1. Cephalopode Jacket 2. Overcharged Capacitor 3. Mother's Twin Gaze 4. Bile Stained Crawg Tusks 5. Dread Gladiator's Emblem 6. Pathogenic Legwraps I'd do more but I have 12 characters so give me a break.
1. Heart of Azeroth 2. Honorbound something from arathi 3. Deathstalker's something from darkshore 4. Sinister sword of whatever cos I pve with pvp gear now
Yeah that's the part of the video that I agree with. Too much free catch-up gear when there's nothing to catch up to even. I'm looking at you Warfront quest. It's boosting people past their appropriate level of difficulty which causes more crap. Then again, so does PvP. That's why we have raider.io. Though tank gear was a bit less spot on because I don't want to have to gear my characters two or three times over just to fill different roles. I remember those days too, a lot less fondly than what these nostalgia goggled people seem to remember them.
Now we even have catch up before there is anything to catch up to! I only did invasions and basically got same ilvl as mythic gear drop in many of my slots. XD
@@albert2006xp some people enjoyed just being a tank and maybe having a crappy dps or pvp set to mess around I am. One of those people I like this playstyle I just wanna play this but I have this other set to have fun in every once in awhile
@@albert2006xp i get the hassle of farming multiple sets but on the other end of the spectrum. If the item u get is good for either role... you end up with the same problem again that gear becomes generic (as a side note i played a druid back then so i had many offspec roles to gear and get pvp sets for it aswell). You are building the character up in the role u want to excel at. The only thing i realy disliked is the def/ hit / expertese cap shuffle. In this discussion of an item should be good for all roles u might aswell just remove all stats and just have an ilvl and each spec deciding what stats it wants. How interesting... Or that u can build healer/tank specs with dps gear for fun in pvp etc. This won't be added back in the game with the simple MAin stat/ stam + 2/1 out of 4 secondairy stats that are usefull (not optimal) for everyone.
I just miss working toward my BiS list, finally getting it and feeling a sense of completion letting me play alts and do other things while I wait for a new tier. I don't even bother to look at gear any more because of TF. I couldn't tell you the names of basically any pieces of gear, except for maybe trinkets. Back in TBC and WoTLK I knew the names of even the bracers on my BiS list. Getting that full set of gear optimized for the stats you want felt awesome.
Yep I only really know my weapons and trinkets. Now I do know my BiS trait combos and have made a list for new gear come Tuesday but I'm not very excited about the gear itself.
I've been playing on a WotLK private server lately and it's crazy how different loot feels. I'm opening up Atlasloot (remember that shit?) to stare at the loot tables of the early bosses in ICC so that I can figure out what pieces will be easy to acquire and what pieces I'll have to find elsewhere or wait until I'm geared enough to get. For example, my best Tank trinket, sartharian's flawless fang, will be very difficult for me to get until I'm properly geared, so I'm going to get the Frosty badge Tank trinket (the name escapes me, but I know it has a ton of stamina and a use ability that gave you a shield) to go alongside my Unidentifiable Organ off Putrecide. And I'll use that trinket for several months until I can finally replace it with the Flawless Fang and then my trinkets will be done.
What class? The 245 trinket off the triumph badge vendor is also super good, for some it's better than Skeleton Key (like paladin). Remember in wotlk a higher ilvl doesnt necessarily mean it's better. Theres a lot of weird gearing choices (my bis legs as an arms warrior are Northern Lights, mail hunter legs) that you may not notice at first. It's why I still play wotlk as well. Gearing is a lot more interesting.
On a more serious note, I think the biggest problem with the failing azerite system is that it was touted as a main feature of the expansion that was not only replacing the artifact weapons, but would be the way our character naturally progresses. The leveling experience in BFA was meant to do nothing other than lead up to the Azerite gear system. We weren't given any new talents or abilities, and were promised the Azerite armor would replace those things. Now that that's fallen flat there isnt anything to look forward to in regards to end game character building. It's like instead of getting a carrot on a stick Blizzard just gave me the stick and then started beating me on the head with it. It wouldn't even be a problem if the azerite gear was actually interesting or simple. Everytime I get a new piece I have to stop playing and take fifteen minutes to sim my character, check three different websites, and my class discord to make sure I'm not butchering my character by picking the wrong trait. Then I have to go to the reforger and spend gold to change the traits on the piece I'm replacing to fit my off spec because it's not efficient to just have one set of gear. Back in the day if I was playing....let's say holy priest, and wanted to swap to shadow priest for a bit I could do that without needing an entire set of gear just for shadow. I mean sure to play optimally it would be better to have the right stats, but if I wasnt min/maxing then my holy gear set would be just fine. Now if I want to play shadow I have to have three different azerite pieces just to make it work, never mind playing optimally. In essence the failure of the azerite system means very little to look forward to in terms of character optimization for hard core players, confusion and frustration from casual players, and a constant treadmill of gear hunting without the feeling of being rewarded. Thanks for reading my rant. Love you Tali, cant wait for the weekly reset.
Because having a Crit/Vers chest would somehow be more interesting than whatever passive bonus the Azerite gives? Say what you want about Azerite powers being boring but they're more than 100 Crit, 200 Vers or whatever it would give otherwise.
@@albert2006xp the major difference is that when I have a chest piece with flat stats on it, I know how good it is for my character and whether or not it's an upgrade or an optimal piece of gear for my spec. With Azerite I have to check Bloodmallet, Raidbots, Wowhead, sim it, and then ask my class discord to make sure it's actually useful for me.
@@CPhrost No you don't have to do all that. You're kidding yourself if you think you do. All it takes is keeping raidbots simming in the background while you kill a world quest or whatever it is you're doing. And all you need is two sims. Raid boss and Dungeon Slice. I have 12 characters over 376 and not once did I ever take longer than 2 minutes to decide on an azerite trait.
I remember back in BC hearing about guilds breaking up over who got Dragonspine Trophy. When I got mine after like 20+ kills 2 rogues left the guild in protest. There are no items in game atm that come remotely close to how awesome that damn trinket was.
That one was overdoing it. It was actually tuned too high imo. Its cool having an item to strive for, but it gets excessive when guilds keep farming gruul when they are progressing on black temple (2 tiers later). Thats no fun for everyone who doesnt care about gruul loot at that point (everyone that doesnt use that trinket).
@@Wimpymind In current wow that would actually work tho, considering how many people have alts. Replace current catchup with gruul like scenarios where some items are so good they last for multiple patches, so you do it anyway, and give the leftovers to alts and new guys.
@@Consleazy Please explain to me how facerolling one year old content that poses no challenge at all to get an item that maybe 3 out of 25 people can use is good game design. I understand that keeping old content relevant is desirable, but what you are suggesting is the equivalent of having to run Maw of Souls 500+ times to farm AP. That was completely bonkers game design. The big difference is that the Maw of Souls run benefitted anyone involved, while your idea benefits three out of 25 people.
Have been complaining about this since MoP. The catch up mechanics and the increase in item levels, combined with the layering of difficulties makes old content obsolete. Layer titan forging on top and you basically only ever play the patch. Even on alts the best time to level them is the catch up pre-raid time. In BC I had a main in top 50 US guild. Then an alt with a group clearing SCC/TK, and then another alt raiding BT with friends. All content was relevant and it felt like all my toons were making progress at different levels. It was fun. Now I level an alt. I gear it through solo content in about 1/20th of the time. Don't care about names of gear and stats. I hit heroic raid item level in a week and then... nothing? Don't have time to commit an alt to mythic. Cant bring it to mythic because my guild is casual. I just do 1 week mythic+ a week and then have nothing to do. Have 1 ton at 383 and 4 alts at 375. Don't feel like I am progressing on any of them in terms if their character... just going through the routine. Nothing special about it.
Steven Harkema The catch up mechanics and increased items levels makes old content still relevant. How many people would do dailies if they didn’t drop anything useful? I sure as hell wouldn’t wait my time on dailies if I got ilevel 330 gear from them.
@@robertp457 The world quests are not really catch up mechanics because they scale off your current item level generally and they only go as high as 340 which isn't much. I am actually fine with that. I am referring to assaults and war fronts mainly. They actually scale up from your gear and make almost all content around them obsolete including heroic uldir considering the effort they require! Doing an assault is actually more efficient than doing a mythic 10 unless people are funneling you gear. The only content it isn't better than is mythic uldir. And to be clear I am not referring to artifact knowledge. I actually dislike that system to begin with. :p
@@stevenharkema5456 I have 2 alts that are 365+ that have never done anything other than world quests and the Stromgarde scenario. Yes the world quests scale off of your ilvl but as that goes up so do the rewards. The stupid world quests should have been capped at 330 ilvl so they couldn't be used to get 95% of the way to Heroic raiding gear levels.
I grinded WoLTK Dungeons 18 hours a day for weeks on end to get Battered Hilt. My entire guild spent raid after raid getting Shadows Edge upgraded to Shadowmourne. Getting those weapons was all you cared about as a Fury Warrior. Gear mattered. It should again matter.
enlightendbel I have a job and work around 60 hours a week I don’t have time nor do I want to grind 18 hours a day everyday for weeks to get an upgrade.
@@robertp457 see??? These whiners destroyed the game Oh no i cant afford the spend TIME to a game but i want the best of loot i want to raid i want to do everything fast Result? Today's wow Thanks mate! I work too but.i dont want the game to optimize itself to me The guys who can sacrifice 16 hours a day to farm dungeons for a rare gear deserves them If i can't do that? Well i'll just spend 3 hours a day farming those dungeons (and pray the rng god) Whining like a autist snowflake destroys the game STOP IT
Just like that you prove Preachs point yeah the guy has priorities and Bam immediatly you jump him as soon as it's exposed that he's a filthy adult as apposed to discussing the real issue in WoW a crap system that. Doesn't feel rewarding regardless of time invested or mode of play.
catch up thing really hit home for me. The final straw that made me quit was when I grinded 40/40 mythic dungeons, got no upgrades last week and ended 339 pre uldir, and then blizzard released warfronts which was gearing out characters in full 340 gear. Made me feel like my effort was pointless, a real slap to the face, made me feel bad for even playing the game.
Our Healer was elated when she finally got a 370 Seabreeze from SotS. She wanted it all season because it was BiS Unfortunately she was upset the week before, when the tank got it using healing loot spec, but couldn't trade it because it was an ilvl upgrade. She was also upset 2 days later when her sister, who was on a new warlock alt, got the same 370 seabreeze from a mythic 8 weekly cache... In a few days, she will go back to farm a ilvl 400 version. I hate the BFA loot system.
Yeah they need to lossen the loot sharing rules... same with a fist weapon for a friend of mine. At least let you trade if it's a less item level than any weapon you got item level wise
There was a time years ago during which i had my account active just because the game was fun. Even weeks at a time with only 6 hours and change of login time for raiding. There was no need to keep people "engaged" farming mundane items just to have the character work on a basic level. And there is no need to do that now. But its alot cheaper to make content based on addictive behavior studies. Content that people feel the need to rather than content that people want to do.
@@coreym3149 True the game is old, but people still actively seek out private servers for older versions of the game. There are those that move on from WoW because it's grown stale to them, but then there are those that move on because the game they loved to play has been warped beyond recognition. This is just speculation, but the age of the game probably isn't the main cause of players leaving the game. Just as people still invest time replaying retro games on old consoles, people still want to play older versions of WoW likely because it's what they believe to be the pinnacle of what an MMORPG should be.
@@anokage7403 pretty much this ..people play older version cause it was goood it is stiull better then retail sockets and bis items reforge...many good systems were scraped and nobody know why blizzard do things ...good example is foodspeed buff from legion they nerfed that buff and why? blizzard doesnt like FUN and they forgot about RPG element of the GAME today is wow only weekly game im only playin this one day a week when everything resets back in day i was playin all day every day
Blizzard thinks they know what people want more than the people themselves. They said it themselves when first asked about Classic servers: "You think you want it but you don't". And that was the final word for years. Look at the Diablo Immortals announcement. Their heads have gone so far up their own asses they're starting to see daylight again.
Last blow was 370+ assaults gear every few hours. I know about catch up, but it literally nullified anyone sense of satisfaction from raiding or M+ outside of the mythic raiders, maybe even them to some degree. When everyone is a winner, nobody is one.
@@ThePolarpopFaction Assaults. Got myself the alt recently, and now his ilvl super close to the main (386 vs 378) with 80% of the stuff from those activities, which takes about 20 min at the most. Well, with warmode they fun but that's another story.
Im so old that I played wow in a time when we knew what pieces of gear was called just by seeing it on another player on the Ogrimmar bank roof. And it was awsome!
Talking of the gem slots. Man I miss having that guy on your server you knew would give a good deal on gems. And the thought of I have a purple gem but the blues slightly better... is it worth spend a few grand for that much of an upgrade... maybe not purple will do. I miss JC being relevant and not having a million gems sitting on AH not selling like I do now. Where glyphs were not cosmetic so Inscription was relevant. Where you could make some cash on the saronite set because it was a great set for people to start out their gearing process on. When you actually cared about your profession. The only one i care about is my engineer because of all the cool tinkers i can put on my belt etc.... those tinkers... are the ones from a previous expansion.
I was the JC guy on my server during Wrath. I had every popular cut and had the currency to buy new ones if someone requested a non-standard one. I made so much gold from tips.
Summer 2019 is hopefully going to become a wake-up call to Blizzard. I am 100% confident that Classic WoW is going to turn out quite the success and numbers are going to stay higher than Blizzard is anticipating right now. And with this set up, I also hope that the upcoming addon - whatever it may be - is going to go back to the roots that made WoW such a success... I just love you preach. Hopefully your videos are going to be seen or at least heard!
I remember farming Dragonspine Trophy right until the end of TBC because of how valuable it was. I miss BiS items actually coming from a prior tier of content.
This happened to me in Antorus, I was a fury warrior and needed to farm the Elisande trinket. I didn't particularly enjoy going back to do so, but I think that has more to do with power creeped gear trivializing it and having to pug it instead of farming it with my guild who had moved on.
@@damaldazzar Yea, but I hate the Warforge/Titanforge system with a passion. The grind for an Arcano-Crystal amounted to killing that stupid guy every chance you got with a glimmer of hope that you would, A.) Get the Crystal B.) Have it Warforge C.) Have a Socket I don't like or care about having all those variables, I used to look forward to every tier where I would get to plan and calculate exactly what gear was my BiS. I could sit there with a checklist and watch as each item fell into my inventory with glee, I don't play the game anymore (Its a dogs breakfast if you ask me) But I've not had that excitement sense the end of MoP which had a warforge system if you were around in those days. There latest and greatest effort now is to make sure that secondary stats have as little impact as possible on game-play. There were some inadvertent side effect with things like AskMrRobot and the reforge system. But I always wondered why they couldn't have added a little pane or tab to the character sheet that would show your best secondary stats for the current spec your in. Take my Shadow Priest for example, why is it Blizzard couldn't tell people with a little bar how much haste they needed to reach a break-point were your dots tick an extra time? I use to look forward to hitting those breakpoints, I'm not up to date with BFA I'm sure they still exist. But whats the point if you gain much more damage for simply putting on the piece with the most intellect.
I remember an item I got from a wrath of the lich king heroic dungeon better than I remember an item I got from Mythic Fetid Devourer on my guild's first kill. Yikes.
I remember getting my Shadowmourne as if it was yesterday. I remember pwning noobs in pvp, 1 shooting mobs in the worlds, destroying the dps charts in my heroic dungeons.... aaaaaaaaaaaaand then going back to my hammer and shield because i was my guild main tank... so yeah no raiding for me with Shadowmourne qq.
@@MurdogYT Heck yes. I ran Pit of Saron so many times for the Tyrannical Beheader, but it refused to drop. I got the Battered Hilt for Quel'Delar first. I was okay with that :)
Funnily enough I cared about a lot of items every tier during legion, tier sets, legendaries, bis stat rings and neck, bis trinkets. Not saying it was a good overall gearing system but I didn’t imagine it could get worse going into bfa
Treads of the Den Mother, leather boots that dropped from trash in BT! I can't tell you how much I resonate with this video! After over a decade I still remember these because we were farming trash in BT for gear. Imagine this now lol. They were not BiS but because gear was so hard to come by at the time, it was an upgrade for pretty much all leather wearers and you would stick with those boots for a gazillion bt runs until another pair dropped.
Preach, I’m so glad you keep putting out these videos. This issue is one of those things that I’ve been vaguely aware of for a long time but never been quite able to put my finger on it. You articulate this point so well. I wish to god Blizzard would listen. Keep up the great work.
LOL nice 380 boots bro I got 390 titanforged Boots of the... uh wait no, Footguards of... that's not it either... umm... well they've got haste and something else on them so that's good, right?
From my personal perspective I don't mind the not caring about what boots or belt I have, I think it's ok to have some "filler" slots and some meaningful slots (trinkets, azerite pieces).. That said I also have my share of issues with the current gearing system, it's kind of briefly mentioned in this video but not really expanded upon.. My issue with the gearing system is that content that should be fun becomes irrelevant very quickly, I see a big demand from the non-hardcore players that want the Dungeon experience back, they don't like M+ because of the timer and affixes, just want to do "difficult" dungeons at their own pace. Note that this is not a blow against M+ which I really like but more of an analysis of how the casual content is getting gutted by the free loot. I was a casual player back in Cata (started playing in cata) and I remember very well that dungeon experience.. The problem is actually not with the current dungeons themselves, M0 actually posts a decent challenge for a group with appropriate item level.. The only difference is that in the past and as a non-raider I would not get random free loot to skyrocket my item level, so the dungeons would remain relatively challenging, as a casual player that was my end-game content and I really enjoyed it back then (well that and random BGs), but right now that content doesn't exist anymore because there's no reason for even casual players to do it.. The free-loot we have now might seem as casual-friendly but it's quite the opposite, it makes the casual content irrelevant. It's looking even worse in S2 I think, as Preach said at some point in this video, Normal Raid is going to drop 385 item level but even casual players are 380 right now (I am 380 on both of my alts that I don't really play outside the free-loot stuff and the eventual M+), for Uldir we at least had the items capped at 340 (LFR level) before it opened so we are starting at an even higher point right now, which means that the content is going to become irrelevant even quicker.
Back in BC, the heroics were still somewhat dangerous to groups in T5. Yes they were easier than if you were in blues, but you couldn't face roll them. The gear power jumps between teirs was not as high back then as it is now. It wasn't until my group was in mostly T6 that we started doing dungeons without CC just for the extra challenge. Even then our healer was working his butt off and I was having to be hyper active to hold agro on more than 4 mobs at a time(thunder clap only hit 4 targets back then). Even towards the end of the xpac we would still go back and do heroics for badges and just for fun sometimes. Now if we were to do that, our tank could probably solo the heroic by himself. I really dislike M+ for the reason you gave, it is timed. I would like it if it was a system that progressively gets more difficult without the timer.
Man you make some good points, we NEED the RPG back in this MMO, That was what got me into wow, my love for the world and the RPG tag, combine that with MMO and you’ve got my favourite game of all time. It doesn’t feel like Im playing that full game anymore. Thank you for making this video man!
This is excellent and reminds me of the same feeling of desire and satisfaction I had 15 years ago in RuneScape working towards better gear and levels. Well done Mike!
One thing I will say though.. the problem Titanforging/Warforging was trying to solve was the exact thing you touched on, which is that once you got your BiS drops from a dungeon, you had no reason to ever go again - which means the people that needed to go still had fewer players to go with as time went on. Now there's always a reason to do almost any instance, you might get an upgrade. Maybe not the best choice but it was trying to solve a problem.
So true, Sir. This is one of the reasons I enjoy pve twinking at 60, 70, and 80. I don't have to farm forever for the perfect piece of gear that procced with a socket, a specific tertiary, and titanforge. I konw what's BiS for my class and level, and that gives me a sense of accomplishment when I actually get something. I would love for WoW to go back to the days of yore, even though that will never happen. Classic cannot come soon enough. Love your channel and your work, Sir. I've watched you for a LONG time. Thank you so much for everything you do. Cheers mate.
I feel like this has been said thousands if not hundreds of thousands of times before but I cant help but feel like we are talking to a wall because Blizzard just keeps doubling down on the current random loot box system of randomness extravaganza. I 100% agree that Vanilla and TBC loot system was better, but will Blizzard ever fix the loot system we have now? What will it take to bring the that loot system back? Maybe Classic after its been out a while?
Tanirs was there a solution given? Perhaps I missed it, but the only solution to making gear special again is to make is super rare like it was back in classic.
@@robertp457 doesn't have to be super rare, if there wasn't so many combos of how just each single item is WF, TF, socket, other stats like leech, we could be able to just single out things that are useful. Multi difficulties can exist still since you can just go for a heroic raid version or if the item is a mythic dungeon push to the highest key you can for the place and try there. There is less confusion when gear is fixed in stats at a specific difficulty level.
I was subbed continuously for 12 1/2 years and cancelled for the first time right before BFA patch, because I had tried it on beta and knew I didn't like what was coming. I agree with what you are saying here, but for me it wasn't only that gear was meaningless, it's that it no longer feels like a story that my character is part of. It's just moving from cutscene to cutscene with no input or reaction on my character's part, and it's not about him anymore. When I was doing my flight quest or stepping into Outland for the first time, it felt like I was experiencing an adventure through his eyes. Now it's some junk about Jaina and trolls that I just can't make myself care about. And it's like you said... I want to care, but I just can't anymore.
I still get excited for gear upgrades. Farming KR 10's for the unique 2h sword was a lot of fun. I'll surely replace it in a few months and be back to farming for a scaled up version of it, but there aren't any other good MMOs to play so might as well.
I just went back to really old games, like Gothic. There you can do meaningful progress on your character. It also has the added bonus of not having any microtransactions, and not requiring an internet connection to play. It's like a gamer's wet dream, apart from looking 16 years old or so.
@@Grenxix I have played both FF XIV and ESO, both are good games to be sure, but both have systems or features Im not really a fan of. FF XIV has amazing character customization, raids, and stories. A great community too. However the combat is god awful leveling up. Friends say it gets better at end game, but I couldnt make the crawl all the way there. Not to mention the instanced zones, while they wont be an issue for most people, arent really my cup of tea.
@@OWnIshiiTrolling I own Gothic 3 and Risen, loved those games and they were very rewarding to play through. However I haven't felt compelled to go back and play through them again
@@TheGoombles I only played Gothic 3 for about an hour. I can really recommend getting the first, and then the second one. The second one is really good, if you can get past the attack of the killer pixels that that old games tend to throw at you.
Its in videos like this that i stop and realise why i loved your videos ever since the tbc pvp vids. You have a knack for delivering your message in such a great way,i dont have the vocabulary to really express what i mean,but this video was great,on point,and real. Bis vid.
This might become a long comment but here we go. Gear that I remember: Pillars of Might - Plate leggings in wotlk, took a while to farm mats and then to find a crafter for those, but when I finally got em, was a good feeling. I started in wrath and was a total noob but still could get some nice epics just by farming ore and elementals in Wintergrasp. You also had to buy primordial saronite from AH. (referring to Sanguicells being soulbound) Mirrored Boots - Plate boots in cata, Firelands crafted gear. Didn't have any good tanking boots before those, think those had parry in them. Shard of Torment - Baleroc shield, got it on our first heroic kill I think, still had the crafted 359 shield and to upgrade that to 391 shield felt pretty good. Calestraza's Will - Tanking neclace from Sinestra. Didn't ever kill her myself when it was current content, but it was awesome tanking neck of 379 ilvl, so it was better that FL normal gear. Unerring Vision of Lei Shen - Played lock back then and demo was popping off with this trinket and ToT set bonuses. After ToT nothing too memorable comes into mind. That also when the gear forging begun. Coincidence? WoW's problem today is that there's pretty much nothing in the game that is actually meaningful. There's a lots of minigames, like secrets, mounts, pets, tmog, toys and achi points. These might provide you some additional content, but core of the game is making your character stronger = getting gear. That has been the main hamsterwheel of the game always and that's what used to keep us playing. Why xpac launches are always good times? Because it's a ladder reset and your goal is to get geared up. And why doesn't gear matter anymore? This video made a lot of good points, gonna add one more thing to this. Like Mike you said, it's an illusion of progress. Even if you're to most casual player, you still like getting gear I assume. But even if u get a nice titanforge, does it actually make you stronger? No it doesn't because the WORLD SCALES WITH YOUR ILVL. To me atleast it FEELS that world quests take just as long with 390 gear as they did with 330. They have said that you should feel stronger, but no, I do not feel it. Game devs have decided that a single wq should take around x time to complete for both of you even if you have 50 ilvls more than the other guy. Mindset of not being too far ahead or too far behind is part of the problem. This ties also to GCD changes but not gonna start writing about that here. To casual player the gear you're wearing doesn't matter because it doesn't make you stronger relatively to the content you're doing. To raider also it doesn't really matter, u might sim a bit higher but that's about it. Well yeah ofc it matters when you're progressing new raid but after that it's meaningless. To PvP'ers it doesn't matter because of stat templates. So basically, numbers go up but relatively you're not getting any stronger. And then there's AP. it's actually meaningless to 100% of the playerbase. Unless you're in WF race, you shouldn't really care about your neck level. And even to these WF contenders, most likely neck level will not matter in the end. Below that, if you're in a cutting edge guild, getting dps traits unlocked is so easy that essentially AP is meaningless. Then the rest of the playerbase, I can't imagine any situation where someone could actually care about neck level. The 2 new main features (IE's and warfronts) in BfA are build around systems that nobody cares (AP and gear), because the game doesn't give you reasons to care for it. That's why people aren't playing. There's so big potential playerbase but I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens in next xpac.
i remember my friend was a ret pally with gurthalak/bonelink and he popped wings, zealotry, and guardian and 3 tentacles procced right away and he instakilled an enemy healer in arena. it was fucking awesome, i loved the deathwing weapons.
Well illustrated point Preach; I couldn't name any gear that I have on any of my characters. I miss the days of BC where you had hit and defense targets and gear got you there. Achievable, finite goals; and the game never ended once you achieved them.
This is where a revolution starts. From an idea bigger than an individual. From a passion bigger than its community. Is Blizzard listening? Let's make them.
I remember feeling this exact way during legion. Yeah, like I remember feeling overwhelmed by the legendary flood. I remember finally getting my first legendary, months into the game and I was so excited because I’ve never had a legendary item!!!! Went into guild chat, no one gave a fuck. No one gave a fuck about it. I felt crushed, because I remember this, I remember when people got excited over the specific piece of gear you got. I didn’t need to go to a website to know it was good, my guildies knew the item and knew it was good, the excitement felt great and it made the item more cherished.
My main concern with progression is that the catchup mechanics are too quick. The moment a new raid tier comes out it makes the last one obsolete. Even if you're not raiding the ilvl rewards from world quests increase to the point where it's not even necessary to do that last raid anymore. This makes the progression into a flat line. Just do the newest content because the older stuff doesn't matter.
it'd be nice if gear progression removed lfr or limited the titanforge to be still 5 to 10 ilvl than lfr and gave natural progression through doing normal raids and didnt' make the new tier step on the olds tooo much.
I had a pretty solid discussion with an old WoW friend about this last night! A line I dropped on him was “The moment I got hooked into a decade of subs was during Season 3 in TBC when after grinding out a full S2 set on my Warlock I ran into a full S3 geared Warrior in WSG. He smashed my fucking head in and every time this happened I got more and more driven to get good and get gear”
Nice video preach. It reminded me back in TBC I was in a fairly mediocre guild(full cleared bt right before wotlk pre patch popped making everything super easy), and I was asked at the beginning of the expansion to go from druid healing, to druid tank. I took the role very seriously, and while I was treated as the 3rd/extra tank for everything except gruul(and thus didn't have immediate priority on gear), I was able to put in more effort than others in my guild and results showed. I farmed for a solid week PRIMALS(if you remember those terrible things) for money, and also for the pattern for a belt that dropped for LW in SSC. It was BIS up until BT, and I paid exorbitant amounts of gold and my time to get said belt made by a top guild in my server as my guild could not provide said materials or recipe at the time. This type of behavior made me not only care immensely about my class, but also about how I played. I continued to play all the way to early cata(wotlk was great, went dps cat and loved it), my prior guild imploded and I had lost much of my motivation to continue on my druid, and I re rolled into a warrior and then quit after a brief time playing. Came back in wod as I was excited for legion, re-rolled into a dk, leveled up other classes to max because of what I saw in your videos and others for how classes were looking at the start of legion. Finished legion not really raiding hard core, just enjoying the overall game play of certain classes(main frost dk/brew monk/surv hunter), and had hopes BFA would try to continue the trend. I've stopped really playing at all in the last 3 weeks. This is for a variety of reasons, but this video reminded me even when I came back in wod for legion, I never experienced the same thing I did as when I was a kid playing vanilla into tbc, and making it into a raiding guild, and to be responsible for my class and my gear. And you are right I can remember some of the biggest gear benchmarks for my class at the time: Strength of the Clefhoof set, Terestrian's strangle staff, earth warden, badge of tenacity(shit would never drop at first), moroes lucky pocket watch. Even the later stuff that came with badges like idol of terror, or from the sunwell dungeon dropping commendation of kael'thas. Good times man
Gear in World of Warcraft has become an afterthought for Blizzard. They have become lazy and bored with their own game. People like to put the blame on Activision and try to convince themselves that things would improve drastically if Blizzard were able to rid themselves of Activision, but it was Blizzard themselves who made these poor design decisions. Just face it... Blizzard sucks now, no matter the publisher. This is why I think World of Warcraft is beyond saving. They probably won't even be able to correctly bring back Vanilla. This company has become a joke, a meme, an embarassment.
My god, I think you're really hit the nail on the head Preach. I've been mega casual for a couple years now... I used to absolutely go nuts for getting Bracers of Might in vanilla. Now I just don't care at all about any item. Also: Transmog. Transmog needs to die*. The aesthetic of an upgrade is half of the drive to get it. That's _why_ I cared when I got Obsidian Edged Blade on my warrior. Running through early vanilla PVP, people ran when then saw it coming. They saw it and knew it would hurt. I saw it and felt like a badass. *be taken off of current gear and instead each player could have a set of un-statted Tmog gear that they can mog.
And all that time, during the growth, people complain about accessibility and similar, then Blizzard gives it to them and the game starts declining in subscribers the very next xpac, and Blizzards response is to make the game even more accessable in all future xpacs..
Well done on the speech. Sunwell was the pinnacle of my raiding experience as one of the top guilds on my server competing and subsequently getting stuck on Mu'ru, lol. I LOVED the concept of having so many tier pieces to mix and match but still retain the 4pc. Why hasn't Blizz taken this concept with them as the years have gone by? I played a paladin and transitioned from holy to ret during BT with the full switch in Sunwell. I have such fond memories of BC in general that outside of Classic (I started playing right after patch 1.9) nothing else really compares. The game was so full of life, people were PROUD of their servers, communities and bonds were forged in the crucibles of battle, I miss it. That's a real big reason why after the end of the Legion (damn, I can't even remember the boss, it was very forgettable) I quit and honestly haven't missed not playing. I enjoy watching videos of people playing and discussing the game but I doubt I'll feel motivated enough to come back and play. Thanks @Preachgaming for continuing to give this veteran of the game entertainment and updates of the franchise I loved since WC1.
I've been shouting and screaming about this since wrath.... In BC my main was in hyjal/BT and my alt was doing kara/magtheridon/gruul. Even after the top guilds were already clearing hyjal/BT more casual guilds were progressing gruul and then ssc/tk. ALL of the content remained relevant the WHOLE expansion. To me the best point you made is "what are you catching up to?" And I can still remember almost my whole gear set from 12 years ago in BC! Memento of Tyrande (trinket from illidan) I was SOOO excited about. I had the apostle of argus from Archimonde and the tier 6 was so exciting! I remember other people's gear from 12 years ago - the bulwark of azzinoth, and the new zinroth 2H from ZA come to mind. Meanwhile I can not tell you the name of a single item my character is wearing right this instant. Edit: Another point about this without transmog and without gearscore/ilevel(on character screen) you knew how progressed somebody was just looking at them. I distinctly remember people cheering in AV *before the game started* because we had a bulwark of azzinoth or felmyst shield tank. Or you'd see a rogue with glaives in WSG and everybody was gushing. Or you start a dungeon and your healer has T6 and you could just look at their character to see they were accomplished players. That is also gone now.
So, realtalk, as a guy who rocked through the intro weeks of BfA, got to Ghuun, then just quit because of guild strife to get a real-world break... It is just not worth it to get back into the game right now, is it?
People said this since the start of Wrath. Totalbiscuit predicted it in TBC. Its so god damn crazy and frustrating that Blizzard cant figure this out. This video is ,as always, great. Spot on with the points and great examples and perspectives and the RPG elements comment is so damn true. How many videos like this do we need before the developers can get off their arses and return to the state of the game that is quite frankly, the foundation of RPG gearing.
Stats don't mean anything anymore only ilvl is what matters. So Blizzard might as well remove all stats from gear and just keep ilvl and it would be the same.
Thank you for putting my thoughts into words! Nobody cares about gear items anymore so there is no excitement doing content and hoping for certain drops. That excitement was the core thrill of vanilla/TBC/etc.
I think that's one of the biggest issues with the game: Gear is the main focus. A major problem with this is that it can render content obsolete once better gear can be obtained from new content. For example, there's zero reason to go back into Nighthold for gear (excluding transmog). All that time and energy the devs put into Nighthold content is now largely irrelevant (since the gear is largely irrelevant). Another issue with gear being the main focus is that if the gear isn't something you want, it undermines your feeling of accomplishment. For example, if you kill a boss because you want a cool item, and it doesn't drop, you're likely going to be upset. I'd much rather the game revolved around doing content and getting items that look cool rather than items that fundamentally change the way I play the game. This way, I could play the game however I want without having to worry about how I'm going to get the gear to facilitate that wish. For example, instead of having to do mindless WQs all day to get my neck ready for mythic prog, I could level an alt, pvp, etc. And after doing mythic prog, I wouldn't need to log on every week to reclear the same content for months, praying for upgrades that'll only get replaced. They need to break this horrible wheel! edit: it's also dumb that gear defines the performance of a player. You hit the lottery and have sockets/TF on the majority of your gear? Grats, you'll do more damage than your peers (i.e., those who participate in the same level of content).
well fellow mythic raider you can give it a shake first game is free now i believe graphics showing its age a bit but that game actually feels like a MMORPG unlike wow since it stopped being an RPG around Lich king days. Its important to note while i am in a sort of semi hard core ish guild (5/8M) basically i play Gw2 very casually and it gives me a feeling like classic wow and TBC gave me wide expansive zones always with something to do something to explore i never feel rushed to get to end game i just play and derp around and take it at my own pace there is no unseen hand telling you what to do in the game you just do w/e and i love it
on the note of leggos you craft yours its a long and sometimes tedious process that requires map exploration gathering mats and a WHOLE bunch of shit BUT the pay off at the end is massive and that weapon is with you forever you can even make leggos to sell pay off is big there too LITERALLY. Also despite its aging graphics cosmetics in that game kind of shits on wow particularly the legendaries.
I feel this has been an irl issue lately as well. Back in the day I’d spot some Nikes or some Pumas and think “man, if I had those I’d be set for a year or two!”. Nowadays kids rock those Converse, Nikes, Adidas, etc, just for different social events. Bloody tmog almost. Member when the iPhone 2 came out? It was simply the iPhone 2, not the iPhone X*** (*= XS Plus, titanforged storage, rare option colour case, etc). Nokia did coloured cases but you could simply buy the new colour you’d like and clip it instead of the old one on the phone, with that satisfying click, kinda like enchants or gems, rather than buying a whole new drop for a bloody colour. Even Legion felt a bit like Beats of Elune, Yeezbringer - instantly recognizable brand, ultimately disposable item, a year or two down the road, but that goes with the xpac territory.
I like that you pointed out that badge gear didn't fill every slot. It gives you SOME gear as a baseline. After you were done with the dungeons and raids, you could work on your shatt reps for some other gear slots or farm money to buy some profession pieces. Professions were something you could work on too. Upgrading the weapons and such. So many ways to go for longer lasting, meaningful gear. Remember how long some people held on to Hand of Justice from BRD? I miss being proud of items. Transmog kinda hurts too. Seeing Bulwark meant something back then.
Well said. This was an absolutely fantastic video. Thank you for taking the time to state all this. Damn near 100% how I have been feeling since Legion. I loved 99% of Legion except for WF/TF/Legos which destroyed the game for me. I would love more of these kinds of videos, the lengthy long discussions.
The acquisition of them was retarded, but the items were fun amd recognizable. Way better than bfa Pray and hope classic gives retail devs some inspiration
I do too. Would farm +15's and clear the outdated raids because there was always the chance I would get the best one for my spec. Not really a reason for me to do more than one key a week anymore, and I probably wont go back to Uldir once its over.
I remember at the beginning of Crusade, seeing people with purple gear, and it was a HUGE big deal. I felt nervous just standing my little newbie characters next to them, cos those guys had seen some shit. They must have, cos they had PURPLE gear. And if you were lucky enough to get some drop, you didn't just sell it. You hung on to it. You valued it, cos it meant something. And it's not just nostalgia. That kind of caring gave the game heart. These days, too much of it feels like a chore, and that's sad. tldr: video liked
Gear is a horrible "motivator". Rewards in general should NOT be needed to engage in content. I've replayed MANY games that offer absolutely no new rewards on subsequent playthroughs simply because I had FUN with them. Even other MMOs like GW1, GW2 and ESO are amazingly fun and successful when their gearing is very basic and honestly de-emphasized. Vanilla was loved because it was an RPG. Items were interesting and memorable (ask any warrior about SM 2H axe). Now we have none of this. Just pure stat sticks that are absolutely meaningless.
tbc loot, elemental shaman weapon 1)dagger from prince on kara 2)mace from hyjal trash 3)alternatively from black temple some boss had mace 4)sunwell yeah swapping gear every raid. elemental totem? boj and then black temple, thats it. Hell what about melee weapons? you like enh right? dragonstrike which you could maybe swap on sunwell. What do you mean you didnt have blacksmithing? go get it.
WoW items are boring. They contain just some stats and if there is an item with a special effect (stat/attack or visual effect) its some minor shit which no one really cares about.
I agree, TBC had the best gearing system of wow. Nothing felt unachievable to get eventually, but it did need a lot of work and the effort put into it to fully maximize your characters potential through gearing. Now, why should i care about gear that much when i just slap the highest item level on and i can't go wrong that much ? I get a worse secondary stat boohoo, and also i can do multiple roles with that gear....
I remember my first epic and I remember most of the gear I used throughout my level 60 raiding life. I don't have a single clue what the names of the pieces of my gear are right now, except the neck... But I desperately want to.
I still remember leveling my second character, a Dwarf warrior, in Duskwood in vanilla, and getting the blue axe Killmain from a mob. I used that all the way through level 40's even tho i am pretty sure i could have replaced it, just because it was such a big moment in the game for me. Really miss actually being positive about getting items instead of going "crap i got warforge and not titanforge, better luck next time"
I have a friend who healed in Legion. He wanted the [Amalgam's Seventh Spine] from BRH so bad, because he felt like it was unique and important to him. He ran BRH M+ over 50 times before getting it. It didn't matter to him that he ran the dungeon over and over again. He was so excited to get it. And he finally did. Remembers the name to this day. The only thing bringing his experience down was the shadow of possible war/titanforging.
I could type out an essay on this, but I'll limit myself to one point. A lot of what you argue for around the 29min mark is simplicity in choice - the ability to spot a BIS item instead of the myriad of choices that don't matter that we currently have. One of the main reasons we're IN this situation is Blizzard listening to that exact feedback - a request for simplicity and no need to sim - you can (usually) tell if an item is an upgrade based on ilvl (excluding sockets), or if you make a mistake it's rare for it to be a huge difference. That is why Ilvl is king, that's why a lot of secondary stats were removed, that's why haste/hit caps, and interesting stats are more or less nonexistant. Back in prior expansions I cared a lot about my BIS list BECAUSE it was perfectly tailored to meet hit caps and haste caps, often custom tailored to do that WHILE omitting the last boss or two in a raid, since personally a BIS list that includes the last bosses drops is pointless to me. I agree with you on a lot, but just be aware of how we got into this situation - a lot of it was people asking for simplicity and this was how it was delivered.
the last two pieces of gear i remember caring about were from mop and wod respectively. first was the sha touched staff when i was playing a warlock, and it was the first time I ever had the best weapon my class could get, as i started playing in late cata and never got the best weapon from DS. Jin'ya orb of the waterspeaker was the name. next item I really truly cared about was the soul capacitor from socrethar in HFC. i was an enh shaman and using that trinket was some of the most of fun I have ever had playing this game. I still bust it out whenever i run twing just to relive some of the glory of using it full time. oh and i cannot name 5 items on my current main
I think one of my best memories in terms of gearing was the fact that I could forge my two handed mace from Blacksmithing - Thunder and then progress it through the whole expansion to Deep Thunder and finally Stormherald. I think it was relevant until Black Temple when I got Torch of the Damned from there. Really great feeling and progression system also. I was very disappointed when I realised in WotLK that progressing through your profession is kinda thing of the past.
Soooooo incredibly true. I knew which bosses in Kara and ssc dropped my rogue's gear, and I knew the names of the items specifically. Nowadays, it's just "hold shift. Compare item level. Equip it if it's better. Move on and replace them next time I see a higher number." I miss caring about gear and wanting specific gear.
You are sooo right. After watching this vid I now totally agree with you. I want to give a shit about gear. I want to remember the name of items I once cared about. I still on the fence about deciding if I play classic wow casually or if I should drop BFA and go full hardcore classic. Now after watching this vid I am leaning a lot more on dropping BFA and going back to Vanilla wow where there are no transmogs and you could tell just by looking at other players what kind of player they were by what gear they had equip. Great vid Mike Keep preaching the good news!
Name 5 pieces of gear your character has right now.
1. Heart of Azeroth
2. damn he's right
1. Cephalopode Jacket
2. Overcharged Capacitor
3. Mother's Twin Gaze
4. Bile Stained Crawg Tusks
5. Dread Gladiator's Emblem
6. Pathogenic Legwraps
I'd do more but I have 12 characters so give me a break.
Honestly forgot the neck existed.
I could only name Heart of azeroth and darkmoon deck fathoms
1. Heart of Azeroth
2. Honorbound something from arathi
3. Deathstalker's something from darkshore
4. Sinister sword of whatever cos I pve with pvp gear now
@@HappyLittleCloud What else would you PvE with?
This video is BiS.... well unless i get a titanforge on another video
Rewatch this one like 500 times to get titforge with a socket on it.
You mean it is BiS until the next patch, then I'll get a better video in LFR
Still needs a RNG socket to be BiS... and RNG third stat!
Got leech and a socket on this vid
I'm going to watch this video in two years for timewalking warforged loot automatically matched with my level 140 boosted tinker
"Catch-up has just become the gearing process for many people." Spot on, Preach.
Yeah that's the part of the video that I agree with. Too much free catch-up gear when there's nothing to catch up to even. I'm looking at you Warfront quest. It's boosting people past their appropriate level of difficulty which causes more crap. Then again, so does PvP. That's why we have raider.io.
Though tank gear was a bit less spot on because I don't want to have to gear my characters two or three times over just to fill different roles. I remember those days too, a lot less fondly than what these nostalgia goggled people seem to remember them.
Now we even have catch up before there is anything to catch up to! I only did invasions and basically got same ilvl as mythic gear drop in many of my slots. XD
@@albert2006xp some people enjoyed just being a tank and maybe having a crappy dps or pvp set to mess around I am. One of those people I like this playstyle I just wanna play this but I have this other set to have fun in every once in awhile
@@albert2006xp i get the hassle of farming multiple sets but on the other end of the spectrum. If the item u get is good for either role... you end up with the same problem again that gear becomes generic (as a side note i played a druid back then so i had many offspec roles to gear and get pvp sets for it aswell). You are building the character up in the role u want to excel at. The only thing i realy disliked is the def/ hit / expertese cap shuffle.
In this discussion of an item should be good for all roles u might aswell just remove all stats and just have an ilvl and each spec deciding what stats it wants. How interesting... Or that u can build healer/tank specs with dps gear for fun in pvp etc. This won't be added back in the game with the simple MAin stat/ stam + 2/1 out of 4 secondairy stats that are usefull (not optimal) for everyone.
I just miss working toward my BiS list, finally getting it and feeling a sense of completion letting me play alts and do other things while I wait for a new tier. I don't even bother to look at gear any more because of TF. I couldn't tell you the names of basically any pieces of gear, except for maybe trinkets. Back in TBC and WoTLK I knew the names of even the bracers on my BiS list. Getting that full set of gear optimized for the stats you want felt awesome.
So am i since i only do M+ its super nice progression feeling when you finally get 1 bis piece
BISlists used to be something I enjoyed setting up and looking forward too.
Yep I only really know my weapons and trinkets. Now I do know my BiS trait combos and have made a list for new gear come Tuesday but I'm not very excited about the gear itself.
Very much agree with this statement.
Ya I really mis having one specific item to get instead of a possiblity of many different items. Thats so much better.
Tank stats on tank gear? Preach, you have the darndest ideas.
I miss tank and healer specific stats :(
I've been playing on a WotLK private server lately and it's crazy how different loot feels. I'm opening up Atlasloot (remember that shit?) to stare at the loot tables of the early bosses in ICC so that I can figure out what pieces will be easy to acquire and what pieces I'll have to find elsewhere or wait until I'm geared enough to get.
For example, my best Tank trinket, sartharian's flawless fang, will be very difficult for me to get until I'm properly geared, so I'm going to get the Frosty badge Tank trinket (the name escapes me, but I know it has a ton of stamina and a use ability that gave you a shield) to go alongside my Unidentifiable Organ off Putrecide. And I'll use that trinket for several months until I can finally replace it with the Flawless Fang and then my trinkets will be done.
What class? The 245 trinket off the triumph badge vendor is also super good, for some it's better than Skeleton Key (like paladin).
Remember in wotlk a higher ilvl doesnt necessarily mean it's better. Theres a lot of weird gearing choices (my bis legs as an arms warrior are Northern Lights, mail hunter legs) that you may not notice at first. It's why I still play wotlk as well. Gearing is a lot more interesting.
What server is it? I want to play wotlk cos I got bored of vanilla
@@Acq49 warmane probably
Omg, corroded skeleton key! I always went for that item asap
try netherwing tbc to really have your mind blown ;-)
Agree with this, pretty much.
One of the reasons Azerite Armor failing is so important is because it takes 4 whole gear slots down with it.
It's funny you should say that because I was playing on my shaman the other day and something happened to remind me of that. Sounds good. Moving on.
On a more serious note, I think the biggest problem with the failing azerite system is that it was touted as a main feature of the expansion that was not only replacing the artifact weapons, but would be the way our character naturally progresses.
The leveling experience in BFA was meant to do nothing other than lead up to the Azerite gear system. We weren't given any new talents or abilities, and were promised the Azerite armor would replace those things.
Now that that's fallen flat there isnt anything to look forward to in regards to end game character building. It's like instead of getting a carrot on a stick Blizzard just gave me the stick and then started beating me on the head with it.
It wouldn't even be a problem if the azerite gear was actually interesting or simple. Everytime I get a new piece I have to stop playing and take fifteen minutes to sim my character, check three different websites, and my class discord to make sure I'm not butchering my character by picking the wrong trait. Then I have to go to the reforger and spend gold to change the traits on the piece I'm replacing to fit my off spec because it's not efficient to just have one set of gear.
Back in the day if I was playing....let's say holy priest, and wanted to swap to shadow priest for a bit I could do that without needing an entire set of gear just for shadow. I mean sure to play optimally it would be better to have the right stats, but if I wasnt min/maxing then my holy gear set would be just fine. Now if I want to play shadow I have to have three different azerite pieces just to make it work, never mind playing optimally.
In essence the failure of the azerite system means very little to look forward to in terms of character optimization for hard core players, confusion and frustration from casual players, and a constant treadmill of gear hunting without the feeling of being rewarded.
Thanks for reading my rant. Love you Tali, cant wait for the weekly reset.
Because having a Crit/Vers chest would somehow be more interesting than whatever passive bonus the Azerite gives? Say what you want about Azerite powers being boring but they're more than 100 Crit, 200 Vers or whatever it would give otherwise.
@@albert2006xp the major difference is that when I have a chest piece with flat stats on it, I know how good it is for my character and whether or not it's an upgrade or an optimal piece of gear for my spec. With Azerite I have to check Bloodmallet, Raidbots, Wowhead, sim it, and then ask my class discord to make sure it's actually useful for me.
@@CPhrost No you don't have to do all that. You're kidding yourself if you think you do. All it takes is keeping raidbots simming in the background while you kill a world quest or whatever it is you're doing. And all you need is two sims. Raid boss and Dungeon Slice. I have 12 characters over 376 and not once did I ever take longer than 2 minutes to decide on an azerite trait.
My 5 pieces: Honorbound something, Honorbound something, Honorbound something, Honorbound something, Heart of Azeroth.
I remember back in BC hearing about guilds breaking up over who got Dragonspine Trophy. When I got mine after like 20+ kills 2 rogues left the guild in protest. There are no items in game atm that come remotely close to how awesome that damn trinket was.
That one was overdoing it. It was actually tuned too high imo. Its cool having an item to strive for, but it gets excessive when guilds keep farming gruul when they are progressing on black temple (2 tiers later). Thats no fun for everyone who doesnt care about gruul loot at that point (everyone that doesnt use that trinket).
@@Wimpymind In current wow that would actually work tho, considering how many people have alts. Replace current catchup with gruul like scenarios where some items are so good they last for multiple patches, so you do it anyway, and give the leftovers to alts and new guys.
@@potentiallyRealWarrenGraham Facerolling a boss for the 50th time is not fun. That would be poor design.
@@OWnIshiiTrolling no not really
@@Consleazy Please explain to me how facerolling one year old content that poses no challenge at all to get an item that maybe 3 out of 25 people can use is good game design.
I understand that keeping old content relevant is desirable, but what you are suggesting is the equivalent of having to run Maw of Souls 500+ times to farm AP. That was completely bonkers game design. The big difference is that the Maw of Souls run benefitted anyone involved, while your idea benefits three out of 25 people.
i can name more items i have transmoged than i can equiped. the last time I cared was trying to get a titanforge on a drape of shame in legion.
Agree, was after the same cloak, not surprisingly they put an item in the game you care about and then they nerf it until you can't.
drape of shame is the kind of cool item the game needs more of
I concur. The RPG element of the game does feel absent.
somehow i ended in ff14 this way... and despite i was bored of kill 5 bugs quests 10 years ago it actually feels like mmorpg
MMO and RPG both are done with WoW. At this point, it's Diablo 3 with more people in SOME scenarios.
PREACH!
name 5 items? easy
boots/bracers/belt/gloves/pants of the 7th legion!
that is not the name, that is the gear slot.
Have been complaining about this since MoP. The catch up mechanics and the increase in item levels, combined with the layering of difficulties makes old content obsolete. Layer titan forging on top and you basically only ever play the patch. Even on alts the best time to level them is the catch up pre-raid time.
In BC I had a main in top 50 US guild. Then an alt with a group clearing SCC/TK, and then another alt raiding BT with friends. All content was relevant and it felt like all my toons were making progress at different levels. It was fun. Now I level an alt. I gear it through solo content in about 1/20th of the time. Don't care about names of gear and stats. I hit heroic raid item level in a week and then... nothing? Don't have time to commit an alt to mythic. Cant bring it to mythic because my guild is casual. I just do 1 week mythic+ a week and then have nothing to do. Have 1 ton at 383 and 4 alts at 375. Don't feel like I am progressing on any of them in terms if their character... just going through the routine. Nothing special about it.
I care less about my current characters compared to vanilla and tbc character.
Gear was a lot harder to get back then
Steven Harkema The catch up mechanics and increased items levels makes old content still relevant. How many people would do dailies if they didn’t drop anything useful? I sure as hell wouldn’t wait my time on dailies if I got ilevel 330 gear from them.
@@robertp457 The world quests are not really catch up mechanics because they scale off your current item level generally and they only go as high as 340 which isn't much. I am actually fine with that. I am referring to assaults and war fronts mainly. They actually scale up from your gear and make almost all content around them obsolete including heroic uldir considering the effort they require! Doing an assault is actually more efficient than doing a mythic 10 unless people are funneling you gear. The only content it isn't better than is mythic uldir.
And to be clear I am not referring to artifact knowledge. I actually dislike that system to begin with. :p
@@stevenharkema5456 I have 2 alts that are 365+ that have never done anything other than world quests and the Stromgarde scenario. Yes the world quests scale off of your ilvl but as that goes up so do the rewards. The stupid world quests should have been capped at 330 ilvl so they couldn't be used to get 95% of the way to Heroic raiding gear levels.
Play Classic when it comes out. Give it a go.
I grinded WoLTK Dungeons 18 hours a day for weeks on end to get Battered Hilt.
My entire guild spent raid after raid getting Shadows Edge upgraded to Shadowmourne.
Getting those weapons was all you cared about as a Fury Warrior.
Gear mattered. It should again matter.
enlightendbel I have a job and work around 60 hours a week I don’t have time nor do I want to grind 18 hours a day everyday for weeks to get an upgrade.
@@robertp457 see??? These whiners destroyed the game
Oh no i cant afford the spend TIME to a game but i want the best of loot i want to raid i want to do everything fast
Result? Today's wow
Thanks mate!
I work too but.i dont want the game to optimize itself to me
The guys who can sacrifice 16 hours a day to farm dungeons for a rare gear deserves them
If i can't do that? Well i'll just spend 3 hours a day farming those dungeons (and pray the rng god)
Whining like a autist snowflake destroys the game STOP IT
@@robertp457 then you don't get the same rewards as someone who can. Simple
@@robertp457 you don't.
BH could bought of the AH too.
Just like that you prove Preachs point yeah the guy has priorities and Bam immediatly you jump him as soon as it's exposed that he's a filthy adult as apposed to discussing the real issue in WoW a crap system that. Doesn't feel rewarding regardless of time invested or mode of play.
catch up thing really hit home for me.
The final straw that made me quit was when I grinded 40/40 mythic dungeons, got no upgrades last week and ended 339 pre uldir, and then blizzard released warfronts which was gearing out characters in full 340 gear. Made me feel like my effort was pointless, a real slap to the face, made me feel bad for even playing the game.
Sad to see so many people spending this effort to make feedback, knowing Blizzard don't give a single shit.
In fucking deed, I totally respect Preach, but I couldn't get to the end of this video, I couldn't give half a shit about wow anymore...
Our Healer was elated when she finally got a 370 Seabreeze from SotS. She wanted it all season because it was BiS
Unfortunately she was upset the week before, when the tank got it using healing loot spec, but couldn't trade it because it was an ilvl upgrade.
She was also upset 2 days later when her sister, who was on a new warlock alt, got the same 370 seabreeze from a mythic 8 weekly cache...
In a few days, she will go back to farm a ilvl 400 version.
I hate the BFA loot system.
Sun Risky it’s much better than sharding gear no one can use.
So blizz did everything right because she will stay subbed to farm this fucking item over and over again
Yeah they need to lossen the loot sharing rules... same with a fist weapon for a friend of mine. At least let you trade if it's a less item level than any weapon you got item level wise
Finally got this staff on my priest last week. Really sucks that it'll be outdated again in 2 weeks.
There was a time years ago during which i had my account active just because the game was fun.
Even weeks at a time with only 6 hours and change of login time for raiding.
There was no need to keep people "engaged" farming mundane items just to have the character work on a basic level. And there is no need to do that now.
But its alot cheaper to make content based on addictive behavior studies.
Content that people feel the need to rather than content that people want to do.
What I don't get is that there were astronomically more subs with the old systems in place. Are they allergic to money?
The game was also new and shiny. Its been 10years since then. People have moved on.
@@coreym3149 True the game is old, but people still actively seek out private servers for older versions of the game. There are those that move on from WoW because it's grown stale to them, but then there are those that move on because the game they loved to play has been warped beyond recognition.
This is just speculation, but the age of the game probably isn't the main cause of players leaving the game. Just as people still invest time replaying retro games on old consoles, people still want to play older versions of WoW likely because it's what they believe to be the pinnacle of what an MMORPG should be.
@@coreym3149 No rly. I find much more people playing on wotlk servers than on the fucking BfA LULZ.
@@anokage7403 pretty much this ..people play older version cause it was goood it is stiull better then retail sockets and bis items reforge...many good systems were scraped and nobody know why blizzard do things ...good example is foodspeed buff from legion they nerfed that buff and why? blizzard doesnt like FUN and they forgot about RPG element of the GAME today is wow only weekly game im only playin this one day a week when everything resets back in day i was playin all day every day
Blizzard thinks they know what people want more than the people themselves. They said it themselves when first asked about Classic servers: "You think you want it but you don't". And that was the final word for years. Look at the Diablo Immortals announcement. Their heads have gone so far up their own asses they're starting to see daylight again.
Last blow was 370+ assaults gear every few hours. I know about catch up, but it literally nullified anyone sense of satisfaction from raiding or M+ outside of the mythic raiders, maybe even them to some degree. When everyone is a winner, nobody is one.
Are you talking about the invasions?
@@ThePolarpopFaction Assaults. Got myself the alt recently, and now his ilvl super close to the main (386 vs 378) with 80% of the stuff from those activities, which takes about 20 min at the most. Well, with warmode they fun but that's another story.
I haven't been subbed in a couple months, the assaults really give 370 already? thats nuts
@@Gewsfrahba Yes, 7th Legionnaire's stuff. Literally heroic raiding gear every few hours.
Kreo: don’t exaggerate. It’s every 12 hours and you have to be ilvl 363 to get the 370 gear instead of 355.
Im so old that I played wow in a time when we knew what pieces of gear was called just by seeing it on another player on the Ogrimmar bank roof. And it was awsome!
Talking of the gem slots. Man I miss having that guy on your server you knew would give a good deal on gems. And the thought of I have a purple gem but the blues slightly better... is it worth spend a few grand for that much of an upgrade... maybe not purple will do. I miss JC being relevant and not having a million gems sitting on AH not selling like I do now. Where glyphs were not cosmetic so Inscription was relevant. Where you could make some cash on the saronite set because it was a great set for people to start out their gearing process on.
When you actually cared about your profession. The only one i care about is my engineer because of all the cool tinkers i can put on my belt etc.... those tinkers... are the ones from a previous expansion.
I was the JC guy on my server during Wrath. I had every popular cut and had the currency to buy new ones if someone requested a non-standard one. I made so much gold from tips.
Gemming your character was actually fun as well
Summer 2019 is hopefully going to become a wake-up call to Blizzard.
I am 100% confident that Classic WoW is going to turn out quite the success and numbers are going to stay higher than Blizzard is anticipating right now.
And with this set up, I also hope that the upcoming addon - whatever it may be - is going to go back to the roots that made WoW such a success...
I just love you preach. Hopefully your videos are going to be seen or at least heard!
I remember farming Dragonspine Trophy right until the end of TBC because of how valuable it was. I miss BiS items actually coming from a prior tier of content.
Terminus closest thing recently is probably the Arcano-crystal.
This happened to me in Antorus, I was a fury warrior and needed to farm the Elisande trinket. I didn't particularly enjoy going back to do so, but I think that has more to do with power creeped gear trivializing it and having to pug it instead of farming it with my guild who had moved on.
@@damaldazzar Yea, but I hate the Warforge/Titanforge system with a passion. The grind for an Arcano-Crystal amounted to killing that stupid guy every chance you got with a glimmer of hope that you would,
A.) Get the Crystal
B.) Have it Warforge
C.) Have a Socket
I don't like or care about having all those variables, I used to look forward to every tier where I would get to plan and calculate exactly what gear was my BiS. I could sit there with a checklist and watch as each item fell into my inventory with glee, I don't play the game anymore (Its a dogs breakfast if you ask me) But I've not had that excitement sense the end of MoP which had a warforge system if you were around in those days.
There latest and greatest effort now is to make sure that secondary stats have as little impact as possible on game-play. There were some inadvertent side effect with things like AskMrRobot and the reforge system. But I always wondered why they couldn't have added a little pane or tab to the character sheet that would show your best secondary stats for the current spec your in. Take my Shadow Priest for example, why is it Blizzard couldn't tell people with a little bar how much haste they needed to reach a break-point were your dots tick an extra time? I use to look forward to hitting those breakpoints, I'm not up to date with BFA I'm sure they still exist. But whats the point if you gain much more damage for simply putting on the piece with the most intellect.
I love these long videos so good to hear you get passionate about the game weather it's a rant, chat, or class guides. Please keep it up.
I remember an item I got from a wrath of the lich king heroic dungeon better than I remember an item I got from Mythic Fetid Devourer on my guild's first kill. Yikes.
I remember getting my Shadowmourne as if it was yesterday. I remember pwning noobs in pvp, 1 shooting mobs in the worlds, destroying the dps charts in my heroic dungeons.... aaaaaaaaaaaaand then going back to my hammer and shield because i was my guild main tank... so yeah no raiding for me with Shadowmourne qq.
@@MurdogYT Heck yes. I ran Pit of Saron so many times for the Tyrannical Beheader, but it refused to drop. I got the Battered Hilt for Quel'Delar first. I was okay with that :)
I agree with you Preach. Casual (Non Raiders) players, and making it easier to class balance is what lead to this gear issue.
Funnily enough I cared about a lot of items every tier during legion, tier sets, legendaries, bis stat rings and neck, bis trinkets. Not saying it was a good overall gearing system but I didn’t imagine it could get worse going into bfa
Treads of the Den Mother, leather boots that dropped from trash in BT!
I can't tell you how much I resonate with this video!
After over a decade I still remember these because we were farming trash in BT for gear. Imagine this now lol. They were not BiS but because gear was so hard to come by at the time, it was an upgrade for pretty much all leather wearers and you would stick with those boots for a gazillion bt runs until another pair dropped.
43min video? Asmon gonna Be happy
@Tri-Shake-Atops imagine not being able to have sex 8 years before you were born.
Hey.... It's free real estate.
Preach, I’m so glad you keep putting out these videos. This issue is one of those things that I’ve been vaguely aware of for a long time but never been quite able to put my finger on it. You articulate this point so well. I wish to god Blizzard would listen. Keep up the great work.
LOL nice 380 boots bro I got 390 titanforged Boots of the... uh wait no, Footguards of... that's not it either... umm... well they've got haste and something else on them so that's good, right?
Great videos mike. It takes a while to fully explore and explain all these points, and we appreciate it
Damn a preach video uploaded on Sunday morning 1am? Hell yeah
I know that my fury warrior like ~14 years ago was wearing Dal'rends weapons, but dont ask me wtf my main is wearing today.
From my personal perspective I don't mind the not caring about what boots or belt I have, I think it's ok to have some "filler" slots and some meaningful slots (trinkets, azerite pieces).. That said I also have my share of issues with the current gearing system, it's kind of briefly mentioned in this video but not really expanded upon..
My issue with the gearing system is that content that should be fun becomes irrelevant very quickly, I see a big demand from the non-hardcore players that want the Dungeon experience back, they don't like M+ because of the timer and affixes, just want to do "difficult" dungeons at their own pace. Note that this is not a blow against M+ which I really like but more of an analysis of how the casual content is getting gutted by the free loot.
I was a casual player back in Cata (started playing in cata) and I remember very well that dungeon experience.. The problem is actually not with the current dungeons themselves, M0 actually posts a decent challenge for a group with appropriate item level.. The only difference is that in the past and as a non-raider I would not get random free loot to skyrocket my item level, so the dungeons would remain relatively challenging, as a casual player that was my end-game content and I really enjoyed it back then (well that and random BGs), but right now that content doesn't exist anymore because there's no reason for even casual players to do it.. The free-loot we have now might seem as casual-friendly but it's quite the opposite, it makes the casual content irrelevant.
It's looking even worse in S2 I think, as Preach said at some point in this video, Normal Raid is going to drop 385 item level but even casual players are 380 right now (I am 380 on both of my alts that I don't really play outside the free-loot stuff and the eventual M+), for Uldir we at least had the items capped at 340 (LFR level) before it opened so we are starting at an even higher point right now, which means that the content is going to become irrelevant even quicker.
Back in BC, the heroics were still somewhat dangerous to groups in T5. Yes they were easier than if you were in blues, but you couldn't face roll them. The gear power jumps between teirs was not as high back then as it is now. It wasn't until my group was in mostly T6 that we started doing dungeons without CC just for the extra challenge. Even then our healer was working his butt off and I was having to be hyper active to hold agro on more than 4 mobs at a time(thunder clap only hit 4 targets back then). Even towards the end of the xpac we would still go back and do heroics for badges and just for fun sometimes. Now if we were to do that, our tank could probably solo the heroic by himself. I really dislike M+ for the reason you gave, it is timed. I would like it if it was a system that progressively gets more difficult without the timer.
Man you make some good points, we NEED the RPG back in this MMO, That was what got me into wow, my love for the world and the RPG tag, combine that with MMO and you’ve got my favourite game of all time. It doesn’t feel like Im playing that full game anymore. Thank you for making this video man!
I wish you were the game director.
This is excellent and reminds me of the same feeling of desire and satisfaction I had 15 years ago in RuneScape working towards better gear and levels. Well done Mike!
I still remember getting my first Mail shoulders at level 25 in duskwood after questing through Raven Hill!
@Thatshow ED fuck yeah. I remember when i saw a hunter wearing this fisherman hat the first time i did black fathoms and i wanted it so bad
great vid, so good to have this on the background when you're playing games. more please!
The last time I cared about gear was when I finished my Warmongering Gladiator set for my DK.
One thing I will say though.. the problem Titanforging/Warforging was trying to solve was the exact thing you touched on, which is that once you got your BiS drops from a dungeon, you had no reason to ever go again - which means the people that needed to go still had fewer players to go with as time went on. Now there's always a reason to do almost any instance, you might get an upgrade. Maybe not the best choice but it was trying to solve a problem.
Felpuppy on a stick, cowl of the illidari and skull of guldan best items ever :)
So true, Sir. This is one of the reasons I enjoy pve twinking at 60, 70, and 80. I don't have to farm forever for the perfect piece of gear that procced with a socket, a specific tertiary, and titanforge. I konw what's BiS for my class and level, and that gives me a sense of accomplishment when I actually get something. I would love for WoW to go back to the days of yore, even though that will never happen. Classic cannot come soon enough.
Love your channel and your work, Sir. I've watched you for a LONG time. Thank you so much for everything you do. Cheers mate.
I feel like this has been said thousands if not hundreds of thousands of times before but I cant help but feel like we are talking to a wall because Blizzard just keeps doubling down on the current random loot box system of randomness extravaganza.
I 100% agree that Vanilla and TBC loot system was better, but will Blizzard ever fix the loot system we have now? What will it take to bring the that loot system back? Maybe Classic after its been out a while?
when classic comes out and has five times the player count of BFA maybe it'll send a message.
or maybe they'll just ruin classic too. who knows?
Tanirs was there a solution given? Perhaps I missed it, but the only solution to making gear special again is to make is super rare like it was back in classic.
@@robertp457 doesn't have to be super rare, if there wasn't so many combos of how just each single item is WF, TF, socket, other stats like leech, we could be able to just single out things that are useful.
Multi difficulties can exist still since you can just go for a heroic raid version or if the item is a mythic dungeon push to the highest key you can for the place and try there. There is less confusion when gear is fixed in stats at a specific difficulty level.
I was subbed continuously for 12 1/2 years and cancelled for the first time right before BFA patch, because I had tried it on beta and knew I didn't like what was coming. I agree with what you are saying here, but for me it wasn't only that gear was meaningless, it's that it no longer feels like a story that my character is part of. It's just moving from cutscene to cutscene with no input or reaction on my character's part, and it's not about him anymore. When I was doing my flight quest or stepping into Outland for the first time, it felt like I was experiencing an adventure through his eyes. Now it's some junk about Jaina and trolls that I just can't make myself care about. And it's like you said... I want to care, but I just can't anymore.
I still get excited for gear upgrades. Farming KR 10's for the unique 2h sword was a lot of fun. I'll surely replace it in a few months and be back to farming for a scaled up version of it, but there aren't any other good MMOs to play so might as well.
I just went back to really old games, like Gothic. There you can do meaningful progress on your character. It also has the added bonus of not having any microtransactions, and not requiring an internet connection to play. It's like a gamer's wet dream, apart from looking 16 years old or so.
@@Grenxix I have played both FF XIV and ESO, both are good games to be sure, but both have systems or features Im not really a fan of. FF XIV has amazing character customization, raids, and stories. A great community too. However the combat is god awful leveling up. Friends say it gets better at end game, but I couldnt make the crawl all the way there. Not to mention the instanced zones, while they wont be an issue for most people, arent really my cup of tea.
@@OWnIshiiTrolling I own Gothic 3 and Risen, loved those games and they were very rewarding to play through. However I haven't felt compelled to go back and play through them again
@@TheGoombles I only played Gothic 3 for about an hour. I can really recommend getting the first, and then the second one. The second one is really good, if you can get past the attack of the killer pixels that that old games tend to throw at you.
Its in videos like this that i stop and realise why i loved your videos ever since the tbc pvp vids. You have a knack for delivering your message in such a great way,i dont have the vocabulary to really express what i mean,but this video was great,on point,and real. Bis vid.
Nothing better to listen to while writing or doing homework. 43 minutes too, wonderful!
Damn Preach! You nailed it with expertice! 10/10 video.
They had a great opportunity to make people care about their gear with Azeroth armor, if only the traits were actually interesting
And if there weren't a million pieces of the stuff.
This might become a long comment but here we go. Gear that I remember:
Pillars of Might - Plate leggings in wotlk, took a while to farm mats and then to find a crafter for those, but when I finally got em, was a good feeling. I started in wrath and was a total noob but still could get some nice epics just by farming ore and elementals in Wintergrasp. You also had to buy primordial saronite from AH.
(referring to Sanguicells being soulbound)
Mirrored Boots - Plate boots in cata, Firelands crafted gear. Didn't have any good tanking boots before those, think those had parry in them.
Shard of Torment - Baleroc shield, got it on our first heroic kill I think, still had the crafted 359 shield and to upgrade that to 391 shield felt pretty good.
Calestraza's Will - Tanking neclace from Sinestra. Didn't ever kill her myself when it was current content, but it was awesome tanking neck of 379 ilvl, so it was better that FL normal gear.
Unerring Vision of Lei Shen - Played lock back then and demo was popping off with this trinket and ToT set bonuses.
After ToT nothing too memorable comes into mind. That also when the gear forging begun. Coincidence?
WoW's problem today is that there's pretty much nothing in the game that is actually meaningful. There's a lots of minigames, like secrets, mounts, pets, tmog, toys and achi points. These might provide you some additional content, but core of the game is making your character stronger = getting gear. That has been the main hamsterwheel of the game always and that's what used to keep us playing. Why xpac launches are always good times? Because it's a ladder reset and your goal is to get geared up.
And why doesn't gear matter anymore? This video made a lot of good points, gonna add one more thing to this. Like Mike you said, it's an illusion of progress. Even if you're to most casual player, you still like getting gear I assume. But even if u get a nice titanforge, does it actually make you stronger? No it doesn't because the WORLD SCALES WITH YOUR ILVL. To me atleast it FEELS that world quests take just as long with 390 gear as they did with 330. They have said that you should feel stronger, but no, I do not feel it.
Game devs have decided that a single wq should take around x time to complete for both of you even if you have 50 ilvls more than the other guy. Mindset of not being too far ahead or too far behind is part of the problem. This ties also to GCD changes but not gonna start writing about that here.
To casual player the gear you're wearing doesn't matter because it doesn't make you stronger relatively to the content you're doing. To raider also it doesn't really matter, u might sim a bit higher but that's about it. Well yeah ofc it matters when you're progressing new raid but after that it's meaningless. To PvP'ers it doesn't matter because of stat templates. So basically, numbers go up but relatively you're not getting any stronger.
And then there's AP. it's actually meaningless to 100% of the playerbase. Unless you're in WF race, you shouldn't really care about your neck level. And even to these WF contenders, most likely neck level will not matter in the end. Below that, if you're in a cutting edge guild, getting dps traits unlocked is so easy that essentially AP is meaningless. Then the rest of the playerbase, I can't imagine any situation where someone could actually care about neck level.
The 2 new main features (IE's and warfronts) in BfA are build around systems that nobody cares (AP and gear), because the game doesn't give you reasons to care for it. That's why people aren't playing. There's so big potential playerbase but I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens in next xpac.
Gurthalak with Bone-Link fetish
i remember my friend was a ret pally with gurthalak/bonelink and he popped wings, zealotry, and guardian and 3 tentacles procced right away and he instakilled an enemy healer in arena. it was fucking awesome, i loved the deathwing weapons.
Well illustrated point Preach; I couldn't name any gear that I have on any of my characters. I miss the days of BC where you had hit and defense targets and gear got you there. Achievable, finite goals; and the game never ended once you achieved them.
This is where a revolution starts. From an idea bigger than an individual. From a passion bigger than its community.
Is Blizzard listening? Let's make them.
I remember feeling this exact way during legion. Yeah, like I remember feeling overwhelmed by the legendary flood. I remember finally getting my first legendary, months into the game and I was so excited because I’ve never had a legendary item!!!! Went into guild chat, no one gave a fuck. No one gave a fuck about it. I felt crushed, because I remember this, I remember when people got excited over the specific piece of gear you got. I didn’t need to go to a website to know it was good, my guildies knew the item and knew it was good, the excitement felt great and it made the item more cherished.
My main concern with progression is that the catchup mechanics are too quick. The moment a new raid tier comes out it makes the last one obsolete. Even if you're not raiding the ilvl rewards from world quests increase to the point where it's not even necessary to do that last raid anymore. This makes the progression into a flat line. Just do the newest content because the older stuff doesn't matter.
it'd be nice if gear progression removed lfr or limited the titanforge to be still 5 to 10 ilvl than lfr and gave natural progression through doing normal raids and didnt' make the new tier step on the olds tooo much.
im sad im crying... thanks Preach for opening my eyes every video
love the vid preach I just want my rpg back in my mmo thx bliz
I had a pretty solid discussion with an old WoW friend about this last night! A line I dropped on him was “The moment I got hooked into a decade of subs was during Season 3 in TBC when after grinding out a full S2 set on my Warlock I ran into a full S3 geared Warrior in WSG. He smashed my fucking head in and every time this happened I got more and more driven to get good and get gear”
Name 5 items that I'm wearing? Oh, that's easy.
1. Haste+Crit Ring.
2. Haste+Crit Bracers.
3. Haste+Crit Boots.
4. Haste+Crit Belt.
5. Haste+Crit Gloves.
Checkmate, haters. #debunked
this has to be sarcasm right?
Nice video preach. It reminded me back in TBC I was in a fairly mediocre guild(full cleared bt right before wotlk pre patch popped making everything super easy), and I was asked at the beginning of the expansion to go from druid healing, to druid tank. I took the role very seriously, and while I was treated as the 3rd/extra tank for everything except gruul(and thus didn't have immediate priority on gear), I was able to put in more effort than others in my guild and results showed. I farmed for a solid week PRIMALS(if you remember those terrible things) for money, and also for the pattern for a belt that dropped for LW in SSC. It was BIS up until BT, and I paid exorbitant amounts of gold and my time to get said belt made by a top guild in my server as my guild could not provide said materials or recipe at the time. This type of behavior made me not only care immensely about my class, but also about how I played.
I continued to play all the way to early cata(wotlk was great, went dps cat and loved it), my prior guild imploded and I had lost much of my motivation to continue on my druid, and I re rolled into a warrior and then quit after a brief time playing. Came back in wod as I was excited for legion, re-rolled into a dk, leveled up other classes to max because of what I saw in your videos and others for how classes were looking at the start of legion. Finished legion not really raiding hard core, just enjoying the overall game play of certain classes(main frost dk/brew monk/surv hunter), and had hopes BFA would try to continue the trend. I've stopped really playing at all in the last 3 weeks. This is for a variety of reasons, but this video reminded me even when I came back in wod for legion, I never experienced the same thing I did as when I was a kid playing vanilla into tbc, and making it into a raiding guild, and to be responsible for my class and my gear.
And you are right I can remember some of the biggest gear benchmarks for my class at the time: Strength of the Clefhoof set, Terestrian's strangle staff, earth warden, badge of tenacity(shit would never drop at first), moroes lucky pocket watch. Even the later stuff that came with badges like idol of terror, or from the sunwell dungeon dropping commendation of kael'thas. Good times man
Step 1: build a wall
Step 2: make wow great again
This might be the best argumentation for what's wrong with the loot i've ever seen, and best video in general. Well fucking done
Gear in World of Warcraft has become an afterthought for Blizzard. They have become lazy and bored with their own game. People like to put the blame on Activision and try to convince themselves that things would improve drastically if Blizzard were able to rid themselves of Activision, but it was Blizzard themselves who made these poor design decisions. Just face it... Blizzard sucks now, no matter the publisher. This is why I think World of Warcraft is beyond saving. They probably won't even be able to correctly bring back Vanilla. This company has become a joke, a meme, an embarassment.
My god, I think you're really hit the nail on the head Preach. I've been mega casual for a couple years now... I used to absolutely go nuts for getting Bracers of Might in vanilla. Now I just don't care at all about any item.
Also: Transmog. Transmog needs to die*. The aesthetic of an upgrade is half of the drive to get it. That's _why_ I cared when I got Obsidian Edged Blade on my warrior. Running through early vanilla PVP, people ran when then saw it coming. They saw it and knew it would hurt. I saw it and felt like a badass.
*be taken off of current gear and instead each player could have a set of un-statted Tmog gear that they can mog.
TBC was the only expansion(along with vanilla) with continual growth of subscribers. I think that speaks for itself.
And all that time, during the growth, people complain about accessibility and similar, then Blizzard gives it to them and the game starts declining in subscribers the very next xpac, and Blizzards response is to make the game even more accessable in all future xpacs..
Well done on the speech. Sunwell was the pinnacle of my raiding experience as one of the top guilds on my server competing and subsequently getting stuck on Mu'ru, lol. I LOVED the concept of having so many tier pieces to mix and match but still retain the 4pc. Why hasn't Blizz taken this concept with them as the years have gone by? I played a paladin and transitioned from holy to ret during BT with the full switch in Sunwell. I have such fond memories of BC in general that outside of Classic (I started playing right after patch 1.9) nothing else really compares. The game was so full of life, people were PROUD of their servers, communities and bonds were forged in the crucibles of battle, I miss it. That's a real big reason why after the end of the Legion (damn, I can't even remember the boss, it was very forgettable) I quit and honestly haven't missed not playing. I enjoy watching videos of people playing and discussing the game but I doubt I'll feel motivated enough to come back and play. Thanks @Preachgaming for continuing to give this veteran of the game entertainment and updates of the franchise I loved since WC1.
Sounds like the loot monster is Exodia
Callum Smith underrated comment
@@WWFAttitudeEraFreak thanks my dude.. underrated name aswell
I've been shouting and screaming about this since wrath....
In BC my main was in hyjal/BT and my alt was doing kara/magtheridon/gruul. Even after the top guilds were already clearing hyjal/BT more casual guilds were progressing gruul and then ssc/tk. ALL of the content remained relevant the WHOLE expansion. To me the best point you made is "what are you catching up to?"
And I can still remember almost my whole gear set from 12 years ago in BC! Memento of Tyrande (trinket from illidan) I was SOOO excited about. I had the apostle of argus from Archimonde and the tier 6 was so exciting! I remember other people's gear from 12 years ago - the bulwark of azzinoth, and the new zinroth 2H from ZA come to mind. Meanwhile I can not tell you the name of a single item my character is wearing right this instant.
Edit: Another point about this without transmog and without gearscore/ilevel(on character screen) you knew how progressed somebody was just looking at them. I distinctly remember people cheering in AV *before the game started* because we had a bulwark of azzinoth or felmyst shield tank. Or you'd see a rogue with glaives in WSG and everybody was gushing. Or you start a dungeon and your healer has T6 and you could just look at their character to see they were accomplished players. That is also gone now.
So, realtalk, as a guy who rocked through the intro weeks of BfA, got to Ghuun, then just quit because of guild strife to get a real-world break... It is just not worth it to get back into the game right now, is it?
Nope
I quit and now playing monster hunter. Soon I will be playing RE2 remake. Do yourself a favor and stay away from BFA.
People said this since the start of Wrath. Totalbiscuit predicted it in TBC. Its so god damn crazy and frustrating that Blizzard cant figure this out. This video is ,as always, great. Spot on with the points and great examples and perspectives and the RPG elements comment is so damn true. How many videos like this do we need before the developers can get off their arses and return to the state of the game that is quite frankly, the foundation of RPG gearing.
Stats don't mean anything anymore only ilvl is what matters. So Blizzard might as well remove all stats from gear and just keep ilvl and it would be the same.
Thank you for putting my thoughts into words! Nobody cares about gear items anymore so there is no excitement doing content and hoping for certain drops. That excitement was the core thrill of vanilla/TBC/etc.
Whatever you do, don't cross the streams! That would be "bad".
I LOVE long discussion videos like this preach!
I think that's one of the biggest issues with the game: Gear is the main focus. A major problem with this is that it can render content obsolete once better gear can be obtained from new content. For example, there's zero reason to go back into Nighthold for gear (excluding transmog). All that time and energy the devs put into Nighthold content is now largely irrelevant (since the gear is largely irrelevant). Another issue with gear being the main focus is that if the gear isn't something you want, it undermines your feeling of accomplishment. For example, if you kill a boss because you want a cool item, and it doesn't drop, you're likely going to be upset.
I'd much rather the game revolved around doing content and getting items that look cool rather than items that fundamentally change the way I play the game. This way, I could play the game however I want without having to worry about how I'm going to get the gear to facilitate that wish. For example, instead of having to do mindless WQs all day to get my neck ready for mythic prog, I could level an alt, pvp, etc. And after doing mythic prog, I wouldn't need to log on every week to reclear the same content for months, praying for upgrades that'll only get replaced. They need to break this horrible wheel!
edit: it's also dumb that gear defines the performance of a player. You hit the lottery and have sockets/TF on the majority of your gear? Grats, you'll do more damage than your peers (i.e., those who participate in the same level of content).
You're absolutely right about the catch up mechanic being the gearing process.
In guild wars 2 my leggo i got and invested lots of time in 3 years ago is still my best item ponder on that for a sec
As a current mythic wow raider whos never played gw2, this worries me deeply.
GW2 was specifically designed not to be a treadmill game
well fellow mythic raider you can give it a shake first game is free now i believe graphics showing its age a bit but that game actually feels like a MMORPG unlike wow since it stopped being an RPG around Lich king days.
Its important to note while i am in a sort of semi hard core ish guild (5/8M) basically i play Gw2 very casually and it gives me a feeling like classic wow and TBC gave me wide expansive zones always with something to do something to explore i never feel rushed to get to end game i just play and derp around and take it at my own pace there is no unseen hand telling you what to do in the game you just do w/e and i love it
on the note of leggos you craft yours its a long and sometimes tedious process that requires map exploration gathering mats and a WHOLE bunch of shit BUT the pay off at the end is massive and that weapon is with you forever you can even make leggos to sell pay off is big there too LITERALLY. Also despite its aging graphics cosmetics in that game kind of shits on wow particularly the legendaries.
the best thing about guild wars is the world content, everything else is kinda dudu
I feel this has been an irl issue lately as well.
Back in the day I’d spot some Nikes or some Pumas and think “man, if I had those I’d be set for a year or two!”. Nowadays kids rock those Converse, Nikes, Adidas, etc, just for different social events. Bloody tmog almost.
Member when the iPhone 2 came out? It was simply the iPhone 2, not the iPhone X*** (*= XS Plus, titanforged storage, rare option colour case, etc).
Nokia did coloured cases but you could simply buy the new colour you’d like and clip it instead of the old one on the phone, with that satisfying click, kinda like enchants or gems, rather than buying a whole new drop for a bloody colour.
Even Legion felt a bit like Beats of Elune, Yeezbringer - instantly recognizable brand, ultimately disposable item, a year or two down the road, but that goes with the xpac territory.
Oh boy, i tht the picture of thr video was you and not marshmellow man and I feel so sorry for it now..
I DIDNT EVEN NOTICE AHAHAHAHA, oh nooooooo
I like that you pointed out that badge gear didn't fill every slot. It gives you SOME gear as a baseline. After you were done with the dungeons and raids, you could work on your shatt reps for some other gear slots or farm money to buy some profession pieces. Professions were something you could work on too. Upgrading the weapons and such. So many ways to go for longer lasting, meaningful gear. Remember how long some people held on to Hand of Justice from BRD? I miss being proud of items. Transmog kinda hurts too. Seeing Bulwark meant something back then.
Asmon BALD
Well said. This was an absolutely fantastic video. Thank you for taking the time to state all this. Damn near 100% how I have been feeling since Legion. I loved 99% of Legion except for WF/TF/Legos which destroyed the game for me. I would love more of these kinds of videos, the lengthy long discussions.
This is gonna get some hate, but i miss the Legendary system from legion.
The horrible rng of it through most of it was the issue, many of the effects were very fun and interesting
The acquisition of them was retarded, but the items were fun amd recognizable. Way better than bfa
Pray and hope classic gives retail devs some inspiration
I do too. Would farm +15's and clear the outdated raids because there was always the chance I would get the best one for my spec. Not really a reason for me to do more than one key a week anymore, and I probably wont go back to Uldir once its over.
"Things nobody though one would say one day."
I miss the incentive it gave me to play much more content, no matter how pathetic that sounds
I remember at the beginning of Crusade, seeing people with purple gear, and it was a HUGE big deal. I felt nervous just standing my little newbie characters next to them, cos those guys had seen some shit. They must have, cos they had PURPLE gear. And if you were lucky enough to get some drop, you didn't just sell it. You hung on to it. You valued it, cos it meant something. And it's not just nostalgia. That kind of caring gave the game heart. These days, too much of it feels like a chore, and that's sad. tldr: video liked
Gear is a horrible "motivator". Rewards in general should NOT be needed to engage in content.
I've replayed MANY games that offer absolutely no new rewards on subsequent playthroughs simply because I had FUN with them.
Even other MMOs like GW1, GW2 and ESO are amazingly fun and successful when their gearing is very basic and honestly de-emphasized.
Vanilla was loved because it was an RPG. Items were interesting and memorable (ask any warrior about SM 2H axe). Now we have none of this. Just pure stat sticks that are absolutely meaningless.
Vanilla was pretty much simpler statsticks since most gear had stam and 2nd primary. There are outliers we remember but they were not the norm.
tbc loot, elemental shaman weapon
1)dagger from prince on kara
2)mace from hyjal trash
3)alternatively from black temple some boss had mace
4)sunwell
yeah swapping gear every raid.
elemental totem? boj and then black temple, thats it.
Hell what about melee weapons? you like enh right? dragonstrike which you could maybe swap on sunwell. What do you mean you didnt have blacksmithing? go get it.
WoW items are boring. They contain just some stats and if there is an item with a special effect (stat/attack or visual effect) its some minor shit which no one really cares about.
Also, most of the time, the slightly more interesting proc or on use effect loses to just having more stats because of how abilities scale with them.
I agree, TBC had the best gearing system of wow. Nothing felt unachievable to get eventually, but it did need a lot of work and the effort put into it to fully maximize your characters potential through gearing. Now, why should i care about gear that much when i just slap the highest item level on and i can't go wrong that much ? I get a worse secondary stat boohoo, and also i can do multiple roles with that gear....
Well flippen said! Thank you for the thoughtful discussion. I remember my first and only piece of tier 2 gear.. I almost died of happiness :D
I remember my first epic and I remember most of the gear I used throughout my level 60 raiding life.
I don't have a single clue what the names of the pieces of my gear are right now, except the neck...
But I desperately want to.
I still remember leveling my second character, a Dwarf warrior, in Duskwood in vanilla, and getting the blue axe Killmain from a mob. I used that all the way through level 40's even tho i am pretty sure i could have replaced it, just because it was such a big moment in the game for me.
Really miss actually being positive about getting items instead of going "crap i got warforge and not titanforge, better luck next time"
I have a friend who healed in Legion. He wanted the [Amalgam's Seventh Spine] from BRH so bad, because he felt like it was unique and important to him. He ran BRH M+ over 50 times before getting it. It didn't matter to him that he ran the dungeon over and over again. He was so excited to get it. And he finally did. Remembers the name to this day. The only thing bringing his experience down was the shadow of possible war/titanforging.
I could type out an essay on this, but I'll limit myself to one point. A lot of what you argue for around the 29min mark is simplicity in choice - the ability to spot a BIS item instead of the myriad of choices that don't matter that we currently have.
One of the main reasons we're IN this situation is Blizzard listening to that exact feedback - a request for simplicity and no need to sim - you can (usually) tell if an item is an upgrade based on ilvl (excluding sockets), or if you make a mistake it's rare for it to be a huge difference.
That is why Ilvl is king, that's why a lot of secondary stats were removed, that's why haste/hit caps, and interesting stats are more or less nonexistant.
Back in prior expansions I cared a lot about my BIS list BECAUSE it was perfectly tailored to meet hit caps and haste caps, often custom tailored to do that WHILE omitting the last boss or two in a raid, since personally a BIS list that includes the last bosses drops is pointless to me.
I agree with you on a lot, but just be aware of how we got into this situation - a lot of it was people asking for simplicity and this was how it was delivered.
Best video to date. You have hit the nail on the head with this one.
the last two pieces of gear i remember caring about were from mop and wod respectively. first was the sha touched staff when i was playing a warlock, and it was the first time I ever had the best weapon my class could get, as i started playing in late cata and never got the best weapon from DS. Jin'ya orb of the waterspeaker was the name.
next item I really truly cared about was the soul capacitor from socrethar in HFC. i was an enh shaman and using that trinket was some of the most of fun I have ever had playing this game. I still bust it out whenever i run twing just to relive some of the glory of using it full time.
oh and i cannot name 5 items on my current main
I think one of my best memories in terms of gearing was the fact that I could forge my two handed mace from Blacksmithing - Thunder and then progress it through the whole expansion to Deep Thunder and finally Stormherald. I think it was relevant until Black Temple when I got Torch of the Damned from there. Really great feeling and progression system also. I was very disappointed when I realised in WotLK that progressing through your profession is kinda thing of the past.
Soooooo incredibly true. I knew which bosses in Kara and ssc dropped my rogue's gear, and I knew the names of the items specifically. Nowadays, it's just "hold shift. Compare item level. Equip it if it's better. Move on and replace them next time I see a higher number." I miss caring about gear and wanting specific gear.
You are sooo right. After watching this vid I now totally agree with you. I want to give a shit about gear. I want to remember the name of items I once cared about. I still on the fence about deciding if I play classic wow casually or if I should drop BFA and go full hardcore classic. Now after watching this vid I am leaning a lot more on dropping BFA and going back to Vanilla wow where there are no transmogs and you could tell just by looking at other players what kind of player they were by what gear they had equip. Great vid Mike Keep preaching the good news!
Just the thing to care about the gear