That is their gameplay decision that has no effect on you. You can always continue to run dungeons like the old days.
Do M0.
If it’s not IO it’s achieves. Or item level. Or gear score. Or who has what. Been that way since long before M+.
Overworld players were unloaded on with content.
As if they were never balanced around raids?
You have the Delve thing coming. The timed aspect of M+ is actually what gets sidelined for RP, which is why in RP heavy dungeons they either extend the timer or wait a few weeks to remove the RP.
It is an additional progression path, not a replacement.
Pretty sure WoW is still defined by its raids. That’s where the spectacle is at.
I mean, based solely off Dragonflight, classes were all pretty well balanced for raid throughout the entire expansion. M+? Not so much. Past 9.1.5 every season has had a ‘God Comp’, all involving aug evoker. Not exactly what I would call balance.
That’s the whole point is it not? Yes, it’s repetitive. I won’t disagree or fight you on that, but M+ is there to challenge players and give them a lack of will to live when doing them. Okay, I am joking with that last part but still, M+ is there to give players a challenge and it’s not meant to be easy.
Then don’t do it? I like the timer; if I am not frustrated playing a game, then I am not truly playing a game.
So, what if it’s social peer pressure? I find M+ fun so of course I’ll drag my newer WOW player friends to do them. And each and every time I do, they have fun and they progress pretty far. I feel quite proud when they start running 20s or reach 2k IO. Makes me realize how much of an impact I’ve had on them. I also drag my friends to do M+ because I just want to bond with them more in this game and just have them suffer with me.
Okay? Don’t do it?
Again, don’t do it. It’s there for people who want a challenge, not for big cry babies who think it’s too hard or stressful. Gaming isn’t always meant to be easy; if it’s easy, then it’s not fun. I cannot stress this enough, I or anyone else CANNOT provide you a reason to do M+ or anything else. My friend hates M+, and he just raids, and you always have PVP, too. It’s an MMO for frick sakes find something to do, your opportunities are endless.
Let’s analyze this for a moment shall we? This person is level 10 and they have 40 achievements, they probably aren’t new to the forums but they’re just posting on a US account
I’ve only completed low level keys but I’ve raided at a high level before. Everything you mention can be said about raiding.
Repetitive content - numerous attempts on bosses on multiple difficulty levels
High stress -Boss timers, instant kill mechanics, role mechanics like interruptions.
Competitive race for world first, server first and faction first. Push to be top Mythic, Heroic or even normal guild. Push to be top percentile on logs.
Development - probably the part of the game the most development goes into.
Homogenization - literally the part of the game where bring the player not the class was coined.
Power growth - The most powerful gear has been and is from raiding.
This fantasy game where you can gain equal power from every aspect of the game never existed. It used to be normal dungeons to heroics/crafting gear to raiding. It’s always been a stressful, time consuming, repetitive venture to gain power in WoW.
That’s just for PvE. The stress level for PvP is just as high if not higher doing the same repetitive things for the last 17 years.
Raiders often (not always) quit until next raid tier comes out, because continuing to raid once everyone is geared would “more monotonous over time”, plus they like to take a break. The same is true of M+, once you’ve reached your desired gear-level, there’s no point other than running it for score and those that do it for score are the competitive ones, it’s not everybody that runs M+.
The same could be said of pug raiding… make a mistake that wipes the group and you can expect to be kicked from group. There’s no timer, but as a pug it’s not a wildly different experience. If it’s specifically the timer that you’re arguing against, the other two end-pillars do NOT have a timer (raid and PvP). Those that really hate the timer, should play one of the non-timed pillars.
The Game Director has repeatedly said that player competition is a player-driven thing. The design of M+ was to provide an alternative end-pillar to Raid and PvP, which it does nicely! I find it much easier to do M+ because it’s relatively easy to pickup groups whenever it fits my schedule. Organized Raiding, in comparison, requires herding cats on a specific day/time of the week which is not more gameplay challenge, it’s just inconvenient. PUG raiding I suppose could be more convenient, but it’s still a time-sink compared to a few M+ dungeons.
I think this is mostly a fair statement, but if you think that the PvE game is balanced around M+, I’ll share my view that the it’s balanced around Mythic Raid with the assumption that Mythic Raiders will also do M+.
That’s a problem in my opinion since each pillar should be independent. Blizz tried to “encourage” people to do content they did not like by putting the best rewards for PvE behind PvP content and vice-versa–it was an awful idea that they called “cross pollination,” but it just made people doing PvE feel forced to do content they absolutely did not want to do.
From what @Brewa would tell you, Mythic Raiders feel compelled to do M+ (and beleive that Blizz does balance Mythic Raid around also doing M+), but many Raiders would rather only do Raid. Blizz could solve this by making gear from M+ 12 ilvls higher in M+ and gear from Raid 12 ilvls higher in Raid, just like they already do for PvP gear.
All end-game pillars of content get tweaks… if you think about software design ideology, you spend the majority of time on design, getting it right, and then cut code and have fewer tweaks to do because you worked out most potential bugs in the design stage. If M+ gets more tweaks than Raid, that tells me that Raid is still the primary dev focus and gets fewer tweaks because they spent more time designing it than they did on designing timed dungeon encounters.
Your overall theme seems to be that you wish they spent more on story (RPG elements) than on end-pillars, but story is a one-shot experience with a low return on investment, whereas end-pillars are what retain subscriptions and drive WoW Token sales. As a business delivering an MMORPG, they’re going to devote effort to a story that they hope is compelling (RPG), but they know the bottom line for profit is from the “evergreen” end-game (MMO).
I’d love more story, but I also have a realistic view of a profit-driven business model.
While typing a reply, if you highlight someone else’s post you’ll see a popup with Quote, Quote-Copy, Share options… just pick Quote and it will insert the username and their quote into your reply.
I get that, and you’re right that both raiding and M+ have their own cycles. My issue isn’t so much with taking breaks after gearing up but with how M+ becomes this dominant activity during those very breaks. When the loop becomes just about pushing keys for a score, it can feel like the game is funneling you into one type of content, which might not be appealing to everyone, especially those who miss exploring different facets of an RPG.
Totally agreed that pug raiding can also be frustrating, but the timer in M+ adds a different kind of pressure. It’s not just about making a mistake, it’s about making it within a set time, which can make people more on edge. And while it’s true that there are non-timed pillars, M+ is a major part of the game now, so it’s not easy to just ignore it if you want to engage with the game fully. The timer creates a different atmosphere that might not suit everyone, especially in more casual or mixed-skill groups.
I get that M+ offers flexibility and a different kind of challenge compared to raiding. But even if the competition is player-driven, the design of M+ naturally pushes people towards that competitive mindset. It’s great for those who enjoy it, but it can overshadow other aspects of the game for players who prefer a less intense experience. The convenience of M+ is undeniable, but the focus on it can sometimes make other content feel less relevant, especially when it’s so easy to fall into the M+ loop.
Shortened the quote but I am addressing the whole segment: I totally get where you’re coming from about balance, and it’s true that every pillar of the game needs some level of tuning. But the issue with Mythic+ is that it’s more focused on efficiency and speed, which can lead to classes being fine-tuned for that specific type of content. This might make them feel a bit more homogenized, losing some of that unique flavor that makes playing different classes fun in the first place. Raiding on the other hand has traditionally allowed for a wider variety of roles and playstyles which helps keep the game feeling rich and diverse.
As for balancing the game around Mythic Raid, I can see that too. But it does feel like the lines between the different types of content are getting blurred, which can make players feel like they need to participate in content they’re not particularly interested in. If Blizzard could find a way to keep these pillars more independent, like your suggestion of having gear that’s better suited for one type of content or another, it might help keep things more balanced and satisfying for everyone.
You make a good point about how different content gets different levels of attention and tweaks. But the fact that Mythic+ seems to get more updates might indicate that it’s becoming a bigger focus over time. It feels like more effort is going into fine-tuning this competitive aspect, potentially at the expense of more narrative-driven content.
And I totally understand that story content is a one-shot experience with less return on investment compared to the end-game pillars, which keep players engaged long-term. But for a lot of us, the story and RPG elements are what make the world feel alive and worth investing in. I get that the end-game drives subscriptions and WoW Token sales, but I’d argue that maintaining a strong, compelling story keeps the heart of the game alive.
The game is more narrative driven now than it was in its early days. I don’t really feel that it has less RPG elements than before, its more than the majority of the playerbase ignores that in favor of the repetitive gearing content that you find boring.
Most of the things you are unhappy with have shifted that direction because that is the content that the bulk of the playerbase chooses to engage with, so Blizzard puts more of their focus on it.
I’m not reading your wall of text but m+ is in addition to what everyone already had available to them, and still has available to them. If you don’t like m+, you literally don’t have to do it, but also don’t have to inject your opinion on something you don’t like, and don’t do, because you are feedback noise and are the problem with why m+ is what it is today because of your feedback noise.
The opening post is how I have felt about Mythic+ from the beginning. It isn’t a mode that I wanted to participate in and never have.
However, there are follower dungeons now. These provide the opposite of Mythic+. For players like myself, I feel they are a great addition to the game. I can enjoy a dungeon at my pace and not have to worry about going through them quickly.
Now, I don’t have to feel pressured to do Mythic+ for any reason in the future. It keeps me from getting grumpy while trying to enjoy the game. Of course, if I got too grumpy then I would just alt-F4 and leave the key so I guess it benefits everyone to stay away.
