M+ Keystones obsolete system

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
1

TLDR: SYSTEM shouldn’t punish you for not timing a dungeon for N reasons. or even better you should be able freely too choose dungeon level because no matter what you do at the end it will be skill capped.

I play only M+ as a tank and it’s the only content i enjoy. And the higher in difficulty/rio you rise the harder it becomes to get into a group or just overall to finish the dungeon timed for MANY reasons. This thread is not about the players because it’s not relevant and a different story. The most WTF thing about the dungeon system right now is the downgrade of the key if you didn’t finish it timed, it seems like it’s just a legacy design before people pushed the keys really high and M+ became a game on it’s own. Because YOU as the key owner get punished for not completing the dungeon timed (and if you played for a decent amount you know it’s kind a lottery, even if you are really good on higher keys things can go wrong and it’s gg) it forces you to take measures against failure, this mean:

  1. be more elitist by choosing the party (overqualified players with much higher rio than you could get by completing this key level)
  2. try to pick composition which is “meta” which should provide a higher chance too succeed

so this things gate players a lot and you just waste time trying to find party and hope that the stars align and you will do the dungeon in time. and creates artificial toxicity forced by the game mechanics because if you don’t do the dungeon in time you as the key holder GET PUNISHED (stupid yo-yo effect). wow is a game of time waste and punishment and players seems to enjoy it…

HOW THE M+ SYSTEM SHOULD WORK:

  1. change which can be made in 1 day - just remove the keystone downgrade, thats it. it can be only upgraded and changes weekly.

  2. remove the keystones at all as an item required to start M+ dungeon. just make an another interface where the lead sets the dungeon level and you play it. thats it. so if you are a group of omega blasters you can start from +20 right away (after patch release). NO MATTER WHAT YO DO, you will be capped by your skills and gear/stats. (yea and group composition) this is the most important concept to understand, you can cheat your way up only so much after you will just crumble and ruin all runs. (i see this all the time)

and one thing to slow it a bit down i would place a 5-10 minute debuff on player after the dungeon is started so you couldn’t insta queue after a leave, and just prevent some system abuses.
those changes will improve overall skill level of players (because they could do more higher level runs and just practice and not wait 1 hour in queue) and make the game experience better (less toxic community, because if you failed a key it won’t cost you anything other than time, but you could also learn something in this run).

3 Likes
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Just no.

If you remove keystone levels lowering you’re removing the chance for players to progress with the system as it is intended. You’re not punished for depleting a key, the game helps you by providing a keystone you’re more likely to complete than the one you just failed. Not downgrading keys would be punishing. This is not an issue, and if you think it is then you’re most likely the problem.

You also can’t allow players to do Mythic+ without a keystone, that would be abused to no end by just running a specific dungeon for farming gear which would make the lenght of the content worse.

The community is solely responsible for any toxicity in the game, as the game itself always favors teamwork and cooperation. The problem is rather that a vast majority of the playerbase is absolutely atrocious at the game, and therefore content is made more difficult by default because a lot of people are playing as if they had no monitor or keyboard.

2 Likes
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You’re not punished for depleting a key, the game helps you by providing a keystone you’re more likely to complete than the one you just failed. Not downgrading keys would be punishing.

one of the most delusional stuff i read in the last time. system would help you if you could freely choose the difficulty level. don’t call forcing you to waste time (redoing the same dungeon level) “help”

ahhh i see

raider. io/characters/eu/Twisting%20Nether/Kieftilt

until 17-18 there is no real problem especially if you are over geared.
i did today +15 timed and we wiped like crazy. higher keys are much more punishing.

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The problem with your idea, it will devolve into some groups spending hours in content they have no buisness to be in, waiting for BL for every other pull ect.

Further more, your 2nd idea, with removing the keystone, it would mean groups can try the same dungeon at the same level on repeat until they get everything just perfect.

This imo would make the problem with people leaving over the smallest mistake even bigger.

Changes that should be made for M+.
If we have a +20 key for example, give us a menu when we pop the key in with the option to do it at level 2-20 … The keystone we get after the dungeon of cause depends on the level you do like now …

So anoying to have to go in and out of dungeons 5+ times if you want to help some friends by giving them a 15. It is a low prio to do, since this is legit only a problem for a very small percentage of the playerbase.

Something Blizzard could do that i think quite a few people would enjoy, add timewalking M+, on another affix rotation, and fart rewards. Could be fun on non push weeks to go back and do legion dungeons or BFA dungeons xD

TL:DR
This will fix nothing.

1 Like
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This imo would make the problem with people leaving over the smallest mistake even bigger.

you have a 5-10 min debuff after the dungeon starts (which prevents from starting again if party member has it). so you can’t do this. right now people leave exactly like that, if they feel what run is done (in their opinion) they just leave and the keyholder is the one who loses, because he was tryharding before to up his key, and now it’s just “poof”. punishing leavers won’t help at all. because sometimes there is just no synergy between players and your group doesn’t work unless it’s a faceroll. and again this word “PUNISH” why a game for which players pay monthly 10+ currency should PUNISH you? i am not talking what content should be easy it’s fine how it’s now it can be even harder. but punishing player is very poor game design.

Changes that should be made for M+.
If we have a +20 key for example, give us a menu when we pop the key in with the option to do it at level 2-20 … The keystone we get after the dungeon of cause depends on the level you do like now …

So anoying to have to go in and out of dungeons 5+ times if you want to help some friends by giving them a 15. It is a low prio to do, since this is legit only a problem for a very small percentage of the playerbase.

rofl totally pointless and subjective change? “helping a friend” meaning boosting him and providing false performance score? (rio) in normal games you get a penalty for boosting (or you even get banned) because it skewes the balance.

This will fix nothing.

this will fix a lot. because you won’t be a slave of system which dictates you what key you have to do. and no one will carry the burden of failure.

to make it clear. right now because of those gating mechanics you can’t practice high keys enough or you need to spend all your time doing it (seems too expensive for a game, or have a party of blasters which is 0.5% of player base or less so it’s a rare resource) rather than skill capped.
i am for skill capped competitive game, not some redundant game gating stuff. on average everyone will be just better who want’s really to play M+ and not doing just for weekly, because they will have more chances to do so.

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A 5-10min debuff would do nothing, people would still leave more than they do now, why go for just a timed run, when you can have perfection since you can try on repeat.

Ah, so now we’ve reached the point in an MMORPG where i can’t even help/play with friends if they’re worse than me…?

What will it fix? The leaver problem is gonna become worse, no doubt what so ever.
It will promote degenerate playstyles of “wait till we have BL and CD’s” as long as we finish it’s all good …
We would also lose the feeling of accomplishment when you get that run where things just work.
This change would truly make M+ just a scripted mess, where it’s basically a dance you just need to practise until you can do it with your eyes closed. It would go either perfection or did not finish on the top end.
And on the lower scale it would be “let’s spend 3 hours to get the reward at the end”

1 Like
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  1. If you remove a downgrade when not timing it, you practically remove the entire reason to push? It basically removes one of the “main” aspects of the M+ gameplay.
  2. That has potential, but imo only if you have reached a certain threshold before.
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people would still leave more than they do now, why go for just a timed run, when you can have perfection since you can try on repeat.

??? deattached from reality statement? i almost never saw someone who was chasing to speedrun a dungeon and if it slightly didn’t go that way they leave. your statement is just absurd. 95% of time if someone joins a run he wants to complete the dungeon and preferably timed. thats the main goal, almost no one will leave it if it’s only +1 timed unless some elitist minority with mental issues. and if you can choose the key even this issues will go away.

What will it fix? The leaver problem is gonna become worse, no doubt what so ever.
It will promote degenerate playstyles of “wait till we have BL and CD’s” as long as we finish it’s all good …

again some deattached from reality statement. and again “leaver problem” isn’t solvable, the only way you can do it better - encourage people to complete the dunge not to punish them, otherwise they will just stop playing it. my whole post is about the SYSTEM and not players. i don’t complain about players which you can’t change unless they self want to, but you can change game logic. and most players just get upset what their key is depleted.

We would also lose the feeling of accomplishment when you get that run where things just work.

lol??? again wtf dude are you on some meds? it’s just technically hard to complete higher key dungeons not even accounting human factor and what you need to play as a team. it will be the same, if your statement would be true the keys would be pushed to infinity. but right now 26 seems to be the cap and it’s a great achievement. even for top players. because it’s technically hard to do those dungeons in time and has nothing to do with the gating the system does (you deplete and begin again to push) it just hinders the progress slows it down. just a pointless obstacle.

all your statements are just theoretical and false.

If you remove a downgrade when not timing it, you practically remove the entire reason to push? It basically removes one of the “main” aspects of the M+ gameplay.
That has potential, but imo only if you have reached a certain threshold before.

M+ is totally different kind of gameplay, thats why i play it. it’s more like a moba but a racing game with more complex classes. and “unique” tanking/creep positioning mechanic.

the point is you play M+ for the sake of playing it and advance if you don’t care about this M+ is basically not for you. i am not talking about any restrictions, you just need to want to do higher keys for example because of rating or just the key number doesn’t matter the achievement of doing intime self should stimulate you. if it doesn’t as i said it’s not for you but ofc no one will hinder you from playing it from time to time (as you like).

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Why is my unwillingness to do more than 1 weekly key for vault relevant to the critique of your idea?

The system works just like I said. If you time the key, you get a higher level to see if you can manage that, if you deplete the key you get a lower one which you’re more likely to complete.

The system doesn’t punish - it assists in adjusting the level to the groups capacity.

1 Like
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Naowh tweeted about this the other day saying keystones are getting a bit outdated. He thinks it would be cool if they just removed them and you’d be able to run any dungeon on any level as long as someone in the group has timed it on the level below that. It’s more of an issue at his level, e.g. you time a +24 and you want to try it at +25 but you can’t because you got a different key.

It would stop people from having ‘dead keys’ or holding on to them for meta only comps if they have a good one etc.

Personally I don’t think the gear would matter too much as it’s only ilvl 210 anyway.

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Why is my unwillingness to do more than 1 weekly key for vault relevant to the critique of your idea?

ofc, you have nothing to do in this thread. i am not talking about raid systems or w/e.
the change is for M+ players. who want to play more and more productive.

The system doesn’t punish - it assists in adjusting the level to the groups capacity.

in theoretical vacuum, yes. this was the idea, in practice you just get frustrated from depleted keys. and you get more hostile towards potential candidates who can do the run with you. (you prefer more higher skilled players ie with more rio)

Naowh tweeted about this the other day saying keystones are getting a bit outdated. He thinks it would be cool if they just removed them and you’d be able to run any dungeon on any level as long as someone in the group has timed it on the level below that. It’s more of an issue at his level, e.g. you time a +24 and you want to try it at +25 but you can’t because you got a different key.

this is too obvious if you played M+ enough. btw i don’t mind if you could choose up to the level you complete. it wouldn’t change much but without capping it also wouldn’t change it in reallity. it’s just hard to do high keys

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Well for this they also have to change some affixes. It’s not just a key issue.

Besides, I don’t think that the problems of the top 0,1% of the players, who do levels which are far beyond the intended balanced-curve, should be a major factor in design-changes. When you look for the limits of a system, you are going to find annoyances.

1 Like
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Yeah I guess.

It’s not really a problem either way I suppose, but it’s an idea and it gives people more options for dungeons. I don’t think this would be something that “only caters to top players” and negatively impacts other players.

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twitter .com/Naowhxd/status/1381753740487753735

another thread based on this one.

1 Like
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I agree with you. Key depletion should be removed from the game. I started a thread with similar topic a couple of months ago. But it was locked for inactivity

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All your problems sound like they come forth from you PuGging tbh and not so much the actual keystone system themselves
Basically you’re asking Blizzard to fix M+ in a way that it changes player behaviour
You can’t patch player behaviour unfortionately,

I do feel for the removal of keys tho, just let people enter a dungeon, select a difficulty and press start, the arguement against it that people can just repeat stuff until they get what they need… well yeah? isn’t that what we’re doing now as well? The only real commentary to add to this is that the game is otherwise very bad at retaining players beyond gearing, that’s a Blizzard problem, not a player problem.

1 Like
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Considering a pug prospective, i think the main problem is that the only one really punished for a failed run (ended or not) is the key owner

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That is also the one with the “most” power, the ability to choose who to do the key with. So it only matches.

Funnily he negated everything he said there by tweeting the following later on “I know I’ve been tweeting weird [redacted] lately …”.

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Not really sure of it

The owner is the one most intrested to do a successful run, or at least to end it in the hope to get a better dungeon with those affixes, so i find it the weak part.

The ones with most power are those who doesn’t care to finish it, and specifically those who can easily find another group (tank, healers, meta specs, in this order)

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He is dependant on four others, but that doesn’t make it a weak role. If he only wants KSM players, he will invite only those. Want only druids? Same. Only 226 Mythic raiders? Voila. A specific comp? Ofc. He has all the power.

And now imagine removing the downgrade part (or the key part overall). What will happen? The above (leader setting requirements), but then: misspull? Restart. One makes a mistake? Replace and restart. Etc etc.

We just shift the problem without fixing anything for the better, that’s not a great direction imo.