KSM + valor = increased boosting pressure; discuss

Community General Discussion
1

Literally just occurred to me today, but doesn’t the current incarnation of valor actively encourage boosting?

Observation
Because KSM now unlocks a very desirable game feature, the pressure on players to get it has increased. Even players with no interest in doing 15s still benefit from having KSM. In fact, the lower your preferred level of content, the more having KSM benefits you.

Hypothesis
Removing the KSM requirement from valor would decrease boosting, potentially dropping it below 9.0 levels. As a side effect, it would decrease the number of players wearing 226 vault items while never having personally learned how to clear a 14+ key.

Meanwhile it would provide casual players access to an upgrade system without having to find a million gold for a KSM boost. Some will buy boosts anyway. Many won’t, if character progression is available to them.

Cynical Thought
Reduced boosting would reduce the amount of tokens people buy, which is why valor is how it is.

Long Read
Casual Sam doesn’t enjoy high M+ keys or raids above LFR. We don’t know why, and we don’t need to know why, we just need to understand that there are a lot of players who feel the same as Sam.

They’ve maxed out their covenant gear, and are sitting, predictably, at ilvl 197. Where does Sam go now?

Oh, 9.0.5 brought valor! Sam can keep upgrading without having to go above the M+4s they feel comfortable in!

Except it’s capped at ilvl 200, because Casual Sam doesn’t want to go above a +4.

Now, Sam has known about boosting for a long time, but never bothered. Get a timed +15, get an item out of the vault, yadda yadda. But Sam would rather do stuff their own way, on their own time, under their own power - if they can. They have some friends, who also prefer to just stick to low, easy dungeons. They just like an excuse to hang out.

If only valor upgrades were accessible, they’d have character progression… Sure, it would take 40 dungeon runs to get this weapon up to 220, but Sam knows they will do that eventually. There’s no rush, they just want to know that they can. But unlocking 220 requires the KSM achievement.

Which can be bought.

So by buying a KSM boost (or even a 10s boost), Sam can now get access to the valor system, allowing them to plug away (slowly), doing Callings and M+4 with their friends, and slowly upgrade their gear.

Oh, and they happen to end up with some 210s and a big vault or two from the boosts. Which is a bigger impact on their gear than valor alone would ever have had.

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It was literally built for make people buy boosts with gold = wow tokens = profit ?

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Why would everyone be entitled to good gear? I just don’t get that thought process. You need to work for it in some way or another.

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simply what is point that he have 220 upgrade if he only do +4 … SIMPLY HE DONT DESERVE … later u will ask 226 from word quest

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Doesn’t really concern me. I play m+ for fun, and even if I’m not good enough to time +15, buying a boost would be just lying to myself.

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I honestly think it might have been. On first glance, I assumed it was a slow way for casuals to gear up, but when it arrived it was for alts of people who play high content.

I love how neither of you responded to the point of my post and just reeeeee’d about casuals being allowed to get a 220 piece by doing 60x M+2 runs :slight_smile:

Does it really matter of Hunter Joe gets his bow to 220 a week before 9.1? Is that actually going to impact your game?

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7

They can implement literally any system, and it will always come down to “buh buh buh boosting”. Some just can’t accept that they can’t get “the best” gear in the most efficient way. Well, as long as that behaviour is in the game, everything falls down to boosting.

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Players: “We play lower Keys but please, give us literally any path to progression, even if it takes more time and effort in our bracket of play.”

Blizzard: “Sure!” waves a wand “Have a system that is based on Keystone Achievements and gives higher-end players an even more efficient path to getting their BiS!”

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9

This is how I feel too. I don’t have KSM, although I have done some 14s and 15s. It will probably come to me eventually; I will absolutely not buy a boost ever. Although valor upgrades are the biggest temptation by far…

But… clearly a lot of people can and do buy boosts, else we wouldn’t be spammed to death by them.

Removing the KSM requirement from valor would probably do a lot to remove the pressure to get boosted, I thnk :slight_smile:

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10

No no I get your point, to reduce boosting. Fair enough, not that boosting bothers me particularly, if someone has earned 2 million gold to get KSM then at least he worked in some sort of way. But I don’t see how everyone should be running in the best gear without doing anything pretty much ?
I mean the whole point of wow was alwaus to gear up in a way, so the harder content you do the better gear you. That’s how it always was, not everyone was able to get wrathful set with weapons and everything, but yeh let’s just give it to everyone.

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That’s a “real life” attitude. We are playing a game here, you know, for fun? Working isn’t fun.

I’m not saying you should get everything for free, but the possibility to achive the same through different paths should be there. Either do it on “hard mode” to get it quick, or do it on “easy mode” and achive the same thing later.

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12

There’s literally groups farming gold 24/7…

I joined a group and you get up to 80k cut per 15+… god knows why these casuals ar spending stupif amounts of gold for boosted mythic+

On average 14+ is 44k cut… tanks are making a killing.

All this needs to stop but the only way to stop it is making gold none tradeable and taking out the ah… which will never happen.

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They can’t and won’t. It would take over 300 dungeons to upgrade a set of M+4 gear to 220.

Offering people a progression path doesn’t make them mythic geared in any reasonable time frame :slight_smile:

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It also increased the number of pugs doing +15s as more people went for KSM. A few guildies got their KSMs done this way since the change.

I’m not saying it didn’t have an impact on boosting too. Although a friend who boosts says it’s been quieter.

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simply HE DONT DESERVE … +2 is 186 and nothing more only from weekly 200 and thats it … well u wanted titanforge removed than dont cry … ther u was able to play with own pace and get chance buy luck to get 226 for example … and casual people who do only +2/+4 dont care about which item is … simply i will just say if u give from +4 farm 220 item without doing any +15 is slap to ppl who do +15 keys regulary … i dont care for this lazy ppl who dont want to do above +4 … they deserve to be limited on 200 gear and THATS IT … END OF STORY

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Fair enough, I still prefer to actually work for my gear, hence why I enjoyed the older expansions more. I guess that’s whats fun for me.
And I do have real life, guess what I have a job nad don’t play al l the time, I am playing MMO RPG meaning I gear up and actually have to do stuff to gear up. If you don’t find that fun maybe you are playing wrong genre?

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17

I mean, active moderation would help. A GM who’s job was to remove any M+ group which pertained to boosting would quickly get rid of the problem.

Or at least, force it to move out to 3rd party websites and addons, which does at least get it out of the way of normal players looking for normal groups.

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18

Then it would just go to discord… they cant stop it…

Bottom line is rich casuals pay boosters or boosters wouldnt be around…

I seen wts sire hc kill is now 45k per kill… i kill it on 3 classes per week… who on earth has 45k to throw away like that?

Im poor af in game… maybe its the good old if you cant beatem joinem time?

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19

Valor upgrades should be locked to the vault reward of the lowest key level you’ve timed. In this case it means that the max upgrade level would require having all +10 done in time, instead of +15. If Blizzard decides to still cap it on 220, sure, but that at least means people don’t have to do all +15 to get +10 vault gear as upgrade value.

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I’m no casual my good sir; this is not a suggestion for me personally. But boosting is a problem and I don’t think valor has helped at all.

There really isn’t a threat to people doing high keys from casuals grinding literally hundreds of dungeons to obtain mediocre gear. And 220 is absolutely mediocre at this point. Most people in a position to use valor to get there are better off making sure they have 3x 226 vault choices and as many mythic raid bosses as possible.