101147-life-50-as-a-non-raider-or-working-towards-it

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So, I hit 50 a couple of weeks ago and as more in our guild began to do the same, we naturally looked towards veteran content. Typically, on the road to raiding there are attunements and gear progression and with that comes skill progression; I am completely comfortable with this and indeed, I applaud the devs for putting the difficulty back into the process. I sincerely LOVE the challenge of veteran dungeons. I love the fights, and I love the engaging combat. Love it. At first, it was pretty exciting and the challenge was welcome, but as I started to look harder at my class some things started to bother me.
 
Here's the part that is bothering me; I have no incentive. I have no incentive to do dailies. I have no incentive to run dungeons or adventures. There seems to be simply 1) you are a raider, so you gear up for raids or 2) you are not so you really have nothing to do.
 
I say nothing because of the incentive issue. If you are in group 1, you can literally gear up from crafted gear. In fact, the dungeon gear and adventure gear is primarily undesirable. This seems so backwards to me. Where is my incentive to run them other than attunements? Without the hope of gear progression, the attunement starts to feel more like a punishment. Again, this seems backwards.
 
As for dailies, again...why do them? The gear is for the most part garbage, and even the elder gem gear is hit or miss (assuming you can unlock it). 
 
There seems to be this giant gap and it just confuses me. We downed our first vet (Stormtalon) and it felt good...but now I am thinking why even bother pushing others? I just don't understand the gearing in this game. If it truly is "RAID OR GTFO", then OK, I get it. But if not, is this just a miss?
 
I still cannot believe how poor the quality of gear is that drops in veteran runs.
 
Right now, my progression game is "farm mats/buy mats, play the crafting RNG game in hope for good rune slots, rinse and repeat". There is no loot for me in dungeons, and I have not even set foot into the majority of them. LUDICROUS!!!!???
 	
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			Raid gear is still worse than crafted gear so I don't know what you're talking about. If you want to raid you're doing it for the challenge not the reward, because rewards in this game are complete, poorly itemized shit.	
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There might not be loot incentive... and apparently that's all the incentive people look for. *sigh*
 
What's wrong with running them for the same reasons you started with?
 
Because it's hard. Because it's fun to down the bosses.
 
You basically stated what is the point AFTER you just beat the first one.  The point is that it's hard and FUN to play with your friends downing hard content.
 
If you were asking what is the point AFTER you've beat ALL of them?
 
The point was supposed to be that you farm them to get the purples from dungeons and these purples are supposed to be rare and desirable.
Obviously they have to do something and they WILL do something.  Why do I say this?
 
The reason the blues are desirable (crafted) so much more is because of how strong AP is.  Purples are more balanced stats than 125 finesse armor pieces.  Purples also have random rune slots, but in a world where everyone just stacks AP, fire/fusion are the only desirable rune slots.  The reward for other stats is too low compared to going all in AP.
They have said that they are investigating how to make AP less like the "only" option... Expect nerfs to AP and buffs to other stats and who knows what else.
 
Now if we ignore the issue of AP being too strong, there's your real story if you want 5man group content but not raiding:
 
You run the first few times until you beat it for FUN.  Because beating hard content and learning to coordinate with your friends is FUN.
Then you farm the instances for PURPLES that have only chances to drop and no guarantee plus some random rune slots to keep you interested for months if you are all about gear.
 
There you go.	
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I sincerely LOVE the challenge of veteran dungeons. I love the fights, and I love the engaging combat. Love it.
 
Here's the part that is bothering me; I have no incentive. I have no incentive to do dailies. I have no incentive to run dungeons or adventures. There seems to be simply 1) you are a raider, so you gear up for raids or 2) you are not so you really have nothing to do.
 
We downed our first vet (Stormtalon) and it felt good...
 
I still cannot believe how poor the quality of gear is that drops in veteran runs.
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			Good points, but tbh I have never played an MMO where gear progression is so wonky.	
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			I am OK playing for fun, and hopefully raiding some day. I just expect some sort of progression, tangible progression, for the time put in. Not just "I did it". I don't think that is unreasonable at all.	
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{| class="blockquote"
I am OK playing for fun, and hopefully raiding some day. I just expect some sort of progression, tangible progression, for the time put in. Not just "I did it". I don't think that is unreasonable at all.
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generally, I find as someone with no intent to raid, I spend my time at 50 levelling alts. or playing BGs, or roleplaying.
 
Cuz there aint much to do at 50 if you dont intend to raid.	
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It should be the developers work to provide incentives for the player to want to run the content of the game. "Fun" is both a great argument and a terrible one. It is great because we all are, essentially, doing things for fun. At least in theory. We all can understand that things should be fun (except for thoe weirdos who think that 'fun' is achieveing something after long, repetitious tasks). It is also a terrible argument because MMOs rely on the repitition of content. And there's a moment in which that "fun" becomes routine. Habit. Then it's no longer fun. And without fun, there's no more incentive to run them, except for the rewards at the end of them.
That's why all the adventures and dungeons give you a reward of some sort. If they didn't, nobody would run them more than a handful of times (and that's bad for the subscriptions). It is Carbine's job to balance content and the reward so that running that content is desirable to the players. Not needed, mind. Just desirable.	
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{| class="blockquote"
It should be the developers work to provide incentives for the player to want to run the content of the game. "Fun" is both a great argument and a terrible one. It is great because we all are, essentially, doing things for fun. At least in theory. We all can understand that things should be fun (except for thoe weirdos who think that 'fun' is achieveing something after long, repetitious tasks). It is also a terrible argument because MMOs rely on the repitition of content. And there's a moment in which that "fun" becomes routine. Habit. Then it's no longer fun. And without fun, there's no more incentive to run them.
That's why all the adventures and dungeons give you a reward of some sort. If they didn't, nobody would run them more than a handful of times (and that's bad for the subscriptions). It is Carbine's job to balance content and the reward so that running that content is desirable to the players. Not needed, mind. Just desirable.
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{| class="blockquote"
There might not be loot incentive... and apparently that's all the incentive people look for. *sigh*
 
What's wrong with running them for the same reasons you started with?
 
Because it's hard. Because it's fun to down the bosses.
 
You basically stated what is the point AFTER you just beat the first one.  The point is that it's hard and FUN to play with your friends downing hard content.
 
If you were asking what is the point AFTER you've beat ALL of them?
 
The point was supposed to be that you farm them to get the purples from dungeons and these purples are supposed to be rare and desirable.
Obviously they have to do something and they WILL do something.  Why do I say this?
 
The reason the blues are desirable (crafted) so much more is because of how strong AP is.  Purples are more balanced stats than 125 finesse armor pieces.  Purples also have random rune slots, but in a world where everyone just stacks AP, fire/fusion are the only desirable rune slots.  The reward for other stats is too low compared to going all in AP.
They have said that they are investigating how to make AP less like the "only" option... Expect nerfs to AP and buffs to other stats and who knows what else.
 
Now if we ignore the issue of AP being too strong, there's your real story if you want 5man group content but not raiding:
 
You run the first few times until you beat it for FUN.  Because beating hard content and learning to coordinate with your friends is FUN.
Then you farm the instances for PURPLES that have only chances to drop and no guarantee plus some random rune slots to keep you interested for months if you are all about gear.
 
There you go.
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there is no point to the entire game. not this one not any other one
like you stated its a waste of time... wait thats the point
that and fun. remember fun?
 
back in RIft sometimes after raid or on off nights I would run dungeons or old raid content with a certain bunch of guildies. goofing off in mumble, sometimes wiping because of it. laughing, giving each other shit, just having a good time. sometimes we had to fill a spot or two with pugs. didn't care if they had done the raid, just dragged them along. they usually had a good time too.
no gear upgrades, no dkp, no drama. 
 
same thing even further back in WoW 
 
and it was awesome! so much fun.
 
/waves cane *get off my lawn*	
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Elder Gem is mostly for buying AMP points, Tier points, and the last LAS Set.
 
Dailies are also source of quick income to cover repair costs and such.	
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