All true, it just feels bad to know you’re not earning max vault gear. So much so that I’d rather not play the game. Given this is something I’ve seen/heard across my guild and friend group, it leads me to believe this new reward system may not be as great as it could be.
What do you mean? It’s gonna disincentivize 20s a bit, but idt it’s going to derail the mid level key pushers or anyone else from their usual goals. After years of being obsessed with gear capping and key pushing, I’m taking a break from it, I’d rather play a variety of characters.
I just don’t get what you think would make it ‘greater’.
Actually right now is the easiest time for new characters to get into Mythic+. Everyone is running low level Keys for Valor. A fresh 70 with no gear can list a +2 Key and get an instant group.
Vault rewards are based on filling up a bar. The level of those rewards are based on the single highest key you did for the week.
Do 1 20 for the week, then spam whatever keys you want to fill the rest of the bar. Doing higher keys gives more points.
If I’ve understood it correctly, the new system disincentivizes doing 2-9(iirc) to a major extent and 10-16 to a lesser extent. Any gear you get from 2-9 will be worthless because it cannot upgrade to max, meaning anything you get you will need to re-farm., 10-16 gear can upgrade to max, but only with +17 crest drops, meaning you’ll need to farm +17’s anyway so why waste time on 10-16.
Currently any gear you get from +2 on is usable and upgradeable. This allows higher key/ilvl players to come back and farm +2-10 to gear while at the same time helping lower ilvl/key players. This increases the population of people doing lower keys. Since that gear incentive is going away higher players have ZERO reason to do lower keys, so population will decline and since there are no higher ilvl’s the keys will be harder, harder keys means less people willing to get into M+.
As for how it derails how people normally play. I personally like to do all +2-4’s until I get all my gear slots filled in and upgraded as far as I can with that rating. Once upgraded I’ll push until the next rating, upgrade, push, upgrade. The new upgrade system that simply isn’t possible. I can’t farm 2’s for all my gear slots and just continue upgrading it. I will need to refarm at 10+, which is absolutely not something I want to do since they are far more stressful and take way more time. My way of playing is completely destroyed so I just won’t bother doing M+ and given that’s one of the only 3 endgame things and I don’t Raid or PvP that means I’ll be quitting.
As for how it could be better? Just let every single item upgrade to max. Crests are already a limiter, so why have “tracks”? Personally speaking I think crests should also go and let absolutely everyone upgrade their gear to max(437 iirc). Open world players will take far longer to hit max where Mythic raiders and higher M+ keys will hit it faster. That way everyone has a way of progressing their character, casuals currently don’t have meaningful character progression, which is a major reason the game loses so many people.
It’s 2-10 , but there are a lot of players that do those keys casually. It disincentivizes strong players to do easy content.
11-15. Though early season it will probably be worth capping the 11-15 (411) and the 16+ (415) brackets if you can.
They said they’re keeping an eye on this. Though I think the whole idea is to create silos that allow people to get items they otherwise wouldn’t. A normal raider, as an example, would never get heroic ilvls, but now they can upgrade their normal gear to heroic level. Which may, in turn, encourage them to try heroic.
Nah, it can upgrade to 1 below max. Only items that drop in 16+ or heroic raid can be upgraded to base mythic. Crafted items will upgrade to the +20 vault using 16+ and heroic level crests.
Early on to avoid caps, otherwise I think it is a design goal to prevent over qualified players from doing the content they’re over qualified for, which I do support. (Obviously it’s in brackets so people who could do 20s farming 16s is over qualified, but making each level its own bracket is stupid).
This is a behavior I think they’re intentionally trying to end. The game lasts longer for casuals if they aren’t carried beyond their ability. No shade, but I think they’re right.
The people who find a 6 to be enough of a challenge don’t suddenly want to do a 14 unless they’ve already finished their 6 gearing. Otherwise, we’ll have to see. Blizz has significantly more data about where the populations of these key ranges sit and I think those of us who do keys outside the 2-10 bracket are only looking at it as being piss easy and ignoring the players who just want to do their normal raids/+11s and don’t care about getting Max rewards.
I mean, it’s still possible, but you’ll reach a much lower cap and be interested in drops at +6 again and then at 11, then 16.
To make it universal and jive with raid gearing. No reasonable person thinks Lfr gears should upgrade to mythic quality by just doing world content.
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I think you missed the point, these changes setup barriers. M+ is daunting to most of the population, there is a reason that ~70% of the population never try it and ~80% never never get passed 10’s. Having their first key be a horrible experience is not going to make them want to do more and they will quit doing them. Have you ever tried doing a +2 with barely geared enough casual players? It’s a slog to say the least.
If you think for a second these changes will make the casuals game last longer you’re dead wrong. First few keys being bad? Done, not doing it again. Taking 30-60 minutes to form a group? Waste of time, so I won’t waste my time again. Learning they to refarm gear at +17 to hit max? Not playing it.
There is only 2 major draws for M+, Max gear upgrades and KSM mount. M+ for a lot of us is not a fun gamemode, it’s something we are forced to do to continue to progress our characters. The only options are raiding, M+, and PvP. All of which are very polarizing gamemodes that the majority of the population don’t even do. There needs to be a casual friendly progression system that’s not super competitive or time restrictive.
There is a reason the game is bleeding subs and it’s because Blizzard keeps appeasing the hardcore/elitist players need for brackets. LFR gear not being able to upgrade to mythic is exactly one of those appeasements. You gloss over that it would take far far longer and a whole lot of grinding world content for LFR to upgrade to that level. They might be able to upgrade 2-3 pieces before the season changes and it opens up other avenues for Mythic raiders to get loot and upgrade it.
I’d say any reasonable person would think that in an MMO where you want to retain subscribers that any game system that causes subscribers to leave is a bad system. Casuals having no gear progression is such a system and it’s caused entirely by gear brackets/tracks/tiers. The new system just reinforces those brackets to an even harsher extent and the game will absolutely lose more subs because of it if it’s not changed.
The entire point of an upgrade system is to make all gear that you get usable and this new system doesn’t do that. The only people it really helps are Raiders. It doesn’t really help WQ players. It makes M+ worse. PvP isn’t involved. There is really no point to adding this system at all if they are going to heavily restrict it like they plan to.
we were doing m0s at 330 ilvl. i don’t care how casual you are, if you’re 390 ilvl and struggling in a +2 the solution isn’t “i need better gear or i quit”
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If you don’t like M+, don’t do it.
Nobody is forcing you to run M+. Not only are there plenty of other ways to get gear, there’s nothing that says that getting gear is the only measure of progress.
That’s a YOU problem, not a GAME problem.
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I think this is the point. Outside of whatever edge case you exist within.
Yes, it’s called the first day of season 1. P. S. I know your figures are made up.
Then you’ll be happy to hear that you and the rest of “us” can now upgrade your raid gear and stay away from the boogie content for good. I don’t raid because I don’t want to and the ilvl I miss out on is well worth it. Next season I’ll be doing the lowest of the highest because I cba to always be mad at other players for blowing opportunities at success for me.
The game isn’t being designed for everyone to do or enjoy everything, it’s being designed so a wide variety of players can do what they want.
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And you’ve completely missed the point. The point is that without higher ilvl/key players the initial M2 hurdle is much harder for average and below average people. It can and will turn people away from doing M+. If you like the gamemode this is not a good thing, as less population doing it means a higher chance of it receiving less or no development. You’re also very misinformed if you think people are first trying M2’s with 390 gear, 390 would be extremely high. Believe me I get it, you can get 395 from the new primalist upgrade, but you will still see people going into M+2 with low 300’s gear.
Also it’s not “I need better gear of I quit”, it’s “I need fun/progression or there is no reason to play”.
Google search Data for Azeroth, check out the achievment numbers, you can find my “made up figures” there.
As for you not doing raiding, that’s fine, except you still have an avenue for progression. Some people don’t want to do Raiding or M+ and thus have no progression. By making M+ even harder to get into and not providing any sort of casual progression the game will continue to lose subs. You claim they develop for a wide variety of players, the declining subs does not suggest that is the case. I think there is a large population of casual players that would love some chill/fun content that allowed them progress, but Blizzard hasn’t done that in a long long time.
Plenty of Ways, let me count them…M+ or Raiding. Crafting requires the infusion that you get from those so that doesn’t count. Are you maybe trying to include primalist gear as endgame progression or something? By all means tell me what content I can do right now to earn 415 gear that isn’t from M+ or Raiding. I’m being serious here, if there is something I’ve missed I want to know because it could really change my opinion on the current state of the game.
As far as forcing, if I want to continue playing the game and I want to progress my character I am forced into M+ or raiding. You can say there are other measures of progress but in WoW there really isn’t. Levels is a measure, but we hit level cap so that doesn’t work. If you like collecting things like mounts you can increase those numbers, if you’re into that(I’m not). But the rest is either Ilvl, Rating/Key level, or Raid level. If you want to progress any of those you need gear. So gear becomes a major measure until you hit max gear level.
It is a me problem, but considering the games continued decline it’s very very much a GAME problem as well. That’s what you don’t seem to get. There are lots of people like me that want some chill fun MMO content to progress our characters and Blizzard is doing absolutely nothing to innovate/evolve and fill that void, so people quit. It’s pretty much what you told me to do. The problem for you is that if you want to keep playing the game then you need the game to be successful. In order for it to be successful it needs to keep players and grow subs. Focused development for M+/raiding clearly isn’t cutting it. My suggestions might not be the right way, but the current way sure as heck isn’t working.
I haven’t had any problems in lower level keys… but I just started queueing for them at 385 ilvl on an alt. I think if you’re pugging and trying to join other groups, you have to be mindful of the state of the current game and adjust appropriately. If you’re thinking you’re going to queue up for a +2 at 365 ilvl (not saying you are, just an example), I don’t know that that’s going to happen for you now like it once did at the start of the season. It should be possible. It should be a thing… but that’s not where the player base is. Especially now more than any other time in the season with the new zone and the catch-up gear you can get from it. 385 gear is dropping like candy from it, and the new ring is a complete joke to get it to 424 which is a boost to your overall ilvl.
Running keys last night, I started at +2 at 385 because I still don’t have a handle of my alt and I just switched a bunch of talents and had to get used to the changes, and noticed almost every time, the entire group was at least like 15-20 ilvl above the content. 400+ ilvl folks are running low level content. Between people farming valor, the catch-up gear, and high-level guildies helping low-level guildies, the way the keystone system in and of itself is designed and its rewards are completely at odds with what people are running, why they’re running it, and the gear that’s readily available outside of M+ (especially starting this week). It does sort of correct itself the higher you go, but lower keys are a complete mess right now.
i guess i just don’t see how making a deliberate choice to ignore every major endgame progression mode points to a problem with the game. it’s like going fishing and refusing to use either lures or bait, just throwing your bare hook into the water over and over, and then getting mad that you’re not catching anything.
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He’s a WoW hater. He plays this game to spite himself and nothing short of rewarding what he specifically likes will ever satisfy him, but he won’t just stop playing.
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I assume those players would migrate to Wrath classic, the version of the game with max subs probably due to how casual/solo players could get end game gear on par with raids just from doing world content and avoiding dungeons, raids, and PvP.
…
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“Progressing your character” entails actually making progress in the game. If you’re unwilling to do raiding, M+, or PvP, what progress are you making in the game? There’s plenty of free gear around that is much more than adequate for open world play.
PvP. But again, you have no interest in anything remotely challenging. Apparently, your idea of a game is jumping through little meaningless hoops and getting a small dopamine hit from watching your ilvl go up. That’s not really a game.
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What content do you need 415+ gear for if you don’t even raid, m+, nor pvp ? World content and pet battles need 415 gear nowadays ? Btw, World content also gives 395 ilvl gear for you to “progress”.
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You can get lucky 402s from the weekly.
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