[Old Elite set discussion] Should it be a way to let players to complete unfinished old elite sets (pre-MoP)?

Community General Discussion
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Disclaimer: This post has revolved into the ticket itself and not the real problem, I also updated the post to make a small summary for for the new readers, so you can skip this most of this first post if you want, and colaborate with the topic by responding to the question below. Also, If you feel like it, don’t hesitate in writing an in-game “submit feedback” ticket (takes 2min) with your point of view over it, and or sharing the post to give it some visibility:

“What do you think about the idea of alowing players who has incomplete pre-MoP elite PvP sets to complete them if and only if they have partial parts in their account (wardrobe, bank, void storage, character equiped gear)?”

Here’s some replies, so you can see different opinions:

For those who want to long read, down here is the specific case, beware, long read:

(I posted this in Reddit too: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1jmqx9c/gms_ticket_responses_ai_gm_power_nerf_ban_threats/); but I repost this here to give some visibility, as that’s what I have to do according to what is shown below:

Hi,

Posting the image here: https://postimg.cc/ZWML679D

This image displays my experience with a ticket with Blizzard (I covered every name that could identify any subject in this ticket).

Since it’s a long read, let me make a TLDR not so short to explain the problem here:

First, I wanted to give some visibility to the problem of people not being able to complete elite sets from certain season pre-wardrobe (and in this specific set, s9, pre-transmog).

The problem here is that some people like me, were not smart enough back then to predict that transmogs would be a thing, and weren’t wealthy enough to even afford re-gems or re-enchants for certain items after buying the re-color version. (for the players who did start in WoW during Legion, back then you had to buy the PvP item with conquest, and then buy the elite item after reaching 2200+ by exchanging your current item slot, but losing every gem/enchant on it).

That’s why, after the years, some of us have some uncompleted sets. In my case, I didn’t buy the s8 tabard because I was so noob to even know it was a thing, and I didn’t complete the s9 elite on my hunter because of the said above. Shame on me, I know.

After the years, I did try to post tickets regarding this subject, and all GMs ask was to post it on feedback, and to post in the forums, things that I was always doing.

Now, this year, I tryed the same. I posted a ticket expecting it to be different. It was a gamble, would Microsoft be better at this case? Quick answer, no.

In that case, first I got answered by an AI, which didn’t even understood my post.

Second, I got the classic answer of “post in the forums or feedback” thing.

In the subsequent answers, they did the same. Almost recognizing that they have 0 power to change or do anything relevant in-game. So I wonder, what’s their prurpose in the game if they can’t do anything that an automated-self-service can’t do? (i.e, item restoration, character restoration, blah blah).

I gotta admit I have been kind of inflexible, but for those who have time to read the drama, tell me what you think about it.

In a second approach, I would want to also give visibility to that problem. Not the GM powernerf drama, but the specifit one with the old elite sets and the way it could be fixed for players who have the issue of having a partial set in their account.

Thank you for reading, share it with your friends and please, add feedback regarding this subject if you want to help fellas like me.

1 Like
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In this quote, you said you have received an answer from Blizzard where to post your feedback. Repeatedly.

As GM’s do not handle nor forward feedback - you can do it yourself directly to the development team through the appropriate channels it is taking up valuable GM time where they can spend to help other players.

Players with questions too, that need help.

The exact quote is, “Note: If the ticket is opened again this may result in a penalty on the entire Battlenet account.”

They also allowed you to raise other concerns. Just not this issue. Why? See first paragraph: You’ve already been repeatedly told where to give feedback. This is the correct response from the GM teams. It can be considered GM harassment if you repeatedly open up tickets that have been answered already.

Much akin to phoning a different company’s customer support and keep suggesting that they should add x feature when you can do so at their forums or other place and they see in their systems you keep dinging them. They would too, also ask you politely to stop before potentially blocking your phone number from accessing their CS lines.

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Hi Saneko,

Which everything you say is true in your way, it was/is not so true in reality.

GMs are human workers too and it’s obvious that they have the situation where if they commit too much to one case, they can get even fired.

GM’s have always given items in game or rewards or whatever thing that could’ve been legit for players. I remember players in my old WotLK arena team having problems with arena points, and receiving in-game emails with arena point tokens that would add to their arena point currency pool.

Through the years, Blizzard workers (aka GMs) have lost alot of free of will, however, this doesen’t mean that they can’t scalate problems.

You see, it’s common and public knowledge that GMs have this screen that depending on the ratio of “tickets solved per hour” that they do, it turns from green to legendary. Those ratios are toxic for either the GMs, and the players, that can’t have anything that requires time fixed. And thus, losing quality.

As mentioned, I’ve been for 14 years actively posting on this forum for that same topic (well, to be fair not every year and not since the first year, but actively). I’ve seen players having this exact problem fixed through this years. And instead of asking the same for me, I’m doing what they say, post in forums, post in in-game feedback, but the problem still persists and it’s still something that is bothering some players (even if the % of the player base that have this exact problem is super small).

Adding big changes to the game is super expensive dev-wise, and I don’t see any reason for them to spend money into this subject. That’s where in-game feedback gets invalidated and “straight to the trash can”, and that’s where GMs should be able to act, as individuals who attend player’s problems that can’t be resolved by theirselves.

It’s ok to say that GMs help players with quest, but they suggest often to see wowhead.
It’s ok to say that GMs help players with items, but they suggest always to use the character restoration.
It’s ok to say that GMs help players with erased characters, but they always suggest to use character restoration.

Where’s the differentiation from a GM and an implemented system? In problems like mine, which will never be adressed because they require time, time that is money “friend”, and money is what they don’t want to invest for player’s problems, they just want us to buy mount recolors, monthly fees, and be whales without being concious about the real quality of the game.

GMs deserve to have more powers, they deserve to be more in their teams, we deserve better and more human interactions with them, but money is on the way.

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Developer policy has moved it more onto player responsibility in the last 5 to 10 years lately, with many self help options.

For cases where GM’s are allowed to help, they will need to have developer permission to do so.

They are not your delivery boy. They are here to enact the policies of the game.
And this, well, is the current dev policy. There’s nothing to escalate. It is just a suggestion. Not a secondary advanced ban review for the Hack Ops Team.

Good suggestions. Don’t forget to add that in the suggestion box too. I agree they shouldn’t have reduced GM’s in the MicroAcquisition though I’ve seen some critical mishaps in the past when they used their powers a bit too optimistically which required lengthy devtime to fix.

A few ones is the accidential levelling up of a toon and there was no develling tool back then for example… Took 18 months to fix x) sigh.

I once again wish you luck. Maybe they’ll just simply add them in different recolours to the Tender Shop.

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People have tried over the years and I don’t think there is a single example of Blizzard handing elite sets they didn’t finish buying to players who had achievements or partial completion of the sets of that era. I myself have tried as I have some incomplete elite sets from back in the day. As far as Blizzard is concerned, if it isn’t in your item restore list, as in it expired over the years or you never bought it to begin with, then the answer is no.

As for GMs and AI, yeah that ship has sailed. Once a company reaches a certain number of customers, they face a choice between using AI and Indian workers for cheap, terrible customer service, or hire and train more knowledgeable Western workers. The choice that all of them have made has been the former. But again, this isn’t an issue GMs can resolve. Unless policy changes higher up in Blizzard, GMs are little more than doormen at a nightclub. The doorman can’t decide by himself that tracksuits are suddenly okay or whatever - that policy is set above his paygrade and its been consistently true that Blizzard doesn’t reach back in time and give you a second chance to access a vendor or mob’s loot table that may not even be in the game anymore.

I would love them to change it though, but how would they? Its not as simple as just looking at achievements. My account for example doesn’t have the 2400 rating achievement, yet I can wear a 2400 rating tabard. How? Because I got it before that achievement existed. In a scenario where I didn’t buy the tabard, Blizzard would look at my account and think I wasn’t eligible.

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Indeed. In my case, I didn’t had the 2400 rating, but i had the 2200 3v3 rating poped right in the s9. I also have partial pieces of the set >equiped< on the character that got those pieces. Still, Blizzard won’t move.

I hope this subject gets enough visibility so we can finish our sets and move on!

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Yeah, I didn’t finish some sets because I was a teenager and didn’t care and was too lazy to walk to the vendor. I only started collecting stuff in Legion. I remember my friends doing challenge mode MoP dungeons on all their characters and asking me to swap off my warrior so I could get more sets, but I didn’t care so just did it on my warrior tank 5x. Roll on a decade and damn I wish I had just logged my Paladin or Druid or whatever and got them.

Lesson learned I guess - any unobtainable items I auto get even if they look terrible, because you never know in 5 years time maybe your brain chemistry will change in such a way that you suddenly find stuff cool that you thought was ugly before. There was a point in WoTLK/Cata/MoP where I’d have chosen a white horse over a swift spectral tiger if given the choice.

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I am sorry. Every aspect of our society is being automated by computers…

What can I say. Welcome to 2025?? Where have you been living these past few years? Under a rock?

In the end what matters is that your issue gets solved. Stuck? Unstuck. Lost stuff? Got it back. WHO does it (machine or GM) is irrelevant.

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Indeed, but out of that “metrics” system, my problem still persists.

This is a game, there are no laws or something. They are part of the company. There’s no such thing as an inspection from whatever organism rather than Canada lol to see if they do their things ok.

It’s their game, they can do whatever they want. The problem there is their will. Will to spend money on hiring non exploited GMs that could spend more than 30s per ticket and solve real issues. Instead, we have this scenario of: “don’t share your in-game problems with us, share it with the community, spend your own time and leave us alone and maybe somebody will see your problem and add a fix that is not a fix for your problem. Too bad.” Yikes.

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As somebody who has part time worked in customer service(uni days…arent they glorious?)

I absolutely don’t blame them. Dare to disagree with the customer…even when the customer is wrong by all common sense - you are his public enemy for life. Dont get me even started on Karens :rofl:.
So instead we can now “freely” scream our lungs out at some AI who will just repeat his “we are sorry for this inconvenience” phrases. No living person will want to deal with this :poop: anymore…

Working in customer service is the modern day “gong farmer” job…

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Everybody has to empathise with the CS worker. They are humans afteral, but the problem in here is that their shift is miserable regarding all the metrics and everything they have to do to remain working in Blizzard’s CS. Sometimes, having to decline “hard work tickets that are legit” for some other “easy to go tickets”.

Just to name one, Piratesoftware has some shared experiences in some videos that talk about their current presure at work. It is tough.

As customers, if we just go on and never ticket or ask for things that we truly believe that should be adressed, Blizzard will even go harder on them, replacing more staff for AIs. It has happened recently again.

So again, asking for help to CS in WoW should not be a thing, it is our right as customers, this is not a F2P game specially. Blizzard has enough budget to invest and bring back the old CS quality that gave WoW that extra bit of quality over others. Nowadays, it feels like we are just bothering Blizzard by paying and playing the game.

Posting legit tickets == more work for GMS == less ticket/h ratio == GMs fired.

I wonder if we players could massively post legit problems, so GMs would see that they can’t attend everybody and metrics matter 0, and they would reconsider giving GMs better salary and conditions + more GM spots (aka, more budget).

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You are also forgetting 1 other thing. What the GMs can actually do or cannot do. And the scope of their powers.
If they simply don’t have the tools to say…reward items or whatever then you can dance in all kinds of poses you want, the GMs simply cant do that. They cant do anything IF they dont have the tools for it…no matter how they wished to.

Now the 2nd scenario would be. Say that the GMs have the physical tools available but they can’t do it without “authorization”. Then they got a decision to make:
Displease you(as OP) or
Displease their boss.

Now…what will happen if they displease you? What can you do about it? Make an angry forum or social media post?
ok…and what will happen if they displease the boss? They can fire them or even financialy penalize them and if you got a family to feed and bills to pay…then yeah.

They “lose a lot less” just closing your ticket than deciding to play the hero and risk their roofs at top of the heads.

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I am not, but I’ve been as said, posting in forums, sharing feedback, and also being vocal about it for the last decade; same as other players with similar problems, and the thing is still not adressed.

Scaling the problem is a thing that GMs can do. Through a ticket somebody can post an explot that other player is doing, and devs will fix it. Could’t my problem scale too? It could, but it is not worth their time.

On a side note: I am not ranting or being whatever thing that could be extrapoled from my post; I am just giving visibility to my problem in social media as suggested from several GMs in the ticket (and others). Since this appears to be the only way, I am doing it. I dislike to do it but that’s aparently the only way.

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You are comparing flies to an elephants. Exploits can risk damaging the economoy and or affecting the entire player base irreversibly unless its acted upon quickly.
While having some old expansion transmog items missing is… well.
Its the same as complaining in the ER why nobody will see your sprained finger while in the 2nd room there are 2 people who are barely clinging to life after a car crash.

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While I see your point, I have to disagree. Not because a problem is harder than other should invalidate the weaker. Invalidation is not a thing, thus, elephant and flies problems, if they are legit, should be adressed the same.

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I don’t understand why you drag in the GM’s and the CS in this case. You did not buy certain items. That’s all there is to it. I understand that sucks but GM’s can’t fix that, there is nothing to fix.

If you want to leave feedback about this specific issue, just explain it. Discuss your regret, and what might be a solution. Without dragging in CS, it’s not their fault. And be willing to accept it may not happen.

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Its not the question about harder or easier problems but how those problems affect the entire playbase and how seriously it is.

If you got 1 problem…say an exploit which can destroy the entire economoy of the realms or a server distabalizing hack which can force the servers shutdown for everyone

Vs

Some missing transmog items.

Now…you tell me. Which problem should the GMs focus on first?

Its not the question about invalidation but how serious problem, how many people can get affected by it. Its human resource management basics - if you invest and spend too much manpower and resources to solve every minor hiccup, you might not have any resources left to deal with an cataclysmic problem if it arises.

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As a 2009+ player that you are, you should remember one thing or two from how the game has evolved.

Understand that right now, the game is straight forward. Wardrobe, WoW token, Transmog, BMAH, and all this stuff has made the reward system pretty straightforward.

In 2011, there was no transmog; it wasn’t until DS (season 11) I believe, it not Firelands (season10) that it was introduced. Given that players in that time did not have any reason to store or to even give value to some items just “for their visuals”, some decided to not commit and not take a full elite s9 set, as me. I did get head, boots, chest, because in that period those were the last items that I had to buy, so I didn’t have to commit on re-buying gems and enchants on them; just buy the regular piece, and straight exchange it for the elite version, and move on. Fool of me for not expecting that Blizzard would make them usable later on, and would never adress this specific problem I supose.

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Fast answer: Both.
Longer:

Exploits and bots are toxic for the game. We deserve a game that is fair and equal for everyone.
Personal problems in their bags and transmogs are individual, but those are still problems.

If any ticket has a legit cause, that ticket should be adressed correctly, even if it’s an elephant sized ticket, or an ant one. With no differenciation, at least, in a world where everything is done right.

Now, it is not a matter of “what to do first and what to do second”. GM department has suffered alot through the years in therms of mass cuts on their budget and loss of workers, so they have less capabilities. That’s not a player problem, we pay for them more than before. The problem roots in Blizzard’s greed on not priorizing what is important to the game, and just not spending money in their game for their customers.

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I get that, I’ve been playing since 2005 and quite a few things are simply lost that way. In that sense I understand the regret but I don’t get why you point fingers at CS.

This isn’t their call to make. Or their issue to fix. Personally I’ve simply shrugged and moved on, but if it bugs you you can have an honest discussion about it here. That’s all you, or CS, can do. Hence why they recommended that.