But the point is m+ was NOT like this.
This is blizzard continuously moving the goalpost every expansion for a while now (starting from SL mainly, with TWW being the most bold of them all).
There seems to be a consensus in that m+ used to be a lot better.
Like reverting it today to the pre TWW state could immediately improve it immensely without any further changes what so ever.
This weird idea of Ion that they can being like this “oh you did so nicely this expansions so guess what… next expansion we will raise the difficulty/grind once again” every single psychologically traumatising expansion launch is just nuts.
Again this has been going on for 3 expansions in a row now; it is no wonder it is finally starting to catch up with the player base.
Ideally if you were able to the attain x ilvl with y effort in the n-1th expansion, then you should be able to attain x ilvl with y effort in the n-th expansion as well, no?
That is most certainly not the case with TWW and actually was not the case for a long while now.
The last M+ change I actually applauded was the SL seasonal affix design.
Ok, prideful was not the best, but still had its moments and way better than infested was. And the rest of the seasonal were really fun after some getting used to.
That is also the only thing I really like about TWW’s m+ now and the only thing I would miss if we would have again the Legion m+ design (apart from having an option to get the tier ofc),.
The big issue is atm the changes they did in TWW that came together with the other positive changes.
We are discussing a problem that Blizz themselves created and instead of them backing down on their terrible design choices, they throw the ball to the community and ask them if they prefer a death count vs a timer when this wasn’t ever a problem to begin with.
By this conversation,it seems even people are ignorant to what really causes the problems and therefore suggest solutions that arent solutions.
The main issues with tww m+ are
tank nerfs. Instead of targeting their hps sustain, blizzard cut their mitigation and increased mob damage. What can you expect? Tanks to live? Also they added tank busters in every pack and very frequently,so in most cases you need externals.
cc changes. Most groups struggle with oneshots because the mobs recast to infinity and their casts are dangerous to the point that they need to perfectly coordinate interrupts, even on low difficulties. Instead of removing the change and cutting down on the mechanical vomit, they ignore it.
key squish and insane difficulty bumps. Instead of smoothing out the difficulty,it ramps up very fast and hard for most people to the point that you really need to be good and utilise your kit/interrupts/defensives flawlessly or else you are toast. Together with the mechanical vomit it is cringe.
severe imbalances in tanks and healers. This is self explanatory. Coupled with tank nerfs, simply noone wants to play that role
aug still exists. Again this is one of the biggest issues. Limits spot availability and the other 2 dps need to be at the top of their game. Also augs usually underperform but never get the blame so people find other issues to blame.
challengers peril aka 15 dec death penalty. This is one of yhe biggest offenders. You dont need to rrmove timer , you just need to remove this anti fun affix.
These are all the things that make this season dreadful simple as that. You can discuss all you want that timer is an issue but you will just be putting your head in the sand for no reason. If these were to be fixed tomorrow then the state of m+ would be infinitely bettter. Then we can discuss about gearing issues, lack of deterministic loot in vault, lack of interesting gear in dungeons and the big issue that heroic vs mythic level items have their ilvl difference be so big that it creates a whole another iasue that makes heroic gear a bad choice to upgrade and gatekeeping you from getting invited. In DF, ilvl gap was 5-6 ilvl so everyone would upgrade heroic gear and be viable for all content( also cheaper upgrades this is insanity now with so many upgrade tiers and crest economy)
Then I will ask a simple question: why should that be the case?
Scroll back to BFA M+ topics, and you see a lot of similar complaints as we see today; leavers, toxicity, specs being preferred or ignored.
I doubt it. TWW only exposed what was already known; the average player is just quite bad.
We see classes with interrupts not using interrupt, specs with dispells not dispelling themself, healers instantly dispelling the dot at E.D.N.A., tanks just ignoring tank-busters, players not coordinating their ccs, players just ignoring the affix hoping someone else will deal with it, … And that all is just unacceptable in this difficulty-curve.
Going back won’t change this in any shape or form. At best it makes it easier to carry these players. But that doesn’t make the whole system better.
There are problems in the current design. I’d say that the most prominent one is the amount of casts in the dungeons, followed by having specific school debuffs that hurt way too much. But the rest? Just deal with it, really.
I understand that sentiment. At the same time this has been an issue for as long as the game has been around, and usually the game has been experienced as more fun when it was possible to carry players somewhat. It’s less frustration on both sides, in their own ways.
If the average player is objectively bad compared to the content, the content is too hard. At least, that seems logical to me. The average player should be ‘good enough’ in the average content from a holistic perspective.
Not directly disagreeing; but we are talking here about the max rewards you can get in the game. Not sure the average player, who is considered very bad, should be able to get it?
Then the question rises what average content is, at what M+ level? It’s hard to define, and even harder to wrap a system around it to cover the average players and the more M±fanatics.
The problem here doesn’t really lie in M+, imo. It lies in the gearing structure.
They for certain have not ignored all the feedback…I have no idea how you can even say this.
I agree with that. I think it’s perfectly alright if there is content you need to be better at than ‘average’. I’m guessing the key squish and removal of lower keys is one of the biggest offenders in this whole picture tbh.
I’m not sure if it’s a struggle, or just a (start of a) change of direction we need to get used to.
As far as I remember the first n (idk, 7?) levels of M+ were trivial. There was little to do wrong, just have a somewhat decent tank and you’ll be fine.
Now they shifted it towards a less forgiving atmosphere even in the lower levels. To me it implies that they try to steer the M+ visitors (who don’t really care for M+ other than to gear up a little) towards Delves, while keeping M+ challenging for the M+ minded players.
But the gearing system doesn’t really suit for this, yet, leading to a very odd situation where M+ players start in Delves, and Delve/world-players end up in M+.
I don’t disagree, but at the same time I do. I think there is a subset of players who do enjoy dungeons, but know they’re not good enough for high(er) M+, or who enjoy playing alts at a lower level once their main is sort of ‘done’. From the comments on it I don’t think Delves really scratch that itch.
I think if that is their intention, a real overhaul of how M+ works would be better. Not to make it more difficult, but actually to make it more accessible. I’d suggest something like 5 keylevels. And then within each keylevel say 4 tiers. Tier 1 would be untimed, or very leniently timed. Tier 2 would be leniently timed. Tier 3 would be timed similar to what it is now, a bit more leniently. Tier 4 would be tightly timed. And then when you time tier 4, you move on to the next keylevel. And there you start again with tier one, untimed/very leniently timed etc. Keylevel 5 would simply be for ego stroking purposes, no gear upgrades, a title, weapon glows, whatever
It may be a terrible suggestion (it probably is lol) but I think an issue with the learning curve in M+ is that there is not enough time to truly communicate, explain, teach, learn in the format. So it gets ignored when it doesn’t matter, and it bricks keys when it does. I may be naive but I’d hope having the time to learn might improve the situation for everyone involved.
Feel free to shoot my idea down, but I hope you get where I’m trying to go. Maybe you got a much better idea!
I won’t, as I can’t oversee the impact of such a system may work well, may not. I don’t know. And that’s what I struggle with when it comes to any idea to change M+: we don’t know what it affects, how it does so, why certain mechanism work the way they do, etc. Every mechanism currently has a goal, or at least a purpose. We can’t just think that way.
Even the smallest thing can lead to significant changes in the playstyles. Let alone a complete overhaul of the key system, or how M+ works overall.
Making M+ more accessible, I mean, sure. That’s how it used to be, right. Worked for me, worked for many. So all good. But now as they have Delve-mode as well, for the more casual gamer (with all due respect), things may start to shift a little. We will see. But it’s not an easy task.
My idea is more ‘negative’ than your at least; just stop designing it for players who don’t really want to learn to progress in M+. Simple. That some may hate it, so be it. There are delves, raids, and M0 for those.
Well based on what you’re saying there can only be 2 groups of people: Those who like it and those who don’t. If you don’t practice M+ whilst playing the mode, when do you get to improve your skill? You can read guides and watch videos but those will only get you that far.
This is simply not representative of reality, because quite a few players don’t know that they like it until they have a good experience with it. I wasn’t that keen on M+. I made friends and joined a guild with decent people and now I think I enjoy M+ more than raids. Like you said yourself which I evidently agree with.
Point is that loads of people don’t necessarily have this social network and rely on the pugging systems. If whenever they engage with it, they get a terrible experience they’ll simply say “that’s not for me, I don’t like this game mode”. And that’s quite a chunky slice of the demographic which doesn’t fall within your 2 groups.
Let me give you a different example. Take kick boxing. Most people are really intimidated by the sport, besides its aggressive nature, beginners don’t dare to do drills let alone spar with more advanced fighters. If we do no intervention we’d be left with 2 groups: Hardcore amateurs, semi pros and pros on one group and complete beginners who just do lame boxercise classes. you rely on only the most determined pupils to go above and beyond and bridge the gap. (not very many of them)
How about the giant demographic in the middle who still wants to train well, spar at a more medium semi contact level but have no aspirations of participating in tournaments or want to cleave anyone’s head off?
By different clubs catering for that large middle demographic, the overall population health and profile improves. Beginners are less intimidated, more people feel comfortable sparring, and overtime more people reach higher levels of skill and getting interested in semi contact tournaments and so forth. More advanced fighters have more people to spar that aren’t a complete bore too. Everyone is a winner.
It’s the “middle class” demographic for lack of better term.
Ultimately I don’t full disagree with this:
I’m simply saying that there’s a decent amount of people who would find the game mode appealing, if the system motivated you more to progress through it, which I think the extra rewards and depletion would tackle.
Now for the death count instead of timer… I think this is a bit of a false flag if you ask me, ain’t going to fix anything.
This is not a good idea. The reason why people want an automated queue system is because DPS players wait too long to get into a group because there are too few tanks and healers.
Tanks and healers have no incentive to use an automated queue, manual lobby works for them just fine. This system would make the situation even worse because it would be a queue that would be 99% DPS. It would go the same way as Solo Shuffle where there were 2+ hours long queues at higher ratings.
And since motivating people to become tanks and healers is basically impossible, the simplest solution to reduce queue time would be to add another DPS slot to the dungeon format - go from 1/1/3 to 1/1/4.
Most of the main issues you mentioned are all TWW changes.
Aug only causes issues on high keys, not where the avg plays or even wants to be.
The key squish alone would not have such devastating consequences.
→ TWW as whole has done a lot of dmg to the m+ system and that is what blizzard must realize before taking any further steps.
The proposed death system however seems to be the direct opposite of this.
Its the usual “double down on the problems” phase.
Why shouldn’t? To me this seems very logical.
If you want ppl to get better, to train them to be eventual esport andy playerbase, like in Ion’s wetdreams, well:
This has already been answered (why is it a horrible idea for everyone involved):
I would extend on it:
I write this without any bad meaning. Just play the game on +10 for a while and see how it goes.
Preferably in groups that do not painfully outgear the level, in effort of avoiding playing +10 effectively (i mean, can you call +10 difficulty ppl inv together 630+ groups full of completely busted meta classes and push through everything?).
Then enter the hell of +7 and again keep at it for a while, observe what really happens and could have happened if you did not push through.
Finally repeat it for +4 as well (try not carry it, because then you will see a twisted version of what you were witness).
I think after a few tries on each, you will see most of these players will sooner quit, than to learn to play good enough to comfort the +10 runs and not to cause literal catastrophes in them instead, when they don’t overgear it enough yet.
Because in BFA S1 blizzard kinda tried the same and failed at it back in 2018, just like they did now.
The difference is that, BFA S1 would be child’s play compared to TWW S1. Yes, even shrine of storms or king’s rest.
Also BFA S1 had infested which was unfortunately really not up to the standards (way too many bugs, unintended combos).
It makes it better for me, as I no longer have to care so much about even a weekly +10, so I can inv more freely. I dont have to vet ppl so badly → I can play with more.
Less stress, more fun, not sure whats wrong here.
And it makes it better for these players as they will be able to just play the game without getting into flame wars and natural disasters every other keystone.
More like “those who want to do/try M+” and “those who ended up in M+ because it’s the only accessible/realistic path forward”.
I don’t expect everyone to be perfect, neither am I. It would, however, be great if they all had the will to improve. And some, many, don’t.
Will they like it if the rewards are better? At best they can tolerate more [censored] behavior because the juice is worth the squeeze. In an MMORPG, especially in content where the difficulty reaches a point where coordination starts to matter, social connections are close to the only path forward (long term). I don’t think we can make it prettier than this.
I don’t think it’s the solution (to anything) either.
Sometimes changes are needed or wanted. With the mindset of previous experience should be equal to the current experience, you aim for a “stay as-is” state till eternity. With more content modes being added, this makes little sense.
Then M+ is not the place for them, is it? It’s per definition a mode where it challenges the player, as it goes beyond the regular Mythic level. If you don’t want to carry your own weight in there, do something else…
There’s no point in having a system evolve around unwilling players. It will end up killing the whole mode. There is some sort of saying; when trying to please everyone, you’re not helping anyone. And I see the current M+ struggles in that context; don’t cater it to the ones who don’t want to carry their own weight.
Waiting for Cooldowns - Similar to early Torghast or undergeared Delves, with no timer, players may be incentivized to wait for cooldowns between each pack leading to significant downtime and potential boredom.
What if all CDs are reset if all members are out of combat?
