I’m not debating that this doesn’t exist right now, but I am questioning whether or not it makes sense to let each style of M+ dictate how the other must be. There’s contentious goals at play here and they hold back even the possibility of discussion around design changes.
The suggestion at a design change that enables people who want to focus on learning and progressing in M+ just for the joy of ratings progression gets stomped because it could potentially enable people to gain access to rewards that some players feel they should not gain access to.
Let’s just say that it was super easy to get that gear and it was handed out as a participation trophy, what then? This is what I’m trying to explore here. The outcome is that the first game mode that I identified above is over more quickly for players, but the second game mode remains unchanged other than the fact that people “unlock” it more quickly.
There are non-power based progression rewards that motivate players to pursue them. In Shadowlands, you got no gear rewards for progressing beyond +15, but I certainly felt plenty of motivation to do so for the following reasons…
- Higher rating.
- Keystone Hero achievement.
- Dungeon teleports.
None of these increase my actual player power, but they were compelling reasons for me to want to continue on. Ultimately my team hit our skill/interest wall at around +23 or +24 and we stopped, but we enjoyed that journey and continued on past the hard reward stop of +15.
The same would apply to this season as well but there’s no achievements beyond KSH, which is when the rewards also happen to stop, and as a team we’re just not feeling the Dragonflight design approach so I don’t see us continuing further. It’s not about rewards though, it’s more about balancing goals against enjoyment. Like, we’ll stop at KSH, not when all slots are filled with 418 ilvl.
You’re not changing the actual reason people leave high keys…
If you’re doing a 21 and up it is ENTIRELY related to timing the key. If you have a significant wipe that results in not being able to time, people aren’t going to stay with or without this change. Nor should you be getting rating for not timing a key.
It happens now, it happened all of SL s1-3 where I did 22s and a handful of 23s. Nothing about this is going to have a negative impact at the top end, or where players are truly pushing rating.
There aren’t two separate styles of m+.
I’m not sure why you keep lumping in what a specific type of player expects from mythic plus as separate “mode” or “version” of m+.
What you’re suggesting or asking for is needless bloat and extra work on the dev side to implement and maintain for no benefit.
Mythic + needs to reward gear in some form. There are breakpoints at every skill level where gear will help any player push themselves further in terms of key level and rating.
I’m not really asking for anything at this point, or at least not intending to. I’m just asking questions to shed light on how M+ is perceived, by your own admission, in two different ways. What does that mean for the game mode? What does that mean for its design? Is it locked into this design or can it evolve? Should it evolve?
Just asking the question doesn’t mean it must happen. Though I will say, I really do like the suggestion that precipitated all of this, which is that you should just be able to select your key level at the start and just progress through the ranks for each dungeon. This was met with a lot of negativity, but a good portion of that negativity stems from the current reward architecture, which stops mattering beyond a certain point.
I think that’s worth questioning.
It clearly doesn’t need to. For some, maybe, but this isn’t universally true. If it needed to reward gear, we wouldn’t see people pushing keys up beyond the reward cap.
Think about your last statement.
You took a clear stance to suggest multiple variations of m+. If you aren’t arguing for the sake of your suggestion or to support the proposition what are you even doing?
Which, that this is worth questioning? If you don’t think so that’s your opinion, certainly. If you’re happy with M+ as-is and don’t think it should ever change, power to you, I guess.
I’m not suggesting them, I’m identifying that they exist, today, then trying to consider what that means.
What it sounds like is that this kind of thinking/questioning isn’t your jam. No worries, I’ve gotten something out of this discussion at least. No need to take it further.
Absolute cap, everyone I know running mythic+ for fun still want gear if they don’t have it. Upgrading gear is still fun because it’s progression which is fun.
No that there are literally points where if you were attempting to time a 20 in 386 gear there are classes that will straight up be one tapped by boss abilities or other unavoidable damage if you don’t get any gear from doing m+. M+ has to reward gear in that sense in the format mythic plus exists today, and mostly has since it was introduced. Not everyone raids.
You’re questioning yourself in circles, talking about things that don’t exist, or would otherwise create problems while solving none.
If M+ is all about gear, in the current season, what value is there in doing keys beyond +20?
Enjoy huddling by your goalposts that are now in Antarctica.
That doesn’t answer my question, lol, but ok.
It kiiiiinda sounds like you know there is a part of M+ that is about gear and there is a part of M+ that isn’t, but that you are not prepared to come right out and say it. I don’t need you to do that, so let’s move on.
If I was going to boil all this down into a point for Blizzard it would be this: Don’t get too caught up in making M+ about the gear rewards. Remember that you’ve got a whole lot of players who really just enjoy seeing how far they can go in M+, long past the point where they are getting rewards for it. I think that warrants consideration.
I’m stepping away from this thread now as I have deviated from it’s original topic long enough 
Your subjective opinion that there are two versions of mythic + is objectively wrong.
Any time you try to make a counterpoint you’re simply moving the goal post for the purpose of arguing. You have no tact in this argument.
Fantasizing about creating multiple variants of mythic plus to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, or even pointlessly expanding upon the idea by asking or discussing your “questions” makes no sense, and doesn’t serve any beneficial purpose.
I do appreciate the passive aggressive smiley.
I specifically said people who do M+ purely for loot. I said nothing about people who run keys to have fun.
This will have no impact on high keys. Past 20, the goal is time the key to climb the later. Critical or significant wipes will result in players deciding the key is bricked; this is almost always a mutual decision or agreement at that level.
There are rewards past 20, prestige and titles. Add anything else like additional ilvls to gear, mounts, skins etc… you’ll have the majority of the player base continue to whine daily about how unfair the reward system is.
And to address #3, the higher you go the more likely you’re playing with a consistent group of players, which means you’ll have 5 keys to select from.
All of which aren’t really related to the fact failed keys shouldn’t give rating when the objective of the game mode is to time the key.
3 Likes
Only impacts people buying carries for 0.1%. Good change and good riddance. Everyone complaining has no clue what they’re talking about or that you get KSH with 18s
What if we added another “stats” to our M+ scores: number of premature departures (the deliberate action of clicking on “leave party” and/or going offline) from dungeons for which the timer has started.
Because it is purely a player-based group finding system, and it doesn’t seem like blizzard wants to interfere with punishing leavers with automatic system bans, we should be given enough information before we invite someone to our keys. Showing how many times someone has left a key would help those who don’t have a regular group, and rely heavily on pugs make informed decisions.
Another edit:
Saw a good point here: “This will have no impact on high keys. Past 20, the goal is time the key to climb the later. Critical or significant wipes will result in players deciding the key is bricked; this is almost always a mutual decision or agreement at that level.”
Perhaps a feature can be added for the key holder to initiate a “vote” to abandon the key, and it needs 4/5 votes for it to not count towards your “leaver stats”.
Have you ever tried not trying to reduce people to a score? Ask them what they want from the key and whether or not they plan to finish if it’s not timed. You can get the information you need without Blizzard providing it to you.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a more strict pass/fail metric, honestly. M+ has cultivated a community that believes that they’re due a reward for “trying” rather than succeeding. That doesn’t happen in activities like raiding. You either kill the boss and are rewarded, or you don’t.
As a compromise, and reward for killing bosses (rather than timing the dungeon), I suggest giving individuals loot based on their timed dungeons and zero score for failing to meet the timer. Stop failing forward and get better at the game instead of getting better loot to propel yourself forward.
I suspect there’ll be a lot of people who don’t agree with me. And that’s fine.