Let's talk about the proposed Valor system

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
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Hey all,

I wanted to start a conversation on the proposed 9.0.5 Valor system in order to provide some initial feedback to Blizzard regarding it’s concept.

I’ll post my own thoughts on this system in a subsequent post, but for now here’s a quick fire explanation of the proposed 9.0.5 Valor system.

  • Running M+ dungeons now give Valor points.
  • Valor points can be used to upgrade items that come from mythic dungeons up to a cap, based on the player’s progress.
  • ilvl 200 - Initial cap.
  • ilvl 207 - Available after completing all dungeons at 5+ or higher.
  • ilvl 213 - Available after completing the Keystone Conqueror achievement (10+ or higher on all dungeons).
  • ilvl 220 - Available after completing the Keystone Master achievement (15+ or higher on all dungeons).
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This is the obvious system.

My thoughts are that the system should be shared across PvP, M+ and Raids, with a shared cap. So that people don’t feel compelled to do all 3 in order to get gear.

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I dont agree with shared cap among pvp and pve. I think they have disitinct skills required and should be earned seperately. For example I have KSM, but have not done much pvp and do not expect I should have equivalent pvp gear.

Overall, I am in favor of the new valor system because you have to still work for your gear by reaching a certain skill cap at +5, +10, and finally +15. Its a progression style that people have been asking for. It still has rng, but they have added a more direct path for upgrades.

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tl;dr - I wrote a lot there… if you get through it, kudos to you, but I’ll provide a summary :smiley:

  • Overall great proposal. This is something players have wanted for quite some time!
  • Being able to upgrade your items is great and helps you progress your character.
  • Consider allowing targeted items to be purchased for a high valor cost, at a low item level.
  • Are the ilvl caps reasonable for expected progression? Is it reasonable to expect an average player at ilvl 213 to complete Keystone Master? It feels like this could be tweaked slightly to create a smoother progression experience for all players, being able to work towards better gear to overcome harder challenges.
  • Tying the ilvl caps to achievements gives players great goals; however, keys are currently very random and the community not so welcoming. Perhaps valor could be used to purchase keys in some fashion to allow players to better progress towards these acehivements?
  • Raiding being omitted from the Valor system seems… odd. Is there any reason for this? Can raiding share in this system, or have its own? Both raiding and M+ currently feel the weight of the decreased loot chances.

That pretty much covers what I say below, but I do encourage you to read on!

For my own feedback on this system…

To start, I think this is a welcome change. PvE used to have something like this back in Cataclysm and it’s something a lot of players have wanted back for a long time. It’s a great way to give players a bit of control over their own character progression, as well as to fill in some of the gaps left behind by some rotten RNG luck. I’m very happy that Blizzard is bringing this approach back into the picture.

For the overall mechanics, things are slightly different than they were back in Cata. In those days, you would gather your currency and outright purchase an item that you wanted. In this system, you have to get the drop you want, on any key difficulty, and then upgrade it to a higher item level with your valor currency.

On the one hand, I really like this in that it lets you progress your items. So if you get an item in a slot with a stat balance that you like and want to keep, you have the freedom to upgrade it so that it stays competitive with the rest of your gear. On the other hand, you’re still pretty much at the whims of RNJesus to get that item you want. Given the nature of the current loot drop system, this can often be a very frustrating experience.

Understandably, it doesn’t make sense to let players get all the best items right away. Perhaps there’s a middle ground to be offered here, where the proposed system exists and items can be upgraded for a reasonable Valor point cost, but then you also have the capability to purchase any item in the loot table, at the lowest tier (ilvl 200, currently) for a very high Valor point cost. Perhaps the equivalent of 2 weekly caps (I assume there will be weekly caps). This keeps progression pacing intact but it also allows players to offset bad luck in drops by targeting a piece of gear that they need, but aren’t getting.

I’d also like to touch on the ilvl caps. It makes sense why we would want to have this; however, I feel like the current proposal doesn’t support player progression. WoW PvE tends to feel good when players can progress through content, upgrading as they go to tackle more and more difficult content. Player skill factors in here, allowing players to skip sections if they play well; however, gear upgrades traditionally allow players to overcome mechanics that might otherwise hinder them at their skill level.

In the current 9.0.5 proposal, players would be blocked in progression at ilvl 213 (barring Great Vault upgrades) until they had completed all keys at 15 or higher. The question becomes, is ilvl 213 reasonable for the average player to be completing a +15 key? For me, I think that might be a little too high… especially given that the Vault reward for completing a +15 is an ilvl 226 item. Perhaps these caps could be shifted up slightly to provide a smoother progression curve for players who aren’t as skilled, but will eventually find success due to more powerful gear.

It’s also worth mentioning that getting those achievements can be quite difficult. Not only is the key you get completely random, but you might not time it. It could be some time before you get that key again. Normally I would say that this can be something the community can overcome, but the M+ community is very… closed off. Perhaps there are improvements that could be made to the overall M+ system and how keys are handled, but I think that’s a different conversation. I think having the caps be tied to the achievements is actually kind of cool, but maybe some consideration should be given to the nature of key acquisition and progression here.

In an attempt to provide some constructive feedback, what if Valor points could be used to purchase a key to a dungeon at a given level. Perhaps you will have had to have completed that dungeon on a lower key… so maybe you can only buy a key that’s one or two levels higher than a key you’ve already completed? Just something to give players a bit more control over which keys they get, as they work towards those achievements.

Finally, this is a great system for M+ but raiding suffers from the same loot frustrations as M+. Is there any reason this system is isolated from raiding? It feels like they could be lumped under the same umbrella. If not, perhaps an identical system with a different currency for raiding?

Anyway, thanks for reading. If you made it through this far, treat yourself to a cookie. You’ve earned it!

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But you would have under this current system anyway since there is no different between M+ and PvP gear.

The problem with the existing system is that if you’re a serious high end player M+ or Mythic Raider you have to M+ AND PvP AND Mythic raids to gear competitively with others at that level.

I think it would be better if you could simply get the gear in the content you prefer.

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Well heres the thing. You dont have to pvp to be competivite in pve. I have 1 piece of pvp gear and have timed 7/8 on +16 and would have been perfectly fine without that one piece. I know its not the highest of keys, but it is considered high to the broader player base. The difference between pvp and pve is also versatility. Sure it works, but is not optimal.

I just think it makes sense to have to earn it both ways.

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Should it be? This would represent the highest tier of M+ achievement for anything other than bragging rights, sitting in between heroic and mythic raid gear. Is it reasonable for the average player to achieve 1800 in rated PvP, or have Heroic Denathrius on farm?

I kind of feel like clearing every key before getting any upgrades to the next tier seems a bit rough - for example, a more permissive system might allow you to upgrade an item as soon as you clear the dungeon it drops from on an appropriate difficulty. But in practice I’m not sure it makes a big difference; the difficulty gap between different dungeons isn’t that wide.

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The problem with “earned separately” is it makes the two parallel and additive. The entire reason that PvP is seen as more or less mandatory for serious PvEers this expansion is because gear from PvP is both easier and entirely in addition to all sources from PvE (excepting the Vault). If you make them share a cap, it means doing multiple activities doesn’t substantially improve your gearing rate, which means you don’t need to do multiple just to keep up.

I have several beefs and comments on the new system:

  1. It doesn’t address drop RNG at all. PvP is still the only loot source in the game with guaranteed rewards that can be worked towards in a deterministic manner.
  2. The cap is hilariously low. As pointed out above, the implication of this is that a player in ~213 gear should be able to complete KSM, which is rather questionable. It also suggests that 15’s are equivalent difficulty to the last two bosses in Heroic CN, and inferior in difficulty to the first 8 in mythic CN, which I think is patently false.
  3. It does nothing at all for raid loot. Adding a deterministic upgrade system for M+, even if it caps early and doesn’t address drop RNG, further reinforces the expectation that raiders must be either running M+ or PvPing, ideally both, to keep up on gearing.
  4. Because the cap on upgrades is half a tier below the cap on the Vault, it’s really only relevant for lower M+. Vault rewards for keys 10 and above are already at 220 or higher. It might make the direct instance drops mildly more relevant, since they could be upgraded to at least 220, but it still means that ultimately the only upgrade path at some point once again becomes that one item per week from the vault.
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Are you saying someone who is 213 cannot get KSM, because it is 100% doable.

This is still an MMO and RNG should play a part in it. At least now, once you get the “BiS” you need, you don’t need to count on RNG in the future since you can upgrade the one you already have.

I think the vault having higher ilvl gear than what you can upgrade to adds a layer of progression. It would be too quick to get 226 if you can just upgrade to it.

I agree that PvP gearing is too easy, especially with the paid carries.

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They’re aware of raid gearing issues:

This valor fix is specifically for dungeon(M+) gearing issues.

PvP gearing being awesome for the first time in 2 expos shouldn’t result in it being punished to accommodate PvE players that hate pvp, or people that don’t want to pvp because the rewards are good.

You SHOULD be rewarded with more options and better gear if you participate in all 3 late game activities(M+, Raiding, PvP). Sharing the cap screws over people that pvp & pve, and gives people that pve an excuse to not pvp.

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For 1800 in PvP, I would say no… because PvP is a very different concept from PvE. However, for having Heroic Denathrius on farm? Absolutely! Given enough time and gear, most players should be able to clear this content. A PvE power progression path has been a central, and positive, theme for WoW for a long time. If you’re not good enough to clear Heroic CN at ilvl 200 (when you clear Normal CN), continue to gear up until you can. If you get to full ilvl 213 and you still can’t do it, continue to gear up using the game’s other mechanisms until you can.

Players who are more skilled should do this sooner, but eventually, an average player should be able to do this also. The question is what’s a reasonable item level for that player to be expected to be able to achieve that.

We’re talking about M+ and KSM, and so is ilvl 213 reasonable to be able to do that? If it is, then a cap of 213 before being able to progress to 220 in the current proposal is acceptable. If it’s not, players need a way to progress their gear a little more in order to achieve that. Raising the cap a little bit would allow players to progress themselves enough to be able to get that achievement.

Oh absolutely, it definitely is 100% doable. People have done it at lower item levels. The question is, is it reasonable for an average player to get KSM at ilvl 213. I suspect not, but honestly that data isn’t something Blizzard shares and I have no idea :slight_smile:

I dunno… I mean, on the one hand, they’re definitely very different aspects of the game and follow different progression models. Having said that, I think there’s merit in blending the two a little bit.

I like the idea of being able to play any aspect of the game I want and still be able to progress my character. Doesn’t mean that’s how it has to be.

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It’s not a cap, though. A player clearing +10s already has access to items 220 or higher from the vault, a 235 legendary, and like you say, gearing up using the game’s other mechanisms.

With potentially ilvl 213 in every slot and 220+ in some other slots, +15s should be extremely feasible, well past the point where gear is the limiting factor. I don’t know if they are accessible to the “average player” (by whatever metric) if the average player is unwilling to develop the requisite skill, learn an appropriate strategy, or form a coordinated group - but I’m also not sure whether that is or has ever been a design goal for the highest tier of available gear.

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Again, it really comes down to what is reasonable. The vault turn around is 1 full week. A single piece isn’t enough to put a player over 213 but several definitely is. What is a reasonable amount of time to expect an average player to be blocked by that 213 wall, farming only the great vault, before they’re powerful enough to progress?

By the way, I don’t know the answer to these questions… while I feel that personally, 213 is enough to do KSM for me, my gut is telling me that this feels like a bit too much of a wall for the general player base.

I don’t think it’s about being unwilling, I think it’s more about being unable… for a variety of reasons. Usually it just boils down to time, but some folks just struggle with moving out of mechanics. Gear offsets that.

I don’t think it was ever a clearly stated and documented design goal, but in expansions past (as far back as MoP when Mythic raids were introduced with Siege of Orgrimmar) you had a pretty clear PvE progression path. You started in Normal and progressed into Heroic, and then finally into Mythic. You could think of it like a gradient, where you can clear early bosses in Heroic as you’re working towards clearing the final bosses in Normal, and the gear you got shifted you along that spectrum.

When M+ came out in Legion, it felt like a supplementary thing. I didn’t raid much in Legion but I did throughout all of BfA. My gearing came from a mix of both raids and M+, but my group progressed through the tiers fairly smoothly as before.

In SL though, it’s different. Loot drops much less frequently, but you can run M+ over and over to bring yourself up to 207/210. The vault pads out those pieces further, but my character has very little from raids.

Also, M+ progression used to be fairly smooth. In BfA, if you had the ilvl that the key you cleared dropped, you could probably do the next key. They kind of tanked that a little in SL for some reason.

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I agree that it probably is. I’m just saying that I’m not sure KSM and corresponding top-tier gear is supposed to be accessible to an average player who struggles to move out of mechanics and doesn’t have time to improve.

We compared to Heroic Denathrius: for reference, something like 10-40% of characters earn Ahead of the Curve for any given raid tier (https://www.worldofwargraphs.com/global-stats/achievements/achievement-category-15271). What percentage of players currently have Keystone Master? I have no idea. If it’s way below 10%, and stays that way under this system, I would agree that something is wrong. But if it’s at, say, 20% by the release of patch 9.1, that seems reasonable and in line with comparable content, despite only the top quintile of players getting there.

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Not even eventually?

I guess that’s what I’m getting at. If you gear up enough, those mechanics are less impactful and you can progress. It takes more time and people who are better than you are get it earlier, but you still get there.

So right now, if 10% of the player base has KSM, that’s probably ok. By the end of the tier, how many people should have it? Probably at least 50% of the player base who is actively trying to achieve it.

Maybe that’s an important differentiation. If you’re not working towards KSM, no matter your skill level, do you really matter in this conversation?

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Not even eventually, no. You’ve never been able to get top-tier gear for merely average play. Decent-to-good gear yes, BiS in some slots yes, but all of the very best available gear of the current tier, generally not.

I wouldn’t personally have a problem with making it accessible to the average player; some of my favorite games have gear progression that is almost totally open rather than locked behind difficult content. But it would be a shift from previous WoW design philosophy.

That’s a fair distinction; I don’t know how many players are actually interested in pushing keys, or will become interested with a better loot system.

For sure. I’m just not sure that it’s inherently a problem if the average player can “only” get deterministic 213s plus a 220-226 every week. By the end of the tier, those vault rewards will put them very nearly on par with the KSM player anyway.

If KSM remains vanishingly rare even by the end of the tier, I agree that’s a problem - it would indicate that not many people find the content engaging enough, and on some level that’s self-reinforcing because it’s then difficult to find four other people to complete KSM with. But I don’t think there’s any special mandate that it has to be accessible to exactly the 50th percentile player.

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No, I’m saying that someone at 213 will have a much easier time killing heroic General and/or Denathrius than getting KSM. And almost certainly an easier time on the first couple of bosses in mythic, which drop even higher.

Then why not do this for PvP and raiding, too? Why not make the vault drop higher itemlevel, so eventually the only source of upgrades you have is that weekly vault?

Oh, right, because it’s atrocious design.

I don’t want PvP punished. I want PvP to not be mandatory, just like PvP players have been asking vis a vis PvE gear for like 2 expansions now.

Yes, precisely. I don’t like PvP. If I did, I’d already be PvPing. I don’t need the gearing system to force me into content I loath, kthnx?

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Why not?
(Asking to understand your perspective.)

This is ultimately what I’m asking. What’s reasonable. Is it reasonable for an average player to hit this wall and stay stuck there until enough weeks have gone by for the Great Vault to push them forward, or should the Valor system share the load for helping players progress and push content?

From my perspective, it makes sense to have a cap that’s a little higher than what a player should reasonably have to complete some content. Not a lot higher, but enough for players to be able to continually work towards increasing their player power so they can do it.

I think it’s good for the game to have ways for people to have smooth progression. It’s not going to change anything in the top end of the game, but it gives people goals to work towards in a deterministic way instead of hoping that the vault happens to come up with a meaningful reward that week. BfA was like that towards the end of a tier and it just wasn’t fun… to the point where, after I got KSM, I just didn’t feel like progressing in M+. After 4 weeks of rewards that aren’t useful, and feeling like I had no options, I just took a break until SL.

This was obviously post-KSM for me, but it’s these walls I’m wondering if there are ways to smooth out.

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As I said after the quoted sentence, the “why not” is because that’s how it has always worked. You’ve never gotten access to BiS-across-the-board gear for average play, not even by the end of the current tier.

I’m not trying to present this as my perspective. Recall that this conversation started because I asked “Should it?” You’ve made the claim that this gear should be available to the average player. I’ve responded that I am not sure that it should be, not even by the end of the tier, since that is not how it has generally worked in the past. Do you disagree with that characterization? Do you believe the design philosophy here has shifted or should shift?

Full 213s plus vault items seems well beyond what you reasonably need to clear +15s. If it turns out not to be, I’d happily eat my words.

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+15 isn’t meant to be for the average player. From a design perspective it’s the peak of 5 man PvE content. The people trying to complete that content can definitely do it with 213, and have with much lower. You also forget that if someone is running 12-14 they will still be getting items higher than 213 in their weekly chest.

The M+ change is excellent. As someone who almost exclusively plays this game for M+ I am very happy with it.