Developers' Philosophy on Gear Availability

[Dimitry]

The badge system change is simply brilliant! The time and gearing needed to get from fresh level 80 to 25 man Ulduar ready is too daunting of a gap. Take for example my RL friend that transferred from Horde to Alliance to raid in my guild. Has been 80 for two weeks and has had two run thrus of 10 man Naxx and 25 Man Naxx...not even close to bieng ready for Ulduar Heroic gear is a joke and a waste of time for the content that is out now. So there is no avenue for fresh 80's to start gearing and applying for a guild. Without this badge change we will cut off the new player base and WoW dies.

Oh I agree with the conquest change. They shouldn't be handing out Triumphs for doing the damn heroic daily and regular daily though.

[Steve]

I full recognize the benefit of these changes to more hardcore guilds, or rerollers who want to gear up for progression content quickly. But for me, it's just another time sink. In addition, no one will ever run Ulduar after this change.

Without this change, marginal guilds like mine would simply die. We're constantly having roster turnover because the nature of the server I'm on precludes attracting people committed to raiding.

I would say that absent this change, my guild would eventually die from lack of ability to progress. And at that point that's probably a good chunk of people quitting the game and not seeing whatever the latest instance is. Any time a guild breaks up, that's what they call an 'exit point.' Some people will cancel their subscriptions.

In the face of that, allowing some people to skip over Ulduar is not nearly as damaging to the game.

[halabar]

In addition, no one will ever run Ulduar after this change. They'll do heroics and naxx for quick easy badges, but they'll virtually never do Ulduar because it's harder and takes more time for the same type of badges. Just like how hardly anyone ran SSC and TK after 2.4 came out and NO ONE did Kael/Vashj anymore.

Hopefully the coliseum gear and badges will be enticing enough that I won't want to waste the time in Naxx again...

That's a valid point. A Nax25 clear in 3 hours or less will be far preferrable to get your extra gear quickly.

[halabar]

The badge system change is simply brilliant! The time and gearing needed to get from fresh level 80 to 25 man Ulduar ready is too daunting of a gap. Take for example my RL friend that transferred from Horde to Alliance to raid in my guild. Has been 80 for two weeks and has had two run thrus of 10 man Naxx and 25 Man Naxx...not even close to bieng ready for Ulduar Heroic gear is a joke and a waste of time for the content that is out now. So there is no avenue for fresh 80's to start gearing and applying for a guild. Without this badge change we will cut off the new player base and WoW dies.

Oh I agree with the conquest change. They shouldn't be handing out Triumphs for doing the damn heroic daily and regular daily though.

Yeah, that should be Conquest..

[ARogers]

I think progression should be based on gear AND skill. The casuals can get the gear through long times running heroics, but they need to learn the fights and develop the skills to actually raid and do well.

Not to be an ass, but.. are YOU going to run the fresh meat through Naxx to learn those fights? Have you tried getting heroic groups going?

I agree that progression should be learned, but, at a certain point they need to level the playing field.

In fact, these changes give advanced raiders a reason to run Naxx with the fresh meat, so they might actually learn something, instead of spamming trade "LF 24 more for Nax25".

I still run Naxx 25 every week to help when I really could be doing other stuff for better self-benefit. And as far as the heroics groups go, I have tried and tried to help a couple friends that are newer to the game. I've tried a lot to get people gathered for it, but even my other friends don't want to run heroics. Hence my comment about trying to gear up alts being hard right now.

I've actually agreed with your assessment of the badge system if you read my whole post. I think that that gear should be available to lower raiders, but if they do so, they still need to tune the content to avoid being brute-force fights. They need to work a lot of skill in there as the raids progress, which I feel they are doing.

[Jasari]

So there is no avenue for fresh 80's to start gearing and applying for a guild. Without this badge change we will cut off the new player base and WoW dies.

Wow survived quiet well without such a system until patch 2.4 - near the end of BC.

But yeah, this does make getting geared up easier, I fully acknowledge that advantage. Having it only one tier behind the best gear in the game seems a bit extreme to me and I think we can all agree with a daily heroic nexus quest giving the same badges as 25man heroic coliseum is a bit weird.

[Fedaykin98]

So there is no avenue for fresh 80's to start gearing and applying for a guild. Without this badge change we will cut off the new player base and WoW dies.

Wow survived quiet well without such a system until patch 2.4 - near the end of BC.

But yeah, this does make getting geared up easier, I fully acknowledge that advantage. Having it only one tier behind the best gear in the game seems a bit extreme to me and I think we can all agree with a daily heroic nexus quest giving the same badges as 25man heroic coliseum is a bit weird.

I disagree - there was only one badge type, but new tiers of badge loot were rolled out over time, always one tier behind the highest raid dungeon that was out. This change returns us more to the BC model.

[Invisusira]

The new badge change is retarded. It undermines the whole point of why they introduced tiers of badges in the first place, which I thought was fantastic. Fresh 80 guilds could still have a reason to progress through the old instances instead of trivializing them.

And making the DUNGEON dalies give you TRIUMPH badges?!? I never thought they day would come when the "catering to casual" bitching would come from me...

[Sabindeus]

The new badge change is retarded. It undermines the whole point of why they introduced tiers of badges in the first place, which I thought was fantastic. Fresh 80 guilds could still have a reason to progress through the old instances instead of trivializing them.

And making the DUNGEON dalies give you TRIUMPH badges?!? I never thought they day would come when the "catering to casual" bitching would come from me...

agreed on all counts, this is dumb

[KysenMurrin]

If they're going to give Triumph badges from the dailies, I hope they're at least planning to have Colisseum bosses drop larger numbers of badges, and increase same-level gear prices accordingly. People at lower tiers of progression would be able to accumulate the stuff, but at a much slower rate than those raiding the instance.

[Flex]

Hopefully the coliseum gear and badges will be enticing enough that I won't want to waste the time in Naxx again...

But with it only dropping conquest emblems and conquest emblem purchases being a whopping 7 item levels above normal Ulduar it seems highly inefficient way to get marginally better gear since I doubt they'll introduce anything new to buy with Conquest emblems, just like no new Valor or Heroism gear was added.

[Nocturum]

Fresh 80 guilds could still have a reason to progress through the old instances instead of trivializing them.
I never thought they day would come when the "catering to casual" bitching would come from me...

I actually think fresh 80's would run Naxx 10's and Naxx 25's just as much! Why tromp all over the map to every heroic when you can keep farming badges off boss after boss in Naxx. Great way for new guilds to "progress"!

[Flex]

Fresh 80 guilds could still have a reason to progress through the old instances instead of trivializing them.

Fresh 80 guilds aren't going to progress into later raids farming Conquest emblems. They'll still run the dungeons since gear comes faster that way.

[Kelaan]

In 3.2, I should spend additional time farming Naxx 10 and heroics to upgrade my Ulduar 10 gear. That's time that I don't want to spend, but I'll be disadvantaged if I don't spend it.

So what? Screw it.

The same issue applies to:
- Doing dailies for better shoulder enchants
- Farming money for consumables, BIS gems, BOEs, whatever

Some people just have more time to play. They might get farther than you. Oh well, that's nearly ALWAYS been true.

[Jasari]

In 3.2, I should spend additional time farming Naxx 10 and heroics to upgrade my Ulduar 10 gear. That's time that I don't want to spend, but I'll be disadvantaged if I don't spend it.

So what? Screw it.

The same issue applies to:
- Doing dailies for better shoulder enchants
- Farming money for consumables, BIS gems, BOEs, whatever

Some people just have more time to play. They might get farther than you. Oh well, that's nearly ALWAYS been true.

I cant spend 20-30mintues a day at the AH and have more than enough money for anything I need. Hell, I made enough to buy 6 runed orbs for the crafted boots in a week just doing this.

Farming hundreds of badges for gear is entirely different.

I just think it's ridiculous that every guild, regardless of how far they got in Naxx or Ulduar will not by default skip straight to the next raid, assuming they spend some time farming badges. Ulduar will be virtually deserted and that's a shame. It's an amazing instance. The progression path shouldn't be heroic + Naxx -> "whatever the latest tier is".

I feel for guilds that lose people to turnover and need to recruit/gear up new people. But guilds managed to do it in BC before 2.4, and even without the badge change it's much easier to gear up now than it was then.