Breakfast Topic: Is it time to implement artifacts?
by Matt Clerico 
Sep 29th 2011 at 8:00AM
More and more people are gearing up in epic equipment these days, either through Zandalari heroics or normal and heroic-level raiding. This leads to a lot of purple items of wide range of different ilevels, particularly toward the end of an expansion set. While this is great for those of us who are catching up to current content (or gearing up an alt), couldn't there be more of an incentive for hardcore raiders?
Back in vanilla, it was really something to see someone decked out in the highest level of gear. The color category of a player's items alone was enough to determine their in-game accomplishment. I absolutely think it's a good thing that a larger group of people get to see content and gear up quickly, but shouldn't there be a new level of reward for those who work the hardest on progression?
Well, as longtime WoW players may remember, there already is. There has always been a level of gear above epics that has never been implemented in game: artifacts. Originally planned as a step above legendary items, red-quality artifact items could perhaps instead replace heroic raiding-quality epic items as a status symbol for those at the cutting edge of content.
At a point in time when blue gear is considered temporary and purple is again becoming the norm, could it be time to implement a rarer category of reward? Do you think it would be beneficial to World of Warcraft for the best possible items to be of a different grade? Would this be enough to bring hardcore players back to the game? Or would it greatly devalue traditional epics?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
MattKrotzer Sep 29th 2011 8:10AM
I'm not sure that adding another tier to the gear system is really necessary... I'd much rather them go back to making blues go farther early on. Putting epic items on rep vendors is nice for gearing people up quickly, but it just pushes people to think that being decked out in purples is expected before you step foot into raiding.
I'd much rather they try to de-emphasize this, than to make purples so accessible. Make getting BLUES more exciting, rather than so much accessibility to purples.
Jamie Sep 29th 2011 8:16AM
Woohoo!! Let's put the shine back on blues! Don't feel down! Feel blue!!
C'mon people, work with me here!! We're starting a revolution!!
Narayana Sep 29th 2011 8:19AM
To a certain extent- they tried to do this with Cataclysm, didn't they? Heroic dungeons dropped blue loot and gave points for blue loot. Sure- faction vendors had a few epics, but not enough to fully kit out a toon. The issue is that this dynamic lasted for only one patch before the game returned to the "everyone is epic" paradigm of WotLK.
It seems like you are both ultimately asking for the same thing, though- the dynamics are all that is different. With Cataclsym, 5-manners felt like something was being taken away from them- what used to reward epic loot now only rewarded blue loot. The OP's solution would allow the same differentiation that Blizzard attempted this time without creating this feeling. Of course, it would only serve to further exacerbate the issue of blues feeling less important.
Shinae Sep 29th 2011 8:32AM
At least blues had their moment in Cata because they were exciting before 4.1. Not being able to get epics in heroics or with JPs made it feel like 346 gear were our "epics" of the time and gave us what we needed to start raiding T11. (Yes, 359s were available with crafting and rep vendors, but not all slots.)
Once 353s were available in Zulroics, that all changed. Even though the item level wasn't that much higher, there was this feeling like we had to get rid of all of our remaining blues already.
In other words, I agree.
Firestyle Sep 29th 2011 9:21AM
To facilitate that model, all gear from LFR could be blue.
Phaelan Sep 29th 2011 9:51AM
they wont do that because the LFR is between FL and normal Dragon Soul tier wise but higher than Zulroics and the new 5 mans, the LFR will be purple
wat Sep 29th 2011 10:02AM
And since in Cata, Bliz did away with the difference between gear colors (a 250 green has the same itemization as a 250 purple, for example), this would be a total waste of time.
Imagine the bugs that would result from putting in a new gear color [/sarcasm]
loop_not_defined Sep 29th 2011 10:25AM
Adding yet another color of gear just seems to be creating a "color treadmill" of sorts. At what point do you stop adding more colors?
As others have pointed out, color does not affect gear power in Cata content. Because of this, I think Blizzard should stick to marking Dungeon content "blue" and Raid content "purple", even if it means earlier Purples eventually being weaker than later Blues.
The color system really serves no other purpose but identifying how difficult an item was to obtain - or rather, the source of the item.
LynMars Sep 29th 2011 10:41AM
I really think the bosses in the Troll dungeons should have dropped blues (Jin'do and Daakara could have dropped epics as the end bosses, and the rewards for ZA's timed event). Molten Front vendors also should have been blue quality items. The stats and ilvl could have been the same--and honestly, if you compare similar ilvl blues and purples, there really isn't much stat difference. Sometimes a blue *is still better* depending on its stats and specil/on-use abilities.
As for Maelstroms, they really wouldn't be much harder to get with raid DEing, the free maelstrom mini-boss is ZG, etc. We'll end up with 60+ Maelstroms and be short on Heavenly Shards in my guild.
I think this is a case of people got used to having purples for raiding in Wrath, where it was easier than ever to get epics, and to be considered "good" and instead of looking at what's really good for them stat-wise, focus on the color of the item even more than the ilvl.
We don't need another new level of item quality; that's like the ever-escalating badges in Wrath that became so unwieldy. People need to stop focusing on what color their gear's title is and look instead at what it's actually doing for them.
Phaelan Sep 29th 2011 11:34AM
I completely agree Lyn. They should change it to those coloration's, even if they have to go back and change it. My war's guild wont even let me come in and tank T11 raids in mostly heroic gear and 2pc T11 because of this stupid idea and dumbass Gear score. Even though that content has been nerfed from when it first came out and people were running it in green's/blues.
Hopefully in the next xpac that go in and completely change the gear around so that color is based on where it comes from and not "power" and GS. Greens=reg 5mans/quests, Blues=heroic 5mans/group quest, Purples=raids. period. (though i could see them adding a color for Heroic Raids)
Krytture Sep 29th 2011 11:20AM
Greens for Questing
Blues for Dungeons / Normal Rep Vendors / Pre-Raid Crafting
Purple for Raids / Raid Vendors / Raided Crafting
ilvl 100 for T1 Dungeons / Blue
ilvl 105 for T1 Heroic Dungeons / Blue
ilvl 115 for T1 Raid / Purple
ilvl 120 for T1 Heroic Raid / Purple
ilvl 115 for T2 Heroic Dungeons / Blue
ilvl 125 for T2 Raid / Purple
ilvl 130 for T2 Heroic Raid / Purple
ilvl 125 for T3 Heroic Dungeons / Blue
ilvl 135 for T3 Raid / Purple
ilvl 140 for T3 Heroic Raid / Purple
Of course my ilvls and Tier #s are made up. But what do you think of the system? I don't think the second tier of dungeon heroics should reward higher ilvl then the previous tier of raiding. But I think it would be ok to be equal to them. And they should remain Blue.
Homeschool Sep 29th 2011 12:42PM
Ever since they equalized stat distribution across items, I've thought it odd that they cut off blues at a certain item level. It seems more like the colors should define the source now - Green for quests and random drops, Blue for 5-mans and point vendors, Purple for raid drops. They could have easily made the Zandalari heroics drop 353 blues (instead of epics), which aside from differentiating 5-mans from raids, would also have kept Heavenly Shards in circulation, instead of making them cost more than Maelstrom Crystals.
I keep hoping they'll figure that out, but so far, they haven't.
Durenas Sep 29th 2011 1:50PM
Blizzard has already removed the stat benefit to having epics over rares. Epics used to get % more stats per item level, but not anymore. I would prefer that they go toward a system where anything rewarded in a 5 man is blue, and anything rewarded from raiding is purple. So you could have, for example, cata heroics giving blues, all the rep vendors from 4.0.3 cata rewarding blues of varying item levels(up to 359 blues!), and raid drops rewarding epics. Then we have the zandalarian dungeons rewarding 353 blues, and firelands rewarding 378 epics. Then we get to 4.3 with the 5 mans rewarding 378 blues(they're 378 epics on the PTR right now), and the raid rewarding whatever the hell it is epics.
Siaperas Sep 29th 2011 2:01PM
Part of the issue Blizz has is that they already let the genie out of the bottle. Epics got to be a tad too easy to get, and now everybody wants one. To be honest, playing the Cata endgame, it's boring to be decked out in blues, run a launch heroic, and get only more blues. Though it cheats the "epicness" of purples, people are expecting to be decked out in purples if they spend a certain amount of time at max level.
Epic rewards give many player a sense of accomplishment for your time, and I'm of the opinion that the last bosses of the Cata launch heroics should have dropped Zul quality epic gear, and the raids could have maintained their ilevel entry requirements.
LynMars Sep 29th 2011 2:52PM
I think that for me, it was that even at the start of Cata--in the first tier of raiding--it was insanely easy to be fully decked in epics again. It didn't feel as though, even a couple months into the expac, like Blizz was holding on to their idea of making blue-quality "matter" and purple-quality being harder to get after the loot-fest that was Wrath.
There were people even in guild groups who were of the mindset that blues were temporary and they wouldn't spend enchants, gems, leg patches, etc, on them at all, making it harder to finish the first couple raid bosses in those cases, as they weren't pulling the numbers they could have been even in "temp" blue gear.
erd4595 Sep 30th 2011 12:28AM
In general, Epic weapons have nothing but stats and Legendary weapons have a powerful proc/ability. Following this pattern, Artifacts would have an incredibly powerful proc/ability, making them way beyond OP.
Also Legendary weapons are heavily based in lore. They often identify with the most well known and powerful characters in the Warcraft series, such as Medivh's staff Atiesh and the Shadowmourne (created to be the counterpart of the Frostmourne). Blizzards lore writers would have their work cut out for them if they ever did decide to introduce an Artifact.
Comito Oct 1st 2011 12:56PM
I've seen posts about the colour of gear being all purple being the norm now, Blizz have gone around this by implemented iLvl barriers to content now which has worked out pretty well.
But to keep the colour scheme of gear as a sign of how progressed they are in content would be cool, but the player population may not like it initially. Only way I think gear levels represent a certain content is either downgrading gear colors, which probably isn't worth the hassle for Blizzard to do. Or the other possible method is to have the new content gear start with green/blue gear thats above purple gear from last content, with new purple gear as the best in the lastest content, supposedly like new expansions change over.
exogenesis. Sep 29th 2011 8:12AM
Now that we have archaeological artifacts, having artifacts in gear would be rather confusing.
Jamie Sep 29th 2011 8:19AM
Not to mention, that usability-wise, red indicates an item can not be equipped by the character.
I know we have colour-blind features in the game now but still, I think people would find a red quality item confusing.
Moolii Sep 29th 2011 8:12AM
We do already. They're called Legendary items.