Hello, I’ve been thinking and talking to others about the changes coming to M+ and I’d like to open that discussion up to the public. It’s occurred to me that people are willing to put their own interests first and at the detriment of others. I believe the changes occurring in Shadowlands to M+ is a result of bias towards Raiding. The fact of the matter is, both can exist as separate paths of progression without disincentivizing the other paths. This is observable to some extent in the game’s current form.
I’d like to talk about what my ideal system would look like now. Although, it is seemingly radically different and would for sure be too late in development for them to pivot. I think it is worth sharing nonetheless. You could certainly adapt it to the current systems in place at least.
- Mythic dungeon levels should stop at 20 (or at some determined point)
This would mean doing 20s is the equivalent to Mythic Raiding and the name of the game would be time. I think a definite stop on difficulty and switching to a system based in how fast one can do something, is a more translatable goal and achievement–without needing third parties to show you.
- Removing Keys
Similar to Challenge Mode, or proto-M+, you would be able to go to any dungeon and do it at difficulties Normal, Heroic, and Mythic 1-20. Now, you wouldn’t be able to skip straight to 20, it would work similarly to how you upgrade your key now but instead, it saves your progress and you can always return to do any of the difficulties you’ve timed or unlocked. I think having one person be the key would be preferable here but the more hardcore or anti-sale folk could debate this.
- Removing Affixes aside from the Seasonal Affix
While the affixes can be a challenge, it is not fun. The current seasonal affix is very fun in my opinion! The new seasonal affix in Shadowlands looks fun too! At the bare minimum I would like to see the removal of Tyrannical and Fortified. These are just boring and oppressive affixes. Whenever I think of M+ or am asked to do some, it’s,“What’s the affixes? What’s the key?” and you hear “Dead key.” a lot, joking or not, this is a sore spot for M+. If they were to remove affixes, they would most likely adjust numbers and the multiplier to better reflect 15 as “Heroic” and 20 as “Mythic.”
- Instead of Affixes, this could open room for more Mechanics.
I don’t have any suggestions here, as I’m not trying to design dungeons. I think a few more mechanics based on the dungeon itself could potentially be a good alternative instead of random, weekly affixes.
- End-of-dungeon Rewards
This is widely debated and what I allude to in terms of people’s biases and putting their interests before others. Why does M+ and it’s players need suffer for the sake of Raiders? They simply don’t. I understand the history of WoW and the relationship between dungeon and raid has a precedent but there was a new precedent with the introduction of Challenge Mode in Mists of Pandaria. Players should continue to have this path of progression and even have it improved upon but not at the detriment of our raiding friends.
At first I thought the single drop at the end of a key was a terrible idea (I still do if the rewards remain the way they are.) but now I see it as a potentially good balance to what I’d like to see. I think doing a M+ timed or not should reward the group with one item and if they were to time it, they would receive two items. I also think 15’s should reward Heroic level items and 20’s should reward Mythic level items. I believe in the game’s current form that these difficulties are close to realistic except the rewards stop scaling after 15. I would like to see appropriate difficulty in future as well.
- A new Deterministic reward
I keep hearing from our lovely devs “more deterministic” and that made me think about how we can be deterministic instead of “more”. I liked the idea of residuum (Although, they could’ve just allowed Azerite gear to drop at the end too but that’s beside the point.) but I think it could’ve gone a step further with a small amount at the end of every M+. I think it would be nice to get a resource at the end of every dungeon–a small amount–and at the end of the week a large chunk. With this resource you would go to an NPC that would utilize a profession crafting interface to craft gear from dungeons and the item level would be determined by the highest level you’ve timed for the dungeon that the item drops from. This would mean, if I wanted a 475 Geti’ikku, Cut of Death, I would need to time a King’s Rest at 20 and save up resource to craft it. You’d of course be able to still get it via drop or weekly chest if that remained but it would alleviate bad luck and give players power in progressing.
I understand the human chemistry involved in these loot slot machines but I honestly find them burning me out, rather than keeping me coming back. If this system turned out to gear people more quickly, maybe they would be inclined to play more on other characters too? I know I would.
In closing, I’m very concerned about the, quite frankly, the gimping of M+ in Shadowlands. I do enjoy raiding but I prefer M+ and it sucks to see it get such an underhanded treatment and what looks to be an attempt at trying to get more time out of the player base (and or an attempt to return to form?) but it would only make me quit sooner. The game is different now, it has been for awhile, and it’s been good and bad. I don’t see why the paths of progression that have been built need to be neutered for the sake of one path, it’s unnecessary in my eyes.
If you’ve read this massive post, thank you for your time. Take care.
