M+ is in an abysmal state with continued participation drops. The timer is a large piece of the pie for the reasons behind its dwindling player count. M+ should be an enjoyable experience that brings players together. Still, instead, it tears groups and the community apart. It’s stressful rushing, and go fast mentality is bleeding into and ruining other parts of the game for the majority of the player base.
The timer pushes players to rush, which causes stress and anxiety. The timer breeds bullies and bad behavior. It also creates elitism and arrogance, specifically in heroic dungeons and normal raids. It encourages meta specs, leaving many on the sidelines. Arguments, name-calling, key leavers, finger-pointing, and a terrible experience have become the norm far too often.
Use a ‘death count’ instead. This would reward clean efficient gameplay, remove the stress and anxiety from rushing, and allow players to play together, work together, and enjoy the experience without running around with their hair on fire name-calling, and arguing the entire time.
Less players want slow dungeon crawls. Without a timer they will have to ramp up tuning. People also always preferred the shortest M+ dungeons in a given season leaning towards the 24-30 minute timers and against the 45 minute ones. Removing the timer and working towards slower CC and waiting for CDs goes against the data.
Hardcore players make up about 10% of players who push high mythic keys, while casual players encompass about 90% of players who play a wide range of features. Seems like an easy financial business decision.
A death counter encourages precision and skill. Careful play, proper execution and teamwork over rushing through pulls.
A death counter reduces stress from time pressure. Without a timer players will feel less rushed, which will make M+ more accessible to casual and new players increasing the player pool and financial gain for Blizzard.
A death counter would support adaptability by having the opportunity to experiment with new routes and strategies and also recover from mistakes without worrying about running out of time.
A death counter would focus on group coordination. Players would need to think about more efficient healing, crowd control, and proper execution of mechanics to minimize deaths.
Overall a 100% improvement over ‘speed play’ in every way for the overwhelming population of WOW players.
While I think on the whole that’s true, I don’t think it’s the length of the commitment as much as the amount of time you have to spend without breaking your concentration.
Getting through content quickly will always be the preferred technique, but I think being able to step away at a moment’s notice extends the amount of time players are willing to commit to something.
Not being able to do anything other than stare at the screen for 45 minutes like we had to in DoS is especially tough for folks with kids, or needy pets or any similar distractions. No timer would allow those folks to commit to a run without fear of ruining something if they need to step away quickly.
However, I am not sure that’s enough to make one choice or the other better overall.
Spending 10 minutes between every pull to let sated expire is the first one that jumps out at me. Does that sound fun to you? It will be required at a certain key level.
Those things are already rewarded, along with “actually knowing your rotation and CDs”. All remove the timer threads boil down to complaints about difficulty.
Zoning out to swap specs will become the thing to do on a per pull basis
Delaying every pull to wait for cds or lust
Waiting on consumables/using exploitable consumes or toys that can be bugged etc…
Waiting on cds removes the need to plan anything with no timer to dictate creative use of cds/pulls
If you aren’t altering routes to tailor to group comp and just slamming some mdi route, chances are there are pulls youre going to repeatedly fail if you pull doubles of specific adds (vanguards in NW or Ogres in GB). Not having enough cc or dispels or decurses when you can alter pulls to play around that is, you know, kind of important; and a fun part of planning that the timer creates.
A death counter encourages players to speed through just the same. People will want to find the most efficient routes and pulls. This won’t change.
A death counter will increase stress in it’s own way. What happens if you are mid-run and you are a couple deaths away from hitting the limit from someone playing poorly? This doesn’t change anything except make dungeons a slog.
This is literally the same thing now. People adapt and change routes constantly.
Again, this argument is so weak it works for both arguments.
Why would anyone do that? That makes zero sense to me. I’m not pointing a figer at you here but it seems like the crowd that makes fun of casuals by saying they pull one pack at a time (when that is far from the truth) will make up reason to go slow to avoid a better more rewarding and fun playstyle that brings in more and allienates less players.
Who makes fun of casuals? Regardless, being a casual gamer is a mindset not a limitation on content. I run like 2-3 keys per night as a pug and consider myself a casual.
They will do that when the pulls become hard enough that they can’t be killed without Bloodlust/Heroism…The timer prevents that from being a viable strat, but remove the timer and people will use absolutely every advantage to push further and further.
You asked about degenerate play, and that was the first thing that came to mind.
A death counter won’t encourage speed. It will encourage teamwork, precision and skill, something that is currently lacking.
A death counter will increase stress in it’s own way ofcourse if you have 1 life left and you are on the final boss yes. So basically like almost every game ever. Stress and axiety with speedruns are forced on players unless you have a dedicated team.
There are no new routes now. The YT community agrees on a META and everyone does the same thing the majority of the time, especially at the top end.
Speedruns do not focus on group coordiantion especially at the lower end. You get one or two players who are blasing through while the other players struggle to keep up and stay alive and there is zero group coodiantion in a pug. That only exists in guild or friend runs with regular players playing together.
It’s been shown expansion after expansion pre and post M+. Players don’t want dungeon crawls. Even with a death counter players will 100% try to speed through it with as little deaths as possible. Maybe even planning a death ball for certain pulls. It will only create more issues and not solve anything.
How can you sit there with only getting KSEXPLORER as your capped out M+ experience and tell me that the current system doesn’t encourage “teamwork, precision and skill”? LMAO
There 100% are routes and pulls.
This means you are inviting people who vastly outgear and out skill the content. Essentially a carry.
You did by saying, “Go stick to your delves”. The current M+ community is a toxic posion of arrogance, elitism, and bullying.
The statement you wrote proves my point.
I understand now. If you can get 5 players to agree waiting around for timers that is, which to me sounds very much like a rare occurrence. But possible yes.
That’s not making fun of casuals lmao. That’s telling you to stick to content that you enjoy instead of trying to fundamentally change M+ that you don’t even participate in.
No it hasn’t. Blizzard is currently discussing exactly what I’m advocating for and have been for years to remove the “timer” or “speedruns” in favor of a different system.
What happened with Cata? What happens with all of the Mega-Dungeons? People complain that it’s too hard even though there’s no timer. What happened with Torghast when there was a death counter?
The vast majority of people do not want dungeon crawls. People like M+ because it takes less than 30 minutes to time a run. It’s played casually. When you add death counters and force slow-play then you turn it into 5-man raiding and will turn into 40, 50, 60+ minute runs.