I do agree that your key should never be downgraded because someone ragequits or DCs. The problem is the key holder is the only one really punished because not only do they lose the time they spent putting together the group, but they also now have to rerun their key back up that level, and also risk losing the specific dungeon that they actually wanted or needed for score all because of 1 persons low mental capacity.
I don’t think anything can be done for non meta specs getting invites or having an easier time running keys. There are addons and weakauras that show what specs are in LFG forming the group, so regardless if people see a feral Druid listing their key, people will still just avoid it at high key levels anyways. So regardless whether they run their own key, or apply to others it’s going to be a rough go as non meta which does suck.
The only way non meta specs will ever be able to play consistently would be if m+ had an auto LFG filler like how you typically would queue for normal or heroic dungeons. Problem being that you require certain utility like lust, and brez for example, so I don’t see how it could work. They would have to give lust and brez to more classes and have that as a parameter when LFG puts a group together that it puts classes into the run to fill those needs. My solution would be like how we have the 3 pvp talents we can choose… do the same for m+ where you can choose certain utility like lust, brez, groupwide invisibility, dispels etc… It would also have to have minimum IO requirements to search for specific key levels (unless it’s your own key) m.
Also, I feel like m+ titles should not be to the top 0.1% of players and should instead be even the top 1% of each spec in game. 0.1% is way to small and basically tells players if you don’t have a coordinated group of no lifers you stand no chance, while also doubling down on making people meta slaves. Having it as the top 1% of each spec at least makes it so people are a bit more willing to play what they actually like, while opening up the titles a little bit more to give people something to chase as opposed to knowing it will never happen without a coordinated group.
Affixes also need a complete rework from being annoyances that typically only 1 or 2 people in the run actually have to deal with all week long, into a groupwide effort like how prideful, reaping, or the anima power one from shadowlands were. Give us things to kill, or certain objectives in the dungeon that provide rewards when done, but are a challenge for the group as opposed to cheesy on death effects or “move out of this circle” affixes. There’s a difference between challenging, and annoying… but blizzard doesn’t seem to understand that
Gearing also needs to be completely separated from raid like how pvp works with gear scaling while inside that form of content… if I’m a m+ player, I should be able to purely play m+ and not be at a disadvantage because I don’t have certain raid trinkets. It’s always a feel bad situation whenever your BIS trinket comes from raid and you aren’t a raider and know you’re already behind the 8 ball with nothing you can do about it. Not everyone has a schedule that allows them to raid, that’s why m+ is so appealing.
There also needs to be more punishment for toxicity in keys and rage quitters. A simple DNF % (did not finish) added onto your raider IO stats would do the trick for sure. Where you can see “oh this person is 2850 IO but that have a 62% DNF rating” which tells you it’s probably not worth inviting them. Obviously for this to happen and avoid people being held hostage in a key cause they don’t want to have that stat go up, there could be a “mutual disband” option within the key which would result in 0 punishment. Also you can leave penalty free once the timer is up because you have committed the time to the key that you signed up for at that point.
Trolling could definitely happen at that point, but that’s where a simply vote to kick option could be implemented where that person is then removed and gets that DNF added to their stats. If this is abused and happening to you regularly, chances are you’re being toxic anyways.
I would also love if there were 2 separate scores in m+… one for coordinated groups, and one for solo pugging where titles were awarded to both to at least make pugging rewarding. Kind of like how solo self found works in arpg games… again that could use the LFG auto fill tool like I mentioned above where the game will not match you with anyone on your friends list
