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

[ydraw]

You have 2 opposing problems, how do you solve both of them so that both parties are satisfied?

1. Players want to play m+ but cant because they are being gatekeeped.

This problem doesn't exist though. You are not being gatekeeped, you can always run your own key. Sometimes this isn't an option if you want to run a specific dungeon, but mostly players are just too lazy to form their own groups.

You only have to level up your key once in the expansion to always have a +10/+15 key of your own to run each week.

[Bozey17]

This problem doesn't exist though. You are not being gatekeeped, you can always run your own key. Sometimes this isn't an option if you want to run a specific dungeon, but mostly players are just too lazy to form their own groups.

You only have to level up your key once in the expansion to always have a +10/+15 key of your own to run each week.

It does exist though? Try joining a 15 pug on a dps alt with no io score, you will not be invited. Sure, you can start your own group, but anyone with a brain will just invite those who are high io and playing meta specs/classes because that is what gives you the greatest chance at success. So you just become the gatekeeper, not everyone wants to or even should be leading groups in the first place. I've left a tons of groups in the past because the leader was clueless and I could tell that those runs would be a waste of my time.

Having inexperienced group leaders is a terrible advice to give as now you are ruining the run for 4 other people just so you can go get your item. I'd rather have a soloable / flexible group size version of m+ where the noob can try, fail, overcome, and become successful without inconveniencing other players. At the same time this solves all the other social issues that come up with mandatory group sizes, as discussed at length in this thread, including the tank shortage.

[Lucyx]

Gearscore is literally still in the game, it's called Item Level.

So it couldn't have been that bad.

[Wuusah]

It does exist though? Try joining a 15 pug on a dps alt with no io score, you will not be invited. Sure, you can start your own group, but anyone with a brain will just invite those who are high io and playing meta specs/classes because that is what gives you the greatest chance at success. So you just become the gatekeeper, not everyone wants to or even should be leading groups in the first place. I've left a tons of groups in the past because the leader was clueless and I could tell that those runs would be a waste of my time.

Having inexperienced group leaders is a terrible advice to give as now you are ruining the run for 4 other people just so you can go get your item. I'd rather have a soloable / flexible group size version of m+ where the noob can try, fail, overcome, and become successful without inconveniencing other players. At the same time this solves all the other social issues that come up with mandatory group sizes, as discussed at length in this thread, including the tank shortage.

You’re only an inexperienced group leader if you skip levels. Thats the whole problem here. If you have no experience in a dungeon, then why do you want to do a +15 in there?

If you have experience in a dungeon then people will invite you. If you want to join a +15, then do a +13-14 first. If you want to do +13-14 then do +11-12 first, etc.
People will invite you if you have experience. It’s a bullshit excuse to say you won’t get invited into +15 with +14 experience. You won’t get invited into every group but a lot of people will invite you with +14 exp.

[ydraw]

It does exist though? Try joining a 15 pug on a dps alt with no io score, you will not be invited. Sure, you can start your own group, but anyone with a brain will just invite those who are high io and playing meta specs/classes because that is what gives you the greatest chance at success. So you just become the gatekeeper, not everyone wants to or even should be leading groups in the first place..

You don't have to "lead the group" though, just because you created the group. The tank will be effectively leading the group. All you have to do is invite people. It's really not that hard. If you invite people who have good scores on their mains, no leading is required, they will all know what to do already.

I've done it myself, on a fresh 120 hunter, in 8.2 when hunters were not a meta class. Started with a +2 key in blue gear and had it +13 by the end of the day. And this is something you only ever have to do once on each character, once you've got your +15 key you can pretty easily keep it that level doing a couple of dungeons a week.

- - - Updated - - -

Gearscore is literally still in the game, it's called Item Level.

So it couldn't have been that bad.

Gearscore was bad because at the time, the best way to get a higher ilvl was to get welfare PvP gear. Oh and it also lagged everyone off the server. So not only was it useless, it was actively ruining the game.

[Tziva]

Aside from just the technical issues is caused, Gearscore did also influence bad player behaviour (that's not why Blizzard banned it, but it's a fair criticism of the tool). Because it ranked entirely on gear and because it was the ubiquitous standard that people had to worry about being judged by, people started overvaluing ilvl over actual item value. Within my raid, some people stopped spreadsheeting/simming and just always went for the highest ilvl pieces, regardless of whether they were actually good for them, and likewise avoided lower ilvl pieces that were very powerful, because they knew they'd be judged unfairly for those things. Worse than just artificially crippling your own numbers, some players got so hyperfocused on item level that they'd roll on stuff that was outside their armorclass, or a sidegrade (or at least a much bigger upgrade for another player), etc, just because it raised their gear score, which was damaging to the team as a whole. The peak of its popularity was when I finally had to set explicit loot rules because the previous rule of "don't be a dick" when bidding on loot wasn't cutting it. Previously people had been very good about looking out for each other and being agreeable to making sure gear went to the places we needed it most.

That said, as with raider.io or achievements or parses, I don't blame tool but rather the community's misuse or overvaluing of said tool. That is always a fault of people's reductionism and desire to distill everything down to a simple ranked number rather than full reviewing the bigger picture. Nor do I fault the raid and group leaders for using these types of tools to try to build the best group possible and increase their odds of success. But I do think that the community does tend to get hyperfocused on the number itself and get lazy about truly evaluating things. Luckily, nowadays we have so many different tools available to us that it's very easy to get an accurate broad picture of where someone is at, from their gear to their experience to their actual throughput in fights.