Being an old school player, I can be stubborn at times. I was against the whole idea of M+ in the past, but now that my play time is more limited, I’ve really come around to appreciate it. I can run 1 or 2 a night and feel like I’m part of the endgame progression without having to commit to long raids. It also let’s me play with whatever level I’m comfortable with which rn is lower keys anywhere from 2 to 6.
Tldr: M+ is a great feature and I am glad to be enjoying it this expansion
glad to hear you’re enjoying it! i was in a similar boat for a long time: only interested in raids, with 5-player content being just something i did when i had to (for badges, or orbs, or whatever).
I feel you.
Me and my friendship group are at the late 20s early 30s having a family, full time work gang.
With 3 of the group with youngins stuff like M+ and WQs has made it a lot easier. We are pushing a lot slower but still looking forward to KSM.
I feel the same way. I can log in, drop some massive heals in a few dungeons and then go to bed. Take m+ out of the game and I have no reason to play anymore because I am long past the point of scheduled vidya (raiding) and pvp in WoW is awful, so m+ is all ive got.
M+ is an amazing compromise for those who want to push punishing endgame content, but don’t have hours to spend on raiding! 
Happy to hear someone else enjoying it as well!
Ive always thought it was leagues better than raiding for the above reasons as well as having to use every button in the spellbook at some point through the dungeon.
Same, I don’t think I’d still be playing if Mythic Plus was never introduced. I can’t stomach raids anymore, they’re just not my thing. I love being able to play with a small group of people yet still push content for good rewards. I’ve even got a lot of time to play but I still just prefer mythic plus overall. Raiding I get extremely bored and sleepy (literally), I tried Vault of Incarnates and realized for certain I’m just no raider anymore. I could barely keep myself awake as we discussed the boss fight strats and the pace of each fight etc. I couldn’t wait to get out of there and never step back in again. Mythic Plus I feel pretty good and often am having fun. Just more my thing.
The underlying problem that is still with M+ is the idea that “failing” a Key has to incur some sort of penalty. Dropping it down a level, etc.
Blizzard needs to RESPECT our time investment, and understand that simply failing the key is ENOUGH of a punishment. We put time into it that we’re never going to get back. That’s enough.
If you think people will abuse being able to “reset” a Key, then put something in to prevent that.
But there shouldn’t be a “punishment” for failing a Key. Losing our time invested is enough.
This is why I switched to pretty much only doing M+. I really enjoy it. I can still get good gear and play the long game with the vault.
I can do this on multiple characters as well which I also love. M+ is one of the best additions to wow imo.
Considering you still get loot, valor, vault progress, etc for finishing a key, downgraded or not, having a key downgrade isn’t really a big punishment. Sometimes you want a key to drop down a level if it is a really, really bad dungeon in hopes for getting a better dungeon that you can 2 or 3 star.
People that leave when a key is bricked are shooting themselves in the foot and only time it is ever worth leaving a key is if the group is physically unable to progress past a point.
How M+ works in the game atm proves you wrong. Like… so badly that I can’t even believe anyone would present this as an argument.
If downgrading a Key wasn’t unilaterally seen as a harsh penalty, then people wouldn’t have to use IO and wait 90+ mins applying to Keys, constantly getting rejected because people don’t want to brick a Key and have it downgraded.
That premise is absurd.
That functionality exists in the game, without added steps. No one is in the middle of a tough Key and then says “awwww that’s ok, I wanted it one lower anyway.”
Key going up = Harder, if you have a hard time at that key level, pushing it above what you can complete won’t make life any easier.
Key going down = Faster, easier to clear.
Key complete = Gear, valor, progress.
If you want gear, you want to grind the level of key you can do consistently, quickly, and easily. Some groups stop at 19, some stop at 15, some stop at 9, some stop at 5. I personally find 9s to be the best to farm for gear right now until everyone is geared to the teeth and can push through 15s easier since Thundering is kind of a meh affix that will inconvenience you at the best of times and wipe you at the worst of times.
Just because people look and say, “Ooh, big ilvl, big IO” for invites doesn’t really change the system that there is zero reward for leaving a key and the only real reward you don’t get when a key isn’t timed is a number that goes towards achievements and the highest you can upgrade an item with valor which also won’t be an issue this early since people won’t have enough valor to be upgrading items to 415 anyways.
You might not get an IO boost from a bricked key, but you might get an ilvl boost. From all of my runs so far, I have been getting 1 piece of loot every 3 dungeons without fail, like clockwork even. MOST of the time, it was useful. So far, only four drops I’ve had were less than useful (Poorly itemized staff, poorly itemized cloak, inferior bracers to what I already had, off-hand that I didn’t need). With ilvl, been able to get into more runs without waiting that long, which managed to get my IO up.
Treadmill of efficiency, if I get a Ruby 10 and it bricks into a Shadowmoon 9, that’s a plus because that Shadowmoon 9 will become a 12 for somewhere else and HOPEFULLY it won’t be Ruby again.
Yea Ive wanted real dungeon content for a long time before m+ and I love the small form factor of progression content like mythic+
its the reason I started playing end-game stuff
I’ve never valued people’s opinion when they claim that
“Suffering is a virtue”
No…it’s suffering. It should be avoided. Creating a system where the punishment is suffering is just like oof.
It can be. Its best with friends. If you’re a solo dps player it’s pretty harsh
I think the goal is to create a “risk v reward” structure with “failing the Key by going down 1 level” as an objective metric for failing.
edit: I think what they were going for is: the REASON you’re failing this is because it’s too hard-- we’ll drop it down 1, so you can learn. But… that’s a false assumption. The entire structure of M+ shouldn’t be built on a false assumption.
The problem is, it creates so much toxicity and negativity in the game because it’s TOO MUCH of a punishment.
The biggest issue of all is that we need a way to PRACTICE that doesn’t involve wasting four other peoples’ time.
Like ok, someone stood in bad or didn’t interrupt or w/e failed mechanic. The ONLY way to practice and get better … is LIVE … in a Key… where people get upset if you fail.
But … that’s the only way to learn.
That’s a fundamental flaw that really needs fixed. But if nothing else, just to punishing us for failing Keys.
If the keys don’t go down for failing the timer, I feel something else needs to change.
There should be some penalty for not timing considering the entire system is built around the time limit.
The primary failure criterion isn’t unable to finish like a raid boss, it’s unable to time.
I just play M+ for the fun of increasingly difficult content. Loot is just a bonus
that’s probably accurate this early in the season, but it’s not true if you’re only pushing for score. when rewards capped at 15 in SL there was no point in staying in a +23 that wasn’t going to be timed. if the group agreed to finish, that’s one thing, but in general the expectation is that “for score only” keys are either going to be timed or abandoned.
Just remove the timer (and hopefully some of the toxicity) and M+ would be great.