In Shadowlands, the weekly mythic+ cache is being replaced with the great vault. I shared my initial reaction of their first post about it (and got a correction by a commenter), wowhead has gotten more information, including an actual example of how it works. I’ll summarize a bit of what they said, along with providing a link to the original post after the break. Having seen clarification, there are parts of what bothered me that were my misunderstanding, however, most of my main issues still linger…
In BFA, your highest mythic dungeon completed in the week determines the loot from the cache on Tuesday. There may be some observation bias here, but in my experience the loot that drops from this cache carries exclusively poor stats, bad corruptions, and was the slot you got last week. Part of the problem is the MASSIVE pool of items that can drop from this cache in that it includes every eligible piece from all dungeons across the expansion. As it is now, you need only complete one dungeon at +15 or higher (higher for more of certain currencies) and you get the maximum level of loot drop.
The current iteration of the Great Vault has some basic similarities. It will give you one piece of loot based on the level of content completed that week. This is where it immediately varies, though.
As you can see, there are up to 9 possible choices to earn, 3 from each of raiding, mythic dungeons, and pvp. The current speculation tends to assume that the choices will either be A: All from the mythic dungeon loot pool, or B: Each tier pertaining to the content from which you get the choice. As in, the top 3 choice options, when unlocked, will be raid loot, and so forth.
The Good
- Raiders get a loot box too
- PVP loot box takes half as much conquest
- More options helps reduce the impact of RNG
The Bad
- Filling this out could feel like a mandatory chore to do
- People finished with heroic and working on mythic prog will feel required to go back to heroic to get 10 kills
- PVP box used to be seperate, so for someone who does keys and PVP, loot just got halved on Tuesday.
- Needing to run 15 keys in one week is ridiculous
The Questionable
- If the 3 raid slots comes from raid loot, could you get end boss loot by only doing the first 3 bosses each week?
- If all the loot comes from the m+ loot pool, does that put people running mainly m+ at a major gear disadvantage?
- What will the relative item levels be compared to now?
- What changes are coming?
Why I’m Still Not a Fan
Right now, this box is one of the most important places of gear acquisition in the game, being a source of BiS gear for every player group and the only source of such gear for those outside of the highest end raiding and PVP. The massive RNG currently leads to some serious, regular, downer moments for a lot of players. Obviously, we still have a lot of questions about gearing in general, including how the pacing will feel for getting it, what the best sources will be, etc. I’ve been having discussions about this for days, speculating on the impact of this. One of my biggest concerns is the very common response I’ve gotten of “worst case scenario, it’s going to be just the same as now”. If that’s even on the table, it’s completely unacceptable. Having best in slot gear come once per week out of a ridiculously large pool of options, meaning you could literally wait for longer than the entire expansion and never see your 475 BiS feels… less good, for sure. My main got his 8th pair of 475 gloves today, despite having 3 slots that have NEVER seen a 475 drop. Not just that I have slots that could get upgrades, better itemization, better corruption, or something cause that’s also true, but that out of 11 options, 3/11 have gotten nothing and 1/11 has gotten 8x drops. At best, it’s a clunky system to patch holes in other issues. At worst, it’s the end of the line for progression for a large group of players and a major demotivating factor in the game.
If the new system is “just the same as now”, it will be a major thorn in Shadowlands side that has been festering for an expansion already. However, I actually think it will be worse than now. You either grind for each of the 9 options (which would feel even worse if nothing good was among the options) or grind only what you’re comfortable with and then have potential regret for not doing what you “need” to, to be optimal. It’s lose/lose.
What To Do?
The easiest solution – make the extra loot chances just happen. This at least diminishes the the RNG without adding yet ANOTHER grind to accomplish it. The relative power of loot from each tier of that still needs balanced, but… that’s an issue in any scenario where there’s different types possibly existing there.
My preference – remove the weekly loot box. Just remove it. The best gear should come from the content we’re actually doing. You can farm this by aiming for those specific dungeons or bosses and use your bonus rolls appropriately. If they’re worried, give us an extra bonus roll each week or make one bonus roll guaranteed to drop a piece of loot.
Outside of either of these, I think it needs adjustment from it is now and will probably see several iterations AFTER it goes live. From my discussions, I’m really one of the few people who dislikes the change, but I feel that many people are underestimating the problems of the new disappointment box – because now you have to grind for it.
Source: WoWhead post.
*Edit* They’ve now changed the dungeon requirement to 1-4-10 and the PVP to 125-350-875. New wowhead post here. I still don’t think this is good enough for most of the same reasons already listed above, however, I won’t make a new post about this until/unless more significant changes are done.
LMAO You are truly clueless and obviously don’t raid at a level that requires thought.
“Filling this out could feel like a mandatory chore to do”- As if it won’t be filled anyways as you play the game? It’s not like it’s currently mandatory to do mythic plus.
“People finished with heroic and working on mythic prog will feel required to go back to heroic to get 10 kills”- Guilds progging mythic still do heroic… you really don’t get how things work. People don’t just stop doing heroic… we keep doing heroic to fill out gear and farm for titanforges/corruptions.. if you never did heroic again after completing it you would never get any mythic kills.
“Needing to run 15 keys in one week is ridiculous”- You don’t need to run 15 keys a week. 15 keys a week is also not ridiculous. That’s 2 keys a day. Perfectly reasonable.
“If the 3 raid slots comes from raid loot, could you get end boss loot by only doing the first 3 bosses each week”- No. You misunderstood what they meant. The pool of loot is derived from the raid bosses you killed.
“If all the loot comes from the m+ loot pool, does that put people running mainly m+ at a major gear disadvantage?”- Not sure what you mean? All of the loot in the mythic plus loot chest already comes from mythic plus.. if you do mythic plus in shadowlands, you get loot from mythic plus. You pvp, you get gear from pvp.. raiding, raiding. Not sure what you even mean. I think you’re confused. After all, you are very inexperienced.
“What will the relative item levels be compared to now?”- Why does it matter? There’s an item level squish, and? Do you think they aren’t also squishing the world? Lmao, what are you even talking about. It won’t be an issue. It wasn’t an issue in BFA when they squished everything.
“The best gear should come from the content we’re actually doing.”- And it still will. Not sure how you thought otherwise? You won’t get loot from content you didn’t do..?
What is your history of raiding? Like in total, including LFR and normal.
“LMAO You are truly clueless and obviously don’t raid at a level that requires thought.”
When you start a comment with that, you indicate that you’re already unwilling to even participate in a discussion. If your criticism was valid, you wouldn’t feel the need to open with such empty and unnecessary drivel.
““Filling this out could feel like a mandatory chore to do”- As if it won’t be filled anyways as you play the game? It’s not like it’s currently mandatory to do mythic plus.”
It will not. I know literally dozens of people who don’t do 15 keys a week (or even 10). Also, please pay attention to the wording “could feel like”. This won’t apply to everyone. If you have the time to raid 10/10 bosses, do dozens of keys and win dozens of arenas on every single character you play, and you already do this, then you probably won’t feel this. You aren’t every player. Understand the entire world is not you.
““Needing to run 15 keys in one week is ridiculous”- You don’t need to run 15 keys a week. 15 keys a week is also not ridiculous. That’s 2 keys a day. Perfectly reasonable.”
When I wrote this, it was 15. People criticizing the unnecessary amount (such as me, on that post) helped get it reduced to 10. Additionally, 2 keys per day is not “perfectly reasonable” for every player. Again, try to reduce the selfish focus on yourself and understand not everyone has the same playstyle, time and desires as you. You also seem like someone who doesn’t likely play a bunch of alts. This gets exponentially worse the more characters someone is trying to play. Also, 2 x 7 does not equal 15. Math pls.
““If the 3 raid slots comes from raid loot, could you get end boss loot by only doing the first 3 bosses each week”- No. You misunderstood what they meant. The pool of loot is derived from the raid bosses you killed.” So at the time I made this post, it wasn’t even determined where the loot was made. Please pay attention to dates on posts to understand what you’re reading. You misunderstand how time works. Additionally. Per the most recent wowhead post (which came days after my post but DAYS before your inane brick of innacuracies) https://www.wowhead.com/news=317503/great-vault-weekly-chest-raid-objectives-awards-raid-loot-in-shadowlands, it has been CONFIRMED that you can get end boss loot (or at least boss 7) from only doing 1 boss kill. You’ve been too busy trying to insult an old post that you can’t even get your information correct.
““If all the loot comes from the m+ loot pool, does that put people running mainly m+ at a major gear disadvantage?”- Not sure what you mean? All of the loot in the mythic plus loot chest already comes from mythic plus.. if you do mythic plus in shadowlands, you get loot from mythic plus. You pvp, you get gear from pvp.. raiding, raiding. Not sure what you even mean. I think you’re confused. After all, you are very inexperienced.”
Again, please understand how time works. Old posts don’t magically change their content when new information comes out. At the time of this post, it had not been confirmed what the loot pool was. At that point, if every option was still from m+ (the way the current box is) then a person would have been able to raid and get a free piece of m+ loot. Then again, you’re confused as to how time works, you must be new to the world.
““What will the relative item levels be compared to now?”- Why does it matter? There’s an item level squish, and? Do you think they aren’t also squishing the world? Lmao, what are you even talking about. It won’t be an issue. It wasn’t an issue in BFA when they squished everything.”
Again, wow… like, you started off in a bad place and then got further and further out of touch with reality. Relative item levels compared to now. RELATIVE ITEM LEVELS. Relative. Please understand words. I’m trying to write about games, not basic reading comprehension that you so desperately need. The relative item level compared to now. Now, we have 465 comes from end of key, 475 comes from the loot box. Heroic raid gives 460, but the dungeon loot box gives 475. So, we need to know the RELATIVE item level of this content compared to now. If Heroic raid is 200 (or whatever it squishes to) and the loot box is 220, this is still a problem.
“The best gear should come from the content we’re actually doing.”- And it still will. Not sure how you thought otherwise? You won’t get loot from content you didn’t do..?
It doesn’t and it won’t unless something changes. Again, you spend too much time trying to be condescending that you can’t even read words or think thoughts. Outside of mythic raiding, the best gear comes from the end of the week loot box from doing a +15 key. To the point that players from ALL types of content regularly make sure to get their weekly +15 done because it’s the best source of a guaranteed 475 piece. The “content” you did was a +15 dungeon. That “content” rewarded a few 465 pieces of gear. If you run 10000000 of those, you will still get, from the content you do, 465 ilvl gear. Then, you get a random, unfarmable, 475 BiS item level piece.
“What is your history of raiding? Like in total, including LFR and normal.”
You’re so focused on raiding that you clearly don’t understand the entire point. You need to read fully what you try to comment on. If anything is confusing to you, make sure you understand all of the words. If you’re reading a post that wasn’t written today, please check the date on the post and understand that new information can come out AFTER a post is made. If you’re going to come back and try to judge prior speculation based on new confirmation, make sure you’re not just looking like an ignorant jerk when you do it – because that’s what you did here. It would be fair (though still childish) to come here and say “here’s the things you got wrong”, but to come in and pretend (god I hope you were pretending because otherwise wow it’s so sad), that the person was confused or stupid in not getting their information correct when THE INFORMATION LITERALLY DIDN’T EXIST YET, just makes you look oh. so. bad.
As for your question, I’ve raided at essentially every level from casual non-raider to mythic raiding. Being able to raid, raiding, or not raiding, is not a good indication of intelligence or understanding of potential emotional reactions to new systems. You’ve missed the entire point of this post. I even readily admit that plenty will find the system as is just fine. You seem like that person who thinks it’s fine. Good for you. But if you want to talk about being inexperienced or clueless or unable to think, then at least be able to understand people with differing interests and feelings from you own. I can understand yours. Try to think of literally anything other than yourself.
*Edit* Thanks, though, for reading and commenting 🙂