Hard agree
You can do all that right now. You arenât forced to do M+. You can raid in a very pug friendly and easy environment in normal (which, as the name implies, is intended to be the ânormalâ challenge. Heroic is already an advanced form of challenge).
I think the current raid is the easiest weâve had in a long time in normal (and harder difficulties as well).
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Then maybe tune the content not to be so hard, hence the point of this thread. Players are swimming in gear these days, the game feels like an ARPG for how much gear is showered on players.
Blizzard created a huge issue for themselves by having such quick gearing in the game. The slow gear acquisition in the past slowed players down, so they didnât need to create these systems like M+ in order to keep players logging in.
The amount of gear that can be aquired from M+ is a HUGE problem in the game right now, it has devalued all the other end game activities. This is why you see M+ so vehemently defended on these forums. No one wants to admit that this content is not balanced when it comes to rewards vs time investment compared to the other pillars in the game.
This is probably my biggest beef with M+. The developers know it is a problem, they just canât afford to tinker with it too much, because they just canât lose any more players.
I think the problem right now is mostly the crafting system and crest acquisition rates.
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Yep, this is a pretty dang good TL;DR of most of the more mild-mannered playerbaseâs troubles right here.
Whatâs worse is that gear provides such a huge advantage in WoW that even the content that actually is meant for you gets warped, too, because of the fact that hardcore players will also apply to it, therefore, unless you lead every group, youâre constantly forced to punch downward since otherwise you just donât get into a group at all. And Blizzard makes it worse in most tiers because they almost always add in some carrot that encourages high end players to farm low keys, so that even low keys, the kind everyoneâs advised to start with, start suffering from the âcanât get an inviteâ issue.
It also makes every PUG group feel like a carry group one way or another (with that kind of competition for invites, if you get in, youâre probably carrying, while most routine PUG creators eventually come to the cynical conclusion that inviting a crack carry team is about the only way to expect favorable results for their time), which gets boring fast, too.
(Maybe Iâm just not with it with gaming culture these days though, since it seems the âproper hivemindâ opinion is the opposite: most people want to punch downward for easy rewards, and donât see it as having the fun sucked out. See the hue and cry when PVP games roll out skill based matchmaking, for instance 
)
There was another thread recently where people were going on about how having to progress through all the raid tiers of an expansion no matter when you hit endgame was a bad thing, and the present âplay the patchâ is an improvement: for reasons like this, I actually opine that this completely misses the point. In Vanilla and TBC, everyone had to start with Molten Core or Kara, and thus, there was never a shortage of, at least, Kara (not sure about MC, because 40 people are a lot harder to cat herd together than 10) guilds on an active server, even very late in tiers/expansions.
Everyone had to start somewhere, and because in that arrangement, the hardcore players had all moved on to T5 and T6 long ago, they werenât in the way like is so painfully the case now. Iâm not sure what the problem is there 
Meanwhile, I see a lot of trouble with the retail arrangement: the players who would simply join a Kara guild in TBC? Theyâre stuck with PUG crumbs, with all the above problems with the arrangement. There arenât separate earlier-tier guilds to join like there was pre-Wrath, thereâs just competing with hardcore players for raid spots in whatâs often a painfully small selection of guilds (since most people do not have the luxury of rearranging their real life around having pre-specified times available for gaming, but rather must hope to find one or more guild options that happen to have compatible times) - and we all know the story there from /2, except for the guilds that clearly donât and probably wonât be raiding at all, everyone only wants âexceptionalâ players, so no room for the newbies or returners or older folks who donât have teenage dexterity anymore.
Players mostly donât seem interested in fixing this though.
And from Blizzardâs end Iâm not sure what they can do to fix it.
Compare FFXIVâs approach to ilvl, for instance. There are only 30 ilvls from base to max for a tier (and considering you normally pick up at least a full crafted set before you go into raiding, make that 20). Ilvl helps noticeably with damage, but it doesnât make Savage/Ex mechanics errors much more survivable. IOW you have a setup where more gear makes you pump but doesnât really help with oopsies. And itâs not like you can as a designer regulate how fast players learn tactics, vs. how fast they are allowed access to gear upgrades.
So the upshot of the FFXIV approach would be that only a fraction of the players that couldnât do the content on release conditions really could with extra gear either, while with WoWâs approach at least better hardware actually covers a lot of sins. The result is that later on in the tier, while it might be harder to GET a group in WoW, thereâs also a lot better of a chance that youâll actually get somewhere once you do; meanwhile in XIV there are always folks willing to jump into the blender with you, but ⌠most likely, itâs going to be about as resultful as jumping into the aforementioned blender. At least repair bills are cheap there?
The upshot is Iâm not entirely sure this is a problem with a solution, or one of those cases where all you can do as either a playerbase or as designer is pick your problem.
Now yes. PvP gear is simply scuffed. Iâve likened it frequently to a chess tournament where when you start out you only get some of your pieces and have to earn the rest of them by winning games. If thatâs too frustrating, then you can buy them (in WoW, that comes in the form of boosting, and in both the direct and indirect P2W cases Iâm pretty sure thatâs considered âintentional revenue flowâ).
Iâm not sure what to do about that either unless they move to normalized stats for instanced PvP - which actually seems a really good idea, and Iâm not sure why they donât do it (maybe because then it basically just becomes just another PvP game in essence, except one with all the baggage of having to level a character for whereas with the competition you can just pick up and play? Unfortunately, that argument is pretty compelling).
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PvP gear isnât, unless you mean the PvE ilvl, but you are better off doing PvE for PvE gear.
Itâs not only about the amount of gear.
For most people I play with (Iâm in my late 30s), M+ is a more attractive form of content because of the time and commitment invested in it is less rigid than raiding.
Raiding involves specific set times and long sessions. Theyâre also quite âformalâ. M+ is relaxed, you can usually joke around and talk while you do it (specially if youâre not pushing), you can set your own times with a few friends (easier to organize) or even pug it (itâs not weekly locked, so youâre not required to save your save for your group).
M+ has been a big addition for people like me, with some real life responsibilities, who find it hard to set aside time for raiding with a formal group, to still experience meaningful and difficult content with good rewards.
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Right, the logistics of raiding and time commitments make it harder, but the rewards are mostly on par with M+.
Iâd say this season you have better rewards in raids, but the difference isnât so extreme as to make raiding mandatory.
Gear is a part of M+'s charm, but thereâs more to it. I think M+ has been made, from the ground up, with a more modern approach to gaming that rewards the players in subtler, increasing steps, and itâs far easier to organize and less socially challenging.
A common scenario for people my age is not being able to fully commit to 3 hours of gaming non-stop. You have to deal with kids, with other family matters, with a random thing to do for job, etc. When you try raiding, sometimes you need to leave the group and then you feel bad, or maybe the group cleared a boss you needed, etc.
M+ solves those scenarios with more ease, which in turns makes you feel better about M+ in general.
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Actually, people your age are playing even longer play sessions in the 2020s. This is a common misconception that is perpetrated among a lot of WoW players that people canât log longer play sessions.
Also, WoW always had a huge population of working adults that played the game, this was never an issue in the past.
I would say the nature of commitments has changed and that while people play longer, their consistency of when they can play has decreased. Something you do need to be able to have for regular guild activities such as organised raiding.
They should add a âWarcraft Liteâ server.
Where all the mechanics in raids are removed except for one.
You can buy all you gear from a vendor with gold.
PvP rating is gained every game whether you win or loose.
Sounds fun 
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Thereâs a difference between playing 3 hours in total a day (even if âconsecutiveâ, but with small pauses in between), than playing the same 3 hours in one go, with little to no stops.
Raiding usually involves the latter ('m talking from a guild point of view, not pugging). You have set times you need to coordinate with several other people and every time your kid needs attention you have to let down the group, you feel bad about it. M+ has natural pauses that make it far easier to say âhey, I need to do X, Iâll be back in 10 minutesâ.
BTW, your chart appears behind a paywall for me, so I canât see it.
Actually you might be on to something here. What if there was an option in WoW to do something like that? You could add/remove mechanics and customize a fight and go in with bis gear with whatever size group you want to test your mettle.
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Last time I checked, people from the early 2000s went to school, work and had families. Nothing has really changed.
The data says otherwise mate. People are gaming longer play sessions with consistancy.
I think the social setting in 2023 is different, hence why people donât like guild raiding. People arenât as social in the game anymore, mainly because there are other avenues to communicate.
Guild raiding took a big hit with this, probably also why people gravitate towards M+. The social setting and novelty of playing an online game just doesnât have that appeal as it did in 2004-2012.
I just wish people would stop trying to say that things are different now, that somehow people have less time than they did a decade ago.
A lot of the current players just grew up, and they never paid attention to how the game was during those early years, didnât realize that people juggled a ton of rl responsibilities along with their hobbies.
The data says people are playing longer sessions with consistency. You can Google it, there is some really detailed info on gaming habits in 2023.
People have been juggling their hobbies with rl responsibilities for decades now.
I get it, you got a lot on your plate, and the quick play sessions appeal to you, which is totally fine, but please donât pretend that your circumstances are the norm.
This just isnât the case.
Edit: I just wanted to add, that if M+ was added into the game earlier in its existence, people would have gravitated towards in then, because it would be the path of least resistance for gearing. This is how MMO players have always been.
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That has been done by private servers for a while. Theyâre âfunâ, but itâs a very short lived fun. Like, something you do one day when youâre bored.
If WoW were to do something like that, they might shoot themselves in the feet.
Here is another great source
Thereâs a âstart groupâ option in the group finder. You donât have to join existing groups. Make your own group that embodies what you claim to miss. Invite low ilvl people. Be the change you want to see in the World of Warcraft.
Stop being a victim and pretending that some mysterious âelitistsâ are hogging all the raid bosses and wonât let you kill them.
Fair enough.
Horrific visions of nzoth were scenarios basically. And they have you one piece of year per week based on how much you got done in there and on what difficulty. The difficulty being masks. And that was fun. And I donât remember any mass complaining about receiving gear once a week from a vision because they were in fact difficult and s title or mount as the only reward would have indeed caused a forum explosion of complaints. The same way people complained about torghast always feeling like a chore because it wasnât at all easy at higher levels but even at the highest level you didnt ever get gear from it. So why shouldnât a scenario give gear?