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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. We also want to provide a more consistent reward for the effort for players who do not receive an item at all. 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. 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. We’ve seen a lot of feedback about the pros and cons of the various sources of gear in the Shadowlands endgame. Upgradable Mythic Keystone Gear - The Return of Valor Points
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Here are two of the larger changes you’ll see in 9.0.5, with further iteration to follow over the next few weeks:
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In the meantime, we’ll use this patch to get changes into your hands faster than a large content patch would allow.
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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. 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. This update will be a bit different from our usual patches. 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.
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