Considering people are timing 17’s I believe it’s fair to call 10’s mundane. 90% of the mechanics can be executed by moving to the right or the left, like 1/3 of the dungeons have a ‘priority’ kick, everything else more or less boils down to mitigation to try and keep the healer from having a heart attack. I believe I read once that 800k is around the minimum required DPS to beat a timer (I assume in a zero wipe, maybe zero death setting).
Rewards end at rank 1, so I’m certain people die pretty easily in 15 and 17 keys.
I’ve wondered about this myself. It seems like the class designers are trying to remove as many powers as they can, while the encounter designers are trying to cram in as many mechanics as they can.
While I understand this prospective, that the rewards “should” come at a difficult level, the practicality of this is that there are many people who don’t want to be in 10’s (or whatever level drops myth track gear). They aren’t passionate about M+ and only want to be there because of the rewards. They haven’t learned the dungeons, and get vocally angry when others make mistakes because the person making the mistake is in between them and their desired gear.
It’s not classic where there is one final boss. It has turned into essentially a lobby game, and different realities come with that.
I don’t think either of these are a viable solution. Instead of everything being black and white how about some nuance instead? 10+ delves should drop myth track. For M+ 7’s should drop hero gear, 8’s should drop gilded crests, 9 should drop myth track gear, and 10 should reward portals.
I say this as someone pushing above this range, and who has never had trouble getting myth track (or old equivalents). I just think it is healthier for the game for the people with different gaming styles to not be forced to play together.
I actually think they should shift gearing more to delves, so I agree with Blizzard in that regard for their plans for season 2. This is just my anecdotal observation but it seems like a majority of people prefer delves to M+
I was bored the other day and offered a friend a free carry through a 10 (M+) and she refused! she didn’t care about the gear and doesn’t want to set foot in M+ anymore. I suspect she has had someone be rude and doesn’t want to deal with it but I didn’t pry.
Blizzard has to start thinking about the social strain it puts on people to have certain challenges tied to gear and progression. M+ just isn’t fun anymore for most casual players, it seems. And that translates to fewer people in total, because people start off casual and then get more and more into it, and more and more skilled. But without that pipeline of new people and the old ones quitting, it’ll just be more and more of a ghost town
I like what they’ve done with the gilded crests, the higher the key the more crests you get. This means that people running lower keys can still get the gear, but slower.
I’d like to see more of this. Higher-level content awarding gear faster, but it still being possible in lower-level content
I am basically at the end of power rewards. I have been unlucky with one slot at this point. I just need mythic spymasters and I’m done.
Deterministic loot solves a lot of problems. They want a lot of control so that people don’t run out of stuff to do. With random loot some people are fully geared faster than they (Blizzard) want, and some people will be more frustrated than they (Blizzard) want.
I already don’t care about drops. By the time the trinket drops that I’ve been farming I don’t have a dopamine hit. I have a “finally I can stop doing this grind” feeling, instead.
I no longer feel excitement when my gear will be taken away next season. The very first season I did M+, I did get the dopamine hit when I got good gear. But after my gear getting nerfed every season for years it just feels like homework before the game actually starts.
Most games out there don’t rely on rewards. They rely on the game being simply fun, and addictive.
Games like Chess, Go, Checkers, etc have been around for millenia and are still very widely popular. Much more popular than WoW in all 3 cases.
Sometimes I feel like WoW is designed as a keep-up-with-the-Joneses simulator and to me this is the biggest reason it is feeling more and more like a ghost town.
A lot of people play purely because they want to prove they can do something that most people can’t.
Historically I personally have had a ton of fun in M+. This is the first season I haven’t considered it fun. A lot went wrong for me, largely that the only spec I want to play is the literal worst in M+ right now, so that’s a challenge. But there are so many more things going on that have detracted from my fun this season that it is a net negative.
Maybe you play for gear, but I would do say S3 of DF with a lot of enthusiasm if I were handed a full suit of bis gear. This is also why I do the tournaments, I love gearing up on the tournament realm and testing out what I can actually do.
You may have the most fun gearing. My thought is why gear up if I’m not going to use it? If the gear drops from the very hardest content, then there is nothing to “do” with my gear. I already completed that content.
This is probably the biggest challenge in designing rewards. Finding the right balance of loot delivery to keep the loot lovers sated without running out of things to keep them hunting.
Gear isn’t the only option. Cosmetics, mounts and achievements have proven sufficient in many cases.
I do like this argument, but I have to point out that those games were probably “in development” for decades or even centuries before they arrived at their current state. Also, they are head-to-head games, pvp essentially, which means the reward is victory over your opponent.
However, I do think there are principles that those games incorporate that could be applied to WoW. Especially how simple tool kits can still result in deep strategies and interactions.
I always think of this when players say “why do you need the best gear if you aren’t doing content that needs it?” It’s usually mythic raiders who don’t see the irony of the best loot dropping from the last boss the raid. Hypocrisy at its finest. If anyone says it’s about the reclears I will thank you for bringing yourself to my attention.
I think I would too, but I can’t be sure. Like you said earlier, there is undeniably something exciting about getting a good upgrade, especially if you think you’ll notice the power gain in your next run.
However, I think there are too many who’s only real motivation is loot. I once said I’d be fine if they just got their loot and left the rest of us in peace, but I think I changed my tune. A bunch of those folks left because they got their gear and now I miss them being around to play with.
Solitare is more than 200 years old and is much more popular than WoW. You can play chess against a computer, and computers are better than humans at chess so you can set the difficulty to match yours. My rating is bad, but it is fun
I agree. I think I would be OK gearing if it were once per xpac, and we got new trinkets and a new ring or special weapon etc as a seasonal thing. But having to re-farm an entire new set of gear every 6 months is a big negative for me. Dread is too strong of a word but I negative-look-forward to it
This is one thing I would really like the game designers to truly understand. I don’t think drastically simplifying the classes is the answer, however I do think them changing less over time solves two issues – one, it allows for people to develop mastery over time and two it makes it much easier to manage balancing
I know a few people like this and it is a missed opportunity on Blizzards part. The people i Know have enough commitment to the game to come back to gear again, but the gameplay itself doesn’t draw them in. It’s also a compounding issue, because when a few people leave, more will leave because as you say you have fewer people to play with.
Some people get a lot of their enjoyment from the social aspect of wow, but gating gear behind challenges is also a way to split people up. I would say my friends list is roughly half try-hards, and half-casual. I do enjoy hopping into discord with some buddies to do some content. The content itself doesn’t really matter to me in that case, though I do enjoy doing BG’s with friends in particular.
But as soon as people stop logging in, particularly when there are exact limits on the amount of people (you must have 5 for M+, you must have 20 for mythic raid) then a lot of social strain is built. I think of this as “unhealthy friction”
Which is why I suggest adding new trinkets, a special weapon, etc. There are so many ways to do this…
There is already a solution for mythic raids in the game for the other levels. Mythic raiding is downright unpopular these days. Sure people on these forums do raid (and I do) but the amount of people who have CE this season is what, under 30k people out of a game with supposedly millions. Only one guild on my server raids mythic. I think it is less popular than PvP, which is enjoyed by over 2% of the population.
I would be OK if they just altered the health of the boss, but say allowed the group to drop down to 16 but keep all of the same mechanics. Certain mechanics like x people need to soak could be a percentage of the raid. They could err on the side of it being harder for any group size other than 20, for example.
That’s because of the difficulty. And this season isn’t over yet.
causes problems of certain raid sizes being easier than others. And allows guilds to just downsize and remove weakest links to get kill slightly faster.
I do wonder if the amount of effort put into supporting that tiny fraction of the player base, especially all of the exclusionary design, is justified.
Keeping so many players from just getting through the content seems like overkill to me. Certainly, we need hard content, and I think the game is much better with the best players engaged, but is their presence worth excluding so many players?
Are the external requirements and the difficulty worth all the heartache, stress and disappointment that it breeds for non-CE teams? Looking at the impact on mythic raid in general, my opinion is that in it’s current state, it is not good for the health of the game. In all honesty I don’t know so I have to defer to those with more insight.