Was Mythic + a bad idea ?

[cparle87]

Sort of.

I know a lot of people who quit, not directly because of it, but certainly indirectly because of it.

Mythic+, along with titanforging as it was in legion, caused a lot of players to burn out.

The idea of basicly infinately scaling difficulty and rewards, in a game where players strife for obtaining the best possible gear, ain't great.
But it's a sad trend that started way earlier, with the seperations of raids in wotlk.

You went from:
Classic: Quests -> Dungeons -> Raids
TBC: Quests -> Dungeons -> HC Dungeons -> Raids
WotLK: Quests -> Dungeons -> HC Dungeons -> 10man raids -> 10man HC/25man raids - > 25man HC raids
Cataclysm: Quests -> Dungeons -> HC Dungeons -> Raidfinder -> 10man raids -> 10man HC/25man raids - > 25man HC raids
MoP: Quests -> Dungeons -> HC Dungeons -> Raidfinder -> normal raids -> HC raids - Mythic Raids
WoD: Same as above
Legion: Quests -> Dungeons -> World Quests -> HC Dungeons -> Raidfinder -> Mythic+0 -> Normal raids -> Mythic+X -> HC raids -> Mythic+Y -> Mythic Raids/Mythic+Z
BFA: Same
Shadowlands: Same

There have basicly been added more and more levels of difficulty and rewards, making the previous tiers basicly irrellevant. Added on to that, the fact that you can basicly keep grinding mythics forever in hopes of the best drops in the game, when paired with the player mentality of having to min/max everything, kills the enjoyment for a lot of people. Sure, some people like it, but a lot of people miss the time where they could have a list of items to aim for, and feel they achieved it when they get one of the pieces of loot they were after.

The removal of titanforging helped the issue a bit, but the core issue is still mythic+.



Well, that's at least my - somewhat incoherent - view on the matter.

The elephant in the room was WoD. The era when people DID get done, only raidlogged cause there was nothing more, and came onto these forums in a flaming rage about how this expansion was the worst thing ever, a stigma that unfairly remains to this day. Blizzard is so terrified of people being able to say they're done that they're going to keep adding these systems. In Blizzard's eyes they see it as the hardcores can grind as much as they want for a small increase over everyone else and the middlecore have something to do once the meat and potatoes are done. But sadly the playerbase has just seen it as something they "forced" to do or they'll "fall behind" even if they're not hardcore or even middlecore.

[GucciWarr]

What about those that "combat" M+ and write long replies what should they get?

idk, they dont need much. Anyone who doesn't support M+ has hella clout, mad bitches (yknw the ones with they ass clappin), and doesn't need anything that the world of warcraft can offer them.

[Alroxas]

Nope. I should be able to raid with high-end guilds without "no-lifing" the game. When you get older and have a family you don't have time to do this, and when the only reason you play the game is to raid HARD content (Mythic), and you have the skill to do it, you shouldn't have to endlessly grind dungeons to have a chance to get loot. It's degenerate. I just want to raid Mythic, why the heck do I have to grind the same boring dungeon over and over again?

I think you're missing my point. The issue is that not all high-end guilds require "no-lifing" the game. Wasn't there a blind/deaf member group that cleared some Mythic raids?

And it doesn't have to be a huge time sink either, I recall there was several guilds that did 1 night a week Mythic raiding. Just 1 night for progression so they do exist.

Uhm.. Cataclysm dungeons on release were freaking amazing... This was a way better dudgeon design approach.

Again missing the point. The problem with cataclysm dungeons was that you started the xpac with 8 dungeons but then shifted to 2 dungeons (Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub) and then finally to the last 3. Because M+ didn't exist back then, you had no real reason to be running the first 8 dungeons for end-game content because the later dungeons gave better/higher loot.

So instead of having all dungeons stay relevant all xpac long (which is what we get right now with M+), you only had a small handful of dungeons that were "relevant". So in terms of variety you were running the same 3 dungeons over and over again instead of a wider pool of 8+ dungeons.

No. Just get rid of the infinite dungeons grinds / randomness.

What MMO currently on the market doesn't have some sort of a grind? MSQs, tokens/currencies to get doing XYZ to then buy gear, etc.

I should be able to, isn't that the purpose of LFG?

Not originally? The original target audience of M+ (as stated by Ion) was not PuGs. Granted the community at large is treating M+ to be PuGGable but honestly, that's the general risk of running any key with literally strangers compared to running keys with players that a previous social relationship has already been established.

Basically, a guildmate/friend is less likely to screw you over because they know what the penalty is. A random stranger whom you're likely never to meet again isn't bound by that social dynamic and doesn't care.

And some would say that the tools that have been developed as a part of M+ being added (i.e. R.io or M+ score) gives group leaders a way to estimate an applicant's potential skill/knowledge. It's not fully accurate but at least it's better than not having said tools.

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What's the problem with players selling their services in PvE endgame? I am against RMT and more should be done to curb it, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with players selling their time and services.

Sure if they would restrict their advertising to the channels that they are allowed (i.e. trade chat). To see LFG filled up with these advertisements can be annoying.

Honestly we should get gold bounties for reporting these players and that gold should be taken from the advertisers accounts (from their mains)

[jeezusisacasual]

Perhaps instead of doing something you dont want to do for a slight edge if there is one would be to ya know just say no. I myself dont raid and i literally pug my own KSM ( this season was elemental / Resto shaman first season it was all 3 flavors of Druid and next will be Monk ) was it expected of me to have shards? no. It did not stop me from getting invites at all. Tell the people you raid with that you dont have time or a want to do it, its that simple.

I do not know why people always assume the absolute worst all the time.

[Relapses]

The elephant in the room was WoD. The era when people DID get done, only raidlogged cause there was nothing more, and came onto these forums in a flaming rage about how this expansion was the worst thing ever, a stigma that unfairly remains to this day. Blizzard is so terrified of people being able to say they're done that they're going to keep adding these systems. In Blizzard's eyes they see it as the hardcores can grind as much as they want for a small increase over everyone else and the middlecore have something to do once the meat and potatoes are done. But sadly the playerbase has just seen it as something they "forced" to do or they'll "fall behind" even if they're not hardcore or even middlecore.

I don't think WoD is remembered poorly because of the fact that you could "finish" the game. They dislike it because one of its content patches added nothing of value to the game (a fact that Blizzard has themselves acknowledged as a folly). I consider WoD my favorite expansion because of the raiding but even I wouldn't blame most people for feeling there wasn't much to do. I don't know if all of the expansion's issues can be explained away by the lack of engaging casual content but I will concede that the biggest difference from WoD to Legion is that fact that Blizzard did give casual players a lot more to play with via World Quests and Titanforging. (The latter being acknowledged as a mistake in its own right.)

[oplawlz]

The elephant in the room was WoD. The era when people DID get done, only raidlogged cause there was nothing more, and came onto these forums in a flaming rage about how this expansion was the worst thing ever, a stigma that unfairly remains to this day.

This ignores the many, MANY other things that were wrong with WoD. Adding the mobile game element was probably the biggest issue with that expansion, and its something they've repeated in every expac since, proving that they do not in fact make changes based on what the playerbase does or does not like.

[cparle87]

I don't think WoD is remembered poorly because of the fact that you could "finish" the game. They dislike it because one of its content patches added nothing of value to the game (a fact that Blizzard has themselves acknowledged as a folly).

I've taken a look at the so-called selfie patch. And with the hotfixes, tuning, quests, and other non-raid content it did add I'd put it ahead of the weather patch from vanilla and the voip patch from BC. Their only problem was marketting it as a X.1(2?) instead of a X.1.5 or whatever. People misread it.

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This ignores the many, MANY other things that were wrong with WoD. Adding the mobile game element was probably the biggest issue with that expansion, and its something they've repeated in every expac since, proving that they do not in fact make changes based on what the playerbase does or does not like.

Couple problem heres. Nobody can speak for the player base. If every forum posters on this place agreed with you that would be a thousandth of a percent of the playerbase. Do not speak for anyone but yourself, or you're running into the argumentum ad populum fallacy. Adding a knockoff auto chess to the game is not some horrible, terrible thing the playerbase has turned into a boogeyman.

[epigramx]

WoD. The era when people DID get done, only raidlogged cause there was nothing more, and came onto these forums in a flaming rage about how this expansion was the worst thing ever, a stigma that unfairly remains to this day.

I think that argument was a fallacy from the start; they didn't understand fully what bothered them; it was not that they raid logged because raiders love that sort of thing in reality.

I think the expansion had an extremist implementation of the followers mini-game; it has a huge list of followers; they doubled down later with the shipyard and it was shittier.

The irony is that I loved those subsystems; I hated the excessive mundane grinding of the world in Legion; it was especially bad that the legendaries dropped randomly.

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the mobile game element was probably the biggest issue with that expansion

That's exactly the problem but most people could not gather their thoughts to understand it; the followers system was extremistically implemented; I personally liked it but for most people the extremely long list of followers and the importance of the rewards was too much to handle and they made it considerably worse with the shipyard which was even less fun to play.

It was absolutely not that they raid logged; most raiders love that sort of thing; it is VERY destructive to the game to say that raid logging is bad in WoD because that's definitely not what people were bothered about.

The further proof is that you could see it in the haters arguments too; most people did not say "I raid log and I hate it"; they clearly said "I am trapped in the garrison".

[cparle87]

That's exactly the problem but most people could not gather their thoughts to understand it; the followers system was extremistically implemented; I personally liked it but for most people the extremely long list of followers and the importance of the rewards was too much to handle and they made it considerably worse with the shipyard which was even less fun to play.

I would've preferred if the inn did something else and instead you got to use all the followers you got from the storylines. I knew these guys, I did quests for them, I had a connection to them. It made me sad I had to bench them.

The whole "trapped in the garrison" thing never made sense to me, either. There was plenty to do in WoD if you didn't write off entire segments of the game as "not content." Most folks who talked about being trapped in the garrison you'd ask them. Do you pet battle? No. Do you archaeology? No. Do you do apexis dailies to trigger invasions? No. Do you kill the rares that drop pets/mounts/toys? No. That's how it goes. You list all the things the game did have, they say no they don't consider that content. Then they complain about nothing to do.

[epigramx]

The whole "trapped in the garrison" thing never made sense to me, either. There was plenty to do in WoD if you didn't write off entire segments of the game as "not content." Most folks who talked about being trapped in the garrison you'd ask them. Do you pet battle? No. Do you archaeology? No. Do you do apexis dailies to trigger invasions? No. Do you kill the rares that drop pets/mounts/toys? No. That's how it goes. You list all the things the game did have, they say no they don't consider that content. Then they complain about nothing to do.

I think it's just that the majority of players couldn't think that independently, they were used to a game where they followed whatever everyone is doing in the middle of orgrimmar or in their guild or whatever else public space in-game.

I can't express enough how much worse I found Legion's excessiveness with world grinding of mundane tasks ..and it appears to be the norm now.

[dacoolist]

I don't think WoD is remembered poorly because of the fact that you could "finish" the game. They dislike it because one of its content patches added nothing of value to the game (a fact that Blizzard has themselves acknowledged as a folly). I consider WoD my favorite expansion because of the raiding but even I wouldn't blame most people for feeling there wasn't much to do. I don't know if all of the expansion's issues can be explained away by the lack of engaging casual content but I will concede that the biggest difference from WoD to Legion is that fact that Blizzard did give casual players a lot more to play with via World Quests and Titanforging. (The latter being acknowledged as a mistake in its own right.)

I also think the PVP in Wod was good. The xpac at least from my perspective was rough only because of the really slow and rough content patches. No lie, I remember a time when the game didn't change from the release until the raid with blackhand.. like it felt like literally the biggest let down in the history of the game for me.. Maybe it was 10 months but it felt extremely slow. Cat or Cataclysm was my worst xpac only because WLK was that good - Cat just felt like it ONLY had good PVE and everything else in the game was horrible

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Also on topic: M+ was the best thing that WoW had ever added BESIDES xmog imo.

[Zodiark]

Imagine casuals did not have a weekly chest to try for that actually took time, effort and even some skill, they would literally un-sub in 2 days rather than 1 week as there is nothing to go for. Blizz loses even more than your view on current setup.




The only people who complain hard about .io are those who are very bad or very lazy.

If you actually had empathy, you would know group leaders require .io to keep their sanity, instead of being forced to recruit randoms and suffer while other plebians just press "sign up" and someone else does the work for them in both group management and the actual dungeon. You see, bad or lazy players don't care about .io and it's use as a recruiting tool because they literally never group lead, nor do they care about .io of others in their immediate group because they are poor themselves and just pray they get carried by anybody. Therefore they hate .io as it is a 'blocker' to being easily invited (and assisted with little given in return), not the useful tool that it actually is.

If actual skill level or even effort level of the average player wasn't 1 step above nothing, .io would not be necessary. Instead you a minefield and .io is the mine sweeper.

You mention similarity to the old predecessor Gearscore. You know that came about when every bad player in existence was trying to join pugs for ICC and people got sick of 2k dps andys who wasted everybody's time. Gearscore was crude, but its existence was warranted.

Hmm. I don't even know where to begin. Let me just say this. First and foremost WOW is supposed to be a game of fun. FUN...

For many it's fun running fast and hard. Destroying everything in their wake by crushing the numbers. For others it's fun by just enjoying the scenery and pressing buttons to somehow eventually get the monster down. FUN, is a matter of opinion.

So for those that aren't interested in crushing things as fast as possible, it's a waste of their time to clear through the dungeon or raid faster than they can enjoy taking it all in. For others it's a waste of their time to go through slowly.

Who's right?

In the end I think it's more a matter of transparency and openness about your expectations and abilities. That said as a society of gamers we need to first and foremost learn to respect each other, and our different interpretations of the word, FUN.

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So what you're saying is that very difficult bosses require optimisation. And that's somehow a bad thing?

Every competitive game worth playing has a meta.

They really don't though. Sorry but since the dawn of gaming, under geared players have been taking down bosses as a sort of right of passage. I myself consider it a hallmark of my abilities to be able to take down hard mobs with little to no prep. By creatively utilizing my abilities.

Sometimes this isn't possible and you need a little adjustment to your gear, yes. But for the most part it's common knowledge that WoW players and MMO' players in general tend to OVER gear for fights for fear of loosing and wasting that precious time, when if fact they spent quite a bit of time optimizing in the first place.

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How often have you done Tazavesh so far?

Actually I haven't. I'm sort of protesting WoW at the moment. I basically quit for almost a year after SL came out. Once I hit 60 and realized there was going to be mountains of work to do and chores to complete I stopped playing. I did some FFXIV, and GW2, and a dozen other games. Just for fun. I built my small business up so I'm doing pretty well for myself in real life. I have more free time than ever and the last thing I want to do is be stuck behind a game for more time than I spend working. That said I've been playing games for 35 years now. I will always enjoy them. But now it's in small bite sized chunks.

Maybe I'll decide to run through some content and sometime I'm sure I'll see Tazavesh. But I'll do it on my own terms.

[Mokrath]

M+ being an endless challenge mode is great in theory, but the timer makes me avoid it like the plague.
I don't want a clock ticking while I play an RPG, MMO or otherwise.
I'll take a water level in any game any day over a timed segment in an RPG.

[starstationprofm]

They really don't though. Sorry but since the dawn of gaming, under geared players have been taking down bosses as a sort of right of passage. I myself consider it a hallmark of my abilities to be able to take down hard mobs with little to no prep. By creatively utilizing my abilities.

Sometimes this isn't possible and you need a little adjustment to your gear, yes. But for the most part it's common knowledge that WoW players and MMO' players in general tend to OVER gear for fights for fear of loosing and wasting that precious time, when if fact they spent quite a bit of time optimizing in the first place.

Every Mythic raid in the last few years has been cleared on the first or second week. What the average player does is irrelevant, it is proven that good players can clear the hardest content without overgearing it.

[Daffan]

Hmm. I don't even know where to begin. Let me just say this. First and foremost WOW is supposed to be a game of fun. FUN...

For many it's fun running fast and hard. Destroying everything in their wake by crushing the numbers. For others it's fun by just enjoying the scenery and pressing buttons to somehow eventually get the monster down. FUN, is a matter of opinion.

So for those that aren't interested in crushing things as fast as possible, it's a waste of their time to clear through the dungeon or raid faster than they can enjoy taking it all in. For others it's a waste of their time to go through slowly.

Who's right?

In the end I think it's more a matter of transparency and openness about your expectations and abilities. That said as a society of gamers we need to first and foremost learn to respect each other, and our different interpretations of the word, FUN.

Well the problem is that is how the game 'is' (speed + strength difficulties) so the rating system was based around it. Many people don't find a 30 min dungeon taking 60-120 min fun, or failing constantly because of someone else fun, or having to be a teacher/carrier all the time, it's a drain.

There is an separate argument to be made of removing the timer, but .IO would still exist in that universe anyway -- there was no timers for raids, but people still ask for achievements/ilvl/xyZ.

[Alroxas]

The whole "trapped in the garrison" thing never made sense to me, either.

Let's expand on that. The issue with "trapped in the garrison" was that the garrison was too good. You wanted some ore? There's a mine shaft. You wanted some herbs to make pots? You have a garden. You want access to an AH? There's a collection quest but eventually you can have one. How about some fishing? Sure, there's a hut around the corner.

By providing all these "comforts", there was literally very little need to step outside the garrison. And since garrisons were instanced to the player, it becomes an isolating experience. Players would login on a regular basis, do the garrison chores, then log out.

In comparison, take any other hub from other expansions: Oribos and Korthia in SL, Dalaran in Legion/Wrath of Lich King, Boralus or Dazar'alor in BFA. Those hubs felt better because any number of players would be traveling through them. While player to player interaction isn't necessarily higher, the mere presence of players makes the space feel less isolating.

[loras]

I'm sure there have been other threads adressing this issue but I wanted to pose a question.

Was Mythic + a game system mistake ?

My reasoning behind this is simple. As WoW has grown older and the gaming climate has been changed with many outside systems like Discord, etc, taking over player to player communication, the game has become less social over time.

The mythic plus system basically rewards groups that stay together longer to get as many runs done as possible to maximize rewards, etc.

However, to stay together longer you have to have a group comprised of members who know their role and are willing to stay and work with others for an extended time period.

That being said WoW has grown to encourage faster, low-commitment type players who just want to get in and get the run over with and get out as fast as possible. Back in the days of Wrath it wasn't uncommon for a good group of even random players to run several Heroics together. Nowadays that's an anomaly.

So looking back was the Mythic + system, which only really caters to the minority of players, and is also the focus of many toxic behaviors an ill conceived plan?

Anime was a mistake

[Alroxas]

There is an separate argument to be made of removing the timer, but .IO would still exist in that universe anyway -- there was no timers for raids, but people still ask for achievements/ilvl/xyZ.

Ultimately that just comes down to the simple fact that players want to engage in content with other players who are equally (or better) geared/knowledgeful/skillful in the group content being attempted.

Few (if any) want to be saddled with less geared, less knowledgeful, and/or less skilled players in group content.

[Twdft]

Actually I haven't. I'm sort of protesting WoW at the moment. I basically quit for almost a year after SL came out.

You really should do it. Tazavesh is everything you want, a giant place to be discovered with a lot of hidden secrets and sights you can only get when you take your time to actually explore the place. Even a pet where you have to activate a vendor and get him stuff from outside the dungeon.

I did it three times with my friends so far. Once going in pretty much blind first week, 2 hours to clear the place. Then to get everyone the hardmode mount. But here's the thing... I never had the desire to go in yet another time, not with my main not with any Alt. Exploration dungeons lose their novelty quickly. They are great, don't get me wrong I totally enjoyed it, but it's a one time thing.

M+ on the other hand adds replayability to the same dungeons for 2 years.

[Argorwal]

I don't think WoD is remembered poorly because of the fact that you could "finish" the game. They dislike it because one of its content patches added nothing of value to the game (a fact that Blizzard has themselves acknowledged as a folly). I consider WoD my favorite expansion because of the raiding but even I wouldn't blame most people for feeling there wasn't much to do. I don't know if all of the expansion's issues can be explained away by the lack of engaging casual content but I will concede that the biggest difference from WoD to Legion is that fact that Blizzard did give casual players a lot more to play with via World Quests and Titanforging. (The latter being acknowledged as a mistake in its own right.)

WoD got hammered with the “nothing to do” within a month of its release, which was WAY before the content drought was realized.

People hit 100 and realized there was nothing to do for players outside of raid day to work on. And most people don’t raid.

Ironically, that isn’t even much different than TBC classic right now, but the playerbase changes with time.