You proved my point. This isn’t a good thing.
Everything gear wise is expansion exclusive. Upgrading is just that , but even worse.
Instead of a piece of gear you upgrade and enjoy using all expansion, it’s seasonal, monthly, or weekly redoing the exact same activities for upgrade paths.
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That’s literally the entire game though.
Season releases
Grind gear, getting incremental upgrades.
Maybe hit bis.
Another season releases, with slightly higher ilvl track.
Loot treadmill is the only real trick they know to keep people coming back.
I didn’t. You are still wrong.
You don’t have to farm 6 tiers of gear. Its varying levels for varying levels of play. A lot of us skip most of them.
If you are a key runner or raider, you are looking at the last 2 tiers. Not all 6 lol.
Okay? Its still not borrowed power.
And why is having more options worse?
I swear y’all do not make any sense.
Just because 6 tiers exist doesn’t mean you need ALL of it.
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I love the loot upgrading. What are you on about?
I have a continuous goal despite refusing to go into Mythic+
I’m currently working my way through runed stones on two of my characters. Getting discounts on alts because I get further on my main is nice as well.
The fact that once you outgrow specific currencies you can start trading them up is a fantastic idea.
Literally can just enjoy the content I want to enjoy and still progress, even if much slower than others.
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I’m confused. I don’t understand how we’re talking about borrowed power on gear here.
Borrowed power started a bit in legion and was super bad in BfA. The idea around getting abilities / skills from your gear and that only being available during the expansion, in my mind, was borrowed power. Those “powers” went away after the expansion. (Never mind this “season” nonsense).
The gearing system is brutally annoying because they’ve increased the duration of the treadmill AND given you less rewards while you’re on it. I like the ideas posted above about reducing the complexity of the system by trimming down currencies, making track names consistent, etc.
I’d also like to see more upgrade loot drop more frequently - not this ultra lame garbage being the first two chests per week. Give me all the chests - what is this hurting? If they want to keep it complex for reasons then just make the number of chests with gear rewards increase each week of the expansion.
They’re just stretching out engagement but significantly increasing frustration. RNG on top of time-gated rewards on top of less loot overall means a significant increase in frustration for average players.
It was both simpler and better in classic when you got a flashy new item and that was it.
You’re acting like you literally have to start at explorer and work your way up one upgrade level at a time 
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Imho, they should just get rid of tracks and valorstones. The crest types and costs are enough.
Meh, I didn’t have much trouble figuring it out during the TWW pre-patch for DF content… but I hadn’t seen the full scope of it, and seeing 7 separate progression tracks (before accounting for different tiers & seasons) helped put the whole thing into perspective.
Just because you (and even I) have little difficulty understanding it – that doesn’t eliminate the fact it’s ENTIRELY unnecessary to the game’s structure. It’s literally another grind on top of the older gear acquisition systems.
If they want an upgrade system for gear, everything should be on a SINGLE progression track. Not multiple versions that lock you into different level bands that you have to restart the upgrade grind whenever you transition between the brackets.
It’s one of the most hideous and excessive time sinks I’ve ever seen implemented into a game.
Seeing it, it makes me all the more happy to engage in NONE of it.
Is it this thing?
https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveWoW/comments/1eyo2wk/updated_tww_gearing_guide_infographic/#lightbox
Gearing is the least complicated it’s ever been.
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It’s going to feel pretty wrong to get drops that you “should” need to kill mythic bosses for but instead you got it on LFR/normal/heroic and then just farmed 8s.
To me that is the biggest hurdle with just having the billion type 12/12 system.
But maybe the answer is just “screw raiders?” I don’t know.
Overall I’d be happier if the upgrade system just didn’t exist. We still have a 13 item level gap between hero and mythic just like we used to have, except now we have to grind for it.
Nah, it’s a bit confusing at first but I think it’s much better than a strictly RNG drops system. If you’re unlucky with drops one week, you’re at least able to upgrade gear to increase in power.
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i don’t know whats worse, the fact that you speak so confidently without having a slight clue about how the in game systems and borrowed power works…Or the fact that you talk about the expansion while clearly never having played it lol.
Tell me more about these infinite number of upgrades in TWW… im genuinely curious lol
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The crest system doesn’t address any issues stated by Ion as he said they wanted to reduce the whole borrowed power phenomenon of past progression systems. It’s just lazy and creatively bankrupt reorganized code.
Gear upgrades are borrowed power now too?
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Yeah no. They overlap for a reason.
I feel like no one understands how this system works and why.
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No, I was actually referring to the linked image from before… that one is even worse.
The thing is, I don’t have issues understanding the system itself. But I can’t help but look at it and come to conclusion that it’s FAR too extensive and arduous for any sane player to enjoy.
My perspective is that of a returning player who left during the tail end of BfA after growing increasingly disillusioned with how tedious and long-winded the endgame systems were.
… and now, these charts just make WoW look like an atrocity of a grind that I want no part in. It doesn’t help that I genuinely don’t care about gear progression beyond the functional level, getting upgrades to gear matters FAR less to me compared to the content itself being enjoyable.
But that looks like a system designed to convince you that the reason you’re playing the game is primarily to be chasing after gear upgrades – which is precisely what I don’t want to be doing.
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Wow. I am in a very similar position.
I actually like doing delves - the rewards are pretty good and it doesn’t feel like a chore. That and I like that Brann is slightly OP on my other characters I level up. I did some dungeons and the effort to reward just feels off. I also don’t care for the zoomers and the toxic kickers so I’m done with randos and will only go with F&F. I’m not raiding these days unless it’s LFR. I hear when my brother goes through the heroic raid and he’s just straight up stressing out. I get enough of that at the office, thanks.
I will make my goal this expansion to do every single quest. When I’m done with that I’ll go play something else I think.
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