Naturally, different people will have different reactions. Some (especially end-gamers) like the new advance-by-random-only mechanic.
Others like me – and not just me, but quite a lot of customers (including some end-gamers) – intensely dislike that change.
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My position, from the get-go, is that the devs would be well-advised to appeal to both groups of potential customers, rather than switching the game from appealing to one group to appealing to the other.
Simply retaining the ability to improve gear from common up to mythic, while implementing all the other 3.0 changes, would have had this effect … Making the game appeal to a wider group of people.
And both groups would be willing to spend $ … the one group to play the “slot machine” more, the other because they’re invested in developing their gear intelligently and want to speed up the process.
By eliminating that ability, the game now appeals to a smaller group of potential customers than it otherwise would have.