Beaten, Broken and Bruised, I am Grumpy No More

I will start this post with the obligatory random is random comment.  We all know that RNG can be a fickle friend or fiend and you go through moments of feast or famine.  But this post is about me finally being pushed to far by the RNG gods and having finally lost the fight.  I can not take it any more and I am planning on throwing in the towel.  My days are numbered and I am not even sure why I am still playing right now.

My character goes weeks on end without feeling any sort of personal progression.  Not feeling as if I am moving forward.  In a game like this as soon as you stop feeling like there is some place for you to move forward it stops giving you reasons to play.

It is not just one thing but a collection of things that have led me up to this point.  The point where I am seriously considering throwing in the towel and ending my subscription.  I have never been a fan of random.  I don't believe any game should evolve completely around luck and it seems the game is moving further and further into the luck category instead of the do your job and earn your reward category.

That is one of the reasons I always liked valor gear.  Even if I did not need any of it on my main the fact that it was there was always a comfort.  Having some bad luck with a piece of gear and you could pick it up with valor.  Alts that you rarely play but want to keep at least close to raid ready, it was there.  Even characters you had no intention of ever raiding with, it worked as a way for them to see some personal progression by getting a new piece once in a blue moon.

When they added item upgrades it just made it better.  Say you were having one of those dreadful spans of no drops, at least you could log in every day to get your valor, cap out, and even if minimally you could upgrade a piece of gear.  Not nearly as exciting as getting and upgrade but still something that allowed you to feel as if you were moving forward.  Making some personal progressions even if it were in the smallest of small amounts.

Blizzard tried but failed to replace valor gear with the combination of apexis gear and crafted gear but failed miserably in both aspects.

Apexis gear is way too expensive for what it gives and it offers way to few gear slots to actually be very attractive even if you were willing to deal with the fact that it could take you well over 30 days to get one piece of crap gear.  So apexis gear is not an option, never had been since release and still is not now.  Even more so for alts.  If it would take a main working every day to get as many crystals as possible over a month to get even one piece, what do you think it would be like for that rarely played alt you only occasionally log into?  One new piece of shit gear every year?  No, it is not an option, not even close.

Crafted gear is only slightly better.  But the insanely high costs of making it makes it restrictive for anyone without an alt army or lots of gold.  For me it was no big deal as I fit both those requirements.  I have an alt army and I have lots of gold.  But for everyone else making a piece of crafted gear up to a reasonable item level of 680 can very well be game breaking expensive and / or impossible.  Then, add to the fact that outside of being disgustingly over priced to make in terms of time spend and materials used, you can only equip three of such items.

Blizzard should have picked one or the other in my opinion.  Make them reasonably cheap to make so even people that play less can easily get three without busting opening the piggy bank and limit them to three equip or keep them with their sickeningly high prices and let you equip as many of them as you wanted too equip should you be able to afford them or be capable of working your butt off to make them yourself.

Then there are the world bosses, which on their own were a mistake in design of epic proportions to begin with.  Had you noticed that there were still groups going 24/7 for the celestial boss and ordos even after 14 months of that hell we so affectionately call SoO and now finding a group for the world bosses even on reset say is sometimes near impossible depending on the time of day you play.

There is a reason for that.  Ordos dropped better than normal (heroic) gear, as it was guaranteed warforged.  The celestial offered two normal (heroic) mode tier pieces and also top of the line PvP pieces which were still huge upgrades for many a few 90s out there. Even more so if you were a freshly dinged 90.  Nothing better than even pulling out to "losing" pieces from the world boss by getting two pieces on a fresh 90.  Now if you lose, which you will 90% of the time it seems, you get 17 gold, which in most groups will not even cover 10% of the repair costs you incurred to do the world boss.

These world bosses drop dog shit, for lack of a better description.  They are harder than the previous world bosses we know and love and they offer nothing worthwhile to an actual raider, which you need in your group to get these things down in a reasonable manner.  The only people that are doing them are people in need of the gear and being the gear is lower than standard raid gear (read as heroic mode) it really serves little or no purpose.  Add to the fact that none of them have the fall back of dropping PvP gear so even if you did not get the PvE piece you were looking for it was quite possible you might snag a PvP piece that would still be an upgrade for your PvE set with the old bosses, but not so now.

So harder world bosses that need higher geared players to make them easier for the freshly dinged 100 which would be the only one that really would get 100% usefulness from the kill.  Do you think someone at blizzard missed the memo that these bosses need to be tuned for fresh 100s because they offer nothing for actual geared players by having crap rewards drop from them and no back up in terms of PvP gear that would still be a sizable upgrade for a fresh 100 if you do not get any PvE gear.

The rewards from garrison invasions are a joke too.  I managed to get myself an awesome 645 bow from a platinum invasion the other day.  Lets forget for a moment that getting platinum is more about luck of the spawn (I hate RNG) then actually getting platinum itself, but look at it from the perspective of the gear it offered me as a reward for doing it.  

Do you honestly think that if I was in a group were all three of us could actually use 645 gear we would have been able to get platinum like we did?  Hell no.  You most likely need a better geared group than a bunch of people under 645.  Which means the reward from getting platinum is most likely going to be 100% useless for anyone that is capable of getting platinum to begin with.  Blizzard logic fails.  The platinum bag should look at your gear before you open it.  If I have a 670 weapon and it decides to give me a weapon, it should give me a 680.  It should look at what you have and give you an upgrade to it.  It should not give out gear that, more often than not, will just end up as enchanting material or vendor trash.

Blizzards design for the gearing system this expansion is, in a word, dreadful.

So as you see, blizzard basically did everything that they could to screw over every single way people go about getting gear.  Poor methods, for poor gear, and poor decisions all around.

So that leaves the only viable way to get gear is by kissing the ass of Mr. RNG and hoping he likes you enough to shine a light on you.

Two issues with that, the first being I have always had horrible luck with RNG and I can't find his ass to kiss it, beg of it, or even get down on my knees and cry in complete desperation just for something, anything, to give me something, anything, to show me that there is a reason to keep playing.

The second is that with no other way to get gear outside of this RNG method I am losing faith in the game.  I do not raid for gear, it is a by product of doing it, but I love to raid and more gear means I can do better and down more bosses in a more timely manner.  So getting upgrades is important even if I do not raid for gear specifically.

Opening my mythic highmaul mission rewards, my sixth mythic one mind you, and seeing that not only did I not get something I needed but it was the exact same thing I got last time that I didn't need really hit home.  If I did not need it two weeks ago, why would I need it now, where is my bad luck protection to keep me from getting the same garbage I don't need over and over.  It started to make me think, why do I even try.

I have done 6 mythic highmaul missions so far.  In nearly every single slot on my character a 685 piece would be an upgrade.  Of those 6 missions I've only managed to get three different items.  Gloves, which I did not need, a ring, the same one three times and one which I did not need, and a neck, which also happens to be something I have received twice and something I did not need.

Try to tell me again random is random so I can reach through the screen and slap you a few times.  After you get screwed by random enough the last thing you want to hear is some imbecile that is luckier than you rubbing it in saying random is random.  Just because you are lucky does not mean that hell does not rain down acid fire on the rest of the world screwing them just because it likes to watch the world burn.  So please, if you are one of the lucky ones I am happy for you that you do not need to go through this, but do not take your experience and think it is representative of the rest of the player base.  You are, happily, one end of the spectrum and I am, sadly, the other.

Yes, random is random, but this should not happen, this should never happen.  Blizzard should have coded the game better to not give you the same exact reward over and over.  If I had gotten 6 different items and did not need any of them at least I could say I am getting different items, but giving me an item I do not need and then giving me the same exact item I do not need again is insulting.  It makes me feel as if there is someone on the other end of the computer screen giggling, "we are screwing with grumpy again, want to watch".

And then to add insult to injury I hear about people in my guild getting their best in slot trinket from it, warforged and with a gem slot.  And here I am making a collection of rings and necks I have no use for.  And it is not just one person, it is many.  One person in guild said, I need pants more than anything else, what does she get?  Pants.  It seems more often than not everyone is getting what they need. Sure sometimes it takes them 2 cases, maybe even 3, but they get it.  While little old me is working on 6 in a row without one single thing being useful.

I still have never won a weapon, a trinket, or a tier piece from an actual raid.  Want to hear how bad my luck really is?  I can not even win that garbage tier piece gear in LFR because I don't even win anything there.  Sure if I won I would bring it right back to my enchanters study and disenchant it, but at least I could say I won something.

My guild is sitting mostly in their 2 piece sets, some working on 4 piece sets.  Me, I have not won a single item from BRF yet.  Nope, not one.  Well, I lie, I won a normal mode gruul trinket, but it is not like I would use that.  I am wearing one piece of BRF heroic gear that wasn't something we farmed trash for and it was something someone passed to me.  How sad is that?

I feel beaten, broken and bruised.  I am not being grumpy, I can't.  I just feel defeated.

I know that luck in game comes and goes.  I could write this now and then this week go into the raid and win something off every single boss.  But see, that is part of the problem.  I do not want to play a game where I have to wait for that one week were I am lucky and win everything.  I would rather win one piece of gear a week every week than win nothing for two months and then 6 in one run.  It just doesn't feel right.

In a word, I would want the game to move away from RNG and toward actually earning your gear.  Valor gear worked for that, valor gear was earned gear.  You work hard, do what you are supposed to do, gather, collect, and then you purchases that hard earned piece of gear.  It doesn't need to be valor exactly, but blizzard needs a reasonable way to earn gear and they need to ditch this RNG world we are living in.

Getting a garrison invasion?  RNG.  Having the right mobs spawn in said invasion so you can get gold or platinum?  RNG.  Getting an item or a mount?  RNG.  Follower raid missions success?  RNG, when you can fail 100% chance missions don't tell me it is not random.  Getting something useful from the mission?  RNG.  Killing a boss?  RNG, because lets face it, how many boss kills have you been on and said, as long as bob does not get the debuff on him we got this and the first attempt he doesn't you kill it, so yes raiding is RNG.  Having a piece of gear to roll on drop?  RNG.  Needing that piece of gear?  RNG.  That piece being warforged?  RNG.  That piece having a gem slot?  RNG.  That being being both warforged with a gem slot?  RNG.  Winning something on your roll?  RNG.  It being something you needed?  RNG.  It having a gem slot or being warforged or both?  RNG.  Crating a piece of gear?  RNG.  Rerollng the stats?  RNG.

I can go on and on and on, but everything in the game is all RNG based and I am getting sick and tired of it.  And I am jealous, so jealous, completely green with envy because it seems everyone else is having great luck with it and I am still getting the smack down from RNG.

I told some people about the kara music scroll, all three of the people I told went in and got it on their first try, still no scroll for me.  Everyone seems so excited about their best in slot items from their mythic highmaul caches, one even has the best in slot from highmaul and blackrock already.  I mentioned there was a new toy item that could make you a fire cat all the time instead of having to go back for seeds each week to firelands.  So my friend goes in to try to get it and gets alys to drop the mount, lucky him, but further more he gets the drop of the mount of rag too.  Are you f'n kidding me?  I have been running that for years trying to get them and he goes in there not even looking for them and gets not one both both mounts.  Is there a kick me sign on my back?

I am just so fed up with RNG.  It has treated me like a red headed stepchild lately and I am starting to hate the game I once loved.  I always said here on this blog that the main reason I complain about things is because I love the game.  You complain about things you care about.  But with the way RNG has been treating me lately I am starting to care less and less. 

With an expansion that has little to nothing to offer in terms of play value to begin with not being able to feel like I am having any semblance of personal progression on any of my characters leaves me feeling less grumpy and more depressed.  Almost as if I know the game I have loved for so long has changed, and not for the better, and it is no longer something for me.  It might only be a game but I believe the saying still fits, "breaking up is hard to do".

I have not completely given up, but I have stopped caring as much as I used to.  I need one of those pendulum weeks, one where you win everything, because I am running short of patience and I am not sure how much longer I can hold out.  Or even if I should.

But who knows, as depressed as I feel now, maybe I will get one of those "good" weeks and be back here later all happy again.  What short memories us humans have sometimes.  But even if I get a week with lots of goodies dropping into my bags I still have to say, I am sick and tired of RNG and this roller coaster ride.  I want steady character progression, not to live and die by the luck of the drop to feel as if I am moving forward.  Is that really much to ask?