The MDI is one of the lamest esports I've seen and I hope the RTWF stays independent.

[Relapses]

What does Lightee retiring tell you about MDI?

That Blizzard has failed to provide a prize pool high enough to warrant the time investment it requires.

I think the biggest problem is that the MDI represents an answer to a question nobody ever asked. The eSportsification of everything is, I guess, the late stage capitalist endgame that was inevitable from the start but it has a bunch of fundamental problems that have yet to be answered:

• Unlike traditional eSports, there isn't a clear Red vs. Blue, good vs. bad paradigm at play. This within itself makes the viewing experience pretty shitty.
• Unlike traditional eSports, casual players are going to want to see their favorite class represented but due to the inherent competitive nature of the event, no sane team would ever intentionally pick a worse comp because they have a "sick Shadow Priest strat" or a "pocket Sub Rogue."
• Additionally, casual players will likely have no fucking idea what half the shit they're viewing even means. It's nice that there's color commentators to help fill in some of the gaps but the fact is that there's so much shit going on from pull to pull that doesn't get discussed that it's kind of a disservice to any viewer who isn't already fairly familiar with how the dungeons work in the first place.
• Blizzard has failed, repeatedly, to actually prepare dungeons for this event. The number of bugs that are encountered at the MDI is quite worrisome and hearing the poor casters try to verbally finesse the fact that Blizzard, yet again, shit the bed in front of an audience of tens and thousands of people is, well, entertaining on one hand but kind of depressing as fuck on the other.

There are no easy fixes to any of these issues so it appears that Blizzard is taking the path of least resistance: Put on the show and hope the audience will follow. After this first cup series I think they'll have a lot reflection to do but without changing a lot about how the MDI works I can't see it achieving anywhere near the success that I'm sure Blizzard would like to see it have.

[Bombercloner]

The patch notes say that Pride will now see through stealth and invisibility. Does that mean bye bye shadowmeld strats? If yes, then I think that will be a nice change.

[Clozer]

The patch notes say that Pride will now see through stealth and invisibility. Does that mean bye bye shadowmeld strats? If yes, then I think that will be a nice change.

Yes. But in future patches with another affix, the Shadowmeld strat could have a comeback. You can also still use Shadowmeld to skip normal trash packs tho.

[Rafalga]

The patch notes say that Pride will now see through stealth and invisibility. Does that mean bye bye shadowmeld strats? If yes, then I think that will be a nice change.

isn't it also used as a pseudo-vanish for trash skips pretty often? i don't see this change effecting the meta comp. at all.

[Devilyaki]

Esports are ruining the game, m+ is cancer and this garbage has no place it wow.

[Aphrel]

Nah, I love watching a boss bug out and kill everyone at 5% and the game not get reset.

The MDI is great.

wich boss? what happend?

[erifwodahs]

Esports are ruining the game, m+ is cancer and this garbage has no place it wow.

M+ is best thing what has happened to wow

[Dwimmerlaik]

M+ is a fantastic mode in WoW (revert the loot though) however all WoW eSports are boring as fuck. The entire game is boring to watch. This is 100% a "game you play" and not a "game you watch." There are zero exciting hooks, no excitement in the content of arena, raiding, or mythic+. There's no push and pull even in PvP. It's boring, forced eSports.

But it's still a great game to play. Blizzard needs to abandon the eSports aspect entirely because it's just.. unnecessary, and frankly awful.

[Specialka]

M+ is best thing what has happened to wow

Can't agree more.

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M+ is a fantastic mode in WoW (revert the loot though) however all WoW eSports are boring as fuck. The entire game is boring to watch. This is 100% a "game you play" and not a "game you watch." There are zero exciting hooks, no excitement in the content of arena, raiding, or mythic+. There's no push and pull even in PvP. It's boring, forced eSports.

But it's still a great game to play. Blizzard needs to abandon the eSports aspect entirely because it's just.. unnecessary, and frankly awful.

Agree with this too.

[Cæli]

who cares...it's a social event for social people...not meant to be related to actual video games at all

[secondgasp]

Esports are ruining the game, m+ is cancer and this garbage has no place it wow.

why though? i think the mdi is incredibly boring to watch and prefer simply watching streams to learn routes but the mdi showcases some neat new tricks and the room for improvement everyone has when they compalin about 10/15s in time being hard when these guys do 15+ and easily 3 chest. would be nice for a community to not impose esports tactics/skill on the community and everyone individually strive for it but i cant think of a community where some aspect about it doesn't become competitive

[Glorious Leader]

M+ is great. It's obviously balanced around and designed for the mdi. The dungeons themselves are balanced around it. That shit needs to end. M+ as a concept is fantastic but the MDI taints that shit.

[ifrah]

The amount of times I've seen non-FotM classes being ditched for not being the MDI top team picks is surprisingly low, so low that I'm not even sure if it has occurred to me at least per se. Also, please take off your rose tinted glasses, and you will come to the awful realization that WoW, much like any other online platform has had its fair share of asshats since day one. M+ did not cause it and neither did MDI or any other scheme you don't like for whatever reasons.
And even though I'm not any more doing the high-ish keys on any regular basis, I still do think that the introduction of M+ was the greatest addition to 5man content in the history of the game. Any complaints of repetitiveness are worth null and void as the whole game has been nothing but repetitive grind since 2004.

The aspect I do agree, however, is that these MDI streams are awfully boring to watch. I tried to watch the VODs few times by just cutting to the chase, but it just doesn't work. Kudos to the top teams for their efforts and creativity, but the game isn't fun to watch, although can be quite a blast to play. Even though I've never plaid CS:GO aside from few occasional times many years ago, I'd still rather watch that any given day. The core concept of that and many other larger esports games is so much simpler, and you have almost zero meta knowledge requirement to understand what's going on. Can't quite say that about most, if not any WoW-related.

[GnomeEU]

I said before. Give them ilvl 200 and let them do 18ies or whatever. So ppl can relate to it.
No best in slot. And no night elf lame stealth. Just the covenant set everyone can get.

And yes dratnos is the only one who's not completely clueless.
If you know most of the classes and abilities and most monster spells you quickly notice that the moderators have no clue what they're talking about.
Dratnos is the only good caster there, even he makes some minor mistakes.
They should have a Blizzard dev there that corrects their mistakes tbh.

If he says oh that Griffon cast that spell under that condition and you can cancel it like that, and he's wrong then that kinda annoys me.

Wow is not football, it's Not an opinion how spells and mechanics work. You need a caster who knows what he / she's talking about.

[intenz]

M+ is awesome but it's so cringe calling it an "esport". There's no real money in it, hardly anyone watches it and WoW pve simply doesn't have the skillcap to make it a spectacle. You get the same 2 teams in every final because they are the only ones with the time to do dungeons all day.

[Finear]

why though? i think the mdi is incredibly boring to watch and prefer simply watching streams to learn routes but the mdi showcases some neat new tricks and the room for improvement everyone has when they compalin about 10/15s in time being hard when these guys do 15+ and easily 3 chest. would be nice for a community to not impose esports tactics/skill on the community and everyone individually strive for it but i cant think of a community where some aspect about it doesn't become competitive

Pretty much nothing mdi team do is applicable to your 10-15 runs, especially pugs but even premades

[Orwell7]

Hah, I never thought about this piece of the puzzle but damn, it's so obvious now.
Their esports department flat-out sucks, just look how freakin FUN heroes of the storm have become after they don't want to cater to some arbitrary standard.

If Blizz games didn't have that authentic Blizzard-look, feeling and the responsiveness of gameplay, they would be looong forgotten.

[Toybox]

I've been thinking about it some more, & all I can really say is I think the MDI deserves to be where it is.

All this recent discussion from people talking about how the MDI needs saving/more funding etc... Am I the only one who thinks that the audience isn't really there, & while Blizzard didn't really do the best job, they just can't force an esport to turn out good/popular (see HotS for a perfect example).

Was talking about it with a guildy, & fighting games are a good example of the opposite. There was no companies holding tournaments, no support from them at all, but the community was there so they pooled together & made their own tournaments & they're fecking huge. If competitive M+ is so good then why can't these folks make their own tournament if it's all Blizzard's fault? Maybe doing 1v1 runs on identical keys would be hard without Blizzard's help, but there's other ways to do it if they couldn't get onto a tournament realm at least.

I don't know... Could Blizzard have done more? Absolutely, but if it was really good to begin with then it wouldn't matter as it'd definitely succeed through player passion, just like fighting games did. Hell actually, you needn't even look at other games - The RTWF was born because the interest was there & the players made it possible. If the interest isn't there for the MDI, & the hours required don't make financial sense for the players, then I'm sorry but that's just the way it is.

[Alatie]

What does Lightee retiring tell you about MDI?

That they dont earn enough money for the effort that they put in.

- - - Updated - - -

Mythic + in general was a terrible idea and poorly executed concept.

Repeating content in this game simply isn't fun. It's not fun to watch either.

M+ did nothing short of saving what is left of wow, if you dont like repeating content a mmorpg is not a game for you.

[Orwell7]

M+ did nothing short of saving what is left of wow, if you dont like repeating content a mmorpg is not a game for you.

See everyone?
This is what Blizzard did to the genre, and it's players.
MMORPG with REPEATING CONTENT? The creators of EQ1, DAoC and so on had a veeery different view.
Blizzard is butchering the genre day-by-day unfortunately.