Breakfast Topic: Has the early Cataclysm gearing model failed?
by Josh Myers 
Feb 1st 2012 at 8:00AM
Near the end of Wrath of the Lich King, there was a real feeling that gearing had gotten out of control, between unintentionally heightened ilevels (due to the introduction of heroic modes early in the expansion), a raid-wide buff that made the penultimate raid of the expansion easily puggable (until Arthas), and ridiculously simple heroic 5-mans and Emblems of Triumph that allowed you to gear out your freshly leveled alt in high-ilevel epics.
When Cataclysm launched, part of the intent between the fairly difficult heroic 5-mans and the fact that they dropped ilevel 346 blue items was that Blizzard wanted to slow down gearing. This worked; the roadblock created by early Cataclysm heroics for casual players did serve to slow down gearing. For the first time in years, full epic-geared characters were seen as more of a rare occurrence than a staple of your average AFKer in Orgrimmar.
Fast forward to last Saturday, where I decided to transfer my blue-geared death knight (who hit 85 and was subsequently forgotten in March) to my main's server to make use of her professions. On a whim, I decided to see how long it could take to gear her. By Sunday night, she had tanked Madness of Deathwing in Raid Finder, was in three-piece tier 13, and was one item away from being in full 378 or higher epics.
It seems clear to me now that the original Cataclysm model for gearing has failed, and the roadblocks originally put in place to prevent quickly gearing alts are no longer in place. That said, I don't mind it, and I don't think Blizzard minds it. Getting gear is fun, even on an alt that's only supposed to be used for running around Tol Barad picking flowers and mining ore. I like having four characters at 380+ ilevel, and it served me well when my guild recently needed me to main-change from my mage back to my shaman to heal. So yes, the original gearing model for Cataclysm does seem to have failed -- but is that really such a bad thing?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
cromahr Feb 1st 2012 8:06AM
I agree very much, it did fail, but that is not such a bad thing.
Even though there might be people who dislike the fact it has gotten that easy to gear an alt quickly (because of, say, more time they invested earlier).
It is more casual-friendly IMO, and if MoP really doesn't come out in the summer, we will spend a lot of time running those instances and raids again... good opportunity to try out that alt, to try and get into a different role etc, and that process is easier if gearing isn't a horrible grind.
TLDR: Agreed. It probably did fail, but I can't say that's really a bad thing.
Imnick Feb 1st 2012 8:30AM
I think roadblocks are important in the early game but become less important when there's three tiers of raids.
If they kept the roadblocks in place then, we'd be stuck with the TBC progression series. Some people loved that, but it's clearly not what Blizzard wants any more.
Krytture Feb 1st 2012 9:47AM
The biggest problem I see with late expansion fast gearing, is why not unsub after you reach level cap, wait till 2 or 3 months before the next xpac comes out, resub, run everything, see everything, get decked out in gear all in a month, then enjoy the leveling of the next xpac, and unsub and go play something else for the next X months?
If raiding is all you care about of course. If your a pvp player this doesn't work at all. If your an alt addict or achievement whore, this doesn't apply. But if your just a casual raider, all of the raids will be made easier by the end of the xpac, gearing won't be a hurdle, hell, you'll even have people that already know the strats.
The artificial limits of BC prevented this type of play. You had to be dedicated and you stick around for the duration if you wanted to see end game while its still relevant. But Wrath & Cata almost embrace it.
Xanite Feb 1st 2012 11:02AM
I enjoy that it doesn't take months to get an alt ready to raid. What I want to know is how many hours did you log onto your fresh 85 Death Knight before being able to tank DeathWing? It is duable in a week if you have the time and effort to log approx 4-6 hrs a night and constantly que for Randomn dungeon finder for instant tank spot to stack up the Justice points I understand. However for the non expert normal person I believe it will take a considerable longer time to get DS ready. DPS has the slowest curve due to the longer queue times for the Randomn dungeon finder. I think its working just fine. I would hate to spend 2-3 months before I can touch end game on a character.
cromahr Feb 1st 2012 11:21AM
Imnick...
I dont disagree to what you said, BUT... do you think its BLIZZARD that doesnt want this anymore? It seems to me like it's a large part of the playerbase that didn't exactly enjoy the changes to gearing and dungeon difficulty.
I mean, Blizz seemed very convinced about "heroics having to be very difficult" and "epics should feel epic again", but you soon had nerfs to those dungeons, then you could get epics as quest rewards (cloaks from the Thrall questline, even better cloaks after like 2 hours of random FL trash farming in a PUG, plus the MF-vendors we unlocked), and now it feels just like Wrath again, with the three new dungeons feeling a lot like the Wrath ones. So I think Blizzard did change their mind mainly because of what many players thought about the changes.
Krytture
Sure, good point, but then again, if you'd take that line of thinking to the extreme, why play it all, if you know that the gear you farm up now is obsolete once the next expansion or next tier comes out?
For a casual raiding guild (I am in one nowadays), its not bad at all to be able to gear up a bit quicker, as it gives the guild a bit more time to work on the raid content in decent gear. We are just now getting back into it, and are gearing up for it through the 3 new instances, VP/JP farming, LFR etc, so thats nice.
To both of you, I know what you mean though! =))
cromahr Feb 1st 2012 11:25AM
...AND I would be interested to hear how the author went about gearing as well!
Josh, did the DK have some JP/VP saved up? Since it was said he was dressed in blues, I assume he didn't do the MF-dailies either, so was it just farming normal and then heroic dungeons over and over for a day or two?
tiissa Feb 1st 2012 11:58AM
I would actually not say that it failed.
In Vanilla and more clearly in BC, Blizz figured out that going through all of the past raid content to gear up for current raid is quite impractical (to say the least) at the end of an expansion. It required longer and longer to get ready.
In Wrath, they fixed that by making gear acquisition scale with time (same content for new badges each new expansion). They also timidly tried out if adding easy content could work, introducing a first dungeon in 3.2 then 3 additional dungeons in 3.3. The problem there was that (i) people grew more than tired of most heroics and (ii) we were showered with epics.
In cataclysm, Blizzard probably never intended to put roadblocks to prevent gearing alts as suggested by the OP. They tried to limit epic accessibility in order to have people spend time *playing* dungeon content before raiding. Heroic dungeons would only give blue items but with the heroic badge. Then we could finally get back a sense of epicness with purple loot. Epics could still be bought using valor points, but it required more time than in Wrath.
That was successful and seeing purple gear in 4.0 was a sign of more dedication than in 3.0.
Then, in 4.1 and 4.3 they introduced new dungeons to ease gearing a new character up to raid-readiness. You seem to think that it's a sign that the system failed but that was probably their intention all along. In 4.1 they were able to deal out sub-T11 gear level which allowed raiding people not to feel offended. In 4.3 they decided to give T12 gear level in easy heroics. It's probably a bit too much and I'd venture to guess that it was a promotional offer to help LFR.
In any case, it allows people to hop in, spend a short time playing dungeons before being able to *play* with their friends. That's not a failure and it was the original intent.
The system achieves its goals but there are mainly two things that could be improved:
- keeping blues (with heroic tag) drop instead of purples in dungeons. That's what the raiding crowd wants and the non-raiders don't care much for color, only for ilvl (and LFR can get them some epics if they want, now)
- having a smoother dungeon path: 346 -> 353 -> 378 compared with 359 -> 378 -> 397 is not optimal: 372 would have been enough for 4.3 heroics and the difficulty of LFR could have accepted a ~365 barrier of entry (but it was probably a though out decision in order to increase the LFR success chances for launch).
SamLowry Feb 1st 2012 11:59AM
"It seems to me like it's a large part of the playerbase that didn't exactly enjoy the changes to gearing and dungeon difficulty. "
Yeah, it's called quitting, which many of us did a year ago when running a heroic felt as enjoyable as ramming your head into a brick wall. Many did not get the message that WoW realized the error of its ways and returned to the Wrath model and still have yet to return. Maybe they'll never return, and whose fault is that? Blizz for making heroics so unfun, or the hardcore jerks who complained in the first place that Wrath had been too "easy"?
And I, too, would be interested in knowing how the OP geared up so quickly. I've run four DPSers through the Twilight 3 and into LFR but it took a few weeks worth of heroics to get each one up to the 372 required to enter the LFR. Most who had dinged 85 from questing had an average ilevel around 325, maximum, and had no chance at all of entering even the Twilight 3 without putting on several pieces of crafted PvP gear, which felt rather shameful to me.
mibu.work1 Feb 1st 2012 12:45PM
Pesonally, I'd love to see this happen again. I'd like to gear slowly out the gate once I hit 90, and then scale up with raid content. That, combined with an overall stat-squish could really work in the game's favor come MoP, but perhaps that on top of the new talant overhaul would be both too much strain on the dev team and too much change for the playerbase to handle...
Thundrcrackr Feb 1st 2012 1:19PM
I don't think the roadblocks were intended for alts.
SamLowry Feb 1st 2012 1:47PM
"I'd like to gear slowly out the gate..."
That zone was called Vash.
If you were a fresh 80, like a Worgen, the one thing you needed immediately when entering a dangerous new zone full of level 80 critters with scary levels of health and dps was new gear, yet the first dozen or so quests awarded cash only, like we were mercenaries. We want GEAR, dammit, not this yellow stuff! Yet gear was doled out so slowly that I gave up after several death runs due to eels or murlocs and went to Hyjal.
I've raised 8 characters to 85, and only one made it through Vash far enough to actually see the Earthen Ring quartermaster. And he stopped right there before heading off to Hyjal.
SamLowry Feb 1st 2012 1:52PM
...and if you're wondering, it was a pally who entered Vash wearing some ICC purples who made it to the quartermaster. My worgen--who walked in with an iscore around 187, therefore turning her into sharkbait--gave up LOOOOONG before then.
razion Feb 1st 2012 8:06AM
In my opinion, definitely not a bad thing. Then again, for a little perspective, I was actually a fan of the gearing in Wrath. I like that I have that option if I so choose that if I feel like playing something else that I'm not shoe-horned into playing a single dedicated character throughout an expansion. I like having that option that I can switch to an alt, quickly gear them up, and get right back into the raiding groove with my new character if I so choose.
Saikoujin Feb 1st 2012 10:50AM
I kind of liken it to parenting. Back in Vanilla and BC, the game was relatively young and fresh, and Blizzard had a different set of priorities. Those priorities- a more difficult game, gated content, and a lower attainment of epic gear- was acceptable due to WoW's much lower gamer population. As a piece of the whole pie, the so called "casual" population was much lower than what it is today. With Wrath and it's subsequent population explosion came a change in Blizzard's responsibilities and priorities. No longer could they afford to soley appease their hardcore crowd (or Blizzard's own hardcore roots) by not providing methods by which casuals could actually advance themselves in the game. In a sense, Blizzard has matured much like a parent does when they take on the added responsibilty of a child. And at 10 million "children," Blizzard has a lot of responsibilties on its hands.
The beginning of Cata (4.0 and 4.1) was, I believe, Blizzard's last attempt at harkening back to the so-called 'glory days' of Vanilla and BC, perhaps being misguided by the vociferous outcry of the hardcores throughout Wrath. The long hours of blood, sweat, and tears in dungeons and a difficult entry to raid returned, but this time it was not received well by the majority. The reason being that WoW's community has changed and the game has evolved. I think the 4.3 dungeons, DS, and MoP illustrate that Blizzard realizes this and is steering the boat in a different direction to chart a new course.
And it's all for the better, I believe.
SamLowry Feb 1st 2012 12:09PM
Yeah, I wonder if the hardcores are happy to know they caused a few million people to quit the game.
That was their intention all along, actually--to get rid of the scrubby casuals who dared to lay their hands on purples without entering an actual raid--but they had griped like this for years. The difference was that Blizz actually listened to them during the balancing stage for Cata and we see how foolish that decision turned out to be.
Has Blizz learned it's lesson: Don't listen to the QQ of raiders?
snarkygoldfish Feb 1st 2012 1:07PM
The huge roadblock to actually begin raiding, and the fact that Blizz itself wasn't happy at how little people had progressed prior to 4.1 and the delay of Firelands is pretty telling, if you ask me.
Racing to 85 with my guild, only to be told we had to run over-long five mans over and over and over before we could even begin to think of getting back into the swing of things really put a damper on our progress. It felt artificial. And that first group of heroics were NOT fun.
We were burnt out before we'd even begun on the first tier of raiding content, and for a group that was already fragile after some major changes, I KNOW it didn't help our overall situation. And considering a handful of that group ended up leaving the game since then...Well, as others have said; I hope that vocal angry minority that hated Wrath is happy that so many awesome people left.
TonyMcS Feb 1st 2012 7:14PM
I had a similar experience to Josh, in that I had a n 85 pally tank that I decided to make my 4th healer. Starting from no Intellect plate at all, I got rep gear, purchased 365/378 on the auction, used what Justice point I had for 378 gear and ran a lot of bgs to accumulate honor which also turned into justice.
Didn't do one heroic. Apart from detesting pugs for the most part, I needed to learn pally healing and I didn't want dungeon mates to suffer while I was doing it, so lots of bgs later I knew what I was doing. Finally at iLvl 373 I entered the Raid Finder and although I wasn't topping the healing like I do on the druid, I wasn't too embarrassing. A few RF drops later and a 390 PvP head and I'm doing a lot better ;-)
The process took around a few days of casual playing and it let me try out a totally different healer (and yes pally healing is way different from disc, holy and tree) without having to spend a month or so doing pugged heroics.
I like the new gearing model ;-)
Evelinda Feb 1st 2012 8:46PM
I liked wrath gearing too, mainly coz i play alts like nobody's business.
I think the whole "it was so much easier in wrath" thing is really based on ease of gearing at the end of the expansion, and people seem to compare that to ease of gearing at the START of cataclysm.
Now, without a doubt hearing at the start of cata was harder than the start of wrath, but getting decked out in purples wasn't just a matter of showing up I'm 3.0.1. When everyone was wearing 187 blues, things were harder than when 232 epics were dropping in heroics. There also just weren't that many available; one dropped from each heroic you ran, which isn't a huge chance for you to get one, and you actually had to FIND a group! No dungeon finder til 3.3...
as i said before, cata was definitely harder, but wrath, at the beginning, wasn't all sunshine and puppies like everyone seems to remember...
Benjamin Childers Feb 1st 2012 8:09AM
I had a similar experience, I got to 85 on my main when Cata dropped then I stopped playing for a year. When I came back to the game it took about 3-4 weeks for semi-casual playing to be at an ilvl 384. I thought it was nice since the expansion is about over to allow players that are late to the expansion of like you have multiple alts to gear quickly so we can see end game content.
Nina Katarina Feb 1st 2012 8:11AM
I liked having difficulty with the 5-mans when Cataclysm first hit. I liked the discovery and the feeling of triumph when I got a 346 piece, or when we finished up a rep grind and got that rare shiny 359. But it got old fast.
I'm hoping with Mists that we'll have a month or two of gear struggle before they open the floodgates on badge epics. My main doesn't feel like my main any more. The struggle rewards picking a single character and staying with her for a time, but it's a pleasure best taken in smaller doses.