I feel the upgrade system with it’s delayed gratification is just exceptionally boring and annoying to work with.
‘Oh I got a Heroic/Mythic track item!’
‘Oh it’s the same ilvl as my current maxed out Normal/Heroic track item’
‘I can’t equip it yet because it doesn’t have the same enchants + socket, so I have to gather materials first by grinding for it or otherwise it sims worse than my current one’
OR
‘I just upgraded my normal/heroic track item to max, let’s do that dungeon/raid!’
‘Oh, I got an higher ilvl item for the same item slot I just wasted all my flightstones and crests on’
I can’t wrap my head around how this system is supposed to be any fun, what fun is there about incremental +3 ilvl increases even if it ends up with 15~ ilvl increase on the item? It’s just boring.
I’ve had more excitement getting Warforged/Titanforged and Azerite gear or any other loot types pre-upgrade system shenanigans. EVEN if others were always far luckier than I was with getting gear I very much prefer the old system more than this steaming garbage pile.
I was probably the biggest complainer about not getting loot always, since my luck is simply garbage, but when I did get the loot I wanted… I was happy/excited about it. Nowadays I get loot and I barely feel anything while doing so, until dread sneaks in when I reach the upgrade table and realize I need to grind out more to upgrade and max it out.
Yes… I know it has it’s merits and yes I know people like having ‘guaranteed’ items for their playtime, but it just sucks the fun out of the game, getting loot is one of the biggest spikes of excitement for anybody in this game, or at least I feel that should be the way, even more so for those (like me) with ADHD, but in recent years it seems non-existent, at least to me.
none at all, I feel more for the appearance it unlocks, speaking as an RPer
which is still an upgrade from actively being repulsed by gimmicky gear with bad gimicks but an ilvl increase we had in BFA and SL, as well as any RNG forging mechanic.
I will say that I prefer the boring gear we have now, gear doesn’t have to be exciting, the game should be exciting. If you try to make any element of the game thats not direct gameplay more exciting, you’re doing it wrong and you’re more likely to create something thats novel at first but becomes an annoying gimmick to avoid very quickly (rng forging, bfa azerite gear, sl legendary crafts, etc)
Edit:
I also cannot agree more on the rng forging part for puny, hated it and the behaviour it incentivized. Glad they decided to go for deterministic upgrade system instead to give players a bit of variety of power between difficulty tiers
Imagine having a fully upgraded hero item, then you loot/get a 1/6 Myth item, but you’re out of crests/valorstones. It’s just a big pile of nonsense.
But wait, what if you get a head/shoulder/chest/gloves/legs-piece? Instantly hop to the thing to transform them into a tier piece. So even tier-pieces are just a general item anyone can get by now.
Gearing in WoW has lost its charm. It’s just a grind by now, not a reward for an activity.
long answer if you can work for it to get it, like farm the same dungeon/raid again and again to get it its fine, but if you ONLY get it by vault on myth track its lame
But transmog is a completely different beast, do you feel the excitement when you get a higher track item, of which you already have the transmog, that is the same ilvl of the item you already have equipped?
Never said I preferred it, but in terms of excitement you can’t say you never felt excited getting a Titanforged item yourself.
I simply want to go back to simpler times:
LFR and lower gear
Normal gear
Heroic gear
Mythic + / Mythic raid gear
So every subsequent drop is meaningful, directly impactful and a direct upgrade.
The only times I felt that these two expansions was when I was leveling through the zones and got higher ilvl quest rewards and perhaps the first times doing normal/heroic/mythic 0 dungeons. But as soon as you hit the ‘Use mats to upgrade’-crap it died down for me.
I did for a few month. When ara sacbrood dropped first myth track vault I was ecstatic
Now I’m basically decked out it’s a bit boring. But tbf I don’t need gear until next patch.
Yes i do. When i finally get the item i am going for. Like typhoon from ameriss or whats the dragon called in azshara with 20th anniversary event. And the staff from kazzak. And much more. Then i can finally end the grind there. I really like typhoon looks.
If you’re looking for a specific item then sure it can still occur, but I don’t really feel the excitement from getting an higher tier item. Before you had the obvious 10-20~ ilvl jump in items between tiers, where every subsequent drop felt meaningful until of course you were decked out.
Now it’s like you receive an IKEA box and you’re tasked with putting the item together via grind to up it’s ilvl by 15… It doesn’t really excite me or inspire me to put much effort into it, I don’t know why I have that feeling but it just seems boring.
To me personally I rather have the max ilvl of that tier directly like we did before, instead of having to grind to upgrade it to the max ilvl of that tier. So everything else remains the same with droprates and such, just remove the upgrade shenanigans.
So when I get an Heroic Raid item, it’s the static Heroic Raid ilvl 626 not 610, not 613, not 616 or whatever.
Just have drops with following ilvl’s per tier and be done with it:
LFR: 600ilvl
Normal: 613ilvl
Heroic: 626ivl
Mythic: 639ilvl
Both because of transmog and both items are not with upgrade system lol.
I’m not talking about transmog, I’m talking about the upgrade system vs regular drops like we had in the past.
What about not-end-of-the-season and you get the exact same item you already have equipped, but instead of normal track it’s heroic track (or mythic up from heroic)? Does that ‘excite you’ like it would if you received an item without upgrade track that’s a direct massive upgrade because of 10-20 ilvl jump?
Personally I just don’t even care about loot anymore. The experience in games, like experiencing a story or fighting a new boss till I beat it is much more exciting and valuable than a piece of loot.
(Though getting a shiny item that looks great as a transmog is a plus)
