So I don’t usually comment on stuff but SoulSoBreezy posted a YouTube video about the datamined ‘18 gilded cap’ from delves for season two. He invited comments and I had thoughts.

My first argument was basically that I don’t think there should be a cap at all.

NO delve specific cap. That’s what I think. I mean I started the season running 8x delves every week to max vault. I did that for like a month on my main and then I didn’t need to anymore. I did it sometimes on an alt but truthfully I didn’t have time. For someone that just does delves? Let them play! Equality. Fun for everyone.

I raid. My guild gets Ahead of the Curve every tier. In The War Within I switched classes (from Prot Paladin —-> Prot Warrior) and tried M+ for the first ever time. I’ll only run guild groups and we don’t have a regular M+ time slot like we do for raids, so I will go weeks in between runs. Currently sitting at about 2.2k score.

I say all this to establish my ‘bonafides’ because I feel like the argument for “cap of 18” is to somehow ‘pacify’ players that raid/M+ and that feels like absolute nonsense to me.

Why do people actually play?
This is a really important question because what is the game? Is it not what we spend our time doing?

I raid because I want to. I took the Amirdrassil tier off because I was burned out. A new class reinvigorated my fun hence trying M+ for the first time ever. I never did M+ before, gearing up exclusively in raids, and usually that meant I had one of the lowest ilevels on my raid team. I’m enough of a veteran to remember when everyone geared up within the raid, when we didn’t need hero level gear before we could start progressing on heroic level raids (I feel like they tune for higher gear now but I digress). Anyway I didn’t want to M+ so I didn’t. My point being the game is a giant hamster wheel. I say that rather than using a buffet analogy because it is a circular system. We get gear/crests from content but that also enables us to do the content. We clear faster/progress to higher difficulties etc.

I have never understood why people say (like the example at hand) “oh delves are easier, why would anyone M+?” – maybe because people ENJOY M+? And if they don’t enjoy M+ then why do it? Sure there are difficulty humps and being able to ‘overpower’ by getting gear/crests from somewhere else can help, but that can be a short-term solution to a short-term problem. Now before anyone calls me naive I realise the social pressure. The need to optimise which pushes people to do content that makes them miserable. I feel very sad for them. I think people should just play however makes them happy. But let’s face it if somebody is optimising in this way, they are going to do it regardless of how much is available simply because it is there. I’m not really going to address the “superiority” argument because I don’t agree with it. What someone else does/has doesn’t affect me. This whole notion of ‘superiority’ is only reinforced with the feeling of ‘second class citizens’ that a cap such as 18 crests promotes.

TLDR: I think people should play the content they enjoy. Open up gearing, open up crests. There is a seasonal cap. I really don’t feel like there should be a delve specific cap at all but 18? That’s just mean.

The Rebuttal
Obviously it being the internet I got a reply. This person responded quite scathingly saying that “follow your argument to its logical conclusion and you’ll see how dumb it is”. They said that “if rewards aren’t proportional to the difficultly of the content they should just be removed”. Everyone has generic gear and power increases every week etc.

Now I hadn’t actually gone that far with it. They were right enough about that but in all honesty if that’s the logical conclusion to what I said – it’s a good conclusion! I actually think that would be fine.

Do we really need gear? What is the point of gear?
The only reason I don’t advocate getting rid of gear altogether is because being able to “outgear” content to get over tricky hurdles is helpful. With your described scenario where the power gets stronger each week, that possibility remains.

Bleeding edge folks could tackle their chosen content when power levels were low. Folks who need a little help can progress slower and manage higher difficulties as the season progresses. Sounds good to me! The date on achievements can still function to have folks show off if they really feel the need.

I don’t really get the notion of only doing the content ‘for the reward’. Isn’t actually getting to play the content the point? I mean the game is what we spend our time in game doing right? In terms of classic ‘endgame’ we raid, we M+, we delve. Yeah we get gear and that makes future runs easier/higher level/faster etc. But we are still doing the same content. There’s no magical “you have maxed your gear here’s a brand new game mode to play” – it’s all the same stuff. What we play for rewards, is just what we play because we enjoy it. The gear ‘treadmill’ exists to do exactly as you described with the power increases, it functions like a soft nerf. Having that power in the players hands gives players slightly more control over the timing of when they get the soft nerfs, but blizz through stuff like caps! still holds the reins. They decide how quickly we get stronger.

Let me put this another way. My motivation for raiding is Ahead of the Curve/Glory. Once I have got that I’m done for the raiding season unless my guild needs extra runs for folks who missed out, in which case of course I will keep going for them. The gear ‘reward’ is a nice side benefit but I would certainly never raid just for the gear. Transmog maybe because I can keep that, but gear gets reset every season.

My favourite alt (Demon Hunter) only has delves. I don’t raid or M+ on the alt. I like delves because I get to use my toolkit. Just like I get the achievement for my investment in raiding, or there’s the KSM mount or title as a reward for M+. Delves has Zek’thir as an ultimate challenge mode. The gear we get along the way helps us rise to the zenith of our chosen content. If we didn’t have power from the gear, it wouldn’t change anything about the content. I really like soloing old raids. Power increases helps with that, just like it helps with Zek’thir or Ahead of the Curve. Increasing in power is helpful to enjoy the content. That power being connected to gear isn’t as necessary.

Conclusion
Basically what I was trying to say the entire time is the game is what we do in it. If we don’t enjoy the content, why are we playing?

Think about PlayStation games. They have difficulty modes. You can play the exact same game on easy, or on ultra-crushing – it’s about what you as a person enjoys. In Warcraft I can raid, M+, delve, pet battle, hunt for collectibles, level up new characters etc. etc. If I don’t enjoy one of those things, I do not have to do it. Life is too short.

The gear helps with a persons challenge as we have different skill levels and being a multi-player game you can’t toggle it to easy for one person, and crushing for another. Gear is an equaliser and is good for that, but if it was handled differently that would be fine too.

This is a game. It is supposed to be fun. Do what you enjoy. Play it your way.