Lets talk M+ Vendors

Community General Discussion
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So I made a thread a while ago called “BFA makes me want to unsub”. And in it I discussed something without going into extreme detail with just spit balling ideas.

I think the implementation of what we have right now isn’t really ideal for what a proper vendor should be. First off I want to state this. I’m aware that the vendor wasn’t meant to be a source of gear. But I believe that it could be. In the next expansion. We’ll get to that but lemme just lay out what’s on my mind for this.

So bear with me on this part because it’s going to be a bit shaky. For this I’d like to take a look at how Conquest vendors have worked in the past. I looked into it for quite a while and couldn’t find any substantial information so this is from what I could get from speaking with others. Please don’t nail me to the wall if any of this is wrong. And if I am, I’d love to get a source so we can discuss this with proper numerical numbers. I’m basing this off of WoD which was the last expansion with a vendor.

ARMOR

  • 1250 – Belt/Boots/Rings/Wrist = 6250
  • 1750 – Back/Gloves/Trinkets/Neck/ = 8750
  • 2250 – Helm/Shoulder/Chest/Legs = 9000

WEAPONS

  • 3500 – Two Handed Weapons
  • 1750 – One Handed Weapons

When looking at achievements that I have in the past like [Warmongering Conquest] or [Wild Conquest] which their achievements are collecting 27,000 Conquest points in Warlords Season 1 & 2, I think these numbers are pretty close. Because adding them all together, not including both the one handed and two handed weapons together but in separate results, we get 27,500 points needed to complete the full set. And they were baseline Heroic ilvl when this was a thing.

Now this part is rough as well because I don’t quite remember what the cap was during WoD. But after talking with a lot of people that I trust, the baseline cap that I’m going to be working with is 1800. And doing the math after that means that you’re looking at around 15 weeks if you didn’t make any pushes in arena or RBGs to get your full PvP set. But I’m sure at this point you’re probably wondering what in the name of Thrall does any of this have to do with a M+ vendor.

Well a common thing that I hear a lot of the time is….

“Raiders in previous expansions would unsub after achieving their BiS”

When I think back to my days of being a PvP only player I did not once hear of anyone getting all of their Conquest gear and then unsubbing from the moment it happened. And when I thought about it more, and this is my personal opinion on the matter, they didn’t really have a playground to mess around and see the power of their hard work outside of the raids. PvPers did. We have Random BGs, Arenas, RBGs and even World PvP. Legion had, again my personal opinion, one of the best additions to the game that actually allows PvE players to have that playground. That being World Quests and more importantly, Mythic+.

No matter how anyone really looks at it, Mythic + has been a pretty successful addition to World of Warcraft. A lot of players partake in it and some have even gone above and beyond to clear keys that a lot of people would think impossible. The issue that I have in BFA is that it wasn’t really taken to the next level.

Lets sit down and think about something real quick before I start ironing out a few things.

THE PROBLEMS

If Mythic + all of a sudden became a source of gear that had players get a weekly cap and buy Heroic quality loot, doesn’t that invalidate raids?

I don’t think it would if they returned to raids giving tier bonuses as well as strong trinkets like they did in Legion. I also think the ideas that they’re doing for the gear in CoS having bonus effects to them have added quite a bit of variety. As well as the rare drops that they had in Legion like Taeschalach and Xavius shoulders. Cool, rare cosmetic drops as well as quality loot that affect your gameplay can coexist in both and have good value in certain situations.

If I’m looking to be competitive doesn’t that mean I’ll be forced to partake in both PvP and PvE?

Well to be quite honest, I don’t have an answer for this. But only a few theories that could possibly work. So I’d be open to suggestions on this one.

Wouldn’t we be gearing too fast?

I don’t think so as long as Blizzard tunes the rewards to reflect this. We all know that tuning and balancing is an on going problem though so we’d have to look at how far we want the system to go in terms of relevancy. But I’ve got something else as an idea for keeping the vendor relevant.

As legit problems are brought up to the surface I’m looking to add them to this very OP as well. But I’d like to move on towards how the vendor would function.

So TL;DR……just like the PvP vendors we had before. Then we can bring back PvP vendors and have player agency once again. Then bring back the WoD scaling system so players that gear through PvP aren’t getting molly whopped by raiders and PvPers that jump into Mythic raids won’t immediately be as powerful as geared raiders. Now I know people are just going to pin this as “Oh this is a PvP vendor thread” but it’s more than that. It’s again giving agency back to the players to forge their own paths. Looking at the patch drops in BFA so far that have release raid tiers we have only had 2 in the current expansion.

ULDIR (First Raid) – September 4th

BATTLE OF DAZAR’ALOR – January 22nd

We’ve had 4-5 months in between both raids. And it seems that it may be similar with 8.2 coming out. So with the original 15 weeks that I listed above that gives around 3 months if you were to try and gear up through the vendor. But here’s the thing. With the RNG drops that we have right now, having a vendor would possibly result in about 2 months or less for the average player to gear up to Heroic ilvl. Leaving around 2-4 months of messing around. Which is why I’d say there would probably need some tuning to happen. But lets look at post Heroic ilvl cap through the vendors.

POST TITAN RESIDUUM ARMOR CAP

I think this is probably what some people will think should be the only thing associated with the vendor. Which is okay. The point of this post is to put together a bit of a more exciting vendor while at the same time providing some for of gear progression and agency. But I think past the gearing part this could open up for something that’s again similar to what the PvP side of the game has.

Upon making pushes in Rated PvP there are cool cosmetics that you can obtain. The main things being armor sets, titles, tabards, cloaks, and mounts. So I was thinking, what if we were to do something similar for M+? The first issue that came to mind is what all of these cool cosmetics would be based on? Well, why not the dungeons themselves? Lets also place the rewards for clearing high keys on time just like the Keystone Master achievement unlocked a tint and appearance for your artifact weapon in Legion. Currently looking at Raider.IO, the maximum key that has been completed has been a 26.

So lets base the theme on Waycrest Manor. And give it its own cosmetic set themed around it through Titan Residuum.

The magic of Gorak Tul still lingers and begins to take hold of all life on both Zandalar and Kul’Tiras. It’s up to you to drive the foul magic and evil spirits back to the grave from whence they came.

They then add 2-3 dungeon themed affixes that rotate with the rest of the usual ones. As well as one that rotates with the +10 affix. They can then work the reward structure based again on completing certain levels of keys on time. So this is the idea but nothing concrete as well as interchangeable.

TITAN RESIDUUM KEYSTONE REWARD STRUCTURE

+10

Weekly Chest

+13

Elite Waycrest Manor Set (pieces available for purchase)

+15

  • Gorak Tul/Lady Waycrest Tabard
  • Cloak

+17

  • Enables Gear Upgrades through Residuum for 10-15 ilvls.
  • Blight Enchant

+20

  • Wicker Hound Mount
  • Title (Like “Lord of the Witch Hunt”)

And just like the Elite sets, all of the rewards would be in the vendor for purchase. This would give the vendor more relevancy past getting the initial gear needed for clearing content. This also gives a reason for pushing past the initial 10 each week and gives people something to look forward to via cosmetics for putting in effort. It also leads to a bit of excitement as you gather up your currency to buy something that shows off your hard work.

Now something that I recognized over time is that PvE players seem to have a bit more of a problem with is exclusivity. When I look at things like the Mage Tower and seeing how successful it was, I think that something like that would be cool to be exclusive. The only change I would make is having a majority of the cosmetics be available during the current expansion. Meaning that if you come in on lets say BFA Mythic+ Season 5 and clear something like a 13, all the sets before will become available. What that doesn’t mean is that you hit it once and you’re good for the entire expansion. You would still have to hit it each time a new season comes out. I personally feel that it should be the exact same as rated pvp but tell me what you guys think on this one. Because it would read to me that most players would probably just wait until the end of the expansion to make a push. But I think the other way would be pretty fair as well.

But anyways, I think I’m done with this one. If anyone took the time to read the whole thing I just wanna say a big thank you. The point of this whole thing is to brainstorm ideas to see if a vendor similar to how PvP vendors worked in the past can be a thing that we see in game. All the while having cool rewards for pushing high keys.

If I were to put a TL;DR I would say….

TL;DR I’d be interested in seeing the M+ vendor be similar to PvP vendors in previous expansions.

But I don’t think that would allow me to give a clear picture of what I’m thinking. And if it’s not clear, again. Tell me why you think I’m 100% wrong. I’d be glad to have some back and forth as to how we can possibly change things to make them more exciting.

Oh! And I know that gameplay is a big problem as to what’s wrong. But I’m currently looking at the gearing structure. Anyways, thanks again for reading!

Blueflag Lord of Emerald Dream

Jalen

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I like the idea, though in reality for m+, 90% of the player base isn’t capable of anything beyond a +10 (and in all likelihood, 75% can’t even time a +10).

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You had me, always and forever, at this one part of your post.

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I don’t think you’re not wrong. But I’d be interested in seeing how people would react if there was a proper incentive to clear it on time. And if M+ isn’t meant for everyone I think that’s okay. I personally think the game needs to take a step back from trying to include everyone in each piece of content they create. Raids aren’t for everyone. PvP isn’t for everyone. Mythic + doesn’t have to be either.

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The idea of it makes me go nuts too :rofl:

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The addition of the M+ vendor was to allow keystone-only players to get azerite pieces, and as BLP for raiders who weren’t getting drops they wanted on their raids. Not a gearing path for all players, and not a vendor in the traditional sense – it only offers azerite gear, because azerite gear is the only thing that keystone-only players cannot get from their choice of playstyle.

The secondary purpose of BLP for raiders is meant as a long-term solution, considering they get TR from either sharding/scrapping the items they do get on raids that aren’t ideal or duplicates, and from the weekly M+ chest if they supplement their raiding with keystone dungeons.

Personally, I think it was a mistake to make azerite gear outside of raids give TR, and it should have been only attainable from the weekly M+ chest or from mythic raid azerite pieces, and this entire argument about the M+ vendor could have been avoided, since it would only apply to M+ content players.

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I’m not disagreeing with you on this whole thing. I think that there’s a way to make a M+ vendor far more exciting then what they gave us. The biggest problem with doing it now though is I think people would be a bit overwhelmed with how many Azerite pieces there are alone.

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I think players might complain a bit less if you had a bit more choice in your weekly chest offerings if you could choose a specific slot you want for that reward. You may not always get your BiS, but as it stands, getting a bracer x4 weeks in a row is bitter feeling (haven’t experienced that myself, but I know players who have). It’s being completely reliant on RNG (not including the bitterness felt when you get nothing from an end of dungeon chest except azerite) that makes me not bother with more keys than my weekly +10 (or whatever I can get for more residuum). Having that small measure of choice, despite still being subject to a particular slot RNG, might be enough to make players hit m+ dungeons each week.

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It’s an interesting idea but I think it would still cause frustration. We’ve seen in our guild alone people getting multiple of the same pieces from the chests repeatedly. If someone’s wanting to at least try to target some kind of stat with a decent ilvl and their banking on the weekly chest, maybe RNGesus be in your favor.

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Understandable. Sometimes the best way to get the devs to take our ideas seriously is to meet them halfway. It’s understanding both our issues and theirs that gets them to the table to re-work the math. We know they love randomized rewards as they fear that we’ll just outgear the content and either move on to alts (less likely) or unsub until next raid/season patch (as evidenced in past expansions). Finding that perfect balance between maintaining some sense of randomness yet refraining from repetition will be key to getting them to discuss more options with us.

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Personally I think RNG is necessary to have in WoW but BFA has too many layers to it. I feel they really need to step back and try to create some excitement through hard work and actually pushing yourself further than what you originally thought you could do.

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More incentive to run higher keys would be a welcome system. As it stands now running higher keys for more TR is nice but it isnt really enough for me to want to push past a 12 or 13. Also having a better vendor would be awesome its been weeks since i have seen a decent upgrade from my weekly chest (obvs at some point the weekly chest stops being useful, but i think it happens far to quickly)

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Yeah I feel the same overall. I don’t like that there’s not really a safety net for bad RNG right now

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Its not much about the gear for me, cause its just so easy to get so much gear this xpac but i would love if they added special rewards for timing all dungeons at plus 10 an plus 15 either transmog or mounts like they had with challenge modes back in mop.

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I don’t know why anyone would really want to change the loot system in mythic plus. It really is one very benefical to players right now.

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I agree that gear is easily obtainable in BFA. And yeah I’m thinking of a mix between PvP and Challenge Mode rewards.

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Personally I don’t really feel like it is. For me it feels like once you’re about Heroic ilvl geared there’s really no big point in running M+ constantly outside of getting your +10 done for the weekly chest. I think there could be a bit more depth to it.

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Why would 2h weapon cost more than 1h? There’s absolutely no reason for that.

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If my memory serves me it would be because both would equate to having to pay 3500 Conquest points seeing that 1H specs dual wielded things like swords, daggers, maces, ect. Now if you’re a Fury warrior, god speed.

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100% this… They’ve done a good job of giving us lots of different forms of content (varying in quality :joy:). However they insist on trying to make us do all those options.

They need to give options + the ability to chose from those options instead of just doing everything.

Combining wod and legion systems would be cool. Demolish bfa… Lol good post! Read the whole thing.

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