There are now 2 reward types available in m+, ilvl and rating. Make them operate opposite to each other. Already, the faster a dungeon is completed the more rating the players get, so increase the ilvl reward for slower dungeon completions. As in, at the +3 to +2 time, the ilvl of the gear in the chest goes up +3 ilvl (or maybe just a bunch more valor or similar currency) while the rating reward drops. Same thing at the +2 to +1 time and +1 to -1 time. Also, at each of those times, the group gets a stacking +10% health/damage/healing buff. Drop the buffing and ilvl buff system for m+16 and higher keys. Therefore, the player is rewarded by the game for sticking to the game and the player is rewarded by the player community (high rating gets you into high groups) for playing the game well.
This is like adding a wold record category for slowest speed run.
sounds great, the new strategy for every dungeon will be “afk at final boss for 10 minutes so we get better loot”
how does completing dungeons more slowly correlate with “playing the game well”?
why do we want people who complete dungeons more slowly to have higher rating?
why do we want people who complete dungeons more slowly to have higher rating?
We don’t, and they don’t get higher rating for going slower. Higher rating comes from going faster, as it currently is. It’s a trade-off, the player gets progressively more of a buff so they can complete the dungeon with a slightly better reward at the end, but gets progressively less rating (so they are less desired by skilled groups). Sure, some groups may decide to “afk at the end”, but doing so will cost them the opportunity to get into groups running higher keys.
sorry, i missed your comment “while the rating reward drops”. but doesn’t that already happen?
Yup, it does.
Don’t you already get a lust reset if you are over the timer? The biggest issue why I see groups disband is because their are 1-2 players who just perform terribly for the level of the key we are doing and right from the first pull the run is already painful. A few weeks ago I saw a dps leave a +15 because a guy was doing 3k overall with 240 ilvl and they weren’t interested in doing a free carry run for a random player.
I think the suggestion deals to some extent with the situation you describe. That skilled dps can assume that the buff will turn that bad 3k dps into a better 4k dps by the time the timer ends and that he will get more in the end chest. So, he can assume that even with a mediocre group he’ll be unlikely to be stuck in there much longer than the time it takes to deplete a key, so about 10 minutes more than getting a +3 completion. Unless it’s an absolutely horrible group, but that bad dps would probably have a bad rating to begin with (carries would mess with this somewhat, but a bad player will still make a good group be slow) and would be less likely to get into high keys to begin with.
A weird thing about gear is that it is a system that unlocks both the easy mode for the game and the hard mode for the game. Gear makes all content easier, and it’s strange to tell bad players they need to get good to unlock easy mode. Gear (and skill) is also the key to getting into hard content. With io rating though, those two things can be somewhat disconnected.
How is giving bad players better gear, for playing poorly, going to make them any better?
Sure, their dps might go up a little bit, but no amount of gear is going to fix bad play. That 240 ilvl doing 3k dps isn’t going to magically do better by increasing their item level. They’ll still stand in the fire, they’ll still fail mechanics, they’ll still hold the group back.
Only now, they’ll do while expecting to get into a higher key because their item level is even higher.
They’ll still stand in the fire, they’ll still fail mechanics, they’ll still hold the group back.
Higher gear does let one stand in the fire longer and ignore mechanics more, but, as you say, they still will hold the group back. And their rating reflects that. As for getting better, they’ll get better if they run the content a lot, or they won’t, and the rating will reflect that either way. The gear they get will tell them they get to play the game on easy mode, the rating they get will tell them, and other players, they’re bad. The rating system could even be adjusted to hand out points based on the player’s ilvl and the group’s average ilvl, which could make the rating an even better indicator of the player’s skill.
but then they’ll be here complaining “i’m 248 ilvl and nobody will invite me to their +20s!!! i’m qualified!!!”
Let’s take it further on the rating. Right now, at the end of a Torghast run, every player gets a number of points and one can see exactly where they got their points. So, at the end of an m+ run, every player could get such an individualized readout showing where they got their io rating points and where they got points taken away. If the system is sufficiently transparent, the player base will be able to use it to reliably know how good their performance is and what they are doing wrong. Everyone will still get the gear they want which makes all the other stuff they do in the game easier, but they and others will have a good idea of their skill level (and whether they actually are qualified to be in that +20). I suppose the existing io rating number does this, but it isn’t anywhere near transparent enough to provide useful feedback to the player himself.
Then again, maybe having a report card at all, will make the game feel too much like work rather than like fun, but if it feels that way, one can just ignore it and use the gear to roll over the easy stuff.
What you’re dreaming about would just take way too much work to implement, and probably drive the meta harder than anything has done to this point.
For instance, a relatively easy one to track would be missed kicks. Do you lose points for missing kicks? If you do, you’re gonna need to cover the most kicks possible, so you’re gonna gravitate toward the lowest cd kicks in the game. GG boomkin and spriests.
What if a warrior tank chooses to reflect a spell? Now you’ve got to add that to the special exceptions so it isn’t counted against you. What about those times when eating a spell is actually optimal. Will the points system be capable of making that distinction.
I believe you want to make some system that better represents player skill more accurately, but I think what you’re proposing is a system of limitations and deterrents that will not only make it less fun, but will introduce a bunch of individual points of failure into a win/loss scenario. It will prompt players to do things for points, not enjoyment.
It’s exactly the reason that a lot of people complain about the updated Torghast scoring system. It introduces a bunch of reasons to do things sub-optimally and that’s just garbage game design. If you’re game isn’t challenging, limiting it artificially after that fact is testament to that failure. You should be rewarded for playing the game as intended, not handicapping yourself artificially.
Imagine if major league sports tried to make their games more exciting by awarding extra points for not using helmets, or shoes, or something equally stupid.
Even better - people will rush to interrupt the same things. Meaning one person will “win”, the other will “lose”, and now their interrupt will be on CD so everyone suffers even more.
This sort of thing would work in a carefully orchestrated environment designed for grading, sort of like a Proving Grounds, or even integrated into the levelling system.
I was thinking from an organized perspective and hadn’t even looked at it from that angle. I could see pugs getting a few pulls in, deciding they had blown their chance at a 5 Gem run and quitting the run. All before the timer had been blown.
That may or may not explain one of the worst aspects of the Torghast system. Right now, you pretty much blunder along, and at the end you get a readout that tells you you scored X because Y. There’s no current progress tracking, or way to figure out if there’s something you’re able to do right now. If you haven’t looked it up, there are things that are worth points you wouldn’t even know about (why would anyone who didn’t know guess that No Epic Powers was worth points?).
I’m 90% sure that’s just pure laziness with the UI, but there’s that 10% chance that they deliberately chose to obscure that sort of information so that people would feel compelled to see it through before they find out they’ve failed. Imagine if halfway through Floor 4, you had a clear understanding that a 5-Star or 4-Star run was impossible. Would you keep going? Is it better that you keep going and feel like your time was wasted since you have to repeat again?
I was thinking from an organized perspective and hadn’t even looked at it from that angle. I could see pugs getting a few pulls in, deciding they had blown their chance at a 5 Gem run and quitting the run. All before the timer had been blown.
That’s what the trade-off, loot vs rating, in the first post is for. I wasn’t suggesting creating a 5-gem system, but the existing rating system as is, already implements what you decry by giving many more rating points for a faster completion.
For instance, a relatively easy one to track would be missed kicks.
That does sound like a good metric that a player should know about if they are trying to get good, but, as you say, might well be detrimental if it gives points on an individual basis rather than solely on a group basis (as in, the entire group’s number of kicks counts for points, not the individual’s). The number of points provided by anything would certainly need to be weighted most toward the run time and the m+ level so as not to change the existing main criteria.
As for Torghast, the main scoring criteria is clearing everything. The rewards from the points aren’t worth enough to care about trying to optimize a run unless one is specifically trying to get achievements and, for those who just want ash, the points aren’t even worth noticing. Get more gear, which Torghast doesn’t provide, and easy mode kicks in, regardless of that “talent” tree, which brings me back to the strangeness of being good providing a faster unlock of the game’s easy mode.
Maybe what you want could be solved by increasing the value of each key? Each lost second would cost more and create a more noticeable difference in value between close runs.
Ultimately it sounds like you’re asking for better loot for over-achieving. I’m not convinced that’s necessary.
Better loot for under achieving. The structure outlined was “doing great, more score. If you suck, more loot.”
M+ doesn’t need changing (except loot, needs to drop another piece for a successful run). People should be free to leave groups they don’t want to continue with.