The issue is people are now seeing real players who used delves to gear up and not inviting them to a +2 or kicking them out for someone with rating without actually seeing if they know what they are doing.
It is a two way thing really. I have been kicked on my alts who i only did delves with in the first weeks coz you know… time restraint and getting a key as dps takes hours. So when i started to want to do keys on those alts i just get passed over even though i do everything mechanically properly. There is really no indicator of “hey i know how to play the game” except for rating. And now we start mythic at +10 instead of +2 technically you don’t get that luxury of pumping up the rating number. So less people getting +2 invites and people having those ideals they they boosted ilvl by delves aka must suck is stupid most the time.
EDIT: At least people who use delves to gear are actually putting the effort in. There are still players when i try my own key who are sitting on 550 ilvl trying to join a +2.
I mostly agree, but one sentiment does still hold true.
List your own keys to start climbing, and if that is feeling overly-grueling because of a lack of tanks/healers, just find a guild.
I know that gets parroted a lot, but putting in the effort to find decent players to play with pays dividends in the long term.
I’ve actually never understood the apprehension to this. You’re (not you specifically) willing to put in the effort to slog through PUG hell to try to gain rating, but not willing to put in the effort to find a good group of people.
That’s just unequivocally not what you said. Hard dungeons absolutely can exist without a timer; you’ll find me repeatedly suggesting there be a completely separate progression path for dungeons without a timer or affixes for this reason.
But that doesn’t refute the point that M+ was built with timers in mind. And that simply removing the timer won’t work. The mode would have to be redesigned without the timer to really work. Which is exactly what I’m suggesting as a parallel mode, that way both groups of players can enjoy their endgame.
I really don’t though, you just can’t seem to refute what I actually do say and decide to strawman nearly every argument I make.
Take a look at my last post. M+ wasn’t the genesis of players rushing through content. The timer is far from the only source of toxicity. We have no data on why players are in M+. These are all blatant fallacies being attributed to M+. You don’t see me telling people they’re wrong for disliking the timer, do you?
No it didn’t. We were running dungeons this way for nearly a decade before M+ was even introduced. In fact, M+ is run significantly slower than your average heroic dungeon. Players will run content as fast as their power relative to the content they’re doing. M+ had zero impact on that.
Would love to see a source on this.
No, it didn’t. I was running the Nexus in 8 minutes when we were progging Naxxramas back when Wrath was retail.
It’s the only thing that keeps me subbed. Delves are a joke, and my schedule does not allow me to raid, which I wouldn’t do anyway cause it’s hands down the most boring content for a tank.
This oozes subjectivity. I’ve seen a ridiculous amount of people who say M+ is the best thing ever added to the game. Which I 100% agree is also subjective, but it does seem to be widely participated in and enjoyed.
Why? So if you view M+ as a grind, that can only mean you’re in it just for the gear and item level. Item level to do what? Do higher keys/raid difficulties? That’s an MMO. M+ isn’t some carrot hanging from the end of the stick of raiding. Why do you care about M+ gear if you’re not in it to be able to do harder content?
This reeks of “WoW’s dying,” which is “cried wolf” syndrome incarnate. WoW’s allegedly been dying for 18 years, and yet here we are.
You better be wearing some real good shoes, because from a PvE standpoint, M+ is the most accessible feature of challenging progression, gearing, and replayability in the game. Raids have lockouts. No one just spams heroics. What’re you doing after lockout if M+ doesn’t exist? Pet battles lol?
The irony is palpable considering every single point you made is entirely subjective, without highlighting that it was so.
Yeah i agree with this. But for alts some times finding a tank in guild even in one the size mine is, is kind of difficult. The problem is most good tanks or healers tend to speed ahead of needing +2’s or even +4 pretty fast. They also use those toons first over using their other alts so getting them to actually do those lower keys with you can be a chore.
Meeting others is super good way also sure, but sorting out times to play together is difficult because maybe my time to play doesn’t match theirs very well.
This is why pugs are such a core thing to the game. When we were all teens when we first started this game we had a lot more time and a set time we got off from school so like 3pm/4pm to 7pm was kind of normal times to pick up groups to play and set up a thriving community. You could just get a lot more done. Now you have people who crave those times in WoW where community was more core to the game (classic-Wotlk/Cata) but seem to not understand the audience of the game aged up which is why we lack those community feeling in games. We all work now, or have kids/significant others, so setting up times is WAY harder than it was when we were younger.
So just saying “find a group” some times doesn’t always work or make sense, certainly when those who match your pace, ability or are on your wave length are not always going to fit your time.
PUGs are sadly here to stay unless we all become jobless. And without any solid indicators of actual skill it will be harder and harder to find a good pug group to play with.
You can actually see how they squished it. There are still a lot of people who haven’t seen this or understand that this is what they did to M+. You basically start at +12 now and people are still taking it like its a +2. I actually still see people activly fail M0’s right now and they are the equivalent of doing up to +10.
If heroic actually matched the gearing up process of M0 to M+4 or even +6 it would work out but it doesnt. Also there is ZERO rating indicator of people actually doing M0 before jumping into +2.
The majority of players are not happy with where they are in the game but lack either the ability or the commitment to get better. I know people will say “its just a game” but that isn’t the point I am bringing up.
THEY WANT TO MOVE UP, but can’t. It leads to people becoming snide and desperate to advance where they shouldn’t be yet. 8-10 keys are filled with people who should be applying to 6 keys. They lack the understanding of the game to even see the issues they have to improve.
The new system pushed heroic raiders and I want to be clear that isn’t a negative just a descriptor of skill level into the area usually held solely by CE raiders. Is there any wonder that their meeting is causing a clash?
I’m still waiting on a response from anyone that’s not in it just for PvP or casual content (pet battles/mog and mount collective/delves) what they’d be doing outside of raid lockout if it weren’t for M+
I mean…your asking what end game pillars would people do if you exclude all end game pillars. Leveling a alt? All the restrictions to your question is pointless. It is like your asking to name a favorite color but then restricting people to only one.
Im not nor did I exclude them as viable end game pillars, which is why I specifically excluded casual content from my progression example. I think casual content is completely fine, healthy, and considered end-game content of its own.
I’m speaking strictly to a progression perspective, and players that play for that reason alone.
This is why rated pve content is dumb. They need to ditch M+, just make 4-5 tiers of dungeons and have them on par with heroic raids for difficulty.
Trying to make dungeons last longer was a good idea, but turning them into what they are now was stupid.
Every expansion since M+ has been implemented, Blizzard has struggled to balance them, or to even figure what place them want them in the end game. It is obvious the fast pace at which you acquire gear has eroded away raid pariticaption a lot, on top of putting an extra burden on people that liked raiding a few nights a week for most of WoW’s life span.
I still think M+ was not something the WoW devs wanted to implement. I think the mandate by Bobby Kotick to push e-sports is why M+ exists.
Playing alts, role playing, crafting, or just playing other games so you don’t get burned out.
I do not understand people that love M+ at all, like zero. Why does this game have to have constant 24/7 treadmill content, why is bad to have downtime to play other parts of the game, or other games?
It is crazy to me that players are advocating for more grinds in the game, because that is all M+ is, another layer of gear grinding.
I don’t really think dungeons caused this. I just think that wow’s audience got older and its harder to schedule specific blocks of time to raid when your raising kids then it is to knock out a dungeon when you have free time.
Um, Jason Schreiers new books goes into great lengths about this. You wow forum kids need to get out more. Crack open a book once and while.
Most of my MC guild in Vanilla were working adults.
This has been debunked so many times. The reality is, attention spans are shorter, and the novelty of socialization has been regulated to Discord.
Like I said above, most of my guildmates from Vanilla through Cata were working adults with families.
WoW attracted a huge variation in ages since the beginning. We had an mid 70s women in our guild that played a hunter, and she was damn good. I loved playing her, and I miss her dearly. She passed away some time ago.