wow Community Reactions to the 9.2 Tier Sets Are... Not Great

[Starym 3,800]

 

The return of armor tier sets was one of the bigger announcements of 9.2 (despite us having known about their return for quite a while), and while players are generally really happy and excited about the idea of them coming back, the execution on these particular armor pieces doesn't seem to have hit the mark.

While a lot of the reactions surrounding the sets have been positive (the fact that we will be able to obtain them from both PvP and Mythic+ most of all), it was the visuals that seem to have disappointed the playerbase (or at least the vocal part), specifically the in-game execution of the set looks. Most comments pretty much in agreement that these concept pieces actually look pretty awesome and would be worthy of the big return of tier sets:

Those look genuinely impressive (with my personal pick being the Warrior looking one, third on the second picture), have a heavy Shadowlands theme and were welcomed by pretty much everyone. Unfortunately their actual in-game versions were not.

  

The most common comment/complaint was that they basically look like Shadowlands leveling gear, with threads ranging from just simple comparisons with pretty aggressive descriptions:

To just flat out stating that the level of quality is just not there:

And the comments in the many threads on the topic aren't that much better:

Some of the concept art was pretty cool, then I saw the in game models ☠️ - Blerdsterm ... I wasn't actively listening to the audio and thought these were some blues that dropped from the new zone, my jaw dropped when I realized these were the tier sets. WTF - Viata_pe_ulita ... It amazes me how they just keep consistently dropping the ball. Seriously, who on the dev team thought sets with the same exact color scheme for all of the classes was a good idea? Ion mentioned that it was getting hard to create class based sets off every raid, but the thing he, and others on the team, seem to have missed or forgotten is that restrictions are the driving force of creativity, and seeing how they managed to make a set fit both the raid and the class was one of the coolest things about old tier sets. Even if they missed the mark on some, you can tell they at least tried. With these, the concept art looks cool, but if you asked me to match each one up to a class, I could not do it for half of them, and the ingame result just makes them look like generic dungeon sets, only instead of 4 there is 12 of them. - Xynth22 ... Gonna be real...I thought the demon hunter armor was the one set you get from Legion questing. - Siggythenomad ... Yea can't get excited about em either. Considering they're trying to hype it up to be this grand finale to 30 years of storytelling I'd expect the accompanying class sets to be the epitome of class sets consisting of design driven by what players loved most about past sets or something utterly unique like robes made of pure light or magic, enchanted chainmail that make your shamy look like a hurricane (think an "ethereal race filter" over your char) or a druid sets that gives you actual bark skin. Anything cool at all. These sets are just uninspired. They don't even manage to be terrible (no skulls for once is a win in my book), they're just bland. - GenitalJouster ... Technically they gave Tier Sets back, they just forgot what class fantasy was. - ferrety6012 ... It all just looks like Kyrian armor - randomasiandude01 ... It all looks like questing greens. They could have put some of the 9.0 quest/dungeon armor in this lineup and nobody would have noticed. - needconfirmation ... Legion had some of the best class based sets ever(even if one set was a 'remake'). Everyone loved Order Halls. Blizzard, please, people like their class. Class pride is more of a thing than faction pride ever was. Don't make generic sets, make sets that make you look like the most badass of your class on the planet. - LevelStudent ... talk about poor implementation, these sets look exponentially worse than some of the dungeon and honor gear we've had in past expacs. Can't believe we went from class sets for PvP, Raids and Mythic dungeouns in MOP to this sh**. Can't wait for 6+ recolors. - -Kuroyasha- ... I think the concept artists have no idea that wow has races other than human. - PopeOh ... POV: You ordered the clothes from Aliexpress - Morlino ... This is for sure a strategy for them to never have us ask for tier sets again. "Oh you wanted tier sets, well HERE YOU ARE, TECHINICALLY. Now they can avoid doing them from 10.0 and moving forward, as a service to the players. We heard your feedback about tier sets not fitting in to the game anymore and to accommodate you, we have decided to remove them. - Fearless_Baseball121 ... In a place that can apparently remake reality, first one's only made 1 mold for each class. - spanK_this

Not everyone was 100% down on the sets, however:

The concept art comparisons are unfair The concept artists have complete liberty to shape the armours as they wish, but the modelers have to work within the constraints of the game, adhere to the established art style, and they have to be applied to bodies wildly varying in size and shape. They’re still terrible and soulless though. - cestquilepatron ... Personally, I like the concept they were going for. Taking the theme and color palette of the raid and making the different sets consistent with each other while maintaining the "essence" of each class. Not every hunter set needs to be full of furs and bones in order to have "class fantasy". However, the quality of the designs per se varies a lot. I think the mail and leather sets look great and are easily recognizable, but the ones for casters and plate wearers are still underdesigned. Mage and Paladin in particular suck. Also in general they should further highlight the shiny bits like in the concept sketches. - ArctikMARC ... OK to be fair, at least 2 of those look substantally worse because they aren't on humans. Not a fan of the aesthetic generally though. - AwkwardSquirtles ... Man, the people who play this game are insane. Warcraft has some great sets and some shit sets, and these are just middle of the road. I get not liking the theme, Firelands had a shit theme too. But overall design is good for the theming and the consistency is high. I'm not going to piss on these people for delivering on a promise everyone accused them of not trying to keep in the first place. We got the tier sets - sick. - 4SkinStealer ... The sets are the one good thing in the preview. That Reddit is hate training them makes me think you guys will just scoff at anything they produce no matter what. - Dgiyhfybduct

And some are already envious of NPC armor!

In the end, there's still plenty of time to improve the set in-game looks, as the concept art really does seem like a solid hit with the community, so hopefully Blizzard can improve their actual implementation to get it up to the expected standards. It is, after all, a big homecoming for tier sets, shouldn't it be a little special?

[darkgreenwax 412]

Quick band-aid fix: make the NPC clothes droppable transmogs!

And also, run for the door.

[MrM 44]

I'd like to know when the last time the "community" had a positive reaction to literally anything.

Even news of being able to switch covenants at will was met with "YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE IT SOONER!!!"

Edited November 13, 2021 by MrM

[Manbearpig 28]

5 minutes ago, MrM said:

I'd like to know when the last time the "community" had a positive reaction to literally anything.

Even news of being able to switch covenants at will was met with "YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE IT SOONER!!!"

Exactly, the amount of entitlement is really hard to believe. Additionally, the fix is already in the game. You don't like an armor set? Transmogg it. It's really not that hard ...

[Andser 34]

26 minutes ago, Manbearpig said:

Exactly, the amount of entitlement is really hard to believe. Additionally, the fix is already in the game. You don't like an armor set? Transmogg it. It's really not that hard ...

You do realize that the *filtered* content they are pushing for the last 2 years isnt worth the sub price compared to what we got in Legion or WotLK.
Personally I sub every 3 months for 1 month more or less now, back in Legion or even WoD there were reasons to have a perma sub.
Its not about entitlement, its just people getting tired of being sold crap for the same price as a full product.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Andser

[Teufel 331]

21 minutes ago, Manbearpig said:

Exactly, the amount of entitlement is really hard to believe. Additionally, the fix is already in the game. You don't like an armor set? Transmogg it. It's really not that hard ...

How DARE the players paying for subscription call out developers on lousy half-assed "feature" they are advertising so hard, indeed...

What's next, they release a single boss raid with 2 mechanics and 'the fix is already there, just raid SotFO again! It's not really that hard...'?

[Manbearpig 28]

I'm not going to touch the subject of what the game has been changing into the last 2 or more years, because I'm not happy about that either, nor do I want to defend Blizzard on that front. But the subject here were the visuals of the transmogg set, which is purely based on preference if you like them or not. I think they look okay, which others probably do as well. That was the whole point I was trying to make.

[Dejo93 1,023]

On one hand, glad we're getting Tier sets. On the other, some of them are kinda meh and not fit the theme of the class. I get the idea, I really do, but it's just not my preference. As a Shaman player, I love the tier set, but the Lock is kinda meh

As for the Blizz simps, considering people pay a monthly subscription for a game, you bet we'll want something in return.

It looks to me that even without Covid, we'll still be getting just 2 patches for SL, which is just lazy imo, but then again, implies that there is something  big planned for 10.0, just like with Legion

Edited November 13, 2021 by Dejo93

[Chanchi 3]

2 hours ago, Andser said:

You do realize that the *filtered* content they are pushing for the last 2 years isnt worth the sub price compared to what we got in Legion or WotLK.
Personally I sub every 3 months for 1 month more or less now, back in Legion or even WoD there were reasons to have a perma sub.
Its not about entitlement, its just people getting tired of being sold crap for the same price as a full product.

You don't like the game? Easy. DON'T PLAY IT. WoW isn't the only game that exist, surely you'll find one you like. 

[Badadada 184]

Imho it's a huge step forward that we finally have tier sets with a generic patch-relevant theme applied to each class's fantasy rather than all of them being different - some pink, other white, brown, red. Couldn't give a damn about how the cloth legs stretch. So if I can be considered part of the community this tier gets a solid 8/10 from me. I totally love the paladin, DH, DK, shaman - hunter, mage and priest are pretty awesome as well.

[Lestat777 9]

Just now, Chanchi said:

You don't like the game? Easy. DON'T PLAY IT.

Not "easy," some of us have devoted the past 13-14 years into this game. I met my wife on this game, WoW means a lot to some of us, especially when it was our only friend through a rough high school. So yes, to see the developers make such drastic turns that are clearly hurting the game, of course some of us will be vocal about it, it's how changes are made.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Lestat777
Typo.

[Dahaka99 49]

wtf is wrong with ppl ffs with this wow community

the tier sets looks fine in my opinion anyway we will see lot of colors of them preety sure

Edited November 13, 2021 by Dahaka99

[Prophet001 598]

I mean when are community reactions ever great tho lol.

They been makin armor for almost 20 years. It's gonna start to repeat or be "more of the same" at some point.

Unless you want your chest piece to be just one big square.... that'd be new and interesting lol.

[Teufel 331]

2 hours ago, Badadada said:

Imho it's a huge step forward that we finally have tier sets with a generic patch-relevant theme applied to each class's fantasy rather than all of them being different - some pink, other white, brown, red. Couldn't give a damn about how the cloth legs stretch. So if I can be considered part of the community this tier gets a solid 8/10 from me. I totally love the paladin, DH, DK, shaman - hunter, mage and priest are pretty awesome as well.

I have to ask. Can you even tell, say... the clothies apart with a passing glance? 

That's the issue. 

"Theme" is good, but it has to be a flavor to class' normal look, not the other way around. Colors matter too. They've tried something like that from time to time in the past... Ulduar, ICC, Firelands (for however boring that one was), Throne of Thunder to name a few. And you could show a character to a random person and they might get a gist of who are they looking at.

Here... it's just less-effort Firelands. That is supposed to be the pinnacle point of 9 expansions.

[Arcling 898]

2 hours ago, Prophet001 said:

I mean when are community reactions ever great tho lol.

They been makin armor for almost 20 years. It's gonna start to repeat or be "more of the same" at some point.

Unless you want your chest piece to be just one big square.... that'd be new and interesting lol.

The difference is that they used to make sets with unique themes for each class. Then they went to just one set appearance per armor type (not counting recolors). Now they went for uniformed look based on current content, while it is an improvement over what they have done previously, it's still worse than each class getting unique look. Whether you like their appearance or not, it is subjective, but quality isn't that great, on a level of some quest gear. Also there appear to be some reused assets, like some of those "wing" ornaments on shoulders.

[Vaara 1]

misery loves company I guess....my mage has been wearing the silver threaded stuff for probably the last 6 years, what is that 16 years old now...and my head piece is the horns with the green bands (cant recall what expac, probably BC). So my BE tailor/chanter mage looks like an undercity apothecary with horns.....ohhh the horror

[Calorat 78]

6 hours ago, Chanchi said:

You don't like the game? Easy. DON'T PLAY IT. WoW isn't the only game that exist, surely you'll find one you like. 

I love the game, I hate how the dev have dealt with it and the decisions they have made over the last couple years.  This idea that you cannot (rightfully) criticize a game is complete BS.  and saying "well they let you switch convents now" is like being happy the fire department showed up a week AFTER your house burned down.  Fixing a stupid mistake shouldn't be praised when you were told you were making a mistake at the very beginning, especially when it seems the devs never learn from their mistakes and keep repeating them.

[BobTheHuman 72]

45 minutes ago, Vaara said:

misery loves company I guess....my mage has been wearing the silver threaded stuff for probably the last 6 years, what is that 16 years old now...and my head piece is the horns with the green bands (cant recall what expac, probably BC). So my BE tailor/chanter mage looks like an undercity apothecary with horns.....ohhh the horror

It's OK if  you don't care about visuals that much, but I do, quite a lot in fact. I'm easily entertained/turned off by imagery alone and I'll call out absolute garbage when I see it.

[Mascaron 40]

The concept art is stylized in a way that's not possible in-game. From their posture to the precise placement of elements and the hue and saturation of the colors, it's not really possible to hit the same mark in game. But they still get really damn close. I like them.

[elmurufdd 45]

for those that liek them im sorry u liek 12 priest tier sets cuz that what i thought it was when i first saw them . i was like " ok 12 concepts for priest tier gear when r they gunna show us the other class concepts " . only to realize the art dept is down to just one person doing it all it seems . these sets r the a perfect example of the meme about coping homework, u know u can copy it just dont make it obvious  

[Leodagan 19]

12 hours ago, Dahaka99 said:

wtf is wrong with ppl ffs with this wow community

the tier sets looks fine in my opinion anyway we will see lot of colors of them preety sure

It's awful AND without ANY work. They're all the same.

wtf is wrong with this part of community accepting every sh*t Blizz is serving to them indeed ?

[Starym 3,800]

15 hours ago, Badadada said:

Imho it's a huge step forward that we finally have tier sets with a generic patch-relevant theme applied to each class's fantasy rather than all of them being different - some pink, other white, brown, red. Couldn't give a damn about how the cloth legs stretch. So if I can be considered part of the community this tier gets a solid 8/10 from me. I totally love the paladin, DH, DK, shaman - hunter, mage and priest are pretty awesome as well.

This I wholeheartedly agree on. My personal angle is that I'm hoping Blizzard can actually improve these before launch and this feedback is valuable. The other angle, as a cynical person, is that they shot themselves in the foot by showing the concept art - it just does NOT compare well to the in-game stuff, but if we never saw it, I think the reactions would have been less negative.

[Nym85 72]

20 hours ago, Teufel said:

I have to ask. Can you even tell, say... the clothies apart with a passing glance? 

That's the issue. 

"Theme" is good, but it has to be a flavor to class' normal look, not the other way around. Colors matter too. They've tried something like that from time to time in the past... Ulduar, ICC, Firelands (for however boring that one was), Throne of Thunder to name a few. And you could show a character to a random person and they might get a gist of who are they looking at.

Here... it's just less-effort Firelands. That is supposed to be the pinnacle point of 9 expansions.

To be fair, I doubt people could name the Fireland cloth sets by class if they did not know them ahead of time either.

 

Honestly I actually LIKE the idea of sets from raids that would be raid specific instead of class specific. Then we could have Class Sets that come from Dungeons instead (since those last the entire expansion) with different tints for each season and elite versions unlocked at KSM (or keep a mount at KSM and make the elite versions at completing a +20 in time)

[Teufel 331]

21 minutes ago, Nym85 said:

To be fair, I doubt people could name the Fireland cloth sets by class if they did not know them ahead of time either.

 

Honestly I actually LIKE the idea of sets from raids that would be raid specific instead of class specific. Then we could have Class Sets that come from Dungeons instead (since those last the entire expansion) with different tints for each season and elite versions unlocked at KSM (or keep a mount at KSM and make the elite versions at completing a +20 in time)

Well, if you do see a guy in a webby themed robes adorned with glowing spiders, you usually get a gist he's some sort of dark mage. Same here for white robes with white flames and an impractical pompous headpiece that just look like they belong on a spuritual character (jab at my homelands' church, yes. Bite me.). Mage would be the odd one out, if fire wasn't as diverse of a symbol, then we could think of something.

As for the dungeon sets, I think their experiment with Pandaria was mostly successful, animated armor and such, but even there some sets are uninspiring (Priest, Rogue... Monk if you count animations in). I doubt they can produce those each new expac, but I'd like to be wrong on that one.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Teufel

[Dahaka99 49]

11 hours ago, Leodagan said:

It's awful AND without ANY work. They're all the same.

wtf is wrong with this part of community accepting every sh*t Blizz is serving to them indeed ?

Easy just dont play the game then if you don like this all .

 

Just like Asmongold said he is not going to cry he play other games thats it and thats the truth

Edited November 14, 2021 by Dahaka99