"I don't want to do hard content but I want high level gear"

Community General Discussion
364

I can try!

I’m no game designer and I actually prefer to give Blizzard a general gameplay direction to pursue rather than specific and detailed suggestions, because I think they should have the freedom to design according to their own ideas. It’s also more exciting for me as a player to get something I haven’t seen or thought of myself, rather than something I already know all about because it’s my creation.

So I do feel that simply saying that I want more solo outdoor world content with a stronger sense of difficulty and character progression alongside an increased emphasis on the journey and adventure of traversing around in a landscape.

That should be enough for Blizzard to work with.

But since you ask for something more specific, I’ll try!

Let’s say you have a fairly big zone. Imagine it’s a bit like Winterspring. You have some easy to kill Furlbogs and Sabers in the north. Then you have some harder to kill Owlbeasts and Yetis in the south. And futher south you have some really tough Ice Giants and Blue Dragons. And beyond that, on the outskirts of the southern end of the zone, you have some terrifying Infernals and Felhounds.
That’s a zone with a natural difficulty progression where different areas present different monsters with different difficulties.

Let’s say there’s also a main hub in this zone with an NPC who will offer you some gear and some upgrades if you complete various quests and gather currency and such in the zone. And let’s say that the initial quests and objectives ask you to kill Furlbogs and Sabers, but over time as you progress your quests start taking you further south. Now you have to kill the harder Ice Giants and Blue Dragons and eventually the terrifying Infernals.
And let’s say you do this for a few months and you end up with item level 233 gear - like in Korthia.

Let’s say you then come across a cave in the zone where there’s an Infernal that you can talk to, and this Infernal explains that the demons aren’t actually evil, they’re just looking for a way to get home and maybe you can help! They’re trying to build a spaceship, but they need help getting the materials they need to build it. So in exchange for you finding all the materials they need for their spaceship they’ll give you some upgrades for your gear. Let’s say upgrading your gear from item level 233 to 242.

Let’s imagine these Infernal tasks involve finding hidden treasures and climbing trees and doing all that secret chest hunting where you have to play a bit of Super Mario. And you’ll need to kill some more monsters as well of course.

Now let’s say that after reaching this point the NPC back in the hub offers you a special quest that gives you access to an area consisting of some floating rocks that you couldn’t access earlier.

On these floating rocks there are some new challenges you can embark on. Let’s say it’s some instanced solo challenges where you face off against waves of enemies or unique bosses - like a mix of Proving Grounds and Brawler’s Guild.

Let’s say that completing these objectives gives a unique currency that you’ll need alongside your normal currency to upgrade your gear beyond item level 242. Let’s say up to item level 253.

So let’s say you do this new gameplay routine for another month.

Now the NPC has a new task for you. It turns out that there’s a Shadow realm in the zone - an alternative reality!
And it’s filled with evil Void creatures. And you’ll need to defeat them. But you don’t have an outpost! So you’ll need to kill the nearby Void-touched Rock Giants and Void-touched Treants to gather materials for your new hub and base of operations.
Imagine this is a place like The Molten Front where you slowly build up your base over time as you complete quests and objectives.

And again the NPC offers you a way of upgrading your gear further, now requiring a mix of normal zone currency, floating rock currency, and void realm currency.
Let’s say this allows you to get item level 265 gear.

And let’s say that in your new base there’s an instance that you can enter only if you have a certain currency that is a rare drop from any of the Void creatures in the zone.
Let’s say this instance is a loot run, like the Shado-Pan one in the Thunder Isles. You get a few minutes to grab as much loot and currency as you can before you’re kicked out.

So if you’re really lucky and very fast you can progress your gear a little bit faster. Otherwise you still got your usual objectives and quests to fall back on.

Now let’s say you’ve finally built your base of operations and you get a new quest and it triggers a phased event where you have to fight a difficult Void Lord that’s different for each class and spec - so it’s a fair challenge for everyone.

Let’s say if you are successful, then the boss escapes and the final phase of the zone begins, which involves some different Void portals that you can enter once a day - each one containing a unique solo scenario. A bit like Horrific Visions in BfA.
Complete these and you get another currency. And along with the other 3 currencies you can upgrade your gear from 265 to 287 over a few months.

So something like that! :grin:
Of course the zone would have the usual pile of rare mounts and pets and transmogs to collect, as well as herbs and ore and leather to skin. And Pet Battles and Fishing for those who are into that.
All the usual swag.

And as said, then I’m no game designer, so my creative brain can’t really think of new ideas. I can only work with that which already exists. So if Korthia is a Cheeseburger from McDonald’s, then I’m basically just asking for a Double Cheese with Bacon! So take Korthia and slap it on top of The Molten Front and add some Thunder Isle and sprinkle it with Brawler’s Guild, Proving Grounds and Mage Tower and Voilá! You have a compelling and engaging zone that offers a lot more progression than what players are used to, whilst also presenting challenge and requiring time and effort in order to earn the rewards.

And I’m sure Blizzard can create something that is 10x cooler and more fun than what my mushy brain can think of. That’s not the issue. The issue is the people who are opposed to these ideas, because God forbid someone can progress their character outside a raid instance!
Blizzard have a tendency to be reluctant to do something if they can see that a portion of the playerbase is vehemently against it. They’re conservative in their design. Status quo is preferable to controverse.
But the issue is that it kind of provides the elitist clowns a form of veto where the game is forever locked in this design where every patch is a new PvP and Mythic+ Season, a new Raid, and a new insignificant zone with an optional grind.
And whilst the elitist clowns who just want to raid are happy to preserve this status quo, because it means they can just raid and ignore everything else in the game, then it clearly doesn’t work for the larger part of the playerbase.

BECAUSE THEY’RE ALL QUITTING IF THEY HAVEN’T QUIT ALREADY!!

So something has to give or there won’t be much of a playerbase left.

So there you go. :upside_down_face:

8 Likes
365

Why are you making this a personal thing? I am not looking at this as a “Raider” and if you want to know my current status:

Active
Account Status

18 Dec 2021
Last Played

28 Feb 2022
Expiration Date

As for raids, I have maybe 2-3 Heroic bosses done in Castle Nathria before I quit the game. I occasionally logged on to check in on the game but logged off 5 minutes later, so the last time I played was 9.0 (January 2021).

So at the current time I’m not even an LFR-raider.

I am asking you for examples on how your proposal would look like, I don’t feel the need to hear that I’m a filthy raider after each answer that I give, because that’s the way it feels to me when you keep repeating it. It draws away from the discussion and it’s a completely pointless remark.

You misinterpret what I’m saying here. I’m not saying it is like group content, I’m saying that people ask for higher ilvl gear in world content, but why would anybody do this content on a daily basis for 30-90 minutes a day if you can semi-afk in LFR for the same ilvl gear for 30 minutes a week…? Because as far as a lot of people say, casuals don’t have that much time to play the game.

Does this even need to have gear drops aside from transmogs? Because you get higher ilvl gear than LFR from doing a few dailies now. Some questlines like the main story line are also time gated and continue after time or when a new patch hits.

Your suggestion feels a bit more of the same like that, but supposedly non-canon.

I’m not going to put everything between quotes because this reply would be too long, I’ll just give my answer under chunks of the text where your individual points end.

But this example sounds an awful lot like The Maw, where over time you unlock Korthia and can get higher ilvl gear for currency, the only difference in your example is that this Currency + Vendor is there from the start and that Winterfell is bigger than Korthia.

Personally I think casual players would be more a fan of puzzle-type content than content that somewhat forces them to be on their toes or anything with a time limit.

This sounds like the Eredath (Mac’Aree) questline where you enter void portals and had to sneak and gather/kill mobs.

Yes I noticed that most of the content examples are things that already exists in the game in some form or another. The problem is that Blizzard will also likely create something in a similar way, making it feel like “just more of the same” of what we’ve seen in previous expansions.

There’s a lot of people that don’t like things to be time-gated either, so these things will somewhere have an artificial end until the next patch comes out.

The thing is people misconstrue that I for example am against this, as I’m constantly reminded on me being a “raider” when I’m asking legitimate questions on how you would make this work without breaking the entire ecosystem.

Because I’m of the opinion that you can’t add this content to the game when it completely invalidates other content like normal+heroic raiding/dungeons and those that do enjoy those things end up with nobody to play with.

Then you will have created a new problem where those players leave the game as they have way fewer opportunities to participate in these normal/heroic raids, which also might kill off a bunch of casual raiding guilds.

To make it clear the people that do normal/heroic raids are far from elitist players.

I’m all for engaging content, as long as it doesn’t feel too much like “More of the same” and doesn’t negatively impact other groups of players inside the game.

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Mainly the requirements for achievements before you can use. I simply don’t want to do some of the dungeons as much as the others. It’s particularly crap on alts.

If you aren’t pushing in an organised way it’s just another junk currency. That makes it good for people interested in score but not really someone who just wants to do content they enjoy.

367

Winterspring. Wintergrasp. Winterfell. I also confuse them. :laughing:

But yes, I suppose the idea does come off a bit like stringing more zones together.

And in some way that is what it is.

I mean, the essence of the request is after all to get MORE solo outdoor content.
So instead of just getting tiny Korthia to play around in for 7 months, then I expect Blizzard to be able to produce 4x as much outdoor content.
At least if they want to keep me as a subscriber.
And I refuse to believe that production is a limitation. They have hundreds of developers and all the gold in King Solomon’s mines!

And yes, my example does revolve around unlocking new parts of the zone in stages. And most of the progression is fairly controlled, because again, we have to be considerate of the raiders who don’t want casual players to get good gear too quickly because “muh prestige!” :roll_eyes:
So the progression speed is throttled so it’s always a little bit behind the hardcore raiders so they don’t feel anyone is stepping on their toes, because God forbid that!

Maybe. That’s possible. The only way to know for sure would be if Blizzard actually tried to make more of that kind of content so we could see whether players like it or not.
Again, the point of criticism to Blizzard is that they’re dragging their feet and whenever they do present players with new outdoor zone content, then it tends to be the same regurgitated crap as always. Korthia doesn’t bring a single new idea to the game. Not one. It’s just standard kill, fetch, and deliver. Where’s the ingenuity that Blizzard were so much better at in the past?!

I hadn’t thought of it that way, but sure, if it works for you!
Again, it’s just a loose idea to illustrate that you can easily create a zone with a longer span of progression by splitting it up into segments (ground, floating rocks, shadow, etc.).

Blizzard have done that in the past by having areas that you could only access with flying. That way some of a zone could be for leveling and other parts could be for endgame. Multiple layers of progression in the same zone.

That’s painting the devil on the wall I think.
I mean, the fact that I can pull out a lot of different design concepts that already exist in the game is testament to the fact that Blizzard can actually create new and compelling game design when they have to.

Again, I’m no game designer so I’m limited to pointing at all the old stuff and go: “I liked that. Extra scoops of that please!”
But Blizzard’s own designers do possess the ability to think outside the box and create new experience inside this 17 year old game. That’s kind of their job.

I imagine everything I explained to be doable within a single patch, from the start of the tier and until the end.
There’ll be some natural time-gating since you can only do a daily quest once a day and weekly quests are weekly and so on. And then there are some things that can be farmed so you can speed up the progression a bit, but realistically it would still be a journey spanning the entire length of the tier. Because that’s what the request is. More outdoor world content that players can engage in throughout the entirety of a content tier – unlike Korthia where you’re done after 3 months and afterward struggle to figure out what to do when you log in.

So what you’re saying is that the casual players who don’t enjoy raiding have to be held hostages so the raiders can fill up their groups?!

Screw that.

If the raiders can’t support themselves, then it’s for them to tell Blizzard to make changes to the raid structure and enable raiders to more easily group and play with each other.

The solution is never in a million years to starve the casual playerbase of outdoor content so they’re forced to participate in raiding as that’s all there is to do.

So first of all, how is Korthia not more of the same?!
Second of all, then how does my example impact other groups negatively?!

The answer is that Blizzard can’t really do any worse by trying, because the existing content like The Maw and Korthia is already more of the same. So they should damn well try to make something more interesting and engaging!

And my above idea does in fact not step any sensitive raiders over their toes. They can ignore the entire damn zone if they don’t fancy doing it and just go and focus on their raid bosses. Everyone is happy.

So I don’t really see the major objections here, and my crappy idea was thought up in like 10 minutes. So let’s not pretend that the request is controversial or impossible to realize without destroying the rest of the game. It’s pretty damn straight-forward and merely a matter of Blizzard getting their act together and writing more than one line of code per day.

2 Likes
368

Exactly. That’s not what I said and that’s not the points that I was making. That again is you making strawman arguements, because apparently that all you can do.

It’s most certainly not.

369

All you need is M+ 15 for high lvl gear.
I killed HC last 2 bosses once because i decided not to raid mythic this xpac with my guild.
I am still 250+ ilvl with BIS M+ gear in every slot.
M+ 15 is really not hard .
I will say that you will miss out on the new '‘domination sockets’'that only drop from raidbosses.
You could run LFR and kill last 2 bosses for the 220 ilvl gear and get 4 items with domination sockets that will probably get you at 246 ish.
So no it really is not hard getting good gear and ilvl.
Unless ofcourse you consider good gear being only mythic raid gear that is BIS and has dom sockets.

370

Not really wasting time paying other people to get rid of the part I don’t like

371

  1. It’s a “RPG” only because it has a progression system. Meaning progression is important. People want to progress, regardless of what this progression is.

  2. Regarding PvPers, they want to have the best gear, even if they are ultra-super-casual and only play random BG/random arenas during 30minutes a week, because noone wants nor likes being farmed by hardcore who spend all their abundant freetime in game, pvping, as if their life depended on it.

Why is it hard to understand ?

1 Like
372

Personally I enjoyed the Lucid Nightmare quest line. So perhaps more in that sense, but not all of them having mazes like that in the end though.

It’s not a matter of ability to do so, it’s the matter of whether they get the time and opportunity to develop things like this. The reason for a lot of copy-paste work is simply because they’re working with internal deadlines.

You’re misconstruing what I’m saying here, a lot of people think in a very simple manner casual or else, as example:

You have two activities, both give you for example 260ilvl gear:

  • A normal/heroic raid that takes 30-90+ minutes
  • A solo questline as you explained that takes less time than a raid to progress in and receive gear from. There is no kicking/wiping etc involved or any involvement with other players.

The fault in your thinking is that it’s very black and white like this:

  • Raid lovers
  • Raid haters

But there’s a group and this is probably the largest group of players in this game, that don’t mind doing either raiding or solo content.

But a very common thing among players is that if one activity takes less time for the same (ilvl) rewards, they would pick that over the other most of the times.

So when you have one activity that is easier to start with, one that you can take breaks in between with, requires no tactical knowledge and gives the same rewards, a lot of players that don’t mind doing either activity (no preference) will most likely do that instead of raiding.

So when that happens a good chunk of players will not see a compelling reason to do normal/heroic raids and all the things revolving around it like finding people etc… because the other activity takes less time… and thus there will be far fewer players that will do raiding. Which will obviously hurt the normal/heroic guilds.

I never claimed it isn’t.

As explained above.

373

Blizzard will always do the least work they have to. They’re a business. They’re not going to take on extra work for no reason.
The only way to make them invest more money and resources into producing WoW content is to vote with your wallet. So that’s kind of what I’m doing. Either Blizzard gives me more solo outdoor world content in the next expansion or I quit and take my money elsewhere.
Then Blizzard can do their own little cost/benefit analysis on how much I am worth to them as a customer and if I and other players warrant additional investments into WoW or not.

Sure. That’s absolutely true. I think the design goal to strive toward is to make the most enjoyable way of playing the game the most rewarding as well, and vice versa.

And that’s always going to be a balance act when Blizzard offers different options of gameplay like Mythic+ Dungeons and Raids and Arenas and so on. And since they already offer those gameplay options and somewhat manage to balance those against each other, then I fail to see why solo outdoor content couldn’t be a 4th option if that is indeed what some players would find to be their most enjoyable way of playing the game.

As far as raiding goes, then that’s really an issue within raiding itself.
Raiding as a gameplay format is an old archaic design that’s downright absurd in the modern gaming landscape. Show up for 4 hours in the evening for 3 days every week?! Jesus Christ, that’s insane to ask of anyone who isn’t indoctrinated already.
And on top of that you need a silly amount of players and they all have to be able to communicate and know each other in order to practice and learn, so preferably all part of the same guild. And on top of that, then everyone needs their characters to be decked out in a certain high item level gear.
That’s setting a very high bar for joining the otherwise revered gameplay aspect called Raiding.
And that’s just an issue with raiding itself where Blizzard may eventually have to adapt the design to make it easier to get into (like when raiding went from 40 players to 25 and 10 or when flex and LFR was added, or whatever).
But none of the issues pertaining to raiding and the difficulty of getting people interested in raiding is an excuse for starving the playerbase for content outside of raiding. That is, as I said, just keeping the playerbase hostages to the raiding crowd. And screw that, seriously. If raiding can’t sustain itself as an activity, then why in God’s name do Blizzard pour so many resources into it?!

Like Jesus said: “Render therefore unto the casual player the outdoor content that are his, and unto the raider the raid instances that are his. Amen!”

374

Whatever you are trying to describe or make WoW Look like died a long time ago.

Time to move on.

This is not how most people see WoW any more

375

I dont think WoW should be a very challenging game. I think Ulduar is the best raid ever.

Normal mode and hard mode. I think its gone too far when you need 500 different WA packages to do the raid…

3 Likes
376

A: You dont “need” them

B: A raid like ulduar would be cleared like within a day nowadays. Its not just the addons that became better, but also the players. You cant throw an absolutely outdated raid at a playerbase that is composed of god knows how many veterans and also people being way better gamers nowadays then compared to 15years ago (and not just in WoW)

C: If they would return to such a level then hardmode would be like mythic now and normal would be like hc or normal or something in between.

377

You would need a lot of people suggesting about the same thing before something like that happens, I’ve only seen a few people in this thread and don’t recall seeing threads or posts with similar things mentioned.

Hmm not so sure if it’s really a balancing act between those existing things, as you have purely PvE, Purely PvP and players that mix it up.

There’s no real balancing act between Mythic+ and Raiding as it somewhat goes hand in hand, you do M+ to gear up in between raid days or before the raid is even released. You pretty much fill in the places that you still need gear in with M+ gear.

I haven’t done PvP in a long time so not sure how the dynamic between Arena/BG’s is these days but I figure there’s at least one common currency and perhaps an arena specific one? But gear wise it pretty much goes hand-in-hand as well, I’d think.

But rewards/time spent/challenge needs to be balanced in a way that it doesn’t take away from other elements in the game.

I don’t think it’s fair to insult people that have other interests and choose to spend their time differently than you do.

Considering the heavily anti-raiding messages in here and how you just spent like 30 sentences complaining about raiding and it’s players, others could say you’re heavily indoctrinated against raiders.

It feels heavily biased at the very least.

But that’s not even happening, there’s a lot more outside of the raids than inside, but an MMORPG without raids or challenging content elsewhere like New World are dead games.

378

I only speak for myself. It is not my job or intent to speak on behalf of others. I give my personal feedback to Blizzard, and then they can do with it as they please.

What content to develop for the game is Blizzard’s job to figure out. I only provide them with feedback on what I would like. They can heed that feedback or ignore it, that’s up to them. I’ll act accordingly with regards to my subscription.

You’re suggesting that players who are interested in either activity are interested in both activities. I don’t think that’s true. I think most players have a preference and then they begrudgingly indulge in the other out of necessity.

Sure, absolutely. And I think my suggestion provided plenty of ways to do that.

I didn’t. I just stated the absurdity of assuming that the raiding format is somehow one where the design is driven by easy accessibility and low barriers to entry. By its very design nature, raiding is about as player-unfriendly as a game activity can get, because it requires so much time and commitment and organization and preparation and what not. Of course it’s going to be a struggle to get people into it and remain committed for years and years. Hell, that’s why I don’t raid anymore. It becomes too much after a certain time.
And that’s ultimately Blizzard’s design issue to deal with. But the solution is never ever to keep the general playerbase hostage by starving them of all other content except raiding.

In all honesty, I really fail to understand how raiding is even a part of a discussion that relates to a simple request for more outdoor zones and character progression there.

What’s next? I suggest a new fishing tournament and suddenly the raiders are concerned about raid participation being undermined?!

It’s silly to even have these long-winded discussions for something so simple as:
“Hey Blizzard! Think you could make your outdoor zones a bit bigger and include a little more character progression? Kthx bye!”

That’s WoW suggestion 101 if there ever was one.

3 Likes
379

Not necessarily, but they are similar in difficulty, same style (PvE/PvP) and the gear received supplement each other.

Are you sure you’re not heavily biased against raiders? Because you’re again jumping from negative views of raiding in general to anti-raider sentiments…

380

Welp, then stop relating/comparing everything I say, to LFR raiding, eh?
:man_shrugging:

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks” - William Shakespeare

382

Meh. Progressive difficulty. Make an easy bit with low rewards, then a harder bit with slightly better rewards, then keep ramping it up until you get to an area where you have to go all Mage Tower just to stay alive, for the best rewards. Simples.

P.S. To your original title:

“I don’t want to do hard content but I want high level gear”

Just pull out your credit card, convert to gold, buy boosts. Also simples.

1 Like
383

Irony…

You have repeatedly compared GROUP content…to content I have proposed specifically for SOLO-only players…because they don’t like doing GROUP content…because they are SOLO players.

Why would I continue to find different and original ways to explain the same thing, to the hard of thinking? (Rhetorical)

:fox_face: :tropical_drink:

385

I ran out of ‘Likes’ on Vulpie for stuff I was reading, so switched to my Alliance main.

Forum regulars know both Vulpie and Cathbadh belong to me, since I reference it in some posts, with banter between the two Faction characters.

Either are capable of responding with robust debate, if I feel the subject matter merits it.

1 Like