Make gear matter again

There is obviously not one thing alone that is making the expirience worse each expansion, but lets try to point some out.

If we skip the currently obvious, azerite system, the bright idea of giving us tons of spells and spell interraction by artifact weapons and legendaries and then stripping all of this away afterwards, forced personal loot that forces you to disenchat gear even though your friend could really use it, etc. I feel like there is 2 major issues.

One of them would be free loot and lotery based loot system, that is simply not good for anyone.
You see, if you are mythic raider and you loot 385 item, you feel disapointment, because you just lost the lotery. So you keep grinding M+ in hopes for that 395 proc with socket, because you know how big deal it is to have multiple items with extra socket/ilvl. As fun as M+ and raids are now, chasing carrot with little to no chance of getting a bite, is eventualy going to burn people out, no matter how much they love the game. Chasing an item that i am already wearing is not rewarding!

It may seem like it is good for the other part of the playerbase, that it helps them gear up from WQ, LFR, normal raids, etc. But what is the fact that the game is trying to artificialy close the gear gap between differently skilled players really good for? I cannot see a single example, the oposite. It nulifies the most important aspect of RPG wich is for most people gearing up. For people that play the game to kill the hardest content it is frustrating inconvenience but for the other players that want to play the game as any RPG is suppose to be played - gearing up your character by plaing the game, free loot and loot that is way beyond what they deserve is DETRIMENTAL to them. Players need to get appropriete rewards to the content they are doing! The result of free upgrades is catapulting players to much higher content than they should be doing and that leads me to the other issue.

For the whole leveling expirience, there is literaly nothing, that would incentify players to learn the importance of interrupts, cc, using cooldowns when they are needed and most of all that this is a team based game, hence comunication is your biggest friend. Past leveling, you can get easily carried almost anywhere without even realizing it.

By NOT forcing players to get better and giving them free upgrades, you are doing them massive disservice. Result is no skill progress what so ever. Players that should be progressing M+2 and learn all the necessary basics there are skyrocketed to +7 and higher, where they hit a giant wall that you built for them.

By removing tier sets and letting everyone see all content you have to offer in LFR, you are killing any aspiration players may have had left to get into raiding, any real need to be in a guild. Why would you raid anyway? You are not just able to see all content in LFR and normal dungeons, there is NO gear exclusive to raids anymore. If you want specific item from raid, you get it from LFR. Lower ilvl, yes but you still got the best item for your slot, and it will titanforge next week, so why bother?

PS: What got me into raiding in the first place and i imagine many others in the past, was seeing someone in amazing looking gear, I inspected him and my jaw dropped. I wanted it, but it took me ages to get into raiding, mostly because i was complete noob back then and that was a good thing. It forced me to GRADUALLY learn what i needed to learn.

TLDR: Leveling expirience, titanforging and LFR are indirectly ruining the game for new players, making their expirience awful and may be very well big reason why are people leaving. Showering us with items is not good for anyone. We need something to aspire to, something to work towards.
Well said.

In before people come with the stupid "jealousy" argument, this isn't about that. There is a huge chance you don't have a single piece of gear, achievement, mount or anything else I could be jealous of. No one cares if you got a high TF from a WQ. Enjoy it I guess.

I'm sick of chasing gears I already have. I'm super frustrated that I cannot tell !@#$ about a player's skill level or progression by simply looking at his gear.

Gear means nothing anymore. How did we end up here? This is supposed to be an RPG for God's sake. Gear based progression should be one of the fundamental, core systems that drive the player toward self-improvement.

Blizzard let out all the welfare gear from the bottle. People are now used to skipping major progression phases, while still expecting upgrades from every source.

How can anyone think this is a good system if so many people complain on every Wednesday that they did not get an upgrade from the weekly chest most likely because they already had some crazy TF item from the WF in the same slot? This is just beyond me.
Yeah it is pretty bad at the moment, I have currently unsubbed and will only be farming mounts and Tmog for rest of my game time.

Will only resub when WF/TF is gone or probably next expansion.
It used to be that you were wearing what you deserved based mostly on what content were you able to do and progress your skill and gear together, now those parts are completely separated and thats why you see players blaming everything they can around them
Simply put:

Mythic raiders, or high end game runners in general, are a minority.
If a game caters to a minority too much, it alienates the rest of the playerbase.
That will drive most other players away, which benefits no one.

It doesn't matter how right you think you are. If Blizzard listens to a minority it will impact the game in a negative way because it WILL drive the majority away. In effect, you'd be killing the game you love because you want to play it a certain way. You can't have your cake and eat it.
30/10/2018 15:31Posted by Tahra
Simply put:

Mythic raiders, or high end game runners in general, are a minority.
If a game caters to a minority too much, it alienates the rest of the playerbase.
That will drive most other players away, which benefits no one.

It doesn't matter how right you think you are. If Blizzard listens to a minority it will impact the game in a negative way because it WILL drive the majority away. In effect, you'd be killing the game you love because you want to play it a certain way. You can't have your cake and eat it.

And now tell me, how good gear benefits casual ppl you talk about if they will never ever for example step to harder content than lets say LFR/normal ? Well, he will drop some juicy 380 items etc, and for what? If majority of playerbase are that casual like some ppl say, they dont need that good gear for things they wanna do/achieve in game, do they? They need only gear that is relevanmt to their lvl of game.
Instant gratification (immediate satisfaction; the quick attainability of happiness or of contentness. ) is terrible for the long term game . They added to much for the casual players this backfired tremendously .

High ilvl items without challenging content . Now the exact same players have nothing to do with they're ilvl because no1 want's them in m+ and they are bored with the game because they didn't do anything worthwhile to deserve the gear they have on .Wow in a nutshell .

This is not evolution of the game giving players high ilvl for free out of warfronts and emissary . This using players as cashcows . They are "filled with content" on a very short period .
But that's just my opinion .
No longer having just BIS items with no modification or proc improvements to them could much quicker lead to burnout or lack of interest. Why should I continue playing if theres no more gear to be had? If BIS items in all slots.

Titanforging helps keeping lower levels of content alive. As well reducing the shortages of healers and tanks.

Its only jealousy and elitism that socalled mythic raiders cries about no longer feeling special for their gear. You are special with your skill, that you can finish levels of content that none of the plebians could do, even if they have 1 or 2 mythic grade items.

Dont try to be a special snowflake, for you are not one.
So let's get this straight.

You do mythic raiding and you are constantly disappointed because getting a +10 warforge is just "so rare" and burns you out that you don't week after week.

But everyone else has it easy because they are doing lesser content and getting a +50 titanforge is "so easy" that it diminishes your gear? They will just titanforge "next week" from LFR, right?

Something seems off there. I wonder what.
i will never be popular with this opinion but i always say that world quests should not reward gear and procs should be removed from drops (not crafting).

you need gear? go get greens from quests or make gear with your professions.
you need better ones, blues? do dungeons, BGs, or farm rare mats for your professions.
you need even better ones, purples? into raid instances/ high level pvp you go or prepare for a long journey to gather the items for your prof...
I can't believe we reached a point where people complain that an MMO doesn't have enough grind.
All these comments about your gear and my gear, your progression and my progression, your luck and my luck, your time investment and my time investment.

I don't care what you wear, I don't care how lucky you are or you consider yourself a casual or a hardcore gamer. This is about a core system in the game we all play.

This isn't a fault line between mythic raiders and casuals, don't try to polarize the community in this way. You either like having free stuff for nothing or you don't. I know many people I would consider casual and unlucky who hate the WF/TF. And not just the forging, the whole welfare system that Blizzard built around some crazy notion.

For some people, it's about the journey and for others, it's all about the destination.
I don't get these people claiming raiders and pvpers are minority, WoW was all about that in wotlk and tbc times, and had over 10 mil players, now its close to 2-3 million. No one wants free gear, and yet you get gear from anything, and then it titanforges, you hit 360-370 ilvl with stuff that shouldn't let you past 350, and people implement raider.io, then you cry how they aren't letting you into their content when you're geared, even though you don't know tactics, how to interrupt, or your class. Gear is reward, if you don't plan on raiding, doing mythic+, pvp, you don't need gear, you can do rest without the big titanforged gear, but thing is you want the big titanforged gear because it makes you feel good about yourself, even though you accomplished nothing.
There is no gap between casual and endgame players. "Better" gear makes the numbers on your screen flash bigger. But behind the scene you take out at best the same normalised chunk of monster health.

That's for DPS.

For tanks and healers it actually gets worse, as healing mastery and evasion stats don't contribute to DPS. While they do reduce the normalised chunk you take out.
It's just sad, I got 390 belt straight away, any belt I get next doesn't matter.
Same on my orc, got 395 wrist from warfront, straight away.
I just miss the times you got better and better gear until you reached the top, putting gems and enchants each time you got an upgrade.
Now getting a non titanforged item is eh and no more sockets and enchants even.
Then you dont have to worry about more belts for now, and you can safely DE the future belts for your next enchant. I dont see the issue at all.
30/10/2018 13:49Posted by Darkspeaker
there is NO gear exclusive to raids anymore


I agree with all you say apart from that Mythic raiders are still looked at in awe to some degree especically players with Cutting edge and being in top 100 horde/top 100 alliance .
You have the best BASE gear you have the mounts and mog and title and the drive to push on .
LFR has now been in the game for 8 of the 14 years it wount go anywhere and i hope it doesnt because blizzard have said this without LFR they can not spend X amount of dollars on raids.

Ion has already said about LFR players have less chance to see TF compared to mythic raiders my firm belief is it should be capped like MoP 5/10 with an option to upgrade more via currencey .

30/10/2018 16:40Posted by Skyrha
hat in wotlk and tbc times, and had over 10 mil players

Wotlk had 12.5 million

30/10/2018 16:40Posted by Skyrha
now its close to 2-3 million.


Nobody knows exactly how much we have some say 5 million worldwide none of us have sources .

As for gear its a confuseing one tbh worlds best cleared mythic in avg 360 item lvl yet there are guilds and players on here strutting about thinking they are all that in 380+ gear and blocked on 3/8 mythic .

Excuse me for my long rambles but being an ex raider and only casual this expac 8/8 nm 8/8H 1/8 myth one should stop focusing on gear solo and focus on getting task done and enjoying it .

What others wear means nothing focus on your guild and friends and stop stressing about pixels its a team effort and so much fun if you allow it to be .

You can clearly see in this thread both cas and hardcore biting at each other over pixels jesus people its a game life is to short to be mean to each other over item lvl a colour a name ..
"warforged" "titanforged"

even the appellation makes me think about a dirty dwarf with his red hot hammer crafting a shiny piece of gear next to an anvil when he makes some lucky strikes with the hammer and the crafted item warforges +15 ilvl... or his anvil is blessed by some celestial power and his craft titanforges 2 items from the gathered materials...

(procs belong to profs, make profs great again, etc)
30/10/2018 16:40Posted by Skyrha
I don't get these people claiming raiders and pvpers are minority,


When they say that they mean the top end raiders and top end PVPers not people like me and you in heroic/normal early mythic in that section there is alot of players but top end there isnt and they get the best gear which they should and they should get more procs tbh then LFR/normal players for example .
But why should I get a bis belt 1 hour after hitting 120? It invalidates progression, yes it's nice feeling to get titanforged item, but it quickly goes away and you get sick of gearing much more quickly. You can talk all about how raiding is about progressing and feeling of killing the boss, but earning gear from those kills adds to the experience.