is M+ and Tier Forge killing raid ?

[Nymrohd]

I don't really understand, and it's never been properly explained why the mythic+ vault rewards higher than the key you've completed yet for raiding it does not.

The issue is that M+ was very enjoyable for many players since introduced back in Legion but without the Vault allowing it to drop gear comparable to Mythic raiding at some point your M+ progression gets capped unless you do Mythic raiding as well.
Imo the better solution would be to keep the cap to the end of dungeon rewards, remove the ilvl bonus for Vault gear but also remove the cap to ilvl scaling for Vault rewards; so your Vault would drop heroic ilvl for a +15 but if you did a +25 then the end of dungeon loot would be heroic ilvl but the Vault reward would be Mythic ilvl. BiS would still require raiding because of end of raid bosses dropping higher ilvl loot though. Alternatively just expand the Valor system to let you upgrade gear to Mythic ilvl for a sufficiently high Mythic rating, counting on the Valor cap to keep gains under control.

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My opinion on this:

Trash is killing raids. As well as no way to upgrade Raid gear through a currency (normally)
The insane amount of time you spend inside raids just to get from Boss A to Boss B, which itself is not part of the "goal" (and thus a waste of time to do) is annoying.

I know people also raid for rewards but that's not really what I'm after when I raid.
I want to have fun *doing* the content and not gear as a compensation after I did something that was boring or annoying for me... or rather, I want it both.

I'd really love if raids had more mini-boss type trash. Many raids these days have those, but I'd love to see it expanded and have those drop rewards on a weekly lockout (one lockout for all difficulties); with professions around those rewards could be rare reagents. Make trash somewhat interesting by giving them a few more mechanics and rewarding to do.

[Kookster]

more and smaller raids. 10+ Boss raids are way to long.

[czarek]

M+ is great feature that only keeps me in :P Raiding is cool but as u said keepin bunch of ppl is pretty hard and always was. Raids should be shorter imo. I would say we should recive 2x5 boss raids instead of 1x10+

[Nymrohd]

more and smaller raids. 10+ Boss raids are way to long.

Indeed, stop coming up with filler NPCs to fill in raids. Ideally 2 raids per tier at 5-7 bosses each.

Still they have done decently with giving non-linear raids were you have multiple progression paths without serious backtracking; both Nathria and Sepulcher worked just fine; SoD was a bit more linear that it needed imo though it made sence with it being a tower; that said, they could have easily cut a floor and made the raid shorter, having some small 3-4 boss raid using existing assets like a Drust raid so we don't spend all out time in Torghast

[Kookster]

2-3 Boss raids are way better for pug raids. You can have one big 6-8 Boss Raid as well and two 2-3 Boss raids.

[Nymrohd]

2-3 Boss raids are way better for pug raids. You can have one big 6-8 Boss Raid as well and two 2-3 Boss raids.

Or we just need a better UI for PuGing raids so a PuG can do specific wings like LFR does and has an easier way calling that out.
Really, if Blizzard could find a way to implement something like OpenRaid in the game UI, giving you option between scheduling a raid or starting a PuG, either extending the alert regionally or letting you only alert your guild or specific communities it would be a game changer. Forcing me to spend my time on Discord to set up a raid (which also doesn't have the browser based tools that Open Raid did) is not great for the game imo.

[talmir]

I play them. Because they're the better way to gear up my character. I just don't care about pushing because i have no interest in the high levels competition. Don't particularly like the format, due to IRL i have to pug most of them and i find myself wasting most of the time in spamming queues. I just like much more organized raiding - i log in, we group up and do stuff. Probably would enjoy more M+ if i had a similarly organized group (but again, i cannot commit to that).

Just looted today a 304 helm i promptly morphed into a 304 tier piece - what i'm saying is that it doesn't matter if i did a 22+++ or an over time 15, i would have got the same loot anyway.

M+ does not drop il304. It drops 288 max, but you can get 304 from the vault if you've done 15's through the week. And yes, you are correct. Above 15's you dont get any better loot. But at over 15's thats not the point. If gear is all you are after then yes, keep do 15's, but the challenge of m+'s lies in the higher keys.

[Sondrelk]

The issue is that M+ was very enjoyable for many players since introduced back in Legion but without the Vault allowing it to drop gear comparable to Mythic raiding at some point your M+ progression gets capped unless you do Mythic raiding as well.
Imo the better solution would be to keep the cap to the end of dungeon rewards, remove the ilvl bonus for Vault gear but also remove the cap to ilvl scaling for Vault rewards; so your Vault would drop heroic ilvl for a +15 but if you did a +25 then the end of dungeon loot would be heroic ilvl but the Vault reward would be Mythic ilvl. BiS would still require raiding because of end of raid bosses dropping higher ilvl loot though. Alternatively just expand the Valor system to let you upgrade gear to Mythic ilvl for a sufficiently high Mythic rating, counting on the Valor cap to keep gains under control.

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I'd really love if raids had more mini-boss type trash. Many raids these days have those, but I'd love to see it expanded and have those drop rewards on a weekly lockout (one lockout for all difficulties); with professions around those rewards could be rare reagents. Make trash somewhat interesting by giving them a few more mechanics and rewarding to do.

Didn't Blizzard already kinda do this to the vault in SL? +15 is harder than it was in BfA, and the best loot stops dropping at +10? Or have I just completely forgotten how M+ works?

[Nymrohd]

Didn't Blizzard already kinda do this to the vault in SL? +15 is harder than it was in BfA, and the best loot stops dropping at +10? Or have I just completely forgotten how M+ works?

What do you mean? The loot is capped at the ilvl awarded at +15 (which is heroic) but the Vault loot is about a tier higher than the loot for the difficulty you cleared.
What I was suggesting is to stop giving Mythic loot for a +15 in the Vault but allow the scaling of loot for the Vault to continue all the way to Mythic. So if you just clear +15s like now, you just get heroic loot both at end of dungeon and at the Vault (which was meant to be Bad Luck Protection). So you can spend your 20-30 minutes clearing a dungeon or you can spend them clearing a raid boss on Heroic; similar effort will yield similar rewards. The only difference But if you clear a +25, the loot at the end of the dungeon would still be Heroic (otherwise you'd just be able to spam them for Mythic loot) but the loot at the Vault would be Mythic (for completing an activity of comparable difficulty).

You'll always be best off doing both anyway (unless they completely split the gear progression like they do for PvP. Which SHOULD imo be an option).

[Bakis]

If BLZ decided to release 2-3 raids at a launch of an expansion it would go a long way of reviving raiding some.
One of them can be 1-2 bosses.

Just to let raiders not need to see the same freaking interior, bosses for several months on end.

[Tech614]

If BLZ decided to release 2-3 raids at a launch of an expansion it would go a long way of reviving raiding some.
One of them can be 1-2 bosses.

Just to let raiders not need to see the same freaking interior, bosses for several months on end.

Spoken like a person that didn't play cata at launch. Shit was a horrible grind and led to massive guild burnout.

[planetofjunk]

No, not it is not.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Imho raids being archaic, inflexible and overblown events that need regular scheduling - especialy at the higher end - is killing them. It may be great for the people that still enjoy them, but I wouldn't properly participate in them even if they had their exclusivity back. Finding a day to run 2-3 m+ with 4-5 other adults with varying responsibilities is way easier than scheduling your whole life around 2 or 3 fixed days a week just to smash your head against a boss with 19-20 others that you know won't kill it for weeks, because it was tuned for people that have others write them digital assistance tools as well as being way more dedicated to the game in general. There is also something to be said about the raid sizes for people that want a more casual approach, as these long kind of raids right now are really awful to manage between farm and progression when your raiding time is already limited.

Stopping to acitvely schedule raiding has been one of the most liberating things I've ever done, only second to handing in my final thesis. The tier forge is probably the best thing Blizzard has done in the last 5 years and finally addresses one of my biggest issue with M+ becoming stale over the course of an expansion.

[Depakote]

Simply put, yes.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

M+ has many advantages over raiding, for competitive players. Raids have a few levels of difficulty; M+ has essentially unlimited levels (can always push higher). Raids have weekly lockouts; M+ you can always find a new key. Raids have one current tier; M+ has several dungeons you can bounce between, and each can have different feels depending on the weekly affix. Raids require you to work with a raid team; M+ allows a tighter bond with a smaller group.

So gear aside, there are several reasons for players to spend more time on M+ rather than raids.

[Depakote]

Spoken like a person that didn't play cata at launch. Shit was a horrible grind and led to massive guild burnout.

I played Cata at launch. It was fun and the people I played with enjoyed it very much.

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M+ has many advantages over raiding, for competitive players. Raids have a few levels of difficulty; M+ has essentially unlimited levels (can always push higher). Raids have weekly lockouts; M+ you can always find a new key. Raids have one current tier; M+ has several dungeons you can bounce between, and each can have different feels depending on the weekly affix. Raids require you to work with a raid team; M+ allows a tighter bond with a smaller group.

So gear aside, there are several reasons for players to spend more time on M+ rather than raids.

So what you're saying is that mythic+ is a loot pinata that people can grind for days instead of actually doing raids and getting gear that way. It almost sounds like it's invention sort of replaces Raiding. In a game where raiding plays such an important role to diminish it's importance seems like a huge oversight.

[Tech614]

I played Cata at launch. It was fun and the people I played with enjoyed it very much.

Enjoyed it cause you slow scrubbed your way through the content probably. People trying to actually clear the content on heroic in a timely manor did not enjoy this trash at all. There is a reason they took the feedback on it to heart and never did that again even though MoP, WoD and Legion all had multiple raids ready and tested in beta but they didn't launch them all at once.

You can try to play contrarian on this all you want, it just shows you to be in the vast minority. They are not going to do that trash ever again, and especially not with how difficult raids already are now.

[Depakote]

Enjoyed it cause you slow scrubbed your way through the content probably. People trying to actually clear the content on heroic in a timely manor did not enjoy this trash at all. There is a reason they took the feedback on it to heart and never did that again even though MoP, WoD and Legion all had multiple raids ready and tested in beta but they didn't launch them all at once.

You can try to play contrarian on this all you want, it just shows you to be in the vast minority. They are not going to do that trash ever again, and especially not with how difficult raids already are now.

What do you mean by slub? Do you mean take my time and actually do all the quests and such? If so when did that become a bad thing?

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I played Cata at launch. It was fun and the people I played with enjoyed it very much.

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So what you're saying is that mythic+ is a loot pinata that people can grind for days instead of actually doing raids and getting gear that way. It almost sounds like it's invention sort of replaces Raiding. In a game where raiding plays such an important role to diminish it's importance seems like a huge oversight.

"huge oversight"? In what sense? Are you questioning Blizz's business model, and/or their assessment of their player base? This just in (it was actually mentioned during the Dragon Isles reveal): more than half of WoW players play solo. If players decide to make friends in-game, it's easier to find 4 friends to meet with occasionally than 10+.

If the business model was to cater to those who make it their primary hobby and plan their free time around WoW (which was maybe more common when it was so trendy that even South Park was making episodes about it), then focusing on raiding might make sense. But Blizz knows most of their customers aren't playing the game that way anymore. Most WoW players are casuals, and their subscription fees provide most of Blizz's income.

Now I support keeping some rewards and even some content for the most dedicated players. I would even argue that it's more fun for casuals to know there's a deeper level they could push for if they ever decide to. But I disagree that focusing the game around raids is in Blizz's best interest.

[Tehalbino]

Tends to be the overwhelming majority of players that strictly perfer raiding tend to be in the suboptimal performer category. Which makes sense as it is easier to blend in and make your mistakes less obvious.

The issue is at higher difficulties of current content those players are exposed until sufficient nerfs are passed through.

M+ has this dynamic innately so personal and group responsibility cannot be ignored, and players are forced to elevate if they want to proceed.


Making raids easier isn't the solution as it just punishes the players that want to improve and overcome difficult tasks with coordination. The issue is people being coddled wanting hand outs because they've never had to mix the git guud kool-aid themselves.