Why is there such inconsistency between dungeon and raid loot?

Community General Discussion
1

In raids gearing is very straightforward - the crests you get allow you to upgrade the gear that drops to level 4. So normal raids drop Champ gear and Drake crests that allow you to upgrade Champ gear to 4/8, heroic raids drop Hero gear and Wyrm crests that allow you to upgrade Hero gear to 4/6, etc. Likewise, vault drops are on the same gear track that drops in the content that you ran. Heroic raids drop Hero gear and give Hero gear in the vault…simple.

But dungeons are very different:

M0: drops Champ gear, Drake crests, and gives Hero gear in the vault
+2-5: drop Champ gear, Wyrm crests, and give Hero gear in the vault
+6: drops Champ gear, Aspect crests, and gives Hero gear in the vault
+7: drops Hero gear, Aspect crests, and gives Hero gear in the vault
+8 and up: drop Hero gear, Aspect crests, and give Myth gear in the vault

This is awfully disjointed for a number of reasons:

  1. Why do M0/M+ give better gear in the vault than what drops in the content itself when raiders don’t get this?
  2. Why do M+ dungeons generally give a higher level of crest than what is needed for the first four upgrade levels of gear that actually drops in the dungeon?
  3. +5 gives you an extra affix to deal with but no difference in gear
  4. +6 drops Champ gear but gives Aspect crests that are not used at all to upgrade Champ gear and only the last 2 levels of even its vault gear
  5. +7 drops Hero gear in both the dungeon and in the vault, so you get screwed in the vault compared to other key levels
  6. The +5-7 range seems quite bad incentive-wise which IMO creates a dead zone in the middle of the key range. This means that for players who cannot make the jump to +8 and higher it may make more sense for them to remain in the +2-4 range; however, this would lead to an overpopulation of players for these keys

I’d like to propose a different loot distribution:

M0: Veteran gear at 4/8 in dungeon and vault, and Drake crests
+2: Champ gear at 1/8 in dungeon and vault, and Drake crests
+3: Champ gear at 2/8 in dungeon and vault, and Drake crests
+4: Champ gear at 3/8 in dungeon and vault, and Drake crests
+5: Hero gear at 1/6 in dungeon and vault, and Wyrm crests
+6: Hero gear at 2/6 in dungeon and vault, and Wyrm crests
+7: Hero gear at 3/6 in dungeon and vault, and Wyrm crests
+8: Hero gear at 4/6 in dungeon and vault, and Aspect crests
+9: Hero gear at 5/6 in dungeon and vault, and Aspect crests
+10 and up: Myth gear at 1/4 in dungeon and vault, and Aspect crests

People will probably flame me for wanting to reduce the vault gear track to match what drops in the dungeon, but honestly I see no reason why M+ shouldn’t follow the same structure as raiding. However, I’d offset this somewhat by lowering the key level at which gear tracks increase on dungeon drops. Doing this when additional affixes come into play makes more sense to me than the current system, since this is where difficulty will increase significantly from the previous level. That means Hero gear starts dropping from +5s instead of +7s, and Myth gear starts dropping from +10s instead of only in the vault.

Thoughts? Flames? Other opinions on how to refine the gearing structure?

2 Likes
2

I’ve always looked at it as the m+ vault is the real loot level for m+, and the drops in the dungeon are nerfed down because they are farmable with no limit.

3 Likes
3

The crest system is very inconsistent in M+ and probably a bit too generous in term of aspects, I would probably start aspects from +10. And it should probably scale more in quantity the higher you push.

As for the great vault rewarding higher loot it’s because it’s the way they’ve found to give higher gear rewards without making it simply drop in M+ so it can’t be farmed. It’s because gear drop is uncapped in M+ that this happens. You don’t really want people to easily attain ilvl cap from just spamming M+ and be done in 2 weeks.

3 Likes
4

Apply this change and watch as WoD violently comes back.

Telling me that if I want to have Myth gear I should be farming endlessly instead of just running +8s to secure it is an instant unsubscribe lol

1 Like
5

The +10 is where you’re gonna run into problems, tbh. Making myth track gear farmable is way, way, way too lucrative.

2 Likes
6

But why are those higher gear rewards from the vault needed in the first place? I raid and do M+ so I’ve got no real bias one way or the other as I enjoy both, but if gear quality should be correlated with difficulty then does anyone really think a +2 is equivalent to heroic raiding? I sure as heck don’t.

You do bring up another point regarding uncapped loot drops though, and I was thinking about making a separate post about that because it’s also a fundamental problem with M+ IMO. I do think that loot drops from dungeons should be capped per week - there are probably lots of ways to do that, but I think it should be done. I mean, isn’t it equally silly that someone could have a full set of Champ gear in week 1 of a season just by spamming 2s nonstop?

7

Raids are weekly capped because you can’t spam them and M+ are capped with the great vault. The point is to make it so players play longer and that your power curve helps you beat harder content over time.

They want you to do both m+ and raiding so there’s probably a clue there why M+ is so heavily incentivized and why raids get tier sets and often better trinkets.

As for wanting m+ to be capped that’s probably not gonna make everyone happy. Yes it would make sense but we had M+ uncapped for a couple expansion so I would be surprised to see heavy changes toward that.

2 Likes
8

That’s fair, but then how do you adequately reward someone for running a 10 over a 9 and getting the third affix? Used to be that some achievement rewards were tied to running a +20 but now you can obtain things like KSM without ever going near a 10.

Anyway, as I said in an earlier reply I also do take issue with M+ gear drops being infinitely farmable. I think it’s a bad system that encourages unhealthy behavior, so maybe it would make more sense for Myth gear to drop from 10s if there was a weekly cap on how much gear you can get from M+ runs.

9

Because it allows M+ to acquire gear of a similar level as mythic raiding, without it being spammable. Again, don’t look at it as the vault being higher, look at it as the dungeon drops being lower because you can farm it.

2 Likes
10

Well, as I said above taking the vault drops as being the “true” reward makes no sense to me in terms of difficulty. A +2 is not in the same universe as heroic raiding, but you’re saying that they should be considered equivalent difficulty-wise?

11

That’s an entirely different topic. Yes, doing a +2s is easier than a heroic raid. But doing a heroic raid will more than likely get you more gear at that level, or at least more chances at it, than +2s getting one peice from the vault max. Raiding also has the fancy trinkets and such that are usually much better than those in dungeons.

12

I think you should spend more time playing the content you enjoy instead of stressing over gear.

13

I’m not stressing, I’m discussing a loot system in the game and how I can improve it. Maybe you should go play the game instead of needlessly being snarky on other peoples’ forum posts?

14

I haven’t played at all this season, but the idea was that a current +10 is supposed to be equivalent to last season +20.

15

They like to mix things up, to keep players on their toes. They think it gives them more reason to grind. /shrug

16

Trading myth gear from vault for myth gear from end of dungeon would create an even bigger disparity between raid and mythic +

That week 1 full myth track would be a bit OP.

1 Like
17

You’re not a dev and you’re trying to fix an issue that isn’t an issue.

Hard to use a desktop in a work truck.

This isn’t me being snarky. This is me stating an opinion that you disagree with.

It’s also hard to take anyone seriously when it’s clear they don’t know what they are talking about.

18

Can anybody make it make sense why there’s 4 Crests?

One crest, jack the costs at higher levels of gear, jack the crest acquisition at higher difficulty.

19

Different levels of content. They want the last two levels of an upgrade track to entice you into doing higher content.

Example.

You only do LFR. The aspects LFR only lets you go 4/6 on the upgrade. They ar who ping you choose to try normal to get the aspects for those last two upgrade tracks.

20

I wish you luck in your quest, but i read this and was thankful i PVP