I don't get something about m+15 dropping lower gear than heroic raiding

[Whitedragon]

Either way, one group is upset. I'm fine with it as long as raiding is seen as the priority. Raiding will always be the more 'epic' choice, so it should have the best reward. All other forms should be sub-raiding.

And I would be more then fine with them putting a slight disparity between the two I level wise (Like we have now), because I agree Raiding in general is more... I guess I would say intensive or at at the very least more nuanced (Because lets be honest adding more numbers to mobs doesn't really make them more mechanically difficult, it just means now this ability they cast one shots you sort of deal), but what I'm saying is either the gap needs in power needs to be small enough that it can be ignored for the most part by anyone but the very best of the best M+ wise (And for any tournaments series they get loadouts anyways so...), or they need to move into giving "special stats" that makes trying to be competitive outside your field of play much harder when you lack the said stat (See PvP power, and resilience). By making the drops worse then Heroic Raiding they have gone to far in my opinion.

Also a lot of the people here seem to take more issue with the speed of obtaining the gear, not so much the actual gear existing, maybe they need to rip the system we had for hourific visions off, and make it so only the first finished run chest drops decent gear and the rest take a 5-10 I level hit idk.

[Minikin]

As opposed to making raiding easy by over gearing it with M15+ giving higher than heroic raid gear?

Besides, it's not so much the gear that matters with higher keys as it is executing mechanics. Gear will only carry you so much.

This.

You can have all the gear in the world but if you have a person or two who don't follow mechanics it's over.

[Belloc]

World first race gets wayyyy more viewers than MDI ever has or will.


No one cares about M+ leaderbords either until MDI.

Popularity is not a very good metric by which to implement loot levels. Proof? The most popular content in the game, without question, is daily quests. I know I'm going to see you arguing that daily quests should reward the highest ilvl loot.

Difficulty is a much better metric and, let's be honest: high end mythic plus is harder than mythic raiding. Simply put, mythic raiding is tuned to be possible at a certain gear/skill level. Mythic plus tuning, however, is designed so that the content eventually becomes impossible, with the goal being for players to get as close to that mark as they can. Mythic raiding's difficulty maxes out at some point, whereas Mythic plus does not.

Mythic raiding, Mythic plus, and PvP should all have the same maximum item level. It's fine if it's harder for Mythic plus and PvP to reach that item level, but it should still be accessible to them. Anyone doing Mythic plus 18+, though, should be getting the same ilvl drops as mythic raiders.

[Ztranger]

with the weekly vault giving choice for up to 3 mythic ilvl items, it's going to be fairly fast to gear up if you run a lot of high m+, even with the heroic-5 ilvl on end chest.

[Th3Scourge]

According to who? That's a bold claim to make with zero evidence to back it up... Also as far as that goes, I would say nether really matter in the end. No one really cares past the world first race when it comes to whos doing what In raiding, likewise no one cares about anyone but the very top M+ runners and their best runs so...

Yeahhhhhhhh.... I don't remember the last time I saw a 'race to m+ rank 1 on raider.io'

Also, race to world first is about the only thing that spikes interest in wow. And in terms of leaderboards, there's absolutely nothing in-game that is mechanically tied to M+ leaderboards, whereas filling the hall of fame for the region unlocks cross-realm mythic raid....

So yeah, raiding leaderboards have a purpose, M+ leaderboards do not

[ShiyoKozuki]

Raiding should be the highest gear possible - by a large amount. M+ doesn't have lockouts, so you can get a full set of the best gear day 1. It should be worse.

It already is. Shadowlands will be full raid or die and 9.1 will be full panic mode as they try desperately to get all the casuals back.

- - - Updated - - -

Raiding should not reward the highest gear possible. Multiple sources should reward the same highest ilvl. Gear shouldn't be restricted to one part of the game.

This is just bad thinking overall and is unhealthy for the game in the end.

Agreed. All forms of content should reward the same gear power(eventually) - WQ's, M+, PvP, and raiding. WQ's obviously being the slowest and grindiest option - perhaps just a weekly "great vault" reward from doing enough of them per week on the same level as Mythic raiding. Slower(by a lot), but still able to get character progression and the same level of gear.

With how powerful gear is now, and how gear > skill until you're within 10 ilvls of each other, you simply cannot gate keep gear in certain forms of content anymore.

- - - Updated - - -

Which is fine, but as we can see by the past it was unhealthy for the game and why things have evolved where they are now to where M+ is used. If raiding was so prevalent as you believe we would have kept the whole raid or die aspect that the past expansions have had.

Yeah, it really is. Shadowlands looks like Ion's personal raid or die simulator which has been proven, for over a decade, to be a complete failure of a design. Go run around town and inspect people for a while, you'll notice 99% have M+ gear and almost NO ONE has mythic raid gear, or any raid gear, at all.

It's very apparent raiding is done by a very small minority, and catering to a minority in a monthly subscription game is a surefire way to lose all your revenue.

[oplawlz]

It keeps people from trading raid loot, simple as that. Bliz has been pretty clear that they want players to slow down in gearing and be able to keep what they get. While funneling didn't affect a huge portion of the playerbase to my knowledge the game is better off without it.

[ShiyoKozuki]

It's possible that's the decision, but if so, I doubt it's going to be successful. People don't do M+ instead of raiding because of the gear. They do M+ instead of raiding because they don't enjoy raiding. Trying to create a situation where they're forced into raiding is likely to backfire, because there's nothing worse than raiders who don't want to be there, for whatever reason.

Yeah, Ion isn't smart enough to realize this. It's fine, he will be in for a rude awakening come 9.1 and the MAU's and subs are at an all time low with the investors breathing down his neck asking what's going on.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes. For example it should not be the case that the highest ilvl is obtainable ONLY from mythic Raiding. A certain PvP rating and a certain level of M+ Dungeon should provide the same ilvl.

PvP gear should NEVER have rating requirements.

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/ne...-52-and-beyond

Rating Requirements
The current rating requirements on PvP gear create an artificially sharp division between players over 2200 rating and those below that rating threshold, which is unduly difficult to cross. We’d prefer that teams progress up the ladder on a curve against gradually more difficult opponents, instead of running into a wall at a certain rating.

Gear Advantage
Over time, the gap in power between Honor and Conquest PvP items has widened. This happened, in part, because it’s necessary for us to preserve the balance in power between PvP and PvE gear so that one doesn’t become the most obvious path to victory for the other. Right now, there are four tiers of PvE items, but only two tiers of PvP items. To keep Honor items from being the best choice for entry into PvE, they needed to have a lower item level than equivalent Raid Finder items. At the same time, Conquest gear still needs to be better for PvP than Heroic raid items, which puts it way over on the opposite end of the power scale from its Honor counterpart. While there are items that bridge the gap between Raid Finder and Heroic Raid loot, there really haven’t been any PvP items to bridge the gap between Honor and Conquest gear. We plan to solve that problem by introducing new tiers of PvP items, changing which currencies it takes to buy items and when, and by making PvP weapons more readily available in general.

[Eurhetemec]

Yeah, Ion isn't smart enough to realize this. It's fine, he will be in for a rude awakening come 9.1 and the MAU's and subs are at an all time low with the investors breathing down his neck asking what's going on.

I think you're wildly overestimating how many people do M+ and how much they do it, and to what key levels, if you think this will make MAUs/subs go to an "all time low". I mean, that's some wild shit. Do you think like, 80% of subscribers play M+ and reach +15 regularly or something? I dunno what the percentage is for that, I can't find good figures, but I'm guessing it's more like 10% or less.

I think it's a bad idea, but the level of impact you think it will have is utterly inexplicable.

I guess it's like that with people and any area of the game that they care about. Bad change in Arenas - "This game will be dead in months!". Mythic raiding has shit balancing? "This game will be dead in months!". Etc.

If SL does have record low subs and low MAUs, it's going to be because it manages to turn off more casual players, not serious M+ players.

[prwraith]

I'm so happy the mythic + gear is shit tbh.

I HATED being forced to run that shit constantly to be optimal. That I finally get some relief in running a fuckload of toons through that shit each week is so goddamn nice. I can't even explain.

I realize I'm part of a very niche section of the raiding environment. But my god it was awful.

[Ranico]

I've been playing since Vanilla beta, I've been a guild master over a decade now of a modestly successful AoTC/Mythic raiding guild across many tiers. Through all this time I've always felt Blizzard reduced WoW's attractiveness by continuing to make raiding the holy grail, the one and only end-game. I've always been a different strokes for different folks type. Of course people will say this is already the case, but lets face it, often the PvP gear a casual PvP'er gets access to, is garbage in comparison to what they can get just by pugging heroic raids or doing M+. How has that ever felt good to anyone?

In my world view, Raiding, M+, PvP, heck even Visions/Scenarios should all have an equally viable end-path that feels as valid as any other. If someone only wants to do M+ with their few buddies, and thats what they enjoy, they shouldn't be penalized for it. Ditto for PvP, ditto for Raiding. The cross-over of that content should be entirely optional and not mandatory.

I've often wondered why not just put flat % modifiers on gear in certain circumstances. If you get a piece of M+ gear, once you zone into a raid, or a BG/arena it reduces in all stats by x% (say something like 15-20%). Ditto PvP and Raiding gear. Take raid gear into an arena and see it reduce in stats 15-20%.

Enough that the cross over-gear is still mildly viable for use, especially in edge cases of very good trinkets or w/e, but not so much that it overpowers that content's gear. Enough that, if you mainly focus in one thing, be it say raiding, but you feel like doing a few arenas, your raid gear will cross over enough to be mildly competitive, or your trinkets due to utility may be worth using, and it gets you started, but it doesn't let you just walk in and roflstomp.

In the Open world, all 3 types of gear could have parity, since generally most agree open world content doesn't really matter that much.

This way you can play the game the way you want, or play the portion of the game that you want to play, whether that is solo vision/scenario content, group M+ content, raids, or the various forms of PvP. You can become, and feel, the "best" at what ever it is you want to do, and disregard that which you don't care for. Except of course if chasing transmog and achievements is your thing.

I've never thought it fair that as a AoTC/Mythic raider, I zone into an average BG significantly outgearing the typical player in there. I've never liked having to do M+ & raid content to be viable in one or the other.

My personal preference is actually M+, it is what I enjoy, and if I only did one thing in WoW, that'd be it. I just like the format, I like the rotating different affix combos etc. Keeps it interesting. The time commitment is less, I can do 2-3 runs/week on a Friday night with the same group of friends and have a generally good time. BFA gave me hope that Blizzard would continue toward a path of system parity, but they've done a 180 and moved away from that I feel. Makes me sad.

[Baneto]

Agree, they should make every content give mythic raid-quality loot, even LFR so people who only do LFR dont get left out.

And pet battles should also reward mythic raid-level rewards, nobody should have to do difficult content to get the best gear!

Otherwise everyone will unsub for sure!


/s

[exochaft]

Difficulty is a much better metric and, let's be honest: high end mythic plus is harder than mythic raiding. Simply put, mythic raiding is tuned to be possible at a certain gear/skill level. Mythic plus tuning, however, is designed so that the content eventually becomes impossible, with the goal being for players to get as close to that mark as they can. Mythic raiding's difficulty maxes out at some point, whereas Mythic plus does not.

Mythic raiding, Mythic plus, and PvP should all have the same maximum item level. It's fine if it's harder for Mythic plus and PvP to reach that item level, but it should still be accessible to them. Anyone doing Mythic plus 18+, though, should be getting the same ilvl drops as mythic raiders.

That's a false comparison when it comes to difficulty, and even then I'd say it's much harder to get a mythic raid going than getting 5 random people to do mid- to high-20's keys and be successful. The amount of time/effort/coordination/etc. to just get bodies to raid and even get partway through a mythic raid is insurmountable compared to M+ being cross-realm and puggable (even more at the start of a season). The infinite scaling aspect of M+ doesn't and shouldn't factor into the argument anyways, as the maximum reward in Shadowlands will be from +14 keys... which will be dropping lower-than-heroic loot at the end of the keys. The tuning for said +14 keys is going to be with that end-of-dungeon reward in mind, and just completing one +14 key is going to give you a guaranteed mythic raid ilvl piece of gear in your weekly Vault... more if you complete more keys at that level.

If the reward structure went higher past +14 keys, then the argument would have some relevancy, but it currently does not in Shadowlands. The problem is where do you cut it off? It's like going back to the 10/25man raid debates about which was harder, but in the end each raid had challenges the other did not. The same sorts of arguments can be made comparing mythic raiding to M+, but in general the default is to reward the content that requires more players and/or requires more time/effort/coordination to do. Also, there's a huge problem with infinite sources of loot, which end-of-run chests are for M+. If you really want to (and people did it in BfA), you can spam run M+ to get a full end-of-run max ilvl set in under a week. If you bumped up M+ to having end-of-run loot equal to max raid ilvl drops, it's fairly obvious that it would wreck the gearing system even more. Raiding does not guarantee any loot beyond the weekly M+ chest, so the rewards are greater for limited content with finite loot. As I've mentioned in other posts, the weekly Vault is the great gear equalizer, allowing a guaranteed mythic raid ilvl piece for everyone. Even BfA didn't yield max ilvl loot from the weekly chest until really late, let alone give you options for doing more M+ than a one-and-done +15.

Even if we go by the false premise of wholesale comparing M+ to mythic raiding, it still doesn't matter: M+ players are still going to be getting mythic raid ilvl gear, and it's actually going to be easier than in BfA due to dungeon scaling with a shorter time to reaching a full mythic raid ilvl set likely due to the structure of the weekly Vault reward system. The only drawback of the M+ loot structure in Shadowlands compared to BfA is that it'll take slightly longer to get full +14/+15 end-of-run ilvl, which will only matter at the beginning of the season. This just means that most people won't be full/near-full 210 the first week of mythic raiding via M+ with barely any effort like in BfA, but it's still possible to do so if you desire and are skilled enough. Also, the need for people who don't run M+ as a primary gear source won't feel it necessary to do content they don't want, as the gearing method interferes with raiding much less and doesn't invalidate normal/heroic raiding almost instantly. Beyond that, the system is much more favorable if your main activity is or is not M+.

Out of curiosity, how many people actually tested M+ on the beta? I have, and when taking all the variables and scaling into account, clearing keys up to +15 is going to be a lot easier than people think in the early parts of the season.

[Aggrophobic]

Why is m+ not worth doing anymore exactly? And what does it have to do with raiding?

Did they remove the weekly chest rewards from m+? Or raider.io score?

What did I miss?

No but you don't get gear from the actual dungeons anymore.
You get a lottery ticked at the end of the week but thats it.

Raiding is the only way to get gear now. If you only play M+ then getting gear will take you way longer than the actual content patch is current (20+ weeks if you're luckly and the gear is still worse than raiding) making it pointless to even bother while raiding could get you geared up in a few weeks at worst.

[Baneto]

No but you don't get gear from the actual dungeons anymore.
You get a lottery ticked at the end of the week but thats it.

Raiding is the only way to get gear now. If you only play M+ then getting gear will take you way longer than the actual content patch is current (20+ weeks if you're luckly and the gear is still worse than raiding) making it pointless to even bother while raiding could get you geared up in a few weeks at worst.

Im not super into m+, other than clearing all 15s each season and join my guildies now and then.

But cant you just run more keys then? If it is the content you enjoy, and there is no lockouts you can just spam keys couldnt you?

[Elias01]

Popularity is not a very good metric by which to implement loot levels. Proof? The most popular content in the game, without question, is daily quests. I know I'm going to see you arguing that daily quests should reward the highest ilvl loot.

Difficulty is a much better metric and, let's be honest: high end mythic plus is harder than mythic raiding. Simply put, mythic raiding is tuned to be possible at a certain gear/skill level. Mythic plus tuning, however, is designed so that the content eventually becomes impossible, with the goal being for players to get as close to that mark as they can. Mythic raiding's difficulty maxes out at some point, whereas Mythic plus does not.

Mythic raiding, Mythic plus, and PvP should all have the same maximum item level. It's fine if it's harder for Mythic plus and PvP to reach that item level, but it should still be accessible to them. Anyone doing Mythic plus 18+, though, should be getting the same ilvl drops as mythic raiders.

Oh yeahj lets compeltly ignore all the difficulties running mythic guild, difficulty of scheluded raiding and social problem between 20+ players in 1 guild and lets just compare some raw numbers becouse thats totaly only thing what matters. Oh wait its not. Logistical and social diffiocutly of running mythic is way way above mythic+ and this is something you have to count into difficulty of running mythic raids. Also you know making arguments that mythic+ is harder becouse its has infinite scaling and balance simply doesnt work at certain level is plan stupid.

Also lets not pretend like that all those high mythic+ levels like +20 are possible to balance. They are not. At that level since its only 5 man you need meta classes with meta specs in order to actualy finish that dungeon which mean it would exclude huge amounth of players from getting rewards.

[Frolk]

Raiding should not reward the highest gear possible. Multiple sources should reward the same highest ilvl. Gear shouldn't be restricted to one part of the game.

This is just bad thinking overall and is unhealthy for the game in the end.

Like what other sources?

I do think rated pvp should give same ilvl of gear, but only high rated, talking 2500+.
M+ can also give same ilvl, but then again, only high keys, 20+.

And if u do non of these 3 activities ingame, u dont need nor deserve said high gear.

[Jonnusthegreat]

It already is. Shadowlands will be full raid or die and 9.1 will be full panic mode as they try desperately to get all the casuals back.

As far as I recall, M+ dropped gear that was 5 ilvl lower than mythic raiding through the weekly chest. And the regular gear was equivalent to heroic raiding, making most of heroic raiding meaningless. With this setup, heroic raiding will matter.

[Belloc]

Oh yeahj lets compeltly ignore all the difficulties running mythic guild, difficulty of scheluded raiding and social problem between 20+ players in 1 guild and lets just compare some raw numbers becouse thats totaly only thing what matters. Oh wait its not. Logistical and social diffiocutly of running mythic is way way above mythic+ and this is something you have to count into difficulty of running mythic raids. Also you know making arguments that mythic+ is harder becouse its has infinite scaling and balance simply doesnt work at certain level is plan stupid.

Also lets not pretend like that all those high mythic+ levels like +20 are possible to balance. They are not. At that level since its only 5 man you need meta classes with meta specs in order to actualy finish that dungeon which mean it would exclude huge amounth of players from getting rewards.

The only really difficult part of running a mythic guild is recruiting and that's because it's tedious and no one wants to do it. One person alone is capable of recruiting and handling guild administration. Fortunately, guilds (and raid groups) are bigger than one person and most of that work can be delegated to multiple people. Further, raid guilds tend to have larger pools of available players.

High-end Mythic plus groups, on the other hand, tend to be 5 players with an occasional extra. Those players often need to have multiple characters for different dungeons.

See what I'm getting at? We can argue with each other all day about the merits and demerits of the various kinds of content. The fact of the matter is that people play all of them and they're all of comparable difficulty. If we want to be truly honest with ourselves, all PvE content pales in comparison to PvP content when it comes to difficulty... but you're not going to see many people arguing in favor of PvP because... most of us don't like it. I certainly don't. Even so, I think it should have the same quality gear as raiding, which should have the same quality gear as mythic plus.

[Aggrophobic]

Im not super into m+, other than clearing all 15s each season and join my guildies now and then.

But cant you just run more keys then? If it is the content you enjoy, and there is no lockouts you can just spam keys couldnt you?

Rewards are a big part of the game.
So no, I can not.

If raids gave no rewards, few would run them. same with all forms of content. Rewards are important.

- - - Updated - - -

As far as I recall, M+ dropped gear that was 5 ilvl lower than mythic raiding through the weekly chest. And the regular gear was equivalent to heroic raiding, making most of heroic raiding meaningless. With this setup, heroic raiding will matter.

No, the dungeons give you normal gear even in the cases where the dungone itself is far harder than a mythic boss.
You also just get one item every 5 runs.