Keys shouldn't deplete after a single failed run

TL:DR EDIT: What if keys had a mulligan system?

By “failed” here, I mean that the run was incomplete.

Having keys deplete by default for a failed run is very bad for the game. For example, it makes people incredibly picky about who they bring

Moreso though, it can be an incredible waste of time.

Further, this game doesn’t function very well when numbers are low … and numbers are quite low right now. M+ being built to function only when millions of people are playing this game completely breaks down when something like Diablo is released.

While I personally don’t leave keys unless someone is really rude, I also don’t have a major thing against key-leavers, though I understand your frustrations if you do as well

Ideally I would like a system that does this:

Keys have a line in their tool tip, “Charges: 3”

If you leave your own key, your key drops down a full level but keeps its charges

If you complete a key under time, it goes down a level and switches to another key and remains at max charges

If SOMEONE ELSE leaves your key incomplete, it instead drops a charge, so it would now read “Charges: 2”

If you run out of charges THEN it drops a level. I think 3 charges would be nice but this system would still be hugely beneficial if it were 2 charges instead of 3.

Finally, since the leader can’t leave their own key we won’t have a situation where leaders leave keys right before they are completed but over-time.

One other thing could be done to prevent issues: If keys below a certain level were only the ones with charges this could maintain the “continued success” model that the developers want.

Keys below a certain level every season don’t give any added gear benefit and people are just there to improve their score. For example all gear benefit is gone from a 21 over a 21 this season. Keys at this level or above could simply start with 1 charge instead of multiple charges

5 Likes

I guess I’m just not sure I buy that extra charges would alleviate many of the group-forming issues. I’m not even necessarily against it, I just think that most of the reasons people are so picky/group forming is so frustrating has less to do with keys dropping levels and more to do with everything else about the system.

3 Likes

This again eh?

Sure ill support the idea this time around under the circumstances that:

  1. raid groups can revive 3 times witbout the boss resetting before the group fails the encounter

  2. have to kill.people 3 times in arena before theyre taken out of the fight.

Lets keep things the same across the board

2 Likes

Now, you are just being silly!

When the obvious added benefit is 3 chances at loot from a raid boss. Main roll, luck roll, another luck roll.

That would satisfy everybody, I’m sure. (Well, except for the people who got nothing from the 3 rolls, they would probably want 4…)

:sunglasses:

2 Likes

Sometimes you gotta put the effort in to find weaker players than you. Go in and teach them in content it’s possible for them to defeat.

They’ll put you on their friends list.

Do that enough and you will create success. Maybe even get a static group.

WoW is no longer trendy. It’s no longer the tick tok star. She’s going to have to pivot away from this and so are we. Back in classic. It was like a week long process to talk people I knew in game into doing stuff at a set date. Maybe they weren’t close friends. I did stuff with or for them eventually cajoling them into that insanely long BRD run through the dreaded room with the torches and beyond into unknown territory.

That is where you are. Look to the left. Look to the right. See the players beside you? That’s the undiscovered country for WoW now cherish life and the opportunity to play with other human beings.

It’s all going to be AI all the way down pretty soon.

I mean. If you’re not a good teacher either. You could just be supportive and help ppl as you practice on your key… your focus is on the wrong thing … the reward isn’t the loot you get. It’s the kinship you form and the people you help along the way.

Keys aren’t a piece of loot. Their an opportunity. To learn. Challenge yourself. Test your character. And get to know several other players. Maybe even possibly help them improve.

3 Likes

M+ is built to run with organized groups, like all the challenging content in wow.

7 Likes

Trying to using logic and explain the intent and implementation of the system will fall on the deaf ears of the OP

2 Likes

I want five rolls. With butter, sugar, and cinnamon plz.

Tea would be nice too. Preferably cashew milk and honey.

:yum::moon_cake:

2 Likes

yea, they should- else it would literally double the unexpected carries. Nice try though. l2p

Charges would make pushing keys too easy, theyd have to significantly buff the difficulty to compensate without increasing the loot.

1 Like

In my line of work we are constantly looking for tiny gains for a little improvement. However once we add up 50 1% gains, we have more than a 50% gain. And the way the math works in this type of situation – a 1% gain on top of a 1% gain has as logarithmic effect.

As you say, M+ has a LOT of issues. Blizzard cannot fix this with one sweeping change. It has to be many common-sense fixes that all add up to a sum that was greater than what was before.

Is this directed at me? Because this is MOSTLY what I do in this game. Finding the groups to push the higher keys is so much un-fun effort I probably get all my score from 2-4 weeks of an entire season.

I have a nearly filled bnet friend list, and I would say 95% of them prefer a key level 5-10 levels below what I prefer.

Except most players pug. So you think Blizzard should just tell the majority of the people playing their game to just shove it? interesting

This doesn’t make sense. If running the actual dungeon weren’t the hard part, why are we even running them. The game you describe is called “World of Waitcraft” not “world of Warcraft”

By your logic all raid bosses are free because you can pull them as many times as you want.

Lol no, you just don’t have any logic:

I don’t think I even have to say anything in response due to this illogical nonsense

But I’m too tempted not to.

The reason this idea is astoundingly off-base is that people in raid ALREADY HAVE unlimited charges. You can pull the boss, wipe, then pull it again. if you have the group to do that, you can literally spend 8 hours a day, every day, pulling that same boss. If you want to SAVE your lockout to the next week, you can! You can save it all season!

Same thing with arena. If you lose a match, you just go again!

M+ is the only part of wow for the most part where you can’t simply go again. If you can’t understand that … then smh

2 Likes

They need to degrade to keep the reward system balanced but I do agree that a change should be made. It should take two consecutive failed runs to degrade it and each key should be tied to a group of at least three instances.

1 Like

Blizzard added an option when listing your key as “Standard/Beat-the-Timer” or “Completion”.

If you don’t care about the timer and want to reduced the chance of people leaving, list your key for Completion and make sure once the group is filled that everyone understands they signed up for Completion, not Beat-the-Timer.

Use the tools Blizz provides to solve your problem! Blizzard is not likely changing the key depletion mechanism (although I do wish they’d make the number of crest fragments proportional to how much you missed the timer; hard drop from 12 to 5 for three sec over seems incredibly harsh).

1 Like

TBH I think the problem is keys themselves.

People should be able to pick which dungeon they run and at which difficulty level.

Want to see the player base “git gud?”

Let them practice a dungeon multiple times at a row, slowly ramping up difficulty.

Practice makes perfect, but how much practice is a 25 minute run once a week?

Don’t want people to exploit the ability to pick the easiest/fastest dungeon for the 8 required M+ vault? Force them to run all 8 dungeons in the rotation.

But please, let me choose where and how difficult. Stop with RNG. Thanks.

4 Likes

I don’t know if keys even need to deplete. People can easily lower them if they’re too hard and knowing that the key goes down a rank unless you time seems like unneeded stress.

Not sure if there’s a major downside I’m not seeing, but it’ll also alleviate some of the frustration of leavers without negatively impacting anybody. Sure, you lose some time, but your +16-21 or whatever is intact.

:dracthyr_comfy_sip:

You missed the point. I’m not interested in completion runs. This idea I posted doesn’t speak about that, and assumes that finishing a key over-time would still deplete the key.

That being said, I think that is an area that could improve as well.

I personally feel like I’m forced to run too many lower keys, when I’m happiest pushing well above 20

I wholly agree with you on this! However, the Game Director keeps using this phrase “we need there to be some friction.” So I think it’s unlikely to change unless there’s a massive loss of subs citing key depletion as the reason for un-subbing.

1 Like

I don’t really understand why, though. Back in mop-wod we had challenge modes that we could reset and try again at any time and that was nice. :dracthyr_a1: If a run was nuked try again. Or reset, replace somebody then try again.

Bricking your key and having to rank it back up just makes an already extremely time intensive activity take longer.

Bad idea because that limits the number of close calls. When there’s a second left on the timer, and you time it.

With three charges? just go again.

Making it so that keys don’t deplete or have a retry chance would mean the innate difficulty would have to go up to compensate, without an increase in rewards.

1 Like