Right now, I’m at 613 ilvl, which means I can get into up to +6 keys and obtain Champion track gear. The game expects me to grind that gear for 1-4 weeks through 10-40 keys, which amounts to a lot of hours. After that, I need to get lucky to receive Hero track gear from the vault and grind to upgrade those pieces, allowing me to get into up to +9 keys. Finally, after what, by my napkin math, appears to be around 100 or so keys, I could reach my goal of getting portals.
Seriously? I didn’t even enjoy running Necrotic Wake the first time, and the game expects me to do it 20-30 times in a season!? Who in their right mind thought the average player would be willing to do this for that amount of time?
There may be some individuals (the kEY pUsHeRS) who are willing to do same dungeons for hundreds of times, but trying to apply same expectation to regular people not suffering from any mental disorders just doesn’t work. Yeah, I saw those bosses I know what they do, I can make myself do them like 5 times on maybe 2 different classes but are you really expecting me to do it 3 times at +5, than 4 times at +7, then 8 times at +9, to than do it at +10!?
Whatever engagement metric told them that making Mythic+ like this would make people play and PAY for longer, I hope it backfires. This hamster wheel is of insane proportions, and I will not participate in it. Peace out.
I would advise doing 8 delves for vault and get hero track gear as rewards. Any Delvers Bounty that drop will mean your next run will include a Heroic track loot box at the end as well.
But again, that is 1 Hero slot per week for serious time investment. To fill out 3 slots in vault you need 8 vaults on average getting there and doing them at least 20mins to half an hour so 4 hours per week ONLY for 1 piece of hero track. So, after 2 months I have what maybe 10 out of 14 slots at hero track? But what about score I still need to grind same keys over and over to get the score to get into possibility of getting into keys that I can do and that I would like to do.
I don’t know who told Blizzard that players are willing to dedicate 100+ hours to get portals.
People would rather do m+ and have it - ya’know - reward stuff commensurate to the challenge.
Kill zek’vir on ? 8 times. Takes 2-3 min. Call it 5 with the walk out and reset. Thats 40 min. It’s an inelegant solution to a problem that shouldn’t exist but its an option.
Then people do +7s. I personally didn’t find that too terrible but I do not like that crests are +9 and the weekly is +10. Adding all the extra upgrade tracks was unnecessary IMO.
Those are all work arounds to problems that shouldn’t exist. In previous seasons what I did was chill out first 3-4 weeks let people get familiar with dungeons and then I would go hard on M+ and get portals in 20-30 keys. Two good players were able to carry the group of PuGs to a done “portal” level key. It is absolutely not possible right now. I managed to carry a group to a done +6 by only me and boss being alive at the last boss of Ara-Kara.
I feel like the hamster wheel has been extended so much that my desire to even try is simply not there.
Before I was able to go from normal to myth gear, now game expects me to put in 100 hours in between doing mind numbing and worst of all annoying PuGing in keys that are a repetitious steppingstones. It expects me to grind the crests by doing the same boring annoying dungeon with the possibility of failing because some random PuG doesn’t understand that he needs to get rooted before the boss pull in.
Don’t get me wrong I do not like delves, they are a tad boring. However I do believe we had the same cut off in S4 for heroic drops but the vault rewards were better. How did you find it last season?
I played S1 and S2 of Dragonflight than had a pause from DF. My guild takes about 5-6 weeks to clear heroic. I do a few keys here and there with guild mates in that time. After that is done, I’m maybe 5-8 ilevels or so behind max ilvl for that patch. I take my key and just run it to get portals and for last 2-3 portals I’m geared enough and have IO score to get invited. So, I achieve my goals in 20 or so keys.
In TWW looking at my ilvl, at requirements to get into +10s and to do +10s in PuGs I’m looking at time investment 5 times that and it’s just bad.
Point of this post is to say, that Blizzard goal to make us grind for longer at least in my case has backfired and I’m not going to participate in this bad experience that doesn’t respect my time.
This is absolutely what is going to happen. Blizz have created a steep curve and climbing over it isn’t especially fun or rewarding. Most will choose not to.
And worse, like you said, will just feel taken for granted or short changed which is not a feeling you want your customers to have.
Blizzard just doesn’t get the community. It works when few of us can carry the rest. In my guild out of 20 or so players participating in raid half of us know what we are doing, and we are able to carry the group to the promised land. But Blizzard insistence that everyone must know what they are doing is destroying the community. I don’t want to tell our guild grampa that she can’t come to the raid because she will hinder us in killing the boss. Let me carry her.
Same in PuGing M+. On average 1 out of 5 players in a group will be bad and how current affixes and season work the rest are absolutely unable to carry that one. Which means that gatekeeping gets even meaner and the sole requirements to even attempt stuff get so steep that you need tens of hours to just get to there.
I have been doing M+ from Legion I feel this is the worst iteration of it bar none.
And it’s too bad, Unholy DK plays really nicely. WoW’s gameplay is still top notch, there is nothing even close to it.
M+ is infinitely scaling system. WHY WHY OH WHY are we making +10 to be such a sweaty affair?!
Blizz designed the PvE content to keep you playing so you keep subbing. Ironically this backfired a couple of times already and it seems to be the case right now too.
It’ll be the same situation in the mid-season when people get more gear. 619 ilvl is enough to clear +10 for more skilled players and it’s still 20 ilvl below the maxed mythic gear.