Now that blizzard removed the item that allowed to add sockets to specific parts on this armor, any chance it will be added back , maybe in ZM zone?
If they do, I hope it’s like a drop from the last 2 raid bosses…
Do not want another daily grind for sockets, thanks.
2 Likes
It shouldn’t be added back. This system needs to be scrapped forever.
The only way gems should work, is the same they did in MOP. Guaranteed sockets in gear pieces. Chest has 3, head 2, shoulders 1, gloves 2 and so on.
Nothing beats the feeling of getting a new shiny piece of gear, and then socketing and ehchanting it.
10 Likes
Yes, please.
I’m sure w/e the case, suggestions are moot atm, the system is in rails already. Thing is whats the official response concerning this?
I honestly never understood why they made gem sockets random. It worked just fine for several expansions when it was a guaranteed part of gear.
I hope they’ll make sockets guaranteed in 10.0.
2 Likes
Because of gambler brain. It’s based on the same psychological principle as slot machines.
Basically, they know what will make you happy. They don’t want to make you happy all the time, because if the game fully satisfies you, you’ll become less invested in the game. But they know they have to make you happy sometimes, so along with mobile games setting trends, Blizzard just hopped on that train as well. They’ve pulled it back a little bit over the years, but this is the explanation behind why sockets are random (amongst other things).
Which, just for the record, is the complete opposite of the fundamentals behind successful PvP games. PvP games are played more the more the players enjoy the game, players are already invested in the competition on its own, so when the design for the PvP side throws hurdles you have to climb over for reasons completely unrelated to PvP, like pushing PvE requirements to prepare for PvP, it becomes a 
show.
And PvP as well is related to sports psychology in a sense, so the sense of fairness is essential. So when they also throw in hurdles in PvP, like upgrades on gear locked behind rating, it yet again becomes a show there as well.
Gotta love it, right?
So to sum it up, they need to stop relying on mobile games to inspire design decisions, and they really should separate PvP from the PvE side of the game, completely.
1 Like
Problem is, I refuse to play slot machines. Give me deterministic rewards, tell me I have to clear the raid 10x and I’ll get a desirable thing and I will do it. Tell me there’s a 1% drop rate and I probably won’t bother.
Honestly? I don’t know why WoW has a PvP community. It’s an awful game for it, and the devs do not care. Look at the effort invested in arenas and battlegrounds vs the effort in the open world, dungeons and raids. PvP space gets barely 5% of the game’s overall resource.
It is clear that the devs do not want the game to be about PvP, and yet people still cling to the idea that it could/should be. Just… just pick another game that actually cares about it? WoW never has.
yes bring it back i always loved how it worked before WOD deleted everything i loved about wow itemization 
The thing is, the PvP can be very good. It has always had the potential to grow as a legit esport. Because the learning curve is big, which is a good thing for legit esports. Just look at the history of the amount of PvPers, while they’re significantly fewer now, it was once upon a time a very attractive game mode in WoW (relatively speaking).
But with those design decisions for PvE almost constantly getting in the way of achieving a proper sense of fairness, and those gearing designs (especially the borrowed powers), it has never been given the room to grow further.
To be clear though, actual fairness is not the same as achieving a sense of fairness. As a designer for PvP, you just need to get it “close enough” so that it doesn’t feel like a player is significantly disadvantaged. Because true fairness is pretty much impossible to achieve for a gameplay design (as in, the actual way the combat is designed), for a game like WoW.
Another thing which is essential for an esport to grow, is tournament management. Especially licensing out to 3rd parties to host tournaments, on top of your own tournaments hosted as a PvP game publisher.
But for that, effort would need to be put into the spectator mode designs. They’ve come a long way, but they could improve it further in certain areas.
And to be clear, spectator mode designs doesn’t need to provide perfect information about everything happening. Look at mobas for example, they barely manage to squeeze in any information at all about the game mechanisms, yet it’s one of the largest esport game modes.
So yeah, the PvP side of the game could flourish if it would be disconnected from PvE entirely, with separate class designs more adjusted for PvP (no reason it can’t resemble the PvE designs in every update, but PvE design decisions transferring the full effects of the changes almost every time to PvP has always been a huge problem to achieve that sense of fairness).
Together with adding a marketing campaign and licensing for tournaments, there’s no reason why PvP couldn’t grow exponentially as an esport in WoW. It just needs that disconnect.
Which is what makes Blizzard’s decisions so baffling over the years. Together with a role queue, lobby to select what to pick after having been matched, and a solo queue, it has all the makings for a legit esport game as long as it would be disconnected from PvE.
Also, keep in mind, private servers got a chunk of PvPers as well, it’s not only what you see in the real game that makes up the PvP player base. Then there are people that have given up over the years as well, which could be lured back with such design changes, which the initial release of Classic demonstrated for PvE (although it went downhill because they made fundamental changes to the social design and the fact that pserver players formed the meta way too quickly for PvE, thus turning it way more focused on results instead of enjoying the time together for many players).
(PS:
Also remember how they managed to raise 500000 dollars for the prize pool the one time they decided to add the option to crowdfund their AWC which plays out at Blizzcon during non-pandemic years. But then they made it so the prize pool they were gonna provide themselves was replaced by that crowdfunded prize pool instead of simply adding the crowdfunding on top of their own committed prize pool. Which they never said anywhere before they withdrew their own prize pool.
And they did that just by selling a single pet, during a time when PvP was ridiculed because of the gear designs and borrowed powers determining so much of the gameplay in BFA.)
if they are adamant about keeping it (pun intended but lets not go there) then let us buy sockets from Flux since it’s raining flux everywhere.
Yea I agree. But as said, and as you pointed out, it’s a temporary solution that isn’t bringing anyone joy. I hope they do what I mentioned in 10.0. And also enchants on every piece of gear.
Now you have a few pointless weapon enchants, chest, cloak, rings and that’s it. I want more. Also buckles, extra gems. Leg enchants from leatherworking, inscription enchants for shoulders. Rep enchants for head pieces. This is what we want. It would kill 2 birds with 1 stone, gems / enchanting back to former glory, and it would make proffesions a tad more meaningful.
You misspelled “I”.
How would it fix it though? Each player buy enchants two times per patch then. It does nothing. You buy it once for gear you upgrade first round and then once for max ilvl gear. After that, all those enchants are useless for the rest of the patch and nothing has changed, all proffs will still be worth nothing.
I just dont get it, why even go as far as scrap a system it is working (grind sure, but it was down to you , not legaly timegated) towards the “end” of the xpac?
Well for sure it’s a I, but I can assure you quite alot of people do aswell. If you don’t, it’s fine.
In which world? During the gearing cycle, I always switch gear so fast, and I always enchant new pieces. Same for alts I’m playing with. But this wasn’t the discussion.
How is it working? It’s yet another timegate to set players back and make them spend time doing something which was a few years ago, guaranteed. Is anyone having fun farming the rifts in the Maw? Probably not. People are just doing it because they are addicted, and think 1 gem or 1 max lvl conduit will make them god. And this mentality has to stop. It’s like a slot machine for the players.
What are you talking about? It’s the exast opposite. The item which added a socket was a deterministic reward that players could work towards. Now seemingly the only way to get sockets IS the slot machine. BIS is extremely rare again just like it was pre-8.3. Feels bad.
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.