In the article, Blizz agrees M+ feels too difficult.
Turns out the people on the forums saying “git gud” and “just form better teams” were wrong.
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Then this would fall into the category of pretty bad unforced error in my book. The changes they made aren’t really a PUG versus premade thing; I suspect many of the groups that are being forced out by the difficulty increase are premades already. Yes, premades are going to be more equipped to deal with the changes than PUGs, that would be true of any change to a game mode that can be formed via both avenues.
The changes seem more to do with wanting to push lower performing players and groups into other game modes, either because they think those players would like those modes more or they thought it would improve the experience of those in M+ to not have such players in the pool. But in reality what has seemed to have happened is the players who don’t want to run M+ now simply aren’t (and to be clear, this is a good thing) and those who do but probably shouldn’t based on the increased skill floor to be successful are finding their way into keys with players who belong in what is now a low key creating significant tension.
And even if you are right, they didn’t need to lop off the 10 key levels at the bottom in order to accomplish this. Blizzard already showed they can create a significantly different experience at a given M+ threshold with switching up the affixes. Blizzard could have very easily created a PUG zone, premade zone, and push zone with the affixes. I still don’t agree with the thinking that mechanical difficulty is exclusively PUG versus premade, but just highlighting that if that was the thinking there was a better way to go about it both for the players at the low end who want to play M+ and those at the mid range who are skilled enough to succeed there to have more similarly-skilled groups to reduce friction.
Yep, that’s all we can do. Like I said, the only idea I’ve heard/can come up myself with that I could at least understand the rationale is if they simply wanted to make sure their delve KPIs came out shiny. Everything else I’ve seen or thought of myself seems like the design wouldn’t meet the goal.
If M+ had an upper limit, I’d buy this. If anyone is unfulfilled by the difficulty of key X, key X + 1 is always waiting there for them. Yeah the reward structure might need a pass to allow Blizzard to ensure the challenge they want players to have is appropriate for the rewards being given, but that would’ve been far better than dropping the bottom 10 key levels. There probably wasn’t enough difference in difficulty between key levels at the low end, so I would’ve been in favor of removing every other key to fix that problem.
As I’ve said in both this reply and previous replies, this structure is creating unnecessary conflict because three distinct skill ranges are coalescing in the new low end of keys, when before they would each have their own key range. Meanwhile the players who are actually pushing, the target of your comment here, are basically unaffected.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that was not my experience. As I said, I used to run the lower keys all the time with guildies and an occasional pug or two to fill out our group. We all knew our specs and in some cases we would swap out to provide a healer or a tank as needed.
Our guild always helped where ever we could, not only with our own folks but pugs who joined us. We never barrel rolled through them, did the mechanics and yes, we had decent gear. But we chose to go only up to M+10 or higher on occasion just to see if the changes provided enough of a difference not to be punishing. We wanted to have fun and managed to complete even an M+12 near the end of the xpac. But the general consensus was anything beyond a M+10 with those crazy affixes just were not fun to deal with. After all this is a game to be enjoyed.
So when Bliz made all those changes we did try to do those, but because Bliz beefed up the M+ dungeons to the current M+ 0 to M+10 equal to the older M+10 and higher, we decided they were purposely designing these for those elite players who wanted a grueling experience. We are all about the fun, not a grueling death run.
I hear a lot of folks dissing those of us who are casual players wanting a fun experience not interested in grueling. Many of our members have been playing this game since its inception and all say the same thing. But we do have a small cadre of high end gamers who have said the same thing, but they choose to push those high keys for their own reasons and never ever dis those of us who choose not to.
As for dragging lower level characters through dungeons/raids, many of use find that fun because that gives us a chance to use our alts for that purpose. Also, if those players we help are not familiar with certain mechanics, that is a perfect way to introduce them to those and explain how things work and what would work better for their classes. There is nothing wrong with helping others out…we do not tolerate trolls and we have had a few pugs join our groups just to troll us. Unfortunately for them, they got a lesson in kindness and all the help they could manage.
And with the squish, you didn’t have to deal with those affixes in what would be 12s. It literally made it easier. And TWW is even easier now with their choice of kiss/curse affixes.
I mean, how grueling and how much of a death run was it when you completed what would have been a +12 with over 10 minutes left?? Your friends that you tried the dungeons with kept going, and are still doing lower keys 2-4 here in TWW. Seems you were the only one of the group to nope out. And that’s fine and dandy and all.
But it proves my point. These players that nope out because “omg +10 levels!?” are doing so because of what they hear. Not what they experience. There is still a range and a place for folks who did the 2-10s.
It’s just now the 2-3-4 range.
People literally can’t comprehend that they deleted 10 key levels. All they see is a +12 and feel like they should be able to do it because they got KSM in DF.
Being a casual player is a mentality, not content limitation.
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Not from my own experience. You can speak for yourself but not assume me and my guild mates who have found the current M+ 2 equally the old M+ 10-12 to be more difficult than those we used to run before the change.
From a mathematical stand point, they’re easier. A single affix in TWW that gives you a massive buff in place of 3 affixes you have deal with in DF that offered no buffs.
And your guild mates went ahead and pushed into the 4s range. The same ones you ran with in DF didn’t stop after the 2 keys you did. They kept going and pushed even further.
You don’t need to be an elite player to feel comfortable in M0-10+ keys. All it takes is minimal effort. As a DPS, all that’s expected of you is to know your rotation, step out of fire, and interrupt. Nothing more is required.
You used to be able to do 15s with a bdk and 4 dps.
It is better now.
Did 20s with 5 DKs
But that is just awesome!