So mythic+

[Unlimited Power]

I find PuGing to be a dreadful experience in general, and I'm unwilling to commit to any type of schedule, so raids and dungeons are limited to whatever's queueable for me.

[Kaver]

ofc they can . thats was one of main principles of VP farming - overgeared people were getting into instances

But it would not get bad players into harder content e.g above +10 keys.

[amaze123]

Despite I don't think that would be a good solution, Blizzard should technically be able to disable (or partially disable) the APIs to the Armory, and that alone could potentially "break" many sites such as raider.io.

This would "force" good players to also play with "baddies", due to good players not having the amount of information you have today to choose a player for your dungeon (what if you were told that you can only choose a player based on their item level and nothing else? ilvl does not mean much without knowing the player's experience, does it).

Third Party add-ons could then be rewritten to gather that specific data directly in-game (and not through APIs), but even then Blizz could forbid the calls from such add-ons to "priviledged" information, making the add-ons useless (let alone that this solution could only work if everyone installed the add-on, so basically forget about it)

All in all to say that if Blizzard wants, they can do whatever they want to "force" the game into other directions.

Pugging high keys via dungeon browser would die directly and many more closed communities would come up where you can pick player from. With no way for newcomer to enter. Raider.io is working perfectly fine for the pug high key scene, but it is shit for the people below, who try to mirror everything people do in mdi or in the top high level keys. Maybe they should get rid of giving points for everything under +11 whatsoever. Just insert a check that said person has done the dungeon and disregard time and level.

[Kaver]

Despite I don't think that would be a good solution, Blizzard should technically be able to disable (or partially disable) the APIs to the Armory, and that alone could potentially "break" many sites such as raider.io.

This would "force" good players to also play with "baddies", due to good players not having the amount of information you have today to choose a player for your dungeon (what if you were told that you can only choose a player based on their item level and nothing else? ilvl does not mean much without knowing the player's experience, does it).

Third Party add-ons could then be rewritten to gather that specific data directly in-game (and not through APIs), but even then Blizz could forbid the calls from such add-ons to "priviledged" information, making the add-ons useless (let alone that this solution could only work if everyone installed the add-on, so basically forget about it)

All in all to say that if Blizzard wants, they can do whatever they want to "force" the game into other directions.

Sure, Blizzard can do what they want with the game, but you would see a lot of players leave the game if they were forced to waste their time.

[Twdft]

Despite I don't think that would be a good solution, Blizzard should technically be able to disable (or partially disable) the APIs to the Armory, and that alone could potentially "break" many sites such as raider.io.

This would "force" good players to also play with "baddies", due to good players not having the amount of information you have today to choose a player for your dungeon (what if you were told that you can only choose a player based on their item level and nothing else? ilvl does not mean much without knowing the player's experience, does it).

Third Party add-ons could then be rewritten to gather that specific data directly in-game (and not through APIs), but even then Blizz could forbid the calls from such add-ons to "priviledged" information, making the add-ons useless (let alone that this solution could only work if everyone installed the add-on, so basically forget about it)

All in all to say that if Blizzard wants, they can do whatever they want to "force" the game into other directions.

fact #1: you only get a +15 key if you play a +14 key intime
fact #2: not every player is capable of timing a +14

I think most people complaining about r.io think #2 is not true and don't really care about #1. Sure Blizzard could break r.io with like two lines of code, but you can be absolutely certain that a world without such information would lead to fewer pugs, not more. Players struggling to get into their desired keys now will have no chance whatsoever pugging them then.

[Science451]

Sure, Blizzard can do what they want with the game, but you would see a lot of players leave the game if they were forced to waste their time.

Despite I agree with you, for the sake of discussion I could argue that the opposite argument is JUST as valid: Blizzard could potentially loose a lot of "paying baddies" who would quit the game for the exact same reasons (ie not being able to join a very strict community that, for whatever reason, basically closed the doors to players who can't play the game properly).

Now the real question is: What is the count of "good players" vs "bad players"? If Blizzard has a way to evaluate paying customers and categorize them accordingly, they could then take a wise business decision and let the game go in the direction where more paying customers are going. I obviously have no data to assume either the baddies or the good players are more, but I believe the answer to such question is the basis on which Blizzard will run their business in the future (let's not forget that Activision is part of the game now, so we're talking about $$$ only, unlike before where Blizzard cared more about the game).

So don't be blinded by the fact that few good players may quit the game. There may be a circumstance (or there may be not) where Blizzard has already taken that into account and will still run in favour of making their business more profitable than else.

My 2 cents ofc. Happy to be wrong

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Pugging high keys via dungeon browser would die directly and many more closed communities would come up where you can pick player from. With no way for newcomer to enter. Raider.io is working perfectly fine for the pug high key scene, but it is shit for the people below, who try to mirror everything people do in mdi or in the top high level keys. Maybe they should get rid of giving points for everything under +11 whatsoever. Just insert a check that said person has done the dungeon and disregard time and level.

While I agree with you that many more closed communities would come up as a consequence, I don't agree with you that pugging high keys via dungeon browser would die. Again, we're talking about estimated numbers here (that neither me or you know for real anyways), and the fact there are people who would only play with people they know in order to ensure the great success of a dungeon run DOES NOT mean that everyone plays the game like that. Casuals in the game are also a lot, and those casuals would continue to play using the dungeon finder no matter what (which is exactly what happens today for people who don't have a good r.io score anyways lol).

You have a very good input though, when you talk about getting rid of giving points for everything under +11. IMHO that would already solve a lot of drama.

[ID811717]

ofc they can . thats was one of main principles of VP farming - overgeared people were getting into instances

They can do that but that would probably be a bad design decision. I'm 2.5k++ on my main, so every time I queue up for a +10 on my main or any of my alts, I take a spot of a player who needs a weekly. Every time I queue for someone's group, they might consider setting a score requirement above 1k to join their group, just by the law of supply and demand. If anything, Blizzard should disincentivize me to queue up for low dungeons.

You have a very good input though, when you talk about getting rid of giving points for everything under +11. IMHO that would already solve a lot of drama.

Would that actually fix anything? I guess it depends on what problem you are trying to solve. But anyone who requires 1.1k-1.2k score to join their weekly run, will still be able to require that score.

[Zenfoldor]

What can Blizzard do? They can’t force good players to play with bad players.

The answer is when they take over raider.io they can reduce the amount and type of data offered to 3rd party sites so you can no longer judge others based on a complete picture of their play history.

Then they can lay out the new raider.io to appear to offer the same data as the old raider.io, but it really will not. One way to trick us into believing it is the same at first would be the change the layout to some sort of gui that lists players history in a graphical representation. They will have to be sneaky, making it appear all is similar but when you dig features are missing. Perhaps this new data would only allow a viewer to see the most recent version of that instance.....well actually I'm getting into the weeds and not explaining this well. Let me start over.

Okay, say raider.io could tell how long each individual toon had been subscribed. Say I created a new toon this xpak, and my raider.io for that toon would say I have been subscribed since the xpak started.

Now let's say the community saw this, and decided that just to be safe, they would not invite any toon to mythic+ who was only subscribed or created within the last year.

That creates no problem, correct? Because we can just start our own group.

However, it actually does create a problem. It creates an onerous requirement to play the game, which is not what was originally intended by the developers.

Just a quick definition:

Onerous
on·er·ous
/ˈōnərəs,ˈänərəs/
adjective
(of a task, duty, or responsibility) involving an amount of effort and difficulty that is oppressively burdensome.
"he found his duties increasingly onerous"

So this onerous requirement is now out in the community. What can Blizzard do to stop it? They certainly can't ask the community to do anything, what is the correct MECHANICAL way to address this issue?

Well, the answer is of course to stop providing that information to 3rd party websites, so it can no longer be used as an onerous requirement.

This is how Blizzard will bring raider.io back in. They will bring it into the UI for a number of reasons, one of which is to prevent backlash. It is a lot easier to remove features from a new UI interface than it is to remove them from a new version of existing software. Even worse, if that existing software is not actually yours.

So bring it into the UI, reduce the data provided to the end user and 3rd party users, specifically to combat onerous requirements, and that is how you resolve the issue without creating a large revolt(there will still be a big one).

[Kaver]

The answer is when they take over raider.io they can reduce the amount and type of data offered to 3rd party sites so you can no longer judge others based on a complete picture of their play history.

Then they can lay out the new raider.io to appear to offer the same data as the old raider.io, but it really will not. One way to trick us into believing it is the same at first would be the change the layout to some sort of gui that lists players history in a graphical representation. They will have to be sneaky, making it appear all is similar but when you dig features are missing. Perhaps this new data would only allow a viewer to see the most recent version of that instance.....well actually I'm getting into the weeds and not explaining this well. Let me start over.

Okay, say raider.io could tell how long each individual toon had been subscribed. Say I created a new toon this xpak, and my raider.io for that toon would say I have been subscribed since the xpak started.

Now let's say the community saw this, and decided that just to be safe, they would not invite any toon to mythic+ who was only subscribed or created within the last year.

That creates no problem, correct? Because we can just start our own group.

However, it actually does create a problem. It creates an onerous requirement to play the game, which is not what was originally intended by the developers.

Just a quick definition:

Onerous
on·er·ous
/ˈōnərəs,ˈänərəs/
adjective
(of a task, duty, or responsibility) involving an amount of effort and difficulty that is oppressively burdensome.
"he found his duties increasingly onerous"

So this onerous requirement is now out in the community. What can Blizzard do to stop it? They certainly can't ask the community to do anything, what is the correct MECHANICAL way to address this issue?

Well, the answer is of course to stop providing that information to 3rd party websites, so it can no longer be used as an onerous requirement.

This is how Blizzard will bring raider.io back in. They will bring it into the UI for a number of reasons, one of which is to prevent backlash. It is a lot easier to remove features from a new UI interface than it is to remove them from a new version of existing software. Even worse, if that existing software is not actually yours.

So bring it into the UI, reduce the data provided to the end user and 3rd party users, specifically to combat onerous requirements, and that is how you resolve the issue without creating a large revolt(there will still be a big one).

Thank you for your view/opinion. No need for the condescending tone.

A lot of players (including myself) would leave the groups the minute they discovered the level of skill because they don't want to waste time on people who don't know mechanics/tactics. Blizzard might trick us into the groups, but that doesn't mean we will stay in the groups once we know the truth.

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It creates an onerous requirement to play the game, which is not what was originally intended by the developers.

I don't think this is true. A MMORPG should by nature be demanding to play. Making groups "by hand" is a part of the experience.

When you say "originally", do you then refer to the original game from around 2004-2007?

[Zenfoldor]

Thank you for your view/opinion. No need for the condescending tone.

A lot of players (including myself) would leave the groups the minute they discovered the level of skill because they don't want to waste time on people who don't know mechanics/tactics. Blizzard might trick us into the groups, but that doesn't mean we will stay in the groups once we know the truth.

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I don't think this is true. A MMORPG should by nature be demanding to play. Making groups "by hand" is a part of the experience.

When you say "originally", do you then refer to the original game from around 2004-2007?

Sorry, I did not intentionally have a condescending tone. That was a miscommunication caused by our communication method(text only). I only meant to express my opinion clearly. Thanks!

[thebdc]

Blizzard is even using raider.io as their leaderboards and bracket in the MDI, anyone who thinks Blizzard will stop supplying the data anytime soon is completely delusional. Filtering players is just a necessity for successful M+ runs. So without raider.io Blizzard themselves would have to somehow rate the players, but as we can see in this discussion, that task is a very dirty one, and entitled people will feel pissed off. So why should Blizzard take all the heat if an external site will take it, and Blizzard can keep their hands from getting dirty?

[Science451]

Blizzard is even using raider.io as their leaderboards and bracket in the MDI, anyone who thinks Blizzard will stop supplying the data anytime soon is completely delusional. Filtering players is just a necessity for successful M+ runs. So without raider.io Blizzard themselves would have to somehow rate the players, but as we can see in this discussion, that task is a very dirty one, and entitled people will feel pissed off. So why should Blizzard take all the heat if an external site will take it, and Blizzard can keep their hands from getting dirty?

I only agree with you on the "anytime soon" part. If you're implying that just because Blizzard is using raider.io now for their leaderboards and bracket in the MDI, they won't be able to follow a different route in the future, then I think there is the same chance for you to be the delusional one as well. As I already mentioned, it's all about numbers and what numbers get them more money, which is the #1 reason why this could (or could not, depending on the numbers which I don't know) happen, even if it comes at the cost of getting their hands dirty. MONEY, my friend They run the world, you know? If they can build/use a similar system to raider.io in-game, which would result in a monetary advantage for them by having more subs, then they could very well build it. It's not like something similar hasn't happened in the past: When there was no dungeon finder tool, people were setting up mythic+ groups through forum groups and other means, but then the Dungeon Finder Tool came! .... there was no need for the skiller players for a dungeon finder tool because these people already have their circle of friends or groups to play with, but heeeey they implemented it anyways.... surely to help the casuals more than the people who already have those groups.... when people were using Ventrilo or TeamSpeak (before Discord came into play), Blizzard then implemented their own in-game voice tool - they didn't need to, but they did. When they nerf a class despite people tell them they're doing something wrong (or boost their newly created class to sell more...), to make another part of the playerbase happy.... they do it! Right? They get their hands dirty in all these cases... The list could go on... Whether they do it now or in a distant future, or whether they do it at all is a different topic. Something like this may never happen, obviously. We're just discussing here.