I would love to see more spec diversity in Mythic+ as the current state of WoW and the M+ community tends to strictly follow the meta once the season gets into the swing of things.
Right now, only a handful of specs are considered “viable” at the highest levels, making competitive content heavily meta-driven.
Spec-specific achievements would give players a reason to stick with and master their favorite class spec, even if it isn’t currently meta.
I feel many players are forced to abandon their main spec just to stay competitive. This kind of system would reward players for their dedication to a spec, validating niche picks and promoting real spec diversity.
With that in mind, I believe it would also encourage players to form new friendships and help reduce some of the toxicity in LFG, where groups often exclude anyone not playing a meta spec for higher keys.
On top of that, I genuinely believe players who achieve these milestones should be rewarded similarly to our PvP counterparts, with special mounts and unique titles.
I’d also love to see more rewards tied to certain M+ rating brackets, like exclusive transmogs similar to the Mage Tower appearances from Legion or Challenge Mode sets from Mists of Pandaria.
Why should rewards like that only be tied to limited-time events once in a blue moon? I think this kind of system could help with player retention, encourage people to engage with M+ content, and give players a greater sense of accomplishment and self-worth when earning these achievements.
It’s just a suggestion from me, but I’d love to see more people recognize the potential for a feature like this in the game we all enjoy!
kinda impressive how this isn’t getting any traction but the latest “keystones are toxic!!!11!one!1” or “my latest keystones idea, and its not well thought out!” is.
says much about the kinds of discussion we’re into as players… worryingly.
Yeah, it’s always the “keystones are literally ruining my life” posts or some half-baked idea that somehow get a hundred comments. Actual decent discussions? Straight to the void…
If it’s any consolation, this idea is one of the best ones I’ve seen in this cesspit lately.
I would enjoy seeing more and more players compete with non-meta specs. I feel like there is a definite and genuine enjoyable challenge in figuring out how the ‘percieved’ lacking classes could handle being in situations where the meta solidly decides the norm.
Instead of asking: “Only this CLASS can do THIS Pull!”
More players should be asking: “How can MY class handle THIS strategy?”
Admittedly, I do not have the theoretical braincells needed, but I love watching the more statistically creative peeps figure it out.
Yeah i mean I’ve been thinking about this too. Mythic+ could seriously benefit from some Diablo style chaos. Imagine if instead of just doing the same old affixes every season, we had these crazy randomized scenarios, like infernal horde style waves of elites flooding in mid-dungeon, or cursed areas where abilities behave differently, forcing you to swap up your talents or rethink how you play entirely.
The problem right now is the meta locks in so hard because the variables barely change. Even with seasonal affixes, it’s still the same general route, same pulls, same talent builds. What if sometimes you had to spec for massive AoE because you might run into endless mobs or build for sustain because a dungeon could randomly throw out a debuff-heavy curse event halfway through?
It’d open up so many different playstyles and actually reward creative theorycrafting instead of just following a best-in-slot guide. Mythic+ should be something you react to, not just something you execute. It needs to feel alive and unpredictable again.
However, I am not sure if this would solve our negative nancy situation. I feel like, even if we had the best kind of affix-design (in that every class could do something about it), we’ll still have the usual suspects who believe the game is ill designed, unfriendly etc.
I feel ya’ in that we do could use some variance again, but as we’re talking about a challenge that is directly/indirectly encouraging to break the meta that we should consider the importance of variety in the variable. The gates are open, let’s open them even wider kind-of-thing.
We can’t help meta coming out of this even then IMO. There’s always going to be meta down to the 0.01 percentage, and circles + norms who will try to sap the game and popularize this thinking.
I hope Blizzard reads this and at the very least consider it. Seeing 99.9999% top keys be same comps ruins any form of motivation. They’re semi aware as they added some stupid “spec variety rule” for the qualifying of MDI and then the finals just allowed them all to go back to meta comps and ruin it again.
I totally agree with you, i feel the same frustration. It’s disheartening to see Blizzard acknowledge the problem enough to tack on a “spec variety” rule for MDI qualifiers, only to toss it aside when it actually matters in the finals. It sends a mixed message to the playerbase about how seriously they value spec diversity.
That’s why systems like spec specific achievements or rewards would be such a good longterm fix.
It wouldn’t just be a bandaid for esports events… i feel it would actively encourage everyday players to stick with and master the specs they love without feeling punished for not chasing the meta.
I genuinely hope Blizzard takes these kinds of ideas to heart because it would do wonders for the health, inclusivity, and longevity of the M+ scene.
Ah yes, another visionary in the WoW forums echo chamber. Right between the ‘my key’s been bricked’ cryposts and ‘nerf this meta class I don’t play’ threads, we’ve got Trapeye here bravely announcing he presses the highest parsing spec for the biggest numbers. Forums really out here setting the intellectual bar at ankle height lately.
Posting this with the caveat that this season’s 3K rating is the highest I’ve ever gotten, and that I don’t have any perspective on what it’s like to run M+ in the top 0.1%…
While I agree that encouraging spec diversity is a noble goal, and something that Blizzard should invest time into, I’m not sure if this change would be enough to contribute that. I think for most groups, especially pug groups, the first objective will always be to time the key, not worry about improving peoples’ rating.
Appreciate you sharing your thoughts, and big congrats on hitting 3K this season that’s no small feat.
I get where you’re coming from. For most pug groups, the goal is just to time the key, not necessarily to worry about spec diversity or pushing rating. That mindset is pretty understandable, especially when people just want to get in, get it done, and move on.
That said, I’ve earned the 0.1% title before, and ever since then, I’ve wanted to push for it again. But honestly, it feels harder and harder to do without playing a meta class or having a super dedicated team willing to keep pushing with non meta specs. The effort is there, the time is there, but the limitations really start to show when you’re not in that meta bubble. It feels like you’re at a disadvantage no matter how well you play.
That’s why I really believe things like spec specific achievements or rewards could help shift the culture a bit. They wouldn’t change how keys work or how people build groups overnight, but they’d give players more of a reason to stick with the spec they actually enjoy. And I think over time, that could open up more room for diversity and reduce some of the toxic gatekeeping we see in LFG.
It would also be nice if players who stuck with their spec and mastered it got some cool rewards, titles, mounts, transmogs.
Kind of like what PvP has, It would give people something to work towards even if they’re not chasing the absolute top of the ladder.
Really appreciate the discussion though. It’s great seeing others think about ways to make the game better for more people, not just the meta chasers.
Now I might be wrong, but if you make it spec specific, that lowers the amount of players in that pool.
So you’d need an even higher score to get into the 1% because the best players would still be pushing those specs.
It would just result in you being further down the ranks.
Terrible idea would put an incentive to just reroll to the most dead spec and do non-difficult keys with rest of the team being metaplayers. Would make the boosting we saw at end of season even worse and the tipping culture even stronger. I really hope they would NEVER do this. And I say this as a non-meta player. The real satisfaction off-meta players get is by stealing title-spots from metaclasses and showing people that it is infact possible to get title without brainless rerolling to FOTM.