We have an issue with one of my players, I hope I will translate it well.
He actually does 15/16 M+ (and gets wyrm crests I think).
His stuff upgrades currently requires drake crests.
To get drake crests he should farm rare (slow and even nerfed recently have I heard), do 10/11 M+ (feels wrong), downgrade wyrm crests (feels even worse) or do the heroic quest (once per week).
How can we solve that ?
I really like the new upgrade system. The complexity isnāt as bad as it sounds when you actually just engage with the system in practise. The big graphs and tables made by many members of the community (and your explanation post itself) tend to overcomplicate something which is simply put: Do Content ā Get Crests ā Upgrade Gear.
A few things I would like to see changed:
Currency tab exists for a reason, but you (Blizzard) have already posted that youāre provisionally looking at doing this for Season 3.
I would like to see it possible to earn lower tier ranks once youāre capped. Making people feel incentivised to do content which is ābeneathā them isnāt too fun for a lot of people and also I think makes finding groups for people who should be in the 11-15 range harder, as now they are competing with people who are in their 430s who really should be doing 16s+. (Edit: I also know that youāve posted about this as well!)
I would also like to potentially see Whelpling Crests become Bind on Account. Being able to kit out a fresh character with enchanted whelpling crest gear would give a bonus to professions whilst also making my whelpling crests on my main not a complete waste of inventory space/5 gold.
Implement into the base game the weakaura that exists to put in grey the possible upgrade levels of each crest and on gear. This isnāt included properly on all the tooltips by default. For example, the tooltip by default simply reads āItem Level 424, 4/8 Championā - the weakaura I use has "Item Level 424, 4/8 Champion (415-437) which makes understanding what each rank is easier at a glance. Iāve also seen the suggestion of using the crafting star system from 1-5 in addition to this. It also adds the item level brackets for each of the crests.
Hereās an example of that weakaura (Imgur link): Item Level Tooltip Example
Overall, I vastly prefer this system over the former Valor upgrades. I didnāt enjoy hoarding Valor in case I made a wrong choice because it was capped, and when uncapped, I donāt think itās a good gameplay experience to spam the easiest content in the ecosystem (+2s) to get (non vault) Best in Slot, so that being changed is healthy for the game.
There was a similar suggestion (now turned into an addon) on Twitter about adding the same quality icons from materials to the ranks (as well as the item level brackets), and it looked fairly clean. The names of the ranks and how they relate to quality are the one thing I would say isnāt super clear at the moment, and this would help clear it up some.
Here to add my opinions about the current systems and what can be improved moving forward (some might be repeated from earlier posts).
Things I like:
Things that needs to be improved:
Things that could be improved:
Overall, my opinion is that this feels like a downgrade for those players who only play M+, an upgrade for raiders and a huge leap for Open World players. I look forward to seeing the future iterations of this system.
Same thing weāve all been saying tbhā¦ once youāre maxed out on a level the keys should award the highest tier below you arenāt maxed on.
My views align largely with whatās been posted in this thread already. Though one thing Iād like to nitpick is the Explorer/Adventurer/Veteran/Champion/Hero upgrade path separations. Iād prefer a return to the ārank x/20ā style pieces of gear. A breakdown for the crests could look something like this.
The only foreseeable upside(?)/downside(?) would be the possibility of upgrading a world quest green all the way up to mythic raid item levels with this change. This one quality of life change would definitely be felt by m+ players who currently might be hovering around the cutoffs levels between adventure/veteran or veteran/champion keystones, opening up their reward paths.
Overall though, I do believe this upgrade system is a vast improvement, albeit with a bit of a steeper learning curve.
Are there any plans to be able to trade up in crests? For many players, the lower quality Whelpling & Drake crests have no use already (and many more players will be joining this grouping in the coming weeks) so it would be great to have a way - even if itās āexpensiveā to trade up lower quality crests into higher ones (In addition to the trade-down system that is already in place)
Iām fine with it being as extreme as 5-1. At least then my 20+ drake crests would have a use.
Having lived with it for a bit now, it mostly feels like an fair and reasonable change. I fully agree that it would be nice to trade up crests as you eventually stop using the different ranks, but thatās my only true ācomplaintā. I havenāt hit cap on any rank of crest yet, but Iāve earned enough to keep pace with the rest of my raid team and feel like Iāve never needed to grind.
Iām not quite sure how a reset will look should the system continue into future seasons, but Iād imagine it would be an easy fix such as flagging existing crests āSeason 2ā similar to other season or patch exclusive currencies/items.
So now that Iāve done a little bit more playing I wanted to again speak about the upgrade system. Iāve had a chance now to play with it some more and I have to say man you guys absolutely killed it, I love it. At first I was overwhelmed with how many of the tokens there were and I was kind of confused but now that I have played and seen how it works, how simple it is (Doesnāt seem so at first glance.) and how rewarding I have to say that I am very happy. Thank you for continuing to lean into alt catchup mechanics. I LOVE how each token tells you where to go and get it when you hover over them in the upgrade window.
If there was anything negative I had to say it would be about it taking up bag space but thatās already been said by a lot of people and I know itās being considered to be moved to the currency tab.
Feedback - As of this moment the only thing I can think of would be if there was any way to make it a little bit easier to understand for the more casual people who donāt really look at youtube videos or read external websites. If I can think of anything else I will come back and edit my post.
Edit #1 - It feels kind of silly having 34 Whelping crests in my bags and not having anything to do with them, kind of wish I could do something with them - trade several of them for 1 of the higher ones up or maybe make these account bound?
Great job to the dev team, this is a huge W.
System is fine but have some visible flaws:
I know you maybe donāt want people to āfarm gearā for other chars using a main, but on the other side, doing NM raid when you no longer are going to need drake crests is not fun.
Also, a ābad luck protectionā should be added in form of tokens or currency for trinkets, like weapon tokens from Shadowlands first raid, Castle Nathria.
Being stuck with no trinket after farming FOUR (4) difficulties looking for that overtuned trinket is also not fun.
This system is better than Valor.
The biggest problem with the system that I see:
A potential problem:
I agree this is a major problem. As someone who only really does M+ as a means to progress further into raiding, itās frustrating that my preferred method of playing is not the best way to gear for my preferred method of playing.
M+ has been the best way to gear for raid for several patch cycles now. I donāt think daily raid lockouts are the answer, but I think it needs to be addressed one way or another.
I noticed that in Loam there is an ability to buy drake and whelplings for an increasing amount of coins. Maybe allowing as time goes on the ability to add wyrms to this would be an idea. Or a way to use increasing amount of lower crests to purchase the next type of token.
Wholeheartedly welcome this system with open arms! It truly permits even World Players from gainig an upper hand on the world without having to run raids.
BIGGEST CON:
Crests in Inventory. Flightstone cap is WAY too low, 2000/2000 is a cap Iāve hit now 5 times even with upgrading my gear, since it was added.
THOUGHT/IDEA:
Permit us to achive other crests by turning crests into them (I know a vendor sorta does it, but not right)
5 x Whelplingās Shadowflame Crest = 1 x Drakeās Shadowflame Crest.
5 x Drakeās Shadowflame Crest = 1 x Wyrmās Shadowflame Crest.
5 x Wyrmās Shadowflame Crest = 1 x Aspectās Shadowflame Crest.
BIG PRAISE:
THE BIGGEST PRIASE FOR THE UPGRADE DISCOUNT IF YOU HAVE A PIECE BETTER ON YOUR CHARACTER, OR MAIN! <3
Hey again!
Here are the things I did not like so far:
Thanks for reading!
