Meanwhile I’m in the keys right now in a PUG.
And others are getting declined in LFG.
What’s your point vis á vis Blizzard’s design philosophy and game direction?
Sounds like a smart and less risky implementation, that keeps the brand of M+ in-tact.
If they add it, for sure it should be minimally invasive towards premade players, because I don’t wanna ruin it for friend groups. I specifically would like it to replace or offer a viable alternative to LFG, and only have limited impact on most of the guilds, that play together.
I am very sceptical about going all the way to +10 where both the difficulty and “best rewards” are located.
We can go back even before legion where raids where the “holy grail of PvE” and not once Blizzard even made as much as a peep of making normal, heroic…or even mythic(later patches) queable.
So for the argument of “being welcoming to new and return players”. I could see them making M+ 1-5 queable to both increase its popularity(since delves pretty much made all the low level m+ close to obsolete) and for people to get their feet wet in an m+ but higher end stuff will remain for premades only.
I don’t think Blizzard should treat any type of content as a holy grail. We’re not playing chess. Main priority should be to make it enjoyable for the average player and accessible to returning ones
I think it’s good that the game has a pro-scene, but it should not have any design priority
Putting your average joe into content where even a “wrong sneeze” at the wrong time is a wipe and a failure is not enjoyable experience. Nobody wants to be stuck in an game where the success rate is… “when all the planets align in a specific order and angle”.
So two options…either nerf it to the ground(aka cata hc dungeon treatment) that you can still win even if you use your backside to press keyboard buttons…OR dont put that average Joe in content where he has close to zero chance of succeeding in…
So maybe a wrong sneeze shouldn’t be a wipe condition
OK Jito… Lets see what blizzard has done:
You do realize… that they tried this 3 times already right? I am not kidding. THREE times.
FIRST:
Why do you think Heroic Dungeons exist? Because they tried to do a matchmaking key for “normal” dungeons. They were forced to nerf it to the ground, because otherwise people were complaining it was impossible to finish a dungeon with matchmaking. So they made up Heroic dungeons with LFG.
SECOND:
Then, no matter how many incentives they put in place, those same people started to do Heroic dungeons. And of course, kept complaining. They said LFG of Heroic dungeons (used to be /general LF Tank/Healer) are bad and bla… bla… So they did it again. They were forced to nerf the content, and it was not rewarding. And that is how… M+ was born. That is literally the reason.
THIRD:
Blizzard removed 1-10 (old) M+ and turned THAT into Normal and Heroic. With Matchmaking. The old 1-10 did not “disappear”. It got transformed into matchmaking!!!
What do people do? They used to do a +8 and complain about LFG. And now. Instead of staying in the Matchmaking solution blizzard gave them… they do a +8 (and onld +18) today and complain AGAIN.
And just to add a “semi-FOURTH” time: Delves. Blizzard at one point said: “OK. I cant keep doing this any longer. These whiners dont really like M+ at all. So im going to make up a new game mode for these people”…
What do those people do? Back to M+. Back to LFG and back to complaining…
And you want them to do that a FIFTH TIME??? REALLY?
I mean… at some point one has to stop paying attention to the crying toddler in the room…
What results do you expect to acheive? And if blizzard does this once more… I quit WOW literally. Because I will start doubting the intelligence of the Developers.
You dont have to have a PHD in game development to know that if you try something THREE times. FAIL 3 times… well… a 4rth time will be 100% a guaranteed failure.
3 Likes
Your average +10 is EASY if you at least know your basic 1-2-3s and can interrupt once in 10 mins at least.
And you think everyone is capable of even doing that? Please…some people can “get lost on a straight road”…but at the same time demand the best of the best rewards because “they pay the sub too”.
1 Like
This idea of
“Make it as fun as possible for the pros, the average joe players will figure it out”
Only makes sense for games like Valorant, LoL, OW2, SF6, etc.
A game like wow should be:
“Make it as fun as possible for the average joe, the pros will figure it out.”
This reversion only happened after BFA.
Yeah I don’t think the design goal is to view Mythic+ from 0 to 10 as anything except the game experience for the masses.
I mean, that’s the journey Blizzard wants most players to go through so they can get their Seasonal rewards and feel they’ve “beaten” the Season.
So up to +10 it’s really just a sheep herding activity from Blizzard’s end. They want everyone to succeed on that goal, and they’ll happily nerf and buff whatever they have to in order to ensure that. They already do that today.
So the over-arcing goal is really just to lower the barrier to entry and get all those sheep herded through the game experience as proficiently as possible.
The keys beyond that, like +12 or +14 or whatever, that’s in the realm of premades and LFG and Communities and such. And that’s fine. It can continue to exist as it is and Blizzard don’t need to accommodate it in any queue system because the reward scheme only goes to +10 anyway.
It’s just a number.
It’s what the number represents.
And it basically represents the weekly goal and the Seasonal goal for the vast majority of WoW players.
That’s basically how Blizzard have defined it themselves through their weekly Vault and Seasonal rewards.
And Blizzard have every desire and intention to give the vast majority of WoW players a rewarding and satisfying game experience.
And that means facilitating a means by which they can realistically reach those goals.
And right now the biggest obstacle for most players is the barrier to entry. It simply has to go down on multiple fronts.
There really is no reason to put in that limitation if you simply add the requirement for each difficulty that the previous one must have been completed and that a certain item level must be attained.
If someone has beaten a +1 and has gotten slightly better gear, then they should be capable of doing a +2. And if they can do a +2 and get slightly better gear, then it stands to reason that they should be able to do a +3. And if you follow that logic to its end, then they can eventually do a +10.
I think it’s reasonable to say that a queue system doesn’t have to accommodate difficulties beyond that, because you want to have special affixes and modifiers and such for those super challenging difficulties. And that’s fine.
But the journey up to +10 really has to be a step-by-step progression that’s tailored to the masses.
That’s how it should be. I would even go further and say that Blizzard should go back to how they designed content in wrath of the Lich King. They designed the content back then for a majority of their audience, and they didn’t even think about pro-competitions. I would say they should just go back to that design philosophy mentally, and people who wanna play wow esports should imo just play a Moba or something similar.
https://raider.io/stats/mythic-plus-runs?season=season-tww-2&groupBy=mythic_level
Please look at that data. Who is your “average joe” exactly? Thats right. People doing 10s.
And yeah… its people posting in this very forum. Amonet. Lynlia. Ishayu. Glober. I am a bit above the average, but still. FAR from pro. FAR from “swetlord”…
Its THOSE people. Literally EVERYONE saying that matchmaking is a mistake. THOSE are somewhere between a +8 and a +12. Smack in the middle. THOSE are your average joe’s doing M+.
In fact. There are approximately as many people doing keys 11+ and above. Than 9+ and bellow. And that is considering that Delves exist and invalidate anything between a +2 and a +5.
So if anything, Blizzard did the right thing. Gave pushers what they want. Gave non-mythic level players what they want.
And everyone else that is ultra, ultra, ultra casual they gave them Delves AND matchmaking heroic, normal, timewalking, AND follower dungeons. Because they are a lot of people. More than 0.1% title players at-least.
Meanwhile. They gave players doing +12 and above absolutely SQUAT. We did not even get special treatment with Dinars… because we are not that many players.
1 Like
its not PvP where you can either “beat” or “be beaten”. Keys are a team based cooperative and lower keys and difficulties tend to be easily “beaten” if at least 2 people of the 5 man team knows what they are doing. But as you reach for higher difficulties, eventually you reach the level where you are expected to at least somewhat carry your weight.
For the average Joe whom you cant even expect to know their 1-2-3s…that will be around +5s
And then you will reach the point where people will start screaming on the forums that “they snoozed through a +2 but now suddenly are hard stuck on a +5” because obviously its Bad Blizzard tuning not cause maybe 1 out 5 people are at least trying to interrupt.
Just go back to what happened in cata dungeons. They werent difficult in my view, just dont pull like a 
and your sheep spell(was playing as mage then) actually gets used time from time…
…
And what happened? People where screeching like crazy on the forums on how “super difficult, hardcore” where your heroic dungeons.
Why do people check rio, logs and what not for their keys and pug raids? Simply to get people who know the basic stuff because your so called “average joe from the masses” cant be trusted with a toaster…let alone to interrupt something.
2 Likes
Because the average joe has been driven out of raids and dungeon since BFA, where Blizzard only started catering to Pros.
I think they should go back to how and for whom they designed content in WotLK. They were just trying to make a fun game, and not an event. Now they are overly fixated on the events and twitch streams, etc.
That we make our own luck.
In Baseball the 4th person to step up to the plate should be psychologically and physically the strongest.
No matter what, someone has to step up and swing. If 3 people have been at plate and you’re next, you’re the 4th batter.
NO.
Because blizzard tried THREE times to cater to them. And they kept on whining. Those people are all where they belong. In Delves. Except you, cause you did not get the Memo.
Which is this… if you need a reminder… if you cant do this:
Then dont do M+. Do something else. That’s literally IT.
2 Likes
DId they remove LFR? Did they remove all raid difficulties and made heroic/mythic as the only base raid difficulty? They didnt remove anything…heck they even added more(delves).
So whats the problem?
Ah… I see. You want the “best shinnies as the pros get” but via bashing 10 weakened boars in Elwyn, am I right? 
I disagree very heavily and intensely with you. I think you should just go play an actual E-sports game, and let wow be a MMORPG for its current average audience
Blizzard have always operated with what they call a “doughnut model”. I think it was Rob Pardo who in ages past coined it as such.
So the outer layer are the masses and the center is the hardcore players.
What Blizzard have been successful with in the past is to create an experience by which the masses will slowly gravitate towards the center and become hardcore players themselves.
I mean, everyone starts out as a newbie and a n00b, and by virtue of us all still being here, it does show Blizzard’s success at cultivating their own playerbase(s).
So I don’t think Blizzard will lower the upper echelons of the game’s difficulty, because it helps cultivate that player transition from casual to hardcore, which is a major win for Blizzard.
But I do think – and I also think that’s what can be inferred from Blizzard’s recent changes and communication – that the floor will be lowered a lot and that the step-by-step progression will be a lot more smooth, void of as many barriers to entry as possible.
That has to be their penultimate goal.
For a game that’s increasingly Seasonal in design, being able to deliver an easy to get into experience that is ultimately rewarding and positive, is imperative to ensuring that people come back for the following Seasons.
That has to be their over-arcing aim.
But that’s debating details, and that’s really not that important to me. That’s just a question of turning the dial until you hit the sweet-spot.
For example, if it’s insufficient for the purpose of clear progression that people can progress from +1 to +2 as soon as they’ve successfully completed one Dungeon, then you can just raise the requirement to three Dungeons completed to progress, or five.
So long as the goal is to facilitate a step-by-step journey that should likely encompass the majority of the playerbase, then it’s just a matter of tuning the difficulty of that progression, and the speed by which players are going through it, according to the skill level that they have.
That’s not really a matter of agreeing or disagreeing. That’s just a matter of tuning and tweaking.