Does M+ Hurt Raiding: A Discussion

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
163

This is a joke right? 20+ keys are harder then most mythic bosses, you know why? Because a tank does not have another tank, a healer does not have another healer to rely on, dps miss an interrupt its a 1 shot to the grp on most weeks.

I use to raid cutting edge back in the day, obviously their were no M+ dungeons, with nothing else to do but raid, do you know how many 1 year breaks i took? People always want to change thing for their benefit.

M+ Is perfect for people that cannot commit to raiding especially 2-4 days a week, why do you care so much? Just do what you like and leave other people alone, to much whining these days. Love raiding? Then raid? Love M+ then do that…

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164

No they’re not. Not even close.

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165

I’ll take things that never happened for 500 alex.

166

The best feature ever added to the game. You can do as easy or hard of content as you want and you dont need 20 other people. This should have been a lesson for blizzard to lower raid number for mythic and to spread out raid buffs so a group can get all of them.

167

debatable, depending on your role, affix combo, etc. imo. :100:

168

I think the only thing that ever hurts raiding is raiding.

People can and should gravitate to the easiest source of powerful gear in an MMO. It doesn’t matter what you do in the game, whether you’re competing with the other .1% at the top, mount farming, or doing daily quests and farming gold or even just leveling. People like their characters to feel as powerful as they can while they play the game.

The premise of the thread is that M+ hurts raiding because for less effort you can get better gear then the raids. I actually think that’s a fair argument, why should something easier provide equivalent rewards.

The ironic part about the premise of the thread is that it brings up Emerald Nightmare, and how M+ allowed guilds to “crush” the raid. Again, a fair point to bring up, but my question is why was the reaction to Emerald Nightmare being cleared en masse was to make raids significantly harder. Almost 10k guilds cleared Mythic Emerald Nightmare. After that almost 2k~ killed Gul’dan, less then 1k killed Kil’jaeden, before we go back up to almost 2k again for Argus.

Emerald Nightmare was the equivalent to running M+, they were about the same difficulty. Since then every raid since then has been made significantly harder with no signs that Blizzard will change course while M+ regularly gets tuning when it gets a bit too hard to clear a 15 for the week. Blizzard should probably go back to tuning the raids to Mythic Emerald Nightmare difficulty.

The alternative of course is to make M+ super tryhard/sweaty, bump the rewards up to +20 or +25 clears.

The problem with that solution is that it has never worked in WoW, ever. Anytime Blizzard has challenged the playerbase to be better at the game or it’s harder content, the community either A) Quits, B) Waits for it to be nerfed, C) Does it later when it’s trivialized. There’s a very small percentage of the WoW population that cares about clearing the game’s harder content. People won’t switch from M+ to raiding because Blizzard ruined M+, they’ll just do one of the 3 options above ^. You saw that at the start of SL when M+ gearing and rewards was initially gutted.

There are easier and more fun ways to gear your toon or acquire vanity loot in WoW, you quite frankly don’t need the gear offered in a raid. What hurts raiding is that it’s significantly harder for no quantifiable reason.

The thing that hurts raiding the most, is always raiding.

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169

Yes, because i have to rely on less people to waste my night, Mythics are faster pace with less downtime, groups form faster, Mythics don’t have a weekly lockout so you can actually play the game you’re paying to play.

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170

Two reasons:

  1. The devs have a ton of ego invested in their raid design and if they don’t think people are crying and wetting themselves enough while doing it, the devs take that as an affront because somehow the players “beat” them.
    (Read Knights of the Dinner Table if you haven’t. The whole thing is a satire on how tabletop RPG’s evolve into “player vs. game master”. Such it is with raid design.)

  2. WoW devs have a long history of throwing inflated and/or required rewards into new things to pump up participation numbers. They did it with arena in BC (free weapons for losing 10 games every week), they did it with stuff like Islands (best method for AP acquisition) and war fronts (guaranteed epic for afk’ing in a bg equivalent), and they did it with Mythic+. They can’t brag on their annual reviews about “how popular” their new features are if they don’t bribe people to do them.

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171

This exactly! Mythic plus caused much drama in guilds and now it’s tough to hold 20 people for highest raiding content.

172

Amazing! That so many can complain about the reward structure and not see the real issue is; raiding is over tuned. Has been all of Shadowlands.

There is just too many mechanics in raiding that are binary, one person fails and that is a wipe even if it takes 2 minutes to get there.

Those mechanics exist because Blizzard caters to the World First Race as it is great advertising. Those teams represent the .001% of the absolute best players in the world.

There should be a 5th level of raiding, Mythic Plus Raid, which is for world first race and comes replete with gear that only works in that content. Open to any guild that wants to try it.

Then tune the other 4 levels to improve completion significantly. Heroic right now is over tuned for it’s audience. Mythic is massively over tuned, if 20% of the player base can complete a +20 on time then 20% should be completing Mythic raid.

Make raiding easier and all those people who left raiding scene will come back. All of a sudden raiding is the way to gear again.

Somewhere along the line Blizzard forgot that 95% of their paying customers don’t enjoy wiping for hours on end to a boss. Want proof, go look at all the threads complaining about people bailing on keys because of a wipe or two.

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173

What drama did it cause?

174

Drama came in two ways. 5 man clique groups within the guild which drew lines of favortism AND a division in those who can run mythic plus all day long and have the best gear verses those who have jobs and can only run maybe 2-3 in a weeks time. Resentment toward the lesser geared would show up in the actual raid. It’s all mute now. Raiding isn’t even worth doing unless its 20 man mythic level. Mythic plus gear is just too good for such little time.

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175

Your job isn’t the reason you can only run 2-3 a week. You’ve deprioritized running keys and therefore don’t do keys. Your decisions don’t need to be justified in this way.

176

Can you reconcile those two statements for me please? They seem contradictory.

177

Goes with the topic. Mythic plus hurt raiding. cuz I no longer have the ability to keep up in raids only doing 2-3 mythic pluses per week. Thus I mythic plus more and raid far less. Me with limited time realized that mythic plus running is better at gearing than raiding is. Is mythic plus more fun than raiding to me? No, but if I want to keep up I must mythic plus more and raid less. The gear balance is wack atm and I hope they fix it. Also, I was always only a heroic raider. So mythic plus has made my raid level obsolete. :confused: its all about perspective, I know, but that’s mine.

178

Not really. You said you don’t have time for M+, but that also gearing up in M+ is too good for so little time. Those two statements don’t work together.

179

i gave up raiding for mythic plus. It hurt raiding numbers.

180

Okay, that makes a bit more sense. I guess I wasn’t expecting someone to give up their preferred endgame for an endgame option they don’t like, but I’ve always had a problem understanding players who are motivated exclusively by gear.

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181

I have a job, a family, 2 cats, etc and I still run 20+ keys a week. There’s nothing wrong with putting gaming on a low priority for your time, but trying to act like you’re entitled to a group with people because they either have better time management skills than you do or simply prioritize their gameplay over their job / family (let’s just hope it’s the first) is pretty odd. Just as an example, I used to only play when my son was in bed. I currently play with a lot of fathers that do just that as well, which is why most of my game time is later in the evening. Now that my son is a bit older, for a few hours a night I’ll hop on wow, he’ll hop on fortnight and we’ll play and wind down before bed. Days off are even easier because I can grind out some keys while he’s in school. Either way, when I’m using my time to run keys, should I take the lower geared guildy who only runs 2-3 a week with low gear / experience, or am I going to run with my guys who play at a similar level that I do? I still take my lower geared guildies on runs with my alts because I’m not so worried about burning my key, and sometimes I’ll carry them on my main to help push theirs up, but my good keys are going to go to the guys I know will actually get through the content.

It sounds like raiding isn’t more fun to you either, getting gear is. If that is your end game goal, to have gear, then what does it matter which path you take to achieve it? Just pop out a few 15’s and be down for the week. If your end game goal is to get aotc, then just go get it. If your team needs a 270+ ilvl to clear, you need a better team not gear. The dps / healer checks are more than loose enough for 250-260 ilvl players. It is mechanic checks that are making groups struggle.