At the end of the day people were doing 0s in DF S1 well below the ilvl recommendation. People are now doing T8 delves below the ilvl recommendation.
The only difference now is that those people doing their delves aren’t filling mythic groups for the people that are crying about delve loot. 
“My dedicated mythic+ group carried my 570 alt through a 0 but some casual got better loot from a T8 solo” has to sting for this kind of person.
I agree with you. But if players are not engaging with content that requires enormous Ilvl, then perhaps their standards are too high if they think that they need the extended progression involved in the more difficult content.
People are engaging with the content just the same as they’ve always been. There is just a vocal minority of players who hate the new content but, for some reason, have convinced themselves they have to engage with it, so they’ll say whatever they have to in order to justify their hatred.
Appearantly, making a huge fuss over nothing is easier than just not engaging with things you don’t enjoy.
Honestly they should just rework Mythic + to work like delves
-Take out the timer and replace it lives for each player
-When the player dies THEY lose a life not the whole group so if someone loses all of there lives they don’t mess up the whole group
-The focus can be on survival and doing mechanics not just speed run there way though
I think this is a pretty strong assumption. Only Blizzard has the data on what ilvl most people are completing what tier of delves. All we know is that the people most vocal about it are saying they completed delves below the recommended ilvl.
Myself personally I am literally only doing tiers at the recommended ilvl based on what my ilvl is. And I would strongly guess that based on a lot of feedback of the people who are enjoying delves being “chill” and “going at their own pace” that it’s likely they’re not completing higher delves above their ilvl, either.
My hot take is that there a bunch of people who raid and do M+ who feel “forced” to squeeze out as much ilvl per week saying they’re feeling “forced” to do delves where obviously they’re gonna be able to push higher than the people this content was designed for. So they go “whoa this was too easy for the rewards! fix this” not even realizing the content wasn’t designed for them, and they’re easily going to progress past delves being relevant for them in like a week or 2. When the people delves were designed for have this content for the entire rest of the season.
My hot take is that people “doing” m+ and saying they’re forced to do delves are people who aren’t doing m+ to any meaningful degree and looking for a scapegoat. Probably don’t get invited to pugs and have found a bogeyman to blame.
If you can clear 3 or higher, you literally have no reason to step into delves. Not unless you are forcing yourself to for… reasons?
Those who enjoy doing mythic plus still enjoy it. If you still enjoy playing mythic plus then keep playing it. If there’s less people playing mythic plus who aren’t invested in it that’s a good thing
You’re right but it’s definitely both. The way they justify their complaints in their head is that “Blizzard is forcing me to do this content!”, because they can’t recognize it exists as a bridge to fill in gear gaps specifically to help them lol.
Just like you said here:
I think it’s not really about standards. I don’t think people think they necessarily deserve higher gear for easier content. They’re just not interested in upgrading subpar gear. It’s just a different way of approaching the game.
I think more and more people engage the game as a task-based OCD scratcher. And being part of the herd matters. Keeping up. So a lot of these people feel the need to run keys in order to satisfy that need to keep up. But they don’t enjoy submitting resumes to do so, or spend the time needed practicing the choreographies. So they don’t do it. They unsub.
All of this is solved if gear progression is approached in a different way. If it’s not thought of as a reward for smaller and smaller percentile challenge. But merely something you get if you have an average or above average competency of your character (at varying times because of RNG).
And then you spend your time upgrading it. Perhaps higher challenged content can upgrade your gear slightly faster.
I remember all of the discussions where M+ players swore up and down that they ran M+ because it’s fun, not for the gear. The truth comes out.
If Delves are more popular, then resources should be diverted from M+ to Delves.
Nah it’s genuinely just like ~2 people in this thread saying that lol.
I would say the overwhelming majority of people doing M+ do not care.
You must be new around here.
The overwhelming majority that are doing M+ are…well…doing M+.
They are also running a delve here and there to supplement their gearing. They are enjoying and utilizing both pillars to the degree they can maximize them.
They aren’t crying about delve loot on the forums.
M+ player here. I still run them for fun, and delves haven’t really affected anything for me.
You can’t take the vitriol on these forums as a representation of the game’s state as a whole. People love to come here and voice their personal complaints, acting as if they speak for an entire community.
FALSE, I’m a hair away from the 6th rewards in the journey.
You sure do cry a lot, no wonder no one wants to run M+ with you given another option.
I think people did lower keys because they WERE fun, but after the DF S4 changes, too many try-hards sucked the fun out of M+ (at least for me).
It just started to be too common to be grouped with strangers who were taking it WAAAYYY too seriously.
The tank pulled one more pack of mobs than what was “optimal”? Tell him/her to off themselves for adding 30 additional seconds to the run.
Playing a Warrior during certain affix weeks? You’re a waste of time and a burden to everyone, HOW DARE YOU apply to that +4 group?!?!
Well said. The gatekeeping on this forum has just gotten old, is all.
I just said this in another thread but I think a real potential problem in m+ right now is that 2s and 5s are too close together and unskilled players are harder to identify.
There aren’t enough barriers between the easy keys and harder keys to filter out people that have no idea what they are doing but they are getting invited anyway because they have 610 item level from delves.
The variation in difficulty to earn 610 items in M+ and from delves is too great. +8 delves are pretty much a sleep walk to complete meanwhile 610 from M+ is what a +7? You will basically be getting keystone master at the same level of M+ that you can gear from a +8 delves.
This is what is so bonkers about the ones who come here complaining about delves, it’s literally another way to gear up, to fill slots that M+ RNG is killing you in, but yeah, let’s kill that and be at the sole mercy of M+ RNG, cause that’s always been fun. /s
Right? It’s literally just extra dice rolls.
You may fill that needed slot through delves while someone like my Warlock alt gets 4 FREAKIN’ TRINKETS in a row. 