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

[mortephobia]

just get good and PvP.

you can buy "what you want" so.....

[kaminaris]

You keep saying quantity doesn't matter yet you keep bringing it up. It's an MMO man, you're going to get screwed on drops regardless of any kind of loot system.

No I wasn't getting screwed in MoP nor WoD nor BfA. I did get screwed in Legion as they made the same mistake = zero way to counter bad luck with leggos. If not for leggos, legion loot system would be ... ok. Well no, it was shit because I had 5 gear slots but that is different story). But then again, focus on grand scheme of things. Not just quantity, the WHOLE system.

As for how ML allowed people to give loot that someone else needed a lot more than you, it was always up to you to give it to that person. Which, yea, was always great as I've helped many players that way and many players have helped me that way. But the problem doesn't lie with PL, it lies with Blizz deciding to make it so you can't trade shit that's an ilvl upgrade to you, even if you don't want it and would rather someone else with a much lower ilvl get it.

But the problem with making loot tradeable with PL is going to turn it into semi ML. On the other hand I would much prefer to just set a barier of 3-6 item levels to be able to trade loot, than to bring ML back. That is again, looking at bigger picture:
1. With higher loot quantity, it wouldn't be needed at all.
2. It also wouldn't be that much needed if we had a reliable way to counter bad luck. Like just -3 ilvls would be ok.

Before that shitty addition, PL allowed you to do everything ML allowed you to do.

And that made it didn't really work.

Also, again, it's an MMO. If people cannot commit the time, then they won't get the gear. That's just how these games work. You're not meant to get something if you aren't good enough at the game. How do you become good enough at the game? By spending a lot of time in it of course, like all skills. This is the problem with our generation. We're told we're winners no matter what, that we can be anything we want no matter what, and that we can have anything no matter what. People just cannot accept that it's okay to not be able to do something. Move on to something that you can do, instead of bringing others down for being able to do it.

Again, you have some wrong idea what mmo is. Nobody ever said that MMO have to screw you over. And up until now we had ways to counter bad luck (with some exceptions like leggos)

That is definitely not how these games work. I have yet to play a single game that my gear is entirely reliant on rng weekly lottery.
And cut the crap with "generation". If I can't even work my way to the top, then design is shit. It's as simple as that. Winner should always be the one who puts enough effort and has skills, not the one that has best luck with bingo lottery.

The real problem with people is that they are unable to look at whole picture and getting scammed left and right.
I still laugh when people are "glad" they don't have to farm anima. When anima is just a damned resources that you could ignore in both previous expansions.


Look, loot fixed in 3 minutes:
1. Slot affiliation for weekly chest, you pick a slot that you would like to get from weekly bingo, that slot (slot, not specific item) has 50% more chance to appear as one of the options.
2. M+ rewards 213 for 15 M+, 220 for end of week reward, same for HC raids.
3. Raid rewards equalized, no more +ilvl for last 2 bosses, plain simple 213 for HC, 220 for mythic.
4. ALONGSIDE with reward you get 250 anima and 1000 stygia
5. Dungeons drop 200 anima, same goes for raid bosses
6. Everything you do rewards you with token shard, once you get to 100 token shards, turn it into a token that allows you to purchase one specific 220 item - once per 2 weeks.

And that are just something i came up in a moment, could be much better with some more brainstorming. Which blizzard clearly didn't do.

[Stardrift]

No I wasn't getting screwed in MoP nor WoD nor BfA. I did get screwed in Legion as they made the same mistake = zero way to counter bad luck with leggos. If not for leggos, legion loot system would be ... ok. Well no, it was shit because I had 5 gear slots but that is different story). But then again, focus on grand scheme of things. Not just quantity, the WHOLE system.



But the problem with making loot tradeable with PL is going to turn it into semi ML. On the other hand I would much prefer to just set a barier of 3-6 item levels to be able to trade loot, than to bring ML back. That is again, looking at bigger picture:
1. With higher loot quantity, it wouldn't be needed at all.
2. It also wouldn't be that much needed if we had a reliable way to counter bad luck. Like just -3 ilvls would be ok.


And that made it didn't really work.




Again, you have some wrong idea what mmo is. Nobody ever said that MMO have to screw you over. And up until now we had ways to counter bad luck (with some exceptions like leggos)

That is definitely not how these games work. I have yet to play a single game that my gear is entirely reliant on rng weekly lottery.
And cut the crap with "generation". If I can't even work my way to the top, then design is shit. It's as simple as that. Winner should always be the one who puts enough effort and has skills, not the one that has best luck with bingo lottery.

The real problem with people is that they are unable to look at whole picture and getting scammed left and right.
I still laugh when people are "glad" they don't have to farm anima. When anima is just a damned resources that you could ignore in both previous expansions.


Look, loot fixed in 3 minutes:
1. Slot affiliation for weekly chest, you pick a slot that you would like to get from weekly bingo, that slot (slot, not specific item) has 50% more chance to appear as one of the options.
2. M+ rewards 213 for 15 M+, 220 for end of week reward, same for HC raids.
3. Raid rewards equalized, no more +ilvl for last 2 bosses, plain simple 213 for HC, 220 for mythic.
4. ALONGSIDE with reward you get 250 anima and 1000 stygia
5. Dungeons drop 200 anima, same goes for raid bosses
6. Everything you do rewards you with token shard, once you get to 100 token shards, turn it into a token that allows you to purchase one specific 220 item - once per 2 weeks.

And that are just something i came up in a moment, could be much better with some more brainstorming. Which blizzard clearly didn't do.

I'll agree with everything 2-6. 1 on the other hand allows people to selectively pick which secondary stats and trinkets they get as loot. Minmaxing like that should be discouraged.

[kaminaris]

I'll agree with everything 2-6. 1 on the other hand allows people to selectively pick which secondary stats and trinkets they get as loot. Minmaxing like that should be discouraged.

1 is the biggest problem tho. And again, easy to fix, can't select same slot for 3 weeks.

[Amariw]

Mostly ok with it. Ye i have to put in more time, but in legion and bfa we had so much loot from m+ that hc got triviliazed in the first two weeks, and m+ trivialized itself. HC and Mythics are the hardest content a non guilder can do, so while it was convinent, it left me with not much to aspire beside pushing keys (not having the time or willingness for a mythic raid guild).

With the changes, m+ is an actual climb, and hc isn't triviliazed. I still havn't gotten my curve whereas in bfa and legion raids i ussualy got them within 0-2 weeks at most. I may not get it this week either if i cba making my own raid. Yes, it takes more time, but Mythic raiders aren't affected since they already do the hardest content, whereas non mythic raiders at least have something to look foward to rather than a tier ending in a week or two.

[Mystikal]

The weekly vault IS bad luck protection

This may be the intention, but it certainly hasn't been the result. Three resets in a row and I've yet to get anything in my GV that I can actually use, since it insists on only offering choices of my best two slots.

Edit for clarity: I can't use said items because they're downgrades on the items I have already have in those slots, and it just insists on offering me 3 of one and 2 of another each week.

[Twdft]

, and it just insists on offering me 3 of one and 2 of another each week.

I don't think I've had two choices for the same item slot in one vault yet, always 5 different choices. Maybe just luck but I thought the vault would always offer only different slot.

[Anbokr]

I like this loot paradigm more, but it's a bit on the starved end. I do agree with people that you feel like you can spend tons of hours farming and just get nothing in return, and that's not a good feeling. While I like that we've shifted away from the infinite farm feeling of Legion/BFA of never being done -- I also think there is a happier middle medium than what we have right now.

Vault is awesome, but there should still be some good loot progression throughout the week. I feel like on top of the weekly vault, doing mythic 12s+ should have a moderate chance to give you a phat upgrade, once per week.

Bringing back bonus roll for raids would also help alleviate the starvation feeling there. I've run a half heroic and full normal on one of my alts without receiving a single piece, and that's a terrible feeling all around.

[Darkke]

I honestly wouldn't mind getting just 1 or 2 items in a week if I knew those items would be upgrades. Nothing is more disheartening than working hard doing raids/m+, finally getting a piece of loot and it being a shitty trinket or armor with wrong stats so your old item that's 20+ ilvl lower ends up still being better.

[Majerin]

Quantity is low, but to me the far worse problem is the fact M+ caps out below heroic raiding. M Denathrius cleared before a +20, yet somehow a +20 rewards loot 23 item level lower. Doesn't seem reasonable. According to their own descriptors, +18 is around mythic raid in terms of mechanic difficulty/punishment. I think 18 is definitely too low to reward mythic items, but scaling up the ilvl reward by, say, a point or two per level above 15 seems more than fair. Give 226 ilvl gear at around +21 or 22, perhaps cap it at 229 or 230 to keep it below SG and Denathrius.

[Kralljin]

Quantity is low, but to me the far worse problem is the fact M+ caps out below heroic raiding. M Denathrius cleared before a +20, yet somehow a +20 rewards loot 23 item level lower. Doesn't seem reasonable. According to their own descriptors, +18 is around mythic raid in terms of mechanic difficulty/punishment. I think 18 is definitely too low to reward mythic items, but scaling up the ilvl reward by, say, a point or two per level above 15 seems more than fair. Give 226 ilvl gear at around +21 or 22, perhaps cap it at 229 or 230 to keep it below SG and Denathrius.

I think if a +20 received the amount of attention and subsequent investment from hardcore players as the World first race, it would have been done already.

Completely ignoring the fact that raiding still has a far steeper organizational requirements than M+.

[Xahz]

shouldn't people who can commit to a schedule and organize 10-30 ppl get more loot than someone that can jump on, join a group of 5 in 5 minutes, and bust out a 30 min repeatable instance?

No? Why do PvPers get any gear at all then? Queueing for 2s takes only one other player (can be a DPS, easy to find), matches take five minutes, and you don't even have to complete them within the weekly lockout. It's ten times easier to get a buddy together and spam 2s than it is to organize a Mythic+ team, and yet we allow PvPers to have access to the best gear in the game because we understand that gearing up should be based on skill, not based on logistical challenges. Right now people who PvP have nearly twice the gear as people who run Mythic+. Raiders are at a significant ilvl advantage as well. People who only raid or only PvP are better equipped for Mythic+ than people who only do dungeons. How does that make any sense at all?

[Majerin]

I think if a +20 received the amount of attention and subsequent investment from hardcore players as the World first race, it would have been done already.

Completely ignoring the fact that raiding still has a far steeper organizational requirements than M+.

Which is why raiding would have the exclusive access (alongside the grand vault) to the highest level of gear (And in a perfect world if I were balancing it, the best trinkets and gear with unique stat allocations, such as 75% of one stat and 25% of another. I do think raiding should have the best gear, but mythic plus should be able to be self-sustaining).

The organizational argument is, I think, a fairly outdated one. 10 and 25 man stopped giving different loot back in Cataclysm and mythic is capped at 20 for balance reasons rather than organizational ones. As for the amount of attention, it's something of a chicken and the egg problem, no? As long as blizzard refuses to give M+ the attention it has earned, it will be seen as a lesser tier of content. As long as it's lesser tier, people give it less attention. Now I am personally biased as I think high end raiding to be far less interesting than high end key pushing, but I think objectively speaking m+ should get rewards at least on par with raiding. After all, there's a significant argument m+ saved the game; it has the infinite replay value and scaling that wow can at times lack.

[ellieg]

No? Why do PvPers get any gear at all then? Queueing for 2s takes only one other player (can be a DPS, easy to find), matches take five minutes, and you don't even have to complete them within the weekly lockout. It's ten times easier to get a buddy together and spam 2s than it is to organize a Mythic+ team, and yet we allow PvPers to have access to the best gear in the game because we understand that gearing up should be based on skill, not based on logistical challenges. Right now people who PvP have nearly twice the gear as people who run Mythic+. Raiders are at a significant ilvl advantage as well. People who only raid or only PvP are better equipped for Mythic+ than people who only do dungeons. How does that make any sense at all?

Ppl who pvp have full 184 from honor. ~3 items bought from conquest. 2 potential items from chest.

Unless they are top 10% of pvpers, you probably have higher ilvl than the ones who only pvp. If anything, you shld be doing all content if you want more gear. If it's so easy to gear in pvp, why havent you gotten 1800+ to fill in your slots? It also has verse main stat which a lot of pve dps dsnt like.

Ppl who do M+ exclusively have better gear if they put in the time. You shldve gotten 2 226 pieces by now if you're as good as u think u are. And at 2 items a run, its not as hard to gear up as u think. Run with a set group and share the loot. Or like I said above, blizz wants you dabbling in all content this xpqc

[intenz]

No? Why do PvPers get any gear at all then? Queueing for 2s takes only one other player (can be a DPS, easy to find), matches take five minutes, and you don't even have to complete them within the weekly lockout. It's ten times easier to get a buddy together and spam 2s than it is to organize a Mythic+ team, and yet we allow PvPers to have access to the best gear in the game because we understand that gearing up should be based on skill, not based on logistical challenges. Right now people who PvP have nearly twice the gear as people who run Mythic+. Raiders are at a significant ilvl advantage as well. People who only raid or only PvP are better equipped for Mythic+ than people who only do dungeons. How does that make any sense at all?

pve and pvp gear should be completely distinct.

ironically the reason it isn't is because crybaby pve players insist on being able to use overpowered pve gear in arenas so we are in this state where pvp gear is too good in pve and pve gear too good in pvp.

[Kralljin]

The organizational argument is, I think, a fairly outdated one. 10 and 25 man stopped giving different loot back in Cataclysm and mythic is capped at 20 for balance reasons rather than organizational ones.

You do realize that Blizzard already pulled back on that mid MoP by giving 25man a higher chance on Thunderforged / Warforged items as compensation, then killed 10man Heroic (or rather Mythic) by creating Mythic with a fixed 20man size?
They did that to salvage the one mode that still had the feeling of large scale raiding, something that 10man obviously lacked.

It's not an outdated argument, it's still relevant, especially because Mythic raiding is the only mode of raiding that has a fixed roster size and realm restriction.

As long as it's lesser tier, people give it less attention. Now I am personally biased as I think high end raiding to be far less interesting than high end key pushing, but I think objectively speaking m+ should get rewards at least on par with raiding. After all, there's a significant argument m+ saved the game; it has the infinite replay value and scaling that wow can at times lack.

I respect that you at least recognize your own bias, but your arguments are a stretch.

People give it less attention because how it's fundamentally designed, 5man dungeons are still the same from start of the expansion to finish, the Race to world first focuses always on new content, it's hardly exciting to see people doing dungeon X yet again at the start of a new season, a new affix does hardly change the formula there.

And saying that "M+ saved the game", again, that's one big statement, M+'s popularity seems to come largely from two factors
1. Less organizational requirements
2. Huge quantities of loot
Blizzard chipped at one of those and its popularity caved in.

If you want my personal opinion on M+, it's something that belongs in ARPG's, not (MMO)RPG's, it's the one mode that seriously struggled the moment Blizzard stepped off their fool's errand with Warforging, Titanforging & Corruption, as the game never before had a source of raid quality loot without any lockout.
Having content that has infinite scaling does not reflect infinite amount of content or "content for everybody", it's just lazy and the fact that you're stuck doing the same dungeons over the course of the entire expansion adds further to my massive dislike towards M+.

"Take a dungeon, slap % scaling mechanics in there, slap more Ilvl onto loot and you have content for another patch", that's M+ Design in a nutshell.

Not to mention what this mode is doing to class design, in raids, classes can shine in different areas, if you don't have super awesome AoE, that's okay, not every boss needs good AoE and even if it does, you normally have enough specs that can cover this unless an encounter is massively overtuned.
In M+, a dps spec lives or dies by their AoE damage, in virtually every dungeon, because slots are so few and AoE damage is so crucial in that mode.

And AoE isn't the only area where M+ puts pressure to further homogenize classes, defensive cd's are the same thing, having terrible defensive cd's in raids is one thing but (high) M+ keys, that can be a damning criteria for a spec.
Not to mention that unique utility instantly becomes a massive issue the second it's useful in M+, Shroud of concealment is a prime example, that was a niche button no one gave a shit about, yet became this massive issue in M+ due to skipping as slots are so few in M+ and rogues shouldn't be "mandatory".
Which then led them to design the last two affixes primarily around skipping, which is hardly a permanent solution to the problem, if that fails, you need to design the dungeon itself or mob requirements around it, just to stop one class from becoming "mandatory".
Which really gives you an idea whether Blizzard might ever bother to (re)introduce unique class specific mechanics again when it's causing so many issues in a certain game mode (which, in my opinion, they absolutely should).

[WrongCracker]

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.

Got to a specific dungeon in M+ with a hand picked group? you sure you know how it works?

[Mystikal]

I don't think I've had two choices for the same item slot in one vault yet, always 5 different choices. Maybe just luck but I thought the vault would always offer only different slot.

Which is why my original reply to this topic stated "this depends on how lucky you have been".

You have obviously been lucky enough to (probably) always have an upgrade waiting in your GV each week. Some, like me, have not and have also been saddled with atrocious luck with drops from the content we're doing. I'm doing as much as I can as often as I can, and yet the majority of my gear is still heroic dungeon blues, because the game simply refuses to drop gear for me, and my supposed 'bad luck protection' is not offering me anything I can use.

[Doffen]

Got to a specific dungeon in M+ with a hand picked group? you sure you know how it works?

Not sure what you mean by the last sentence? You think you need a hand picked group(your words) to do several keys at your skill level? I did 4 Mists m+ with 4 different groups last week, took approx 2 hours to both find groups and clear. If you get a good group, lets say GUILD and then go and do mythic+ you can gear up quickly, same as pugs.

It was just an example, now I provided another. There are means to gear up fast through m+. And I am sure you also know that.

[Eapoe]

As someone who enjoys playing other games and indulging in different hobbies, personally, I really enjoy it. I never liked the feeling, as a raider, of needing to do other content constantly to be better in the part of the game I want to focus on.
M+ is a great addition to the game and has the possibility to be a great side feature. As it is, Blizzard teeters it on the edge of mandatory (Legion and BfA) to get the best gear for all aspects of the game, to almost completely unneeded in Shadowlands.
Running 1 a week is no problem, but if you truly want to maximize loot chance you need to run 7-10 (can’t remember off the top of my head) to get 3 chances at a piece of loot. Meanwhile, doing those multiple runs give almost zero chance of a loot upgrade at all once you reach that ilvl between completion and vault reward.
I still stand by the fact that m+, raids, and PvP should all award the same ilvl; however, that ilvl should only apply to the content it comes from as well as world, normal/heroic dungeons, and Torghast style instances. In all other content it should be nerfed down to a specific level below what it isn’t suited for. Just an example, m15 could drop 226 ilvl, but if you go into raid or PvP instances it drops down to 198 (just below normal). Mythic raid drops 226, but if you go into m+ or PvP it drops to 198. The same holds true for PvP gear. Ilvl persists in world content, expansion feature content such as Torghast, and low level queue content, such as LFR raid, Arena Skirmishes, and heroic/normal dungeons.
Back on topic, I don’t mind it; but, I also know I speak just for myself and as someone who doesn’t enjoy nonstop m+ runs or pushing high keys outside of the mandatory 14-15 level.