Mythic plus and keys - an outdated concept

[Hctaz]

Well it's 1/4/8 M+ for 1/2/3 slots to be open in your Great Vault. It used to be 10 M+ dungeons for the 3rd slot.

Mmm yeah I haven't played retail since BfA.

So they're giving you flexibility to choose between 1 of 3 items but only if you complete 8 dungeons per week? Is that what I'm understanding?

[Okacz]

We both know that world can't exist, every dungeon would have to have the same timer, otherwise it would be the fastest one and so forth, meta doesn't require a huge imbalance like early SMBG vs early AV, it just requires 1% or so for everyone to gravitate towards the easy solution.

Think of Dungeons as raid bosses, if you could choose whichever raidboss you would do and always get the same loot, can you imagine a world where people would do different ones except the top few players?

And once that meta settles in, very few will be willing to run the bosses/dungeons they haven't tried before. Why go wipe in Cathedral 15 when you can do Maw of souls 15 in half the time? And that kept being true even with Cathedral was so nerfed that it was easier than maw, noone knew it, so noone would run it.

1% is probably fine. There is a line somewhere, around which the difference stops mattering. At the moment it's just nowhere near 1% in most cases of course. Again, we can see it done well with CoS and SBG - usually both are considered easy dungeons, and SBG isn't overtaking CoS by a lot if it's slightly easier.

Raidboss analogy doesn't work imo because:
a) Both dungeons and bosses have a lot of items spread between then, there's always someone who needs a BiS from a certain dungeon (and if there'd be a dungeon without good items, again, bad balancing). Raiders wouldn't only grind Eranog if he only dropped Eranog loot, would they?
b) At the moment blizzard is giving better (ilvl) loot to harder bosses, which they wouldn't do for dungeons. Possible to incorporate into current M+ system, but a MAJOR change.

Cathedral vs Maw was a symptom of the same bad balancing. It CAN be done right, and we shouldn't be trying to blame other players for Blizzard fucking it up, intentionally or not.

Mythic+ is an inherently limiting concept, because by design it makes shorter dungeons more favourable. Yet again, this season we see a mix of short and simple dungeons like CoS with long and tedious ones like HoV. Which is obviously what happened before with the same results, in Legion. Can't help but feel that if Blizzard chose to design dungeons closer to each other in length, or at least picked similarly complex/long ones into the pool (within reason), there wouldn't be so many complaints.

[Sialina]

No? You do 1/4/8 for 1/2/3 choices, which is less than SL (1/4/10 for the same outcome).

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Because you give players various incentives to do so. End of dungeon loot; more choices in the vault; achievements unlocked for score and the like. Really, it's not rocket science.

Instead, you choose to argue for a system where the "good" players that rolled "proper" specs have easier time filling up spots for all the easy dungeons (and inflate their gear and score); while the "bad" players with lower score are left with the dungeons supposedly noone else wants to do (even them), but they have to, because they don't have any other option if the RNG wasn't nice to them; and then you call it "variety" and "fun". Somehow, in your world forcing people to do dungeons they didn't want to do in the first place is "fun".

You misunderstand, if you do the same dungeon 10 times in a row, it's less fun than doing 3 3 3 1 of different dungeons, but you know why this won't work, because you already talk about meta, and that doesn't matter for anything below 24.

So now you want everyone having to do every dungeon every week for a chance at loot? or do you just mean specific pieces, what if your best trinket is from AA, but noone else has anything of value in there except a bracer or something, 5 hunter party? Why would anyone help you with your AA if that now decreases the chance they will hit their BiS loot in the vault?
Do you think it would be easier to get into score groups with non meta specs when people only had to run them once and never again because they don't need anything from there now? You would have to make sure every tank needs something from every dungeon, and every healer too, how would you balance that? What if tanks just decide trinket trinket weapon and screw the other dungeons?

1% is probably fine. There is a line somewhere, around which the difference stops mattering. At the moment it's just nowhere near 1% in most cases of course. Again, we can see it done well with CoS and SBG - usually both are considered easy dungeons, and SBG isn't overtaking CoS by a lot if it's slightly easier.

Raidboss analogy doesn't work imo because:
a) Both dungeons and bosses have a lot of items spread between then, there's always someone who needs a BiS from a certain dungeon (and if there'd be a dungeon without good items, again, bad balancing). Raiders wouldn't only grind Eranog if he only dropped Eranog loot, would they?
b) At the moment blizzard is giving better (ilvl) loot to harder bosses, which they wouldn't do for dungeons. Possible to incorporate into current M+ system, but a MAJOR change.

Cathedral vs Maw was a symptom of the same bad balancing. It CAN be done right, and we shouldn't be trying to blame other players for Blizzard fucking it up, intentionally or not.

Mythic+ is an inherently limiting concept, because by design it makes shorter dungeons more favourable. Yet again, this season we see a mix of short and simple dungeons like CoS with long and tedious ones like HoV. Which is obviously what happened before with the same results, in Legion. Can't help but feel that if Blizzard chose to design dungeons closer to each other in length, or at least picked similarly complex/long ones into the pool (within reason), there wouldn't be so many complaints.

And what do you do when week 3 hits and every tank now has every item they need from your dungeon pool, and they now just queue for the fastest dungeon for their vault? Or they avoid any dungeon like the plague which doesn't have one of their 3 BiS upgrades, because hey, if you need to do the dungeons every week for a chance at the loot like the guy above suggested, why ever do a dungeon that doesn't have your BiS trinkets and weapon?

[Alroxas]

Mmm yeah I haven't played retail since BfA.

So they're giving you flexibility to choose between 1 of 3 items but only if you complete 8 dungeons per week? Is that what I'm understanding?

So the great vault has up to 9 options you can pick from each week but to unlock an option you have to do the requirement.

On the raid row it's 2/4/6 raid bosses defeated
On the M+ row it's completing 1/4/8 M+ dungeons (does not have to be done in time just completed)
On the PvP row it's earning honor in rated PvP (1250, 2500, 5500)

For raid, the difficulty of the bosses killed determines the level of loot. For M+, it's the key level of the dungeon completed (arranged from highest to lowest).

Both Icy-Veins and WoWhead have write ups if you want to go deeper into the details.

[Rageonit]

You misunderstand, if you do the same dungeon 10 times in a row, it's less fun than doing 3 3 3 1 of different dungeons, but you know why this won't work, because you already talk about meta, and that doesn't matter for anything below 24.

A Prevoker has an easier time joining anything ~10+ than a Mistweaver. That's a fact, I play both. It doesn't matter it's not important for anything lower than 24; that's the playerbase perspective.

So now you want everyone having to do every dungeon every week for a chance at loot?

No, not specific pieces (other than end of dungeon loot, which is obviously dungeon-specific). Vault would work the same way it works, only you'd have to do 2/4/6 differtent dungeons for 1/2/3 choices. Doing SBG 10 times would do nothing for the vault, cause it would be counted only once. Do any 6 different dungeons on any level you want if you want to have full vault choice.

You misunderstand, if you do the same dungeon 10 times in a row, it's less fun than doing 3 3 3 1 of different dungeons

Also, and again: it's not your role to decide what's fun for people and what's not. If someone wants to do 10 SBGs, let him. Why should the game decide what he's able to play? It's the players business, period.

[Sialina]

A Prevoker has an easier time joining anything ~10+ than a Mistweaver. That's a fact, I play both. It doesn't matter it's not important for anything lower than 24; that's the playerbase perspective.




No, not specific pieces (other than end of dungeon loot, which is obviously dungeon-specific). Vault would work the same way it works, only you'd have to do 2/4/6 differtent dungeons for 1/2/3 choices. Doing SBG 10 times would do nothing for the vault, cause it would be counted only once. Do any 6 different dungeons on any level you want if you want to have full vault choice.



Also, and again: it's not your role to decide what's fun for people and what's not. If someone wants to do 10 SBGs, let him. Why should the game decide what he's able to play? It's the players business, period.

There will always be a meta, even if you could do SMBG endlessly, you would still have a harder time to get invited on your Mistweaver than on your Evoker, the second slot 1 on the leaderboards go to a mistweaver, you'll have a harder time getting invited on your Evoker than your mistweaver, that is how meta works.

The problem isn't that 1 guy wants to spam SMBG, the problem is that any human seeks efficiency by default. There is a famous science experiment where the researches attached resistance to test persons legs, and then had them walk on a treadmill, and they all developed a gate that was more efficient with the resistance bands on (but completely alien to our normal gate) within a couple of minutes.
No, the problem isn't that 1 guy would run a specific dungeon, the problem is we would have Maw of souls all over again.
Also in your system, if you need to run 6 different dungeons to fill your vault, why are you forcing them to play different dungeons if they don't want to? That is your current critique of the system we have now, but you want to do the same thing yourself?

[Okacz]

And what do you do when week 3 hits and every tank now has every item they need from your dungeon pool, and they now just queue for the fastest dungeon for their vault?

I still believe that if dungeons in the pool were around the same length and difficulty (hence, good balance), it wouldn't matter for said tanks, they'd run the dungeon that their friends have available, the one they don't have high score for, perhaps one with some offspec items. Or maybe, for once, the one they'd feel like it would be fun doing at the time. Right now it's almost out of the question with how far the dungeons are from each other.

Or they avoid any dungeon like the plague which doesn't have one of their 3 BiS upgrades, because hey, if you need to do the dungeons every week for a chance at the loot like the guy above suggested, why ever do a dungeon that doesn't have your BiS trinkets and weapon?

Same could happen in current situation, right? If Blizzard released pool with 1 tank-bis-heavy-dungeon, tanks would gravitate towards it. Like fury warriors did with CoS. Self-resolving situation too, with either great items across multiple dungeons, or just because after a bit of grind they'd get those items, and run other shit.

[Rageonit]

Also in your system, if you need to run 6 different dungeons to fill your vault, why are you forcing them to play different dungeons if they don't want to? That is your current critique of the system we have now, but you want to do the same thing yourself?

No, because you're mixing up two things: accessability of play and accessability of rewards. While I promote the former, I still think the latter should requite effor. It shouldn't be an "effort" to run any dungeon you want; but it should be an "effort" to get the best rewards. If someone is content with running SBG for the whole season, let him do that with ease; no stupid RNG that decides what he can or cannot play. But then he has to accept he won't be getting as many chocies as somebody who's willing to overcome all different dungeons. Content should be as accessible as possible. Rewards should be given for effort. Now you have all the options available to you - no artificial hurdles like key RNG; and what you do with it is for you to decide.

[ZazuuPriest]

That already is the case to a large extent. People will run CoS and SBG way more than the others. But people will still want to run other dungeons because they want gear that drops from the other dungeons, or they want to increase their score. I don't see a problem with giving players more choice.

because vault loot isnt based on what dungeons you do anyway. So outside of doing them once per tyrant/fort for score you are just chasing loot from the vault. People simply would not ever do dungeons like AV ever again. It wouldnt be worth it.

[Twdft]

Sometimes I think Blizzard should just act on any hairbrained idea for a season but then we end up with shit like forced group loot and Grimrail. Removing keys would not make M+ better.

[Jujudrood]

It seems a large counter argument is "people will just do the easiest one".
But, how is that different form today?
Like, if I get a shit key, I just check with everyone else and let mine rot in my bags.
The key itself isn't stopping anyone from doing the dungeon they want, and I know people who are already doing the "just the fastest ones" type of runs today; it's just more hassle because they have to find someone with that specific key first.

You still need to build and complete all on a +20, and some dungeons are easier or harder based on affixes, so there will still be variety demand.
For those who have all 8 +20s done in the first week or two, good on them, they can farm the easiest keys the rest of the season, but those people are few and far between.
We are what, 2-3 months into DF and I still see groups spending an hour in a wipefest +15, so I feel the majority of the playerbase would breathe a sigh of relief that they don't have to do a broke ass dungeon bc RNG gave them a shit key, leaving them with no recourse but to find someone with a key that suits them.

And if there needs to be another "safeguard" to the "farm the easy key" scenario, then require 2 or 3 dungeons of a level to be completed to open the next rank instead of just one.
If you want to go a step further, restrict the vault to only items from the dungeons you completed that week, so if a shit dungeon has something you want, better find that group.

There's ways to make it fair, and there will always be downsides, but having a key randomly assigned is a pretty weak concept.
It won't solve for people leaving, it won't solve for poor balance in a dungeon, but it removes one less stressful hurdle, which may be a bandaid on a gaping wound, but it would be incredibly easy to implement (they already track which dungeons you complete and on time or not), so something is better than nothing.

[Relapses]

It seems a large counter argument is "people will just do the easiest one".
But, how is that different form today?
Like, if I get a shit key, I just check with everyone else and let mine rot in my bags.
The key itself isn't stopping anyone from doing the dungeon they want, and I know people who are already doing the "just the fastest ones" type of runs today; it's just more hassle because they have to find someone with that specific key first.

You still need to build and complete all on a +20, and some dungeons are easier or harder based on affixes, so there will still be variety demand.
For those who have all 8 +20s done in the first week or two, good on them, they can farm the easiest keys the rest of the season, but those people are few and far between.
We are what, 2-3 months into DF and I still see groups spending an hour in a wipefest +15, so I feel the majority of the playerbase would breathe a sigh of relief that they don't have to do a broke ass dungeon bc RNG gave them a shit key, leaving them with no recourse but to find someone with a key that suits them.

And if there needs to be another "safeguard" to the "farm the easy key" scenario, then require 2 or 3 dungeons of a level to be completed to open the next rank instead of just one.
If you want to go a step further, restrict the vault to only items from the dungeons you completed that week, so if a shit dungeon has something you want, better find that group.

There's ways to make it fair, and there will always be downsides, but having a key randomly assigned is a pretty weak concept.
It won't solve for people leaving, it won't solve for poor balance in a dungeon, but it removes one less stressful hurdle, which may be a bandaid on a gaping wound, but it would be incredibly easy to implement (they already track which dungeons you complete and on time or not), so something is better than nothing.

Your proposed system isn't dramatically improved from what we have. It gives us choice but it comes with all sorts of weird ass caveats that we don't have now. I'd rather not need to remap the human genome to figure out whether completing a dungeon counts towards my vault and I'd also greatly prefer not to have Blizzard try to ameliorate the dearth in dungeon difficulty by using a sledge hammer to bring all dungeons in line with one another. I fucking hate AV with every cell in my body but if I have an AV key and I don't feel like rerolling, I'll do it. I simply wouldn't under your system -- except once for IO -- then pretend the key doesn't exist for the rest of the season. Obviously this is anecdotal but I'm fairly certain similar sentiments are shared by many (enough to at least, y'know, consider).

There could be ways for them to incentivize the unpopular dungeons. I didn't even touch on any of this because I was too busy arguing with @Rageonit about the definitions of words while he asked for sources every time I expressed a fucking opinion. Blizzard could use completion data to put extra vault rewards in for unpopular dungeons, for example. (ie, do 2 +20 AVs and get a Mythic raid slot). They could bring back trophy bags and put shit like 20 BoP flasks or a potion cauldron in it. They could add a super ultra rare chance for unpopular dungeons to drop rare Mythic raid drops (Mim's Head, Invincible, Felsteel Annihilator). There's a lot they could do. But all of this would require a lot of development time and we'd have to be patient while Blizzard works out the kinks of the system. I think long term something like this would be the ideal system for M+.

I simply don't see Blizzard doing this. It's just too much of an ask. The current system does 80% of that without any of the hurdles or necessary dev time. Occam's Razor strikes again: The simplest solution is the best solution. And in this case, it's doing nothing at all.

[threads]

Which could be solved with only running with player you know.

the classic "make more friends" response lol

[Swnem]

Uh there is a NPC that downgrades keys for you? It's a Pandaren standing in front of the 3 portals in Valdrakken?

Granted the UI interface is poor as you can only lower a key by 1 level each time you talk with the NPC... so if you needed to downgrade a key by 5 levels... yup it's talking with them 5 times.

Yes, i know. I was thinking more in the lines of either put one in the entrance of the dungeons or the UI so you don't have to go back to town to do it.

[Rageonit]

There could be ways for them to incentivize the unpopular dungeons. I didn't even touch on any of this because I was too busy arguing with @Rageonit about the definitions of words while he asked for sources every time I expressed a fucking opinion.

So proud I'm being mentioned by name, did I really get under your skin? Cute.
Anyway, stating things like: "incentive is non-existent", "only people with self-harm fetish do difficult dungeons" and "more people do keys because they <<fucking have them>>" are not opinions; those are claims, and FYI, claims need to be backed up with some kind of data.

[h4rr0d]

No, not specific pieces (other than end of dungeon loot, which is obviously dungeon-specific). Vault would work the same way it works, only you'd have to do 2/4/6 differtent dungeons for 1/2/3 choices. Doing SBG 10 times would do nothing for the vault, cause it would be counted only once. Do any 6 different dungeons on any level you want if you want to have full vault choice.

I'm on the exact opposite of this thought train. You should be able to target specific loot in the vault. If you do SBG 10 times and nothing else, you should be offered loot only from SBG. The vault loot RNG sucks as it is, no need to make it suck even more...

[Rageonit]

I'm on the exact opposite of this thought train. You should be able to target specific loot in the vault. If you do SBG 10 times and nothing else, you should be offered loot only from SBG. The vault loot RNG sucks as it is, no need to make it suck even more...

I'm not fixated on any specific solution; all of them have pros and cons. The easiest way to target a specific item is end of dungeon loot anyway - doing 2 different dungeons for 1 reward slot is still huge RNG, since we're talking about a signicifant loot table already. What I'm sure of is that you shouldn't be able to fill up the vault with just 1 dungeon; at the moment doing 8 SBGs 20 provides same reward level as doing 8 AVs, and one is a lot easier than the other. Alas, it won't change as long as keys are also RNG.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I'm on the exact opposite of this thought train. You should be able to target specific loot in the vault. If you do SBG 10 times and nothing else, you should be offered loot only from SBG. The vault loot RNG sucks as it is, no need to make it suck even more...

That would promote some insanely degen gameplay lol. Like if you need a puzzle box, you wouldn't do any other dungeon even if friends were or you screw yourself over