Puzzling Cartel Chips Bring A Real Bad Luck Protection System Into WoW - Let's Discuss

Posted 2025/04/27 at 5:00 PM by Squishei

The Puzzling Cartel Chip AnnouncementsThe Original PTR PostJanuary 15th, 2025

Renown 17

Receive a Puzzling Cartel Chip, which can be traded for a Weapon, Trinket, or otherwise Special Item from the Liberation of Undermine.

Similar again to Dragonflight Season 4’s Bullions and Shadowlands Season 4’s Dinar, these are intended to have their own upgrade track - which will mean they’ll scale to the maximum rank of 14 given enough crests and valorstones.
This could change before launch, but the intent is for these to be fully upgradeable and usable by anyone that reaches this point, and not locked or conditioned to certain difficulties.

Renown 19

Receive a final Puzzling Cartel Chip, and the Damage & Healing Buff hits its maximum benefit at 18%.

"This could change before launch"The Scarizard InterviewFebruary 18th, 2025Dratnos and Maximum interviewed

Patrick Scarborough

If we were going to have deterministic loot , it is the most powerful thing that we can do short of you just logging in with an item, it is the maximum, it is the farthest we can go in terms of delivering something to you that is really powerful. That's why it's been used in Season 4 to say "hey this is a shorter time, we are loosening the leash on just letting people play with stuff." It makes sense to say, even though I'm not spending much time on this, let me get the thing that makes me shoot lasers or breath fire that I want and then get out. In an actual season where there's real stakes and real people that want to be playing side by side to hit their seasonal goals and get Hall of Fame and get stuff like that. It is certainly still very powerful to give you these items, but it is very difficult to make the argument that it's the thing we should be doing. So having it at the end of the track was mostly to say, we would have wanted it in my original version of this, to happen almost around the .7 patch (and I know that is making people cringe) but it's more to say that this is more supposed to be there for you if you didn't get it before now, it was supposed to be sort of a bad luck protection as some people like to call it. The reason that it was removed was because we were already thinking , but it makes more sense for me to say "let's start far and then push thing up". Talking back to 10.1, I loved Aberrus as a raid, I really like worked on it, a lot of people liked it aesthetically but it was for many people especially if you were a Heroic only raider, it was a lot shorter. It was a lot shorter because you got too strong too quick. A lot of people think this is about the monthly sub stuff, but there are a lot of people out there for whom the weekly raiding guild is how I engage socially with a lot of people. We made a decision that you got the dopamine sooner, but it might have cut two or three weeks off of your Guild's actual skill floor of how you naturally progress. And that's a lot of how we think about it, those journeys and how are we supporting you feeling like oh I could actually level up to the next tier or I might want to try Mythic or I might want to try Heroic.

They need to be careful and want to make sure not to speed up the gearing process and turn another tier into Aberrus.

They will likely "start far" and push it up if needed.

The intent was supposed to be some bad luck protection.

ALSOThe Follow-Upfull post here

In light of that, we’re changing the structure of the quests for Puzzling Cartel Chips, so that the first week’s quest will now reward 3 Chips, enough to purchase one item immediately. The 6-quest progression will continue as planned after that, allowing each character to earn up to 9 Chips (up from 6) and purchase up to three Liberation of Undermine items.

The middle of The War Within Season 2, however, presents a very different situation. Puzzling Cartel Chips were designed primarily as bad luck protection, allowing players who’ve been chasing specific raid items without success to have a guaranteed path to earning them. They also provide a path for players who have only done the Normal version of the raid to get a few guaranteed Hero items, without undermining a core motivation for the challenge and coordination required in Mythic raid progression. We also need to be mindful of how we will transition into the next season. Giving players who don’t normally engage in high-end content access to Item Level 680+ trinkets would essentially obsolete those slots for Season 3.

The OutrageSeason 2 Turbo BoostA Real Bad Luck Protection System

Shadowlands Season 4 - BLP and Slight Gear Progression due to ability to upgrade by killing any Mythic boss.

Dragonflight Season 4 - BLP and a lot of Gear Progression.

War Within Season 2 - BLP only.

alwaysTitan ResiduumA Bait-and-Switch FeelingeventuallyThe Update

The feeling that after the system comes out you need to wait three weeks.

Why they wanted this system to be Bad Luck Protection.

I've Got a "Feeling"The End

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Comment by MarkElfIt's simply bad luck protection. People have wild expectations based on previous seasons. They were better off implementing the SL dinar system if they wanted something somewhat balanced.Comment by mewhywhyMoP bonus roll system was awesome, you had something to "grind" (super light grind) and it ususally felt rewarding pressing that bonus roll button especially when you get loot!

This dinar system is just flawed in to many ways.Comment by HaloriAngry people in comments coming in 3.. 2.. 1..Comment by nameer1230Too much text to read... $%^&*!@ system, not even worth putting in.

The bonus roll system was way better, even if you didn't get anything 3 out of 3 times, just gold.Comment by ChristgirlYeah, advocating for a terrible change for what is the opposite of what they promised just goes to show that wowhead supports this #$%^ decision making for yet another L in what has turned out to be one of the worst xpacs in recent memory. I'd put this patch down there with Korthia and I played that whole xpac.Comment by Leeroy1887lets discuss something different about themComment by TastelikelemonLiterally at the end of the patch extra levels of gear to farm and upgrade , recrafts also got an ilvl increase so big gold sink and at that point dinars useful only for alts , this is new height of Blizz trying to bring back playerbase just to make them farm which = to paying/tokens for game time...and people thought Bobby Kotick was bad :DComment by Raynuruthe real puzzling thing is:
Why the Pandaren Heritage armor is still not made (and why we dont get equal fur colors for males and females..full white and full black furred female Pandaren please..and more Faces!)
also..playable Gnolls, Ogers, Jinyu, Hozen, Arrakoa, SETHRAK and Mogu when?Comment by HunterkhanI think the big one for me was that I thought I'd be able to purchase like "Tiny Pal" or Eye of Kezan to help me push deeper into LOU Mythic raiding without having to kill the boss. Not everyone is going for Hall of Fame or Cutting Edge or even able to make it without a strong, dedicated 20-man raid team. Someone such as myself can't find a good Mythic Raid team and thus those items will ALWAYS be out of my reach to be able to improve and get better. I thought the Dinar system would help get that out-of-reach gear to help me push higher end content, to include, killing Chrome King Gallywix on LOU Mythic difficulty. Having to kill the boss on that tier to be able to use the Dinar just kind of sucks for those that can't get onto a team that can push that content.Comment by DaigurenOk, let's discuss. What about to make drop from bosses mythic raid would be "Hero" quality and mythic quality items you could loot only from weekly vault? Same as m+. Unfair huh? :)Comment by GwildorrStill a huge Big L to Blizzard....to the community of players. Despite our individual opinions, the fact remains which is undisputable, this angers more players than excites them. And that is a L for the community.Comment by Gregol64HUGE "W" FOR BLIZZARD. No caving to casuals is good for everyone and encourages people to actually engage with content instead of just waiting.Comment by GrataAfter all these years, iam still shocked how incompetent Blizzard communicatesComment by HunterkhanHUGE "W" FOR BLIZZARD. No caving to casuals is good for everyone and encourages people to actually engage with content instead of just waiting.Comment by BloodredI'm of the opinion that it should have been in a lot sooner.
- Double the acquisition time (6 weeks).
- Have it implemented at the start of the season.
- No catchup system until the .5 patch.

This promote active players and this way you get the loot you want in a reasonable time frame (6 weeks instead of 10/12 weeks).Comment by LirasanaWhat every singly mythic raider can't fathom about this system is that this is NOT just bad luck protection for them. This system is gear progression solely for mythic raiders and BLP for everyone else that basically won't need it or have lost interest in the patch by the time we get themComment by ChettiMoP bonus roll system was awesome, you had something to "grind" (super light grind) and it ususally felt rewarding pressing that bonus roll button especially when you get loot!

This dinar system is just flawed in to many ways.Comment by AgathonI don't think we need to be this charitable. This late into the season it's okay, actually, for people to just get their BIS gear cause really at this point it's solely about climbing the M+ latter (and maybe getting title) and that should be, ultimately, about skill and not about gear. I really think it would be good (even for retention, which is apparently Blizzard's only goal now) to to just level the playing field to some extent with REAL dinars.

I think its okay to expect players of one game mode to engage with the other one, but not the same level. I love M+ but I don't want to commit another 9 hours a week to push into Mythic Raid, nor do I want to abandon my more casual heroic raid friends in the process. Clearing heroic (along with my high-ish keys) should be enough to unlock all the loot. Doesn't even have to be right away, but I want to be BIS-ish for the last month of the season or so (if I have played all season) and just see how high I can push keys. On the other hand, I think its okay to expect a Mythic raider to do keys up to 10 or maybe 12, but wouldn't require them to push 17s or 18s or something.Comment by LeovanniThis system pretty specifically messes with mythic plus players. This was the 3rd and final way to get mythic gear without raiding, but now that's removed. Forcing Mplus players to still be relegated to one piece of mythic gear a week and some crafted pieces (which cannot fill trinkets).
Like damn, let us at least be able to buy an upgrade token with the completion of a few 14-15 or something.Comment by GreengrovegrannyA Bait-and-Switch Feeling
I believe this is the fundamental disconnect between players and the developers and why players feel like things were such a bait-and-switch. Players have come to expect that a Bad Luck Protection system usually involves them getting the best loot eventually through minimal change in their play pattern, and the Puzzling Cartel Chip system removes every way to do that other than Mythic raid.

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