Hmmm, most of the epic crafted stuff stays good in comparsion to the raid items (but not so uber-great as now) and blizz already said that they will buff PvP-Items to the same level as the comparable raid epics.

Imo the most important patch so far.
 

Everyone keeps talking about the next expansion taking us from level 70 to 80. I think it's way too early to assume that.

It could just add new areas, one new class for each realm, and some different PvP options.
 

i like it for the whopping 2 epix i have now. i actually feel good about ditching some blues for epix now.
 

Blizzard is not just upgrading raid epics, they are upgrading everything, including epics bought with Badges and reputation reward epics.

Of course, not all items receive the same benefit. But you have to admit that the rewards do not currently scale enough when compared to the scaling of difficulty. For example, the Tirisfal (mage tier 5) set has 11 spell damage more than Aldor (mage tier 4). Using an extra potion can benefit you more than several pieces of new gear. Bleeding edge raiding is extremely dependant on consumables because it's currently the only viable way of significantly improving your performance.
 

It'll be interesting to see how this compares to LotRO in the end game. Right now, I'm not really worried about the 'bread', the game is where all the fun is. I saw a level forty-odd character the other day, and they had a big shiny one-handed axe, but it wasn't obviously epic in nature, it just looked a little more chunky than the axes my level ten character was wielding at the time; it certainly didn't have a host of angels flying around the haft or eclipse the sun every time it was wielded in anger.

It'll be interesting to see whether the licensed world that Turbine is restricted to in some ways will reduce the EPIX factor that items have, I'm certainly hoping that characters won't be running around in shoulder pads that you could use as the top deck of any modern US aircraft carrier.

Will that then mean there's less insensitive to raid, or will having uber stats be enough? Will Turbine cave-in and go all [PURPLE] to keep the e-peen brigade happy?

I hope not. I mean, look to the books for an example: Gandalf fought a Balrog, dinged his Epic Prestige Class shortly afterwards ("OMG SOLO'd BALROG IT WUZ EASY", "NERF TEH ISTARI!!1"), and all he got gear-wise was to change his robe and beard from grey to off-white...
 

I really don't see why everyone has to be at the same equipment level. If you go on raids and defeat the high-end content, you will get better equipment, so why negate this with the expansion?

You end up with the raiders completing the new content quicker, because they are more powerful, but that means they get to the raiding content quicker and start raiding again, which is probably what they want, leaving the casual gamer to get on with exploring and completing quests. The casual gamer also probably won't care, because the new quests and instances will provide incrementally better equipment, much as it was before.

As it stands, one of the first quest rewards I got for a character was a wand unarguably more powerful than Stormrage, which took a mini 15-man raid to acquire after a long quest chain. I think that's absurd, and it negates going in to any level 60 instance, effectively throwing away all that content that players simply have no motivation to see any more. This is what the 'balancing' did for Azeroth.

So what's the big deal about players having differing equipment levels with the introduction of an expansion? There are already players equipped in purples running around with others in greens, so there is an equipment imbalance at the moment. Why the need to 'balance' this?
 

@Melmoth. That's because he had to corpse run back to Valinor, and got a stat boost from the Valar.

Only reason in WOW to gain rep is for access to Heroic dungeons/raids, because let's face it, the gear currently available for reputation is pretty rubbish.

Colour of items seems to matter more than their actual worth. Gems make me laugh at the moment. You can buy a +7 spell damage gem for say 2 gold 50, and yet a +9 spell damage gem will set you back 90 gold.
Is +2 spell damage really worth 88 gold? I don't think so.
 

@chu-chu

if you divide the playerbase on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is our stereo-type casual is, and on the 10 our stereo-type hardcore raider.
my estimate is that only 1 and 10 know what they are, the rest in between are, well, in between.
some tend to casual, some tend to hardcore, but they have one thing in common, they want to have the best of the best, because each of them actually thinks they put enough effort into the game to earn the stuff.
 

I'm not sure that the next expansion will take us to level 80. But I'm pretty sure that level 70 isn't the end. *Some* expansion of the future will raise the cap further.

And when I say you need to raise everybody to the same equipment level, I mean of course in that level-raising expansion. Just like BC handed out green quest rewards that beat previous epics, and thus leveled the playing field, the next time an expansions ups the cap Blizzard will have to do the same. If your raid gear from this expansion is still the best thing you can get in the next expansion, then why would you bother to buy the next expansion? It only has circenses, and no panem.
 

Will they ever do anything with all of the unfinished areas in azeroth... that is the question.
 

If your raid gear from this expansion is still the best thing you can get in the next expansion ...

But pre-BC raid gear doesn't have to be replaced by quest reward greens immediately!

To me, the loot progression was: random world drops, quest rewards, instance BoPs. This was constant from 1 to 60, and continued through the 5-man, 10-man, 15-man, 20-man, 40-man content. The loot got incrementally better all the time, whether it was a quest reward replacing a green world drop, or a boss drop replacing a quest reward, or by a world drop replacing a BoP from 5 levels ago.

I still don't understand why green quest rewards, or world drops, had to be as good as epics from Molten Core or better. To 'level the playing field'? I don't know what that means. Anyone who hadn't been in instances could continue to the Outlands and find new world drops or quest rewards that better their old quest rewards. Those who hit the instances and got Tier 0 equipment can hit the new instances and get better BoPs or blue quest rewards. Raiders can zoom past the content and get to the heroic dungeons and raid content and get better purples, whilst still getting the occasional bit of kit that's an improvement on the way to 70.

There is still an incremental progression, players still get their better loot, but there remains value in the items pre-BC. Destroying all before BC from the mid-50 levels still mystifies me when there must have been an existing formula to work out equipment value versus level, which would have allowed the same incremental progression to continue.
 

I suspect they up the equipment stats during an expansion to make sure the game is challenging to everyone. Most of the fun of leveling are the challenges on the way.

If they didn't increase the gear level, they would be faced with powerful players in epics and less powerful ones in greens and blues. Which group do you design content for? If the content is a challenge for the non-epiced player, it's downright boring for the player in epics. If it's a challenge for the player in epics, it's most likely too hard for the player without epics. By resetting the gear available to players, Blizz ensured that it would be challenging for everyone thus ensuring that people keep playing.

I think the only raiders that felt burned by the gear change were the ones raiding for the wrong reasons. I was a raider for a long time. I had fun raiding. That's really all there is to it. Raiding is fun, or it's not. If it's fun, then do it. If not, then don't. Just know that today's uber gear is tomorrow's vendor trash. Tier 1 chest, hands and shoulders; tier 2 leg plates; nice gear from ZG and AQ: all vendor trash and I don't feel the least bit bad about it. Those raids were fun.
 

after lvl63 you would be replacing tier-1 or 2 from the old world.
till then, the greens/blues were not better than tier 1.
at 65-66 one, if they were lucky in drops and such would be totally green/blue again.
this is imho the correct way how they did it. tier-1 was about item lvl 61-63
 

It's called mudflation, and it's unavoidable. The only alternative is item decay, and that solution is far worse than the problem.
 

The problem with the gear currently, at least for me, is that the loot quality isn't compensating for the wipe-fests that Heroics are. If people who are raiding Gruul, Magtherion and above are having the same trouble, this patch can solve part of the problem.

I'm currently doing Heroics and I'm starting to feel tired of the game. The loot you get from them hardly compensates all the wipes you have there, and you're not really seeing a new place. Let's face it, when you go to instances like Heroic Shadow Lab, where all the bosses except the last drop exactly the same items (excluding that one Badge of Justice you get per kill, for which you only buy anything decent after you have 25+ or 33+ Badges) and you wipe two times per Felguard, or whatever they are called, just to get to the first boss, it really feels as if it's not worth it.

There's not only this problem, but also the lack of proper epic gear for certain classes/builds. I'm a healadin and the only pally epic plate I see drop there is for retardins. I'm just wondering why in the world should the pally build that contributes the least for instances and raids get rewarded, while the ones that make the effort to actually be the most useful they can, get nothing to improve their contribution to runs. And we have the same problem with the tank gear: right now our regular tank (we're a group of friends that play together in a lot of the instances) doesn't have gear up for the heroics, and even if we do them, most if not all epic Warrior plate that comes from the heroics is for DPS warriors, not tanks. It's plain ridiculous how Blizzard neglected gear for important class builds in the heroics.

By the way, don't get me wrong, I'm not a loot whore, but everyone knows that without proper gear, you simply don't progress in the instances. We're stuck doing the same instances we did before but with trash and bosses that deal more damage and get very little for it. I like seeing new bosses and new instances (basically seeing new places and situations), and the heroics feel like not even a full step in that direction right now.

Sophia the Healadin
 

I'm a fan of blizzard "re-evaluating" epics. I've always felt that watching my character become more powerfull was one of the reasons I play WoW. I think players should notice a difference when they get a new peace of gear. Example, on my paladin I did my quest for 'vergians firt'. Its a level 20 quest reward but I think the item is closer to 25. I put a fiery enchant on the mace and went to redridge. I did amazing dps, more so then I did on my rogue when he was level 20(with green daggers). This one peace of new gear made the game very enjoyable. I remember taking down a level 30 horde rogue at about level 24. Feeling over-powered, felt great. Same feeling came from upgrading from 50-60 blues to tier 1 MC epics. I gained loads of stamina and int. I also had +healing in small amounts. Come level 65 I felt the same way again, now I had loads of +spell/heal, although the fact that everyone else had the same gear kind of sucked. Come level 70.......nothing. I have level 70 blues that are sometimes aren't better then level 65ish greens, then the upgrades in karazhan are only slightly better then that...

Whats the point? Karazhan isn't fun with all the trash mobs. Hopefully it will be next patch.
 

I replaced Rhok'delar around lvl 65 with Hemet's Elek Gun (Blue), but the Feather-wrapped bow (Green quest reward) was darn close to Rhok's equal. At 67 I'm still wearing my DS Helm, GS Gloves, and ZG Belt, but they've all come very close to being upgraded.

I have little intention of running my Warrior (currently 46) through the lvl 60 Instances. I'll probably do UBRS just to get Ony attunement so I can take part in my Guild's weekly pwning sessions.
 

Not sure I understand the big deal about gear scaling.

A group of pre-BC level-60 raiders will be pretty well decked-out in gear. But how well would they fare in Nagrand? Blade's Edge? Shadowmoon? Netherstorm?
They could take Onyxia... but could they take Durn? Ring of Blood?

I would guess that they would need to level up and get better gear to head to those areas. So I just don't see the problem. New challenges, better gear. Been that way since my toon left the noob areas.

Doeg
 

Jumping through hoops is an accurate description, jeez.

I don't know about you, but I've had to get keyed for Karazhan about 30 times now. Once for myself, once for this guy, once for this healer, once for this new tank, once for this new guildie who started a Belf, once for another new healer, once for this mage, etc.

Can we please relax the key requirements, perhaps to a 50% or more members must be keyed, etc. The discrimination has already started on our realm, people don't want unkeyed recruits, because no one wants to face the prospect of running Steamvaults, Arcatraz, and BM 50 more times. Heck, I'm almost exalted with all of those factions, mostly just from getting people keyed...
 

Another fine Topic from Tobold. Personally im very upset that blizzard still think it is ok to not live up to their promises over 1 year ago. We are all screaming for an RP patch doing what TBC was ment to do such as instance housing and Guild accommodation, more emotes, Customizing characters after creation and even tabards for Mounts. tobold i believe u left WoW because u yearned for more RP and LOTR was the obvious move for that. For this patch to give even more instance content when the majority what something totally different is disscusting. And to sum up the patch its pretty much a Patch put some Addons built into default wow like Equipment Compare. Maybe those that dont look at the big picture will be jumping for joy but i personally see that someone has been making Equipment Compares in their spare time and didnt even design the game.

The Production line for wow to do list is longer than the Nile and the people rowing up it are lazy buggers working slower than acceptable.....

sorry angry wow customer is one of ur regular readers
 

Chris wrote:

Everyone keeps talking about the next expansion taking us from level 70 to 80. I think it's way too early to assume that.

Thats what is called managing expectations. If they don't do it and only offer some epic item upgrades, customers will quit by the hundred thousands. The only true fun WoW can offer is leveling and partially raiding/factions/instances on end-level. If they took away the leveling aspect, the majority of casual customers for whom leveling is the true fun would quit.

They might even be forced to grant us +20 levels to keep us entertained.
 

@chu-chu
To 'level the playing field'? I don't know what that means.

Some casual players PvP more in the end game. In the old days, raiders had BWL Tier 2 epics that out performed what most could get with the honor system (pvp).

So raiders would gear up to go wtfpwn everyone.

The level the play field is a "debate" about time invested versus rewards.

Said another way: It's the "old problem of WoW" that if raiders can gear up simply because they put in more "time" than the "skilled" pvpers... (casual) PvPers will quit WoW over it.

I'm wordy and redundant but I'm trying to get some point across. :)
 

The previous post brings up an interesting question of dynamic equilibrium that Blizz struggles with: Tthe balance between PvP rewards and PvE raiding rewards.

In my own experience, I'm not sure that the time investment measure is good or even accurate.
Raiding at the highest levels became much like a second job: Report for "work" at 6:00pm server time and we'll raid until 11:00pm; rinse, repeat up to six days a week for weeks on end.
Serious old-school PvP-ers had to stay at it as well; honor only gained when you earned it, more needed every rank, "snooze" a week and you lose honor. As I pushed upward in the "old" PvP system over several weeks it became apparent that the High Warlord types were not PvP-ing "only" 30 hours a week. In fact, there were rumors of two or more persons keeping a toon logged-in 24/7 for weeks in order to reach the top.
The patch 2.0.1 "solution" was to make PvP rewards the result of an honor grind system.

Back to the main thought...
So many undercurrents of argument ensued, based mainly around gear rewards.
It seemed that Blizz added new raids on the end, with new and better gear rewards. But for PvP-ers, they might get a new BG, but the faction gear rewards ran parallel rather than higher.
At the root, the problem seemed to be that design-wise one can always make a harder raid, but how to make 'harder' PvP? And if PvP wasn't 'harder', then how (or why) increase the power of gear rewards?
Meanwhile, the PvP-ers claimed that PvE was easy (or even scripted) compared to PvP. So, PvP-ers asked, why are the gear rewards for the grind better than for that which takes skill? (Or so went the argument).

Then that wrapped around to the previous poster's kicker -- You could PvE yourself into the best PvP gear! Bad game design. *Very* bad game design.

Solutions...?
If one buys into the notion that the most difficult opponent to defeat is another human, then another option is to try to bring up the level of difficulty of PvE at the high end.
The result of increased PvE instance/raid difficulty is ... Player complaints.
Or one could flatten gear at the top end to maintain PvP/PvE gear balance, resulting in... Player complaints.

So... whatever.
I'm glad Blizz has to deal with this issue, and I can just play the game.

....Doeg