People are a problem always. But M+ is an enviroment that is designed to make people be the worst they can be on other people in their attempt to optimize their grind/push etc
At hard times people either show their best or worst sides.
The entire concept of “gogogogo and never stop or your run will be bricked” is too much for many people.
I say that the entire “esport” aspect of M+ should be thrown out of the window (without even opening the window, just defenestrate it through the glass) outside of MDI events or keep it for difficulties above what is needed for mounts, titles, teleports etc.
Delves have demonstrated how a M+ like system without keystones and timers can work
The people that used to play the old 1-10 have been pushed into the 10-20 (now 1-10) range.
Here is the thing, nobody is doing M0 and Heroics anymore. Everyone is doing M+. So the people that used to play those ranges either quit, and if they continue to play are the ones doing low keys.
It explains this graph:
https://imgbb.com/6vgVxJ1
In past seasons if you did the same exercise you would get a Gaussian curve there. With the “mean” at the average key level. Its what the rio of the “50%” of player-base meant when you looked at season cutoffs in Raider IO.
But that graph shows a uniform distribution across key levels. Which means that the “lower end” of the Gaussian has been squished up toward the mean. And the upper end has been squished down to the mean.
So with that in mind, one can assume that seasons are comparable if looked at total number of runs. And it can be compared to S1 of DF, which had more participation even though it came right after the dumpsterfire of SL.
And if compared to DF S3 its not even close to that one. Even though, weirdly enough, one would expect more participation on S1 of any expansion. Especially this one with all the hype it got.
Of course all this is approximation at best. The real data is in Blizzard’s hands and I can only make educated guesses.
But most of the frustration people have is with these “pushing people towards the mean”. The lower end of the key level people are frustrated, and in the upper end.
… and these people MUST HAVE a timer or otherwise they can’t say go go go.
I’ve seen so many times that the one’s complaining to ‘go go go’ are always the one’s dying first, messing up stuff or doing the worst damage.
Personally I would only play the M+ ranges that gives the rewards, anything above that is not interesting to me. But there’s no real incentive for me to do M+ this season, I rather play Elin instead of grinding some arbitrary number.
In the graph I posted you can see there is a nice peak on 10+ key level range. And on +8. And a dip on +9.
That is normal. That’s where you “sit”. And the reason why the dip on a +9 exists is because nobody farms those. It gives no reward except Rio.
Thing is, there needs to be a range of key levels for all play-stiles. If you shoe-horse people into ranges they don’t belong in you get problems.
And this system is literally made only for those that want the rewards (for you). So for people that spam 10+ for vault and go home basically. But that is not EVERYONE.
I’ve had seasons where I just did a single high M+ for the weekly vault and that was it, I’ve always enjoyed raiding far more than I ever did M+.
I simply don’t enjoy timed content, but that’s something I’ve always disliked in any type of game, like those races against the clock in some old-school Nintendo/Sega games…
EVEN if I comfortably finish the timed content that gives the max amount of rewards with a lot of time to spare, I still don’t like it.
One of the other reasons I dislike M+ is that mobs/bosses are basically damage-sponges, in most cases it’s not even ‘more difficult’ but rather ‘more annoying’… There have been countless of times where was dreading the experience and just wanted it to be over with, as mechanics were easy to do and bosses/mobs were just rotation x9000 to kill.
I’m not sure I completely agree with that statement. In fact we previously saw complaints in DF S4 that people were excluded from M+ due to the changes and they were failing to complete a +2.
Having done a lot of heroics last week, they certainly are still active and being completed.
However the only way to actually compare like for like data is to exclude the 1-10 runs from DF S1/2/3, so far I’ve never seen anything like that, probably because no one actually has access to that data.
DF S1 was also badly received and criticised for being unfun and overtuned. So it’s really par for the course. I do think they’ve been better at tweaking things this season even if some things are still an issue.
You did not have delves in S4 DF. That changes everything.
Its not the same to start a M+2 naked than with 4 heroic pieces on day 1 of the season (cause that is what happened).
Problem is that there is no form of progression if you do something like that. And so, those people are frustrated doing their +2s with Heroic gear and no progression at all.
It’s what I meant by shoe-horsing people into levels they dont belong in.
It’s true we now have delves, but you can’t have it both ways though, they can’t provide a gearing route and at the same time be shoe horsing people into content. Either you accept that Delves are your limit and leave it at that, or you go into harder content to get more gear.
That is how the progression curve has always worked. There is harder content if you feel up to it or you accept you’ve reached your limit. Trying and not enjoying it is fine, we all have our own limits and some things we can improve upon. Personally I think it’s great that people can get their tier from doing delves and some other gear. It’s been a great addition to the system.
I also appreciate that I no longer have to farm lower level keys to gain lower currencies. The system just lets me backfill. So once I’ve reached cap on gilded it just starts giving me the lower ones. I don’t have to run lower dungeons if I don’t want to.
Making M+ be about achievements and titles might improve things.
Give players other ways to gear up that isn’t timing keys. Too many players are doing M+ for the wrong reasons. Or are pushing beyond their skill / gear for these same reasons.
M+ is spammable gearing content that gives the best gear (or nearly best).
Raiding isn’t spammable and it has other logistical constraints. So this isn’t a gearing path many follow.
Delves cap out at lower gear than M+, so this isn’t a gearing path for the masses either.
Players should do M+ for the fun, comradeship with friends, goals such as achievements and titles, maybe a mount or similar.
In successful seasons players had the illusion of progress. That is what made them successful.
So when you talk about “progression” its not that players did harder things and got better gear as a reward.
NO. People got gear, and with it allowed them to do harder things. Giving the illusion of progress.
Those are the succesful seasons. Like S3 of DF to mention the most recent one.
In fact, the whole raiding concept was built with this idea in mind. Otherwise, why would the early bosses of the Myth raid (which are easier than the last bosses of heroic raid) award better gear than the heroic raid itself ?
And this is what the problem is. Go to “harder content” is literally falling asleep in Delves, or, doing a +7.
Which for people in the 1-10 bracket (the old one) means doing a +17. So you are forced to go from +2 to a +7 with nothing to show for it. And with out gathering anything that “soft-nerfs” the content and would allow you to eventually clear a +7.
That is why since for ever Myth track gear in the vault was awarded on a +15 (+5 of today). That was its purpose.
And this is what I mean by “shoe-horsing” people.
The problem with this is… who cares ?
Once you are fully geared (which takes 1-2 months of casual play)… you start hoarding all these currencies with nothing to do with them.
They need to find a way to dump them into something else. Like rerolling the key. Or buying upgrades from Hero to Myth. Or simply upgrading the key.
Otherwise people will sit with 1000s of those crests untill S2. Like it has happened since they made up this sistem in DF.
I don’t see how that has changed, my gearing curve has been the same in every modern expansion, the systems my change but the crux of the gearing process is the same.
You gain gear, you become more powerful, you go into harder content, and get more gear to become more powerful, at some point you reach a point where you are pushed out of your comfort zone and people either sink or swim at that point.
We all have a point where we can’t go further and are at our ‘happy place’ where we feel we have reached our limit and either don’t want to or can’t go further.
Falling asleep in Delves sounds more like a not enjoying that content rather than a skill issue. I never enjoyed Torghast, others really enjoyed the content. I’m not excited by Delves, and tend to tag along with guildies but it’s not always possible. For my gearing curve they were only relevant for the first couple of weeks.
I started most of my keys pushing up from a +2, with the exception of my very first key being a +6 which at the time felt quite hard compared to the gear I had being the first day of the season. I didn’t have four set, I barely had any gear. A player who waits to fully gear in Delve gear first is obviously going to have a far easier time. The players they are doing keys with are also likely to have more gear so I simply don’t agree with you and that’s fine.
Most people will push their key. They will eventually reach a limit where they struggle is the standard gearing curve for everyone. My friend and I were looking to pug some 10s last week and one poor group had obviously got their key to a +10, even with two of us (dps) we could not carry the other three through their +10, we did our best to explain the tacts etc, neither of us flamed them, but we gave it a good go. After half an hour the tank said it wasn’t happening and thanked us for our time. We never got the first boss down. They needed more gear to be able to survive and a bit of a better understanding of the fight.
Myth track gear hasn’t always been awarded at set levels in vault. It’s been all over the place. Blizzard has experimented with all sorts.
However gear progression is not shoe horsing, it’s the carrot on the stick as it always has been, want better/higher gear, step up. Sometimes we can improve, other times we just can’t get into the next level.
You may not have considered it an issue to be forced to do lower keys but I didn’t enjoy having to grind them out. Neither did many others. Blizzard recognised the issue.
I think we just have very different views on this and that’s fine.
Some things are valid when it comes to complaints about m + but other complaints are the same as always, people don’t want to go into the next level or simply can’t accept they’ve reached their limit.
In my particular case I do have reasons to complain.
I always reach a limit every season. Bellow 0.1% cutoff (I never actually managed to get it).
But previous seasons allowed me to play for 4 months untill I got there. This season I reached my limit almost 1 month into the season.
In part because of the difficulty spikes. But especially because there are significantly less people playing those levels than previous seasons. So I can only do “trial and error” learning for so long.
So while I did reach my limit, I do complain that it was way too fast. And by playing alts I can say for certain that it also happens in the lower end of the spectrum as well.
I agree with everything you said; except the crests. I think we are still in that situation unless you are able to cap the highest crests when you play from week 1. But even on my main i had to do about 10-15 keys of the runed crests. I do not want to talk about my alt monk which was way more, even with the discount on the runed crests for upgrading.
And obviously right now the cap is gone anyway. But with the cap right now we should have runned 100+ timed keys +8 to finally cap anyway. Quite unreasonable.