What's Wrong With WOW - Gearscore

Opinion from Matt - Thursday, 20 May 2010 @ 12:33pm

One of the things World of Warcraft offers is an extensive number of potential Add Ons. Most of these addons are pretty benign or generally useful, but a few cause some problems. One of these is Recount. Recount is a common (almost required) add-on that allows DPS classes to see what damage they and others are doing.

The way gearscore works to enhance the game is to turn everyone into a four digit number, and judge them accordingly. This number is then put into the box that pops up when you mouse over someone in the game. It's also put in your own character screen at the bottom left of your dude.

Its methodology is quite simple. Every item in wow already has a number, called its item level, or ilevel. The Naxxramas 10 man raid is the first raid for level 80, and its item drops are ilevel 200, for example. The same ilevel system is used for all slots. Gearscore uses this number as a base, but weights the different slots differently. So a dps character with an excellent weapon gets a boost, while one with a crap weapon but ok gear overall gets pulled down a little.

For the record, I actually like Gearscore as an addon. Having that neat number gives me an impression of where I should be, and when I'm ready. As a raid experienced tank I know fully well that my gear HAS to be up to standard to want to raid somewhere. Part of being good at your role and your class is simply knowing where you should be and what you're ready for. When to take what steps to new raids.

You can draw some pretty fuzzy lines:

Naxx - 3200
Ulduar - 4000
Trial of the Crusader - 4500
Icecrown - 5200

A potential raider sitting on 4600 knows that TotC hold good gear for him, and that he should be able to hold his own there. He should also know that Icecrown is a little out of his depth for now, and that he can gear up for it.

There's nothing inherently wrong with the concept here. It's interesting to have a breakdown of "how good is your gear" without having to inspect it a bit at a time. There are criticisms people have of the methodologies. It doesn't include enchants or gems, for example. But that's not my issue with it. The problem is how it's been applied, and what it's done to the game.

I've already written of the elitists, and Gearscore is their very favourite friend. When forming groups for raids elitist assholes become gearscore jerks. Gearscore allows them to draw an arbitrary number and use that as a cutoff.

Worst of all, the cutoffs being set are extreme. The nature of the game now means that a lot of people are "overgeared" for the content they're playing, and the elitist view is a common one. When they set their cutoffs they set it as elitists and for elitists. Note that the Naxxramas 10 raid mentioned above gives items that would cumulatively give a gearscore of about 4200. Yet I've seen groups going to Naxx 10 man require a Gearscore of 4500 or more. So basically you have to have absolutely no reason to go to a raid dungeon to be permitted to attend it. The same occurs through higher level raids as well, with the cut-offs being set at a level that means that if you need to go there you're not qualified.

It doesn't even matter if you've done the fights 20 or 30 times. Without the magic gearscore number you're shit out of luck.

Let me state clearly for the fuckwits in the forum thread that follows that I don't have a problem with gearscore requirements per-se - I have a problem with inflexible and needlessly high gearscore requirements.

The fact is gearscore doesn't actually mean anything. People often keep "off-spec" items on while requesting entry so that they look like a higher gearscore than they are. Sometimes they wear PvP gear, or even gear that's totally not suited to their class.

I often run my own pug raids, and I usually spend a brief amount of time being a dickhead in Dalaran. My recent favourite game is to put out requests for people linking any random achievement, not necessarily related to the raid, or even raids at all. One guy linked Nothing Boring About Borean. I also used to request creatively invented gearscore of any random four digit number. I used to do that until someone pmed me 7. I invited him anyway.

My raids fail a lot.

Where damage classes used to claim a DPS figure, tanks state their HP, and healers their spellpower to request entry they're now expected to have gear at a certain level. Granted they could lie before, but at least they were lying about something that mattered. The fact is their gear may or may not translate to a high level of damage. A good player with relatively low gear who knows what they're doing and knows their class can pump out surprising dps.

And a high gearscore doesn't move you out of the fire.

How do we fix it?

We don't, really. Blizzard could ban the add-on, though I'm not sure on what grounds. But Gearscore isn't the problem. It's the symptom of a problem. It's the tool of the elitist. Gearscore requirements give them a clear an unambiguous standard to for elitistry.