Let me preface this by saying I am no stranger to the hell that is pugging in this game, for the past few years since I came back in late SL it’s all I’ve been doing to varying degrees of success. I know it takes time and I know there will be dead hours or even dead days sometimes and I came into this season fully prepared to deal with a lot of that while I clawed my way up…
That being said…this is the most frustrating and discouraging start to a season I’ve ever played and I honestly don’t know what to do to change things from here. I know that if you don’t get ahead early and stay there you’re at a handicap (and working a m-f 9-5 meant I didn’t have until the first weekend to actually commit) but it has never been this bad.
I tried joining a guild and while the raid has filled a bit of the gap for me it has largely resulted in more frustration as we approached the end of heroic. 3-4 people have all the time in the world and managed to get ahead early, our two tanks are both leveling alts and just don’t want to push keys at all, and even on week three of the season I’m already noticing fewer and fewer people log on each day.
I tried pushing my score as high as possible and climbing my way up little by little but there are a few dungeons that are so hotly contested for their drops that I just can’t get into them consistently and am stuck with just an “ok” 7 clear for them.
I tried running my own key and it just see-sawed back and forth from 6-8 for a bit and never got any higher until it finally landed on Necrotic Wake and nobody wants to do it now.
I tried focusing on replacing the last few 606 items I have but despite running Siege of Boralus all friggin day I have yet to be graced with either of the two rings I could use despite seeing them drop numerous times for others.
I tried delves for a bit but no matter how many bountiful ones I run I can’t seem to get any of those treasure maps from week 1 to drop again (the one time I did it gave me a pair of gloves…yay?).
I am just…at a loss, guild is kind of doing its’ own thing and the “friends” I have are either far lower on the m+ track right now (and don’t care to push) or just uninterested in grouping…the only way to get my score and gear up at this point aside from hoping for some very elusive drops is to run 9s but I flat cannot get into them. I have been sitting on the materials and engineering skill to make a 636 gun since week one and at this point I feel like I wasted my time and my money getting that ready. I thought it might be that I was just terrible or something so I finally went and checked logs (I barely understand these) but all of my scores seem ok? Lowest I see is a 90 and that sounds decent on paper…
So what should I be doing at this point? Can I do anything? Do I just need to throw in the damn towel and play another game? Because short of running SOB till I go braindead I don’t know what I could possibly be doing to move these numbers anywhere…
I would agree, that the DPS pug scene currently stops at 9’s on fortified weeks. It does seem like if you pug regardless of score and ilevel, you will not get picked up over a mythic raider farming crests and vault slots. I would say it will be a good month before this meta changes.
Its a little disappointing as in other expansions you could fill your vault and had something to look forward too as a solely M+ player.
Push your own key is the only options i could suggest, reroll it to Mists and Ara-Kara every chance you get.
Do your bountiful delves to fill low gear slots and pad your vault. Hope to get a few maps and maybe snag some useful hero gear and a few gilded crests at the end of the delves as well.
I don’t think the pug scene is going to get any better for a few weeks until average players can start to overgear key levels; this is in a weird limbo zone because of the very limited access to gilded crests this season as opposed to previous seasons.
I personally don’t mind the difficulty, but this season is going to be very rough on pugs until some sort of adjustment happens.
I had a post on here predicting literally this. Blizz set up a trap for almost all players this season. Getting hero track gear is basically free, but hero track gear is pretty piddling compared to myth track (619 vs 639, 20 ilvl), which they have locked behind a nasty wall. A +10 was always hard, especially early on, but they FOR SOME REASON decided that instead of a gradual incline, they wanted a wall of difficulty, so for 10 you get tyr AND fortified. A very stupid idea they should roll back, but won’t at minimum until next season, if then.
At present if you can’t run 9s and 10s, you are going to be slipping behind and unable to find a group. In two weeks, if you can’t run 9s and 10s, you’ll be done progressing and unable to try to improve because those who could run 9s and 10s will be so far above in ilvl you will never, ever find a group. Think it’s hard now? It’s gonna be worse.
The old scaling was perfect. Dragonflight season 3 nailed it. They already have a winning formula, one that provides challenge but also gradually escalating rewards so people can strive to slowly improve. 16s provided the best crests, and were hard but doable, so people could slowly push higher even if they weren’t ready for myth track. 18s provided base level myth track, and 20s provided a higher tier of myth track. The slope was something someone could walk up at their pace. It was a ladder that was inviting to players, rather than a sheer cliff.
And here come the trolls to say “Lol you’re just mad you can’t get the best gear.” I’ve been smashing 9s hard, I did a 10, I got my myth vault. It’s harder, but I am not going to be one of the ones gear capped because the season is too hard. Some people just can’t fathom that I value the design of the game more than personally having better stuff than others.
You need to create a social network of players that you enjoy playing with and expand it whenever you find someone that meshes with your skill and interests. If you struggle making friends then perhaps your focus shouldn’t be isolating yourself in a video game and should be centered around bonding with other humans.
If you think that’s too much trouble just to play a computer game then I fear you are just getting in your own way.
It’s not easy, or a guarantee of success, but any argument against it is essentially hogwash. It’s a proven solution that beats any other by miles.
Yep! Champion and hero grade gear are functionally equivalent now, for all intents and purposes for a huge swath of players. Between that and the fact that, for vault purposes, anything below a +7 won’t outstrip running level 8 delves in a fraction of the time and effort, Blizzard must not want almost anyone to run M+. Gearing is fundamentally complete here at the end of the season’s second lockout, with no progression to be had for us mids other than 90 runed crests a week. Yeehaw.
It appears you are assigning blame to the design, refusing to take any responsibility and resorting to complaining as a solution.
I understand if you think it’s too difficult, and I support your right to express the opinion that you would prefer if the content was easier so you could get more gear, but what you aren’t considering is the selfish nature of your desires.
With no consideration for other players you are demanding that the game be focused around you and your potential, and that anyone more skilled than you should have their content revoked for your satisfaction.
I pretty difficult right now. You hit a wall where you are essentially competing with raiders with much higher ilvl and rating for DPS spots that are farming crests or hero gear. You pretty much either need to play healer/tank or queue with a buddy that plays one…
As someone else said, the gap is only going to increase because of where they put Mythic track gear and how they created their difficulty walls. It heavily concentrates all the players into the 9-11 range, If you can’t get Mythic track in the next few weeks the gap will widen and it will be more and more difficult to get into 10s.
what’s your bnet? my main’s score is 2.6 so i should be able to help you get in 9s if we queue together. your logs and gear looks solid although BM is terrible in keys rn.
It’s complicated, but the main problem is players who judge their success and schedule their time around loot. Much like you and the OP. It creates fair-weather players who only do content when it benefits them.
That’s a problem for mythic raid teams. Mythic raiding takes considerable commitment and those fair-weather players need to be systematically coerced into content in order to prevent them from become disruptive influences.
It affects M+, too. Good players are needed to help keep the higher-end population bolstered. Some of them would just stick to 8s if that was the gear cap and the upper keys would be even harder to complete.
I expect you to respond with some version of ‘who cares about the 1%’ and that will highlight not only your self-centered attitude but your failure to appreciate how important all players are to this game.
I understand you find the content difficult, and that’s because it is. But it’s not outrageous, it’s week 2. What’s blinding you is the loot in your eyes. You’re so obsessed with getting stuff you don’t seem to playing the game for fun.
At no point have any of the complainers ever said, I just want to pummel mobs and beat timers. You’ve just complained about being gated from loot because of your skill.
My best interpretation of the guru at the top of the mountain.
“None of you seem to be here for the journey, just the destination and that’s what making you miserable. You are climbing a beautiful mountain, with breathtaking views and incredible wildlife and all you do is stare at the peak and curse about how long it will take to get there.”
I do 20-27 range (or equivalent) keys every season, and have been doing it every season since keys were released.
If I get good players in my keys, and they match the vibe, I add them.
Across every single season of keys since they were released in Legion, I can count on 1 hand how many people:
still play
are willing to queue outside of what they want (specific piece of gear)
have me on btag still
If you fall behind, as Cesare pointed out, you cannot get into groups. Even if you’re playing with friends, if they’re doing 7’s and you’re geared for 4’s, chances are they will still replace you or just bring alts.
End of the day, if you don’t provide value to these “friends”, you’re not going to be running with their groups.
Networking is viable for the job market, but it’s not viable for keys in a videogame. You’re either an asset or you’re a hinderance.
I’ve been on the same raid team since Uldir. I’ve got friends on my list that I met in Vanilla. But that’s not the point. Why do you think there are no pugs in RWF? Why do you think all the top M+ spots are taken by groups of consistent players who have forged teams from their relationships?
Perhaps you’re a poor judge of people or they aren’t really interested in the playing with you.
Also, a handful of friends is more than enough for M+.
One hard lesson to accept, one which you kind of hinted at, is that good players want to play with other good players. I am not the best healer in the game, but I am good enough that other players want my help to do things, which means I rarely have to pug. If you play well enough that others want to be on your team you will find yourself surrounded by enough friends to play whenever you want, as much as you want.
If you are befriending more skilled players there’s a chance they might see you as a detriment and be reluctant to group with you. You need to identify similarly skilled players to yourself and build a foundation based on your shared goals.
The bottom line is that if you’re basing your play on what you want, rather than what you can do, you’re gonna have a bad time. Be real about your skill, focus on playing comfortably at that level and then work with others to ascend to the next level of content.
“Your experience is different from mine, therefor something is clearly wrong with you”
I have people that have declined me and/or rejected me from their groups, and these are people that paid me to carry them in previous expansions.
PAID ME to carry them.
I’m befriending players that are on equal skill or lower, and I usually play mentor for them to help them get into higher keys when it’s later in the season.
I have many friends that are above me in skill level, and those are the ones who are usually the most open to playing outside of their normal grouping.
Again, as I said before, if you’re behind at any point, nobody will play with you. Finding friends does nothing if you don’t provide value to them.
And you proved my point.
It’s a tough pill to swallow, a hard lesson to learn, but what I’m telling you is learned from experience playing at the top end of the spectrum.
What’s selfish about wanting to improve my gear so I can achieve my goal of 2500/all portals? This reward structure makes it markedly harder than it’s been in every previous season because upgrades below completing +9s and higher are constrained to 90 runes crests a week. And again: how does this affect you and whatever level you play at at all?
Why are you wasting your time replying to a guy who feels it’s any of his business to tell people what they should be doing for leisure?
There is only one reply, and it’s not polite and against forum rules.
Any player who says “this wasn’t made for you, it was made for me, so change to enjoy it or do something else” belongs in the garbage bin of the ignore list.
They’re trying to emotionally blackmail you out of your preferences, acting as if theirs are pure and rational and yours are not.
This 100%. Yeah, you get those players that think that blizzard NAILED IT on the first try, but i have faith that the majority voice will win on this one.
If I’m not allowed to tell you my experience is different, then you can’t tell me that the reality that I experience doesn’t exist.
This is my io page https://raider.io/characters/us/illidan/Deevax
If you look at my history you’ll see I did three keys, a 3 and two 5s, with friends because they wanted help on low geared toons. Tonight I plan to help gear up our raid leader’s alt for more comp flexibility for our team.
I am not here to fight you, or talk down to you. I am not even trying to tell you to shut up and take it. I realize you care and want to have fun playing this game. What I’m trying to do is tell you what you don’t want to hear.
If you think that forging bonds for the sake of a common goal is the wrong way to go, or that you can do better on your own then anything I say is completely lost on you.
Every nation in the world exists because it can achieve more as a collective. I dare you to name a single endeavor that has had any major impact on humanity that doesn’t involve more than one person.
I genuinely want you to enjoy this game as much as I do because that’s good for all of us. I think you’re doing it wrong and that’s why it hurts. I know it’s not easy but I think there is more you can do to make it better before calling for changes.
Keys will get easier over time. As players get more gear and get a better grip on the mechanics 10s will be more realistic. The same way that mythic raids will get easier for my team versus the first few weeks.
