Titanforging is here to stay

[Melthor-ragnaros (Melthor)]

Guys, just about obtaining absolutely max ilvl items.
Do you remember, when in Cataclysm, there were systems in PvP, that both differenciated PvP and PvE players and also allowed people to get absolute high end gear, just much more slower, than others and the true ‘elite’ gear was only a reskinned version of same ilvl items?
There was a system for gear, where.

• crafted (jump in gear, can be jumped over too, it didn’t realy matter, like any time in WoW)
• honor (where it was actually something, that mattered) -> baseline PvP gear (PvE version required justice points); unlimited availability
• conquest -> high end currency, limited availability each week, easy to cap through ‘casual’ content too, BUT higher rated ranking gave considerably higher cap for the next week (PvE version was valor, somewhat similar limitations, without option to increase weekly cap, but provided mostly filler gear too, because main source of loot was Raid and PvP only had the source of conquest vendor).

I honestly think, that was the best loot system ever implemented to the game, there were some minimal rating requirements for max ilvl PvP items, like 1650-2000 for every piece, but that was realy minimal and the most important factor was the weekly point limitation and it’s scaling with your rating.
Everyone was able to put in the effort they wanted to get the gear they wanted, raids were mechanicaly much easier, but they had more serious gear requirements, final bosses weren’t finished on opening week.
Player progression was calculable, effort was rewarded and player had a lot of free time to enjoy their hard earned gear:
PvP players could go to random BG, skirmish arena, outdoor in PvP zone, city raid, etc.
PvE players could go daily HC farm, repu farm, old raid farm, consumable farm for progress raid, etc.
And all of those ‘casual’ or ‘semi-casual’ acts rewarded some currency they could use for themself or for alts, like in WotLK, you could buy Wintergrasp tokens for 200 honor and it gave like 150 or something and it might have been remover in Cata or reworked, but you could still use honor and justice for quite some time even for a main.
But a main’s real progress was NOT hindered after you finished the weekly progress, not like now, where you are ‘sacrificing’ the chance of obtaining titanforge from M+ or arena loot of your main instead of alt progression.
Wasn’t that more ‘alt-friendly’? People comparing Legion and WoD with BfA are comparing bad with worse, there’s just no point…

[Gannet-draenor]

@Xérfall-kazzak

Yes, because it was a reward for an effort made, not a giveaway. I don’t mind bringing back the upgrade system to what it was like in MoP where you had a piece drop and could be upgraded by a token through a vendor.

I’m not sure if you heard right but i said “heroic dungeons”. Also you wouldn’t mind MoP upgrades? which mostly came from farming frogs.
Really don’t you realize how arbitrary (and therefore meaningless) this “effort” tag is? So back then when you were farming frogs or heroic dungeons it took effort, now when you’re doing essentially the same thing is a giveaway.

[Ishayu-frostmane (Ishayu)]

@Aylish-emerald-dream

Just stop. Unlike you, I don’t try to analyze how you function and respond to the game. You have absolutely no idea.

I really think I do, and I think that’s what makes you angry at this point. You’ve completely stopped arguing the case.

After this post your posts changed, in general, from reasoned (but poor) arguments into “you can’t change my mind anyway”.

Okay, then. I will stop trying, since it seems to agonise you. You’re really, really desperate not to be wrong on this, because you know, and I know that you know, what conclusion you’ll end up reaching once you swallow that pill.

@Punyelf-draenor

I agree, essentially we’ve lost all sense of BiS because TF negates it. Apart from the static levels of Azerite pieces, the rest we have to sim.

An interesting point. Some time ago Blizzard said they didn’t understand why everyone was “aggressively simming”. Well, there’s one reason right there. Everyone has to sim their own character because no character will have the same drops - ever. You can’t follow a BiS list or anything of the sort.

[Tahra-earthen-ring (Tahra)]

@Ishayu-frostmane

An interesting point. Some time ago Blizzard said they didn’t understand why everyone was “aggressively simming”. Well, there’s one reason right there. Everyone has to sim their own character because no character will have the same drops - ever. You can’t follow a BiS list or anything of the sort.

But Blizzard (rightfully so in my opinion) doesn’t want you to chase or grind for BiS. If it happens for some items; cool. If it doesn’t happen for some other slots; cool too. BiS is never and has never been a requirement. It’s an obsessive way of playing a game which is not healthy. At the end of the day, yeah, it’s your own choice, but don’t expect Blizzard (or normal minded players) to enable this bad habit. You make the decision, you live with the consquences.

[Punyelf-draenor (Punyelf)]

@Ishayu-frostmane

An interesting point. Some time ago Blizzard said they didn’t understand why everyone was “aggressively simming”. Well, there’s one reason right there. Everyone has to sim their own character because no character will have the same drops - ever. You can’t follow a BiS list or anything of the sort.

It is interesting that they are confused by a system they essentially created

I even pay for a sub to raidbots now so I can skip the queue.

[Xtingen-alakir]

And a few lucky TF and player belive they are entiteled to join even higher m+ and heroic raid.

The avarge player stops gain ilvl at 370, maybe as high as 375. So can say natural progress only exist above that.

[Ishayu-frostmane (Ishayu)]

@Tahra-earthen-ring

But Blizzard (rightfully so in my opinion) doesn’t want you to chase or grind for BiS. If it happens for some items; cool. If it doesn’t happen for some other slots; cool too. BiS is never and has never been a requirement. It’s an obsessive way of playing a game which is not healthy. At the end of the day, yeah, it’s your own choice, but don’t expect Blizzard (or normal minded players) to enable this bad habit. You make the decision, you live with the consquences.

You’re telling me I should be emotionally punished, in a game about consciously building and progressing characters, for looking at a dungeon and deciding what I want and then putting in all effort I can to get it, because Blizzard wanted to reduce the chance of getting a BiS item from like 10% per slot per run to basically 0.

OK. We’re going to have to agree to disagree strongly on that one.

[Veyleth-argent-dawn]

@Ishayu-frostmane

You’re telling me I should be emotionally punished, in a game about consciously building and progressing characters, for looking at a dungeon and deciding what I want and then putting in all effort I can to get it, because Blizzard wanted to reduce the chance of getting a BiS item from like 10% per slot per run to basically 0.

I’ll start by saying that I completely agree with you there. But just look at the reasons given for the system :

@Tymaar-argent-dawn

As the quantity and variety of sources of gear increased over the years, increasingly the pacing of rewards wasn’t matching the pacing of the activity itself. By Mists of Pandaria, a guild progressing through a raid zone over the course of a couple of months could reach a point where they were fully equipped with gear from that tier, before having finished the zone.

When the game is showering you with loot, you’ll have your BiS before you even go through the content. This is not a workable system and the answer can’t possibly be to not shower players with loot! They had to come up with something.

@Tymaar-argent-dawn

If you were stuck on Sha of Fear, there was no real expectation that your group would get any stronger week over week to help you overcome that hurdle.

Again, see the problem? You can’t beat the boss without having better stuff than what it drops. There’s no real solution there but to bump the gear you get from the earlier content. What else could they do, ask a group to play better? Let’s be reasonable here.

@Tymaar-argent-dawn

It also creates moments of surprise and excitement across all types of players and activities.

They also need to deal with another thing. The game clearly lacked moments of surprise and excitement for a large portion of the playerbase. We all remember the subs dropping like a rock before this issue was dealt with somewhat by giving you last raid’s tier gear for aoeing in 5 mans. This has resulted in stabilising the game during wotlk. But it’s undeniable that after this system was introduced, a lot more players have been able to experience these exciting moments, as shown by how welcome these features are.

/sarcasm off

I wish they actually played their own game instead of moving on to play mobile games.

[Mellinora-argent-dawn (Mellinora)]

I don’t really dislike titanforging / warforging the way raiders or whoever do, but it’s undeniable that (a) the purpose of such mechanics is to create an infinite treadmill, and (b) infinite treadmills quickly lose their appeal and turn into monsters if they start playing any significant role in the game.

Blizzard want to keep these things in the game? Fine. (Understandable, have a nice day, etc.) I get why (because they want as much money for as little effort as possible and tricks like this take near-zero effort on the dev side of it).

The correct response to such mechanics from the side of the player is to ignore the treadmills they are touching. If you can do that, great, a part of the game is now lost for you, but that’s better than the alternative. If you cannot ignore the treadmills these mechanics are touching, that’s bad, they are going to milk you and you are going to be logging in to do things you don’t enjoy unable to resist.

Yes, it’s a pity that we live in times where game devs try their damnedest to play on your feedback loops and get you to play-play-play and piss away your money. But there’s no helping it. Adopt to it and ignore everything that these mechanics touch, that’s the only good option for you, short of not playing the game in the first place.

[Ishayu-frostmane (Ishayu)]

@Veyleth-argent-dawn

When the game is showering you with loot, you’ll have your BiS before you even go through the content. This is not a workable system and the answer can’t possibly be to not shower players with loot! They had to come up with something.

screams in a shrill tone
WHY NOT?!

@Mellinora-argent-dawn

The correct response to such mechanics from the side of the player is to ignore the treadmills they are touching.

I suppose you’re right - the best response to this problem is to ignore it - and if you can’t, ignore the game.

Hello falling sub numbers and apathetic raiders.

[Veyleth-argent-dawn]

@Mellinora-argent-dawn

The correct response to such mechanics from the side of the player is to ignore the treadmills they are touching. If you can do that, great, a part of the game is now lost for you, but that’s better than the alternative.

This is very true, I agree 100%. Unfortunately, there’s not much left to do in the game after you ignore those treadmills. Except maybe chat with friends and pretend there’s no btag communication outside the game or guild/community discords.

The whole time gating system isn’t helping either. I’ve been done with the raid since the first clear and I’m now waiting for more to come. Let’s remember for a moment how many people were waiting for black temple to come out so they had more to do in TBC. Just a look at how many guilds entered the BT when it came out is answer enough

[Sylvare-argent-dawn (Sylvare)]

@Gannet-draenor

because your knowledge is very limited.

Enlighten me then oh great wise one, what doth natural progression truely be

@Gannet-draenor

What are you talking about man?

Old raid progression, back when, if you wanted to do Sunwell Plateau as a guild, you’d better first have done gruuls lair/serpentshrine cavern/mount hyjal/black temple

I’m not talking about clearing as in doing a single run, I’m talking about clearing as in you’ve reached the point where you have no more upgrades and all that’s left for you to do is wait for the new raid

Before you could do the next raid in line which looks and feels completely different then the same raid on another difficulty

Now, if you’re in patch x.3, the raids from x.1 and x.2 are a complete waste of time to be doing for progression

To put it as simply as possible, I personally find it a big mistake that existing difficulties and rewards scale up with new content patches, making the previous raid tier completely useless because that one doesn’t scale.

Especially with the way M+ works, why even increase the difficulty and reward of normals/heroics/m0’s, why not just let the m+ scale higher for rewards instead?

Are you roughly on the same pagelength now as to what I mean?

[Xtingen-alakir]

You are absolutly right with up scaling, but the issue is those 4 different diffculties we have which makes it hard not to do.

[Xérfall-kazzak (Xérfall)]

@Tahra-earthen-ring

BiS is never and has never been a requirement. It’s an obsessive way of playing a game which is not healthy

So you’re saying I should just accept whatever items that drops for me and not try to find the items with the best stats for my spec and play style? Then gear doesn’t actually matter any more and it’s all the same?

[Ishayu-frostmane (Ishayu)]

@Xérfall-kazzak

So you’re saying I should just accept whatever items that drops for me and not try to find the items with the best stats for my spec and play style? Then gear doesn’t actually matter any more and it’s all the same?

Oh, no - what he’s saying is even worse. He says that you should set yourself the goal of and understand what your best items are, and then you should go for them as best you can, literally almost inevitably fail to get even a single one of them, and then not get disappointed about that.

This system is completely crazy.

[Powerprime-draenor]

@Ishayu-frostmane

Oh, no - what he’s saying is even worse. He says that you should set yourself the goal of and understand what your best items are, and then you should go for them as best you can, literally almost inevitably fail to get even a single one of them, and then not get disappointed about that.

This system is completely crazy.

having a goal and fail is miles better than noth having a goal and roam around not knowing what you are actually in here for, because then you dont even know you fail, what a nightmare

[Gráinne-earthen-ring]

@Tahra-earthen-ring

BiS is never and has never been a requirement. It’s an obsessive way of playing a game which is not healthy.

It has never been a requirement, true, but on “obsessive” I have to disagree. Not that I ever got the urge for BiS myself, so I don’t speak from experience, but I do understand the motivation, the anticipation, and finally the feeling of accomplishment that comes from setting and achieving a medium term goal.

Yes, there will be a certain feeling of accomplishment from doing one particular thing on one particular day, whether at the lowest of the highest level, from soloing Hogger (you can do it at level 1 now ) to Mythic G’huun.

But that accomplishment takes its meaning from its context. And it’s short, and not repeatable.

A tier-level or season-level goal, something that you can work toward for a few months, gives far more satisfaction than a one-day event. “Today, I am one step closer to my goal.”

Of course, when we say “BiS” we can mean “BiS at the level I play”, That could be Normal, or Heroic. It doesn’t always bean the absolute BiS. And so it is a goal that the 99.99% can also join in.

It once was a medium term endeavour, entirely voluntary, for those who wanted it.

I don’t see how it can have been obsessive. It relied on weekly drops. Nobody was farming 24/7 for BiS, because nobody could farm 24/7 for BiS.

It has now been removed, and with it one more satisfaction that a certain segment of the playerbase valued.

[Powerprime-draenor]

what do you want to grind instead? the items with the higher itemlevel which make you feel bad while aquirein, because they suck despite having said itemlevel? look at the ghuun trinket f.e.
rpg is about grinding and thats always has been the case… maybe you get lucky and maybe you dont and you dont get the item this time, thats all the rng you need, not this quadruple rng bs that is going on right now

and by quadruple i mean 1. if the boss drops an item, 2. if thats the desired item, 3. if the item titanforges/socket, 4. if its going to titanforge high enough to actually be of value… do you like that? i do not honestly.

id much rather grind items in order to be able to destroy them and upgrade my bis items (or even semi bis) instead

that is what would be fun for me. i would konw that i will get there without praying to allah 5 times a day for titanforge luck…

[Aylish-emerald-dream (Aylish)]

@Ishayu-frostmane

I really think I do, and I think that’s what makes you angry at this point. You’ve completely stopped arguing the case.

After this post your posts changed, in general, from reasoned (but poor) arguments into “you can’t change my mind anyway”.

Okay, then. I will stop trying, since it seems to agonise you. You’re really, really desperate not to be wrong on this, because you know, and I know that you know, what conclusion you’ll end up reaching once you swallow that pill.

@Aylish-emerald-dream

What is good for the game for you, isn’t necessarily good for the game for others. You do not know that your opinion is “better for the game”, despite your belief. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but if I can find your reasoning shallow, there will be others out there who doesn’t have their experience ruined either. There will be shades of opinions and /care within this range even.

I am done with the discussion for this reason. You aren’t capable of seeing anything past your own nose, so yeah, nothing more to say. Have fun with the rest of the thread.

[Xtingen-alakir]

As long as TF are ingame you are gonna have a hard to getting into m+ and premade raids (much higher ilvl will be asked for). people are crying everyday about raiderio (wowprogress?) while it even more need these days than before.