Mythic+ without timer

[Beuargh]

I LOVED the launch cataclysm heroics for example because they were difficult enough but blizz listened to the vocal minority of complainers and nerfed it all.

I call BS on that. not that you loved it, I can believe this but It wasn't just a vocal minority but also the quiet majority of casual players that stopped trying and the overwhelming number of groups giving up before the end of dongeons. they had data for that, Ghostcrawler explained that. no need to read forums and a vocal minority.... for you it's just blizz listening to the vocal minority maybe because it was the only thing you were able to see on forums.

from my IG experience, what the community wants is GogOGOgO pulls and fast dongeons.... normal dongeons in greens at the start of the xpac, heroics, mythic and M+. gogogogogo all the time....

classic release: hot questions "how long before the first lvl60" "how long before the first rag kill", BWL release hot question "how long before the first clear" (answer: not that long^^). how guilds are trying to show how good they are in their recruiting adds? "clear xxx in a single session" ..... everything is now "how fast do you clear stuff". speed is the difficulty factor valued by the huge majority of players. even when there is no reward for it like in classic

maybe you, the OP and I are the minority. we have to accept it.

edit: yeah edited multiple times...... no post after me yet so I think it's allright

[Zantera]

The thing with the Cata dungeons was the time/place as well. TBC had some challenge in its 5-mans but we were coming off WotLK which had arguably the easiest 5-mans out of any expansion and for Cata to try to make them harder in a time before we had 'options' - i'm not really surprised people were very mixed on them. You gotta remember that before LFR came with Dragon Soul, for many PVE:rs, 5-man dungeons were typically the endgame content if you couldn't deal with a raiding schedule. For me as a raider, I didn't mind doing them, and I did them with people of equal skill/mentality but whenever I would try them on an alt with pugs it was very easy to tell the jump up in difficulty was gonna be a struggle for some. I still find Cata dungeons interesting even when leveling alts because some mechanics in there just obliterate the group. It's very interesting because WotLK dungeons are easy, the MoP ones are easy and in between you get the Cata ones where if you try to pull like you did in those other ones, you're gonna end up dead really fast.

[Kolvarg]

Technically, there were several instances of instance-timed content this prior to challenge modes.

But technically it's not the same. For instance, Shattered Halls actually makes sense lore-wise instead of just being a gimmicky "time-attack" mode: You're racing to do something that makes sense in-game, not just to beat a timer per se. They are also, essentially, small bonuses for people who want to engage with those optional "difficulty settings" in those specific dungeons, not a core concept of dungeons in general. In M+if you don't beat the timer you no only don't get a bonus, you get punished and your progress is rewinded by downgrading your key. Also, those were exceptions and only a handful throughout the 102 dungeons that exist in the game, imho impossible to say was "typical".

this all comes down to whether the content is worth the time/effort for each individual. Personally, my favorite aspect of M+ is that it's usually pretty short content in terms of time invested, exactly because there are timers.
(...)
If they really did get rid of the timer for M+, I'd be a helluva lot more inclined to be picky about who/what I bring to my group exactly because I don't want to be stuck in a dungeon for hours on end. Sometimes I'm feeling magnanimous and I'll help out severely undergeared groups and carry them to victory, but I prefer that to be my choice and an exception to the rule. I think with the inferred Shadowlands changes, we should be seeing a little more balance in terms of class/spec capabilities, which should make "I need to bring X class/spec or I'm not playing the game right!" mentality a little less prevalent... but that mentality will always exist on some level. Torghast should be some sort of an option for non-timed content, although I have a sneaking suspicion there will be aspects that are indirectly timed (hard/soft enrages) before SL goes live. Also, the changes to how loot will work in the M+ system could also affect the culture surrounding M+... although that may depend upon if completion of a key versus completion of a key in time has widely different results in terms of your weekly chest.

Agree, it's very much down to preference and even mood. I don't personally think it would be hard to continue having fast-ish runs, the same hardcore players who like efficiency wouldn't disappear, raiderio and such tools would still be there and people would still very much filter groups.

But also I don't advocate for the timer to be removed from M+, just for it to be optional, whether offering slightly better gear for the same M+ level, or even simply just having the timer version be more efficient (more loot, higher key increases). Hell, something as simple as removing the penalty from failing the timer (ie your key still gets upgraded by 1) would make it a lot better, although it certainly doesn't sound as appealing to me.

Don't know about Shadowlands changes to M+, but yea Torghast definitely sounds very interesting. I'm a bit wary at how important the rogue-like elements will be, and how much pressure the jailer mechanic thingie will put on the group to go fast (even though as a timer mechanic it's a thousand times more interesting than just sticking a timer with a limit on the screen), but we'll see!

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I disagree that I would lose money. People hate feeling like they are wasting their time, they hate it even more when it feels like someone else is wasting it. Close friends/guild groups just have a higher level of tolerance but even they have their breaking points.

I agree that's the case for many people, but I also think you're not taking in consideration that the majority of people you find doing M+ now, especially in pugs, do not necessarily represent everyone else, specifically those who might actually like an untimed mode.

The timer is definitely a core part of the difficulty, but honestly I also don't think there should be such a strict "cutoff" in rewards, or rather, that only very hard content should reward good gear. I won't ever disagree that the most challenging content should reward the best gear, as well as prestige cosmetic rewards. But I think it's fine if not-so-difficult content rewards pretty good gear over time.

Ultimately for the average player WoW is a MMORPG. Not an esport, not a test of skill. It's supposed to be fun and reward the player with a sense of progression and character power growth as you dedicate time into it, not necessarily by becoming a super skilled player always trying to play at the best of his character's ability. And the gameplay should reflect that a bit better (for instance, through untimed M+ that is still rewarding).

Challenging content with difficulty tuned to the "elite" players has a place in WoW, but imho should never be one of the main focus, as long term it just drives the "in-between" players away.

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Mythic + with lower reward and no timer is in game, and it's called Depleted Mythic + run. Of course you don't level up your key, but you still have two loots and the same weekly chest as a player who completed his timer (which could be seen as unfair since you failed and you still have the reward). Why player who don't even want to clear the harder content should gear themself more than they need ?

Because it's not about wanting to clear harder content, it's about not liking time-attack mode in games. Depleted M+ run is awful and not rewarding at all as it does not allow progression and halts replayability which is the main purpose of M+. It's not a lower reward, it's active punishment.

The problem is that you build a meta around a specific role who's played by maybe 5 to 10% of the playerbase. And since most people want optimization, then you have frustrating moments where you're not allowed because you're not a tank (which already exist with only 1 tank per group so imagine the tryhard groups with 4 tanks).

Having 4 tanks will never be optimization unless in case of serious unbalance (ie tanks being able to do more damage than dps). Ultimately with anything resembling decent balance, 1 tank 1 healer 3 dps will always be the most efficient.

As I said, time is in every single aspect of the game if you're a DPS. Why would you want to get gear if you don't do your usual activities faster ? How would you make a challenge with damage actually challenging if the DPS have all the time they want to kill a boss ? Imagine raid without enrage. It would push all the skill needed on the hand of the healer and of the tank.

There's a huge difference between M+ timers and "time being in every single aspect of the game". Time would still be an aspect of an untimed M+ (boss enrages, dealing with affixes in mobs, wanting to be efficient).

Imagine a raid fight of 30+ minutes with enrage? How fun do you think that would be for most casual raiders? That's in many ways what timed M+ is.

WoW don't caters to collectors or hardcore gamers. The main issue is that people want the same stuff as hardcore player do while doing less than they do

No, it's not about having the same as a hardcore player while doing less. It's about having access to a rewarding gameplay activity that greatly increases the replayability of dungeons without having to care/concern about a timer rushing you.

And honestly, I'm not so sure if it's such a problem if casual players are able to get close to the same rewards as hardcore players (just at a much slower rate). I think skilled gameplay should be rewarding in itself (by having a bigger skill gap between bad players and great players and not dependent on RNG) and through prestigious costmetic rewards, and not so much having much better gear.

The problem does not come from the timer, but from the people you're playing with. There's plenty of groups who don't care about the timer you know.

I'm pretty sure the problem is the timer, since we stopped doing M+ specifically because we didn't enjoy the feeling of M+ gameplay with the timer. And that was with a full 5-man guild group of people that did Heroic raiding together and are fine with going slow.

[Holdodlig]

Because it's not about wanting to clear harder content, it's about not liking time-attack mode in games. Depleted M+ run is awful and not rewarding at all as it does not allow progression and halts replayability which is the main purpose of M+. It's not a lower reward, it's active punishment.



Having 4 tanks will never be optimization unless in case of serious unbalance (ie tanks being able to do more damage than dps). Ultimately with anything resembling decent balance, 1 tank 1 healer 3 dps will always be the most efficient.



There's a huge difference between M+ timers and "time being in every single aspect of the game". Time would still be an aspect of an untimed M+ (boss enrages, dealing with affixes in mobs, wanting to be efficient).

Imagine a raid fight of 30+ minutes with enrage? How fun do you think that would be for most casual raiders? That's in many ways what timed M+ is.



No, it's not about having the same as a hardcore player while doing less. It's about having access to a rewarding gameplay activity that greatly increases the replayability of dungeons without having to care/concern about a timer rushing you.

And honestly, I'm not so sure if it's such a problem if casual players are able to get close to the same rewards as hardcore players (just at a much slower rate). I think skilled gameplay should be rewarding in itself (by having a bigger skill gap between bad players and great players and not dependent on RNG) and through prestigious costmetic rewards, and not so much having much better gear.



I'm pretty sure the problem is the timer, since we stopped doing M+ specifically because we didn't enjoy the feeling of M+ gameplay with the timer. And that was with a full 5-man guild group of people that did Heroic raiding together and are fine with going slow.

How are you actually punished when you have two drops (possibly more with bonus roll) with the same ilevel than someone who actually managed to success in the timer and you have the same chest than them ? A little example of how you are being absurd. You understood that having an enrage on a boss is a time trial. Now take a simple thing. A boss hit the enrage timer. What happens ? Everyone dies. Nobody get a single loot. That's it. Here you are actually punished for failing the boss. And the same thing was in challenge mode. You failed timer, you didn't had what you came here for (mogs).

Having 4 tanks could be more efficient in higher key level where mechanics start to one shot dps simply because they would survive this mechanic. Of course, when a timer is here you can't allow yourself to cripple the time metric of your group because if you do this, you'll simply fail. But if time, which is the only goal of a dps is not a goal anymore, then dps become useless and all the time you'll loose not doing damage, you'll get it back by the fact you're not dying.

And even if time wasn't the main difficulty metric of WoW. What could be a better design than time ? Limited attempts ? It sucked back in LK, and in a MM+ environment everyone would play as tank to safely push. Having hard mechanics ? How can you make a mechanic hard if you have all the time needed to clear them ?

Again, the timer is only here for people who want to push. Since you have two loots (2 loots for 5 players. That's a lot) with a depleted key, you're not punished if you don't do the timer. The game takes you back to a level you can obviously do since you had that key level+1.

Your main issue with M+ is not the timer, but the dungeon design itself I think. While I disagree on most things with you, I agree that a 40 minute run (in case of Waycrest manor) can be really long and that dungeon are too long for the average players who don't clear MM+ in 15 minutes especially if you have to afk for a reason or another.

[Kolvarg]

How are you actually punished when you have two drops (possibly more with bonus roll) with the same ilevel than someone who actually managed to success in the timer and you have the same chest than them ? A little example of how you are being absurd.

The loot drops are a reward for completing the dungeon.
The key being downgraded is a punishment for failing the timer.

Failing the timer is not necessarily an indication that you are unable to complete the dungeon at that difficulty.

Considering the issue is the mere existence of the timer, not necessarily the ability to fulfill it or not: If you never complete the timer, you will never progress to a higher level of M+, and therefore never have access to higher difficulty and higher rewards. Or, in other words, the purpose of M+ (making dungeons replayable and rewarding throughout the expansion) is not fulfilled.

You understood that having an enrage on a boss is a time trial. Now take a simple thing. A boss hit the enrage timer. What happens ? Everyone dies. Nobody get a single loot. That's it. Here you are actually punished for failing the boss. And the same thing was in challenge mode. You failed timer, you didn't had what you came here for (mogs).

1) A boss fight is usually around 10 minutes or less, while a M+ dungeon is usually around 30 minutes or more.
2) In a boss fight you get to try again as many times as you want. You don't have to go get a new key, or to upgrade a different key. Trash doesn't respawn. Usually you even re-spawn closer to the boss you are at. You just come back again and give it another try.

Just because they are both time-related mechanisms, it does not mean that they play the same, and it certainly does not mean they feel the same way to the player.

Like I've said before, I guarantee you the average raider would loathe a 30-minute+ boss fight, even more so if it had an enrage timer.
Or, imagine if after wiping on a Mythic raid boss, you'd have to go kill all that raid's bosses in Heroic again, before being able to try the Mythic difficulty again. To me, that's how out of place the timer feels in WoW.

Having 4 tanks could be more efficient in higher key level where mechanics start to one shot dps simply because they would survive this mechanic. Of course, when a timer is here you can't allow yourself to cripple the time metric of your group because if you do this, you'll simply fail. But if time, which is the only goal of a dps is not a goal anymore, then dps become useless and all the time you'll loose not doing damage, you'll get it back by the fact you're not dying.

But M+ rewards cap at a certain level. And that can be adjusted throughout an expansion.
Also the dps goal will always be there, because there are still affixes that need to be dealt with and that more often than not help trash mobs have a soft enrage. And even if it didn't, there would still be dps goals in many bosses.

It doesn't often happen in raids, even in bosses without enrage timers, so why would it be a problem here?

And even if time wasn't the main difficulty metric of WoW. What could be a better design than time ? Limited attempts ? It sucked back in LK, and in a MM+ environment everyone would play as tank to safely push. Having hard mechanics ? How can you make a mechanic hard if you have all the time needed to clear them ?

"Hard" is highly subjective. What is hard for you is negligible for some, and what is easy for you is hard for others.

The main difficulty variable in M+ isn't the timer, it's the scaling mechanism that increases the health and damage of the enemies each level, as well as the affixes. Of course, the timer makes it much harder by forcing you to be fast, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be challenging without the timer. It's just a different kind of challenge that isn't nearly as much causing you to go as fast as you can.

Enemies will still get impossibly strong to kill with the scaling, which will ensure a challenge through the boss and mobs abilities and the affixes. And there will still be hard and soft enrages even without the timer.

Again, the timer is only here for people who want to push.

Well, exactly. Let the timed runs be for those who want to push, and fight for the leaderboards or simply play to the best of their ability and get the rewards faster and/or better rewards. And let untimed M+ be there for the people who prefer a slower gameplay style to make use of dungeons throughout the expansion at their own rythm.

[Holdodlig]

The loot drops are a reward for completing the dungeon.
The key being downgraded is a punishment for failing the timer.

Failing the timer is not necessarily an indication that you are unable to complete the dungeon at that difficulty.

Considering the issue is the mere existence of the timer, not necessarily the ability to fulfill it or not: If you never complete the timer, you will never progress to a higher level of M+, and therefore never have access to higher difficulty and higher rewards. Or, in other words, the purpose of M+ (making dungeons replayable and rewarding throughout the expansion) is not fulfilled.

I don't think you actually understand the point. If you fail the timer, you are unable to do the dungeon at that difficulty because the timer is part of the dungeon. It is a mechanic. But you can choose to avoid this mechanic, and simply get 2 loots instead of 3. But let's follow your vision of dungeons.

Currently, you can end the dungeon with the affixes and stuff without timing it. If you have all the time you need, you can just CC and kill every trash one by one. By doing this, you avoid half the mechanics of the dungeon because you can simply focus on one monster, interrupt him and down the threat instantly.

You can reset every bolstered monsters if you do big pulls. You can reset your necrotic by CCing every mob and simply wait, since you have all the time you want. Teeming is no longer a problem because you can CC all the monster again. Since you don't need to cleave, bursting is no longer a problem. You can let your tank generate enough agro to make skittish be worthless. And that's pretty mucht the same with every affix. The only one that matters are tyrannical, reinforced and maybe explosive.

And you can have bloodlust on every boss, or even against every single trash of the dungeon. How can you fix these problems then ? Limited bloodlust per dungeon ? Having packs that reset all their monsters if you fail ? Crowd control immunity ?

Having a timer solve all these problems. And having still two loots at the end of the run simply allow you to play the way you want without being too much punished. And it's still merciful, because you're failing at this.

1) A boss fight is usually around 10 minutes or less, while a M+ dungeon is usually around 30 minutes or more.
2) In a boss fight you get to try again as many times as you want. You don't have to go get a new key, or to upgrade a different key. Trash doesn't respawn. Usually you even re-spawn closer to the boss you are at. You just come back again and give it another try.

Just because they are both time-related mechanisms, it does not mean that they play the same, and it certainly does not mean they feel the same way to the player.

Like I've said before, I guarantee you the average raider would loathe a 30-minute+ boss fight, even more so if it had an enrage timer.
Or, imagine if after wiping on a Mythic raid boss, you'd have to go kill all that raid's bosses in Heroic again, before being able to try the Mythic difficulty again. To me, that's how out of place the timer feels in WoW.

Yes. In the best world, a boss fight last 10 minutes or less. But how much attempt will you have before being able to clear this boss ? How much loot per player you have in raid ? 1 for 5 players. And again, you have to kill the boss to get it. Following your logic, you'd have to clear two bosses to get the same amout of loot per player than a failed key. And three for a successful key. And I'm not even considering it's the first key of the week, because it's at least 2 loot + 5 at the end of the week.

And you simply need to do a +11 key to get the same ilevel than a heroic raid in the end of run chest. You'll have a 465. If you can clear heroic, there's no reason you can't time +11.

But M+ rewards cap at a certain level. And that can be adjusted throughout an expansion.
Also the dps goal will always be there, because there are still affixes that need to be dealt with and that more often than not help trash mobs have a soft enrage. And even if it didn't, there would still be dps goals in many bosses.

It doesn't often happen in raids, even in bosses without enrage timers, so why would it be a problem here?

As I said, affixes without time are worthless. And why would you remove timer, if it's just to add enrages ? Does it looks cooler ? It's the exact same thing as a timer. Except you can fail as much as you want and get rewarded anyway for that.

"Hard" is highly subjective. What is hard for you is negligible for some, and what is easy for you is hard for others.

The main difficulty variable in M+ isn't the timer, it's the scaling mechanism that increases the health and damage of the enemies each level, as well as the affixes. Of course, the timer makes it much harder by forcing you to be fast, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be challenging without the timer. It's just a different kind of challenge that isn't nearly as much causing you to go as fast as you can.

It is not "highly subjective" since we're talking of a specific setting.

The timer is the difficulty variable in M+. Because you have the same amount of time to clear a +2 or a +14 in time, which is why the dungeon is more difficult. Do every Mythic + dungeons in a +15 set up since it's where reward cap is. The difficulty will always come from the timer or the gear. But if you're doing +15, you've cleared the 14 difficulties (or you virtually did) so it is not supposed to be a problem.

You will say that the class mastery matters here and you're right. But even without timer, someone who don't know how to play its character would fail if the game was balanced around "soft enrages", overtuned monsters and thing so here again, timer is not the problem.

Enemies will still get impossibly strong to kill with the scaling, which will ensure a challenge through the boss and mobs abilities and the affixes. And there will still be hard and soft enrages even without the timer.

They already do with timer.

Well, exactly. Let the timed runs be for those who want to push, and fight for the leaderboards or simply play to the best of their ability and get the rewards faster and/or better rewards. And let untimed M+ be there for the people who prefer a slower gameplay style to make use of dungeons throughout the expansion at their own rythm.

And that's exactly what the system is about. Leveling your key is a reward for being good and fast at this level of key. If you're not, then it's useless for you to level up. Just like in raid, if you're not good enough to clear a boss you redo it until you're good enough to kill it. You have to be better before going to the next level. If you don't like this system it's fine, you can still do raids and you'll have Torghast in Shadowlands (even if I don't actually pronounce myself on it since I didn't played it).

In my opinion the problem does not come from timer in Mythic + dungeon since it's not supposed to be the same experience as a raid, but to the fact there's no 10 players Mythic to keep the small guilds fed with content.

[Kolvarg]

I don't think you actually understand the point. If you fail the timer, you are unable to do the dungeon at that difficulty because the timer is part of the dungeon. It is a mechanic. But you can choose to avoid this mechanic, and simply get 2 loots instead of 3. But let's follow your vision of dungeons.

The timer is not a part of the dungeon. There is no timer in the Normal, Heroic and Mythic(0) dungeons. The timer is part of the Mythic+ system only.
If you complete the dungeon but fail the timer, you have completed the dungeon but failed the timer.

You can reset every bolstered monsters if you do big pulls. You can reset your necrotic by CCing every mob and simply wait, since you have all the time you want. Teeming is no longer a problem because you can CC all the monster again. Since you don't need to cleave, bursting is no longer a problem. You can let your tank generate enough agro to make skittish be worthless. And that's pretty mucht the same with every affix. The only one that matters are tyrannical, reinforced and maybe explosive.

And you can have bloodlust on every boss, or even against every single trash of the dungeon. How can you fix these problems then ? Limited bloodlust per dungeon ? Having packs that reset all their monsters if you fail ? Crowd control immunity ?

Having a timer solve all these problems. And having still two loots at the end of the run simply allow you to play the way you want without being too much punished. And it's still merciful, because you're failing at this.

There's only so many you can CC, to start with. There are also many mobs that can't be CCed (which easily controllable by Blizzard when designing the dungeons if they want). And this is all under the presumption that needing to cleave and burst is challenging while needing to CC is not (and notice I'm not claiming needing to CC is more challenging, but I do think it is a different kind of challenging). And that being able to use cleverly use your class abilities to improve your chances in combat is a problem.

Limited bloodlust per dungeon is an option if needed, but is it really a problem to start with? BL at every single trash is simply unrealistic - plus I thought you just claimed that people would CC and kill trash one by one? Are they also gonna BL during that?

Of course, because of the very nature of it, it would be easier to reach higher levels in untimed M+ than in the timed version. I don't even think any of those things are necessarily problems, they certainly wouldn't be for the vast majority of players. But, if needed, all that can be adjusted if the dungeons are designed with an untimed system in mind, for that minority of players that would want to "abuse" these "vulnerabilities" to push much higher levels than they normally would.

And the simplest way of doing it is to not incentivize players pursuing unrealistic M+ levels - much like they already do by capping the maximum rewards you can get, but there are solutions for any of the problems you mention.

Yes. In the best world, a boss fight last 10 minutes or less. But how much attempt will you have before being able to clear this boss ? How much loot per player you have in raid ? 1 for 5 players. And again, you have to kill the boss to get it. Following your logic, you'd have to clear two bosses to get the same amout of loot per player than a failed key. And three for a successful key. And I'm not even considering it's the first key of the week, because it's at least 2 loot + 5 at the end of the week.

That's completely ignoring the point. It's not about the total amount of time, or about the loot you get.

If you fail a raid boss enrage timer you don't get punished, you just don't get the reward. You get to nearly instantly try that boss in that difficulty again, and you've wasted at most around 10 minutes or less.

If you fail a M+ timer you get rewarded for completing the dungeon (loot that more often than not is not very useful anyway), but you get punished for failing the timer by your key being downgraded. In order to try that dungeon in that M+ level again, you'd have to go re-upgrade your key from an easier level, which means you've wasted up to 30+ minutes from the failed run plus another 30+ minutes you take to re-upgrade your key.

You can't even begin to compare the two if you have an ounce of honesty.

And you simply need to do a +11 key to get the same ilevel than a heroic raid in the end of run chest. You'll have a 465. If you can clear heroic, there's no reason you can't time +11.

Like I've said multiple times: It's not about being able or not to complete the timer.

It's a personal preference of not liking to play a time-attack mode in what's supposed to be a regularly played endgame progression path, that no matter how much you insist is not the same thing as an enrage timer.

As I said, affixes without time are worthless. And why would you remove timer, if it's just to add enrages ? Does it looks cooler ? It's the exact same thing as a timer. Except you can fail as much as you want and get rewarded anyway for that.

No, they aren't. Even if they were, the current affixes are designed with the timer in mind. Different affixes could be designed (or current affixes could be re-adjusted) for untimed runs.

You would remove the timer just to not have the timer. That's all.

You wouldn't get rewarded for failing. You would get rewarded for succeeding even if in the process you died a bunch of times,or made some mistakes, or had to take a few breaks - much like happens in raiding.

It is not "highly subjective" since we're talking of a specific setting.

You are categorically wrong.

The timer is the difficulty variable in M+. Because you have the same amount of time to clear a +2 or a +14 in time, which is why the dungeon is more difficult.

That's a blatant contradiction. The timer is objectively not a variable, it is exactly, just like you very well said, the one thing that does not vary.

someone who don't know how to play its character would fail if the game was balanced around "soft enrages", overtuned monsters and thing so here again, timer is not the problem.

Except, again, I never said that people failing the timer is the problem.

They already do with timer.

Exactly, so why is the timer so required to be obligatory?

And that's exactly what the system is about. Leveling your key is a reward for being good and fast at this level of key. If you're not, then it's useless for you to level up. Just like in raid, if you're not good enough to clear a boss you redo it until you're good enough to kill it. You have to be better before going to the next level.

And in an untimed M+ mode, you would get rewarded for being good enough to clear the dungeon, even if you weren't fast. That's all.

You'd still reach a level of M+ where you are not good or geared enough to finish a dungeon, and you'd keep empowering your character and practicing over time until you did.

If you don't like this system it's fine, you can still do raids and you'll have Torghast in Shadowlands (even if I don't actually pronounce myself on it since I didn't played it).

And if you don't like the concept of untimed M+ that's fine. You can still do everything else, including timed M+, if they were to add untimed M+.

In my opinion the problem does not come from timer in Mythic +

Of course it's not just about the timer, but in great part about how the timer interacts with the entirety of the system.

For instance, I would be much less annoyed by the timer if it wasn't tied to the key system. A possible alternative on top of my head: You could just manually select which M+ level you wanted to try. You started with each dungeon at +1, and when you completed it, it would unlock the next level for that specific dungeon forever on that character, completely doing away with key farming and upgrading and downgrading keys - and if you wanted to continuously repeat a specific dungeon on a specific level until you completed it, you could. It wouldn't be a perfect solution, but it would make it a lot better for my taste.

But considering it's the timer I specifically don't like about it, I'm pretty sure the timer is the main problem I have with M+.

And the thing is it's not even that I absolutely hate any time-attack modes. For instance, I actually liked doing the Challenge Mode dungeons in MoP and WoD. Because for me, a time-attack mode is a "side mode". Something completely optional that you can work towards achieving, and when you do it that's it, you got it. You get your titles, and cosmetic rewards and you are done with it.

But M+ by definition is not that. Its intention is to be a big alternate endgame content and an alternate gearing and progression path. Something that you do regularly throughout the expansion on a regular basis, either in addition to or as a replacement to raiding. And as far as I'm concerned, that's completely unfitting with the current way it works with the timer and keys on what's supposed to be a MMORPG.

[Trend]

And in an untimed M+ mode, you would get rewarded for being good enough to clear the dungeon, even if you weren't fast. That's all.

Rewarded with what? That is the real problem: if the rewards are too good you would be cannibalizing mythic+ since untimed would be so much easier and if the rewards are appropriately nerfed the untimed crowd will moan and cry that it is not worth doing and it is just a waste of development time.

Keep in mind, a big part of the real reward is incrementing the key. There are a lot of people who could not time the +14 to get to a +15, but they could complete the +15 if they were able to get there. Removing the timer removes that dynamic and completely obliterates the concept of key progression.

[Beet]

I call BS on that. not that you loved it, I can believe this but It wasn't just a vocal minority but also the quiet majority of casual players that stopped trying and the overwhelming number of groups giving up before the end of dongeons. they had data for that, Ghostcrawler explained that. no need to read forums and a vocal minority.... for you it's just blizz listening to the vocal minority maybe because it was the only thing you were able to see on forums.

from my IG experience, what the community wants is GogOGOgO pulls and fast dongeons.... normal dongeons in greens at the start of the xpac, heroics, mythic and M+. gogogogogo all the time....

classic release: hot questions "how long before the first lvl60" "how long before the first rag kill", BWL release hot question "how long before the first clear" (answer: not that long^^). how guilds are trying to show how good they are in their recruiting adds? "clear xxx in a single session" ..... everything is now "how fast do you clear stuff". speed is the difficulty factor valued by the huge majority of players. even when there is no reward for it like in classic

maybe you, the OP and I are the minority. we have to accept it.

edit: yeah edited multiple times...... no post after me yet so I think it's allright

I think it was the vocal minority and ghostcrawler even said later they reacted far too soon. As Blizzard love to tell us, us forum posters represent a very tiny amount of the player base. Your average player doesn’t care enough to come on forums. They’ve said that so many times.

As for your point on speed. The reason people care about speed in classic is precisely because there is no other measure of success. The content is piss easy. So what else is there to measure other than parsing and fast clears? And to parse high you need to kill the boss very fast. I’m fine admitting that I’m not the majority type of player don’t get me wrong. But I think there’s far more similar to me than complete opposite of me.

[ShiyoKozuki]

Timer will exist as long as people continue to watch MDI.

[The Butt Witch]

I could see it if instead of a timer, there is a limit on the nr. of deaths.

Like doing a 10, no timer, but...let's say 10 players deaths total, and you're done.

This would actually be cool. It would promote skilled gameplay without the pressure of a timer. A sort of Reinforcements system resembling Alterac Valley.

[Kolvarg]

Rewarded with what? That is the real problem: if the rewards are too good you would be cannibalizing mythic+ since untimed would be so much easier and if the rewards are appropriately nerfed the untimed crowd will moan and cry that it is not worth doing and it is just a waste of development time.

Keep in mind, a big part of the real reward is incrementing the key. There are a lot of people who could not time the +14 to get to a +15, but they could complete the +15 if they were able to get there. Removing the timer removes that dynamic and completely obliterates the concept of key progression.

Thing is, that is true for any new potential feature. It was true when M+ was implemented, it was true when Islands and Warfronts were implemented, it's true for Torghast, and so on. In fact, there are already people who complain about M+ regardless (ie raiders who feel "forced" to do M+ to stay as competitive as possible).

Hell, the same very argument would be very interesting to apply to raids: We have 4 different difficulties. In theory, they should cannibalize each other, and the lower difficulties could be deemed not worth doing and just a waste of development time (and there is development time associated, since easier difficulties have certain mechanics disabled, not to mention testing and balancing). And yet all of those 4 difficulties are very much played.

So I don't think it's a particularly good argument against this specific feature.

Obviously I'm not a game developer, and even if I was it would require a lot of discussion and development time with a team, potentially some simulations and lots of testing to tune out issues like this and get the finer details established.

But personally, my first thought would be that non-timed Mythic rewards should reward slightly lesser ilvl loot (for instance, the same difference between one raid tier and another) and also at a slower rate. Ideally, for my taste, it would be accompanied with the re-introduction of a points system (think Valor Points in MoP) to have more granular control on reward rates across different content types and difficulties.


It probably needs to be a bit more complex than just "M+ but without the timer". But I think something like that is not only possible but needed to fill the void in more accessible replayable endgame content. I mean, apart from raiding which has a much higher range of difficulties available, there is a huge jump in endgame content from World Quests to Mythic+.

[Twdft]

You would remove the timer just to not have the timer. That's all.

So use MoveAnything or something like that to not have the timer on screen.

As I wrote a couple pages back, you can already ignore the timer if you want.

[HCLM]

I could see it if instead of a timer, there is a limit on the nr. of deaths.

Like doing a 10, no timer, but...let's say 10 players deaths total, and you're done.

This would actually be cool. It would promote skilled gameplay without the pressure of a timer. A sort of Reinforcements system resembling Alterac Valley.

Yeah crazy skilled gameplay, where you can just pull a pack at a time, and spend 1h in a dung. The onyl time I would fail that 10 death restriction, could be REALLY high Tyrannical keys where the bosses would one shot you.

Or even worse, you would be going with 3x tank and 2x healer, or 4x tank and 1x healer, just so noone dies ever.

[Kolvarg]

So use MoveAnything or something like that to not have the timer on screen.

As I wrote a couple pages back, you can already ignore the timer if you want.

Or just remove the timer and people who like the timer can use an add-on to add the timer. Makes as much sense.

- - - Updated - - -

The onyl time I would fail that 10 death restriction.

Who says such a feature should be catered to you?

[8bithamster]

Without a timer is already a thing..

it's called M0, and getting less loot if you do a +2 or higher outside the timer..

Guess people need even more hand-me-outs?

[The Butt Witch]

Yeah crazy skilled gameplay, where you can just pull a pack at a time, and spend 1h in a dung. The onyl time I would fail that 10 death restriction, could be REALLY high Tyrannical keys where the bosses would one shot you.

Or even worse, you would be going with 3x tank and 2x healer, or 4x tank and 1x healer, just so noone dies ever.

That doesn't help at all. Lots of bosses in all M+ have soft enrage mechanics where you get swamped with adds or with mechanics that build up until they become lethal, or have lethal mechanics that one shot a dps/healer if they don't dodge it, and generally the longer a boss fight takes the higher than chances that the group will wipe.

Considering tanks and healers do very low damage, having a group made up of mostly these is really not a good idea.

[Kolvarg]

Guess people need even more hand-me-outs?

Gotta be careful not to let them commies take over

People just need/want more fun, rewarding and replayable endgame activities to do that aren't catered to the most invested only.
There's no reason for a system with the main goal of making dungeons replayable and relevant throughout an expansion target only the top of the players who like pushing and testing themselves in unnecessarily stressful environments.

Especially on a game that's supposed to be a MMORPG, not an Action RPG or a rhythm game.

[HCLM]

Or just remove the timer and people who like the timer can use an add-on to add the timer. Makes as much sense.

- - - Updated - - -



Who says such a feature should be catered to you?

Oh so you're dying all the time, and for you it is actually difficult to complete the run without reaching 10 deaths? Srsly, learn to play the game M+ is supposed to be competitive not free for all on all levels. If you are hard stuck on +10 keys, removing the timer won't change anything for you.

Right now u can do +15 keys with 2 dps easily, so if you have a problem with completing the m+ run withing the time limit without stressing yourself too much, then it seems you're a problem, and not the current m+ design.

Gotta be careful not to let them commies take over

People just need/want more fun, rewarding and replayable endgame activities to do that aren't catered to the most invested only.
There's no reason for a system with the main goal of making dungeons replayable and relevant throughout an expansion target only the top of the players who like pushing and testing themselves in unnecessarily stressful environments.

Especially on a game that's supposed to be a MMORPG, not an Action RPG or a rhythm game.

An why competitive features should be tuned for people who have troubles completing WQs? If you're a guy who can't bother improving his skills, you don't need gear from 15+ keys. Simple.

[8bithamster]

Gotta be careful not to let them commies take over

People just need/want more fun, rewarding and replayable endgame activities to do that aren't catered to the most invested only.
There's no reason for a system with the main goal of making dungeons replayable and relevant throughout an expansion target only the top of the players who like pushing and testing themselves in unnecessarily stressful environments.

Especially on a game that's supposed to be a MMORPG, not an Action RPG or a rhythm game.

There literally is a way to do M+ without a timer.. let it expire. It's that simple. How more simple do you want to get it? A special snowflake keystone that gives you the best gear without any timer? Why would anyone run timed content then?

it's pretty simple, you don't do the content? You don't need the itemlevel.

You don't need anything higher than 430-445 if all you do is M0
You don't need anything higher than 460-470 if all you do is Heroic raiding
etc
etc

You want better gear? Work for it like others do.