Rather than suggest solutions, I’d like to share what I have and haven’t been doing with M+ this season and why. This is all my personal perception as a player, no attempts at hard data, and how I feel I should or shouldn’t spend my time in game. I’ll include how I interact with M+ on my raid main and where I am with M+ on alts.
Player Profile Context
I currently raid in a CE guild progging Mythic Ansurek. We began the season shooting for US 150 on a 2-3 day schedule. If we miss that goal, it won’t be by much. I also engage with crafting, lots of alts, chase cosmetics such as those in the anniversary event and get my M+ dungeon portals early in the season— week one or two.
Main: Warlock
Once I have my portals, I don’t usually go much further than that. While I would enjoy pushing for the title, warlock hasn’t been as in-demand in high key pugs for some time and I’m not -so- interested in the title that I want to master a second class or dedicate time to running a team. So my weekly M+ routine is usually to seek to fill my vault with whatever key gives me access to the highest ilvl loot for efficient crest savings. Getting into groups can be a lengthy process, but my insistence on getting portals in the first or second week usually gives me enough score to get into groups within minutes rather than tens of minutes as it’s been in previous seasons.
Sometimes the jump from 4 dungeons to 8 feels like a chore or obligation, particularly once I no longer need anything that drops from the dungeons themselves. I’m not pushing, I’m not excited to open the chest at the end, I am just collecting my crests and hoping that 3rd slot is protection against bad rolls in the Great Vault. The weeks I do 8 keys and have nothing worth taking from the vault in spite of having several slots to target are a bit demoralizing. It’s a decent amount of “wasted” time. But I also know I’ll kick myself if I stop at 4 keys and get nothing worth using.
As of this week, I’ve crafted comparable pieces to the one or two things I haven’t managed to get in vault or raid and am quite likely done with M+ on my main until the next season. This many weeks in, I feel glad that if I do any other dungeons on my main, it will only be because I felt like playing that class. Which leads me to—
Alts
There are a lot of classes or specs I’d like to bring into dungeons. I’ve been able to dabble throughout the season, and am really enjoying the current feel of Discipline. Aesthetically, I really like going in with the Dark Ranger hero talents or running my new Dracthyr Prot Warrior. I miss playing my Windwalker in big AoE settings. I used to feel there was no point in playing an alt unless it was at a similar difficulty level to what I’m used to on my main, but I’ve come to accept that just because the key level isn’t as high doesn’t mean I can’t increase the difficulty in other ways such as acknowledging that I’m a bit undergeared or less practiced in non-DPS roles. But I’m still not playing these characters nearly as much as I’d like to.
I think a big part of it is how much time I already spend on what I feel obligated to do on my main. I’m either out of time to game for the week or want a break from dungeons by the time I get into and complete 8 relatively difficult ones. Bountiful Delves at Tier 8 have been an okay outlet to play some of these characters, but once the Champion track gear stops being an upgrade, I usually lose interest beyond completing a weekly quest for the anniversary event Bronze. I don’t feel the same drive to fill all my Delve Vault slots with heroic loot as I do filling the dungeon vault with mythic loot.
I do maybe one or two keys on one or two alts every one or two weeks in addition to what I feel I’m required to do on my main. Unless the stars align and my non-raiding friends decide to do a sprint of low keys on self-described rat characters while I’m available.
The point of this post is not to offer design solutions. I’ll leave that to the designers. But in typing this out, it seems I am spending a lot of low quality time on my main in terms of enjoying pursuing rewards that I would rather be spending on additional characters.