So, what do you think of the loot change in Shadowlands regarding m+?

[sensei-]

100% this. You can't recapture the feeling of getting an epic in vanilla, today. We're already accustomed to the mediocre dopamine hit when we get loot we had in BFA, except this time, the loot is more rare.

The only thing they accomplished is an attempt at extending players' subscription months. They are dead set on this, and its basically accept it or find a different game sadly.

Honestly, this is yet another case of be careful what you wish for. Players demanded this. Streamers and youtubers demanded this. We got it now. After you get BIS you can slack for months, but you’ll need to farm like an ape to get anything at all.

[Xath]

Honestly it blows and makes me not want to play alts at all.

[rebecca191]

Honestly, this is yet another case of be careful what you wish for. Players demanded this. Streamers and youtubers demanded this. We got it now. After you get BIS you can slack for months, but you’ll need to farm like an ape to get anything at all.

I never asked for it but have to suffer anyway. I don't have the time needed to farm so many M+ to get more pieces of loot. I literally can't do it, it doesn't matter if I want to or not, I can't. This is super punishing to the people who never could do more than a few M+ per week. I did all bosses in normal, all but one in heroic, got one usable piece of loot. Not expecting much from the one or two M+ I manage to get done. Maybe the people with no life can get the same amount of loot as before by just running more dungeons, realistically most of us cannot. One item per week, two if the vault has something good, is not fun to me.

[OrcsRLame]

I did PVP as well to increase the reward pool from M+ only, and again I'm being offered 4 rings and 3 cloaks from the weekly vault, and I don't want any of those. It's no better than BFA system.

This is confirmation bias. If you max out your vault it's exactly 9 times better than the BFA system. Just because you got bad luck one time doesn't mean that it's not better. It's just math.

If in BFA you got a good item once every 10 weeks from your chest, then in SL you can expect one about every other week. And that is an average. Some people will get a good item every week. Others may go 3-5 weeks before getting a good item. Others still may go 10+ weeks without a good item.

Those statistical outliers also existed in BFA though. So you can literally just multiply all of the above numbers by the amount of high level slots you get, so 0 for a fully maxed out vault. So 3-5 becomes 27-45 and 10+ becomes 90+.

In other words, give it a month or two. Unless you're the unluckiest guy to ever get unlucky, you'll notice a huge difference over time between the vault and the BFA chest.

[kaminaris]

This is confirmation bias. If you max out your vault it's exactly 9 times better than the BFA system. Just because you got bad luck one time doesn't mean that it's not better. It's just math.

If in BFA you got a good item once every 10 weeks from your chest, then in SL you can expect one about every other week. And that is an average. Some people will get a good item every week. Others may go 3-5 weeks before getting a good item. Others still may go 10+ weeks without a good item.

Those statistical outliers also existed in BFA though. So you can literally just multiply all of the above numbers by the amount of high level slots you get, so 0 for a fully maxed out vault. So 3-5 becomes 27-45 and 10+ becomes 90+.

In other words, give it a month or two. Unless you're the unluckiest guy to ever get unlucky, you'll notice a huge difference over time between the vault and the BFA chest.

Let me, once again, counter your feelings with facts and proper math.

First of all, loot disparity between actual content rewards vs chest was two levels (+10 when smallest upgrade in item level was +5).
Now loot disparity is 16 ilvls which translates into a whopping 5 (five) levels of gear (because now smallest upgrade is +3)

Technically its not really +3, more likely 2.5 but for simplicity lets keep it at 3.
BUT because everything was basically squished in half, actual percentages stayed the same.

So for example difference between 400 and 405 ilvl in BfA is the same percentage difference as 200 and 203 now.

Now what does that mean in practice? That if great vault was a thing in BfA, dungeons would reward you 400 ilvl gear while great vault would be 425-430 ilvl.

And HUGE hole in your logic is assuming that players kill 9 bosses, do 10 dungeons and farm honor in single week which just doesn't happen aside from people who basically got paid to play or have really massive amount of time to play.

Realistically speaking 2-4 option is what we are looking at for average player. And that absolutely doesn't mean you always get upgrade.
Yes at the very begining when your gear is total shit, you will most likely find upgrade for lets say 5-7 weeks, after that, no. You will be more likely to not recieve anything good.

The big problem is that there is no RNG protection that people really wanted from chest. Vault doesn't guarantee shit.
On the other hand it wasn't as prominent problem in BfA because of two things:
1. Titanforging that could fairly easy counter weekly chest bad luck (getting +10 wasn't that hard), here are statistics from legion, before you take more numbers from thin air: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...my_71_data_on/
Yes TF was nerfed in BfA but still +5 was moderately common and +10 wasn't really uncommon.
2. The disparity between ACTUAL REWARD FROM CONTENT itself vs weekly chest, was just two gear tiers higher.

[rebecca191]

This is confirmation bias. If you max out your vault it's exactly 9 times better than the BFA system. Just because you got bad luck one time doesn't mean that it's not better. It's just math.

If in BFA you got a good item once every 10 weeks from your chest, then in SL you can expect one about every other week. And that is an average. Some people will get a good item every week. Others may go 3-5 weeks before getting a good item. Others still may go 10+ weeks without a good item.

Those statistical outliers also existed in BFA though. So you can literally just multiply all of the above numbers by the amount of high level slots you get, so 0 for a fully maxed out vault. So 3-5 becomes 27-45 and 10+ becomes 90+.

In other words, give it a month or two. Unless you're the unluckiest guy to ever get unlucky, you'll notice a huge difference over time between the vault and the BFA chest.

I'd prefer BFA drop rates and BFA chest over Shadowlands drop rate and vault, though..... I don't care if the Vault is better if everything else is so much worse.

[Biomega]

It basically killed M+ for me.

People leave instantly when it's looking like you won't time. You get more stretches of bad RNG where you do several dungeons and get no loot. You basically only do the dungeons for the Great Vault, because the end-of-dungeon loot is worse even than heroic raid drops, and often you won't even pick the item you've unlocked because regular raiding unlocks items, too.

It just doesn't feel rewarding at all.

[chris885]

I have done soooo many dungeons (more than 20 dungeons 5+) and I maybe got 3-4 items?
I feel terribly burned out.
I wish this would change to 3 items at the end of the dungeon. It's way too high time investment for only 3-4 items :/

This hurt more for player who doesn't have a guild or group of friend to do M+ with. For instance we have a group of 5 and we do M+ on a daliy basis but due to that we all have to work so we only play 2-3 M+ per day. Let's say we 3 of M+ we completed with 2 timed and 1 out of time we have 5 item in the end of the day, means 1 item for each of us which is ok for a day since we only play 3 M+ each day. At the end of the week we have 5-7 item for a week plus the great vault. If this happen to a solo player who only play with random players each day and if he has a bad luck he may end up to get nothing for like a week or maybe 1-2 item for a week of same time spending like us. This really hurt these kind of player.

[Doffen]

Funny to see the main complaint of an expansion is how people don't get showered in gear. Which is in fact true, Covenant is almost dodging the whine choir completely as of now, not getting enough gear is the new meta for complaints.

This is how it was mostly before Legion and BfA. They made this change because a main complaint in both Legion and BfA was that TF made gear less rewarding. Without TF they had to go back on the amount of loot we get.

You reap what you sow. If not getting enough gear is the main reason why you don't like an expansion in an MMO, then that genre isn't necessarily your thing. If you do 10+ and fail timers you are just not good enough so lower the bar and do for instance 7s instead and get 2*200 ilvl from end chest. Go to Mists of Tirna Scithe, get a good group, do 7-8s and you get two pieces + conduits(which is like 2-5 per run from my anecdotal experience) within 20 fucking minutes. That's 6 pieces of gear for the group in 1 hour if you look at it that way, + a lot of conduits. In 2 hours that is 12 pieces, in 4 that's 24.

The time to get higher item level rewards than what you actually deserve is over. As it should be.

[Toybox]

In the first week of M+ I made normal raiding almost completely irrelevant with targetted farming & persistence. That's good enough for me.

[chris885]

It basically killed M+ for me.

People leave instantly when it's looking like you won't time. You get more stretches of bad RNG where you do several dungeons and get no loot. You basically only do the dungeons for the Great Vault, because the end-of-dungeon loot is worse even than heroic raid drops, and often you won't even pick the item you've unlocked because regular raiding unlocks items, too.

It just doesn't feel rewarding at all.

That's so ture. People just leave the group when they felt that it won't time and they don't believe it worth to spent another 30 mins for a 20% chance of loot. Espeically after all the lowest DPSer with most error and ZERO interrput got the loot. It just hurt so baddly.

[Gigantique]

It sure as shit made M+ go from my favourite pasttime in the game to something I can't be bothered to do anymore. Added with the fact that I now have to choose away PvE items in the Vault in favour of PvP items and the fact that IIRC I got one item in a slot where I had a legendary total this lockout from a full Normal and 7/10 HC clear, my last season of non-casual WoW sure soured significantly.

Oh well, at least PvP gearing is decent this time around. It's a damn shame because the SL dungeons themselves are really fun, but it didn't take a lot of 0 loot dungeons in a row to murder any sense of progression.

[Stacie]

Like the change of less loot and lower ilvl. I think some sort of currency if you get nothing will be good. Something akin to VP/JP with a weekly cap.

Its nice heroic/mythic loot being valid again feels more like the good old days where you would gear from a little of everything. M+ is still rewarding i still want to do my weekly 1-4 (i'm not gonna be doing 10) m+ no longer feels like something you have to do for pre raid BiS and a chore or the correct way to play the game. Because if this i have spent more time doing other content thats been more enjoyable.

Before these changes i would just spam m+ because it had the best stuff you could get bar a few trinkets, it was efficient in terms of power gain and kinda expected if you want to be on the raiding team doing mythic raids. Also normally i would want the same item each tier from same dungeon felt boring grinding it over and over. Now when i raid if an item drops it might actually be an upgrade more often than not! Amazing raiding feels rewarding again! It was so bad when you showed up to heroic/mythic and items dropped that nobody wanted due to having better form m+ even very early on! The current way m+ is still gives m+ value and brings more value back to raiding. Its a fantastic compromise that means all content feels rewarding and valid.

I hope they keep these changes but perhaps add a weekly capped currency if you get nothing that lets you work towards a socket or item of some kind. Maybe an item that lets you upgrade 1 item to heroic/mythic quality so overtime those who do just m+ can gear that way. Has to be capped though so 1 upgrade every few weeks nothing more.

[Twdft]

If not getting enough gear is the main reason why you don't like an expansion in an MMO, then that genre isn't necessarily your thing. If you do 10+ and fail timers you are just not good enough so lower the bar and do for instance 7s instead and get 2*200 ilvl from end chest.

Gear is still a tool you need to conquer higher difficulties.

Everyone is easily enough at ilvl 184 since m0 drops as always. But now apply to +10 or even +7 with that gear...

Been said multiple times here, loot change hurts the wrong players.

[Spike`]

they could have made both

less loot like its know, the ilvl like is now etc but also make a chance to warforge + 4 ilvl, +8 is maybe overkill

people will still get the shit non drops but even when it dropped were a chance to have a upgrade if they it a wall or helping a friend

its so easy but no, let make it have no joy at all for all

this, maw, boring WQs and torgast for many classes/specs many people are already quitting and always the same reasons "its nor fun anymore", "its boring content"

[Kagdar]

Gear is still a tool you need to conquer higher difficulties.

Everyone is easily enough at ilvl 184 since m0 drops as always. But now apply to +10 or even +7 with that gear...

Been said multiple times here, loot change hurts the wrong players.

Don't you think that going from running M+0 to M+10 is normal pace? You should have to run m+ in between those to gear up.

Problem is most players still have the mentality of .having to run a +10" for the weekly chest.

You don't have to, run stuff at your level, m+ that you CAN clear and loot will be plenty. By the time you run 1 m+10 and don't time it, thus 1 loot for the group, you have the time to run 2 or even 3 lower timed keys and thus 4/6 loot for the group...

Run 10x m+5 instead of 3/4x m+10 and you will have 3 choices in your Vault. Giving you more chances of upgrading your lowest piece of gear.

[Tojara]

It's fine.

If WF/TF existed this thread would just be filled with complaints about how running dungeons feels worthless because when I finally got an item, it was either the wrong item or it didn't WF/TF to the appropriate level that I needed. I find it slightly humorous because most people in these threads or that do M+ typically fall within the bracket of doing keys that are <15, meaning that for the most part, the change to loot went from 3 > 2 or 2 > 1 (if you're talking about depletes).

A big reason people didn't 'feel' that M+ was unrewarding in BFA was a few factors. WF/TF still existed, weekly chests only required one key be done, and we entered BFA with way higher keys than what we were suppose too. With enough time spent, people could struggle bus their way through M+ for the first several weeks of BFA doing keys way above their skill level that nobody really deserved, and they had no business being in. In Shadowlands they removed this and everybody is finding themselves having to work keys back up to that level, in a world where WF/TF doesn't exist, and the weekly chest has been modified.

You're not suppose to look at all of these systems as self-contained either. Normal drops 200 (207), heroic drops 213 (220), and mythic drops 226 (233). Raiding content only drops 3 items and dungeon content drops 2 items, with progressively more if you start to hit the 15 mark. The items from M+ range from 187-210 for repeatable content, and for the most part, you have an 'infinite' amount of content to do to acquire loot that's just slightly under the heroic range. TF aside (because TF at the very least is pretty retarded), you were never going to get items out of M+ that eclipsed Mythic raid iLvL except from the vault, and that's been status quo since Legion (yes I realize TF changed this).

The vault is meant to supplement this and really all of the activities from the vault aren't too much of a time investment to hit the second box in any of them. Doing 10 dungeons is a lot, but doing 4 doesn't seem too far out of the way does it? I realize you can get ass fucked from the vault, but if you fill out more options, you statistically increase your chances anywhere from 2 to 9x (again, depending on how much shit you do), and I'll take even two weekly options as opposed to one.

M+ in Legion was 'fun' because it was one of the most efficient sources of AP and at the very least you ticked up legendary drop chance even if you got shit. In BFA you did them for a little over a month and prayed that the Azerite you got was the good kind, otherwise most of the allure of the chest to most players was praying that they anywhere from 1/6 to 1/2 chance on the BiS Azerite from the vendor, and hoping it was early enough in the season to get some use out of it. Both iterations of the game allowed you to spam them to your hearts content (except Ny'alotha) with nearly everyone just praying you would get that ding sound when an item popped up, praying that it WF/TF. If you didn't get that ding? Trash, if you did, you just hoped that it WF/TF or had a socket, and that it was an item that you could use.

Is M+ perfect this expansion? No, but the vault is a system that runs parallel to it, and I can't see any world where people would prefer the old vault over the new one (literally makes no sense). If you're stuck in a system where you're one and done for keys, yeah, it doesn't change anything. I have to ask though, if you're just playing the game to get a 'chore' of one key done on your characters, what are you even using them for?

It's been brought up multiple times but I wouldn't be opposed to a currency system for PvE (much like conquest), where you could slowly acquire gear and fill up the currency by doing M+, and the upgrade path would be dictated based on the higher keys you've done for the week. It might be too much of an infusion of loot in the game, but it feels good in PvP at the moment. Even bringing up a suggestion would just have people crying about having to fill up another bar, even if it was deterministic. People want loot and they want it now.

Some want WF/TF while others think it's cancer. Remove RNG from loot and just make loot, loot. Make items deterministic, but I don't want to fill pointless bars each week or be gated at all. We need more options from the weekly chests to curb RNG, but I don't want to do more content to increase my chances to curb that RNG. The amount of flip flopping in this very thread is confusing, and it's certainly not a place I'd want to be in trying to balance rewards in this fucking game.

[Glorious Leader]

That's so ture. People just leave the group when they felt that it won't time and they don't believe it worth to spent another 30 mins for a 20% chance of loot. Espeically after all the lowest DPSer with most error and ZERO interrput got the loot. It just hurt so baddly.

but that sweet sweet 35 anima though...

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I kind of wish the anima reward for losing out was bigger. I mean even like 100 would mean at least I get a WQ level of reward for a 30-40 minute run.

[poggers]

Should have milestones. Minimum 3 pieces for completing it. Two pieces for failing. Add +1 loot every 5 key levels regardless of failing or completing.

Any serious key pusher is spending thousands of gold and only to get 35 anima is a joke