What’s the point of converting x amount of stones to get another crest to upgrade? We can just use the stones for it, what’s the difference? It’s like you hand over a $100 bill, but the supermarket forces you to split into 10x $10s in order to purchase. Like why？
Here’s how I think you can make things work.
Flightstones upgrade everything. More flight stones upgrade higher tier gear. Higher tier content gives more flightstones, so no use to farm m+ 2 keys. And that’s it. What’s the point of having 56 currencies for 13 types of gear, I just don’t get it.
But one currency comes from another anyways. It’s like you need to purchase a $100 item, but the shop forces you to split your $100 into 10x $10 bills to purchase it.
Same currency can upgrade from the m+ range that you mention easily, but require more flightsones. You want more stones? Do higher end content. It’s that’s simple. No need to invent problems that don’t exist. And no need to solve problems that exist for 0.1% players.
There’s no need to cap anything. Let’s say you have a top tier gear that needs to be upgraded, you need more stones, so you have to do high-end content. It’s that simple. For example, mythic raid boss gives 1000 stones, normal gives 50. So if you need top upgrades, you have to do top content. No need to have 4 currencies for that.
Yeah it gives some advantage to world first dudes or people who get KSM in 3 days, but those are the 0.1% of the playerbase, and we shouldn’t consider them at all when designing a system.
You seem to find this is far much more complicated than it really is. Yes, there is 4 types of crest, but really you only have to manage 2 since season started, Wyrms and Aspect ones, since everything below that has a cap so high you can’t ever need so much to upgrade a full Bis Gear set in those tier(398/424).
And in 2-3 weeks from now, it will also be the case for Wyrms and Aspects ones. From this moment, the only think blocking you from fully upgrading your gear will be your ability to successfully do the content you need to drop them.
Wyrms and Aspects crest (and by expansion Champion and Hero gear) are there to challenge people at an appropriate level for their current capacities. Prior to this patch, someone could farm his MM+ BIS gear in +2, far faster and easier than one who farmed it at an appropriate level and upgrading it all the way to 415 ilevel by running low and fast unchallenging keys, which, let’s face it, was not well-deserved. From now on, to have BIS farmeable gear, you’ll need to farm 17+ keys in order to get Hero Gear in the dungeon end chest, so you’ll have to deserve it.
This new system isn’t meant to cap progress (even if it does for the first few weeks) but to resolve the path of least resistance the community made with the inclusion of Valor points upgrades.
This design proposition solve nothing as people will calculate the path of least resistance and it it’s +7 (cause its a time-efficient level to farm flightstones), people will run +7, until they are fully optimized.
Yeah, I don’t get why we have both crests and fragments. Why can’t we just have the fragments (maybe call it something else then), and have the upgrades require 15 of them?
It clogs up the inventory.
Btw, is there any reason to keep the Whelpling stuff, or should I just vendor it?
I don’t even want to give it a chance. I find it hilliarious that you need to convert x amount of stones to get a crest to upgrade instead of just using the same x amount of flightstones. Like I said, you can pay $100 but you choose to split into 10x $10s and call it a system. I don’t want to play this season at all because I don’t trust a system that has such obvious logical and mathematical issues.
If you find it easy, good for you. It’s not that it’s not easy, it’s just makes no sense.
This is just a number issue that is possible to tune if they try.
It’s like if we had 1000 valor, and in order to upgrade the gear we had to convert it into 10 super valor so we could upgrade. Or the same example with $100 purchase situation that I described.
It’s such an easy and intuitive system, shame that you don’t know what to do with it. Obviously it’s not overdone, it’s just players are stupid to figure out (am joking ofc).
Maybe you should properly understand a system before criticizing it. You seems to confuse everything, which leads you to:
Not see the clear goal this system is build for.
Think your solution would have the same result, while simplifying the system
If you would like to create an allegory About money, it would rather be something like:
Whelpling = Pesos
Drake = CND
Wyrm = American Dollard
Aspect = Euro
Bank accept to transfer your money in this order but only in a 1 to 1 currency amount, which mean you lost value in doing so.
Euro ==> Am Dollard ==> CND ==> Peso
But Pesos does not have enough value to be transfered in Canadian Dollard, which himself does not have enough to be transfer as American, which is not strong enough to being transfer to Euro.
Peso =X=> CND =X=> Am Dollard =X=> Euro
And Fragments are Cents of all those moneys.
And There’s vendors from everyone of those country that only accept their own money, and sometime the money of their Neighbor when their stuff is lower or higher quality.
(The real money value ranking is maybe scuffed, i know, i’m not too much aware of the actual Change rate values)
If it was just one currency you’d need to have orders of magnitude differences between currency rewards at different content levels to disincentivise people doing world quests to grind out 437-441 drops…
You might recall bliz tried this with the currency used for purchasing max ilvl azerite pieces and quickly learned that players would smash their heads against the most trivial content / hoard LFR drops to disenchant in order to have access to ilvl gains that didn’t correlate with what they were doing.
You don’t really need to convert stones. Why? Because if you spam 17s/19s week 1-2 for hero gear in every slot you skip both whelplings and drakes as you get a high ilvl item that you use in order to get free upgrades up to that ilvl, with only flightstones.
However there is a difference, as the flightstones are not capped how do you prevent someone hit 441 ilvl first week of the season? System is great, you use the stones you need. The only difference is that if you dont heroic raid to get wyrm’s, use the time we spend heroic raiding to run 10 super fast 11s to get wyrms. And thats only for first 2 weeks. Simple system.
But anyway you can skip the firt two ter of stones.
I understand the system, that’s why I can point out ridiculous logical issues with it.
While it has a positive goal, the execution is terrible.
My solution is not a perfect idea or a specific design. It’s just common sense. Because if 150 stones equal 1 crest, then why I have to convert crest for an upgrade? You still have no answer to that question, and that’s the start of the system.
While your allegory work in real life, world of warcraft doesn’t function in this same way.
If you would like a better example, let me show you. Let’s say you need to buy a flask from the auction house for 1000 gold. You go the the auctioneer, press the buyout, but it says, “please convert your 1000 gold into 100 super gold in order to purchase,” would you think it’s a good system?
And even with your allegories with money, I can use 100 cents to pay for a $1, that’s the whole point. If the item costs $1 and I pay 100 cents, the shop will have no questions. They won’t request me to convert to $1 because it’s the same value. That’s why countries have no more than 2 currencies, mostly, because it’s not neccessary. Because the value of the service or the product is the most important.
Why not? Let’s say Mythic bosses drop 1000 stones, normal drops 100 stones. What’s the problem with that? And why should world quest doers want the same amount of rewards as the mythic raiders?
Yes, that’s why they can just tune the numbers. It’s that simple. Let’s say you have a gear from heroic raid that wants to be upgraded. If you kill a mythic boss, you get 1000 stones. If you do a world quest, you get 10 stones. Problem solved. If some people want to smash their way into trivial content for 10 stones, let them do it. That’s the whole point of having the new system, is that there’s no limit on the methods. It just needs tuning and it should improve the gearing, and not be there just to be there.
Again, the system should not consider 0.1% of the playerbase, like at all. But also, if you have flighstones only and you want 441 ilvl in a week, you must clear m+20s abd mythic in one week, which only pros can do. And if they can do, why not? Why should the system treat literal athletes and casuals in the same way. I am not against 100 elite players out of 2 million to gear up in a week.
Not if they keep the same mechanic in place that they have now:
If you have reached a certain ilvl in a slot, upgrading a new piece of gear up to that level, it will be MUCH MUCH cheaper.
So your sole and only claim is to remove the fragments, or the crest so we pay with fragments? Well why not, but it means we’ll lose any exceeding cap fragments we receive as quest or renown reward cause fragments are capped.
And without the fragment tier, if everything is on the same currency (flightstone), you’ll get the Island expedition Azerite farming situation where people do things they don’t want, only in order to get Flightstones to augment their gear.