Blizzard designed themselves into a corner with M+

[Jastall]

Doing heroic requires nearly no effort for the more skilled players. I don't think it's a good representative of "raiding" for any discussion. It's all about mythic raiding that requires to commit to a guild with a regular raiding schedule.

Which is where the "at the very least" comes from. Whenever I mouse on someone with 1.5k, I more often than not see them with 3 or 4/8M. Which is roughly equivalent to that score methinks. Likewise, when I ran my alt from +4s to +10s within the last two weeks, usually I saw a progress from characters who cleared Normal to those who cleared Heroic.

Again, it's not a hard rule, a divide exists between the modes. But I don't think it to be very large.

[therealstegblob]

Well that's skewed, I mean pug wise it certainly makes sense, but if you're in a guild with any difficulty on farm you can bring in anything and provided 4 players share an armor and weapon type with you and are geared you'll typically leave at least 10 item levels higher than when you went in.

I can see you definitely getting gear faster on a single week basis in M+ if you wanted to spend a huge amount of time, but with just a two to three hour commitment once per week gaining +10 item levels seems a very hard efficiency to beat when broken down per hour.

My post was assuming you didn’t have a guild to carry you. If your friends are carrying you then it’s pretty much an invalid comparison, both ways are very quick and easy.

[Relapses]

Yeah I would like to c gear tailored to the content you do. And there will most likely be some overlap like there was in the past. Currently it doesn’t matter where u get ur gear, b/c it’s all the same bland old shit.

It’s not like carrying multiple sets is a problem. I used to carry multiple sets back in the day, a tanking set, pvp set, raiding set. Healing, dps and pvp sets on alts. I’m sure most players carry a lot of gear with them now b/c of how the azerite system works. And the new corruption mechanic is going to force players to hold onto gear, b/c u don’t want ur corruption to get to high so u will want some none corrupted gear to replace ur corrupted gear when u get new pieces.

Ur not going to segregate the player base with specialized gear for content, if someone doesn’t want to raid they won’t raid. And the min/maxers will still do all the content as long as there is some overlap between gear sets. I’m ok with someone’s bis being a mix between m+ and raid gear.

Gear is not exciting to me in its current iteration.

I hope you understand this is a YOU issue and not a problem with the game as a whole. YOU find gear boring so YOU would like to have hyper focused gear for each type of gameplay. In theory, it sounds great to YOU because YOU can't fathom other people playing the game differently than how YOU would prefer. YOU don't mind carrying different sets and YOU like the idea of grinding multiple types of gear to get your BiS for everything.

Meanwhile, back here in reality, should Blizzard follow through with your plan... the rest of the playerbase is just left wondering why the fuck they now have to commit themselves to three completely different grinds to be successful. As it is now, most players do a little bit of everything and the current system has enough shared rewards that there is no overly intrinsic value in committing yourself to one activity. The illusion of choice you think your idealized version of gearing provides players accomplishes little more than forcing players to commit more time into the game than they would already which will almost assuredly lead to increased burn out and a general trend of disengagement from the playerbase.

[Celestraza]

I don't think that's true. Now sure, some people just stick to m+ or raiding, but in my experience they are absolutely the minority. You'd be somewhat hard pressed to find a Mythic raider that doesn't have an at least decent RIO score, and you'd also be hard pressed to find a person with 1.5k+ score that doesn't at the very least have a couple H Azshara kills. The two modes complement each other more than a lot of people let on here. In my raiding guild I know of all of one person that doesn't like M+; anecdotal evidence I know, but still, the number of them who hate PvP is FAR higher. The divide just isn't the same.

I doubt many raiders like to spam M+ (a neverending Diablo grind). In my mythic raiding guild they were a minority. But they/we do it because it is has a big influence to min/max gear and improves chances to get a raid spot.

And that is what is wrong with M+. It is horribly unbalanced (I hope I don't have to explain why since it is beyond obvious), not fun yet mandatory.

[Ange]

I doubt many raiders like to spam M+ (a neverending Diablo grind). In my mythic raiding guild they were a minority. But they/we do it because it is has a big influence to min/max gear and improves chances to get a raid spot.

If you raid 1-2 days/week as a regular player, you have a lot more time for filler content like M+, PvP, achievements.

Not sure about your Diablo grind comparison, since some raid-bosses take 300-400 tries of monotone repetition without any variations.
M+ offers - different comps, different routes, different mechanical challenges and with weekly changing dungeons.

Aks yourself, how many times did you changed your raidboss WA's after the first kill and how many times do you think a typical M+ player is editing routes in MDT. There is your difference. Repetition to succeed without any variations is clearly not the most challenging thing to do in WoW's endgame and a lot of PVE players seem to see it that way.

[Soluna]

Blizzard wanted M+ and raiding to be alternative paths of progression. Unfortunately they ran into the same problem as they did when they introduced arenas in TBC.

They can't balance the classes around raiding because it will affect M+. They can't balance the classes around M+ because it will affect raiding.
There are sizeable raiding-exclusive and m+-exclusive populations. They can't prioritize one over the other because it will cause subscriber losses in the long run.

Raiding can't award powerful items because it will make raiding mandatory for M+ players. M+ can't award powerful items because it will make M+ mandatory for raiders. This is also why tier sets don't fit into the current design paradigm. When they tried to have unique and powerful rewards from different forms of content, Shadowmourne in WotLK arenas happened.

There is an answer to this but no one wants to hear it. Templates for M+ and raiding. But since WoW's carrot on a stick is gear progression, most people won't stick around if you remove tangible gear rewards. If people don't feel their characters get stronger they'll start asking, what's the point of doing this? This is especially true in modern WoW's gear-centric RNGforged / corrupted design.

Once the momentum from Legion wears off and more and more people realize that the current design is boring and unbalanced, participation will plummet. This is exactly what happened with arenas and rated PvP in general. Once people realized that Blizzard would never sacrifice raid balance in favor of PvP balance, they left. The initial hype from TBC sustained it into MoP but in WoD participation just got destroyed and never recovered. And back during the TBC-WoD period there was a much higher population to sustain continued arena participation.

Remember when Arena World Championship was Blizzard's big event? Nobody gives a shit about that anymore. It's all about the Mythic Dungeon Invitational now. But it can only last so long until bad balance starts to drive people away. The writing is already on the wall with some meta classes (looking at you, rogues) being almost mandatory.

This is a classic example of "try to please everyone and you won't please anyone". Except, well, people who play casually. Now is a great time to play casually. You have tons of different content to try and the problems don't become apparent until you reach the very top level. But the parallels between arena's decline and M+ are definitely there. M+ has already become more exclusionary and elitist compared to its Legion iteration.

Tl;dr: Ion, you can't have both tight tuning and different forms of endgame content. Pick one. Super-competitive e-sports with tight tuning or casual gameplay with a variety of game modes. Can't have both.

I love how you call today's retail gear-centric as if it's a current problem, when this has been the main problem of the game since its inception. Go check how people react over loot in classic, they are act like fucking rabid dogs.

[Jastall]

I doubt many raiders like to spam M+ (a neverending Diablo grind). In my mythic raiding guild they were a minority. But they/we do it because it is has a big influence to min/max gear and improves chances to get a raid spot.

And that is what is wrong with M+. It is horribly unbalanced (I hope I don't have to explain why since it is beyond obvious), not fun yet mandatory.

You absolutely don't need to "spam" M+ unless you're either looking for a Hall of Fame spot on the Horde (in which case you bring all the grinding upon yourself, and it lasts for what, all of two weeks before Mythic gear overtakes again) or are tryharding beyond belief. We've been CE for some time now and all the guild mandates is a weekly +10, with some groups forming for more than that on a voluntary basis. Some of our raiders willingly spend lots more time in M+ than in our two raids/week even now, when the chance of getting an upgrade from the end of run chest is very low. That sounds like doing it for fun to me.

[Alexeht]

M+ ilvl should never be higher than it can be from titanforged items from hc raid - then Mythic would still give BiS gear (in most cases).

[Kokolums]

M+ rewards should be seriously scaled down. Hall of Fame should be removed. ELO chess style systems must be removed. That's all garbage. Raider.io needs to be abolished. That is exactly how NOT to play this game.

[vsb]

You don't need templates to have proper balance. Just make different gear work better in different areas. One simple example of this design: items from dungeons, raids and PvP carry special tag. When you enter dungeon, you'll get +3% of DPS/HPS/HP for each item with dungeon tag. The same will happen in raid and PvP instances. So basically you can start running dungeons with raid gear, especially with good raid gear, but you'll want to farm dedicated dungeon gear for best performance. Make equipment manager to store items instead of configuration, so your bags won't be full of gear if you want to play different areas and here's a complete solution for your problem.

It actually worked well with resilience and PvP power.

The problem is not with WoW. The problem is that there are many games for session PvP other than WoW. Dota, Fortnight, Overwatch.

I agree with you that the problem is there. Every patch they'll either hurt raiders forcing them to farm M+ for another ilvl of that trinket or hurt M+ guys forcing them to farm raid for a powerful trinket or something like that. But they definitely can solve this problem.

Now another problem with M+ is lack of new content. I absolutely don't understand those who can farm the same dungeons for two years. Raids are updated every few months. Even one year of raid is boring and causes massive unsubs. Blizzard should not release all M+ dungeons at once. They should release 4-6 dungeons every few months, preferably interchanging them with raid schedule, so there's always something new soon.

[Zaanm4n]

There is a way more easier solution - just have sets for each aspect of the game with set bonuses
M+ set gives u bonus in dungeons
Raiding set gives u the bonus in raiding
PvP /BG - set gives u a boost in BGs & open world pvp
Arena set gives u bonus in arenas

Yes it sounds tedious but man will it help the game so much imo. Anyway on topic i disagree with the template thingy.. hated in bgs and im sure ill hate it in pve too

[Ahlae]

You don't 'have' to unless you're pushing for world firsts, and people that push for world firsts are always going to push things to the limit. You don't have to optimize every aspect of play. It is perfectly viaable to raid without touching M+ and vice versa.

This is an RPG. Building your character to be the best and having "BiS" is literally mostly the point, if you're raiding or doing M+ at all.

There's a pretty big reason people like me haven't even done raiding seriously since ToC and that's because of different difficulties in raids and raid sizing differences and the entire mess that is itemization onward and 'BiS' lists being far more convoluted and never feeling like they're worth the effort for the amount of time spent to achieve.

PvP has been in a steady decline, every expansion after Cata. Random bgs, nor arenas are fun anymore. At any level, because that's just how messed up everything is and now with scaling only becomes worse. Don't even have PvP vendors anymore.

[Kokolums]

The problem is not with WoW. The problem is that there are many games for session PvP other than WoW. Dota, Fortnight, Overwatch.

Well that is the core problem for Blizzard these days.

They currently have no value add. When you sit down to make a game, you need to be able to answer WHY you are making it. "People NEED to play this new game because...." What is that? You make games with complex systems and great graphics and music, but if you cannot answer WHY people should play YOUR game, its kinda random chance that people will pick yours or someone elses. Blizzard has WoW arena, WoW rated BGs, and Overwatch PVP, but customers seem to have randomly chosen Fortnite. To prevent that, Blizzard needs a value add.

Blizz is gonna roll out Diablo 4 and they cannot answer WHY that game must be made either. So odds are that players will randomly chose one of the other ARPGs out there. Maybe PoE2 or Wolcen, or the new Torchlight game.

[Katie N]

M+ rewards should be seriously scaled down.

Why? It's bad enough that you have to do raids if you are serious about mythic plus. The trinkets from mythic plus are garbage.

ELO chess style systems must be removed.

What?

Raider.io needs to be abolished.

No, it serves to weed out people who have no experience.

- - - Updated - - -

There is a way more easier solution - just have sets for each aspect of the game with set bonuses
M+ set gives u bonus in dungeons
Raiding set gives u the bonus in raiding
PvP /BG - set gives u a boost in BGs & open world pvp
Arena set gives u bonus in arenas

Yes it sounds tedious but man will it help the game so much imo. Anyway on topic i disagree with the template thingy.. hated in bgs and im sure ill hate it in pve too

That's the worst idea I've ever heard of.

I should have to collect 16 sets to play the game?

[Kokolums]

No, it serves to weed out people who have no experience.

WoW thrives as a social experience. I blacklist people with this attitude right here.

[trapmaster]

Blizzard wanted M+ and raiding to be alternative paths of progression. Unfortunately they ran into the same problem as they did when they introduced arenas in TBC.

They can't balance the classes around raiding because it will affect M+. They can't balance the classes around M+ because it will affect raiding.
There are sizeable raiding-exclusive and m+-exclusive populations. They can't prioritize one over the other because it will cause subscriber losses in the long run.

Raiding can't award powerful items because it will make raiding mandatory for M+ players. M+ can't award powerful items because it will make M+ mandatory for raiders. This is also why tier sets don't fit into the current design paradigm. When they tried to have unique and powerful rewards from different forms of content, Shadowmourne in WotLK arenas happened.

There is an answer to this but no one wants to hear it. Templates for M+ and raiding. But since WoW's carrot on a stick is gear progression, most people won't stick around if you remove tangible gear rewards. If people don't feel their characters get stronger they'll start asking, what's the point of doing this? This is especially true in modern WoW's gear-centric RNGforged / corrupted design.

Once the momentum from Legion wears off and more and more people realize that the current design is boring and unbalanced, participation will plummet. This is exactly what happened with arenas and rated PvP in general. Once people realized that Blizzard would never sacrifice raid balance in favor of PvP balance, they left. The initial hype from TBC sustained it into MoP but in WoD participation just got destroyed and never recovered. And back during the TBC-WoD period there was a much higher population to sustain continued arena participation.

Remember when Arena World Championship was Blizzard's big event? Nobody gives a shit about that anymore. It's all about the Mythic Dungeon Invitational now. But it can only last so long until bad balance starts to drive people away. The writing is already on the wall with some meta classes (looking at you, rogues) being almost mandatory.

This is a classic example of "try to please everyone and you won't please anyone". Except, well, people who play casually. Now is a great time to play casually. You have tons of different content to try and the problems don't become apparent until you reach the very top level. But the parallels between arena's decline and M+ are definitely there. M+ has already become more exclusionary and elitist compared to its Legion iteration.

Tl;dr: Ion, you can't have both tight tuning and different forms of endgame content. Pick one. Super-competitive e-sports with tight tuning or casual gameplay with a variety of game modes. Can't have both.

So... Like..... Make mythic+ gears only usable for only Mythic+ and cannot be used for raiding purpose. Mythic vendors it with some unique currency or something.

Raiding gear'd up shouldn't be used for mythic+ purpose. Like negate or something to make it weaker for mythic+ or something. IDK something like that.

[Relapses]

WoW thrives as a social experience. I blacklist people with this attitude right here.

Because a "social experience" matters when you're just trying to complete a fucking dungeon? Lol. Would you support a queue for M+?

[Jastall]

There is a way more easier solution - just have sets for each aspect of the game with set bonuses
M+ set gives u bonus in dungeons
Raiding set gives u the bonus in raiding
PvP /BG - set gives u a boost in BGs & open world pvp
Arena set gives u bonus in arenas

Yes it sounds tedious but man will it help the game so much imo. Anyway on topic i disagree with the template thingy.. hated in bgs and im sure ill hate it in pve too

Yeah, I sure look forward to having to lug around at least 3 sets per spec, plus offpieces like trinkets. That sounds like tons of fun.

[arkanon]

Yes, having no "lock out" on M+ does allow you to do this in a more repeatable fashion than M+

Im confused. What are you saying here?

- - - Updated - - -

So... Like..... Make mythic+ gears only usable for only Mythic+ and cannot be used for raiding purpose. Mythic vendors it with some unique currency or something.

Raiding gear'd up shouldn't be used for mythic+ purpose. Like negate or something to make it weaker for mythic+ or something. IDK something like that.

I have been a fan of this idea for a while. I want people to have meaningful progression in whatever their chosen pursuit is - open world, PvP, Raids, M+.
As with you, i dont really have a silver bullet solution, and im aware when they tried this with pvp power and resilience, it didnt really work out, but i still think its the best way to go.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, I sure look forward to having to lug around at least 3 sets per spec, plus offpieces like trinkets. That sounds like tons of fun.

Why would you have to "lug it around"? Banks are a thing for a reason. I just dont see a problem at all.

[Polygons]

FFXIV doesn't have M+ and their dungeons become stale as fuck as a result. OP plz