Without trying to vent about current systems too much I have a few things that I think would improve the quality of life for some players, encourage players to keep participating in content for the “grind” of getting gear while being able to chase down those rare upgrades that they really want without the need for a Dinar system.
1 - Quality of Life:
A small icon on our character select screen that indicates if there are unclaimed vault rewards similar to the unread mail icon. Some of us have a lot of alts with vaults and it can be tiresome to log in and out trying to remember which one is next.
2 - Dinar (sort of), but in a rewarding way.
What is everyone’s least favorite thing about server-reset day? Logging in to check your vault, hoping for that one or two last upgrades you need only to take another week of tokens.
Instead of having a token system where you purchase gear you are missing - my proposal is to make those tokens for failed vaults feel better and encourage people to keep filling their vault.
New Tokens:
Did you complete all 10’s or higher in your dungeon vault? Then you can get 6 “mythic dungeon” level tokens. Did you complete only 8’s? You can get 6 “heroic dungeon” level tokens etc etc. The vendor can sell an item - say for 12 tokens??? (or whatever makes sense) that allows you to upgrade an existing piece of dungeon specific gear you have from one track to the next. IE: I failed my vaults for 2 weeks in a row and now have 12 mythic tokens. I can buy this item to upgrade my heroic signet of the priory to mythic.
This example would carry over to raid items as well. Raid tokens from vault based on difficulty cleared - Champ, Hero and Myth.
Did you complete 6 mythic bosses in raid? You can claim 6 mythic raid tokens. Did you complete only 2 mythic bosses this week? You can claim 2 mythic raid tokens. Again able to purchase an item from the vendor to allow you to upgrade raid specific loot from one track to the next based on your token level. Did you get Jasters on Normal mode and it hasn’t dropped since??? You can save up those hero tokens to purchase the item to upgrade it to hero. Only clearing 2 mythic bosses a week? You can wait the 6 weeks (or whatever they make it) to get your item to upgrade that jasters again to mythic.
With this system I am still encouraged to run dungeons or raids at a higher level for my vault, I am only rewarded with gear in the ilvl respective to the content I am clearing, and I am not showered in free gear - I still have to go find it but I'm not punished too harshly for having bad RNG in the vault.
Maybe I’m way off base - but it seems like it makes you engage with the game, complete lots of content, farm for your gear and not be punished too harshly if the one time it drops it’s during easier content. You have a way to upgrade it - albeit slower and more grindy than just looting it - but you still earn it.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
If every vault was deterministic for giving a dinar currency, they would probably do what they did with this set in making it so you can only pick items you could have gotten already with Dungeon track being behind rating and raid loot being behind kills.
It would be an upgrade and I would be fine with destroying vault RNG, though doubt they would go forward with something like that.
My hope would be that you cannot purchase any gear from the vendor - only an item to upgrade something you already have gotten. So in a way yes, only gear from content you’ve done. I would also be fine with reasonable requirements like needing 2K rating to use the myth dungeon upgrade token.
This would just allow you to farm a piece of gear out more often - Jasters for example, you could technically kill gally on LFR, Norm and Heroic (most wont be near him on Myth) but that’s still several chances to get it per week and even if you got it on LFR, you could have a path forward to upgrade it to a meaningful ilvl with time.
Upgrading lower track items to higher track items is one thing I disagree with simply because we have had that already in shadowlands for Mythic plus and I did not like it because that incentivized spamming trivial content to get a drop with the intent just to boost it up.
It was unfun for people going into easier content to spam and is currently visibly unfun for people who go into LFR and rage about geared people winning loot rolls for items that will be transmog at best and vendor gold at worst.
That’s a fair point. It would be invasive for a lot of people who live in the LFR / Normal raid level. I’m not sure what could be done about discouraging that behavior other than the fact that if spamming lower content - you would be earning the low level tokens which do you no good for upgrading that piece of gear.
An example I had from last season on my Hunter was Skardyn’s Grace trinket from Grim Batol. I spammed that dungeon at 8+ trying to get it to drop Hero track many many times. I had several vault weeks where I only ran GB hoping that it would somehow favor the vault loot table toward GB drops.
It never dropped for me… until… a friend asked me to help boost up his key, a +4 Grim Batol. Whammmmo! Champion track Skardyn’s… I never saw it drop again all season. That - feels terrible.
I think I have an idea which is similar to the Token idea you have but might solve both problems at once.
Vault remains the same, but a fourth slot is added with “tokens” based on the difficulty you filled your vault with for raid, M+, and delves. Fill 1 mythic raid slot and 2 heroic raid slots, you can forgo picking a loot item for 1 myth raid token and 2 hero raid tokens that can be traded down but not up. 3 tokens let you pick an item you are eligible for so if you fill a full row, you can pick an item but if you say only fill one M+ box a week you are left with gambling in that slot or waiting 3 weeks to buy the item using the M+ tokens. If you fill all 9, you can only pick the currency for one type of content and the “currency” prize for gold, valorstones, crests, or socket remains as well.