Gear: Is it Destroying The Community One Drop at a Time

I posted a short time ago asking if gear was the great motivator.  In my opinion it was.  It is for PvP, for PvE, for soloing, for grinding, for transmog, for every aspect of the game and the better the gear the more people want it no matter how they play the game.

Now I want to ask, is gear also what is partially responsible for destroying the community?

We see it all the time with item level requirements.  Like people asking for an insane 395 item level to do dragon soul normal.  It is not even a new thing, in lich king when they added the weekly raid quest I would see people asking for 5000 gear score for a naxx run.  For those that do not remember that would mean you would be in all ICC25 gear, the last gear outside of heroics in the expansion to clear the beginner raid of the expansion.  People ask for insane numbers for their raids.

If you do not meet the requirements and asked for an invite, god forbid, you would get ridiculed with no end to it.  They might even go to trade to insult you for more of their own fun, laughing at you for wanting to raid DS normal at the lowly item level of 380 even if most of us, myself included, did it with no buff in gear about 380.

It is as if everyone thinks gear equals skill.

I am sure I am not the only one that has seen that gear does not equal skill.  I've seen a player on my server bragging about doing 24K on madness in only 396 gear.  Only?  My tank was doing 24K in less than 390 gear on that fight thank you very much.  But see, I missed what he meant.  It went right over my head.  He was not bragging about his DPS, he was bragging about his gear.  His 396, because that is all that matters.

Then again, I've seen people go wearing 374 gear pulling that same 24K with no gems and enchants but on a non-gimmick fight.  Proof that skill still does matter.  But I wonder if sometimes I am the only person that plays the game that notices this.  Reading the forums you would think no one else notices that gear does not make the player, the player makes the best out of the gear they have.

The issue is that gear only increases the maximum potential.  Skill still matters even if it gets clouded in this huge stat boosts on gear, which I personally dislike.  A player in all heroic gear can beat a player with all normal gear even if the normal gear player does their role 100% perfectly and the heroic player just does 70% of his potential.  So you can see why I hate the gear inflation.  I don't believe that gear should have that much of an influence. An influence yes, covering up for being a lesser player and making them look better than the true good player in slightly lesser gear, no.

And that is what I am getting at.  Gear is ripping apart the community.

It is all because that huge stat inflation can make even bad players good enough to sneak by, to some extent at least.  That is why we see those people asking for 395 item level.  At 395 item level even a bad player can breeze through DS as long as they know how to listen to whoever is leading the raid.  Which is a problem in and of itself of course but that is an article for another day.

The importance of gear has become so huge.  Insanely huge.  Huge to the extent that even non raiders need, or really would like, raid gear.  If you could do 12K DPS while leveling in quest gear and raid gear upped it to 13K raid gear might not matter to the person that does not raid but when it turns that 12K into 36K because of this horrible gear inflation the quester now needs it.  They need it for the same reason the raider needs it.  The raider needs it because it makes the raid easier and the non raider needs it because it makes his questing and grinding easier.

So how exactly is this tearing apart the community?  Let us just take a look at the forums and pick out a few things to see what has people seething.

1) People ripping on people for wearing PvP gear in PvE. 

There could be a very good reason for this too sometimes.  Sure, on the rare occasion you will get a high geared PvPer that can really spank out the numbers in a damage dealing role with all PvP gear but that is the exception, not the rule.  People bark about players wearing the wrong gear because it is wrong. 

It causes animosity within the community.

 2) People ripping on people for wearing PvE gear in PvP.  

We have all been there.  You're in a battlegound and someone start yelling at the noob in all PvE gear because he sucks and is getting killed in three seconds.  Words get exchanged, things get heated, and someone could even find themselves banned if someone reported any of that crap. 

It causes animosity within the community.

3) People ripping on people for putting out low numbers.

The huge stat inflation on gear has skewed every ones perceptions.  They see their raid hunter doing 40K on ultraxion and go into looking for raid and blast another hunter for only doing 30K.  I've seen it.  As a hunter I know what hunters can do and I saw one getting ripped for doing 30K.  I looked at his gear, he was doing exceptional.  I would say near perfect for the gear he had.  But like I said, the gear skews perceptions.  He was a baddie for doing only 30K and I was a baddie for pointing out that 30K for his gear was great because I was playing a shaman and know nothing about hunters, he should have been doing at least 45K in their opinion.

It causes animosity within the community.

4) People ripping on people rolling on off spec. 

In random dungeons or raids we have all seen this haven't we?  There are no main spec > off spec rules in those outside of the few buffers the game throws in that do not really work all that well anyway.  So people can roll on anything they want for any reason but that does not stop people from flying off the handle because of it.

It causes animosity within the community.

5) People ripping on people winning something they wanted.  

You don't need it as much as I do.  This is my main and that is your alt, I need it more.  I did better than you so I deserve it more.  Whatever their reason is they surely have something to say about why the other person should not have won what they wanted.

It causes animosity within the community.

6) People rolling need on stuff they know they don't need just to keep it from someone else. 

I've seen this so often, even seen a guild mate do it in a random and I ripped into him about doing it myself.  He said the tank sucked and he did not deserve the tanking trinket.  I said, but you are not a tank and you do not deserve it either.  I forced him to give it to the tank, that is just wrong in my opinion.  The tank dropped before he could trade it however.  His loss.  This happens a lot.  Seeing it happen was sickening.  Why do people do this over gear in a game?  Just let the guy have it I say.

It causes animosity within the community.

7) People saying that non raiders don't need raid gear. 

Why does someone having the same piece of gear as a raider upset so many raiders?  Am I missing something or is it because I don't actually feel special just because I have raid gear and they do feel special and don't want to lose that special feeling?  Just look at the forums brewing over this one.  It seems like people will come up with any reason under the sun to keep other people from getting gear.  I've read some doozies in those posts.  Makes me wonder where these people come up with some of the reasons why people should not have gear.

It causes animosity within the community.

8) People saying someone doesn't deserve gear.

Have you ever been in a looking for raid where someone did not bring this one up?  The new system won't change it either.  They will just change it from saying, so-and-so should not have won that trinket to, so-and-so better not get lucky because he doesn't deserve anything.  Mark my words on this one.  The new LFR loot design will not stop the loot drama created by people that believe someone else does not deserve anything.  The baddies always win line will live strong, even with the changes.

It causes animosity within the community.

9) I'm better than you because I have better gear.

This one really makes me giggle sometimes.  People that think because they have gear it makes them better.  Like that one person I mentioned on my server that said he had 396 gear as if it made him good or something.  In his mind he is better than anyone that has less gear than him.  Doesn't matter that he sucks, because his gear is proof that he is good and he will make sure to insult anyone that has lesser gear.  Even if they point out his bad DPS he will just say, but I still have better gear than you do so that makes me better.  Those people just don't get it.

It causes animosity within the community.

10) If I had no life I would have the gear too.

The other end of the spectrum, gear envy.  They want good gear but they do not want to do anything to get the good gear.  Just accept the fact that if you don't play that much or don't put in any effort you won't have gear.  It is really that simple isn't it?  Yet everyone that has good gear is a basement dweller and they will be sure to insult everyone that does have gear they do not.

It causes animosity within the community.

While there are other problems within the community, many of them can not be fixed easily.  You can not fix people being bad players if they don't want to get better.  You can not fix someone for wanting to be a jerk to the bad players.  You can not fix people that are rude or obnoxious, this is the internet and you have to understand that some people like to be like that because it makes them feel big and they can get away with it.  They can't fix trade trolls because, for the same reason as above, that is how some people have their fun and it makes them feel like big shots.

For all the things that they can't fix in the game when it comes to gear there is one thing they can fix.  At least I think there are ways it can be fixed, do you?

It might not be the best idea but here is one of my gear fix ideas that I know the special snowflakes will hate but outside of that I can't see how it would hurt anyone. Make all gear purchasable.  Make the raiding gear the same exact stats as the purchasable gear, but with an 8 (or more) set bonus designed around raiding that only drops in raids.  Make PvP gear the same exact stats as the purchasable gear, but with an 8 (or more) set bonus designed around PvP that you can buy with conquest points..

Gear causes animosity within the community.  So why continue to create the great divide that people fight over.  Close the gap and let people spend more time playing the game and less time on the forums complaining about gear, and loot, and ninjas, and wanting to be special snowflakes because of their gear.

It is all over the place on the forums, gear, it is everywhere, even in topics that are not about gear it usually comes back to someone saying something about someones gear.  Hence the reason so many post on alts, because they know that no matter what, someone will comment on their gear and insult them about it or use it as a way to judge the validity of what they said. 

You only have a 375 item level so what you say doesn't matter, learn to play, get some gear and then maybe we might listen to your ideas.  Yeap, that is the forums, welcome to them.

Is gear destroying the community one drop at a time?