M0 is an absolute disaster right now. It’ll hopefully get better over the next couple weeks as many of the bads/undergeared realize they shouldn’t be there, but right now it’s absolutely horrible.
First of all, Blizzard did a piss-poor job of communicating the difficulty changes to both M0 and M+. I am sure the vast majority of the playerbase does NOT read patch notes, and many people out there had no idea that M0 difficulty went way up. Also have had bads in +2s be like “lol it’s a +2” again not realizing the difficulty had changed. This should have been made MUCH MUCH clearer, IN-GAME. Not in the launcher, and not in patch notes for people to read on forums or MMO-C.
On the other hand, I actually doubt whether or not M0 will get better because now that it drops Champ gear, everyone and their mother wants to jam their low-ilvl toons in there to gear up quickly. Similar to VOTI last week and Aberrus this week, nobody knows mechanics in M0s and it’s absolutely gross to play unless you way over-gatekeep and require stupidly high ilvls and/or M+ experience to fill a group.
It’s a real shame too, because M0 is now a much better way to get Champ-level gear instead of low-level keys. An M0 run will normally net you about one piece of gear per run, whereas it may take multiple M+ runs to get a single drop. If you’re only going to do 8 runs per week to max your vault, M0 is a FAR better way to get this done than through +2 to +6 keys…but it requires being very selective about your groups and unfortunately that’s very hard right now without waiting forever to find people.
Yes you are because these people are not here to talk about it. You are looking like a fool!!!
Look from another perspective:
In heroic you get the rewards from previous “M+9” which enables you to do M0.
There is no timer in M0, you can take all the time you need to learn, do small pulls, wipe, corpse run, go to town buy more consumables if you need, replace whomever leaves for whatever reason.
Sure, and I am actually happy for the players who feel this change gives them the untimed progression content they wanted. But at the same time, when everyone is telling me how easy M0 is you can do it blindfolded with your eyes closed, how long is that content going to last for these players? While I’m sure there is some hyperbole going on with the difficulty, I definitely question how long the content will last when it amounts to two levels of formerly mythic level content without a timer. Was the collateral damage of every key from 2 - 11 being removed worth giving a single untimed mythic level dungeon? One that will be impossible to determine whether players are running because they don’t want the timer or that’s a necessary step into M+ now when Blizzard looks at the data after the fact.
If there were a clear progression for untimed mythic difficulty dungeons, even if it cost those low level keys, at least I could take solace that some group of players is getting what they want. But removing every low level key for learning and/or players who prefer that level of key to add an untimed mythic dungeon level that likely won’t last 2 months for most players who wanted that seems like a very high cost for very low benefit.
Sure, and I ran one M0 on my main, realized it was a waste of my time, and have run some level of keys on this and my monk ever since. Just because players like you or I have an easy time with the new difficulty levels doesn’t invalidate the experience of the players that don’t.
And then even for those that do have the chops to make it into keys, having to farm heroic for gear once they’ve completed their M0 world tour is not necessarily appealing either. The gap between heroic and M0 is quite high that the experience goes from literally ignoring every mechanic to needing to execute many mechanics properly to avoid death.
It’s a verifiable fact that far more keys were completed in the 11 - 20 range than the 2 - 10 range. But to the players whose ideal range was 2 - 10, that isn’t going to make them feel better at all.
Several of my guildmates, including my wife, were in the 2 - 10 range over the course of an entire season with full gear. We would schedule several hours during a week to get together and enjoy time in keys. I would heal on a slightly lower geared alt while they would bring their mains, and it would be a good time. We’d time some keys, deplete others. The fact that we were in the minority amongst keys run did not take away from our enjoyment of those keys.
Now yes, the standard ‘git gud’ argument applies. Today, we would be in heroic. If as a group we raise our level such that we could be at least competent in what used to be a +12, then we can get back to that. But how is the game better for those being our only options? Nobody in this group, save me for, were going to PUG keys. We weren’t ruining other player’s experiences. But that level of play, despite being complete isolated from the rest of the game, is gone now. ‘Git gud’ or get out.
If there were a clear cost to keeping those keys in the game from Blizzard’s perspective, at least I could understand the business case for getting rid of them. But it seems like to me it’s just a scaling function they’ve already developed. If it were clear players in this range were truly hampering other players’ experiences, then I could understand it as well - but given how many people are telling me how easy +15s already were combined with how few 2 - 10 keys were being run per the data, that seems to not be the case either.
Perhaps this is step 1 in a multi-step process Blizzard hasn’t shared with us, and we’ll just have to wait and see. But these changes don’t accomplish the goals people are using to defend the change in these forums. They don’t accomplish the goals Blizzard even laid out as part of the update. It’s hard to find who this actually benefits beyond the people on the forums who get to call others “bad” for whatever personal gain that gives them.
It’s not just about the gear, which is what so many people seem to miss. 2 - 9 allows players to work their way up the chain in terms of gear, mechanics, and knowledge. It also gives a place for players whose ceiling falls within that range an appropriately challenged experience they can enjoy.
Yes, you can farm heroic, world bosses, LFR, and so on to get gear that replaces what used to come from these low level keys. But that just assumes the only reason why people run those keys is gear; while I’m sure that is true for some, it’s not true for all. And for anyone who was running those keys for any other reason, that ability to experience the game at that level is gone; not reassigned, gone.
I was referring to the need to farm heroic gear to become prepared for M0. In the previous system with low keys, players could get the most out of their time from a preparing for higher content perspective. A low key taught them mechanics, ever closer scaling to the point they want to be, and they would get gear for completion as many times during the week as they ran it; so the rewards encouraged repetition to foster learning.
But even if we’re considering the time you can spend in each dungeon, keys also allowed that for groups focused on learning; they could spend as much time in a key as they want, they would just get less rewards for completion and a depleted key.
And then more time in a dungeon doesn’t even necessarily address the ability for groups who are over their head in the content to complete it. When the group does not have the throughput to kill the totem on the last boss of BRH, unlimited time doesn’t help them complete the content. Or before sonic vulnerability becomes lethal on Crawth on AA. Or break the shield on the first boss of RLP. When the healer in the group isn’t used to being able to maintain enough HPS while moving from the orbs and swirlies on the second boss of AV, more time isn’t going to help them.
omg you talk of hyperbole, first, one of you compare this to the holocaust, now you’re comparing it to the losses during the pandemic. You all need to stop that’s ridiculous. Comparing the loss of human life to something you don’t like in a video game. Contemptible.
Need a starting point to learn what to do? Queue up for a random heroic (or if you’re truly unsure what to do, follower dungeons might be better) and start your journey.
Think you’re ready to move up from heroics and give Mythics a go? Join or make your own M0 group and see if you’re geared+skilled enough.
This is no different than any other difficulty changes in PvE.
Can’t follow the mechanics and put out garbage damage/healing in LFR? You are NOT ready for normal raiding.
Can’t follow the mechanics and put out garbage damage/healing in heroics? You are NOT ready for M0 (let alone M+).
No I do not wish to discuss anything more with you. Good faith has checked out of this conversation. We will all just have to agree to disagree. Blizzard obviously looked at the numbers and the low level keys were dead enough to remove. Good day.
And for the groups that capped out between 2 and 9 by the the of the season with full gear? You keep wanting to reduce this argument to players being undergeared. And certainly for many players complaining now that very well might be the case. But I’m referring to the groups that worked their way to from +2 at the start of the season and wound up below +10 by the end after getting all the gear they would have for the season. For those players, a gameplay option that used to exist has been removed. It hasn’t been shifted into the new heroic and M0, it’s just gone. And it’s unclear who benefitted from the change.
And for the players that don’t need to care about heroic mechanics that pose no threat, how are they intended to learn mythic mechanics? Or if they can’t muster enough performance to meet DPS or HPS checks in M0 after having already geared up, they’re just stuck farming trivial content forever? That’s better for the game?
You forget the simple fact that m0 doesn’t have timer and affixes, two main thing that made those higher keys non desirable to them. It also has the perk of getting loot per bosses so even if they don’t reach the end, it’s not that detrimental. And finally, it gives better gear than 2-9 ever did.
If they’re purposely not learning the mechanics, why would anyone want them in their group?
Is this a serious question?
Yes.
If you can’t handle the lowest difficulty setting, why in the world would you be ready for the higher difficulty?
Now, they can always just join groups willing to take them, but there’s no promise the group with be fine about carrying them (some people don’t mind while others don’t hesitate to share their feelings in chat).
So now you speak for everyone who wasn’t up to the level of a +10 key? That every one of them didn’t want to do keys?
What I’m referring to is unrelated to the timer or most affixes. There are players who simply cannot meet the demands of specific fights whether they care about the timer or not. And this includes weeks that lack any affixes that interact with bosses. For those players, they have no ability to have an appropriately challenging dungeon experience anymore. They did 2 weeks ago.
What loot comes from content is not the only thing that matters. I’m referring to the experience available to players, not just what items they get out of it.
That is just not what I said at all. Even with the bump in difficulty, many heroic mechanics are not noticable. They deal so little damage that players have no reason to respect them. Then in the next difficulty up, some become lethal within seconds. There’s nowhere to learn where some mechanics hurt to let you know to pay attention but aren’t immediately putting you in the dirt.
The point is there were 10 key levels for players to find a level that works for them that were completely removed. They weren’t reassigned, they’re gone. A player that has a skill level at an old +7 will quickly outpace the challenge of heroic but will never reach the level of M0. 2 weeks ago, they could progress their way into a 7 and enjoy the keys there until the next season where the process began again. Today, their season is done a few weeks in unless they get good enough to reach M0. All without having a single difficulty level with which to practice their spec where mobs don’t drop if you look at them funny or with mechanics that do more than tickle and where mediocre geared tanks can’t solo the place. So not only is it ‘git gud’, there also doesn’t exist a place to do so that isn’t trivial or over their head.
It is quite the leap from heroics to mythic 0. You’re skipping an entire gear tier. From adventurer to champion. The biggest problem isn’t the ilvl though, it’s the lack of anything preparing you for the mechanics, seeing as they’re still bordering on irrelevant in heroics if I recall. I think now players will just need to be honest upfront in 0’s when they don’t know the mechanics.
Not replying to you per say but I feel like you will appreciate this epiphany.
I was struck at lunch today by the reality that Mythic raiding is only really done by a very small portion of the overall community. Very small compared to the whole.
The logic for getting rid of the lower keys according to the posters on this forum is that it was a waste land hardly anyone did them.
I’m really having a hard time understanding this logic co-existence.
I can only imagine the fire storm that would exist from the other side of this if they decided to get rid of the harder difficulties simply because the fewest people did them.
You know why a lot of these top end players gatekeep this content? Money. That’s my hot take and theory. That’s the only thing I can make make logical sense. Having the smooth ramp and content people can actually do on the sliding scale negates the money they can make giving carries to these players they despise.