And the combo of RMT and GDKP being the dominant form of Raid Pugging means players have little reason to look for and join Guilds which I feel is bad for the health of the game. It’s a vicious circle.
There’s no easy solution though. We all a want a player driven economy but as long as Blizz can’t/won’t stop Bots and RMT we get inflation which pushes players to need more and more Gold to afford consumables for end game which then pushes those players to host GDKP runs to pay for it all.
Unless they completely change how loot works in Classic they can’t remove trading of gear or Gold. They’d need to go with no trade, Personal Loot which comes with it’s own issues and without these changes you can’t ban GDKP’s fully.
They do ban Bots but it’s a war Blizz can never win which is why we have the WOW Token in Retail.
If they run them via things outside of the game like external Discords it’s almost impossible to police though.
The only thing that could help would be eliminating direct trading of Gold or mailing Gold unless to a toon on your own Account. Make the AH the only way to have Gold move from Player to Player.
Well actually no, the thing is the main way your supposed to play is with a constant base of players, with the idea of the same core team eventually getting their BIS. The problem with pugging is there is that the majority of the time, someone who wants to enter a PUG will need certain loot if not all loot.
Playing consistently with random players in your raiding experience will always cause a maximum amounts of competition for loot, which is just as bad slamming your head against the wall.
Once again the current Pugging META, without GDKP’s creates ZERO reason for any BIS raider to join these groups, which is a much needed thing for PUGS. The variability of player skill and involvement, having carries have incentive to join is REALLY GOOD.
The solution is to create harder content which pushes guilds and teams to form. Just like how Nax 40 was, yes ofc their were some GDKP pugs, but for the most part, the player base was forced to enter guilds and progress with guilds.
If the content is too easy, then it increases the player base doing pugs, and then the problems which i have explained start to show more.
yeah but…ugggh i knowww im just not going to go into a gdkp
ugggh i know its my fault im not profiting from gdkps
uggggghhh man i know im just not goona do it
gdkpers are coping so hard with this narrative right now. BRILLIANT.
In 2020 when Naxx 40 was released on classic, A BIG MAJORITY OF raiders that was doing Naxx 40, was not doing GDKP’s. Having a raid that requires progression and a higher difficulty, makes pugging way less feasible to a majority of the population, because risking a raid lockout without clearing or trying to clear a majority of the bosses, makes pugging less viable.
On classic era now, yes GDKP’s are everything because alot of people are full BIS and they just wanna pump, meanwhile they get gold for their efforts.
IF BFD stayed in the pre-nerf state, the same thing would have happened. People would have been forced to create solid teams for progression and loot distribution.