You seem to have timed a fair amount of +10s so I’m a bit curious about what exactly it is about the timer that turns you off so much since it doesn’t really seem to be holding you back.
I’ve explained how I think its a necessary hard check on player ability but it seems like you have the ability to time your keys up to the point that you get the maximum reward so I’m just curious what sort of benefit you think you would see from NOT having a timer.
I totally understand the perspective of a player who is 370 and wants the 380 loot from a +10 but can’t time their +8 … I don’t as much understand it from a player it doesn’t even seem to be more than an annoyance for.
Wow, you are either a troll or seriously don’t understand the mechanics. Thanks for the wall of text, however, probably just something to keep to yourself and not try to change. Next you will be asking for berserk timers to be removed from raid bosses or add unlimited battle rez’s. The M+ system is probably the closest thing that blizzard has gotten right in the past couple of expansions. Don’t try to change it because you can’t complete it on time.
Completing a dungeon on time is a skill check. You get a group of people together that know what they’re doing and race the clock getting all the mechanics correct in order to complete the dungeon on time. If you do all that and can’t complete on time then that’s a gear check.
Could probably classify it as an annoyance, I just don’t like racing a timer every time i step into somewhat challenging 5 man content. I also don’t like running with friends and getting ticked when they make a mistake because they’re tired or their game crashes and it costs us a timer on a key. I don’t like it when they don’t spend the QA/QC time to fix the dungeons and bugs kill your ability to complete a dungeon on time (RIP sethrallis teleport/tol dagor ghuun adds - i almost promise this will happen with reaping for the first few weeks). Also don’t like it because when raiding 2 nights a week, I like being able to step away for 5 minutes if my significant other needs a hand with something and not screwing up the group. So honestly, it’s a reasonably long list of things, some minor some not minor that have me feeling like a non-timed option is a reasonable thing to ask for.
The current philosophy in the game is that you can’t “grind” anything, nothing of value anyway. The example from Legion where “everyone” was just doing Maw runs over and over and over is testament to this. A) it’s truly crummy game play, but also, B) why have this entire world to adventure in if you’re just going to spend it all in one place.
Similarly, the design is taking distinct efforts to mitigate multiple paths to the same outcome. Because, no matter what, one of those paths will be better than the other, and that’s the path most folks will take. It’s just like the arguments over talent trees. They represented a zillion combinations, but in the end, there was only a few builds worth taking.
You can see the push back to variety with the Azerite system. Much like the early complaints of the current Talent system. Blizzard honestly, truly, designed the Azerite system to Not Matter. Simply, pick whatever you like, all of the powers are simply embellishments to add variety, but none are supposed to be game changing pieces of kit. You’re not supposed to “farm” Azerite gear. AP, sure, to unlock tiers, but not gear itself. Not actual Azerite powers – because they’re not supposed to matter (and if they do “matter”, those should be “fixed”).
But you see how well that concept came over the population. The working theory is that it DOES matter, that players HAVE TO get the Right Pieces. Similar with secondary attributes. This is why RNG is so hated. Because you can’t target that One Piece of Gear, when in the end, any piece should do.
So, they don’t want you to “farm” things. Anything. And if they opened up a path to gearing through non-timered Mythics, either “everyone” would do them or “nobody” would do them.
As it is, if you want to take all the time in the world to go through a M+, you can. You still get a reward at the end, and you still get a reward at the end of the week. It would be nice if folks were “less punished” for doing this. For example, what would it be like if you got a key to a level, and failed, and then got another key at the same level (but random instance) in your weekly trunk – thus letting you run at least one instance at the same level each week. I honestly don’t know if that’s a good idea or not, but it would better facilitate “non-timered” play while not letting folks farm stuff endlessly.
Well, make no mistake, I don’t personally care for the timer game dynamic, not all the time. I like pushing a clock as much as anyone, but I also like just completing “hard” 5 man content without the pressure of a timer.
Because a vocal number of, “I’m more pro than you,” players insist that any way other than the way they enjoy is a waste of developer resources, and if you don’t like timed dungeons, the only possible reason why is because you’re terribad and need to git gud.
But for what it’s worth, I would enjoy seeing the dungeon format I had from vanilla through pandaland make a return with whatever tweaks are necessary to make it challenging. I don’t expect it will ever happen though.
Or is this you setting me up for a, “why are you crying about? You still have that dungeon format in heroic dungeons,” response, even though heroic doesn’t support anything more than the simplest end-game progression and as such, is largely ignored because player time is a zero sum game?
Or, on the off-chance that you’re legitimately asking, I personally would like to see dungeons where trash hits like a hammer and requires you to have something more than a, “pull everything, ignore CC, and AOE it all down,” strategy. You know…like the game was for its first decade plus?
Timer is fine. It’s totally doable. Look at all these groups that are 385 doings 20+ on time. My group and I are 380+ and we are just now able to make some 10+ on time. Im not saying “get good” but if you can’t make time on lower keys then you’re not ready for the next level.
I guess what your looking for is an option to run high mythic plus for the challenge and not reward.
I’d support an option to do a non timed run for no reward at the end, to help those who want the challenge without feeling rushed. Or maybe a gold or AP reward for their effort. But asking for it to be on the same level as other M+ or changing M+ to suit your personal life is selfish.
I think what you are looking for is a system that is restricted to raids for higher gear. Vanilla through to pandas only hit harder because you were restricted to the gear you could get. You wanted better gear you had to raid. Dungeons were only hard until you progressed through raid tiers.
Off the top of my head I can’t think of any significant change to 5 mans from MoP to WoD, so I was curious why the dividing line was between them, rather than between WoD and Legion.
Second, there are tons of things that characterize 5 mans in those time periods, and tons of ways in which 5 mans were radically different from expansion to expansion.
In Vanilla/BC they were reasonably rewarding and could be difficult without better gear, which was harder to get in general.
In Wrath they were pointless the entire expansion because of how poor the rewards were and how easy Naxx was, so the only reason to do them was for the daily or weekly quest, and you would just run through with 5 dps and nothing was dangerous enough to matter a month in.
In Cata they were brutal for the first few weeks, then there was massive outcry and they were nerfed to Wrath levels and were ignored for the rest of the expansion.
In MoP/WoD they were likewise trivial, but we at least got challenge mode.
So I’m honestly curious: what is the unifying feature from Vanilla to MoP that you liked? You said it was difficulty, but that hasn’t been the case since early BC. So I was curious why MoP was the cutoff.
I don’t necessarily disagree, just want clarification.
You can’t boil it down to just one thing. It’s not about a lack of reward, it’s about not being able to do anything else during that 45 minute run. It’s the same reason I quit playing league of legends, a non-stop 45 minute investment isn’t healthy for my life, especially considering i already sink 2 nights a week into raiding at a high level.
Might as well respond to this because I focused too much on the first paragraph.
How does this system function? I think it’s a cool idea, so how do we implement it? Is there just another mode entirely, called Harder Mythic? Does it scale up as the expansion progresses? What rewards does it give? What’s the lockout? Queueable?
While challenge modes were introduced in pandaland, it was for mogs, mounts and achieves; it wasn’t intended for progression. Mythics became the progression top tier as of WoD.
As for the unifying feature, I’d have to say getting challenged without having to resort to a timer.
I continue to find it astonishing the sheer number of people who subscribe to the, “well, if you can’t do it, you just need to work harder,” idea of mythic+, because it presupposes that everyone likes timed instances and if you don’t like them, it’s only because you’re a baddie (as I said in my initial post). No one ever accepts at face value that may some people just don’t like the timer, period. That it’s not a question of whether they can complete the content in time, but rather the fact that it’s lazy as **** to design dungeon challenge around completing it as a speedrun, and annoying as **** that this mode is the only one to offer significant end-game progression.
Someone at the door? There goes your timer.
Wife needs you to help carry in the groceries? There goes your timer.
Emergency run to the bathroom? There goes your timer.
Your child needs your attention for a few minutes? You get the idea.
This doesn’t even count the fact that maybe you have an older family member or a friend with a motor disability who can’t mash the buttons as fast as needed. Oh well, guess you need to cut them out of your group or forego progression.
Now, I am NOT saying that timed dungeons are a bad thing, but they should not be the ONLY thing. You love timed runs? I don’t want to take that away from anyone. Heck, I don’t even care if we make it so that only WF/TF can drop in a timed run.
But I do feel like those of us who do not like timed runs - for whatever reasons we have - are basically being told to go pound sand. And as someone who’s been around a very long time, that rubs me the wrong way.
To be honest this is something I’ve agreed with for awhile, especially considering the adjustments to trash mechanics from Legion to BfA.
M+ is simply speed running, which is fine in the most part as of itself, but the problem is that the content isn’t designed that way.
All of the dungeons people hate are ones that either contain too much trash, or have mobs that make it difficult to pull big groups, and of course we have how people find Fortified just the worst because it significantly slows down the run.
The difficulty shouldn’t be in how quick you can scramble through content. It should be in how difficult the actual content is. Current M+ content is simply the “easy” approach to difficult content. Everything scales on a slider without much consideration for it’s impact on the dungeon.
That’s why we get unavoidable mechanics that can simply one-shot you at high keys. There is no avoiding it either, because either they stay as instant kills, or they get nerfed making them trivial earlier.
In my opinion the difficulty should be in the encounters themselves. Obviously making the base stats like health and melee damage need to still happen, but unavoidable mechanics should be scaled slower so they aren’t just instant gear blocks, avoidable mechanics should scale higher so that they are more meaningful, and if there is an issue such as “X mechanic already one-shots so any further scaling is meaningless” should be handled by them also varying activation rates as well.
Give players more to have to deal with and it will be more challenging as there is more chance of a mistake. With unavoidable damage, if it’s coming up more frequently it will still be a threat, it just gives you an opportunity to react and play around it. Or potentially the damage also leaves a DoT making it do the same damage as it would now, but instead it’s 80% upfront (so it’s threatening but not lethal from 100%) and the remaining 20% in a fast DoT.
There are so many ways you could play around with these things outside of the basic things I just came up with then, and they would actually make the encounters hard still.
I do however think that the speed run aspect should be retained in some form of content though. As I know people enjoy it, and it’s not inherently bad.
But I would like to see both in the game. Perhaps bring back challenge dungeons for the speed run aspects.
Totally agree with OP though, the timer is punishing. Outside of co-ordinated groups it encourages a play style which for a long time people have considered negative. Ie the GO GO GO playstyle. (https://youtu.be/bgnMpOU1LNQ?t=135)
It relies on people really knowing the encounters and how you are going to react to them (if you wipe there is no time to discuss how to improve chances of success), and is extremely detrimental to people that have sudden real world issues they need to quickly attend to, both in regards to losing time, or losing a player completely and being unable to refill.
where are you getting the impression this is what M+ dungeon are?
perhaps when you outgear it, running +7s in 370 gear (the reward for a +10), AoEing things is the way to go
but once you hit a +10, the difficulty kicks up. if you want to see those dungeons return, get good and push a key. they exist, you having not seen them is a skill issue or you just don’t do the content.
And just because its something you DON’T enjoy doesn’t mean it should be removed. It goes both ways. If you want to enjoy the environment and such, mythic zeros are waiting for you.