Lead Rewards Designer left Blizzard

I was waiting for this kind of reward dev to talk about topics like the post from Halite The X-45 Heartbreaker: a rant about randomness and other issues for collectors.

Maybe now Chimes will be our reward dev contact that will provide their point of view on how they manage those % drops, incentive systems. IMO, i’m happy that finally some reward Dev appeared on the CC forums.

Hopefully, we got a better communication with rewards devs because Russ, the lead Dev that just left today, he created the Vault and there’s recent threads about the frustation around this kind of RNG incentive system, he also created the toy collection tab which was a really good adiction to the game.

Thanks Russ for your work even when i don’t agree with some decisions on the reward path for some systems.

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I’ve never once gotten anything from that vault he made. There is no way to qualify for a vault reward when you’re – in best Trilliax voice – a filthy, filthy, FILTHYYYYY casual. Thanks for nothin’ Russ.

And from what I’ve observed, many of the people who did do things to qualify for vault rewards still weren’t too happy with it, so yeah… bye Russ.

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Toy box, rank 4 essence progression and great vault (which needs bonus rolls and badges back though) were good things.

Everything else? Oof

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Great Vault was a huge goof. They expanded on a system designed for Mythic+ and PvP, then forced it onto raiding, where it simply does not work.

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At least for me the rewards shouldn’t force players to play x amount of runs to increase their chances, it becomes the normal M+ into my love rocket farming with 50 alts, just to increase chances.

I would prefer something determinisitc and that Devs have trust on their product, So once players reach BIS status, they’ll continue playing to push M+ higher each time or doing alts for that BIS status again. Same for PVP/RAID, i think players will keep paying the month sub even if you get everything faster compared to the current RNG focus.

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Okay.

My point was that while doing progression of your rating in M+ and PvP, you’re completing arenas and battlegrounds and dungeons.

When doing raid progression, you AREN’T killing any bosses. That’s the whole damn point.

So why they would slap the vault onto it is beyond me. Nobody at Blizzard seems to do progression raiding.

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True for players that are solo Raiders got it worse, depending on their progress for a reward,. while M+ can complete 1 out of time and pvp can get something by participation.

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Imagine the rioting if bricked m+ runs gave nothing and the 9.1.5 state of pvp upgrading gear was operational in 9.0

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Because raiders were madge that M+ers were getting loot weekly while they weren’t, so Blizzard just did what they thought raiders were asking for and applied it to raid.

I mean, to be fair, how do you reward raid-loggers with gear when all they do is like on a few hours a week, wipe repeatedly, and then log off? Nothing about that gameplay loop makes it clear where they are or aren’t succeeding.


If Blizzard wants to end Great Vault whining from raiders, Blizzard needs to change Mythic lock-outs to use Heroic loot locks. Let people PUG Mythic raid bosses during their off-hours. That’s how Final Fantasy works - you prog with your static but then you can do farm on the side on off hours for loot.

Nobody actually cares if this would breed “degenerate gameplay” in WFR or HOF. Nobody really cares, these people are very outspoken but core raiders don’t care. If I could go PUG the first 3 bosses for loot every week I would, but I can’t.

Sounds fine to me.

The people who like getting loot from bricked keys aren’t progression M+ players. It’s mythic raiders who don’t take keys seriously or bad players who just want welfare loot. Ask any 2.4k+ M+er if they’d be upset about bricked M+ keys not giving loot and they wouldn’t care in the slightest.

Obviously the PUG meta would become a bit more toxic, no leaver groups couldn’t exist anymore, etc., but most of that is from the point of view of casuals striving for gear, not key pushers.

So this is the guy that has been the leader of the systems I’ve despised since Legion?

“I’ve taken a few breaks for the usual reasons (school, big life stuff, you know how it goes), but I’ve been playing since vanilla. I tried a bunch of casters at the beginning, but when TBC came out and the draenei became playable, I found that my heart was on the Exodar. (Fun fact: it still is, though it moonlights on the Vindicaar from time to time.) I’ve played a little of everything, but I’ve mained holy priest and elemental shaman for most of the game.”

AND THE NEW ONE IS A DRAENEI SIMP?! LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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I think the bonus roll solved that because you could target a specific boss loot and if your guild only killed one that week, well you could spent on that one, while the vault requires x amount of bosses, at least for progress. if you’re already killing several bosses, then you’ve some options from the vault but the RNG could provide something that you don’t need even with multiple options.

Agree 100%

This is the kind of topics i would like to see between CC members and Reward Devs :slight_smile:

Don’t get your hopes up, nothing will change until late 10.X, next expansion at this point.

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Guess he was never able to find the “give players loot” button

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I am absolutely, unbiasedly, willing to give this guy a shot.

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Nah if you pay attention, a lot of players would like the justice/valor point systems similar to WOLTK for deterministic rewards, M+ had determinisitc azerite gear on BFA, we still need to put effort and gameplay. We don’t want a button for free drop, just less RNG.

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Yes.

Uhh… why do you say that?

The expansion is likely well underway and there’s likely some big-box system that we will get no matter what, but it’s very possible said system is consumer-friendly. Probable? Who knows. But it is possible - reward tuning usually nailed down until late in the process (heck, in the case of raid loot for instance sometimes they won’t tune the rewards until it goes live, lol).

LOL right?

giggles

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It’s really frustrating they solved the loot problem with badges in WoTLK and then scrapped it because of people whining about welfare epics. It’s one of my favorite things in FF14 too since if my job duel wields or needs a shield… I can easily pay ten whatever to get both and save myself the RNG headache of getting one to drop and not the other.

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Same… Never opened a Mythic chest in BFA either.

I didn’t mind the Heart of Azeroth but wasn’t fond of the Azerite Armor scheme on top of it.

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With how long 9.2 took to hit the door, it makes me wonder how hard these devs are really working. Add in the walkouts and Covid stuff , I guess we are lucky we are seeing anything new at this point.

Tell me something. How hard would you really work if you knew you were going to quit your job soon?

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