I think the vast majority of modern players are playing for
appearances (cosmetics, including mounts, pets),
power level.
It is fairly obvious from comments whenever scaling, squash or similar stuff gets thrown around, but MoP Remix was a rather obvious demonstration, too.
About 1% of the population plays to obtain exclusive stuff, and it’s fairly cool because it motivates others who want the same thing for themselves.
Early availability is a good compromise in my opinion.
(With collections not spilling over to Classic, the collection element, very much including the Trading Post, is moot.)
The issue is balance.
You would have to change loot tables, change drop chances, increase time needed for delves etc… not only would this cause a lot of harm that you are not aware of right now, it would also eat a lot of resources which are basically wasted.
But what for? Not for improvement, it’s only for a minority of people who want just to have the same number as some random guy who they will never play with together anyway. It’s so irrational on so many levels.
Why not what?
Why not give best gear from delves? Because you would have to balance it out since otherwise competitive players would be forced to do the content they don’t like in order be the most efficient. Because that’s why competitive players do.
You would harm the majority in order to make a minority happy. And that’s not even for a valid reason but pure childish ego.
I could elaborate on this further but it will be a huge wall of text, don’t think you really want that.
There is no barrier tho? The content is designed for the players to be easily doable with what they get. The only barrier is in their head, the fragile ego that nags on some players because some other guy has more than them, even tho they absolutely don’t need it themselves and it does not affect them at all. But changing this will affect everyone.
Ye, but the people get power level for a reason.
The casual delve player is not into the grind and just wants an illusion of succeeding in a challenge. Preferably with low gear. And that’s exactly what they got. Content that does not require max gear and is doable solo.
The whole complaining is only because “I want what he has even tho I don’t need it”
What item level do you need to clear the hardest challenge in the game assuming 100% perfect play from everyone? According to your logic, that should be the ceiling that the game provides and no item level beyond that should be attainable by anyone.
So what if it is? Does that mean that the maximum item level attainable from Delves should be the one that provides just enough Stamina to not get oneshot by the strongest unavoidable hit, again assuming 100% perfect play?
Yes they are? Same principle as everywhere else. If a player does not have godlike skill to achieve something with X item level, then maybe they can achieve it with X+y.
It’s not a solo player dictating what groups of players are able to get, it’s the concept of the challenge itself. You cannot use the argument that an infinite scaling system should provide infinite power through equipment. There has to be a ceiling. And that ceiling will by consequence dictate the maximum completable rank in the infinite scale of the challenge. So the maximum attainable power that can be provided by an infinitely scaling content should either be close to what is needed to achieve the most difficult tangible reward (which in the current season is the 3000 score reward) assuming absolute 100% perfect play, or equal to what the rest of the game modes provide for parity.
And I am in perfect agreement with that. So why do you care what other people, who don’t do the content you do, get? Why do you think you can be the arbiter of what everyone else needs to play the content they do?
If A% can complete some content (ANY content) with ilvl X, then (A+b)% can complete it with ilvl (X+y). Therefore by providing higher item level you increase the majority. Obviously (A+b) will never be 100% regardless of how high (X+y) will go, but it will asymptotically approach it. This applies to Delves, to M+, to raids and in fact to everything the game provides (Horrific Visions, soloing old raids that do not have legacy buff applied, etc.) that do not limit the power-through-equipment that players have (like Mage Tower and Dastardly Duo)
Simultaneously, what you said also applies to M+ and raids.
How did I throw it out?
Some will indeed fail even with max attainable gear. But some will not. Assuming that player skill is a bell curve, then there is a non-zero amount of players which cannot clear it at some item level but can clear it at (that item level + 1)
The difference between players like me and players like you is that players like me do not care in the absolute slightest what players like you have. We care that there is something in the game, and we want to achieve it eventually at our own pace. We’re not the ones inspecting others to see what they have equipped and what achievements they have completed and at what date.
It’s players like you who absolutely do care what players like me have and do not want to see players like me acquire the same stuff as you, even if it comes at a time when you don’t even care about it because you’ve moved on to the next thing.
Previously you mentioned that you are required to do Delves to get the belt because you need it for the content you do. If reaching 3000 M+ score and clearing Mythic raid was done before the belt was even coded in the game, why do you need it now? Who forces you?
And this has pretty much been achieved. I am a Delve player mostly despite having reached 2000 M+ score. I still do not have the item level you have (678 vs. 681), and in fact I cannot mathematically reach it with the content I do before the next patch that will reset everyone back to 0. You acquired the gear I have a lot earlier than me, you are always ahead of me, and simultaneously I will not reach your current gear while it is relevant. So why is it wrong for me to have the item level that I do?
I can’t tell you. I can only tell you it’s not obtainable.
And your point is?
It simply means there is no need for the best of the best gear in the game. If you need it to beat said content, you sure should get it. If not, why exactly do you want it? Ego reasons?
That’s the difference between being rational and irrational.
By “that’s not how delves are designed” I meant that your gear progressions does not stop at 660 ilvl and that you simply don’t need that ilvl without the content requiring you to be some top tier player.
With other words:
You can do 11 delves with 635 ilvl being an average player, which is around 50 ilvls below the current ingame max lvl.
But you can not do that with M+ or mythic raid.
Does this explain the difficulty and design difference better now?
I said the majority of players does need the max gear level in order to clear M+ and mythic raids and that even most people can’t clear mythic raids with max gear.
You responded that we don’t need max gear to finish the hardest content (because a tiny minority was able to do so) and then you say just because some of us do not need max gear to achieve something does not mean others also do not need.
Besides the huge difficulty differences, the reality is also different. In reality you can clear delves far below the max reward level you can get there but that’s not the case in M+ and raids, for the majority. So do we go by minority or majority?
You can’t go both ways and pick one that suits your argument but not apply this to the other case
Well then you just said yourself that delves should not have same ilvl rewards, in fact those should be lowered, by a lot, because the challenge difficulty is way too low compared to the max ilvl you can get from delves
That’s not how it works tho. You pick a title, that is easy obtainable, specifically designed so. In fact 2 people can even get carried by 3 people to get this title easily.
A better example would be “tempered hero”. This title is hard to get but then again, achieving it does not work the way you need it for your argument.
It’s simple, because the moment something offers BiS, you are forced to do it as competitive M+ or raid player. I am also absolutely annoyed by doing delves just because Blizzard decided to buff the belt, since it wasn’t good enough in order to force people to do the delves.
I am not against delve people getting the best possible gear (even tho they absolutely don’t need it), it just a coincidence that if they would get it, it would force A LOT of players to do the content they don’t want to do.
I am not a fan of changes, that force the majority to do something against their will (in order to stay competitive) just because a minority wants something they truly don’t need in order to play their content. There needs to be a proper reason at least.
(or it should be well designed, which it is not right now, if you just up’d the ilvl reward in delves, without further changes)
Yes, sure but that’s a super tiny minority of an already tiny minority. You don’t design the entire game based of that. It’s bad and irrational.
The thing is, the obtained gear is already way too high to complete the delves. And you said it yourself, there has to be a cap in power. We can’t increase it all the way because there is still this one random guy struggling
So with other words: I want what you have but not for the same effort
I understand that but… why? Why do you want it so bad if you don’t need it? If I didn’t have it, you wouldn’t want it.
Look, I want and need the stupid delve belt. For this I have to play the stupid delves… I really don’t want it but I have to do it. At the start of the season there were good delves trinkets. In order to have them I would need to play this content. It’s kinda simple…
I maybe want some mythic raid trinkets… but well… I can’t get those, unless I am willing to do what’s required for that. But I don’t really need those trinkets and that’s fine by me if I don’t get them. Why the entitlement of solo players?
That’s not true even in the slightest but I think I explained above what the actual issue is.
That’s the problem, you set up a goal for me and make an argument around it.
My goal is not 3000, that’s why I need the belt. I need every point of power I can get to reach my goal.
Also, you compare solo play to a competitive environment. It’s simply a requirement in competitive environment to have the best gear possible, in the worst case you can’t even play the content you want to play. That’s not the case for delves.
Does it make sense?
As I said earlier, you don’t need that gear. The whole purpose for you to have it is… well self-made. You are a solo player, you play the content where you don’t need what I need.
I have to compete with other players, that’s why I have to have that gear. Every single piece of gear can decide about a timed run or a fail. I can’t just be 650 ilvl and time a +20 (not even highest M+ right now) even if my entire group is playing like gods. But you can be 650 and do the highest delve. That’s the difference.
With other words: I need the best gear because reality dictates it. You don’t need the same gear, you just want it.
The game gradually shifted from an MMORPG — Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game — to what many now jokingly call an MMORG: Massively Multiplayer Online Raid Game. This transition really solidified during the Warlords of Draenor expansion, when “raid logging” became a common routine for large portions of the player base. Time Trials introduced in Mists of Pandaria and refined in Warlords of Draenor further contributed to the emerging “go-go-go” mentality — a mindset that had existed before but became far more widespread during these expansions. However, it was with the introduction of Mythic+ in Legion that this shift truly escalated, pushing the game toward an even more fast-paced, performance-driven experience.
It is like Diablo IV, and that game is called an “MMO-Lite” which I think suits it nicely.
It’s primarily single-player driven. The multiplayer is opt-in for the most part.
It has an open and shared world, but it’s very phased and organized so you maintain a single-player experience, unless you actively choose to play with others or organically play alongside others during objectives or timed events.
It has a guild system, but it’s opt-in. It has raid bosses in the outdoor zones, but you don’t really have to do them. It has endgame difficulty progression and a gear progression to match it. It has all the collectibles and the Seasonal achievements. Every Season has a theme that’s presented through a questing experience. The game modes are instance-based.
The above describes Diablo IV as well as it describes WoW.
And if they fit the same description then the description should be able to cover them both. But I wouldn’t call Diablo IV an MMORPG so I shouldn’t call WoW that either. But I would call Diablo IV an MMO-Lite, and I think it would also pass as a fair description for WoW.
But yeah, for WoW it’s been a gradual shift over the years, away from the traditional MMORPG genre and toward the design that the ARPG genre has been popularizing in recent years. I think the WoW playerbase reflects that as well. The player behavior and mindset in WoW these days is pretty indistinguishable from an ARPG playerbase. Objective-driven, Seasonal-minded, focused on difficulty and gear progression and cosmetic rewards for accomplishments, and egoistic above all.
I don’t think the MMORPG genre has much of a future in its classical design format. But I do wish Blizzard would lean a bit more into the spectacle and the epicness that is usually associated with an MMORPG. You know, the scale and the grandeur of the adventure tends to be greater in an MMORPG than in a traditional RPG, let alone an ARPG. A raid boss like Dimensius is a fair example of WoW playing to its strength where the stakes of the story get portrayed in an epic scope, but that’s 1 encounter in an entire expansion with hundreds of other encounters that haven’t been very epic in scope. So yeah, wish Blizzard would do more on that front.
Well, I can. 665 or lower. Proof: Composition of the raid team that achieved World First Mythic Gallywix. That was with 0% buff I think from Renown? Now it’s 18%.
Yes, Mythic Gallywix is more difficult / more prestige than 3000 M+ rating. Proof: More than 300000 characters have achieved 3000 or higher M+ rating according to raider[.]io right this instance. Only 1744 Guilds have cleared Mythic Gallywix, which even at 100 people from each Guild having taken the kill (which is a massive overstatement) would bring that to 175000 characters having cleared it. In reality it’s a lot less.
That’s the point of your argument. Since the equipment necessary to clear any official content is X, then nothing above X should exist for anyone.
And noone said that Delves should provide the best of the best at equal speed acquisition as more difficult content. And yes, I agree that anyone who said that is irrational. But what is also irrational is gatekeeping players permanently based on what content they partake in.
Right now Delves do not provide the same gear at M+ or raids. And mathematically someone who only does Delves will never (during the same season of course) reach the item level of someone who only does M+. That’s a hard fact. The absolute best a Delver can reach is minus 3 ilvl compared to a M+ player, and that’s explicitly through crafting and not through Delves themselves. And how much time does a Delver need for that? 90 crests per item x 16 item slots = 1440 Gilded Crests. At 31 Crests per week which it was till 11.1.7 or 16 weeks and 50 after that, that means a Delver needs (31x16) + (50x weeks) >= 1440 => 19 weeks after 11.1.7. But we can upgrade lower-tier crests into higher tier. So one would need to have 2850+ Runed Crests to convert to Gilded immediately when the cap was removed or when 11.1.7 hit the server to get 681 through crafting.
So even in the absolute case of a serious no-lifer who did the above, they still mathematically would not have the item level of even a casual M+ player.
This is a wrong point of view. A top tier player can achieve something with much less power from equipment than an average player. And an average player can achieve that with less item level than a bad player. If anything, it’s the average and low-tier players who need the equipment the most to see the same content as everyone else.
But that would not make for interesting gameplay/reward loop. So we have the compromise where better players get rewards at a much faster rate than the rest. And depending on how bad a player is (or how much they limit themselves in content they partake), they need much longer to acquire the same gear, or even not at all before the release of newer content.
False. That’s an above-average player. Your average player struggles in T11 Delves at even 650.
There is no contradiction in my posts. A few players, the best of the crop, do not need the current max level to clear content, they can clear it with less than that. So your argument is that the game should not provide equipment better than that. And then I add that some players (ie. everyone who is not best of the crop) needs better equipment to do the same thing. They need the gear to cover their lack of skill. Disclaimer: I also need gear to cover my lack of skill.
So what is the cut-off point of majority? Because there are people who cannot solo T11 delves or Underpin ?? with even 670 (me for example). 50.1%? 60%? 90%? 99.9%?
Each of us has a different opinion on that. My opinion is closer to the 99.9% value.
And they do. They provide -13 item level or lower compared to M+. The only catch up are the Gilded Crests, and as explained above only through crafting can a Delver get closer to a M+ player in the KSM zone.
As for the difficulty, I am in agreement somewhat. I prefered it when T11 were more difficult. Season 2 T11 Delves are easier than Season 1 T8.
That is how it works. I explicitly stated “100% perfect play” in bold. Therefore I already set the condition of no carrying.
“Tempered Hero” is a PvP title despite it being obtainable from PvE content. You do not fight content for it, you fight the time of other players. It’s your time against their time, not your ability to defeat a boss. Your goal is not to reach the finish line, it is to reach it fast enough to be in the title range.
That’s something you have set on yourself. The game did not impose on you the requirement to get BiS equipment. It’s your choice because acquiring it increases your chances of reaching your goal. It’s the exact same argument why I as a Delver need BiS for Delves. You want to fight for the title range, I want to clear Delves much faster. Your cause is not more valid than mine, and my cause is not more valid than yours. And similarly to you being forced to do Delves for a belt, I am forced to do M+ for gilded crests because the ones provided from Delves are not enough.
And in the exact same reasoning, you do not design the game around the minority of pushing an infinite-scaling content to its extremes. It’s bad and irrational.
False. I don’t care what you have. I don’t even know what you have. All I do is press Y and Shift+P, see stuff there, and I want to get them. What other players have acquired has no bearing on my desire to complete content and acquire rewards.
it’s that you don’t want players who you deem to be beneath you in skill and progress to have access to the same toys as you do even in the future.
And similarly you have arbitrarily set my goal to being just T11 Delves when it’s not that either. My goal is to acquire everything. And I need all the power I can get to do that to reduce my in-combat time.
Your purpose of acquiring the 0.1% title is also self-made. You are not required to get it. You have opted to get it. And the game provides you with tools to get it. But you don’t want people who do not have the same goal as you to have access to the same tools.
Exiasee has already explained everything perfectly. It’s just a breath of fresh air and a surprising twist, to read something on this forum that is well thought through.
That being said, my answer would be a little tiny tad different, and since you quoted me, to answer your question i offer you to conduct a little thought experiment.
Take a person, who only does world quests. As far as this person is concerned, blizzard might as well cut out all the raids and all the mythic, since this person only cares about doing world quests.
Now, lets imagine that on average every world quest requires you to kill 10 mobs. Now let’s imagine that at some patch BIS allows the player to kill the mob in 2 seconds. Versus, world quest gear would allow the player to kill the mob in 12 seconds.
These are not exact figures, but these are possible figures, aren’t they.
Ok, now lets say this person does 4 world quests a day on average, thats 1460 world quests a year.
(12 seconds - 2 seconds)10 mobs1460 quests=2433 minutes=40 hours
The player in question wasted 40 hours just for not having bis.
Thats enough time to complete an average game.
Ok, but now imagine all the other examples, where we would do the exact same calculation.
People, who just want to do story quests for lore. People who just want to farm skinning mats.
Etc. etc.
On the other hand you have some professional/semi-professional cadre of mythic players, who as per your argument will have to do delves or some other activity to maximize their gear acquisition rate, because they need to be first and they need to be fast.
So whats the right gamedesign decision?
And be honest here
To make the game better for the general public, but make it “worse” for top raiders,mythic 100+ crowd.
Or to make it better for your top percent, but ruin it for everyone else?
GW2 is doing fine and a lot of people are playing. Most people just think that if wow is not doing well and it’s the ‘most played’ (most likely not), then all other MMOs must be doing worse than wo but in reality that’s not true
Well… how about M+ 20? 22 or whatever? You go by a mythic raid from the top of the top players who practiced for… months or how long it took them?
I am asking you what is your point?
I assume you want me to say “yes” so you can make the raid argument (where 665 is enough) which then will collapse in on itself since the same can’t be applied to M+? Is that about right?
The issue is that it’s not about the speed but about the quality of items. If you have, let’s say a trinket, that just happens to be so good and have the same ilvl as mythic raid, then people simply have to do delves then. That’s just how being competitive works.
While on the other hand, where exactly is the gatekeeping? Do you mean something else maybe? Gatekeeping for me means that you can’t play your content because someone or something does not let you but that’s evidently wrong for delves.
Ye, true. I mean I can’t argue against mathematical facts, you are correct. But what’s the issue? The delve content can still be played, fully.
Yes, I agree but I am not sure how this relates to my statement, saying that they don’t need that gear in order to successfully play the delve content?
Yes that’s true but the game and its content is designed for a majority, not for the top of the top. This is why you can see an average low geared player being able to clear max lvl delve but you can’t see an average low geared player doing “max” M+ key.
There is a difference in the core design.
Kinda, yes. This is also why you have more gear in more difficult content. Because the average players are not that good and therefore need better gear. Delves are super easy on itself, for the majority.
This is actually a huge difference. It’s not that better players are getting much better gear, that’s not what is happening. It’s all about what and how you decide to play, it’s not tied to being good or bad. (unless you are so bad that you can’t do a dungeon for whatever reason… I truly believe this is not possible since I coached a few friends from 0)
One of my friends for example had better gear than me the entire season. He is playing worse than me tho
Na… you can find many different videos on youtube and it’s clear that these guys never or barely played WoW. You even have other people giving them suggestions how to improve.
I am also sure I can sit a friend down and do the delves and he will be done in one week or less even tho he never played WoW.
I never said that we should have max gear with what a handful of people is able to clear any content. And that’s also Blizzard’s philosophy, they check how much you need and throw a decent amount of ilvls on top of that so the “majority” (even tho not really accurate here but basically much more people) can achieve that too, if they put in a bit of effort.
You mean 99,9% of people should be able to do that?
That would be a horrible idea if you transfer this to competitive content. Like very, very bad. But I think I misunderstand here.
Ye but my point was it should be much more because the ilvl difference that you can have in order to complete T11 dev is astronomical compared to mythic raid and is not even comparable to M+ due to infinite scaling.
Ye and I said the title is easy obtainable.
The competitive content starts way above that
Ye that’s why I said it does not really support your argument even tho I get your point but difficulty wise that’s a real goal in the competitive scene, not the 3k. That’s just being thrown at players like a participating trophy.
Well ye, it’s not the game itself, it’s the community. But that’s part of the game. No community = no game.
Well no, there is a difference, that’s the problem.
You can still play Delves, you are not relying on the community that will invite you in order to play the content.
Well, no. I don’t want the title. My goal is a different one but it might be hard to understand, that’s why I didn’t mention it. But in abstract it’s basically being able to beat the “content”. That’s why it’s a bit different.
I don’t want just to do something faster, I want to be able to finish it.
Here he would basically start the argument again, no? Where I say you don’t need the gear but I do and you would say what you said before?
Yep, that’s true. That’s why we have more gear than needed for pro players, so more people can finish the content.
No, you are missing the point here.
My point is basically the same still, you don’t need much gear to complete T11 delves. You can be factually 50 ilvls below. Now I admit I don’t know if that’s for every delve but I know there is at least one delve where you can do it. Without being an exceptional player.
That’s not possible in competitive content. Not even close.
But I don’t want to be forced in a content I don’t like, just because someone wants more gear even tho gear is not holding him back in order to play his content successfully. Like delves are already an extremely easy content imo. It’s just annoying af.
Well yes, I did that based on what you said. Because you can’t acquire everything if you choose not to play said content. These rules go for everyone, not just delve players. As I said, I can’t acquire some mythic raid gear because I am not willing to put in the effort it takes.
In very abstract: I want to be able to play the game, you just want to finish it faster
(it’s very hard to play M+ and raids with pugs, means getting in groups… but it is even harder to find 4 people who have the same goals and can play at the same time)
Well as I said, it’s not my goal but going by this logic it means literally eerything is self-made in this game and we don’t need any gear at all?
That’s not true tho. You have the same access as me to everything.
There is a huge key difference: You want something that other people get, without being required to do what they do.
I’d say that WoW and GW2 carry on steadily because they can rely on devoted veteran playerbases to keep them relatively steady, but that is an exception to the norm as any newer MMORPG cannot rely on that and therefore tends to fall into obscurity pretty fast.
So the genre as a whole isn’t really going from strength to strength with regards to a classical design, and hasn’t for years. It’s been eclipsed by the ARPG genre, the open world survival and crafting genres, the MOBA genre, and whatever other off-branches there have been in the wake of the MMORPG resurgence in the 00’s.
Or he had 40 hours more of the content he wanted and chose to do?
See, that’s the very huge difference we have. I want to play the game but it’s only possible with the best of the best gear possible. But your fictional guy is already playing the game you just want him to have more gear so he can stop playing quicker. That’s not what I want. I want to play it longer, I just don’t want to sit in queues
Exactly, except the suggestion would make the game WORSE for the general public because (and here is the difference, it’s not the mythic crown) some solo players want more gear just to quit the game faster
That’s horrible game design, I am glad we agree on this.
What I meant is also that top tier gear has appearances which are exclusive and sometimes time limited.
So Average Joe either completely gives up on getting them, or tries something to do so. Either try and skill up, or get a boost.
Same goes for completing the story, most of the time. Like specifically MoPC is getting sour comments about cutting away raids and cloak from the medium casual majority.
Power level doesn’t do much to Average Joe. So apparently torments and greater rifts made it to solo WoW after all, but questing doesn’t benefit much. Except in places like MoP where creature health had a pretty huge range throughout the expansion, to the point that a 10x damage growth was expected from everyone. I didn’t do much LFR so I totally didn’t enjoy patches.
I guess it could be true, but to the genre itself, there are a lot of refugees from wow in GW2. I myself started playing it relatively recently. And very very often (almost every day) someone say that they came from wow and how bad wow is compared
I’m against people being forced to do content they don’t want to do for things they want.
If better gear in delvs would force players in there to compe we can’t have that.
But to be fair then we need a solution for all the players that don’t want to play mythic raid ore even raid at all but who are forced in there for stuff they want.
Be it gear or mega and mounts.
Cause if we are honest megs and mounts are more important then Progression for a very very large part of the community.
For mounts you could make some tokens or something idk. Not a big deal.
With gear it’s just gonna create a huge mess. Not sure if Blizzard is gonna continue this with the coins but if yes, you can get pretty much every trinket and what not quite easy. This should be enough. Maybe they change it that you can have the max ilvl as well without completing the content? Idk. Otherwise solo players just need to learn that you can’t have everything you want just because you want it. Same rules apply to other players as well and we live by that.
I wish you all the mounts and transmogs you want! Absolutely not problem with that.
I agree with the points you’ve made. Please consider looking into some of the non-official WoW discords such as No Pressure EU and Dungeon Dojo for beginner friendly groups.
I’ve been in similar situations myself. Nowadays I tend to be a solo player and avoid most group up activities. I really miss raiding from back in the day and finding a guild that suits my time schedule around work and whatnot is really difficult + trying to gel with people in guilds etc. can be gruelling at times.
