Mythic+ Difficulty and Rating Adjustments in Dragonflight

Seems like a fair compromise. The top-end players won't care, because to them KSM is incidental anyway as they climb. And the people who just want KSM and don't care too much about M+ outside of that (and maybe their weekly) will be happy because it's less of a burden on them to pop the achievement.

Personally I still think they are going to regret making these more difficult. Harder content is the absolute last thing the game needs at this point

Originally Posted by SpaghettiMonk

Didn't they also make it that the highest level loot drops in 18, not 15? Like seriously... wtf is that.

to be fair the same concern came up when they raised the highest drops from 10 to 15, and when that happened it wasn't long before power creep made it so doing 15s just became the new norm and it wasn't a huge deal, even when they began increasing the M+ difficulty.

as a self-admittedly mediocre player (not terrible, not a carry, but not someone who is gonna blow your mind at anything - just competently average) i don't really care what number the bar is set to, as long as the difficulty relative to the pug community remains more or less constant.
IE, as a tank and as a dps i'm good enough to time a 15-18 key currently but i don't care enough to be picky about groups so a lot of the time it's just completion and i'm fine with that.
so long as 'timing most of the time but otherwise coming in under time but still getting some rating" is the norm up to the max level key i don't really care what the number is.

Originally Posted by Ashana Darkmoon

Personally I still think they are going to regret making these more difficult. Harder content is the absolute last thing the game needs at this point

How did they add harder content in an already infinitely scaling system?
The rewards also stay the same at keystone level 15, they're now just more open ended to better compete with mythic raid loot.

Originally Posted by Caprias

How did they add harder content in an already infinitely scaling system?
The rewards also stay the same at keystone level 15, they're now just more open ended to better compete with mythic raid loot.

You have to do 20s to get max vault, and the scaling increased. That's more difficult for the vast majority of players.

Originally Posted by Ashana Darkmoon

You have to do 20s to get max vault, and the scaling increased. That's more difficult for the vast majority of players.

For a higher reward.
You can also stay at 15s for approximately the same reward as now, you don't have to go for the cap.

Wish it got the double mount treatment like PvP, more rewards are always welcome, throw in a mythic tier set recolor as well with pieces on different levels and there will be a whole lot of rewards to earn.

Something for everyone, KSM for people that enjoy easier keys, KSH for portals, keystone champion? for a different mounts, armor all the way from KSM to KSC, and a title for the very elites. If there is time they could even do a normal armor recolor that starts at 2 and goes up to KSM, so by the time you have KSM you have your normal/LFR set recolor, then above that you start earning your mythic recolor.

Originally Posted by Caprias

For a higher reward.
You can also stay at 15s for approximately the same reward as now, you don't have to go for the cap.

scaling increased, no impactful tierset and it's beginning of an expansion so our secondary stats are much lower. it will be a shitshow mate

Originally Posted by Caprias

For a higher reward.
You can also stay at 15s for approximately the same reward as now, you don't have to go for the cap.

Relatively, the reward will be slightly less than what you get now. While they added more innate ilvl gains from doing higher than +15, relative to what you can gain from raid loot changes in DF you're actually getting less than Shadowlands.

This is one of those aspects of their design philosophy that was part of my decision to sit out of DF and wait until the next expansion because they're pretty stubborn about amping up difficulty despite knowing full well that most people don't want that. Heck, they've known this for over a decade and have said so publicly, yet they still do it. Would I personally find the content to difficult? No, but I never considered myself an average player when it came to completing content in the game once I started getting server first raid and CE achievements. However I generally loved to play with people/friends who fall into the average player category, and it's an insane turn-off when the content they love to do gets harder and scales them out of the game. The end result is that people don't rise to the challenge and 'get gud', they quit the content or the game.

Furthermore, what most players are looking for is that their preferred end game activity can be just as rewarding as any other. It's been this way since vanilla, where people either wanted to just raid or PvP without having to do the other content to have their best gear. However, Blizz still wants raiding to be king even though it's participation keeps waning over time due to how they're designing/balancing raids and their game. That may have worked in the past when the hardest raid difficulties were way easier than they are today, but it's probably not going to work for much longer. It gives off a "all content is equal, but some content is more equal than others" vibe when it comes to how people are rewarded for their time.

Another way to look at the situation is whether one thinks their DF design direction will actually bring players back to the game, get new blood into the game, or keep players from leaving. Increasing the difficulty and/or the length of time it takes to 'complete' the game may work for for an extremely niche crowd, but for the vast majority of your player base it'll do nothing good at best.

Originally Posted by Caprias

For a higher reward.
You can also stay at 15s for approximately the same reward as now, you don't have to go for the cap.

They are not getting a higher reward lol. You get an extra valor upgrade tier, but not anything higher from the vault. Mid-level mythic gear is the same you get now.

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Originally Posted by exochaft

Another way to look at the situation is whether one thinks their DF design direction will actually bring players back to the game, get new blood into the game, or keep players from leaving. Increasing the difficulty and/or the length of time it takes to 'complete' the game may work for for an extremely niche crowd, but for the vast majority of your player base it'll do nothing good at best.

Yes last part. I personally enjoy wow having a bunch of difficulty tiers, but the idea that making the game harder and increasing the difficulty of getting rewards is what is going to get people back seems absolutely crazy to me.

If anything they need to make mythic raids easier and have more cosmetic only difficult content sweaty streamers.

I'm genuinely concerned that this is going to ruin what could otherwise be a great expansion

I don't get it why they count points different after 10. The KSM goal score has shifted anyway multiple times so there's no need for that.

The rest of the changes are fine in my opinion, KSM is done after around 3 weeks anyway and once you had the portals there was little need to do 20s after you got all the ports other than pushing your Score.

Good bandage fix but it won't solve anything lol...
People who previously did 10s, 15s, 20s, whatever... They will now not be able to do what they did before and they will feel and be worse players without actually being worse.
The game just got harder... Do we have any history or statistics on previous moves like this and how good they went? yeh...

You're in for a real shit show specially with the community 1000000000% are gonne feel entitled to clearing 20 because they could do 15s in SL...

Just another way to "ease" the suffering of "top end" raiders. This will reduce the pool of mythic players but hey, GO RAIDING!

Originally Posted by Malkiah

IE, as a tank and as a dps i'm good enough to time a 15-18 key currently but i don't care enough to be picky about groups so a lot of the time it's just completion and

Mmm.. And now you will be good enough to do 12-15s while rewards and vault scale to 20.
You wont like that, will you?
Neither will 95% of the playerbase...

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Originally Posted by Caprias

How did they add harder content in an already infinitely scaling system?
The rewards also stay the same at keystone level 15, they're now just more open ended to better compete with mythic raid loot.

The issue boils down to player entitlement. You were previously able to clear 15s for the highest rewards?
You will feel (and rightfully so) entitled to the highest rewards in DF.
This is not a hard concept to grasp...
Nobody likes being worse for no reason.
This will go over really really bad and they will change it before s1 ends.

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Originally Posted by exochaft

This is one of those aspects of their design philosophy that was part of my decision to sit out of DF and wait until the next expansion because they're pretty stubborn about amping up difficulty despite knowing full well that most people don't want that. Heck, they've known this for over a decade and have said so publicly, yet they still do it. Would I personally find the content to difficult? No, but I never considered myself an average player when it came to completing content in the game once I started getting server first raid and CE achievements. However I generally loved to play with people/friends who fall into the average player category, and it's an insane turn-off when the content they love to do gets harder and scales them out of the game. The end result is that people don't rise to the challenge and 'get gud', they quit the content or the game.

This is more articulate than I could ever come up with and hits the nail on the head... So i'll just copy paste it here
It doesn't affect me personally at all but it has an insanely huge affect on the game overall and the last thing anyone needs is wow having less players...

Originally Posted by tomten

Mmm.. And now you will be good enough to do 12-15s while rewards and vault scale to 20.
You wont like that, will you?
Neither will 95% of the playerbase...

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The issue boils down to player entitlement. You were previously able to clear 15s for the highest rewards?
You will feel (and rightfully so) entitled to the highest rewards in DF.
This is not a hard concept to grasp...
Nobody likes being worse for no reason.
This will go over really really bad and they will change it before s1 ends.

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This is more articulate than I could ever come up with and hits the nail on the head... So i'll just copy paste it here
It doesn't affect me personally at all but it has an insanely huge affect on the game overall and the last thing anyone needs is wow having less players...

I've been playing 15-18 in S4. Mostly because there is no incentive to do higher, because you get the max gear so easily. I think it's a good change overall that you have more incentive to push higher if you want the best gear. If I can't do higher than +12 because it's too hard then I will try to get better or stick to +12.

Originally Posted by Lathspell

I've been playing 15-18 in S4. Mostly because there is no incentive to do higher, because you get the max gear so easily. I think it's a good change overall that you have more incentive to push higher if you want the best gear. If I can't do higher than +12 because it's too hard then I will try to get better or stick to +12.

Good for you rising to the challenge. Its admirable
However... Blizzard have hard data on this spanning decades, players DO NOT, i repeat DO NOT rise to the challenge and try to get better. They just quit.
You can find several blue posts on this alone. Sadly, those people left blizzard a long time ago so I guess the new devs have to learn the hard way, as always lol..

In your scenario, you've also been holding back and could probably have timed some 20's on easy weeks.
Now you literally won't be good enough to do that. That fact will sting regardless if you admit it or not. It's one thing going "I could but I dont feel like it, there's no incentive" vs "I can't do this and the best rewards are locked behind them and I could previously do them just fine"... and quit...

DF will have the biggest loss of subs since cata. You heard it here first.

Originally Posted by Lathspell

I've been playing 15-18 in S4. Mostly because there is no incentive to do higher, because you get the max gear so easily. I think it's a good change overall that you have more incentive to push higher if you want the best gear. If I can't do higher than +12 because it's too hard then I will try to get better or stick to +12.

You confuse what you will do with the will of the majority. Anywho, we will see how this pans out.

Originally Posted by Ashana Darkmoon

Personally I still think they are going to regret making these more difficult. Harder content is the absolute last thing the game needs at this point

Didnt you read the post at all? "We expect players who previously earned this achievement to find the challenge about the same as before." They wont regret a TING.

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Originally Posted by tomten

Good for you rising to the challenge. Its admirable
However... Blizzard have hard data on this spanning decades, players DO NOT, i repeat DO NOT rise to the challenge and try to get better. They just quit.
You can find several blue posts on this alone. Sadly, those people left blizzard a long time ago so I guess the new devs have to learn the hard way, as always lol..

In your scenario, you've also been holding back and could probably have timed some 20's on easy weeks.
Now you literally won't be good enough to do that. That fact will sting regardless if you admit it or not. It's one thing going "I could but I dont feel like it, there's no incentive" vs "I can't do this and the best rewards are locked behind them and I could previously do them just fine"... and quit...

DF will have the biggest loss of subs since cata. You heard it here first.

I have a feeling its a you thing/problem you talk about here. There is ALOt, i repeat ALOT of people that tries to improve themself. Part of the game, same with gearing right? Basically all what raiding are. Challenge & improvement

Originally Posted by Zoura

Didnt you read the post at all? "We expect players who previously earned this achievement to find the challenge about the same as before." They wont regret a TING.
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This is about the vault, not KSM.

To be clear, not worried about my own ability to clear 20s. What I'm worried about is the unnecessary fraying of social groups because the game suddenly got harder after years for no particular reason. Now suddenly you don't want to invite X friend to weekly key night because they are not great, when for many years you were able to carry them. Now guilds are going to be even more clique-ish with the 1 or 2 m+ teams running their weekly keys and leaving everyone else in the dirt. FOTMism and elitism will get even worse, etc.

Maybe these won't jump up a lot, it is hard to say. But there are second order effects to decisions like this that people don't want to engage with and it's a little strange!

Originally Posted by Zoura

I have a feeling its a you thing/problem you talk about here. There is ALOt, i repeat ALOT of people that tries to improve themself. Part of the game, same with gearing right? Basically all what raiding are. Challenge & improvement

Except you have no idea what you're talking about...
Its not my opinion bro. Its hard, factual, data and statistics from blizzard saying this. So you are wrong. Players dont rise to the challenge, they quit.
Just because you have some anecdotal story about your friend that did means as much as me saying "Cata heroics was a wake up call for me personally and I really improved my game tremendously from being forced to and in hindsight, I really liked it".
What does it matter when blizzard have actual proof we're both an insignificant percent of players who do that? And the vast majority? They just quit instead.

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Originally Posted by Ashana Darkmoon

This is about the vault, not KSM.

To be clear, not worried about my own ability to clear 20s. What I'm worried about is the unnecessary fraying of social groups because the game suddenly got harder after years for no particular reason. Now suddenly you don't want to invite X friend to weekly key night because they are not great, when for many years you were able to carry them. Now guilds are going to be even more clique-ish with the 1 or 2 m+ teams running their weekly keys and leaving everyone else in the dirt. FOTMism and elitism will get even worse, etc.

Maybe these won't jump up a lot, it is hard to say. But there are second order effects to decisions like this that people don't want to engage with and it's a little strange!

I like how you take my thoughts and put them into words ;D
2% per key level from 10 to 20 doesn't sound like a lot but its effectively 2.5-3 key levels higher at 20s compared to today. (Depending on which dungeon, some are easier, some harder)
I can't even imagine those social guilds who happily did their +15 every week and will now struggle with 12-13s and having to straight up exclude people from runs they've done for years together or just accept less rewards for the same work.
It's such a shitshow, i can't really grasp how people think this will go down ok with the community xD