M 2 - 6 feels like Bronze in league

[Ashana Darkmoon]

First of all it's so weird that you're here talking for Liquid Max. 'Max agrees'. Or are you Max talking about yourself in third person?

Secondly, how on earth would solo queue M+ fix M+ unless it was a separate game mode and not in direct competition with premades? .

Pretty sure this is the suggestion, like how RBGS and BG Blitz are about the same mode (rated battlegrounds) but one requires a pre-made group and the other doesn't. Or arena and Solo Shuffle.

Top players would still form groups ahead of time, but if they separated the two m+ ratings, you'd probably have some of them trying to climb the random ladder as well as the pre-made one for bragging rights and streaming content.

There would be quite a few issues to work out, but the main ones to me would be:

1) Queue times. Solo Shuffle (1 healer: 2 dps ratio) had atrocious queue times in DF, to the point the mode nearly died. BG Blitz queue times (1 healer: 3 dps) are dramatically better. Healers and tanks would need major incentives to participate in random queues because they can make groups at will.

2) Mechanic simplicity. Success and failure conditions in a pve mode are obviously completely different from the pvp ones, and it really shows up in stuff like this. Dungeons need tons of interrupts etc which would be harder with some comps than others. They would either have to change core dungeon design or make "LFG" versions of them.

This would all be a challenging and monumental task to implement, but I would be shocked if they aren't at least thinking about it.

[kamuimac]

League is better, because I always end up getting a group.
In this game, I try to join other people's key and they refuse to invite me. I am utterly and supremely deserving of a spot, but they mistakenly choose some one else over me.
Some noobs told me to try to make my own group instead, so whatever, I'll give a try.

Well guess what? I tried, and NO ONE signed up. Not a single person. Well other than people who are bad, but I don't invite bads to my groups.

oh the sweet sweet irony

[tikcol]

M2-M6 players in WoW sound awfully similar to Bronze players in League..

[Merpish]

I don't know man, this sounds like a you thing. I've been doing 10s all week and they've been mostly fine. A few depletes here and there, but everything else has been timed.

[meroes]

Your analogy doesn’t work because in League it’s ELO hell. In WoW it’s actually more about getting in early, playing the meta classes, and having friends. League is less gate kept this way. M+ is truly cancerous in that way, now more than ever with exploit early and often, paid early access, etc.

[Biomega]

Secondly, how on earth would solo queue M+ fix M+ unless it was a separate game mode and not in direct competition with premades?

The same way solo shuffle "fixed" Arena. It's not meant to be a replacement for manual queues, especially not at the high end - manual groups would still exist, and probably be the predominant mode for the highest M+ keys.

The target audience for a solo queue is not the people who already have M+ figured out, with stable groups and the ambition to go with it. The target audience is the vast bulk at the low to mid end, who get annoyed by waiting in queue and having their spec/class discriminated against because of meta selection in a bracket where "the meta" means jack shit.

Everyone would just make their own groups (still) instead of play with shit comps of undergeared guys with zero experience.

There'd obviously be some kind of restrictive matchmaking in place so you don't get queued into a +10 with 550 ilvl and whatnot. A separate MMR M+ rating is also entirely feasible, though it's probably not impossible to just have one rating and use that. Which means you'd force people to climb in rating to queue for higher M+, meaning that the people you get have a certain level of gear and experience or the queue won't put them into your party.

Of course this is not a perfect system. Nothing is. Manually inviting someone with high ilvl and high M+ rating also doesn't guarantee they aren't an idiot. It's a trade-off you accept in exchange for ease of use, and you rely on the average experience being good enough.

Would solo queue raiding fix raiding? I mean that's LFR so you're essentially talking about heroic dungeons on the group finder?

Raiding is different because it's not repeatable at will (at least not for rewards). You can afford to be more selective because all you have to worry about is your one, single weekly clear. Waiting for an hour or two to have your one weekly group is acceptable - whereas waiting an hour or two for every M+ group when doing a dozen of them per week becomes a massively frustrating experience. And just as a point of fact: I think a matchmaking queue for normal/heroic raiding could work. It's just that it's much less needed for that kind of play and so the trade-off isn't particularly attractive. Whereas for something like M+ there is a lot more frustrating on the individual level that makes this exchange way more desirable.

bad players who have no friends

Putting aside the problem that you seem to just want to be abrasive and obnoxious for no reason, those kinds of players are a massive chunk of the population. A matchmaking system isn't intended to "fix" something for people who aren't having problems - obviously. It's intended to fix it for people who do, because pointing a finger and them and going "lmao antisocial loser!" like you are doing isn't fixing anything. And I get that you, personally, quite evidently don't care about people - that's fine. But assume for a second that there exist people who can look beyond their own narrow personal horizon and actually have empathy for a larger community. Those people may think about how to make things better for people who aren't themselves.

[jeezusisacasual]

It seems to me that its more then any singular issue and more of a series of things that make harder dungeons unapproachable for the masses.

Fake casts, having mobs cast spells that are not meant to be kicked is a huge problem for alot of people since they see cast bar hit kick button but when they have to be precise and know more of the important spells it creates more information to be known to be successful which adds more layers to the game ontop of avoid shit on the floor but having similar knowledge as a tank when it comes to a mob by mob basis inside a dungeon. If for instance the weaker spells had no cast bar and could not be stopped would making it simpler for the grug brain type players who should have the same challenge as previous seasons.

Unavoidable damage being so damn high, this is to force the more dedicated players to keep a healer but in previous seasons it was not such a tight rope of pass / fail until you get to the point of score chasing only. If you do not stand in the mechanic you should not take damage period who cares in the better players can run without a healer? I have never seen that filter down into the 3kish io areas on a consistent basis.

I also think if they remove a ton of defensives from the playerbase it makes the damage patterns less spikey and allows it to be easier instead of knowing when and what defensive people should be using to stop incoming damage. You should never balance around the outliers either the top 5% or bottom 5% since they will rat fuck anyway to get 1 second saved and those who literally having 3 buttons filled on their bars they do not care.

This stinks of the Cataclysm WOW Dungeons are hard again and given they have had like 12 to 15 years since then of experience they should know better and be reminded of it. Making tanks more reliant on healers is a odd choice while also hyping up unavoidable damage and adding more defensives to justify a one shot dance combo is not exactly fun and its turning getting my portals into a thank fuck thats over instead of hell yea we did it moment.

[Relapses]

Gonna focus on two things here:

If you have better solutions, by all means. Bring them into the discussion. Have a debate. There's many possible ways to address the problem, including not doing anything and hoping it's just not that big a deal (which seems to be Blizzard's current course).

So this isn't my position and you quoted the part of my post where I said this. Come on now.

I do think it should be addressed because I am not happy with a lot of what Blizzard is doing with S1 of TWW.

Aug Evoker is a menace of a spec that is nigh-useless in keys below +10 and nigh-mandatory in keys above this level. No spec should be designed like this. Some specs are in complete chaos because Blizzard decided to add a bunch of new abilities via Hero Talents and where the tuning was decent in DF, is all over the place now. The game is rapidly getting ahead of itself and Blizzard needs to reign things in.

All of this can be solved via balancing. Throwing balancing out the window in favor of a new, more competitive mode isn't the answer. In fact, I think that sort of invalidates half the fun of M+. That's before we even attempt to discuss the problem leavers would have in such a game mode. M+ in its current state requires very little baby sitting from Blizzard. As long as you aren't calling your team mates slurs in every group, you can get away with a lot. But the minute you introduce leaver penalties, the incentive to soft quit groups escalates tenfold, resulting in keys where players give up after the first missed interrupt and take the whole group down with them. I can't see a way to fix this which wouldn't be an absolute nightmare for Blizzard.

So Blizzard not implementing something doesn't automatically mean it's a bad idea - it may just mean Blizzard doesn't think it's in their best interest.

I don't think solo queue M+ is a bad idea. And I think a lot of people who don't currently play WoW or only half pay attention to the current state of the game would agree that it would be a surface level dub. But that's the problem: It's a great idea that rapidly loses any and all appeal the minute you spend even a fraction of a second thinking about it. And that's why I dislike Max waving it around like a panacea. The guy clearly spends a lot of time critically thinking about how to design and maintain the RWF but for some reason checks his brain at the door while suggesting solo queue. It rubs me the wrong way, appealing to populism instead of what may actually help fix the game. I think it's infinitely more likely that Blizzard finds a balancing sweet spot in the current paradigm than it is for them to try pressing a reset button on the concept of M+ to build it back from the ground up with the concept of a competitive ladder in mind.

[Nymrohd]

Because the way damage/healing scales doesn't quite match the way skill scales, you constantly get caught in the "holes" where the two curves diverge - and healing is either super difficult or superfluous to a good chunk of the player base. There's no easy solution to this, unfortunately.

My suggestion would be that key scaling should not universally affect abilities. As simple as splitting abilities in two categories and scaling unavoidable and avoidable damage differently.

[Biomega]

So this isn't my position and you quoted the part of my post where I said this. Come on now.

I didn't say this was your position. I very explicitly said it's Blizzard's position. That's why I added that clarification: to make clear it's Blizzard's position. I can't really do more other than outright say it, which I did. Just because it was part of a reply to you doesn't mean everything I talked about was your position - and to make sure to mark which part wasn't, I added... that this is Blizzard's position. (or at the very least, if you want to be super precise, that it seems like this is Blizzard's position based on actions, not based on statements)

All of this can be solved via balancing.

No. HARD disagree. For one, balancing will never be perfect across all forms of content, and between solo, raid, dungeon, and PvP there are too many moving parts to make everything balanced across all forms of content; and too many instances where making it super balanced in one thing would make it even more unbalanced in another.

But also this is not and has never been an actual performance problem. It's a perception problem. The issue isn't "class X is ridiculously more powerful than class Y, therefore everyone uses it" - the differences are fairly small in most cases, and even where they are not, that is usually proportional to skill. And a 20% difference or whatever at the very top end does not mean there's a 20% difference at the low end. It'll be likely to be more 2% than 20% in the hands of a much lower-skill party. But because there's a meta at the very top where every point of difference not only matters but is magnified by skill, there is a perception that this is also true at the low level. It almost never is (barring a few incidental spots where something is indeed vastly unbalanced, of which there are very few and which tend to be quickly corrected).

Because this is about perception and not about reality, changing the underlying reality will not fix this. Whatever new meta emerges will still be mindlessly parroted and copied, because it was never about performance in the first place - it was about misunderstanding how performance actually works.

Now, I grant you that in the case of Augvoker specifically there are some more distorting factors in play, but even that is wildly skewed by meta perceptions from the top end. You may require an Augvoker at the absolute highest end in order to deal with the damage requirements both incoming and outgoing, but you do not need that in the low to mid brackets - which is where a change like matchmaking would have the most and most relevant impact. For the high end, nothing would change - they'd still make groups manually just as they do now.

Throwing balancing out the window in favor of a new, more competitive mode isn't the answer.

And no one has ever said this anywhere ever.

What a ludicrous statement. Who ever thought "throw balance out the window, just make a group finder" was a statement that's in any way reasonable or realistic? Who ever made such a statement?

And why would the existence of a group matchmaking system suddenly mean balancing is no longer done or that balance is no longer a concern? The fuck? No one is saying this, no one wants this, this has never happened with MMR systems in the past, it's a complete and utter nonsense statement.

All people are saying is balance alone is not going to solve this. That doesn't mean balance is being "thrown out the window". In no way, shape, or form. Dear gods.

But that's the problem: It's a great idea that rapidly loses any and all appeal the minute you spend even a fraction of a second thinking about it.

Okay.

WHY?

Because so far all you've said is "throwing balance out the window so we can have MMR is a terrible idea" and I agree. Except that's not the actual situation in any way.

If it only takes a fraction of a second of thinking, you should have no trouble explaining that thinking to us.

Oh, and: people also said similar things about solo-queue Arena etc. It would kill PvP it would decimate skill, whatever. The reality? It's some of the most popular PvP out there. It has supplanted manual groups almost entirely in certain brackets.

- - - Updated - - -

My suggestion would be that key scaling should not universally affect abilities. As simple as splitting abilities in two categories and scaling unavoidable and avoidable damage differently.

That's possibly a solution, but given the many moving parts would probably be prohibitively complicated to do and subject to massive fluctuations and unpredictable behaviors. Perhaps AI-assisted fine-tuning might do the trick in the future; I wouldn't rule that out. But manually doing this seems utterly impractical right now.

[Relapses]

I didn't say this was your position. I very explicitly said it's Blizzard's position. That's why I added that clarification: to make clear it's Blizzard's position. I can't really do more other than outright say it, which I did. Just because it was part of a reply to you doesn't mean everything I talked about was your position - and to make sure to mark which part wasn't, I added... that this is Blizzard's position. (or at the very least, if you want to be super precise, that it seems like this is Blizzard's position based on actions, not based on statements)

Apologies -- I read that as you implying that I supported the status quo since you mentioned me "not offering solutions," followed immediately by saying that "doing nothing" is Blizzard's current position. I don't even think Blizzard's current position is to do nothing, they just keep adding shit to the game that makes their job more difficult for no reason. We had reached decentish balance at the end of DF then they decided to add a bunch of new Hero Talents that have completely shook up the paradigm.

No. HARD disagree. For one, balancing will never be perfect across all forms of content, and between solo, raid, dungeon, and PvP there are too many moving parts to make everything balanced across all forms of content; and too many instances where making it super balanced in one thing would make it even more unbalanced in another.

But also this is not and has never been an actual performance problem. It's a perception problem. The issue isn't "class X is ridiculously more powerful than class Y, therefore everyone uses it" - the differences are fairly small in most cases, and even where they are not, that is usually proportional to skill. And a 20% difference or whatever at the very top end does not mean there's a 20% difference at the low end. It'll be likely to be more 2% than 20% in the hands of a much lower-skill party. But because there's a meta at the very top where every point of difference not only matters but is magnified by skill, there is a perception that this is also true at the low level. It almost never is (barring a few incidental spots where something is indeed vastly unbalanced, of which there are very few and which tend to be quickly corrected).

Because this is about perception and not about reality, changing the underlying reality will not fix this. Whatever new meta emerges will still be mindlessly parroted and copied, because it was never about performance in the first place - it was about misunderstanding how performance actually works.

Now, I grant you that in the case of Augvoker specifically there are some more distorting factors in play, but even that is wildly skewed by meta perceptions from the top end. You may require an Augvoker at the absolute highest end in order to deal with the damage requirements both incoming and outgoing, but you do not need that in the low to mid brackets - which is where a change like matchmaking would have the most and most relevant impact. For the high end, nothing would change - they'd still make groups manually just as they do now.

I don't want perfect balance, I just want better balance. Both DF S1 and S2 (prior to Aug being introduced) were pretty well balanced. There were problems but they mostly stemmed from the Affixes, something which TWW has corrected. TWW Affixes with DF S1/2 balance would make M+ about as close to perfect as it can get, imo.

And no one has ever said this anywhere ever.

What a ludicrous statement. Who ever thought "throw balance out the window, just make a group finder" was a statement that's in any way reasonable or realistic? Who ever made such a statement?

And why would the existence of a group matchmaking system suddenly mean balancing is no longer done or that balance is no longer a concern? The fuck? No one is saying this, no one wants this, this has never happened with MMR systems in the past, it's a complete and utter nonsense statement.

All people are saying is balance alone is not going to solve this. That doesn't mean balance is being "thrown out the window". In no way, shape, or form. Dear gods.

It's what a competitive ladder would require. M+ is PvE content. You're not fighting other people, you're fighting scripted mobs. There's no way to add competitive integrity to a ladder system which doesn't require the game to undergo an insane level of homogenization. Otherwise 95% of groups will be failures before they even pull a single mob.

Homogenization isn't necessarily a bad thing in small measures but the level of homogeneity MMR-based M+ would dictate is on a scale that Blizzard has never attempted. My gut reaction is that it'd probably take years for them to find a balance that's even remotely fair; years the game simply doesn't have. If this mode replaces the current M+ model, people would engage with it but if it's bad the feedback will be swift and players will quit en masse before it ever gets its first content patch. If it's developed in parallel with the current system, there will be very little incentive for players to engage with it... especially if it doesn't provide any rewards.

Okay.

WHY?

Because so far all you've said is "throwing balance out the window so we can have MMR is a terrible idea" and I agree. Except that's not the actual situation in any way.

If it only takes a fraction of a second of thinking, you should have no trouble explaining that thinking to us.

Implementing a solo queue would not be as easy as slapping a MMR system onto the current M+ paradigm. There are so many additional factors to address that I'd be here for days explaining how nearly every facet of the current system would need to change in some way for it to be compatible (and fair) to have MMR applied to it. It's not impossible, but, like I've said a bunch already -- the end result is a product that resembles an entirely new game mode far more than it does what we currently know as M+.

Oh, and: people also said similar things about solo-queue Arena etc. It would kill PvP it would decimate skill, whatever. The reality? It's some of the most popular PvP out there. It has supplanted manual groups almost entirely in certain brackets.

Solo queue Arena works because matchmaking is able to be mediated by MMR. MMR works when it's PvP -- skill expression exists on both ends of the spectrum. It's much different for cooperative PvE. It can be done but the factors that made solo queue Arena possible would not be the same as the ones that would impact a solo queue PvE mode. Not impossible, again, just that the end result of the game would be something way more stripped down (and imo way less entertaining) version of M+ which favors competitive fairness more than it does just banging out keys with the boys.

[Biomega]

I don't want perfect balance, I just want better balance.

I do, too. But again: that has nothing to do with any kind of group finder. Manual M+ would still exist and would need to be balanced. Raids still exist and would need to be balanced. And so on.

Such a system would have zero impact on their desire to balance things. It would not make them balance less. In any conceivable scenario. This is not what's ever happened, this is not what's going to happen.

Complete red herring.

It's what a competitive ladder would require.

...I'm sorry, I don't get this at all.

Nothing about the "competitive ladder" would change. I've mentioned explicitly that this would have zero impact on the highest levels of competition. Those people would continue to make their own, manual groups. They don't need group finder assistance.

Same thing as with Arena solo shuffle. People do that. But they also keep doing their premade queues, and the actual competition is between people in premades, not in solo shuffle.

This would have absolutely zero impact on the competition - except perhaps in positive ways by widening the audience and getting more people interested in M+ which may trickle up to competitive play.

But to think that somehow balance would have to change because people in low to mid rank brackets queue instead of grouping manually? Bullshit.

There's no way to add competitive integrity to a ladder system which doesn't require the game to undergo an insane level of homogenization. Otherwise 95% of groups will be failures before they even pull a single mob.

That would be the case if everyone is part of "the competition".

They are not.

There is no "competition" in +7 keys or whatever. Doesn't exist. Period. There's rating and whatnot, but that's not a competition in any meaningful sense. The competition begins at the very high end, the top brackets. For which people will make premades just as they are now, and if they use the group finder system at all it's purely to get a free dungeon teleport - not to find players for actual, serious M+ competition. Those will all be premades. Just like it is with PvP. You may use a queue here and there for fun and farming or when you're short someone on a Sunday night - but no one uses it for actual competitive PvP. The actual, serious, competitive PvP is all premade. And so is M+ and will continue to be even with a group finder.

Absolutely zero changes to that just because Jenny Random can now do their weekly +10 key with a group finder.

And there is no need for homogenization at those levels in terms of group composition. That's the whole point behind the illusion of the meta. "The meta" exists at the high end only. At the mid to low end it means jack shit. No one needs to handcraft their group for a +7 key (not beyond a base ilvl/rating requirement provided by the MMR system, anyway). It absolutely doesn't matter what the class comp is for that. Comp only starts mattering at the WAY WAY WAY top end of things - where people do premades anyway.

Again, to emphasize: no one is saying or ever has been saying that you cannot make manual groups anymore. That is not and never was a suggestion that was being offered. Only that you can have automated matchmaking if you want. But if you don't... then nothing changes.

Implementing a solo queue would not be as easy as slapping a MMR system onto the current M+ paradigm.

Probably not quite as easy as that, I agree; but probably also not requiring massive amounts of changes, either. You'd have to think about how to manage penalties etc., how the points are distributed, and whatnot. But that's fine-tuning only. No paradigmatic changes required. Again, PvP as a model already exists and works just fine for most people.

And as always: at the very top end, this doesn't really change anything.

Solo queue Arena works because matchmaking is able to be mediated by MMR. MMR works when it's PvP -- skill expression exists on both ends of the spectrum. It's much different for cooperative PvE. It can be done but the factors that made solo queue Arena possible would not be the same as the ones that would impact a solo queue PvE mode. Not impossible, again, just that the end result of the game would be something way more stripped down (and imo way less entertaining) version of M+ which favors competitive fairness more than it does just banging out keys with the boys.

It wouldn't be exactly the same as PvP to be sure, but it'd be a very similar principle. And as I said earlier, that's just quibbling over fine-tuning problems. Not about the larger issue.

And of course from the very beginning it was very clear that this would by no means be a perfect solution - because nothing ever is. It's merely a trade-off situation that shifts problems around. It's okay if there's some new problems here and there if a bunch of old problems get a lot better. Things wouldn't be the same, but they wouldn't be radically different, either. What matters is a specific average, largely centered around the low to mid end of the skill curve. At the very top, almost nothing would change; at the medium top, there'd probably be some shifting around of things. But those people tend to adapt well to change anyway, because they're used to doing what they have to simply by virtue of their ambition.

[mbit2]

Solo queue Arena works because matchmaking is able to be mediated by MMR. MMR works when it's PvP -- skill expression exists on both ends of the spectrum. It's much different for cooperative PvE. It can be done but the factors that made solo queue Arena possible would not be the same as the ones that would impact a solo queue PvE mode. Not impossible, again, just that the end result of the game would be something way more stripped down (and imo way less entertaining) version of M+ which favors competitive fairness more than it does just banging out keys with the boys.

Key level is basically the pve equivalent to pvp mmr and OP i arguing the mob mmr is too high for the morons in bronze tier. Personally i think what they should do is keep mobs hard but remove punishment for failure at low keys - this way people can learn in a save environment. If you make it easy they wont learn anything and run against the wall once they go up.

Also that aside people misunderstand mmr hell "you cant climb out", what it really means is you need a lot of games because your personal impact is low when you are part of a team and not singleplayer. For low playtime players it becomes equal to impossible simply because they cant play enough games to meet the required amount. It might be doable but not within their played hours which equals impossible for them.

[Eapoe]

Solo queue m+ sounds like the worst thing I’ve ever heard.
I’m just coming into this, so enlighten me if these have been covered:

How do you counter the time you spend 30-45 minutes waiting for a queue to come into a 9-12 level key and see a prot Pally, 2 BM Hunters, and a Resto druid? (Anyone who says weird/bad comps like this don’t happen simply need to do more BG Blitz and get into the 4-5 Hunter comps I’ve gotten thrown into).

Is there a queue range? If I have my vault capped at 10s and want to farm a specific piece, do I get to queue specifically for 8s? Do I get to queue for specific dungeons? How much worse will that affect queue times?

What’s the leaver penalty? Does it happen like with dungeon queues? Are people stuck running a key they don’t need, or with a group that’s suboptimal?

Does it work like PvP and your m+ score is affected by the spec you queue in as? Do I get penalized by playing multiple specs?

What determines what key level I can do? Is it based off of IO, and I can queue into a 10 that I never timed above a 5? Do I need to do every dungeon and time an 8 in a certain range to do that specific one as a 10?

[Tech614]

My suggestion would be that key scaling should not universally affect abilities. As simple as splitting abilities in two categories and scaling unavoidable and avoidable damage differently.

We basically had this in SL, there was almost no damage outside of avoidable/kickable/stoppable stuff. Healers complained.

Starting from DF we have a ton of unavoidable damage. Healers complained.

In TWW there is a ton of unavoidable damage but huge burst damage is rare, it's just constant rot for healers. Healers complained.

The moral of the story is healers are going to complain no matter what. It's not even just a WoW thing, they are also the whiniest fucking role in XIV.

[Biomega]

Solo queue m+ sounds like the worst thing I’ve ever heard.
I’m just coming into this, so enlighten me if these have been covered:

How do you counter the time you spend 30-45 minutes waiting for a queue to come into a 9-12 level key and see a prot Pally, 2 BM Hunters, and a Resto druid? (Anyone who says weird/bad comps like this don’t happen simply need to do more BG Blitz and get into the 4-5 Hunter comps I’ve gotten thrown into).

First off, the whole point behind a system like that is so you don't take 30-45 minutes to find a group, but let's just skip that for now.

Matchmaking systems are rarely completely arbitrary. It'd be trivial to set it up so you e.g. don't double up on classes, if that's really a concern. But what is the problem with your example setup anyway? Are you saying a +9 key absolutely requires a specific setup? Or that it would not be doable with that setup?

And keep in mind that we're talking about bracketed matchmaking here: you'd only be matched with people that have the ilvl and rating to go with that key range. Are you saying that someone with +12 rating and adequate ilvl would be incapable of doing a key because it has 2 BMs in it or whatever?

Of course the specific key level would vary with season and progress - and as I keep saying, at the top end, people would still make manual groups. Nothing about that changes. +12 in the current climate is already a very high key, considering +14 are the absolute highest keys anyone has cleared currently. The system is not meant for that range, and people who routinely do keys of that level would do it in premades - exactly how they are doing it now, with just the added benefit of being able to use the queue to teleport to the dungeon. But in terms of practical execution, nothing would change for those people.

The primary target audience for a system like this is and always was supposed to be people in the low to mid levels. NOT high-end players. Much like you don't get your AWC team in PvP through solo shuffle, say. You queue it as a premade.

Is there a queue range? If I have my vault capped at 10s and want to farm a specific piece, do I get to queue specifically for 8s? Do I get to queue for specific dungeons? How much worse will that affect queue times?

That's something that can be discussed of course, and there's various solutions. But if you look at current dungeon-finder groups, clearly there is an audience - you see groups for almost any range at almost any time, at least in the low to mid levels (which, again, is what a system like this is targeted at). Obviously no one can guarantee you instant queues or anything, but you don't have those without such a system, either. So it's not like things would somehow get worse.

History has shown that the easier you make it for people to organize groups, the more people tend to participate. So for the average player, this would likely vastly improve effective queue times - that's the whole idea.

What’s the leaver penalty? Does it happen like with dungeon queues? Are people stuck running a key they don’t need, or with a group that’s suboptimal?

At any key level where party comp truly has an impact, you're going with premades anyway. No one is doing +13 keys with this (on current key levels). They're doing +5 and +7 and whatnot. For those, group comp is irrelevant. All you need is a certain ilvl and a certain rating you accrue from doing keys over time. Does this guarantee you'll be matched with people who will guarantee success in this key? No. But again: you're not guaranteed that with manual groups, either.

Penalties would have to be figured out. The basic goal is to make it more annoying to randomly kick people and try to force selection than to just suck it up and do the key. How that works specifically has many possible ways, from rating penalties to queue bans etc. No one is saying every detail has been figured out, but there's precedents of all sorts, and some things also simply need to be tested.

This would never be a perfect system - nothing is. There'd be new problems along with solving old ones. For sure.

What determines what key level I can do? Is it based off of IO, and I can queue into a 10 that I never timed above a 5? Do I need to do every dungeon and time an 8 in a certain range to do that specific one as a 10?

That's another one of those details, but a "simple" rating-based MM is probably not that far off a practicable solution. Much like with current rating, you'd be incentivized to do all the dungeons to raise your overall rating - so you'd slowly work your way up by being able to queue for progressively higher keys as your rating improves. Going from 5 to 10 is something you wouldn't be able to do; but perhaps something like being able to go from 8 to 10 if you beat the +2 timer. And it'd be trivial to discuss some kind of "high entry" for people with very high ilvl, like being able to start at +5, say, rather than having to go through 1-4 first if your ilvl is high enough.

This of course is all a concept - many details to work out. But the principle is very sound, and the details are largely just a bit of fiddling and testing, not some kind of massive paradigm shift. This system would not be designed to make someone go from 0 to +14 in a week; the target audience is primarily low to mid level keys. And everything would only be in addition to manual groups - not as a replacement. If you want to hand-pick 5 people to do your key with, you absolutely would be able to. Nothing about that would change.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

It's absolutely true that healers are whiny bitches, but it's also true that healing sucks.

I'm sure it has ever been good, but I think as games have evolved the role just hasn't really kept up. It's basically for masochists or people who want a free carry.

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(Anyone who says weird/bad comps like this don’t happen simply need to do more BG Blitz and get into the 4-5 Hunter comps I’ve gotten thrown into).
?

Kind of a funny example because that works fine in blitz for the most part lol.

Being less comp reliant because of more people and the nature of maps is actually super great, people should try it if they havent

[Eapoe]

First off, the whole point behind a system like that is so you don't take 30-45 minutes to find a group, but let's just skip that for now.

Matchmaking systems are rarely completely arbitrary. It'd be trivial to set it up so you e.g. don't double up on classes, if that's really a concern. But what is the problem with your example setup anyway? Are you saying a +9 key absolutely requires a specific setup? Or that it would not be doable with that setup?

And keep in mind that we're talking about bracketed matchmaking here: you'd only be matched with people that have the ilvl and rating to go with that key range. Are you saying that someone with +12 rating and adequate ilvl would be incapable of doing a key because it has 2 BMs in it or whatever?

Of course the specific key level would vary with season and progress - and as I keep saying, at the top end, people would still make manual groups. Nothing about that changes. +12 in the current climate is already a very high key, considering +14 are the absolute highest keys anyone has cleared currently. The system is not meant for that range, and people who routinely do keys of that level would do it in premades - exactly how they are doing it now, with just the added benefit of being able to use the queue to teleport to the dungeon. But in terms of practical execution, nothing would change for those people.

The primary target audience for a system like this is and always was supposed to be people in the low to mid levels. NOT high-end players. Much like you don't get your AWC team in PvP through solo shuffle, say. You queue it as a premade.


That's something that can be discussed of course, and there's various solutions. But if you look at current dungeon-finder groups, clearly there is an audience - you see groups for almost any range at almost any time, at least in the low to mid levels (which, again, is what a system like this is targeted at). Obviously no one can guarantee you instant queues or anything, but you don't have those without such a system, either. So it's not like things would somehow get worse.

History has shown that the easier you make it for people to organize groups, the more people tend to participate. So for the average player, this would likely vastly improve effective queue times - that's the whole idea.


At any key level where party comp truly has an impact, you're going with premades anyway. No one is doing +13 keys with this (on current key levels). They're doing +5 and +7 and whatnot. For those, group comp is irrelevant. All you need is a certain ilvl and a certain rating you accrue from doing keys over time. Does this guarantee you'll be matched with people who will guarantee success in this key? No. But again: you're not guaranteed that with manual groups, either.

Penalties would have to be figured out. The basic goal is to make it more annoying to randomly kick people and try to force selection than to just suck it up and do the key. How that works specifically has many possible ways, from rating penalties to queue bans etc. No one is saying every detail has been figured out, but there's precedents of all sorts, and some things also simply need to be tested.

This would never be a perfect system - nothing is. There'd be new problems along with solving old ones. For sure.


That's another one of those details, but a "simple" rating-based MM is probably not that far off a practicable solution. Much like with current rating, you'd be incentivized to do all the dungeons to raise your overall rating - so you'd slowly work your way up by being able to queue for progressively higher keys as your rating improves. Going from 5 to 10 is something you wouldn't be able to do; but perhaps something like being able to go from 8 to 10 if you beat the +2 timer. And it'd be trivial to discuss some kind of "high entry" for people with very high ilvl, like being able to start at +5, say, rather than having to go through 1-4 first if your ilvl is high enough.

This of course is all a concept - many details to work out. But the principle is very sound, and the details are largely just a bit of fiddling and testing, not some kind of massive paradigm shift. This system would not be designed to make someone go from 0 to +14 in a week; the target audience is primarily low to mid level keys. And everything would only be in addition to manual groups - not as a replacement. If you want to hand-pick 5 people to do your key with, you absolutely would be able to. Nothing about that would change.

So, point by point:
We already have extremely long solo queues for things. A random heroic as a dps can take up to 10+ minutes to find a group (without restrictions). A BG Blitz match takes 8+ minutes on average. A Solo Shuffle can take up to 15-20 minutes. LFR has taken upwards of 30+ minutes on some days. These are also modes that don’t restrict conps based on specs.

1 BM Hunter timing a 9-11 range key is possibly doable. 2 is, more than likely, never going to happen. Blizzard would have to set up, like you stated, a way to keep from doubling up specs. The issue is that then drives up the time to find a group.
Also, the point of solo queues also allows people to obtain high rating outside of group play. There are plenty of people who smash ratings in Solo Shuffle.

I asked specific questions, and all I got are that there are solutions, but none were given.
As to your point being brought up about kicking someone: that shouldn’t be allowed at all. We don’t exactly get to kick people in Solo Shuffle or Blitz, so why would that be allowed here?
This isn’t an organized group. It’s the exact opposite. An organized group is what we already have. A solo queue takes that away and makes it unorganized.

I think you’re underestimating players. That’s like saying Solo Shuffle/Blitz is only for people that play at 1600, and anyone who does higher is going to be organized, yet we have SS players at 2200 rating, which is right up there with 2v2 players. There are Blitz players with higher rating than Rated BGs. To say that people that go for high ratings/key levels won’t utilize this mode is disingenuous.

So, I’d have to do every single key at a 2, to then go up to a potential 4 of that key, instead of being able to then do all keys at that level? If that happens we would have to be allowed to queue for specific keys at specific levels, or we would be (potentially) RNG gated if we kept getting the same key over and over.

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It's absolutely true that healers are whiny bitches, but it's also true that healing sucks.

I'm sure it has ever been good, but I think as games have evolved the role just hasn't really kept up. It's basically for masochists or people who want a free carry.

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Kind of a funny example because that works fine in blitz for the most part lol.

Being less comp reliant because of more people and the nature of maps is actually super great, people should try it if they havent

Sure, it is less comp reliant, but having 3-5 hunters on your team of 8, whereas the enemy team has a good spread of classes/specs creates a pretty big discrepancy.
I’ve also only had 1 win out of the last 5 games I played getting that weird RNG comp, and that was because the enemy team chased down a non flag carrier in a BfG for the majority of the game (me, I was being chased lol).

[Biomega]

So, point by point:
We already have extremely long solo queues for things. A random heroic as a dps can take up to 10+ minutes to find a group (without restrictions). A BG Blitz match takes 8+ minutes on average. A Solo Shuffle can take up to 15-20 minutes. LFR has taken upwards of 30+ minutes on some days. These are also modes that don’t restrict conps based on specs.

But again: it's not like manual M+ groups are any better. So worst case it takes as long as it does now. But as I said, historically ease of use has increased participation which tends to reduce queue times.

1 BM Hunter timing a 9-11 range key is possibly doable. 2 is, more than likely, never going to happen. Blizzard would have to set up, like you stated, a way to keep from doubling up specs. The issue is that then drives up the time to find a group.

That's a fairly trivial problem to solve, though. Especially given, as I said, that at the true high end, you'd always do premades anyway. And even so: I do not believe that having 2 adequately geared/experienced BM hunters makes a +9 key impossible. That's a gross exaggeration.

Also, the point of solo queues also allows people to obtain high rating outside of group play. There are plenty of people who smash ratings in Solo Shuffle.

Okay, and? You say that like it's a bad thing.

Do keep in mind that this is PvE - you race against a static difficulty: that of your key. Your rating is a representation against key difficulty - not against other players, like it is in PvP. It measures different things. If you keep smashing high keys, that means you're good enough for those keys; the more you smash them the more accurately that is reflected through your rating. You can't really "cheat" by farming keys to "inflate" your rating - not unless you get carried, but that's always a possibility in any form of content so it's moot as an argument.

I asked specific questions, and all I got are that there are solutions, but none were given.
As to your point being brought up about kicking someone: that shouldn’t be allowed at all. We don’t exactly get to kick people in Solo Shuffle or Blitz, so why would that be allowed here?

PvE and PvP don't exactly work the same, but I'm entirely fine with not allowing kicks or coming up with a different penalty system.

And keep in mind this is a concept. I don't have definitive answers for every question. Many ideas would need to be tested. That doesn't mean there are no answers. It'd be idiotic to go "oh you can't give me a specific, precise answer to XYZ immediately? CLEARLY THIS IDEA DOESN'T WORK, THEN". Which I'm sure wasn't what you were implying anyway.

This isn’t an organized group. It’s the exact opposite. An organized group is what we already have. A solo queue takes that away and makes it unorganized.

In exchange for faster and more equitable groups. That's the point. Obviously no solution is perfect - you trade solutions to old problems for new problems. You simply hope that the average comes out ahead. And as you can see from, oh, idk, this very thread here, say, those problems absolutely exist - primarily at the low to mid levels. Which is what such a system would be designed to address. It would not be designed to facilitate high-level play. That simply remains as-is.

I think you’re underestimating players. That’s like saying Solo Shuffle/Blitz is only for people that play at 1600, and anyone who does higher is going to be organized, yet we have SS players at 2200 rating, which is right up there with 2v2 players.

If people want to do high-end keys with matchmaking, they can. With all that entails. If they're geared and skilled enough, I'm sure that'll happen just fine, too. High-end players tend to not have too much trouble with M+ PUGs as it is. They tend to figure things out and get along. But do keep in mind that the goals are different in PvP and PvE - most people don't do super high keys for gear. They do them to push. Same with rating: it's tied to key level, so you can't just "farm" rating at the high end. You have to push for it. Which at some point requires premades. Anyone interested in the goals of high M+ will simply keep doing what they're doing right now. Nothing changes for them. Unless they want it to, in which case cool, more options - never a bad thing. You're not taking away anything they can currently do.

So, I’d have to do every single key at a 2, to then go up to a potential 4 of that key, instead of being able to then do all keys at that level? If that happens we would have to be allowed to queue for specific keys at specific levels, or we would be (potentially) RNG gated if we kept getting the same key over and over.

I'm sure there's easy solutions to that, like I mentioned - you could just open all keys from 1-5 based purely on ilvl, say. Or something like that, to facilitate easy entry. And then tighten requirements with rating cutoffs the higher you go. It doesn't have to work the exact same on +2 and +10.

And it's not like this is substantially different now, anyway. You don't do one +2 key and then somehow get invited into a +7. People are being major snobs about rating. You have to push them all, gradually, to get invited into groups. Don't pretend like somehow this would be some massive grind that doesn't exist right now. And of course always remember: if you want to play like you do now and get friends to carry you or whatever, there's no reason that shouldn't still work. If you want to get 5 people together and fly to the dungeon - by all means. Same as always.

[Nymrohd]

We basically had this in SL, there was almost no damage outside of avoidable/kickable/stoppable stuff. Healers complained.

And that's not what I said in any way. I said separate the scaling between the two. That would mean e.g. scale the unavoidable burst and rot damage much faster so it keeps challenging healers, while keeping the avoidable things more subdued. The important part is to just recognize that different sources of damage should not scale with the same coefficient by key level.