It may not be perfect, but it’s the best thing that happened since a long time!
Why?
Because it mostly rewards you accordingly!
Example:
You met some progress-cap-stone? You are able to upgrade your item from the lower content to the one that you are doing right now!
E.g. the Crests! With them you can upgrade your 428ilvl gear(Hero Path) from M+ up to 441ilvl!
Didn’t get anything in the raid in this week? Worry not! Great Vault is there for you!
You have guaranted loot in the weekly great vault even if you didn’t get anything!
There’s always a chance for an upgrade and for a cool item!
Isn’t that cool?
We’re having a few paths that can progress. We’re no longer limited to the “RNG on RNG on RNG” systems.
Of course the RNG part is still there, but not as much as it was before!
Remember Legion-daries? The legendaries that were so RNG that some people couldn’t do anything till they actually loot them? I mean, they weren’t mandatory, but some were so good you were clearly underperforming without them!
So, to summarize:
-you mostly receive reward accordingly,
-you can help your friends with easier content and still get decent item after reaching a cap-stone,
-you will always get an item per week, even if you didn’t get anything during the play,
The only two things I’d like to change is to make the crests a different currency, so it wouldn’t take up the bag space and make it slightly simplier by just needing the fragments for upgrades, so we wouldn’t need to form crests, just make it so that you need 15 fragments for one item upgrade.
The second thing are the dinars from the Shadowlands S4 reward system. They were awesome, because they could give you an item you were trying to farm for a loooong time. Some people were so unlucky they weren’t able to get their BIS items even after few dozens of kills - with dinars that specific task was much easier and better!
What do you guys think? What would you change and why?
It’s not completely horrible, but from the point of view of a predominantly world content player; it just doesn’t feel particularly good or fun.
What would improve it for me personally is if they allowed upgrading crests to higher versions and make it possible to upgrade all the gear to max ilvl.
It should take a LONG time and a LOT of crest farming to go from adventurer gear to max ilvl of course; so for anyone who does ‘big 3’ content, it would not be interesting at all.
But for people like me; it would be something to work towards throughout a season.
What i hate is those different paths, u drop something in 16 and its waaaay weaker than in 17.
Also logic behind it, +17 drops hero path which goes to 441, but in order to get it there u need like 3 lower crests that drop from below 16s . I know u can exchange them but its just weird to me .
Undoubtedly loot is always going to have some element of chance, which carries with it the risk of disappointment (and also excitement when you finally get what you’ve been after!)
All things considered though, it should be pretty rare to spend extended periods of time completing content without any form of reward.
I’m okay with this system altogether, but I think it could use some improvements.
Crests:
For example, I have never used the whelpling crests, not even on alts, because I’ve never had to. They are just collecting dust in my bag. It would be great if we could convert those to drake crests. I don’t mind if I can’t upgrade them to wyrm or aspects level ones, I don’t need that power for doing dailies or open world events.
Time rifts:
I got a lot of Dilated Time Capsules on my main and I don’t need them but I cannot trade them to alts. It would be awesome if I was able to for catch-up gear.
Professions:
I think either we could get rid of the quality feature or it should be possible to place public orders with a quality requirement. Also, add catch-up mechanisms to progress the specializations because right now it is not worth for people to pick up a profession if they join the expansion late. I have even considered dropping my crafting profession on certain points out of frustration, at the beginning of the expansion.
Raid, mythic+
I can’t comment on this as I don’t play this part of the game.
I would second this, a suitable grind for collecting enough crests and i dont see any reason why this should be an issue.
Other people can progress faster in mythics or raids but for world content you would have something to work towards for the whole patch. Would also open the door to Max level crafted goods as well. I assume they are impossible to get if you dont do Raid or Mythics?
I really like it. You can quickly gear up to ilvls that let you beat all content and I’m not forced into mind numbing world content for power upgrades.
It’s dumb that the fastest way to gear is by smashing lower keys because you can do them faster for the wyrm/aspect crests you need to upgrade gear than if you do keys at the levels you want to do.
I don’t want to be smashing 11s/16s for crests but I do it because it’s faster than doing the keys I want to do.
They just moved the currency farming from +2 to +11/16. It gets smashed all the same.
Well, you did the same before with valor, as a +2 have the same amount of it as a +15 did, so it it at least some improvement, right?
Only thing I still want is a constant currency drop with a vendor that sells EVERYTHING, be it dungeon or raid drops. It’s frustrating to deal with RNG, I’m always unlucky with trinkets and at least this season (usually, actually) M+ trinkets suck in comparison with raid trinkets. Same goes for the “special” weapons. And it would also be cool to be able to get raid transmog by running M+.
Im not that bothered by the specifics; I personally just want to have stuff to do that feels worthwhile. Sometimes that can be getting transmog or whatnot, but if I don’t like the appearance of something; it’s not going to feel worth it. While upgrades always feel worth it to me.
Heh, tell that to my grind last season for the “Mote of Sanctification” from M+ Halls of Valor. It took me half the season to get a single drop of the trinket.
Most rewards currently are trash though. Almost nobody likes and feels good about getting “shadowflame residue sacks” lol. These items lost their value really fast for most people, but it’s the main reward for the pvp chests, reputation weeklies, world quests, etc.
I don’t see any reasons why someone who isn’t raiding or doing M+ would need high ilvl gear.
I mean, the one thing - to feel the progress. That’s true, that would’ve been a great lure to keep people play the game. But it would also make it unbearable for the people who are raiding/doing M+, because they will feel forced to do that content also for a max ilvl gear. It could lead to fast burn-out among players.
It could go up to the heroic - 437 -ilvl at max, not higher.
About the crest upgrading - I think that the 10x of the lower crest for the one higher would be a good deal. With the current upgrading paths of course.
I really liked the SL S4 dinars, it was a nice catch-up mechanism. The ultra rare trinkets or the weapons were obtainable after doing a certain difficulty.
They were great, because some people weren’t able to get their bis items even after a few weeks/months of farming the same boss!
So the current gearing system + dinars would’ve been the best one for sure!
Still wearing a Timewalking neck from Incarnates patch and having to equop a trinket from the time rifts because the absolutely god awful loot system Blizzard brought in is absolute garbage.
Said this before.
Im a 416 rolling between 6 and 9 on items I DO actually need only to lose out to a 439 (presuming on the fact they are consistently pumping out 100k plus dps) rolling 90’s.
it feels bad having an item finally drop when you are farming crests in an 11.
the trinket drop rate are terrible.
basically all my characters 440 have no trinkets, some of them are also missing other slots which are still from season 1 … 2.5k rio and probably 80 dungeons run
having to farm crests in lower dungeon for higher gear is worse than farming valor. yes you can convert but there is a reason people run 11s and not 16s.
besides that, the amount of crests and stones you need is crazy.
then of course we have the cash grab, eh i mean the crafting system.
and dont tell me not to use it then… it is one of the only ways to get 447 get in the first place. the vault is 90% garbage.
putting those items behind 20-30k+ cost is just flat out a wink at buying tokens
Almost nobody likes and feels good about getting “shadowflame residue sacks” lol. These items lost their value really fast for most people, but it’s the main reward for the pvp chests, reputation weeklies, world quests, etc.