Key depletion needs to be gone

Community General Discussion
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M+ has been one of the main pillars in WoW for the last 8 years, it is the ONLY spammable pve endgame content and it’s currently in the worst state it’s ever been. Something needs to be done.

I think the main reason for m+ to be in such bad state is key depletion still being a thing, this is an archaic mechanic that was implemented when first m+ dungeons were designed back in Legion, and we’ve been suffering this since 2016, it is time for this to change.

What would happen if depletion mechanic was removed (keystone dropping levels, not to be confused with timer):

Pros:

  • Players will be less picky and more willing to invite and play with randoms, since the only thing they would lose by failing is time, which translates into shorter queues.
  • No punishment for failing means there is no reason to leave a group, encouraging people to work as a group and make friends rather than be done with the key and say “ty bb” and never see them again even if it went well.
  • Would promote the creation of learning groups, rather than the stressful environment which heavily punishes mistakes to the point where 1 missed kick is insta wipe and insta deplete.
  • Less stressful and toxic environment means more players would be willing to fulfill tank and healer roles.

Cons:

  • None.
11 Likes
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yeah players asking for this since i started doing M+ in Legion

how many years will it be ?
and nothing changes

3 Likes
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So instead of leavers sabotaging key runs it will be the keyholders. Who can just repeatedly eject groups/players they don’t like to start over anew. This will not help it just shifts the issue.

It’s great for groups of friends who regularly play together. They will even be able to start over and over and over until they get their perfect run. Not so great for PuGs.

7 Likes
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that aint it .it was the leavers who were leaving the keys left and right .now you will have to complete majority of your keys which might deplete the key but will give players the chance to complete and learn from their mistakes .so the problem is already solved .

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It doesn’t shift the issue, it fixes it, let me tell you a story I experienced a couple days ago and you’ll understand the reason why.

I was playing my DK tanky boy and I, with some randoms, headed into Stonevault for juicy loot, as we were summoning everyone, I asked the healer if he knew when to dispell me on the first boss, to which he said yes.

Once we were inside the dungeon eating food and buffing, I asked again, “are you sure you know? if you don’t, let me know now and I will explain it” He answered “yes dw”. I was happy with everyone’s attitude in that group, they were chill and joking around but also serious enough to get their food and potions before the dungeon began.

The first pull was great, I warned them to use defensives and kick the fear, which we did, and we cleared our way to the first boss very smoothly. Then the nightmare began, the healer failed to dispell EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. He didn’t even get it right once by accident. Key was doomed, we disbanded after 4 wipes on the first boss.

The moral of the story and what I’m trying to make you understand, is that if we had the opportunity to replace that healer, clearly the bad apple on the team, and try again that same key, it would have been a success.

Unfortunately, the poor key holder (which wasn’t me btw) lost his key for no reason, because this could have been avoided if my suggestion was in implemented.

It’s good for both, as shown in the example above. People who are not ready for the content will be put in their place without anybody else getting hurt in the process, it’s a win for everyone.

No, the problem ain’t solved, you’re just being kept captive, in fear that the guy behind you with the banhammer will strike if you dare to leave.

3 Likes
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Yeah as much as I like the idea in theory, realistically if the key didnt deplete at all you would get:

  1. boosted people with 10’s trying to get carried every run
  2. Key holders ejecting people for whatever reason they deem fit and restarting.
  3. People farming the first part/s of a dungeon until they get the right pulls/speed with no consequence
  4. It would probably be more stressful as instead of “if i make multiple mistakes this key could fail and group drop” to “if i make 1 mistake the leader could boot me without a second thought”

There needs to be a “punishment” for failing but i think all of them combined is too much. There are otherways you could alleviate the punishment without giving the keyholder more power during the run. Unless you locked the party upon starting (not able to kick) but then ppl would just leave instead and go again

Sharing the punishment is one option, decreasing the difference between timed rewards and none timed rewards is another.

1 Like
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What OP proposes is still much better than what we have now. If this would make the queues shorter then it should be changed.
I’d rather spend 2k on consumables and fight 3 packs of trash before someone leaves the dungeon than spend 2k on consumables and just sit in the queue for 2 hours.
None of the people complaining about it have experienced how it be without depletion, so you are just assuming something is bad based on WHAT? your gamer instinct?

At this point I’m up for any change that would lower the queue even if the idea might not be the greatest

2 Likes
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If someone was not doing anything in your key (or getting boosted) you could simply stop and kick them, so why is my suggestion bad in that regard? You could freely kick boosted players without losing your keystone…

This is very unlikely to happen unless point nº1. The reason is nobody is gonna want to restart a run after 30 minutes even if some player makes mistakes.

And why is this something negative? You’re learning and practicing without wasting your time having to re-upgrade your key, the same way MDI players do in test realms.

This is unlikely to happen without the stress of downgrading your key on failures, and to be honest, if you make a lot of mistakes, you aren’t ready for the content and you should be replaced.

1 Like
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False. Players will remain equally picky. The fact that the +x key won’t get depleted if failed will not make Johnny McAwesome want to gamble his playtime to do a key 2 or 3 times before succeeding.

False. Regardless if the key gets downgraded or not, a player who sees everyone else as a tool for his own means will still leave without a second thought about it. If anything, the fact that the key doesn’t get downgraded adds incentive to leave because they will no longer have the “guilt” of ruining another player’s key.

Agree.

False. Players will not take up tank or healer roles just because a key isn’t depletable. They will take those role up when the toxic part of the playerbase learns to act like humans.

I mentioned 1 con above.
A 2nd con is that a potentially boosted player will now be able to keep posting the same key over and over, despite it getting failed every time due to them being boosted and therefore not having the appropriate skill to contribute to its success.

2 Likes
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Remove keys, change the spell queuing back (CC revert), 0 score for untimed keys and full rewards for untimed keys, up crest amount by key level.

I would actually form my own groups and befriend players to play with. As it stands i get irritated by the key system and i won’t risk my own key as tank.

1 Like
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why would it? If you are boosted it will show by the first boss. Kick and restart key. When you find 5 good players, stay together. Easy.

It will punish the goobers and reward the people who are trying their best. It would actually foster community as you avoid the landmines that just want a carry and you add the people you like to avoid the bad players. You can spend 100% of the time playing the appropriate key level with the people you want.

(boosted players only get invited because we can risk their key, not our own)

1 Like
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I cant really argue as were talking about a theoretical situation. I just cant seeing it having a positive effect as people think. But hey, only way to find out is to try.

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No it won’t fix the problem. The complaints will be the same as when its the leavers except the issue is just shifted, like i said. It will be things like tried several times to run a key but group was disbanded by leader etc.

3 Likes
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Players will always be picky, but without something important to lose in check, they will be less picky, pretty elemental psychology.

I totally disagree with you on this. I don’t believe in the “guilt” methodology for making players not quit on other’s keystones. It’s unhealthy and, frankly, the world is fulls of psychopaths to rely on such a thing to fix the quitting issue.

The easiest way to make people not quit is not giving them reasons to begin with, rather than play with emotions that may have or not have.

That is never gonna happen if no changes are made. Hoping for a miracle won’t fix anything, actions will.

But he will keep failing and getting kicked everytime, so he will never get the boost. Worst case scenario it stays like we have now, best case scenario the problem is solved, so why not at least try?

So you’d rather stay like this? The current situation is unbearable, I don’t think it can be any worse than what we have right now. What do we lose for trying?

1 Like
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there’s no need for keys. You time a 9, you can try a 10 an infinite number of times. Like delves. That player has now lost his leverage, he either play well or gets kicked.

They could do something like if you are higher key level than a friend you could invite them +1 higher than they have done or the like.

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Removing depletion doesn’t magically create the will to make M+ runs last for hours…

No punishment for failing? Dying once costs like 170 gold…that is actually one factor some can’t be bothered wiping over and over to progress. It gets old real quick, and expensive.

It’s repeatable content, endlessly. Inherently this means that the ones who do it often (another one of the main issues is actually this one, a vast difference in players who participate in M+…) just want to get it done smoothly, quickly, as they’ve seen it all 100 times before.

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No, but at least you’d have an incentive for staying and learning if you have the time, rather than staying in Dornogal getting declined for 2 hours until you log off without having played the game.

That you fail doesn’t mean you join a wipefest that’s gonna cost you 10k gold on repairs, no need to be so dramatic about it, it just means that if you wipe once or twice to small mistakes like not interrupting or not popping a defensive you can try again without losing your key or having to make 300 application until you get invited into another key.

I don’t agree on this, it is repeatable, and thus the fun of it is trying to reach your limits, that means you’ll die a lot if you’re trying to reach rank 1 or getting a very high key done. I don’t see any incentive to play the game if I have to sit 2 hours in Dornogal to get invited into a 15 because I’m pushing rating, then 1 mistake happens and key is done, back to Dornogal… Just let the players play the game, key depletion is a mistake and shouldn’t exist.

1 Like
18

I think there’s something even more important to be said here.

Not only could you have reset and replaced the healer, you could have reset and taught the healer.

But you lost the key, so you can’t teach him. You can’t get back in there.

This is how people learn. They fail, they get up, they try again.

If you punish failure very heavily, then they won’t get up and they won’t try again, and then we get big queues and gatekeeping.

What’s so amazing about this situation is that WoW was literally designed to not be like this. When WoW came out, other MMO’s would deduct XP or stats for dying, make your corpse lootable, etc. WoW was unique in that, if you died, you just sat out for 5-10 minutes and took a little (and I really do mean little) financial hit from repairing.

I think that’s what M+ needs. If you fail your key, you just sit out for 5 minutes. If you like each other and can talk but messed up, spend those 5 minutes explaining what happened and what to do, then reset the dungeon and go again.

3 Likes
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this is ridiculous. Are you serious lol? Timed content is not for teaching, it’s for application.

That’s why they should have 5 levels of untimed m+ to learn (which Blizzard dropped the ball with once again i know)

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Cons :
Players will be able to reset their keys an unlimited number of times meaning that the moment you start a key and find you have 1 weak team member you will just kick them and restart the key.