Difficulty format for Normal and Savage will remain in 4.0

[Welsper59]

I'll be honest, if raiders would actually get REALLY awesome completely newly designed gear SETS I'd be upset (simply because of all the recycling that happens with gear in general), but higher iLVL plus maybe a super shiny i245 weapon or something I'd find totally acceptable.

This is actually part of the old school MMORPG tradition. It's honestly what got a lot of us to do the difficult raids and spend more time setting them up than actually doing them lol... a lot more time. I personally don't see it as a bad thing, since effort should be rewarded accordingly. Given that ilvl currently has next to no real value to have the best of, it's not exactly testament of the difficulties endured. As you might think I'm implying, I am indeed saying that prestige, bragging rights, and flaunting hard to get things is part of nearly all real hardcore raiders agenda. While there are always a few exceptions, the rest of the bunch absolutely love flaunting their achievements as time goes on or showing off new gear.

But hey, that's exactly how most casual players are too. They love being noticed for their vanity choices or achievements, it's not much different. Hence, why it'd actually upset you to know someone else has access to something you don't, even though you technically do have access (you're not literally barred from getting it).

[yexie]

This is actually part of the old school MMORPG tradition. It's honestly what got a lot of us to do the difficult raids and spend more time setting them up than actually doing them lol... a lot more time. I personally don't see it as a bad thing, since effort should be rewarded accordingly. Given that ilvl currently has next to no real value to have the best of, it's not exactly testament of the difficulties endured. As you might think I'm implying, I am indeed saying that prestige, bragging rights, and flaunting hard to get things is part of nearly all real hardcore raiders agenda. While there are always a few exceptions, the rest of the bunch absolutely love flaunting their achievements as time goes on or showing off new gear.

But hey, that's exactly how most casual players are too. They love being noticed for their vanity choices or achievements, it's not much different. Hence, why it'd actually upset you to know someone else has access to something you don't, even though you technically do have access (you're not literally barred from getting it).

Yea I get you, and I'm generally not even against that, it's actually just something that particulary doesn't seem to fit with me in this game, which has to do with how gear progression in this game works. I also don't mind if it's single items that are totally OP and only a few hardcore people can get it. but here we simply don't have enough choices to alternate our gear. In the previous game I played I had different sets for different playstyles/dungeons, you'd hit max level and just have a bunch of choices, whereas here we just have whatever is the highest iLvl, with a little bit of freedom to go for a little more of this or that, always having to trade in iLvl for these choices.
If everybody generally has 10 different choices I really don't mind if there are a few people with 11 choices, but if there is basically only one choice it kind of becomes a big deal if there is a small elite group of people that has 2 choices.

Blah, this whole talk about the gear progression in this game left me pretty frustrated actually, because I totally get where raiders are coming from as well.