wow 9.0.5 PTR Features: Valor Points Return! Covenant and Legendary Tuning! March Release Date!

[Staff 1,488]

 

The return of Valor Points is upon us! Blizzard discuss and clarify the two major features of the 9.0.5 PTR.

Valor points are a solution to the Great Vault becoming so important to loot, and they will work similarly to PvP gear, as you'll be able to upgrade your Mythic+ gear to a higher item level, depending on some achievements. You'll also be able to acquire Valor via Covenant callings and will have a weekly cap.

PTR Details (source)

We’ve opened the Public Test Realm (PTR) for Patch 9.0.5, the next update to World of Warcraft, which is now in-testing and expected to be released in March.

This update will be a bit different from our usual patches. It’s focused almost entirely on systems, responding to community feedback about rewards, doing tuning that requires the sort of notice and iteration that a PTR allows, and fixing a range of bugs that are beyond the scope of our ability to hotfix. We know everyone is eager to hear about the next chapter in the Shadowlands saga and what new adventures and rewards it will bring, and we’ll have a lot more information on that in the very near future. In the meantime, we’ll use this patch to get changes into your hands faster than a large content patch would allow.

Here are two of the larger changes you’ll see in 9.0.5, with further iteration to follow over the next few weeks:

Upgradable Mythic Keystone Gear - The Return of Valor Points

We’ve seen a lot of feedback about the pros and cons of the various sources of gear in the Shadowlands endgame. After a rewarding first few weeks, we know that many dungeon-focused players reached a point where the only relevant rewards from the system come from the Great Vault. While the Vault should represent a major goal and the source of the best rewards the endgame has to offer, we want to find a way for the loot from the chest at the end of a challenging Mythic Keystone run to feel relevant, without bringing back random upgrade systems such as Warforging, which partially solved this problem in the past. We also want to provide a more consistent reward for the effort for players who do not receive an item at all.

The framework for a system that attempts to address these goals should be present in this first PTR update, subject to ongoing tuning and refinement. Gear from Mythic Keystone Dungeons is now upgradeable, initially with a cap of item level 200, which players can raise to item level 207 by completing all eight Shadowlands dungeons at Mythic 5 or higher. This will award a new “Keystone Explorer” achievement, while the existing “Keystone Conqueror” achievement (for all +10s or higher) will increase the cap to item level 213, and then to item level 220 by completing the “Keystone Master” achievement for all +15s in time. The currency used to upgrade Mythic Keystone gear is Valor, which is earned from completing Mythic Keystone dungeons, or by doing covenant Callings, with a weekly cap. Upgrade costs will vary by item slot and will be consistent across all item levels.

Covenant and Legendary Tuning

We’ve deliberately used a very light touch with any hotfixes that might affect Covenant or Legendary balance, as we’re keenly aware of the resources players have invested in those systems. A patch, however, allows for ample notice for the community and a testing and feedback loop that should help ensure that we don’t unintentionally undermine your investment in your covenant or legendary items.

In many cases, the changes coming in 9.0.5 are improvements to Legendary items and Covenant class abilities that have seen comparatively less use by players. Our goal with these changes is to provide more gameplay options for crafting and utilizing Legendary items in specific situations, and to make sure that more players feel that the Covenant that suits their aesthetic, narrative, or other preferences for their character also feels more viable for their preferred playstyle.

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We’ll have a number of bugfixes, tuning adjustments to other systems, and other changes coming to the PTR in the coming weeks.

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The 9.0.5 PTR is available to all players via your Blizzard Battle.net App. To test with us, go to the app and change your Game Version to Public Test Realm.

We greatly appreciate bug reports! As always, while testing on the PTR, you can submit a bug report for any item, spell, or object by mousing over it and selecting default hotkey F6. Bug reports created in this way include valuable metadata about the spell, your talents, and your player-state when the bug is submitted. If you’ve unbound your “Open Bug Report” hotkey, you can rebind it in Keybindings -> PTR.

If you wish to discuss issues related to this patch with other players, we’ve opened a discussion forum here.

9.0.5 PTR General Discussion

Thank you for testing, and we look forward to your feedback!

[Jotham 8]

Me in a few weeks: "Well, I'm capped on Valor for the week, but since they didn't fix the drop rate or duplicate items in the vault, I can't spend it to upgrade anything. Super."

[Shiftty 14]

some people will never be happy till they are spoon fed....sad

[Toadmaster 1]

Why are they so obsessed with capping? Why is it a problem for them to let people farm as much as they want for their items? Why wouldn't you let your players play as much as they want at the pace they want? Everything is capped nowadays, you can't even breathe without having some sort of cap. Let players play the game as much as they desire and at the pace they desire. 

[Starym 3,800]

21 minutes ago, Toadmaster said:

Why are they so obsessed with capping? Why is it a problem for them to let people farm as much as they want for their items? Why wouldn't you let your players play as much as they want at the pace they want? Everything is capped nowadays, you can't even breathe without having some sort of cap. Let players play the game as much as they desire and at the pace they desire. 

While I see what you mean, there's 2 answers here and they're both correct, one bad and one good:

1. Monthly active users - they want to keep people playing as long as possible.

2. If you completely uncap it, many players will feel the need to do as much as possible, basically forcing them to play and then subsequently burn out/not enjoy themselves anymore. 

Personally as I'm on the more casual side now, I think SOME weekly caps are a good idea (this one being one of them), while others are not.

[Toadmaster 1]

6 minutes ago, Starym said:

1. Monthly active users - they want to keep people playing as long as possible.

They have the fake notion that as soon as you "finish" your character, you're gonna stop playing, which is completely ridiculous. Not only that, the idea that paying a monthly fee to only do as much content as they want is horrendous. This is without a doubt an aspect that has pushed away a lot of new players. Most of the players love that sensation of "finishing" a character to start with a new one.

 

10 minutes ago, Starym said:

2. If you completely uncap it, many players will feel the need to do as much as possible, basically forcing them to play and then subsequently burn out/not enjoy themselves anymore. 

I disagree. Nobody feels forced to do anything. By your logic, everybody should be trying to do mythic sire and getting cutting edge. Nobody feels burn out because they feel the need to do mythic raids. A lot of people just do LFR (which should be removed in my opinion, but that's another topic) and they're happy with it. Just because you have the possibility of doing certain content doesn't create the feel of need. Is everybody capping on all 9 vault rewards at maximum ilvl? I don't think so.

[SidonisAntares 290]

Little disturbed that keymaster only lets you upgrade to 220, when the vault provides 226 pieces for completing 15+

[Calorat 78]

31 minutes ago, Toadmaster said:

They have the fake notion that as soon as you "finish" your character, you're gonna stop playing, which is completely ridiculous. Not only that, the idea that paying a monthly fee to only do as much content as they want is horrendous. This is without a doubt an aspect that has pushed away a lot of new players. Most of the players love that sensation of "finishing" a character to start with a new one.

 

I disagree. Nobody feels forced to do anything. By your logic, everybody should be trying to do mythic sire and getting cutting edge. Nobody feels burn out because they feel the need to do mythic raids. A lot of people just do LFR (which should be removed in my opinion, but that's another topic) and they're happy with it. Just because you have the possibility of doing certain content doesn't create the feel of need. Is everybody capping on all 9 vault rewards at maximum ilvl? I don't think so.

Yeah Blizz idea of success is now the "mobile game" version of success where everything is measured by daily / monthly play time  forgetting that some people like working on alts and that others just straight up quit if they are being gated so they can't access the content they want.  And the burn out problem is something where it seems a lot of  games have turned into "babysitters' for people who apparently can't stop themself from playing a game.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Calorat
addition

[Dio1995 0]

Letting everybody play all the time they want make them free, but the human biology is addicted to everything that gives them dopamine, so we try to control ourselfs because of it. True they are free of choice, bue we are humans we live in community, is part of our obligation to give support to all others humans to grow and to keep living. If we neglact that is like neglect thing thousands years of survival by standing toghther with each other. So the best choice is always a equilibrium choice not 100 and not 1 %, like xaryu say” do your dailys”. I like that channel is one of two i only watch hahah, yes i studie psychology major and have licence in psychology. By university of ismai portugal.
people need to read more psichological studies to know what is a true freedom and to know what is healthy for you.

they are very informative. 
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002239560800229X this is one of the articles of comparing reward system to dopamine effectivess in humans and what they do if you don’t try to moderate everthing about your life. 
have a good night 😁😁💪🏻

[Starym 3,800]

1 hour ago, Calorat said:

Yeah Blizz idea of success is now the "mobile game" version of success where everything is measured by daily / monthly play time  forgetting that some people like working on alts and that others just straight up quit if they are being gated so they can't access the content they want.  And the burn out problem is something where it seems a lot of  games have turned into "babysitters' for people who apparently can't stop themself from playing a game.

It's not just Blizzard, it's the entire gaming industry. This became a thing when they started adding microtransactions - aka you are now a permanent customer the more you play. Before it was simple, you paid for the game and that's it, their only motivation was to make it good enough so you'd buy their next game (I'm talking from a financial point of view, ofc there were and are still devs that just want to make a good game). Now you're a human piggybank they need to constantly keep around them so you give them your 5$ for that weapon skin or whatever instead of the other guy.

[Starym 3,800]

1 hour ago, Toadmaster said:

They have the fake notion that as soon as you "finish" your character, you're gonna stop playing, which is completely ridiculous. Not only that, the idea that paying a monthly fee to only do as much content as they want is horrendous. This is without a doubt an aspect that has pushed away a lot of new players. Most of the players love that sensation of "finishing" a character to start with a new one.

 

I disagree. Nobody feels forced to do anything. By your logic, everybody should be trying to do mythic sire and getting cutting edge. Nobody feels burn out because they feel the need to do mythic raids. A lot of people just do LFR (which should be removed in my opinion, but that's another topic) and they're happy with it. Just because you have the possibility of doing certain content doesn't create the feel of need. Is everybody capping on all 9 vault rewards at maximum ilvl? I don't think so.

See the reason you're objectively wrong on No.1 is the mere fact that they are doing this. If this strategy, which they have been using for a long time now, didn't work, they simply wouldn't do it. Unfortunately for us it's very effective, and they (and everyone else in the gaming industry) will continue to use it because it gets them more money - I'm not sure if it gets them more users, but definitely more money.

On point No.2 you took my example to the extreme, but you're still correct basically. When you finish Heroic the normal next step is Mythic. The reason people don't feel burnout with Mythic is because it gates itself - with difficulty. Any guild will simply reach a point where they just can't progress anymore (or at least just very  very slowly) and will stop pushing hard there and will more to a more casual way of enjoyment. For LFR the mere fact of forming a group as a PUG or finding a guild is the limitation and the reason people don't move on.

With M+ Valor points that limitation does not exist as you can always do content that is either easy or ok difficulty for you, grind points endlessly and spend way too much time playing M+ because you feel pressure to keep up with item levels.

So basically everything you said is right, except that those systems have limitations of their own in place, M+ with Valor points would not have them. Perhaps if they implemented that you can only get x Valor from up to +5, then a bit more to +10, etc etc it would work better, but it's the same basic principle.

[Arcling 898]

Not a big fan of Mythic+/timed runs in general, so this update doesn't do much for me. However, I'm also against caps, at least they should relax them a little. While it makes people play for longer, there are also many who might quit due to this. Catch-up mechanic is usually more friendly for casual players than weekly limits, when these players, for example, are be able to play for longer on one week, then unable to play during another etc.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Arcling

[Gortan 38]

The cap could also be a way to prevent players from over stacking the currency for the next patch and then instantly buying a whole set of gear with next season ilevels. Also, by capping they don't need to worry about innovative ways of resetting the currency between patches, like they did with titan residuum in BFA.

[Mortiseques 0]

how about we just go back to gear actually dropping?

[Ragingwolf 310]

Well I would say I could start saving up the Calling Caches and the items I'm slowly collecting from Mythic+ for upgrading if this does passes.  But I have a feeling that it will be like in BFA with TR and can only be used during that season on the newly pushed ilvl items from that season alone.

[Laragon 269]

15 hours ago, SidonisAntares said:

Little disturbed that keymaster only lets you upgrade to 220, when the vault provides 226 pieces for completing 15+

Less concerened about this since it's a "weekly reward" compared to a way that's meant to fill out every single piece of your set. I'm okay with 6 item levels difference, rather than the current 16 (drops 210, vault 226) item level shift between the two.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Laragon

[Znifler 58]

15 hours ago, Jotham said:

Me in a few weeks: "Well, I'm capped on Valor for the week, but since they didn't fix the drop rate or duplicate items in the vault, I can't spend it to upgrade anything. Super."

Me in a few weeks: "Sweet better gear since I pushed higher difficulties than last week, and I did many challanges giving me multiple choices. Way better than the prior mechanic of the weekly chest. But hey, not everyone can be happy about anything I guess :)". 

 

[SidonisAntares 290]

3 hours ago, Laragon said:

Less concerened about this since it's a "weekly reward" compared to a way that's meant to fill out every single piece of your set. I'm okay with 6 item levels difference, rather than the current 16 (drops 210, vault 226) item level shift between the two.

15 rewards 226 in the vault, and it takes clearing all 8 dungeons on 15 in order to get the keymaster achievement. Yet since you can only upgrade to 220 with that unlock, you still have to keep randoming vault to get your BiS pieces in 226, rather than upgrading them further.

[Znifler 58]

18 hours ago, Toadmaster said:

Why are they so obsessed with capping? Why is it a problem for them to let people farm as much as they want for their items? Why wouldn't you let your players play as much as they want at the pace they want? Everything is capped nowadays, you can't even breathe without having some sort of cap. Let players play the game as much as they desire and at the pace they desire. 

If some can cap everything before others, giving them the best gear possible in week 2, they will be able to destroy others. Imagine pvp dude.