Squish Mythic+ Keystone Levels More

Community General Discussion
1

Yes, yes, I know the first squish wasn’t exactly a player favorite. But hear me out.

Now that the first squish already happened, there’s precedent. And because relevant keystone level thresholds are closer together than before, there’s these “dead zones” that people just don’t want to bother with at all, because they’re so close to thresholds in either direction that it just makes more sense to directly do one of the levels at those thresholds.

It’s most notable in the M+7 thru M+10 range.

Everyone wants to do a 7. It drops Hero Track and Gilded Crests. Both are in massive demand, especially early in a season. Gilded Crests will never lose demand. If you have a +7 Keystone and list your group, even as a solo DPS, you will instantly have about 30 qualified people apply to join, because this is a desirable threshold key level.

Then you time it. But not with flying colors. It goes up to a +8. The group disbands as normal so everyone can find the next thing they want. You relist the key.

Crickets.
Absolute Silence.
Complete Keystone Graveyard.

You wait 30 minutes. An undergeared Hunter with an M+ Score of 138 applies.
You take him anyway because you’re desperate.

You wait another 20 minutes.
No one else queues.

You disband and drop your key back down to a +7 and list it again.
30 applicants immediately.

The same thing happens if you try to run a +9.

No one wants to run a +8 for Hero Track and Gilded Crests when they can run the slightly easier +7 for essentially the exact same reward.

No one wants to run a +9 for Hero Track and Gilded Crests when they can bump it up 1 more level and get Myth Track in their Vault and maybe some portals for their account.

So why do we even have these middling Keystone Levels? It’s pretty clear people aren’t particularly willing to do them if they can get into the threshold levels.

Squish it again.

Mythic (Baseline): Veteran Track / Weathered Crests
M+2: Champion Track / Carved Crests / Keystone Conqueror
M+3: Hero Track / Runed Crests / Keystone Master
M+4: Myth Track (Vault) / Gilded Crests / Keystone Hero / Portals
M+5: Keystone Legend / Myth Track Dinar Unlocks (if applicable)
M+(x): Infinite Scaling as normal / Leaderboard Titles etc

Now there’s a reason for different players / characters to queue for every keystone level with tangible rewards. There will be varying interest between the levels, of course, but there’s no completely dead zones that people have no real reason to ever participate in.

Yes - I moved Gilded Crests up to the equivalent of what would be +10s today. Not the point of this, rather just a consequence of having fewer levels to work with. I personally think that’s fine. I think giving Gilded at any point before the Vault reward is Myth Track is overly generous. That said, if it’s a major issue, just bump everything up one (for Crests), starting with giving Baseline Mythics Carved Crests.

I don’t think this is completely insane.
Obviously the difference between levels would be more than 1 level is currently.
Affixes are added at M+2, M+3, and M+4.

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2

You’re treading way too far into a scaling nightmare just to address a rather miniscule concern.

These level jumps are too steep for M+. You time your key once, and now it’s the equivalent of jumping 3 or 4 levels. Everyone would just be bumping their key down constantly. The gearing cadence in M+ wouldn’t be able to keep up with it, and the feeling of progression would be stifled.

This would completely kill the fun of slowly climbing key levels for me, personally. M+ is an infinitely scaling system and should not be restricted to such a small pool of key levels.

And what about io score rewards? Are we getting hundreds of points for one run now?

I don’t think the “key graveyard” is a big enough issue to be meddling with this magnitude of a super squish.

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3

This is true, I didn’t think of that.

It could be managed, but it would require adding a system that doesn’t already exist.
Something like a 5-point meter.

[ o o x o o ]

Where a timed key moves you 1 spot closer to upgrading, and a failed key moves you 1 spot closer to downgrading. Upgrading the key’s level takes 3 timed keys with no failures if starting from the default key. Same for downgrading.

That said, this has turned this from something I legitimately thing would be good to more of a thought experiment. I think dead key levels ARE an important enough issue if the solution ends up being a restructuring of what’s already there, but I think that’s a lot more questionable if we have to fundamentally change how upgrading and downgrading keys work, and that would probably be necessary.

I think such a large percentage of M+ Players basically skip to 7s and 10s immediately week 1 or 2 that the amount of people who would lose the “slow climb” over this isn’t actually that big. To tons of people, the first several key levels are the equivalent of having to run through the different Delve Levels one time at the very start of a new season to unlock them, more of a speedbump than a progression ladder.

But different people are different, I could be underestimating the amount of people who enjoy the interim key levels where the rewards don’t change.

I mean, we already get hundreds of points for one run if it’s a key you haven’t done. The score is arbitrary. Either adjust the amount given or adjust the amount needed for the achievements, it’d be the same as now, effectively.

I disagree, but, see above.

4

I don’t think M+ would suffer too much if we essentially went from 2-12, to 2/4/6/8/10/12 (and then continued scaling as normal).

That being said, I don’t think key graveyards are that big of a deal and I think a better solution would be allowing you to somehow upgrade your own key through means beyond simply timing your particular key.

5

That doesn’t describe my behavior. I finally got hero track pants on an alt after TWENTY FOUR targeted runs and I pugged 6s, 7s, and 8s equally…with slightly less 9s done. I don’t see a big difference between those levels so I just apply to whatever I see first in that range. I can’t see people hunting for gear being that picky. There’s just not that many keys being listed anyway. For me only 3 dungeons dropped pants that I could wear so I had to join what was listed…but honestly even if I had the choice I’m not sure I would care. It’s not like a 7 has any higher chance of being a fast key than an 8…almost every 6, 7, 8, and 9 I did in my 24 runs was 2 chested anyway…actually the only 3 chest was from an 8…none of the 6s/7s I did were 3 chested.

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6

Next time you have an 8 or 9 key, list it as DPS and just see how long it takes to fill.
Then drop out of the queue, drop the key to a 7, and list it. See how fast it fills.

It’s not literally 0 people that queue for interim keystone levels, but the amount drops off so sharply that it’s instantly noticeable.

7

or they can just uncap crests and ppl will go back to do 12 like last season

8

I’m not opposed to this idea. I don’t think M+ necessarily needs as much granularity as it has. It doesn’t seem crazy to me to restructure everything to get rid of all the levels in between current reward breakpoints. I would adjust the crests to keep them more or less in-line with the current design though, since I don’t think mythic should be giving weathered crests. :laughing: