bonus chance on each boss for Azerite Armor
• Mythic & Mythic+
• Guaranteed Residuum from Mythic+ weekly cache, disenchanting/scrapping.
• Island Expedition Maps for bonus Residuum
• Bonus chance to get Azerite Armor from Mythic+ cache
• World Bosses & World Quests

PvP has:

• A 9 week cycle where we get to choose 1 piece for each slot, totaling 3 pieces for over 2 months of work.
• RNG chance in the weekly chest

- Bonus rolls with tokens cannot drop Azerite Armor, neither can end of game victory rewards
- Zero way to reliably get Residuum to target pieces.

Add titanforging, warforging, and bonus sockets in this PvP Lotto and the problems get even worse. It feels almost impossible to get a full set of stats that you want/need. And PvP players will always be WAY behind anyone who PvE in terms of customization of Azerite Armor.

[Kinison-velen (Kinison)]

There are a very wide variety of opinions and preferences that have come up here and there is a lot to consider.

Here is my opinion, for what it’s worth, I dont like the forging system as it is. Yesterday I logged in to catch up on emissaries, saw 7th legion up and an incursion in tiragarde.

Normally 370 gear is not worth it for me and the medals are not really interesting now that I have the hearth ring but I figured hey might as well knock out 7th legion emissary via incursion right here right now.

So I do it, get 395 tf boots over the base 370 reward. They sim a little higher than my 385 coinage stampers from normal opulence so I equip them.

Opulence was a fun boss on both normal and heroic that required a few pulls and some planning to get down, and getting the boots was a nice reward for that. Now those boots are scrap less than 2 weeks later because rng smiled on me with a 25 lvl forge.

Hopefully I’ll replace them soon with some 400 ilvl coinage stampers or comparable m10 boots but (to me) this system is really demotivating when it comes to rewards from doing progressively more difficult content.

I feel like with the forging system I’m encouraged to spam as much content as possible for the most pulls on that tf machine and I dont like it.

I mean, others have different opinions but I have no problem being ilvl 400 and no higher because i do heroic raiding and m10, ie 400ilvl content. It was nice to get mostly bis and then the rest of the tier play alts or compete on parses knowing that once a certain gear level was reached, it was mostly about improving ones skill to get those purple and orange logs.

If you read this, thanks.

[Chaaka-stormscale (Chaaka)]

Well said.

[Crustyudder-illidan (Crustyudder)]

You’re arguing semantics. Lots of people fish for forges. Lots of people have made that point here in this thread. I’m not arguing over whether something is simply compelling. I was disputing your claim that forging by itself isn’t compelling enough to get people to fish for it. Blizzard has stated that forging was implemented for exactly this reason, to provide people some incentive to do content they normally wouldn’t do because they on longer have a reason to do it without forging. We’re multiple expansion into its implementation so if it didn’t do what it was intended to do, do you honestly think it would still be here in game?

Do you have a source for lots or it is an assumption based on a personal view? I personally think the system is something they’ve added in and haven’t been bothered to try and revise in years. If it wasn’t for the introduction of personal loot my main experience wouldn’t of happened. The game changes and assuming that a system still exists because it’s working as intended is conjecture. That’s also looking at it in a vacuum and not considering any of the other negative consequences that could leave someone to dislike the system like many others here have noted and ideas that you don’t personally agree with. I purely pointed out that it’s not a reason for me to continually farm other content and I highly doubt I’m the only one.

I have no characters (and I have 10 at 120 right now) that stat weights are even like that across any spec I play. 5 ilvl and sometimes even 10 ilvl difference on non-ring/trinket slots can still result in the lower ilvl piece being the upgrade. Rings/trinkets are different, obviously due to no mainstat on the rings and the special impact of trinkets. Plus you used a socket example which is a cherry picked for the largest impact. My point about ilvl is true regardless of how much you want to pretend it’s not. ilvl is not the indicator as to whether a piece of gear is better or not. It’s a good general gauge, sure, but anything with 10 ilvl you should probably sim or compare stat weights on.

But the rest is going down an endless hole that’s a lot of philosophical waffling. Particularly so because your example is context specific and you’re trying to apply that to multiple reward systems broadly. The things that motivate players in a raid are not going to be the things that motivate casual players out in the world. They value and are driven by different things. An explanation can’t just be handwaved across every player in the game as if one size fits all. It doesn’t.

I do want to say, of course there are conflicting design goals. Not all content is designed for all people and thus those reward systems aren’t intended to be the same thing to everyone. We have people upset about reward systems designed for other people because they don’t feel other people deserve those rewards (not valid at all) or (and I do see this as a valid complaint) how that reward system conflicts with their own personal motivation. The problem is the solution put forth isn’t people accepting that the system is there to serve other people, it’s people demanding (often times from a fallacious position of majority) to have that system removed.

I didn’t cherry pick an example, sockets are literally a core part of forging and are one of the main benefits to a forged item. Trinkets and rings are close to 1/2 of your lootable/TFable gear and are a major part of your progression, just neglecting them isnt constructive in the discussion. The 415 and 400 ilvl loot that is a direct downgrade from my lower ilvl gear is the definition of stunting my progression, you seemed to overlook. Maybe I wasnt entirely clear but a 385 pair of pants that titanforged with a socket being better than the all 3 of the 400 ones in my bag isn’t good design. The 410 TF gloves with a socket that are better than my 415’s isnt good design. It’s reducing the amount of more difficult content I can get rewards from and is a disincentive for doing the content.

People not feeling like others dont deserve X ilvl gear for doing content that rewards a base ilvl >15 ilvls lower is a valid motivation for content. You may not like it but why should anyone be motivated by gear in harder content if other easier means of getting it reward the same. That can conflict with personal motivation, the two concepts arn’t mutually exclusive.

Hey, I’m not opposed to deterministic reward systems. I will agree that everything seems very RNG nowadays. Understand, I’m not opposed to alternative systems or even a revamp of forging to more deterministic systems. I’m opposed to removing progression paths from player B because player A didn’t like that player B was progressing too much or because player A didn’t like the progression path player B was using. And I’m talking more about things like Emissary quests, world bosses, warfront rewards, invasion gear, and then forging on top. The water has gotten muddied this far in and all of these things have come up here.

I’m not trying to say you are.

Just for the sake of perspective, remember that removing titanforging would remove more progression content from people who are doing the hardest content and would elongate the progression path for people who are not. For anyone who does +10 M+ or Mythic Raiding who advocates for flat out removal, they’d be shooting themselves in the foot if what they want is more gameplay.

[Taeldoriàn-stormrage (Taeldoriàn)]

Truthfully the best middle ground solution seems to be to cap titanforging. Why do we need gear that can literally titanforge 60 ilvls (regardless of how rare it is) when we could just cap it at 10-15? Capping it at 10-15 means there’s still a nice bonus from getting a titanforged piece but getting upgrades from world content and other places like darkshore won’t compete with actual raid gear.

Normal gear won’t have “the chance” to be better than heroic. It can forge up to heroics ilvl with a cap of 10-15 but that’s it. Same goes for heroic to mythic gear. Same goes for world content gear, it’ll never go above normal raid ilvl but it can still forge to normal ilvl.

I can’t see how a cap wouldn’t make the TF system better and healthier for the game. If your only reason for doing world content is “hoping for a huge titanforge” that seems pretty unhealthy for the game and world content in general. Maybe we could add world events that give you a currency so you can eventually buy mounts or pets rather than having world content be a slot machine like a majority of the game currently is. Capping TF would also lessen the item level RNG and help reduce RNG within the gearing system.

[Saffren-amanthul]

But that’s only half of it. The other half is when you’re facing a boss you haven’t defeated yet, and even if something drops, you know your reward is likely to be nothing, because you already have gear that’s as good as the base level drop, and of course, the odds of it warforging or titanforging are pretty low.

That’s the other side of the coin. Doing challenging content you haven’t finished yet and outgearing the reward already.

If you can’t get rewards from killing a boss that is because you over gear it. This would mean your (guild group or pug group) performance is not good enough to kill it before you over gear it.

It’s the ‘before’ you overgear it bit that is the problem. That’s the whole point. We’re barely into the tier, we shouldn’t be overgearing bosses that we haven’t killed yet this early.

Sure, talking about killing G’huun in the final week of raid, that’s fine, that’s quite a long time and it’s reasonable you’d outgear it at that point.

That’s quite different from having a higher ilevel than the raid drops only 4 or 6 weeks into the tier. We’re progressing on heroic, half my group have an ilevel of 405 or so. I’m quite low at 396 and even I am finding very few upgrades.

[Orctang-area-52 (Orctang)]

It’s the ‘before’ you overgear it bit that is the problem. That’s the whole point. We’re barely into the tier, we shouldn’t be overgearing bosses that we haven’t killed yet this early.

Sure, talking about killing G’huun in the final week of raid, that’s fine, that’s quite a long time and it’s reasonable you’d outgear it at that point.

That’s quite different from having a higher ilevel than the raid drops only 4 or 6 weeks into the tier. We’re progressing on heroic, half my group have an ilevel of 405 or so. I’m quite low at 396 and even I am finding very few upgrades.

Sounds like you guys should be done with Heroic already and moving on to Mythic.

[Taeldoriàn-stormrage (Taeldoriàn)]

That first part simply isn’t true. I’ve gotten titanforges from world content that replaced raid gear so when I got to Zul the mythic raid piece I got wasn’t an upgrade.

That’s not because I outgeared the fight or raid, it’s because I randomly got a mythic piece of raid loot for taking 1 minute to do a world quest.

Capping titanforging rather than letting it run wild seems like the healthiest move for the game. There’s 0 reason I should walk into mythic and have an item drop for me that isn’t an upgrade because world content gave me something on par with that mythic piece. It’s ridiculous.

You’d be able to outgear heroic ghuun with a 10-15 ilvl cap on titanforging as well. It doesn’t need to be an outrageous 60 ilvls. World content shouldn’t be a slot machine either, I really don’t think that’s healthy or good for the game. Make world quests/world events give currency so you can farm for some cool mounts/pets and maybe an epic item or two.

[Orctang-area-52 (Orctang)]

That first part simply isn’t true. I’ve gotten titanforges from world content that replaced raid gear so when I got to Zul the mythic raid piece I got wasn’t an upgrade.

Sorry, one Titanforge drop doesn’t out gear you for a boss fight. Sure you may not need a drop for a particular boss because of a Titanforge drop but you will need drops from many other bosses.

I got a Titanforged drop it ruins my whole raiding experience…

[Taeldoriàn-stormrage (Taeldoriàn)]

Yeah and that shouldn’t be a thing. Again, 0 reason I should walk into mythic and have something drop for me that isn’t an upgrade because world content randomly gave me something on par with mythic gear.

Again, why not cap it at 10-15? Reducing the RNG within the gearing system seems like a pleasant thing when we already have tertiary stats/gem sockets/potential 60 ilvl forges. That’s too much.

Not only that but again the open world shouldn’t be a slot machine. Have WQ/Events that give currency similar to the legionfall/honorbound currency we have now for warfront WQs and invasions.

[Crustyudder-illidan (Crustyudder)]

Sorry, one Titanforge drop doesn’t out gear you for a boss fight. Sure you may not need a drop for a particular boss because of a Titanforge drop but you will need drops from many other bosses.

I got a Titanforged drop it ruins my whole raiding experience…

You completely missed his point. If you get a TF 380 pair of boots, the 370 ones that drop off Heroic Zul wont be an upgrade.

[Orctang-area-52 (Orctang)]

You completely missed his point. If you get a TF 380 pair of boots, the 370 ones that drop off Heroic Zul wont be an upgrade.

And that completely ruined their Heroic tier raiding experience? Sorry, but I don’t buy it.

[Sindolay-thrall (Sindolay)]

I’ve got 5 TF/WF pieces equipped, and another 4 in my bags. My other 19 guild members are probably in the same boat. So that’s collectively ~180 pieces of TF/WF gear between us… see how that adds up fast to overgear content walls?

[Taeldoriàn-stormrage (Taeldoriàn)]

That’s exactly right. World content randomly gave me an item on par with heroic gear? Yeah it sure feels good to kill mythrax and have the item I got not be an upgrade because the world content slot machine favored me.

Truthfully that’s ridiculous. Just cap it and people will be happy. Even people like you (Orctang) who like it would probably be happy because a 10-15 ilvl forge is still a nice upgrade, don’t forget gem sockets either.

[Taeldoriàn-stormrage (Taeldoriàn)]

No but it certainly felt bad. Never said it ruined my raiding experience at all, just that it feels pretty terrible to not have a mythic drop be an upgrade because the world content slot machine was in my favor. World content should -not- be a slot machine.

[Cyouskin-stormreaver (Cyous)]

And that completely ruined their Heroic tier raiding experience?

Completely? No.

But it does devalue that drop. Zul wasn’t exactly easy when you first did Uldir. (For most people anyways.)