M+ Hot Take: M+ is not meant to be pugged

[talmir]

[QUOTE=Coldkil;53861550]Makes actual sense. In the end, most people who pug go for 15s because of the gear and there's zero interest in pushing (i include myself in the category).

When I look at the pugs looking for people the majority of them are higher than 15's. The lower ones do get filled faster, true, but higher keys are definately present.

[Loveliest]

306 registered teams on raiderio over 19.5M runs in S3 alone. I don't think your opinion has any place in this OP. Nor does anyone elses.

What's a registered team? I play with friends and guildies only, like my friends and guildies. Are we registered or? Because we don't count as pugs.

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Got my mount playing almost exclusively pugs due to my schedule this season. Out of all the dungeons to get to 2500, i maybe had 2 truly negative experiences. In fact, i actually added about 10 people to my friends list that i enjoyed running with so much. Longest I waited for a group was 15 minutes. I was playing Destruction Lock and all my gear was kept up as best i could (I don't raid). I would make groups or join groups, no one more than the other. It was actually such an enjoyable experience i will likely do that on a character in Dragonflight going forward.

Yeah but did you play with the added friends? They don't count as pugs themselves anymore if so. Because THIS was the point of pugging. To make friends to make things easier.

[Nalam the Venom]

I’m not the one who’s key gets depleted if we don’t ”Perform” well, So i don’t really care.

It’s the leaders responsibility to invite good people for clean runs.

[Loveliest]

I pugged M+ this entire expansion and my experience has been the same as yours. Sure you get a few bad eggs here and there but overall it's been just fine. My theory is the people running into all of these problems are generally the ones causing them or adding to them. Plus ya know, it's mmo-champion, judging from how people generally seem to be on here it definitely makes sense in a pug group when even the slightest thing goes wrong they'd be the first to start raging and leave XD

I have a very high rio friend. He's very toxic. I watch his runs on disc sometimes. He leaves mid run with insults when someone makes something go wrong. He blames his attitude from playing LoL. Either way, he doesn't complain about others being toxic. So ppl who are toxic don't necessarily complain about toxicity.

That being said, I think you're looking at it the wrong way. Some people have ticker skin and a few bad runs don't register as much. For others, a few bad runs are enough to make them feel uncomfortable and call the pugging scene toxic. For example, I used to pug. Had two cases back in Legion: a weirdo who refused to dps halfway through the instance unless I gave him leadership of the group, saying that way he can ensure we don't kick him at the end. The second one, a warrior who kept running ahead and yelling at the healer for not dpsing when he was bearly kept alive. Those two experiences were enough for me to just say no to pugging. Because I am here for fun and don't want some random stranger ruining that, no matter how rare it happens. I still get pugs here in there, in some situations, but usually only if a friend needs help and I can't find enough of my friends to help him out.

[talmir]

I have a very high rio friend. He's very toxic. I watch his runs on disc sometimes. He leaves mid run with insults when someone makes something go wrong. He blames his attitude from playing LoL. Either way, he doesn't complain about others being toxic. So ppl who are toxic don't necessarily complain about toxicity.

That being said, I think you're looking at it the wrong way. Some people have ticker skin and a few bad runs don't register as much. For others, a few bad runs are enough to make them feel uncomfortable and call the pugging scene toxic. For example, I used to pug. Had two cases back in Legion: a weirdo who refused to dps halfway through the instance unless I gave him leadership of the group, saying that way he can ensure we don't kick him at the end. The second one, a warrior who kept running ahead and yelling at the healer for not dpsing when he was bearly kept alive. Those two experiences were enough for me to just say no to pugging. Because I am here for fun and don't want some random stranger ruining that, no matter how rare it happens. I still get pugs here in there, in some situations, but usually only if a friend needs help and I can't find enough of my friends to help him out.

yeah. Pugs used to bother me personally. Been playing since vanilla so I've seen a few. They used to anger me. These days I pug a lot. I am not a high ranked player (2377 atm, started playing late in the season after a short break) so I mostly pug 15's atm. If the pug goes well, thats great. If it implodes, I dont mind either. I know what I signed up for. Having guilds and dedicated groups is heaps better than pugging, but the whole "Pugging is a hellscape" thing seems to come from the players who cant take it when things dont go their way. If you dont want to pug, dont. Nobody is forcing anyone to do so. Let those that want to pug do so with whatever content they want. The whole premise behind this whole thread is based on the very limited experiences of a player that had bad experiences with pugging.

Always remember when you see complaints or stories about pugs going wrong that you will rarely, if ever, see the stories from the majority where things went well. So if you are already on the opinion that pugs suck then confirmation bias will kick in hard.

[Gorsameth]

How is this a hot take? No M+ is not designed to be pugged. You can pug it, obviously, but the feature is designed for pre-made group play.
Which is also why its not in the Dungeon Finder.

[richardhuntr]

Most of this game isn't designed to be pugged (with the exception of LFR where it's very hard not to pug, unless you happen to have 30 friends on who don't want to do normal)

I would argue most multi-player games of any sort aren't meant to be pugged, it's just that playing with stangers is an answer when the alternative is no play at all until friends come online.

[ellieg]

Agree. Season 2 I got KSM with my guild and it was fun. Season 3 and guild went inactive that tier so tried to pug groups. Have to sit there for like 2 hours to try to get into a group and like 80% of the time someone would leave before first boss.

Every single time I hear abt waiting 2 hrs to get into a group its because your rio score is too low. If you are pugging, you have to do it incrementally. Dont queue for 15s at 1500 score. Dont queue for 10s until you've done each dungeon on at least 5. Keep all your keys within q levels of eachother and don't try to jump up more than 1-2 levels at a time.

Or push your own key. Drop it if u managed to climb it too high and no one queues for ur group cause ur rating is green

[Nzx]

it is as if Blizzard is trying to de-incentivize solo play.

All of the rest of what you've said is over-dramatized bullshit that doesn't actually happen in real life, but god I wish this particular statement were true. Fuck solo play.

e:

Every single time I hear abt waiting 2 hrs to get into a group its because your rio score is too low. If you are pugging, you have to do it incrementally. Dont queue for 15s at 1500 score. Dont queue for 10s until you've done each dungeon on at least 5. Keep all your keys within q levels of eachother and don't try to jump up more than 1-2 levels at a time.

Or push your own key. Drop it if u managed to climb it too high and no one queues for ur group cause ur rating is green

Stop talking sense. On these forums we just bitch about not being immediately accepted into a +20 as a feral druid the second you apply despite never having cleared a +5 because everyone else is an "elitist" and a "meta slave" except you and you're a special snowflake and a DPS god they just don't know it because no one will give you a chance

[ellieg]

All of the rest of what you've said is over-dramatized bullshit that doesn't actually happen in real life, but god I wish this particular statement were true. Fuck solo play.

e:


Stop talking sense. On these forums we just bitch about not being immediately accepted into a +20 as a feral druid the second you apply despite never having cleared a +5 because everyone else is an "elitist" and a "meta slave" except you and you're a special snowflake and a DPS god they just don't know it because no one will give you a chance

But im the best and other players should just automatically know that. Rio is completely toxic and not just literally a resume full of my dungeon experience or lack there of

[Kumorii]

No issues puging m+
Well, wait times can be a bitch at times.

rarely get toxicity.
Firmly believe the ones that constantly encounter toxicity is probably contributing to it.

[KrayZ33]

Makes actual sense. In the end, most people who pug go for 15s because of the gear and there's zero interest in pushing (i include myself in the category).

You can see that's a huge drop in partecipation after rewards stop coming.

What exactly makes "sense" with that though.
What would change? For what reason would you change it and how would that change achieve it?

It makes as much sense as limiting the Autobahn to 600km/h

You still have people pugging +15 where toxic players are probably the most frequent
and it would "incentivise group play" even more...

You are just removing the "solo players" from the content as anyone without a team can't do jack in terms of pushing rating etc.

[Icemix]

They are hardly toxic at all. I slowly pug my way up to ksm every season and its no where near as bad as ppl make it out to be. Learn the dungeon mechanics, learn the important interrupts, and no how to do your role. Once u got that down, you can absolutely carry most keys by yourself.

If you encounter a lot of toxicity, its usually something you are doing.
Examples:
No interrupts
Bad dps
Failing mechanics
Taking a bunch of avoidable damage

If you aren't doing the above but still encountering toxicity, then you should pick your groups better.
Invite players more carefully.
Don't join +15 keys of 1200 rio players
Build your comp better

this.so much this!
I'm no pro by any means, I just try my best to perform to my best abilities and don't hold the group back. When I am the last DPS out of 3 at the end of the dungeon, I know I've reached my key limit and just stick to that level untill I am confident about my contribution. I pugged all dungeons in s2 and s3 up to level 20 on my dps, max I did was 18 on my tank and even that with guildies, because I just wasn't confident enough in my own abilities. Most importantly: if I mess up, I own it and apologize. 99% of the time there is 0 backslash.

Doing it like this, I can safely say that I have barely encountered any toxic behaviour in the game. Calling others out for their stupid mistake (not talking about honest mistakes, I'm referring to the "smashing my keyboard, this guy is an idiot" kind of mistake) isn't toxic in my book.

[bloodwulf]

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Yeah but did you play with the added friends? They don't count as pugs themselves anymore if so. Because THIS was the point of pugging. To make friends to make things easier.

In the 33 dungeons it took to go from no rating to 2500 rating, I maybe ran with guildies 3-5 times, and one random added friend 1-3 times. I pugged the large majority. And nothing magically changed when i ran with random bear druid twice, its not like we switched to voice or changed strats. We just ran again and had other pugs in the group. Seems kinda arbitrary to try to gatekeep or say someone's experience is not genuine.

Per my recap, in 33 dungeons i played with 31 specs and a 165 different people. No person i ran more than 5 dungeons, and only one i ran 5 dungeons with (guild hunter). I think its safe to say i experienced the range of players going from +2 to +17s. End the season at 2507.8 rating, after i got my mount i stopped running M+ for the season cause i was really tired of the SL dungeons.

[melzas]

In my experience people who complain about toxic are the toxic ones themselves (or at least they trigger toxic people).

I've been pugging KSM every season since last season of BFA, and I've seen only a couple instances of truely toxic players (I mean people getting angry to the point of sabotaging the key).

Maybe I just have a thick skin tough, I don't really care if someone gets salty or points out obvious mistakes as long as he keeps doing his job.

Personally I'm more annoyed when people with high score fail at simple mechanics causing wipes/failed timer than with someone who is rude for whatever reason. I can mute annoying rude people, not much I can do about someone failing and ruining the key.

[Evolixe]

Makes actual sense. In the end, most people who pug go for 15s because of the gear and there's zero interest in pushing (i include myself in the category).

You can see that's a huge drop in partecipation after rewards stop coming.

No it doesn't make any sense. So what if participation drops at a higher level?

Do you guys even play this shit? Again, if you don't play something.. don't fuck about with it. M+ is just fine the way it is.
If someone doen't like the friction they should play something else as high level content is clearly not for them.

[Lolites]

Firmly believe the ones that constantly encounter toxicity is probably contributing to it.

pretty much this

[Tojara]

I rarely witnessed toxicity in pugs, especially when you go past 15s. Unironically the lower you go the more I witness 'toxicity', but I will admit the amount of time I've done keys lower than 15 is few in number (normally when I'm the only one around trying to boost a friend slowly).

Most of the hate I see in keys is almost always directed at the tank or healer. I've seen tanks barrel into necrotic weeks with zero intention of kiting, only for the entire group to jump on the healers back saying that the healer is shitty. I've also witnessed tanks get deleted on enrage mobs that double enrage on specific weeks be called out for being a shitty tank, despite two people in the group being capable of dispelling enrage (or the group forms without a single enrage dispel). I think the single most common constant in pug groups is people critiquing your route telling you it's shit, despite giving zero feed back or uh... trying to lead from the start. It's not every time, but tanks have a weird secondary role where they 95% of the time are expected to both design the route.

On it's base though M+ is suppose to be the 'hard mode' of dungeons, and typically in said content it's suppose to be somewhat organized.

Best tips I ever have for people doing keys around the 15 level is that you normally have enough time and it's okay to take your time. I've seen more keys lost as people try to zip past patrolling mobs or fail to mention that they will be using invisibility pots at certain locations. Essentially take the path of least resistance, assume people aren't going to use consumables, and do the easiest mobs in the instance even if it means going slightly over count. I know it wastes time, but watching people in full pugs try to skip both of those plague belcher mobs before the first boss in Plaguefall is probably going to end up as a disaster. You don't have to let the tank decide the entire route, and healers you're allowed to run up to the next pack then sit down and drink while the pack is engaged. Sitting there waiting to drink to full as your tank barrels off in the opposite direction is a communication error between the both of you.

M+ from a difficulty standpoint really doesn't need to be changed. It's okay if it doesn't appeal to everyone, but it's clear a large amount of people do. The last time that Blizzard nuked something that was really popular was 10/25 split raiding. Anecdotal, but I'd guess it likely nuked the raiding population as a result.

[Algorath]

I disagree with you.

If you don't want to do M+ with pugs - don't. Join an active guild, make friends, play with them, push together.

If you do want to do M+ with pugs - Roll the dice, occasionally get thrown into some toxic groups, let those guys be toxic, move on.

In my experience, you can easily get your vault full of 15+ in pugs, but if you really wanna push, then you need to get on discord with a good group of mates and throw yourselves into it. Great fun and rewarding either way

[Relapses]

M+ from a difficulty standpoint really doesn't need to be changed. It's okay if it doesn't appeal to everyone, but it's clear a large amount of people do. The last time that Blizzard nuked something that was really popular was 10/25 split raiding. Anecdotal, but I'd guess it likely nuked the raiding population as a result.

It nuked "casual hardcore" raiding, which were 10H guilds that had no real intention of clearing a raid instance but wanted a seat at the "endgame raider" table anyway. M+ largely fills the gap for these players today, though every once and awhile we'll get the quarterly "DAE 10M best raiding ever and Blizzard hates its players for removing it????" thread.