Developer Insight: Universal Upgrade System Improvements for Dragonflight Season 3

Developer Insight: Universal Upgrade System Improvements for Dragonflight Season 3

Dragonflight is an expansion that has introduced many changes to World of Warcraft, and one of the largest of those changes is the introduction of the new universal upgrade system in Embers of Neltharion. We’re seeing it have a healthy effect on the game, but there’s still room for improvement. In this Developer Insight article, we take you a little deeper into what’s new in Guardians of the Dream and Dragonflight Season 3.

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Very happy about the bagspace fix.

I am glad that so far this new upgrading system is staying. Well done in the integration, Blizzard. Glad to hear feedback from people like me is actually read and considered (I suggested an upgrade system during SL S1 I think).

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Don’t no why I would need the upgrading crests part tbh. Sending it to alts late in the season would be more convenient.

The reduction of crests and potential upgrades per week is nothing more then timegating.

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Create the problem = players mad
Fix the problem = players “blizzard listened!!!”
Just lol

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so what happens to the ones we have? they get converted into new currency? shall we use them now or what to do?

DF has waaaay too much bloat in inventory space used, not just crests…

– all the rep turn in items
– 3 ranks for each reagent/pot/vial
– items that should be in the toys tab
Etc.

I got a 164 bag slots + 36 slot reagents bag, and I’m constantly near full… this is ridiculous.

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TLDR…

  • 2 upgrades from champion to heroic good.
  • 6 upgrades per week neutral; it depends if you have early access to myth track or those upgrades end up feeling wasted on lower quality gear. High end players gonna open a bigger lead and keep it, methinks?
  • trade ups good. Ratio is actually better than I expected. People moan about “the grind” but the power of the grind is what equalises players with no connections vs players who can waltz into keys with S-tier buddies.
  • crest fallbacks good.
  • ilvl gap idk. Is the content a massive pain if you aren’t max?
  • overall mood is maybe not bother with M+ until 10.2.5 when it is fun? idk. S1 kind of killed the joy due to healer imbalance, S2 did not win it back and now I just heroic farm on 5x alts per week. I want to heal dungeons but I don’t think the devs want people to heal dungeons. How am I meant to react?

Sell them for gold. Basically happens every season? :dracthyr_comfy_blue:

They’ve taken this mindset to a new level, beyond what any reasonable person would consider good in any way.

Inventory management is not fun. There is no enjoyment to be derived from this aspect of the game. Devs should be trying the damned hardest to minimise this aspect of the game. It could be a selling point of a new expansion “It will take you 2 months to fill your inventory when exploring this new land”.

The ugrage system changes are good. both the upgrading crests and the saving of bag space. Although both issues were pretty obvious from the start but at least they’re taking feedback this time.
I am concerned by the comment on how acquisition would remain the same. Open World acquisition has been terrible I get 1 or 2 Drakes a week and that’s when I’ve been doing the Renowns, I’m max on most of them now. In 10.2 I imagine I’ll only be doing the new zone open world content. If I get 2 Drakes a week, then I’ll get a Wyrm every 3 weeks. My gear will still be getting upgrades in patch 12.3.5.

So next patch is just new raid, new armor, different upgrades and we get a few slots of bagspace back? That is all?
For those who dont do raids or pve related content we just get a few inventory slots back?

but… but according to 3 forum users new upgrade system was perfect and needed no improvements :roll_eyes:

thanks for the changes. now please make all of this account-wide if you really want wow to be alt-friendly :slight_smile:

I’m assuming it won’t get turned into the new currency, with a new season I highly doubt they’d give people a headstart like that.

I’m curious what they’ll do with gear from season 2 tho, if that can still be upgraded in season 3 and if so, how, once we’re in season 3 and the old currencies are no longer available. Will returning players miss out on appearances etc.

No, this is just a focused article on this topic.
We get a new zone, some weird events that give us gear and cosmetics, some story, a new dragonriding mount.

I’m happy that they added the upgrading part, but I’m curious to see how effective it will be in practice. Having to get every single slot to a particular ilvl sounds too harsh. An overal ilvl minimum would be better imo; with stuff like rings, necks and trinkets often being hard to get.

its the incentive to run easier content with friends - although the exchange ratio is … bad should have been 3-1 honestly

but its just another artificial gate .

overall its just slowing down gearing because they know they dont have any content coming till late summer next year when new expanssion will launch .

pathetic

those are not improvements though unless you are Tah and youwill spend whole season doing weekly event to get your gear to full champions upgraded from world content :slight_smile:

this is meant to slow you down .

its not enjoyable because they are still refusing to just give people account wide crafting mats bank - something similiar to guild bank just for crafting reagents.

if wwe had this then your bags would be empty and you get just use all possible mats on all possible chars without sending them over.

now something like this would be huge improvement to quality of life in game.

and yes i know almost all of us for years use ssome fake guild on our storage alts but they really could take care of this - its soon 2024 and we use tech from 2005.

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I can’t believe something so simple (upgrading items) is requiring this much work from Blizzard and pages of explanation.

And It feels like they didn’t fix the issue of us doing lower keys to upgrade our items?

thats why im asking wowhead has no info or??? anyone on PTR can copy char see?
is it worth upgrading ur items now? crafting?

they will probably give gold . just wait for a few more days