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Season 4 PvP Update: Removing the Conquest Cap and Spoils of War, Shadowlands 9.2.7 Update Notes, The Auction House Joins the WoW Companion App

Blizzard has announced that the Conquest Cap for Season 4 is being lifted with the next weekly reset! Additionally patch 9.2.7 will be launching next week and The Mobile Auction House makes a return.

Season 4 PvP Update: Removing the Conquest Cap and Spoils of War

Quote from: Blizzard

We’ve been hearing the feedback from the community to lift the Conquest Cap for Shadowlands Season 4. We’re happy to announce that we will be doing so with next week’s resets (Wednesday, August 17), but also want to offer some explanation on why we were initially hesitant to do so.

  • First, we understand the sentiment regarding how Valor is uncapped this season while Conquest remains capped. However, the two currencies are not exactly alike in design or purpose. For example, there is no Valor vendor where you can purchase the specific item that you want. While Conquest is used to acquire specific items at a vendor, Valor is used to upgrade items that have dropped randomly from the Great Vault or from running M+ dungeons.
  • Second, we know that once the Conquest cap is removed, many players will set out to acquire a full set of gear as quickly as possible, creating a significant power gap between themselves and any characters that are new to the season. We generally do not remove the cap until later in the season when we feel many players who have been playing all season have had the opportunity to acquire a full set of gear. This allows the competitive environment to remain closer during the early part of the season.
  • Finally, the Conquest cap serves to throttle gear acquisition to a rate comparable with the other main parts of the endgame, Raids and M+.

By lifting the cap early, we understand that some of the above issues may arise. But in this shortened and experimental final season of Shadowlands, we want to take an opportunity to be flexible and responsive to your feedback.

In addition to the Conquest cap removal, there are two more PvP changes that we want everybody to be aware of:

  1. The Spoils of War buff will be reactivated with next week’s reset, so players taking part in Battlegrounds and Arena will have their Conquest gains increased by 25% and Honor gains increased by 40%. This is planned to remain active for the rest of Season 4.
  2. For the Solo Shuffle Brawl, the minimum item level floor has been increased to 278 (is currently 252). This is already live.

Thank you for your feedback and we’ll see you on the battlefield!

Shadowlands 9.2.7 Update Notes

Quote from: Blizzard

The Shadowlands 9.2.7 update arrives to World of Warcraft on 17 August!


AUCTION HOUSE UPDATE: REGION-WIDE COMMODITIES

  • Auction Houses across all realms on a given region will now share commodity listings (gems, herbs, flasks, consumables, etc.). Items that aren’t commodities–like armor and weapons–will continue to be realm-specific.

THE AUCTION HOUSE JOINS THE WOW COMPANION APP

  • Players can now do the following from the WoW Companion App:
    • Browse and view current auctions
    • Bid and buyout auctions
    • Search for auctions
    • Add and remove items from your Favorites list
    • View and cancel your listed auctions
    • Developers’ note:  We are very pleased to be able to bring the Auction House back as a part of the WoW Companion App. The new app update provides a way for players to make purchases, view listings, and more. Due to our desire to provide an Auction House experience in a more immediate timeframe we have excluded listing items for sale. While we understand selling items is a much-loved part of the past feature from the previous Remote Auction House, we wanted to provide access to many of the features regularly used by players as quickly as we could with an eye on potential additions to the app in the future. We intend to make improvements as we evaluate player usage, risk, and the developmental load in implementing tech frameworks to support future updates. Learn more about this update on our latest post.

USER INTERFACE AND ACCESSIBILITY

  • A new chat channel for searching or advertisement of services like raiding, dungeons, or PvP activities has been added: Trade (Services).
    • Developers’ note: The trade channel that’s been in the game for 18 years will continue to exist, but we wanted to add a new channel to direct messages about the request and advertisement of services like raiding, dungeons, or PvP activities. If you’re looking to buy or sell these kind of services, this is the channel for you! If you’re not interested in those, you can leave the channel and avoid the noise, or move it into its own chat tab. We believe that with this new distinction, you’ll be able to keep Trade chat for the traditional buying and selling of items and professions, and not other chatter.

The Auction House Joins the WoW Companion App

Quote from: Blizzard

It’s been some time since the Auction House was available to mobile users, but the time has come for its return. With the 9.2.7 patch, it becomes a part of the WoW Companion App.


A Little History

The Remote Auction House was once a part of the WoW Armory app released in 2011 and retired in 2018. Due to the way this app was built, there were times in which individuals would abuse the architecture of the app, often causing a disruption to the player economy and even, in some cases, causing in-game latency. This was largely due to the number of queries that could flood the auction house resulting in strained servers as they attempted to manage the larger load. While there were ways that we could and often did mitigate the effect, the ongoing negative impact from those who sought to exploit the system outweighed continuing to support ongoing development.

In light of the change in direction, we moved on to the development of the current WoW Companion App, which provides a more secure experience more in line with the types of activities your character takes on when you log in to play the game today.


Framing the App for Modern Times

In our previous Engineer’s Workshop covering the development of the WoW Companion App, we delved into the intricacies of creating a system simultaneously for both mobile and PC platforms. The biggest hurdle in implementing new features was structuring the necessary frameworks to support the feature. Many of these frameworks were written over the 17+ years of history of World of Warcraft during a time when mobile wasn’t a consideration. This leads to additional work to modernize systems to support both a PC and mobile experience.

In addition, data delivery methods and restrictions look different on PC and mobile. While a system may serve the same set of data to both, extra care must be taken to minimize what is sent to mobile to limit what the player needs to download.

For a feature as large as the Auction House, there were and are many additional frameworks that need to be carefully modernized to support both experiences.


Developing for the Now

When looking into the implementation of the Auction House as a part of the WoW Companion App, we had to gauge how much structure we could put in place for the now and what that would mean for the immediate functionality of the Auction House once it was pushed live. To do this, we took time to dig into more of who is using the Auction House and what they are using it for. We identified the various archetypes and what we could deliver to each user group within a reasonable time.

In the end, we determined that we wanted to create something that would still be useful to casual and mid-core players who use the Auction House regularly for more common purchases such as dungeon and raid preparation or looking out for additional items for their collections.

The original Remote Auction House was never meant to be a “go-to” tool for hardcore traders. In many cases, these users were already using other addons or external tools to maximize their trades beyond what the app could provide. Keeping this in mind, the new app update provides a way for players to make purchases, view listings, and more. Due to our desire to provide an Auction House experience in a more immediate timeframe, we have excluded listing items for sale.


What Can You Do?

With the WoW Companion App update, players will be able to:

  • Browse and view current auctions
  • Bid and buyout auctions
  • Search for auctions
  • Add and remove items from your Favorites list
  • View and cancel your listed auctions

What’s Next?

As with the introduction of cross-faction development in the 9.2.5 update, we want to start off slowly. This allows us to assess how players use the app, assess the impact and risk vectors, then introduce more as it makes sense and fits within our development structure.


We hope this new addition to the WoW Companion app enhances your time in Azeroth and look forward to your ensuing feedback.

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