M+ Vault - Misconceptions

Community General Discussion
1

I feel like folks misunderstand how this works.

It doesn’t help how it is worded in icy-veins. wowhead, and even in-game.

In game:
The item level of this reward will be based on the lowest of your top 4 runs this week…

Icy-veins:
The item level of rewards in this category is determined by the lowest level of your top 1, 4, or 10 dungeons for that week.

Frankly re-word these. It is confusing at best.

Wowhead
For Mythic Plus Dungeons, the item level is determined by the Highest / 4th Highest / 10th Highest Key that you completed for the week.

This one is a little better, but can still lead to some confusion. (e.g. 14, 14, 13, 14 is 4th highest 14 or 13 … it’s 13 in system)

So to clarify…

Essentially what this means is that if you want 1 choice at the highest level complete a 14+. Any additional keys below that that you do will not change the fact you locked in 1 max ilvl choice (you may get lesser ilvl choices in the other slots depending on how many you do < 14 … but who cares you were only targeting the 1 max ilvl choice).

If you want 2 choices at max ilvl, then complete minimum 4 keys at 14+s. This guarantees 2 max ilvl choices. Any lower keys beyond this point will not change the fact you have locked in those 2 max level choices.

If you want 3 choices at max ilvl, then you need a minimum 10 keys at 14+. Any lower keys beyond this point are irrelevant.

Another way to think of this is to sort your completed keys in descending order. It will then take positions 1, 4, 10. It doesn’t matter if you timed them or not. This is an easier way to think about it if you aren’t regularly doing m+14’s across the board.

The reason for this post is I’ve heard things like “I need to do another 14 to offset my 13”…and frankly, no you don’t. Once you’ve hit the minimum requirements for your targeted vault unlocks, then no amount of additional keys beyond that point will change that fact.

The whole goal of the convoluted system was to prevent folks form doing 3 14+'s then padding the numbers with 7 more M0s.

Here are some suggestions for Blizzard to fix this (i.e. make it clearer - mostly via ui updates in mythic keystone tab):

  1. Update the great vault rewards ui (center of mythic keystone tab). Currently it just tells you how many more dungeons you need, but not the ilvls of each unlock, or what the current state of your progress. This is particularly bad if you aren’t regularly clearing 14+s.

  2. Consider changing “Season Best” to “Weekly Best”, or add a row to show weekly best. Average player is more concerned about tracking weekly progress in-game than the overall season. We can use armory/raiderio for season. (this is only really useful if players don’t spam the same dungeon 1/4/10 times)

Hopefully this helps.

I still think gearing via M+ needs a lot of work but a deep-dive on that is another post entirely. Still this was one of the things impacting participation I feel like.

2 Likes
2

Well said. I have seen a lot of people say things like “it discourages me from doing lower keys with friends” but I hope once people read this and understand things better they will come to find it does not do that.

I understand that if you only have time for 10 keys exactly, you will prefer to do 10 progression keys instead of helping friends, but that is not the vault doing that.
That’s just your schedule.

My advice, as always, is to help your friends get to the level you’d like to be at if you are in this situation.

It should take very minimal effort.

I play a Paladin as Holy maybe 4 hours a week and it is 201 ilvl and will be aiming for 14s next week.

If you know some one who needs help learning dungeons or key specific elements, let me know!
Its basically my job at this point haha!

4 Likes
3

What’s confusing ? Lowest level key of your top 1, top 4 or top 10 ?

Aka : the lowest key you did out of your 4 highest is what your loot level will be at for your 2nd choice.

Obviously, for the top 1, it’s just the top 1.

Because it should. Doing lower key from friends is time you’re not spending doing higher keys for your vault.

4

Eh…I’ve heard prominent youtubers and streamers say they need an extra key to offset the low one for the vault and that’s not how the system works.

At least in as far as impacts to your vault rewards.

I still think loot drops needs more work in order to make it feel worthwhile.

5

Oh absolutely, seems like Blizzard thinks that too after the small interview they did with PCgamer. I hope for change by season 2, but ya never know, we may see it sooner!

6

TL;DR: Clear a total of 4 10s a week, or 4 12s, or 4 14s each week. If you have the time, clear a total of 10 10s, 10 12s, or 10 14s.

The Vault Script macro that display the official Vault UI anywhere in the world already does this for you. It will tell you ahead of time what your ilvl for your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd slots are, and tell you how many more you need to do to complete, as well as tell you how many more keys you need to time of a specific level to upgrade that slot.

7

People understand the system, it’s just that the system as it is does less than nothing to encourage you to run lower keys.

So when they say they feel no incentive to run keys besides the reward they’re aiming for, it’s not like they’re delusional they just know anything else is a waste of time.

8

I remember they said “vendors are too hard to find” for people then they go on to implement the dumbest and most complicated solution possible for M+.

9

So… is it my schedule or is it the system not encouraging running lower keys? Surely you see the contradictions therein between your two statements.

1 Like
10

Yes, if you did 15, 14, 14, 12, you need an extra 14 to offset the low one.

Don’t think anyone is really confused here.

The keys don’t need to be timed.

The vault UI is pretty trash too, was programmed by a junior. “Run 13 keys to upgrade this!”. No, 13 keys don’t upgrade loot from 12 keys Mr. Junior Programmer.

11

It’s really not that complicated.

Complete 1/4/10 of Level X for Y reward. It’s only “complicated” if you’re running keys of all sorts of different levels which is probably only happening when you’re just getting started. Ran 3 11s and a 10 = 220 in both first and second slot, EZ PZ. Ran 2 15s and 2 14s = 226 in both first and second slot, EZ PZ.

1st highest, 4th highest, and 10th highest is really just to offset people trying to cheat the system by farming low keys. If you play keys around the level of your progression it is very straightforward.

Right. Slip of the tongue there so to speak, yeah they don’t have to be timed.

The refresh rate is also pretty busted as well. You need to /reload to get it to update. I don’t think they expected people to look at that regularly.

1 Like
12

Honestly I think they should go back to the way BFA was in as far as # of items and EoD 15 == heroic ilvl.

M+15’s/HRaids were basically a “Ready for mythic raiding”.

Max ilvl was still weekly gated (mythic raids or vault/cache).

Were we “gearing too fast”? Maybe? If you are good enough to clear 15’s on week one, then you probably aren’t struggling with heroic raids either anyways. Not sure we needed to increase the barrier to entry for mythic raiding which is already a dwindling population.

The average person takes quite a while to work their way up to regular 15 clears if they ever manage it.

We certainly didn’t need both the quality reduction and the # item reduction simultaneously.

2 Likes
13

At least they fixed the “bug” where it would say “Here are your Top 4 keys!” and then list all 12 keys you ran.

1 Like
14

No.

You need an extra 14 to guarantee a 2nd 226 item.

If you had not run the 12 at all, you wouldn’t have gotten a 2nd vault choice period. So you aren’t “offsetting” anything.

Now you could make the argument that running the 12 was a waste of time since you were aiming for 2 226 choices. … but you aren’t actually “offsetting” anything. You needed an extra 14 to guarantee 2 226 choices whether you did the 12 or not.

1 Like
15

Yeah. That’s what I said, dunno why you said “No.”

And ? You need an extra 14 to offset that 12.

Let me put it another way : you ran 1 15, 2 14s, 7 12s.

You need an extra 14 to offset the 12 to get 226/226/223, otherwise you’re stuck with 226/223/223.

This isn’t complicated. Another 14 will offset that 12.

1 Like
16

Or how about instead of creating annoyingly timegated complicated loot systems, just have the content drop the damn loot? Why can’t mythic dungeons just drop the damn rewards?

17

The worst part is people don’t realise the Great Vault is in and of itself a nerf over the BfA and Legion loot caches.

18

Because being able to gear for the content you enjoy doing by doing the content you enjoy doing, is good game design and we know how Activision shareholders feel about good game design.

19

Again you are phrasing as if the 12 is somehow working against your vault rewards. It is not.

If you want 2 226’s run at minimum of 4 14’s regardless of how many others you do below that level.

20

A lot of players don’t think of the vault as a math problem, like that.

They decide how many options they might like, some are okay with 1, others 2, a rare few crazies want all 3.

Then they view it as anything they do that “waters down” the available choices from the number of options they want as worse than a waste of time.

So strictly, they’re not being penalized for running a lower key, but they’ve wasted their time, and now need to run a higher key to overwrite the completely useless lower key, and to their minds, it does feel like a penalty.

You can say, well they’re not looking at it logically. I’d say to you and Blizz, they need to design game systems that are satisfying both logically AND emotionally.