Twinfinite Interview

[Brannigan]

Most raiders don't care provided whatever gear they can acquire is BiS.

Speak for yourself. My sample size of my group pretty much despises this game's gear at this point. The reason they don't add effects - or any variation at all - is because the dev team is afraid of players feeling rejected because they don't have specific pieces of gear. This has been stated in the past.

The question to ask raiders isn't "would you like an interesting piece of gear or a good piece of gear," but "would you enjoy acquiring items more if they weren't so boring?" Getting cool stuff is exciting. Getting 2% more damage isn't, especially when you've been getting that same exact upgrade since 2014. Putting gear that's actually cool into the game might motivate people to go do the content where it drops and might actually help with player retention.

Also, making gear interesting doesn't necessarily mean giving it a unique effect. Something as simple as less MND than other pieces of its ilvl, but more VIT on a piece of healer gear is enough to make that item stand out from the endless march of Main Stat, VIT, one high substat, one low substat