Bonus roll system now replaces Valor?

[Raeln]

The said they are makes the bonus roll system 'smarter'.

So, when changes are implemented it should be quicker bonus rolling than grinding valour for gear.

This is work in progress, so just sit back and relax, await more information.

No matter how smart they make the bonus rolls, it's not going to let me earn more bonus rolls from doing dungeons/scenarios/dailies/rare mobs. I can earn Valor from those.

Even if bonus rolls were 100% loot drops that you didn't have already, they are only currently allowed on raid bosses.

You can also only get 3 coins a week, normally.

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Or if you get 3 items from those 7 bonus rolls, it is substantially better than the valor system.

Not in my opinion. It means there is no reason for anyone to go back into the dungeon/scenario queue and help keep those systems healthy.

Well, either we tell people to go grind valor every week to get guaranteed gear, or we improve bonus rolls to the point where actually grinding content is not needed anymore. Bonus rolls, absolutely can fill the role of Valor if done properly.

... or just get Valor by doing the current content? Seems like they are going to put multiple Timeless Isle things out. Imagine if those rares gave like 15 valor a kill - or whatever daily mechanism they use awards Valor too. There are many sources of Valor since the base unit is 1 and the cap is 1000 per week.

Kinda hard for a TI rare or daily quest to award bonus roll coins, since you can only hold 10 max.

[Thugicorn]

Why does this matter when they're making heroic 5 man gear the only gear you need to get into raiding?

[ripponesan]

Well, you are right, it doesnt guarantee you the loot and this is clearly a nerf.
BUT on the other Hand, you have a Chance to get any loot, not only the crappy Pieces the vendors had, which is a buff.
TBH i value that buff even bigger than the nerf which would result in a solution that may not be perfect but still better than what we had.

[littlelark]

I think the whole idea of relying on anything OTHER THAN RNG is completely ridiculous when it comes to gear.
If it were up to me there would be no re-rolls or commendation point system whatsoever.
So you should consider yourself lucky you get spoonfed epics at the rate you already do.

[ripponesan]

Why does this matter when they're making heroic 5 man gear the only gear you need to get into raiding?

Well that is what Blizzard has in mind.
We all know that you dont Need ILVL 550 for SOO as well, but still there are lots of pugs out there that demand exactly that.
Same will be Happening in WOD. So in the end to get into a pug you Need to have almost all the gear that can drop from said raid plus a achievment for killing all the bosses in that raid.

[Thugicorn]

Well that is what Blizzard has in mind.
We all know that you dont Need ILVL 550 for SOO as well, but still there are lots of pugs out there that demand exactly that.
Same will be Happening in WOD. So in the end to get into a pug you Need to have almost all the gear that can drop from said raid plus a achievment for killing all the bosses in that raid.

That shouldn't be blizzards concern. That's a community driven problem, has been ever since GearScore in WotLK.

[Raeln]

That shouldn't be blizzards concern. That's a community driven problem, has been ever since GearScore in WotLK.

It's not entirely the community's fault. Some community pug leaders want to hedge their bets that their run is as smooth as possible. It's encouraged by Blizzard with the type of mechanics they put into the content.

I don't really think anyone can praise Blizzard (or other MMO devs) for trying too hard to train players for their content. It's mostly just, "oh, you hit max level - enjoy."

It's also not the community's fault that Blizzard has built the entire MoP endgame around raiding. There are no other equivalent content types for some of those players to move into and after investment (days/weeks/months), acquire the same gear that is RNG'd out from raiding. Since these alternative content types do not exist (or are not supported) - many players have no choice but to try to get into raiding if they want to progress their characters. This ends up enlarging the pug raid pool with some undesirable players sometimes.

[Thugicorn]

It's not entirely the community's fault. Some community pug leaders want to hedge their bets that their run is as smooth as possible. It's encouraged by Blizzard with the type of mechanics they put into the content.

I don't really think anyone can praise Blizzard (or other MMO devs) for trying too hard to train players for their content. It's mostly just, "oh, you hit max level - enjoy."

It's also not the community's fault that Blizzard has built the entire MoP endgame around raiding. There are no other equivalent content types for some of those players to move into and after investment (days/weeks/months), acquire the same gear that is RNG'd out from raiding. Since these alternative content types do not exist (or are not supported) - many players have no choice but to try to get into raiding if they want to progress their characters. This ends up enlarging the pug raid pool with some undesirable players sometimes.

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Also you're saying that people don't have a choice when it comes to progression after LFR. That's what guilds are for though, right?
Pugs should be your plan B, not A. The point of an mmo is to play with other people, make friends, etc.

I understand wanting to avoid undesirable players. But discrimination based solely off of gear is a community problem.
Wanting someone who is geared to the ilvl of the current content you're trying to progress through is just lazy and selfish. And not always going to give you a "good" player to begin with.

I also don't think blizzard is encouraging pug leaders to do the above because mechanics are hard. Games have challenges, and social games like this have players of different skill levels. If you're too lazy/selfish/impatient to help people through these dungeons, you shouldn't be pugging to begin with.

[Majestian]

Frankly, I would rather get the "failbag" than get duplicate loot; that slight pause on a bonus roll when you get loot is exciting until it's the same thing you got last week, and the week before.

My current streak is that I've gotten the the same strength plate boots off the Sha of Pride for five weeks in a row; in fact, two weeks ago I won them straight up, coined, then got them AGAIN. I could only laugh, but come on.

The WoD changes may make that less of an annoyance, as a duplicate piece might have better, or additional, stats.

[Talisman]

Um, yes it does.

Never before in the history of WoW have you had the option to not only re-roll for loot, but do it as many times as you want as long as you have coins. I've managed to get 4p tier in one day on my hunter from bonus rolls. One day.

Now, I don't agree with the idea of removing currencies. I like the upgrade system with VP now combined with bonus rolls. I don't want the change. But definitely bonus rolls are superior to valor in terms of getting gear.

Are you saying you can reroll on the same boss on the same week before reset and still get loot? Because I did not know that

[Nelrock]

Um, yes it does.

Never before in the history of WoW have you had the option to not only re-roll for loot, but do it as many times as you want as long as you have coins. I've managed to get 4p tier in one day on my hunter from bonus rolls. One day.

Now, I don't agree with the idea of removing currencies. I like the upgrade system with VP now combined with bonus rolls. I don't want the change. But definitely bonus rolls are superior to valor in terms of getting gear.

I don't think so. Bonus rolls just highlight how bad your luck really is when you lose repeatedly. You had a run of good luck it sounds...which...is the point of currencies. Some people get lucky...some don't. At least with valor you know you can save up and buy something you specifically need (well...provided a valor item like that even exists or isnt buried behind a wall of reputation).
My hunter...I've run every SoO boss that drops a ranged weapon + 3 coins a week for 2 1/2 months...and I still haven't gotten a ranged weapon.

[Wildtree]

I've managed to get 4p tier in one day on my hunter from bonus rolls. One day.

This is anecdotal and not helpful to the discussion. Based on the old system it would be possible to do the same thing without bonus rolls. You could walk into MC right now and get full tier 1 in one run, but that doesn't mean there were plenty of people who never saw the single drop they needed. For every person with your lucky run, there is a person with the opposite experience. The drop rates average out over the population.

The bonus rolls have bad luck protection. With every fail roll your chance of winning increases, until you simply cannot fail anymore.
The topic at hand is however the comparison of Valor vs Bonus Roll.
Valor in MoP does not give a full set of Set gear. In fact, in MoP there's zero set gear from valor. But there is set gear from bonus rolls.
With that said.... Even IF valor would yield Set gear, the time it takes to get all 4 pieces via valor using the traditional cost pattern, would be as follows:
Shoulders 1750 VP
Gloves 1750 VP
Chest 2250 VP
Legs 2250 VP

Total: 8000 VP.

Translates into 8 weeks to obtain all 4 set pieces at normal quality.
Heroic quality traditionally upgraded via heroic set token.

Currently we got 3 bonus coins (lets call em that) per week. 3x8 = 24.
Darsithis stated that no matter what, at the latest, the 6th bonus roll wins. Which translates into the same ratio.... 4 pieces over 8 weeks are guaranteed.

But since throughout MoP there was no more Set gear to obtain via Valor, the issue is a non-issue.

In overall, one could now argue, that with the current system, up to Tier 13, the obtainable gear via Valor AND Bonus roll would be 8 pieces in 8 weeks.
4 via valor and 4 via bonus roll. And that's true. But currently we have no dupe protection, which Blizzard intends to integrate in WoD.
We have to essentially see how it plays out when they reveal the information about the new system.
If the bonus roll protection gets increased and dupe protection is in place, we might end up with being efficiently geared in the same or even faster time than now.

[Raeln]

I think the whole idea of relying on anything OTHER THAN RNG is completely ridiculous when it comes to gear.
If it were up to me there would be no re-rolls or commendation point system whatsoever.
So you should consider yourself lucky you get spoonfed epics at the rate you already do.

Why would I consider myself lucky? I'd just find a different game to play - as will more and more people the more Blizzard tries to funnel everyone into one type of endgame content.

This game is just entertainment - not something I need in real life to survive.

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Context please?

Are you trying to insinuate that there is meaningful character progression from those things?

Also you're saying that people don't have a choice when it comes to progression after LFR. That's what guilds are for though, right?
Pugs should be your plan B, not A. The point of an mmo is to play with other people, make friends, etc.

Are you insinuating that the only way you can play with other people is by forcing them into large guilds to run raids? WoW did not become popular because of that - it became popular because they broke the EQ1 mold of "needing to find a group/guild just to level".

I understand wanting to avoid undesirable players. But discrimination based solely off of gear is a community problem.
Wanting someone who is geared to the ilvl of the current content you're trying to progress through is just lazy and selfish. And not always going to give you a "good" player to begin with.

First off, Blizzard did not have to make the itemlevel of gear available for the API to hand out to addons in the first place - this only enabled the community to have easier access to addons like Gearscore. Even without the addon API, people still required achievements though.

Before achievements, they inspected your gear. They didn't always know what gear was good for what classes.

The primary issue here is the advancement of the design style. Back in the past (and in other MMOs) when boss encounters were simpler, the recruitment process was much different. The landscape has been changed by the developers to the point (in the name of challenge), that PUG leaders want to increase their odds of success as much as possible. Many times, their high iLvl requirements come off as ludicrous and they truly are - yet, examine what a wipe means to a WoW raid in 2014.

It represents up to an average of nearly 20 mins of wasted time for up to 25 players. Raid boss fights are long encounters and wipes are just painful to pugs. After a wipe, drama/blame happens, people bail. The leaders have to go back and fill the empty spots - it may even be longer than 20 minutes before the next pull on wipe #3. This leads them to up the requirements even further the next time around.

While it is easy to blame the community for not taking someone wearing iLvl 515 gear into their Flex raid - the real base factor is the "perceived need" by the Blizzard devs that people en masse actually wants these multi-mechanic 8 minute long raid bosses that we have today. It is very difficult to find people that can be successful on some of these raid bosses the first time if they have not visited a 3rd party site (youtube) and watched a trainer video.

I remember not so many years ago that using trainers, watching videos, reading game mags and using codes were considered cheating. Yet in the MMORPG genre, it's demanded as a prerequisite - this indicates to me that the devs have jumped the tracks and now we see the community paying for it.

I also don't think blizzard is encouraging pug leaders to do the above because mechanics are hard. Games have challenges, and social games like this have players of different skill levels. If you're too lazy/selfish/impatient to help people through these dungeons, you shouldn't be pugging to begin with.

I no longer buy into the concept that most people sign up to play a MMORPG for challenge. If they did, we'd see huge numbers in heroic raiding. We don't even have large numbers in normal raiding. LFR has tiny numbers for Garrosh, even at 5 months in. If people can't even be bothered to kill Garrosh on the easiest raid difficulty - how can anyone make the claim that some large number of people want "challenge" in their MMORPG?

[Sky High]

if they off set the RNG more towards gear then gold or at the least improve the chances of a gear drop on a farmed boss then I'm fine with it, IDK why they might make it so you don't get duplicate gear drops. that's more infuriating then just gold.

[Raeln]

if they off set the RNG more towards gear then gold or at the least improve the chances of a gear drop on a farmed boss then I'm fine with it, IDK why they might make it so you don't get duplicate gear drops. that's more infuriating then just gold.

This happened to me in LFR last week. The bonus roll gave me the same exact piece the boss dropped. It was strange seeing two identical icons in the loot icons at the same time.

Ah well, the sha crystals sold well on the AH though. Probably for more than I would have gotten in gold from the bonus.

[draykorinee]

Not in my opinion. It means there is no reason for anyone to go back into the dungeon/scenario queue and help keep those systems healthy.

I don't think we're talking about dungeons or scenarios. Bonus rolls have no effect on those queues.

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... many players hate RNG, especially when it comes to bosses with long lockouts.

I fully understand that, and I'm glad you're using the term many players, I only replied to a quote that said ONLY blizzard like RNG.

I fully understand the other sides viewpoint, I just dont agree with it, what grates is when people like I replied to say Blizzard dont understand, no one likes RNG. Its just hyperbole, ultimately people will complain, I couldn't stand having to cap valor, especially when they changed farming heroic dungeons. I don't mind a valor system as long as Valor capping doesn't feel like a grind, which is why I prefer bonus rolls.

[Raeln]

I don't think we're talking about dungeons or scenarios. Bonus rolls have no effect on those queues.

Removing or deemphasizing Valor does.

I fully understand that, and I'm glad you're using the term many players, I only replied to a quote that said ONLY blizzard like RNG.

I fully understand the other sides viewpoint, I just dont agree with it, what grates is when people like I replied to say Blizzard dont understand, no one likes RNG. Its just hyperbole, ultimately people will complain, I couldn't stand having to cap valor, especially when they changed farming heroic dungeons. I don't mind a valor system as long as Valor capping doesn't feel like a grind, which is why I prefer bonus rolls.

I don't have a problem with bonus rolls existing. My problem is you only get to use a bonus roll on a raid boss. Can't use them anywhere else.

[Ronduwil]

I haven't rolled a single piece from coins in 3 months, but a guildie of mine rolled 3 upgrades just today.

I believe that you haven't rolled a single upgrade, but I can't believe that you haven't rolled a single piece. On average I win about 1/3 of my rolls. Sometimes more, but seldom less. That's because in patch 5.3 they added "bad luck protection" so every failed roll increases your odds of winning the next. My rolls are often duplicate items, and that's extremely frustrating, but as the article points out, they're looking at adding "dupe protection" as well.

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Cant believe some people are tryind to defend this, even mods. LOL, never accuesed anyone of fanboism, but really, how can you say MORE RNG instead of VALOR ITEMS, that dont tend to be better than the drop items, is a good idea? Just wow.

Actually the loot coin system is less of a grind because instead of grinding out 16 bosses every single week to collect the valor to purchase/upgrade stuff we can go back to the old system where players would specifically queue for that one instance that had the item they wanted. It's actually going to be a relief to go back to that.

[Deleted]

I truelly approve of this change. We got spoiled ever since WotLK and now turning VP into bonus rolls brings back RNG Loot system in RPG game where it should be. Imo, nothing should ever be "guaranteed" in a game of RPG.

Yeah, like my guildie who got two pieces of 550 PVP gear week one on celestials, then another 2 the week after.
Sounds fair right ?

[Thugicorn]

Are you trying to insinuate that there is meaningful character progression from those things?

Meaningful progression is relative. I think clearing Normal and Heroic modes is meaningful. But I also know some people that think it's more meaningful to max tradeskills, achievement hunt, collect pets/mounts, etc. All of which can be considered progress.

Are you insinuating that the only way you can play with other people is by forcing them into large guilds to run raids? WoW did not become popular because of that - it became popular because they broke the EQ1 mold of "needing to find a group/guild just to level".

Not at all. But Normal/Heroic raids have always been (primarily) guild related activities. And I think that's what they're intended for. Guilds help organize and schedule harder player reliant content.

While it is easy to blame the community for not taking someone wearing iLvl 515 gear into their Flex raid - the real base factor is the "perceived need" by the Blizzard devs that people en masse actually wants these multi-mechanic 8 minute long raid bosses that we have today. It is very difficult to find people that can be successful on some of these raid bosses the first time if they have not visited a 3rd party site (youtube) and watched a trainer video.

I remember not so many years ago that using trainers, watching videos, reading game mags and using codes were considered cheating. Yet in the MMORPG genre, it's demanded as a prerequisite - this indicates to me that the devs have jumped the tracks and now we see the community paying for it.

Why play MMORPG's if you just want to play it single player? That's effectively what you're doing by pugging. You're just using people to clear content for yourself. Instead of making friends, interacting with people, building a social group, and downing content together. Frankly I think it's more beneficial and much easier to join a guild and start raiding than pugging if your this sort of player. Some guilds don't even require much of the social aspect from you. But you won't have to worry about the potential bad players and get better loot for your self.

I no longer buy into the concept that most people sign up to play a MMORPG for challenge. If they did, we'd see huge numbers in heroic raiding. We don't even have large numbers in normal raiding. LFR has tiny numbers for Garrosh, even at 5 months in. If people can't even be bothered to kill Garrosh on the easiest raid difficulty - how can anyone make the claim that some large number of people want "challenge" in their MMORPG?

Alot of people might not sign up for a challenge. But I don't think there would be much of a game without it. At this point I think you're saying people play wow to have a glorified chat room with dress up. That's why games are popular right? They challenge you in some form or another. And it's fun.

As to why people aren't downing garrosh enough. Plenty of reasons.
End of expansion.
New Expansion Soon.
Wildstar and ESO releasing.
Hearthstone and the LoL-Clone releasing.
Stale content.

Quite a few of the people I used to play with aren't playing because MoP and Cata don't compare to Wotlk and TBC. The expacs that made the game really popular.