Speaking of arms races... I hope they make tier set pieces unavailable from weekly caches and raid bosses. I mean, at least in regards to PvP. I don't really know if PvErs just love the feeling of not getting more than one piece of tier gear for weeks (even months for some people), while the guy who got 4 set in 2 weeks is wiping the floor with him on the meters. Because at least as a PvPer I hated that. Some guy with his most important PvP set bonus, like for assassin rogues their burst gets obnoxious with their set bonus. Without it, it's meh. For locks, destro was ludicrous with 2 set and 4 set. S tier in PvP. Without the set bonus, B-tier at best. So if they wanna keep tier sets in PvP, which I hope they do in some form... I really wish they make them equalized for everyone without any weekly RNG checks. Like day 1 of the season, and you can earn the next "cosmic flux" currency to craft them. There's still RNG involved in getting the newest season's tier slot pieces. There's still a time gate for PvPers to get it with conquest caps. But at least it wouldn't be a case of the luckiest players getting 4 set literally week 1, and the least lucky getting 2 set in 2 months when the crafting opens...Idk how PvErs feel about this. Let me know your takes on this. Would you guys like tier set crafting open day 1? Or just the lottery until two months into the season, they finally let people craft them? And if raiders really love this system, maybe you guys should get to keep it, I don't want to step on raider toes here. Maybe then disable PvE set bonuses in rated PvP, and make a separate PvP set bonus for each season, bought with honor. And maybe disable that in raids and M+. It just feels really terrible to lose rating and waste time for two months, relying on RNG lottery rewards to become viable. It's so awful. Like legit some specs were made by their set bonuses in this season of PvP. And it took two months of playing and losing unfair matches, if you were unlucky. That's 30€ spent too. To not have fun. To have a bad time. So you could maybe have a good time IF you get lucky, or when they finally open tier set crafting.
Good for the game, don't really get people that just want sub 200 guilds to clear the raid which would have been the case if they didn't do any nerfs. And nerfing it this much has destroyed the raid as it wasn't tuned like that at first so it became super clunky. When you wait for nerfs to be able to clear the raid for the majority of people for who the content is made, it is bad and there's no excuses. Glad they'll learn from it but still need to wait and see.
yeah maybe don't design raids and fights around the world first race and make it enjoyable for the entire playerbase. I couldn't care less who wins that race or how fast they do it...
Hopefully they don't swing too far in the other direction. I personally liked the difficulty in the SL raids and especially Sepulcher. On higher difficulties you weren't able to simply blaze through the raid. Being able to get AotC in any means in the first week by anyone but the RWF guilds or top 1%ers is not a good thing. Something like that should be earned and not given by default due to ease of mechanics.
The game should be made for all the players, not just your hardcore ones. If you want to watch eSports go to watch MOBA games. WoW wasn't about RUSH RUSH RUSH RUSH RUSH like Diablo. It is a game to progress with friends. The spirit of eSports kills fantasy games supposed to be enjoyed, not rushed. Whatever, even the players don't read the quest and just want to be lvl max, or have Loremaster without even reading a quest, just repeat repeat repeat.... I feel respect for the hardcore players, they are like gods in some ways, but I don't think the game should be made for them ONLY.
Going to steal an old comment from Simca over at MMO-C because he did such a good job of summarizing my feelings on raiding in SL.