I think it is funny how the core game mode(raiding) that pretty much defined WoW for decades is on the outs now, being replaced with a gimmicky system that is just utterly boring.
I think most people would raid again if the devs dropped the raids to 10 man and just made more raids like Kara again.
This fixation on creating these giant raids and being hard stuck on 20 players in 2023 is just lunacy.
It is no wonder that M+ is eroding participation from raiding. It won’t matter how lucrative raiding is, the mode just isn’t working the way it is being designed right now.
I personally think trying to replace raiding with M+ has been a disaster for the game.
The developers needed to find better ways to make raiding more accessible, interesting and schedule friendly for modern MMO players.
I raid because I don’t like M+. I don’t like the pressure of competing against a timer. I don’t like the expectation of having to perform flawlessly at certain level or be a meta spec. There’s just too much anxiety for it to be fun and relaxing.
No, having more ways to equip yourself is nice, and M+ offers that, is it nice? not always but no one forces you to do that type of content. If you like raiding, go ahead and equip your character in the raid, but also raid is 1 time loot per boss a week per difficulty, on the other hand you can just spam keys and equip yourself much faster.
More people do M+ in a single week than there are people in all versions of classic. The only exception being maybe the first week or two of a classic launch.
AOTC raiding is definitely easier, gives more loot, and takes less time than getting equivalent amount of loot from M+.
An AOTC clear in a 20 man group will give 36 pieces of loot and it takes my guild about 90 minutes clear.
You can clear 3 M+ 20s in the same amount of time and get 6 pieces of loot for 5 people. Assuming all 20 raiders did this it would be 30 pieces of loot for 20 people.
Yes but aotc is significantly easier now players have the option to acquire loot equivalent to that from heroic raids on their own time from infinitely farmable sources.
20s are easier than half the raid on heroic, give unlimited hero track gear, gives aspect crests, and gives mythic track in the vault.
There is a reason that you can check anyones armory and the largest source of gear they are wearing is from mythic+ (which also includes 486 crafter gear which is from mythic+ to acquire aspect crests).
And how many evenings and hours did your guild have to invest before they got to this effortless clearing speed or even killed the endboss for the first time? The members in my guild usually had several items from M+, often items with Mythic quality, before we even reached aotc or got to the first Mythic bosses.
And as Hpellipsis already stated - the difficulty of clearing Heroic is drastically influenced by all the loot that’s available via M+.
… is some quick math, but it rarely is 36 pieces of loot if you subtract the amount of items that nobody needs or can wear.
If he linked his main, my guess is a guild capable of a quick 90 min heroic clear is probably all wearing mostly mythic+ gear, which includes the additional 2 upgrades of heroic track gear (need aspect crests), 486 crafted gear (need aspect crests), and some 489 mythic track vault gear (from easy 18s and upgraded with aspect crests).
You will always come with the people who cant commit to raid night(s) and its progression even on heroic, many just want an easy 1-5 min wait time and do a key with 4 others.
What would be interesting is that raids should have something good enough for all clases that convince M+ people to do raids and viceversa too, something that is obtained only in M+ that make raiding only people get into dungeons.
That would increase overall population of players doing both type of content.
Players who already do both wouldnt mind, in the end they’re already doing more content that the rest.
It didn’t ruin raiding, but it ruined normal and heroic raiding gear path, for sure. I still very much like to raid, and defeat bosses, even decked in m+ gear.
No they don’t. I don’t want to have to farm twice and have 2+ sets of gear in my inventory because some can’t help themselves but do content they don’t want to do.
I mean… it’s not really a choice sometimes, is it? Getting loot from raiding is often way too slow, especially when the raid isn’t getting cleared during the ID and when others have way more luck with the rolls. How will someone keep up with the itemlevel requirements that are automatically higher when so many people are running M+ and aquiring way higher gear than what’s actually dropping in raids?
In a lot of Mythic raiding guilds is also a requirement to do at least one high key per week for the Vault, so the progress isn’t slowed down by people with less gear.
BFA was the last expac I did serious raiding in (ie: mythic prog) and BOD was specifically the raid where I realized halfway through prog that the gear remaining in the raid was not very interesting; they were either minimal sidegrades or simply not better and a lot of our raid was in a similar boat. The thing I hated about this was our progression wall existed ENTIRELY based on player skill rather than something we could eventually topple with practice and reclears, which is typically how things go.
If that’s still true to this day then I’d say M+ has had a negative impact. Ruined might be too strong of a word, but it certainly changed the way raiding works and I hated it.
I’m not 100% certain on this, but it feels like Blizzard nerfs mythic more than they ever have before and if that’s true then I’d say it’s because the gearing curve is so different than it used to be so when walls happen it’s because raids are hitting skill based one they can’t overcome and Blizzard has to step in more regularly.
It would be just as slow even if you were to separate the two. If you don’t like to m+ and your RL makes it compulsory, just change guild. I do not want to have to farm everything twice just because you can’t grow a pair.