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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast 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 5 of 7)
Aaron Feb 1st 2012 6:42PM
For a new player who doesn't have thousands of gold to spend on BoE's, 353 is still a reasonably demanding hurdle. That's the same item level you'll find in the Zuls, so if you want to get into Twilight heroics, you'll need at least a few bits of badge or Molten Front gear, 359 craftables, or reputation rewards. First-timers are still required to gear gradually, but the availability of 378 badge gear at least makes it so they can eventually catch up, and gives experienced players a way to shortcut the process. I'd call that Working As Intended.
Jere Hunter Feb 1st 2012 9:35AM
You have a 3 Piece Tier Set?!?!?!?. My DK has been tanking DS for weeks now. People still call me out that I am Duel Weilding because I cant win a roll for a 2h (lost the Tentacle one to a shield weilding dps pally) and I only currently have 1 Tier Piece, and you are complaining. I am soo frustrated because I cant win anything, and you say its too eays, I still have blue trinkets that I cant replace cause I cant win a roll. AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
(screams in Frustration)
Blayze Feb 1st 2012 9:25AM
Cataclysm before 4.3 was a complete failure, a horrible combination of difficulty and tedium.
TonyKP Feb 1st 2012 9:26AM
Those roadblocks contributed to early Cata's end game frustrations, which in turn led to slower than anticipated raid progression and a relatively small percentage of the player base seeing the first two tiers of raiding, aka "the one part of the game that the developers put the most work into".
Cataclysm's end game model as a whole failed, not just the gearing part, but those early gearing roadblocks amplified every other failure that came after them.
Edymnion Feb 1st 2012 10:12AM
Yup, the only early raid boss I have downed was Magmaw, and thats only because a friend dragged me in there because they needed my deeps. I have *ZERO* interest in early tier raiding because I know full well the gear will be junk before I'd even have a chance to get a full set of it (due to the next tier coming out).
Sorry Blizz, but I don't raid content that I know is going to be obsolete in a couple of months. I always wait until the last tier comes out and I have a good year to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Raiding is for "permanent" gear that won't get replaced until the next expansion. Anything that you know is going to get replaced comes from the 5-mans we all know they will be putting out.
After all, when I know I can get gear quickly and easily thats every bit as good as the previous raid tier from 5-mans, and that I can buy last tier's pieces with whatever the currency of the expansion is (VP, JP, Frosties, etc), why should I work my butt off when I know you're going to hand it to me next patch anyway?
Sunaseni Feb 1st 2012 12:08PM
"why should I work my butt off when I know you're going to hand it to me next patch anyway?"
Because a guild working together to beat a tough boss is fun? To see interesting fights and solve the puzzle of how to defeat a boss with the puzzle pieces of raiders that you got?
Smashbolt Feb 1st 2012 1:29PM
Endymnion already said above that the process of raiding isn't appealing to them, only the loot that's rewarded.
andrew.martin1981 Feb 1st 2012 3:46PM
I think the gearing paradigm at the beginning of an expansion needs to be diferent than it does at the end.
At the beginning of an expansion it's a real legitimate worry that people will blow through the content and be finished with everything.
Within two weeks of Wrath's release I'd seen almost everything in Wrath and was getting restless working on meaningless achivements.
Now at the end it's a concern that people won't be able to see any of the content, or that their new characters won't be able to play with their friends without charity. Sure we used to speed gear characters back in the day when the guild needed a healer or what not but that wasn't fun for anyone dragging a druid through MC when we were on C'thun.
mbison Feb 1st 2012 9:55AM
I think its time that Blizzard change all BoPs to BoAs. With some slight tweaks to the Need/Greed system (basically adding the +100 to on-spec gear rolls like in Raid Finder) this would work very well in all Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder scenarios.
slim1256 Feb 1st 2012 10:11AM
And with this, the cost for Maelstroms would go through the roof! And open up all kinds of issues with needing/greeding. ("But my hunter alt NEEDS that!")
It's a nice thought, but LOTs of issues to work through before it's realistically feasible.
Edymnion Feb 1st 2012 10:13AM
Eh, you just handle it the same way it does BoE's now. You Need, it soulbinds. You Greed, then you can pass it off.
cromahr Feb 1st 2012 11:27AM
@ Edymnion:
But then you could just need on anything and claim its for your alt, and just sell it for profit. I know it's not much, but if you could roll need on a piece of gear you don't need but can sell for 20-40 G, what would keep you?
If you would do that now, you'd prolly get reported/ignored, but if it was BOA, you could always claim it was for some alt of yours...
SamLowry Feb 1st 2012 5:29PM
How about any item you need on become BoP, but any item you win by greeding becomes BoA?
Orrine Feb 1st 2012 9:57AM
I didn't bother to go to normal mode/heroic dungeons to get ilvl 246 items, I just bought ilvl377 craftable PvP items. Now I regret it.
SamLowry Feb 1st 2012 5:34PM
Because....?
Last I heard, the original Cata heroics have become a cesspool, full of players unable or unwilling to graduate to the Twilight 3.
Orrine Feb 1st 2012 11:12PM
Because I did Reaid Finder/HoT herooics chore on my main and alt for too long now. Now I want some break in a pace
Avaric Feb 1st 2012 9:59AM
If the gearing model was meant to slow people down to a crawl, then it worked perfectly. I do suspect an unintended consequence was people stopped caring pretty quick. However, I love gearing up all my guys, and it's a lot easier now, so I find myself playing a lot more. I've got six characters pretty much all geared up through the HoT instances, and I've got two more about to get there, that's what keeps me going.
Zaet Feb 1st 2012 10:00AM
It did no fail.
It was intended to not have over gear to early in the xpac, it was not intended to be dificult for the entire xpac.
The last set of heroics are prove of that.
cromahr Feb 1st 2012 11:32AM
Do they prove that, or do they maybe prove that a LOT of players simply did not agree with Blizzs early Cata-agenda (and statements) regarding "heroics need to be heroic!"?
I don't know if it was all planned that way, or whether the overall feedback regarding heroic difficulty, the amount of time needed for instances, and the feedback to the blue vs purple thing made Blizz return to a WOTLK-like model.
Otherwise, why speed it up at the end, why the jump in ilvl, ease of aquiring epics, and lower difficulty in the new dungeons? Especially if it will be a few more months until the next expansion?
Jack Mynock Feb 1st 2012 10:33AM
I think you've somewhat misunderstood the changes to the gearing model. IIRC the biggest concern with the WotLK gear was that there were so many tiers or half-tiers because of hardmodes and separate 10 and 25 loot. This led to itemization being way out of hand in the last tier, so much so that you had rogues crit capping and a lot of casters running up against the GCD with their main spells.
As far as slowing down gearing, that's what has happened. Gearing in Cata was slow at the beginning, but more because of the difficulty of the launch heroics than any change to how gear was distributed. Fast forward to today and gearing an alt is pretty quick, but it's a much slower affair than it was in the last tier of Wrath due to the weekly cap on VP. In Wrath you could only cap badges by completing ICC on 10 and 25, running a heroic 5man every day, killing the VoA boss, and completing the weekly raid quest. Pretty hard to do.
This design of Cata was always for the VP gear to becomes available for JP with each new patch. This obviously makes gearing to higher ilvls easier as the expansion wears on, but it was never intended for new 85s to have to grind through every tier of gear, it's just not in the design and never was, at least not for Cata. Now they can hit 378 or so with relative ease, but to go beyond that is going to take some work. I agree its not as much work as it was to get 346 at the beginning, but that's really more a product of the new 5mans being really undertuned, but then that in itself is a product of the last set of 5mans only being 353 ilvl. Even so, if all we had were the old 346 heroics, gearing would still be very fast bc of outgearing and the original heroics awarding far more JP on average.
So, no, if the model failed in it's goal, I don't see it.