Honestly, I'm not quite following the concept of "risk" as it has been expressed on this thread either, since as you said you don't lose anything from failing... other than I guess wasted time. Which isn't really a risk... we're playing a video game, I hope no one clicks "play" thinking they're about to do something productive! The problem I think is how flat the gear tiers are in terms of total overall upward mobility in player potential, attainable through gear. There are a few must-have item procs, almost all of which is easily obtainable through advanced solos, and then... tiny upgrades that really amount to very little, with the exception of a couple class cloaks which are unreal. (Rabbit trail warning!)But the cloaks don't seem to use any form of smart-loot so the likelihood of actually getting the cloak for your class to drop in a group or solo is next to nil, meaning they're just lining SLR botters' pockets.(End of rabbit trail) As you said, normally the rate of a given guild's raid progression is essentially limited by a combination of gear and skill level. The rate of gear acquisition is "hard capped" by lockout timers, but is also limited by a guild's time management skills and their capacity to move quickly through farm-status encounters. These are the long-term challenges that keep people coming back and having fun as they work through raid content. Of course the skill level challenge comes into play when that guild tackles new fights, where each person needs to play their part to figure out the fight and meet whatever checks and challenges are required to defeat it. Of course, the higher the guild's collective skill level, the more they will be able to manage with less to work with in terms of gear. But this expansion has largely done away with any significant gear progression... meaning the limiting factor on progression for a reasonably skilled raid force was basically how many hours they spent raiding during the first two weeks after launch. Without a gear curve of some kind, you can't really create the kind of slow but steady progress through content that keeps raiding fun and challenging for the long haul. Gear represents a character's maximum "potential" while skill represents the degree to which the player can actually realize that potential. A raid force's collective skill level doesn't really evolve as the expansion progresses - the way their gear score could with good itemization. This is why player skill won't work as the primary metric for raid progression, with very little growth in potential from gear upgrades(which I believe is the assertion of Koko's that you referenced). Maybe more importantly, a well-implemented gear curve is how you could allow very casual raid forces to continually progress through more content, by eventually trivializing complicated fights with gear to the point where they can do it even with strat-challenged players and time constraints. tl:dr with a smart gear curve, everybody sees progress, which is a win. With ToT itemization... SLR botters win.
Risk vs reward is just a saying this is about the why!, There are more than one reason to raid as I have said numerous times people play runs zones like AS, group or raid zones to improve their toon. They do it for loot, Sure progression is great but once you have done the zone and 99% of the gear is muted or salvaged there is a fundamental flaw where raiders have no reason to do it again as its pointless.What drives raiders to go over and over a raid zone is the gear so they can progress further on harder mobs this is broken! So unless they give better rewards people just don't log in. Those that don't raid and are commenting are diluting the message raiders are trying to provide. Sadly nothing is going to be done as gamebreak wont look at anything until after the new year. Slow to react and slow to actually realise this is a big issue. We are not talking about 10 raiding guilds we are talking about all guilds that raid , even casual ones that want to waste there time killing stuff that gives you nothing once killed, your better off running keys quests together! All 24 holding hands.
Risk is used to describe difficulty rather than loosing something if you fail. Effort should probably be used instead. It takes more effort to coordinate more people to clear content. Solo takes less effort and time than grouping, that takes less effort and time than raiding. Therefore time and effort needs to be rewarded with better gear. Otherwise what's the point of putting in extra time and effort for similar rewards of solo content. You can't use the excuse of raiding for the accomplishments, because after you've killed it once, that satisfaction stops.
Oh my god!! Can you imagine a warlock form last expac with two Lacerators? That would have been crazy nasty-hello!! Warlocks should get like three freakin Lacerator procs, and spend only one AA point to do so. As a tyrant, there's nothing that I love more than a power imbalance.
They could equip 3 lacerator procs right now. There's a secondary that's priest/mage only with early advantage and there's a wand with early advantage!
Bingo. Gear growth is directly proportional to longevity. Even if you implemented the most grindy system you can imagine no one would ride it for long if the upgrades weren't significant. Unfortunately, thanks entirely to the gear crunch, content has been almost entirely cleared across all playstyles so any hope of longevity waved 'bye bye' before beta. Outside of adding about 10 new encounters with an entirely different, more significant gear growth by the end of January the only way to salvage raiding at this point would be to make the rewards we are already getting better using the guidelines previously laid out. I just outlined a completely reasonable, low cost solution several times. Leave solo and heroic gear and content untouched, boost raid gear by some set percentages. If casuals are 'unsettled' by both content and gear remaining untouched in the xpac that is ALREADY casual friendly BY YOUR DEFINITION, by upward boosting raid gear then that is casuals causing a problem, not raiders. Seriously, what kind of sad, sick individual would only be happy if others are made to be unsatisfied? Do you seriously condone design decisions to satisfy sadists? Insisting raid gear be marginally better when casuals have no part in it either way is the definition of being unreasonable. If one 'side' is casuals not wanting raiders to be powerful when it would have nothing to do with them, then no, they shouldn't be appeased. Ever. Anywhere in game. Probably not in RL either since they probably got some screwed up morals there too if this is any indication. Raiders getting too 'op?' Duoing heroics? trivializing most of the content in all styles? Those ships have sailed, and even non-raiding, heroic centered players are on them. Its like worrying about a hangnail on a severed finger. Might have been nice if you got to it earlier but fretting about it now is a complete waste of time. I'm not here to theorycraft, daydream about what has or could have been. I am here to solve the problem of terrible raiding in ToT. I would HOPE the devs are as well.
Unfortunately, since the reason for a gear curve is to put a top end on how fast people can progress through content... in that regard it's already too late as the entire expansion's raid content is pretty well done. Any adjustment to raid equipment at this point would probably necessitate a total re-balancing of the encounters as well since we're already walking all over them as it is. Honestly I think the only way to salvage it at this point is a new raid content push with better itemization... which is obviously not going to happen.
Of course. I was talking more along the lines of making what we already have more rewarding. To salvage raiding in general a new large content push would be needed. I'm talking about salvaging what we have now, and with minimal effort, compared to all new content any way. Plus if the loot was better it would establish the larger 'gaps' needed to properly allow for better paced progression through content for what ever they do end up adding. When talking about new content entirely like encounters and loot then I would expect something MUCH more than simple percentage boosts and 'tiering' of already existing effects and I'm talking about that 'raid gear only good in raids' garbage.
At this point, if a dev DID pop in and say something, people would be on it like sharks on chum, tearing it to bits, and willfully misconstruing everything that was said. There's a bug ticket open for it (scroll up to find the link). Go upvote it.
Exactly my point - that I'm not exactly understanding the what and the why being argued here (in many cases). If you had better gear, how would that make the game more fun? How would making easier content even easier be more compelling? Just what experience, exactly, are people paying DBG to provide them? To say that non-raiders commenting on this thread are making it difficult for the developers to take it seriously is just silly, because it is the logical flaws that will and might be doing it, and in fact, my argument for the heroic side of the of the game is no different in substance than the raiding one, just a different form: Given the current itemization scheme, the content is too easy, and therefore, not very interesting. No uplifting of raiding end-game gear will change this. How long will it take for peeps to get bored face rolling mobs and meander off to spend their time doing other things? In my opinion, the raid gear problem is not the core issue. The core issue is the current itemization scheme has made what are supposed to be challenging encounters very easy ones.
If you can do something quick and easy for guarnteed gear or something long and complicated (whether it is hard or not) for merely at CHANCE at gear which are you more likely to do? Right now the difference between solo, heroic raid gear is so small, that the extra time and effort is no worth it. Example for solo/heroic/raid gear stats: primary stat: 380/395/418, cb 30/30/30 pot 33/34.6/38.1 When it takes a whole raid to kill 3-4 bosses for a total of 6-10 peices of gear that are so little better stat-wise then even solo gear (and that's not even going into some of the horrible procs), time invested isn't worth the 'reward', especially when a person or two not paying attention can still wipe the raid, even on easy fights. The group I'm raiding that is nowhere near top end, we're not fully decked out in raid (or even heroic) gear and, still, some of the raid drops are so bad nobody wants them.
This is partly true. Gear being so crunched together made it impossible to make any sort of 'gear check' progression impossible so its purely scripts at the moment. But everyone likes new toys and there are some fights which, while killable, I don't see going any faster since there are no real gear/power upgrades. Especially considering people are already using lots of group/raid boosting effects which result in stat boosts higher than anything else. Meaning if fights were long or slow when they were first killed they will continue to be no matter how much gear is dropped since none of it boosts player power significantly. Much like being able to get better gear to run through heroics faster (raiders are already melting them) its also nice to get upgrades to go through raid farm kills faster. Just another reason in the long list of reasons why raiders like bigger upgrades. I think the only upside to this whole thing is people can better understand just how many benefits there are to getting 'better gear' through contrast. With ToT's crunched and generic itemization we have no new fun toys, no real raid or heroic progression, no sense of growth through faster or new kills, and ultimately new real drive to repeatedly do raid content. Farm status is too good a title for most of these raid encounters. lol I certainly hope not. This is such a hot button issue with people extremely upset, aggravated at us and displeased with the game so lets not even respond to it. GENIUS If they hold that bug tracker in higher esteem or authority over the official forums that would be a mistake to say the least. Another excellent point. Just browsing through disco'd items is more than enough to depress anyone who desires to raid. Considering most raid encounters have been killed multiple times there is very little hope for 'undiscovered awesome loot' unless its all on the contested, last mob of xpac and the maldura vendor.
Over the last 2 weeks we have seen some of our raiders loose interest sure xmas is coming but this is not a good sign.
Talking about the secondary, not the myth range. \aITEM -1131891416 958174684:Symbol of the Chameleon\/a Judging by the name, disco-date/time, and only one person disco'd it. I'd think that it comes from Polliwog, the frog in the KP raid zone.
Have to say I'm very disappointed with the leather armor this expansion. Brawlers get their separate armor, which only useable by them, and the rest of the leather wearers can chose from 2 types, one with max hp & mit and the other without. As a channeler main i would rather like to have a set that has max hp but no mit, and some other useful stat instead of the mit. Ok, some of the armor have it, but certain pieces don't , and it is just really seemed like all messed up to me, if brawlers have their own armor then why the regular leather have to have mit on them ?? Last tier all leather was awesome imo, and i even had a dps set, now it just seems all messed up
