Ways they could make the MDI more interesting.

[Shelly]

The main one I can think of is allow bans.

Like a team can just straight up nix an entire class for the opposing team. These bans would also happen after the team comps are chosen and after the ban each team gets 5 minutes to replace the banned class - all other remaining classes and specs chosen would remain the same.

Figure the start of the match each team gets 1 ban, after the first match the losing team gets an additional ban, if there's a third match then again the losing team gets a ban so by the end 4 different classes would be banned. Two from each team.

I'm not sure how much it would shake up the meta, I can really see a lot of teams going for Vengeance DH tank bans, but I think it would be fun and show more variety at the highest level.

[Kokolums]

maybe do something like hunger games where 1 team is picked from every realm. but realm identity and pride was destroyed long ago. you could only do a hunger games once due to the surprise factor. after that, people will try to skirt the rules by carpetbagging choice realms and ruin the idea.

[ifrah]

Randomize or pre-fabricate awkwardly sub-optimal class&spec combinations, same for each competing team obviously, that are only revealed once the pull timer is running at some modest 1 minute or so.
Heck, I'd give a WoW ambassador of the year award to whoever who invents a way to make the WoW e-sports content, be it PvP or MDI, interesting. Might be an undoable task though.

[froschhure]

not giving an example of people a prerelease of those dungeons. Not balancing and changing after the initial release. Keeping information secret. MDI is obv. a bought fake whatsever to attract customers.

so whatever they do with it, i could not care less

[KainneAbsolute]

Maybe you can repeat using a class X times, so you need to think of other potential combinations.

[Mendzia]

Randomizing classes would make it much more interesting.
Watching meta every dungeon is boring.

[Matt0193]

Unique classes with picks and a ban like a moba draft. Helps eliminate the fotm fiesta and help the promote variety for the masses who think only what works in the mdi is acceptable. Could even have affix picks to spice up comps.

[arr0gance]

It's easy to sit on a forum and claim that things like bans and random classes would make the MDI "more interesting," but this isn't a MOBA and it's not exactly easy to have every single class' abilities bound for every participant of the MDI. That's not even factoring in things like a lower seeded team RNGing a meta comp into a higher seeded team's non-meta comp. Even further, many of the best strats in the MDI require specific comps and ridiculous amounts of practice to pull off. Things like this would just make the practice requirement for the MDI even steeper than it already is. So, yeah, congratulations you'd make it more interesting but then not a single fucking person would want to participate in it.

[Toybox]

Make it more fun & less serious (while still keeping the challenge intact). Esports need casual viewership to thrive, & the MDI misses that almost entirely, while also missing out large portions of the core playerbase. Some ideas would be...

Add threats that can bounce between contenders.
Add random mobs/bosses from other dungeons in place of the expected ones, so each run isn't exactly the same.
Red shell Mario style?

It needs to do something zany to attract attention, because at the moment, if you've seen one run of a particular dungeon, you've likely seen them all. The MDI players/presenters may say the money involved isn't worth the time required, but that's only because the viewership isn't really there, so it's either time to mix it up & go with something that mixes up each game entirely to make it a much more entertaining spectacle, or just let it wither away & die with nothing but it's dedicated audience.

I'm certainly not going to watch the MDI because Mage was banned for one run.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

I want to see a 4th affix added on top of Prideful.


For example, could you imagine 2 top teams going head to head with Fortified, Storming, Sanguine and Spiteful?


That would make things interesting.

[arr0gance]

Make it more fun & less serious (while still keeping the challenge intact). Esports need casual viewership to thrive, & the MDI misses that almost entirely, while also missing out large portions of the core playerbase. Some ideas would be...

Add threats that can bounce between contenders.
Add random mobs/bosses from other dungeons in place of the expected ones, so each run isn't exactly the same.
Red shell Mario style?

It needs to do something zany to attract attention, because at the moment, if you've seen one run of a particular dungeon, you've likely seen them all. The MDI players/presenters may say the money involved isn't worth the time required, but that's only because the viewership isn't really there, so it's either time to mix it up & go with something that mixes up each game entirely to make it a much more entertaining spectacle, or just let it wither away & die with nothing but it's dedicated audience.

I'm certainly not going to watch the MDI because Mage was banned for one run.

Are you actually watching the MDI?

There are meta picks but there are still different strats used between the different groups. Hell, the meta has shifted in just the last few weeks. Yeah, it's not perfect but none of the suggestions you made make the MDI any more fun to practice for. Old MDI pros are already dropping out because they can make more playing different games, things like this would only accelerate the mass exodus.

[Toybox]

Are you actually watching the MDI?

There are meta picks but there are still different strats used between the different groups. Hell, the meta has shifted in just the last few weeks. Yeah, it's not perfect but none of the suggestions you made make the MDI any more fun to practice for. Old MDI pros are already dropping out because they can make more playing different games, things like this would only accelerate the mass exodus.

I watched a few games at the start of the first cup weekend, but after that, not at all during SL. Sure there might be tactical differences, but from a viewer POV, all it really is is different big pulls with little that makes it "pop".

The MDI doesn't need more players - it needs more viewers, & it's not going to generate the viewership (& thus the money) the pros believe it should generate if it remains the same bland dungeon runs over and over again. Options are either trying something different to appeal to a larger audience, or let it slowly die overtime as all the top end players deem it no longer worth their time.

[holywhiskers]

The banning can not be a thing. The excitement is in every pull being on a razors edge of pass fail. You can't swap out classes like that. I'm not sure what to do to improve the viewer experience of MDI but bans is not the answer. The competitors wouldn't do it.

[arr0gance]

I watched a few games at the start of the first cup weekend, but after that, not at all during SL. Sure there might be tactical differences, but from a viewer POV, all it really is is different big pulls with little that makes it "pop".

The MDI doesn't need more players - it needs more viewers, & it's not going to generate the viewership (& thus the money) the pros believe it should generate if it remains the same bland dungeon runs over and over again. Options are either trying something different to appeal to a larger audience, or let it slowly die overtime as all the top end players deem it no longer worth their time.

You're assuming that a.) the MDI needs more viewers and b.) that Blizzard is dissatisfied with the current way the MDI plays out. We don't know either of these things and until Blizzard comes out to say that they're looking to make a major shake-up in how it works it seems extremely unlikely to me that anything much will change at all.

[Kokolums]

You're assuming that a.) the MDI needs more viewers

You didn't even read the title subject nor the first post. This thread is based on the assumption MDI needs more viewers and how to fix it. Its not asking if that is a valid need or not. We're just rolling with it in this thread.

[arr0gance]

You didn't even read the title subject nor the first post. This thread is based on the assumption MDI needs more viewers and how to fix it. Its not asking if that is a valid need or not. We're just rolling with it in this thread.

Brother, knock off the semantics. No shit that's what the thread's about. I'm replying to one guy's response to my response...not the fucking OP.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

From what I heard the main problem with the MDI is you got 3 camps that all are required to make it successful enough to continue and yeah it takes all 3:

1. Blizzard
2. Fans
3. Players

No particular order with these..

Fans want things like I am seeing in here. Class rotations, affix rotations, and all sorts of things that create diversity. Players are kind of opposed to it because they have to practice more with different classes and are pretty much paid like burger flippers IF THEY WIN IT ALL (and less than that if they pull even 2nd or 3rd). Blizzard has to put in money and obviously if its really popular they end up putting a little more in and if its going down hill then of course they put in less. So we are kind of in this death spiral down.

In order for players to be willing to put in more practice they need to see the rewards worth putting in extra time because a lot of these high end teams are already putting in almost 30-40 hours A WEEK minimum of practice time to be where they are at. In order to get more money Blizzard needs to the MDI pulling in more money thus having them willing to increase prize pools and create systems that promote class/affix diversity. The only way Blizzard will see that it is worth putting more money into the system is if viewership goes up thus fan support going up, team participation goes up, and over all the value of the MDI is seen as a winner.

The problem seems to be none of these 3 parties seems to want to be the first one to step forward and take the risk. I know it sounds easy to be like.. well.. just get new teams in that are willing but you will be surprised how quickly the quality of play falls off after the teams you see aren't there. Yeah, there's a reason they are always there. So if you just do player turn over as a solution quality goes down even with diversity in games and fandom decreases. Then value decreases and Blizzard gets cold feet again. Everyone ends up in the same falling point we are now even if it manages a bump for a weekend, two, or even a season.

In my opinion where Blizzard really shot themselves in the foot was with the pet they sold for the PVP stuff in BFA. It was an easy way to generate a ton of cash for these things at almost no cost to themselves. But they got greedy and did some shady marketing magic to end up holding onto most the cash and dropping peanuts out to the players and a lot of the fandom saw it as a betrayal of the money they had put in. So that will probably be less effective going forward. But, if something like that could work and a mount or pet was dropped seasonally for these events and you could take a healthy percentage of that money and invest it into the MDI or PVP tournaments then you would see an influx of cash prizes and benefits going to the players of these things. THEN you introduce more diversity into games with class and affix flips and they are willing to stick around and practice more for these things because they can pay their bills. Suddenly the fandom is satisfied, at least for a while, because we all know in a year or two they will be demanding something more and that is ok. It is what drives it forward.

But right now.. well.. no one is willing to take the first step to make it happen because I feel all sides have been burned by pretty much each other recently. So honestly.. it probably will take a miracle.

[Toybox]

You're assuming that a.) the MDI needs more viewers and b.) that Blizzard is dissatisfied with the current way the MDI plays out. We don't know either of these things and until Blizzard comes out to say that they're looking to make a major shake-up in how it works it seems extremely unlikely to me that anything much will change at all.

It's in a weird spot. Numbers wise, Blizzard might look at it right now & think it's going well (maybe they don't, who knows), but the players definitely take issue with the prizepools currently on offer, which is something that simply isn't going to change unless the viewercount goes up. If it stays as-is and some of the big-named players do decide it's not worth their while, interest will decrease further as the players some might come to watch might not be there.

I can either see it fading out being true to itself, or trying to mix things up with either positive or negative effects. I just think the latter is worth the risk.

[dcc626]

the problem is that what audiences want and what players will do are 2 different things. players will not put in more time or be forced to do more preparation for the mdi. no random affixes, no class bans, none of that. t

[arr0gance]

It's in a weird spot. Numbers wise, Blizzard might look at it right now & think it's going well (maybe they don't, who knows), but the players definitely take issue with the prizepools currently on offer, which is something that simply isn't going to change unless the viewercount goes up. If it stays as-is and some of the big-named players do decide it's not worth their while, interest will decrease further as the players some might come to watch might not be there.

I can either see it fading out being true to itself, or trying to mix things up with either positive or negative effects. I just think the latter is worth the risk.

If they stray too far then is it really even fair to call it the MDI anymore? If they're going to revamp everything then they may as well go back to the drawing board and start over from scratch. I don't necessarily think that this is a bad thing but I think that it's more likely then incremental changes like the stuff suggested in this thread.