Raider IO needs to go. It's just as bad for the community as Gearscore was in WOTLK

[Captain Douchebag]

It was an example. Just because "everybody else does" it, doesn't mean that it's healthy for the game.

Yes, and I gave you the solution to that example. Also, why are we talking what's "healthy" for the game now? Here I thought we were discussing if other players could impede your progress by not inviting you to their own groups.

Not going to quote the rest of the post; see recent examples of trickle-down attitudes from MDI and initial reactions to Covenants with respect to an answer.

That's a silly way of admitting you don't have a good answer.

[T-34]

Well... it usually means that someone in my group fails on a mechanic that causes a wipe... you can be successful about 98% of the time and still fail a key if you don't know the raid wiping mechanics yet. That's a pretty dumb design for learning level content.

I don't think they intended +10 or +12 to be a level at which people learn dungeons, but the reality of gear inflation means that's what happens.

Listen man, you have had plenty of people in this thread telling you that they pugged their way up, yours truly included.
So if you keep failing at 10+ keys then you should look at the only common factor for those runs.... and that is you!
Whether you aren't as skilled as you think, whether you pick the wrong groups, whether you invite the wrong people, I don't know.
But be assured that this is 100% a YOU-problem, not a M+-problem.

The system works as intended. You have reached the ceiling that your skill allows you to reach.
You can either keep complaining and not do higher keys or sit down and try to analyze what goes wrong each time you do a key and try to improve yourself.

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It was an example. Just because "everybody else does" it, doesn't mean that it's healthy for the game.

Could you please link where Blizzard tells us what is "healthy" for the game or not?
I have tried to search Blizzard's support pages for how I am supposed to invite people to my groups, but couldn't find anything.

But if it is your personal opinion then I strongly disagree as nothing has been as healthy for the game as Raider.io, as it separates players in to groups where they play with people of similar skill and experience.

[WhirlwindTV]

Erm that's on blizzard. basically its reading your wowarmory information...if you have an issue with that, take it with blizzard.

Not sure why people hate raider.io, it's basically an experience bar. If i put a key up 20's 25's/etc, IO tells me xyz players experience, so i can decide to build a strong team.

It is amazing how many people sign up to high keys with little to no experience....all IO highlights is..how much effort have you put in, do you know the dungeon. It's not just about YOU, its about 4 other people's time/commitment that will be wasted. Most of which i end up adding to my friends list and we then do our keys as a group....

The only people that would hate this...is people that just want to hop in for a free ride.

The people that hate it are the people that don't have the time or desire to spam lots of dungeons to build IO. I agree with them in that respect because as an Enhancement Shaman before S4's corruption propped me up I had an awful time trying to do m+ because my spec was just flat out trash at AoE. So my previous season's score didn't matter, my recent runs where I had 3 weeks in a row of timing a 10 didn't matter, the only thing that they looked at was my spec, likely said to themselves "ugh, what trash, well if his IO is good" and then saw my IO that was a total of like 500 because i had 3-4 10s timed but nothing in the other dungeons because when completing my 10 for the week i'd only want to run a specific few other dungeons because those were the ones that actually had potential gear for me.

So just to get into groups, raider IO essentially forced me to spend hours of my time doing not only dungeons I didn't care about, but ALSO lower versions of those dungeons just to get the IO high enough to get basic invites for the higher versions of those other dungeons. Nothing feels worse than having to run a +5 of Shrine just to contribute to the IO so that I can have a better chance of getting an invite from a stranger that only looks at a number and not the previous completions.

Don't get me wrong though, all that said I still think raider IO is a good thing compared to gearscore or nothing. There needs to be SOME kind of metric to be able to judge a person's ability. With the timesink that dungeons are, no one wants to have to roll the dice (if there was no system at all) to know if a teammate will be not even just good enough but if they'll be competent enough to tie their own shoelaces. I've played with enough people in BGs and in alt "i dont care about IO" groups to know that the amount of incompetent people far outweighs the general acceptable level.

I think raider IO really needs a mandatory section of their addon's listing that specifies the person's highest key completion or maybe just their 2 most recent completions. Then instead of JUST the number, you can see that they've completed X/Y/Z at least.

[Balbuto]

The people that hate it are the people that don't have the time or desire to spam lots of dungeons to build IO.

This right here would be me. I dont hate it though, just dont like it, yet I understand why its there. I just want to do one dungeon per week to get my weekly chest for the highest ilvl reward as to do my part of gearing up for mythic raiding. And its not that I dont have the desire to build IO, its just that raiding is my focus and as a family dad I dont have to time to do do both progress raiding and climb the rioladder. Ah... to be young again and have all the time in the world...

[VinceVega]

I don't agree with this. Plenty of pug players put the effort in, but for RL reasons, just may not be able to commit to scheduled raiding and mythic+ runs like players in proper guilds do. The game has been going so long, that there is a huge number of dedicated players whose life has changed since they started playing, and being able to pug effectively with other players is their primary way of playing dungeons and raids. It's perfectly possible to get mythic 15+ and complete raids on heroic and some mythic raid bosses by pugging, provided you do the research and watch youtube videos and read tactics etc.

Saying all pug players don't put the effort in so so don't deserve stuff or shouldn't expect to be able to play with other skilled players is just incorrect.

I did not say they don't put in the effort. I said IF you don't put in the effort as a pug player you will take forever. That "if" in front of the "you" was implied. But here you go.^^
The jist of it is if you only pug you make it more difficult for you and raider.io has nothing to do with that.

Also: No matter how your life has changed, that does not make guilds suddenly impossible. I still have been in a guild in a time i could only play very irregularly because of work. And it would STILL be better than only pugging, as you save huge amounts of time and even get to know people who are willing to help you.

[Wuusah]

Well... it usually means that someone in my group fails on a mechanic that causes a wipe... you can be successful about 98% of the time and still fail a key if you don't know the raid wiping mechanics yet. That's a pretty dumb design for learning level content.

I don't think they intended +10 or +12 to be a level at which people learn dungeons, but the reality of gear inflation means that's what happens.

If you’re successful 98% of the time then your key level will go up on average. Just because your key level goes down every once in a while, doesn’t mean that the system is bad. It’s about how good you play in a season, not in one match.

The timer is important for one simple reason: dungeons drop raid ilvl gear. Raid bosses have a timer as well, an enrage timer. If dungeons didn’t have a timer, they’d have to redesign bosses with an enrage timer and then many players wouldn’t be able to finish those dungeons at all.

M+ is extremely generous right now. You get a mythic ilvl item even if you’re hours over time. All that matters is that you finish the dungeon. This is in no relation to how difficult it is to get items of such an ilvl from raids or PvP.
If there was no timer then there would be no layered rewards system, like there is right now (finish not in time, finish in time, finish fast). It would be binary. Finish or don’t finish. So beating a dungeon would be way more difficult than it is now. A lot of people would not be able to beat +15 and get their easy items.

Be careful what you wish for.

[Kaver]

What possible benefit comes from having a timer for a +13 or 14? 90% of those are learning groups.

If you ignore the timer you’ll mostly end up bouncing between 9 and 10 as a learner.

If you look at popular games today, most of them are highly competitive. It’s what people want. The timer is one of the main aspects that make M+ interesting. Without it, the repetitive nature of M+ would become extremely boring very quickly.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

I don't believe you haha

That I suck at M+ or that I'm 11/12? I can link armoury to confirm 11/12, but you'll have to take my word for it on my incompetence.

[goldlock]

If it was removed it would be replaced with something far less accurate and far more restrictive. People are not going to embrace failing runs because you take away a yard stick from them.

[bigbleach]

Gearscore was terrible for the community for multiple reasons back in Wrath. Specifically, it made a divide in the player base that was unnecessary and promoted elitism.

We are witnessing Gearscore 2.0 with Raider.IO. While yes, it is helpful to have so you choose people who have the relative experience to what you key you are looking to push, it also diminishes the value of the player experience as a whole. We tend to choose players who have higher IO's than others, we choose players who are playing "meta" specs over others who may have a higher IO, but they are playing a Shadow priest. So, they are not chosen for the DPS spot.

We as a community have failed one another once again. I hope that Blizzard will step in at some point and remove Raider IO as a whole just as they did with Gearscore. Or, Blizzard will incorporate their own version of this addon into the game itself.

Gearscore didn't really serve much of a purpose when you could get frost badges weekly and eventually buy items with scores that were dark red. Gearscore gave a very inaccurate way of judging someone. However, IO is quite accurate. It's annoying, but its the best system the community has ever come up with imho. People can make IO kinda shitty, requiring higher score than what the run would give, etc, just like how it used to be with overgearing the content. Those aspects will always remain due to the playerbase. If you want to be successful in M+ and really push, its almost required to get a few friends to regularly run it. Pugs are a nightmare. Will always be a nightmare as the content gets less forgiving.

[dragi]

This same you can say about arena rating, raider.io for me have comparable results and like arena rating, raider io points could be result of trade or just boost by friends. But when you checking someone raider.io points you can see how many runs he have and this showing you same picture of player like arena ratio (we assuming player honesty).

[dacoolist]

I'm literally the worst person in the game - I STILL can at least obtain the all 15's in time achieve

The issue with people here is that they don't want to put in the work to obtain the ability to join 99% of groups: Meaning I ramped my way up, I started when the tier started, I got the achieve back in Mid-Late February when people didnt even have ilvl/or ANYTHING with targetted corruptions, back then was the wild west

If you wait the tier out if you sit around and never care: you'd have a harder time getting groups than if you did it when everyone was inviting everyone (meaning your IO wasn't a reason they were inviting you)

I'm just giving people a little HEADS UP if they decide to hate on RIO even though the folks on that site make this game that much better, it's a tool to weed out people that just think they deserve to instantly be in groups for 15's when they havent even completed a 10

TL;DR Even a Shit player like myself can get into most groups because I put in the time when the tier first released, that's literally IT

[Teroch]

1. There is no single player game with the same gameplay, content, and regular updates as WoW.
2. Just because you're in a guild does not guarantee you're going to be able put together a group whenever you feel like
3. You also need to consider varying levels of skill within your guild which will further limit the pool of players
4. Just because its an MMORPG doesn't mean you always need to hold hands and sing Kumbaya with other people. Social interactions is for real life and social media, go on facebook or go to a bar if you want that. For me and many others, a world chat, and the option to play with people is enough.

I get that some people need this game as a replacement for their social lives, but you shouldn't lower the quality of the game just to appease those people. You should have the option to solo stuff with bots, that way people who like to group can do that and the people who don't can go solo, and anything else in-between. .

Yikes. Imagine actually wanting to remove even more of the MMO part of this game.

To your point, there is no content in the game that cannot be experienced if you do not have a guild or group of friends. LFG and LFR ensure you can see the content, and if we're being honest you'd probably be better off if the group was bots for some of those, but the point is that you can do it without an organized group. You're not going to mythic raid or do m+ but I'm assuming you didn't mean that you want bots capable of allowing you to run that content solo.

[Captain Douchebag]

Because I'm staying on topic instead of just responding with "no":

Ok sure. But whether or not it is "healthy" for the game is ultimately irrelevant in regards to whether or not other people have control over your progress.

Also, picking apart respones in an effort to avoid adressing certain points made, is really not any better than simply responding with a "no".

[Ihazpaws]

I've never reached over 1k IO because I play very casually and almost every class in game. Still no problems getting into groups. Managed even pug Curves from last 2 raids before new patches without any IO score really.

Bots in group content is the worst idea ever imagined. Instead make tanks viable for pvp, wpvp etc. Also make every healer to be able to do decent dmg in solo content and pvp with sacrificing alot mana. That way you get much more tanks and healers who main those specs. Currently being healer in any other pvp content than arena is horrible time and they cannot solo world stuff well enough. Tanks are non existent in pvp because of how hard they are nerfed whenever they engage in pvp. Their dmg is also quite low for singletarget solo content and that's why it's pain in the ass try to kill targets with higher than normal amount of HP.

If tanks could be used in pvp in balanced way and healers could do solo content without problems + do dmg in pvp with high mana cost then there would be much more people who main those roles and are good on them as well. So good that you actually wanna take them for the high end pve content. Other MMOS that do this, do not have problem with tank/healer shortage.

[Monkiy]

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But this is a blizzard created problem. Why is it still rewarding to keep running a dungeon you ridiculously outgear? When they went away from gear as the source of character progression they created this problem.

I whole-heartedly disagree that this is a Blizzard problem. Players will always want things to be as easy as possible, thus always preferring the most geared/experienced individuals who are only looking for their last one or two pieces out of a dungeon/raid/etc. It's practically second nature when you see two Rogues in queue and one is 450, and the other is 440. That's not even a dramatic difference, but most would argue the choice is obvious, and you would never consider the other.

There's really nothing Blizzard can do to change that from a game design perspective and entice inviting lower geared individuals (by comparison) without also destroying any sense of progression, or power gain; at best they just need to not implement systems like Titanforging that can potentially inflate the value of low gear, enticing high tier players to do lower tier content.

[Firebert]

That I suck at M+ or that I'm 11/12? I can link armoury to confirm 11/12, but you'll have to take my word for it on my incompetence.

Oh, I honestly don't believe that you suck at M+ if you've almost completed Mythic raiding.

But when the devs say they can't be bothered to balance the game I suppose anything can happen. <3

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But whether or not it is "healthy" for the game is ultimately irrelevant in regards to whether or not other people have control over your progress.

Explicitly false; see Cata Heroics, pre-DS Cata raiding, with complimentary points from patch 3.3 WotLK Heroics and DS Cata raiding onwards.

You have yet to do this however. [...] Pot meet kettle.

I have done this; you either refuse to see them or refuse to accept them. Resorting to name-calling indicates that you have no basis for your counterargument.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Oh, I honestly don't believe that you suck at M+ if you've almost completed Mythic raiding.

But when the devs say they can't be bothered to balance the game I suppose anything can happen. <3

I don't know what to tell you then. It's true. Someone else commented that they found similar issues in their mythic guild earlier in the thread. It's a different set of knowledge to raiding, and if you don't do it regularly you won't be that good at it. I've just about scraped through Keystone Master with corruptions this season, but even then I was usually among the worst in the group.

[Captain Douchebag]

Explicitly false; see Cata Heroics, pre-DS Cata raiding, with complimentary points from patch 3.3 WotLK Heroics and DS Cata raiding onwards.

You would need to actually make a solid case for other players having control over your progress via raider.io first. Then you would have an argument for it being unhealthy for the game.

You have yet to do this however.

I have done this; you either refuse to see them or refuse to accept them.

Pot meet kettle. You constantly refusing to adress it whenever someone points out the flaws in your arguments does not magically make those flaws go away.

Resorting to name-calling indicates that you have no basis for your counterargument.

Pointing out that you are very much guilty of the exact thing you accuse me of is name-calling now? That's a new one.

[Bloodyleech]

Well... it usually means that someone in my group fails on a mechanic that causes a wipe... you can be successful about 98% of the time and still fail a key if you don't know the raid wiping mechanics yet. That's a pretty dumb design for learning level content.

I don't think they intended +10 or +12 to be a level at which people learn dungeons, but the reality of gear inflation means that's what happens.

If your key fails because of one player that causes one wipe, the fault is on the whole group.
You can easily wipe multiple times on these key levels and STILL do them in time.