I could not find the old “Suggestions” forum in order to give ideas or suggestions to blizz, so I will place this here.
I am going to try to make it short and sweet, so here it goes.
(Little backstory first…)
I am a raider, pretty casual now a days with 4 kids, married, and working most of the week. I still love to get on and raid 1-3 days a week, however I am not a big fan of M+. Not because of the difficulty, or duration, or anything like that but simply because its just not that interesting to me. I like running the instances, I like to be challenged by them, I just dislike being challenged by them over and over and over and over… you get the point.
That leads me to where the issue is, as a raider I can keep up with my guildies pretty easily for awhile by strictly just raiding and barely stepping foot in M+ (mainly use M and M+ to get my foot in the door for normal/heroic raiding), but without running M+ and pushing keys endlessly, I get left behind pretty quick. Here is my possible solution.
Changes to M+ rewards+++
Strip down the crest upgrade system to make it-
+2 rewards ilvl slightly higher than LFR gear increasing up to +7 which will reward an item that is just shy of Normal raid ilvl.
+8-12 would be the same but with heroic quality gear
+12-15 would be Mythic
{adding after I posted}===
To get said M+ item to upgrade to equal a raid item, have a drop rate currency drop from raid bosses/raid trash/raid quest that gives you that last little bit per difficulty.
Changes to M+ style+++
Implement a charter than can be created by 1 person and needs to be signed by 4 others that creates a banner, thus creating a M+ group. You name you group just like arena teams.
Implement a ladder/seasonal system, this will make +15 and higher keys still relevant, and would make sense to award additional currency/cosmetics/menial rewards for completing and culminating with seasonal awards on par with Arena seasonal awards.
Changes to raiding+++
Raid gear will not have an upgrade system
extremely rare drop gear-Make 100% drop rate but make that encounter have an additional trigger that hast to be done in order to have that chance drop, think activating hardmode, the things blizz could create would be endless.
Changes to raiding style+++
Not much needs to change with the current style of raiding, however a few things (very unlikely things) could make it more of a game changer such as;
We get 1 primary raid that can flex between 10-30+ for LFR/Norm/Heroic and the 20 man Mythic.
Choose 1 dungeon each season that can be tuned up in order to make it into an [insert name here] dungeon that turns it into a 10 man raid that is tuned to feel like a 10 man version of a mythic raid on a weekly lock out. Or do the longer shot of creating a new raid that is tuned for 10 players max. IMO the conversion of a 5 man would likely be easier and use less resources, but could still give that option.
There are probably tons of other things that could be done, but I just thought I would share since it was fresh in my mind while talking to a fellow guildy.
In summary, Mythic raiding should be the end all be all in PVE content, and Mythic+ is popular enough to be on its own. So I feel that giving M+ its own slice of wow while revitalizing the raiding aspect of the game would by and large benefit the entire player base without diminishing the others.
Id be happy with a couple responses, replies, revisions, or what ever, a meaning blue post would be grand, but meh I’m just happy if someone else things this would be a good idea.