M+ is pretty miserable right now. Overall player participation is still doing ok, it’s not great, not terrible, but for me personally and everyone I know, we are only doing M+ out of necessity and not because it is very enjoyable.
I believe this comes down to primarily two factors, dungeon design and rewards. There are some other, more minor issues as well, but those are the big ones.
Here is a list of suggested changes that I think would improve the M+ experience, in no particular order:
Rewards:
Increase the amount of crests rewarded at the end of the dungeon from 12 to 15.
When taking into account group forming time, every M+ dungeon easily takes 30 minutes or more. 30 minutes to receive a full 3-4 ilvl upgrade on a single slot is more than fair imo.
Don't reduce the amount of crests awarded for completing a failed key.
A failed key takes even longer than a timed key. It's enough punishment already that nobody's score went up. Missing a timer by a small amount just to get rewarded with less than half (5 instead of 12) of the most valuable reward (crests) for doing it feels just terrible. If there must be some sort of extra punishment in terms of reward for failing to time, make the full reward 15 and the failed reward 10. 10 crests is at least still equal to a raid boss which takes 5 minutes, when that failed dungeon you just did took 30m+.
Remove key depletion.
1. Again, the punishment for failing a key already exists in the fact that you didn't time it and nobody gets any score. Forcing someone to spend 25+ minutes doing the lower key level, which might not even offer any rewards to them at all (e.g., if someone no longer needs runed crests, doing any key below +8 is a waste of time), is just unreasonable.
2. At higher key levels with high failure rates like 12s and up, it's just an unnecessary chore. If someone wants to bang their head against the same 12 key over and over until they can time it, let them.
To be clear, I am not fundamentally opposed for getting punished for failure, but it's when that punishment is *two* wasted keys that I have an issue with it, as that's easily an hour's worth of your time for effectively nothing.
2. At higher key levels with high failure rates like 12s and up, it's just an unnecessary chore. If someone wants to bang their head against the same 12 key over and over until they can time it, let them.
To be clear, I am not fundamentally opposed for getting punished for failure, but it's when that punishment is *two* wasted keys that I have an issue with it, as that's easily an hour's worth of your time for effectively nothing.
Add Myth track gear to end of dungeon loot for +12s and up, but only after the first 4-8 weeks of the season.
I do think that adding Myth track gear to M+ end of dungeon loot from day 1 would be a really bad idea. That would destroy the early gearing curve for the first month or so of the season, which is the most fun period. However, I don't see an issue with adding it to a difficult key level (like 12), later in the season. This would give an additional incentive for continuing to progress past +10s for something other than M+ score, and critically, provides a source of catchup Myth track gear for alts or players late to the season who have missed out on weeks of Myth track vaults.
Alternatively to the above point, add a currency to M+ that can be traded in for specific dungeon items at Myth track.
An expanding weekly cap, similar to crests, along with getting more of this currency for doing higher level keys, would work well, I think. The big problem that either this solution or the above solution attempts to solve is to keep the gear rewards from doing M+ keys relevant, and to provide a way to target farm specific M+ gear at the highest gear level.
My character is 631, so for me, there is absolutely zero chance of ever getting a gear upgrade from doing a M+ dungeon. All I can hope for is to just spam them out and hope I get very lucky with my vault. This feels absolutely awful. It makes doing the actual keys exceedingly boring as there's absolutely no chance there will be a dopamine hit at the end of the dungeon for finally getting a good item. I'm just there to get my 12 crests, then log out and wait till Tuesday and pray.
My character is 631, so for me, there is absolutely zero chance of ever getting a gear upgrade from doing a M+ dungeon. All I can hope for is to just spam them out and hope I get very lucky with my vault. This feels absolutely awful. It makes doing the actual keys exceedingly boring as there's absolutely no chance there will be a dopamine hit at the end of the dungeon for finally getting a good item. I'm just there to get my 12 crests, then log out and wait till Tuesday and pray.
Move the 1/6 Myth track vault reward from +10 to +9. Change +10 vault reward to 2/6 Myth track
While it doesn't really help players like me all that much, I think having Myth track vault rewards being slightly more obtainable is a good thing. It also helps +9 keys have a place, as right now there is no reason to do them instead of an 8 or 10. The additional reward at 10 is that you get to save some gilded crests on upgrades, plus the portals.
While not directly related to M+, just remove Valorstones already.
In my opinion, the crest system in general is great, it makes content feel fairly rewarding even if you don't get an actual item from it, the account-wide discount for outgrowing a type of crests was an excellent addition, etc. However, Valorstones really drag it down. I don't mind being capped or gated behind crests. I despise being capped on Valorstones.
When you are playing a lot, Valorstones are rarely an issue. But when you aren't playing very much weekly, like I am, just doing Mythic prog and a couple keys a week, they become a big problem, and I don't understand what problem they are trying to solve. If me and another player are doing the same level of content, why should I be punished for not playing as much as they are? Why do I have to do more than what it is required to reach the crest cap each week? Blizzard gets the same $15 from each of us either way. *Rewarding* playing more is fine, someone who plays more is naturally going to progress more than someone playing less, but *punishing* playing less by telling me "you can't upgrade your gear until you play more content you don't otherwise need, idiot", is terrible.
While I don't like Valorstones even from a main character perspective, where they really ruin the gear system for me is with alts. On any alt, particularly if you have the crest discount, you are *constantly* gated by Valorstones. I'm already doing the content, I'm already getting the crests, but I am forced to mindlessly grind extra Valorstones on top of that as the acquisition of them just doesn't keep up with the acquisition of crests. Valorstones existing and gating my gear progression doesn't make me want to play my alts more to grind more Valorstones, it makes me not want to play alts (and incidentally, other than a rsham that I played for like 1.5 weeks to get up to 2.6k on it, I am no longer playing any alts).
When you are playing a lot, Valorstones are rarely an issue. But when you aren't playing very much weekly, like I am, just doing Mythic prog and a couple keys a week, they become a big problem, and I don't understand what problem they are trying to solve. If me and another player are doing the same level of content, why should I be punished for not playing as much as they are? Why do I have to do more than what it is required to reach the crest cap each week? Blizzard gets the same $15 from each of us either way. *Rewarding* playing more is fine, someone who plays more is naturally going to progress more than someone playing less, but *punishing* playing less by telling me "you can't upgrade your gear until you play more content you don't otherwise need, idiot", is terrible.
While I don't like Valorstones even from a main character perspective, where they really ruin the gear system for me is with alts. On any alt, particularly if you have the crest discount, you are *constantly* gated by Valorstones. I'm already doing the content, I'm already getting the crests, but I am forced to mindlessly grind extra Valorstones on top of that as the acquisition of them just doesn't keep up with the acquisition of crests. Valorstones existing and gating my gear progression doesn't make me want to play my alts more to grind more Valorstones, it makes me not want to play alts (and incidentally, other than a rsham that I played for like 1.5 weeks to get up to 2.6k on it, I am no longer playing any alts).
Dungeon Design:
Better respawns.
Run-backs should not be so punishing, especially as long as Challenger's Peril exists. You are already punished for a wipe with the time being wiped off your timer, some of the runbacks taking a full 1 minute or longer on top of that is absurd.
Reduce (not remove) the number of necessary interrupts in dungeons.
I have no issue with interrupts being necessary, and being punished for missing them. However, with the infinitely scaling system of M+, what I do have an issue with is the constantly casted, randomly targeted, single target spells, that eventually at a high enough key level just one shot a player if a kick goes off. It is not fun having to rotate kicks *constantly* on these single, lame casters just spamming their Fireball or whatever, and if those kicks miss, someone dies.
Fundamentally, having mandatory, high priority kicks like volleys or a big heal or a stun that happen fairly commonly but not constantly, is fine and fun gameplay. Having to not let a *single* cast of *any* type go off or someone dies, is not fun, it is tedious.
There are a few ways to remedy this. These "Fireball" type casts could always target the tank, be uninterruptible, and effectively function as magical autoattacks (with damage adjusted as necessary to facilitate that and not one shot tanks).
Alternatively, they could continue to be interruptible and target random players, but instead of doing a flat amount of damage that infinitely scales with key level to the point of one shotting, they can just do a static percentage of the targets health, like 35%. You are still rewarded for kicking by reducing outgoing damage, but if you miss a kick, someone doesn't instantly die unless the kick is missed at the same time as some other dangerous damage event, and I think that's reasonable.
Fundamentally, having mandatory, high priority kicks like volleys or a big heal or a stun that happen fairly commonly but not constantly, is fine and fun gameplay. Having to not let a *single* cast of *any* type go off or someone dies, is not fun, it is tedious.
There are a few ways to remedy this. These "Fireball" type casts could always target the tank, be uninterruptible, and effectively function as magical autoattacks (with damage adjusted as necessary to facilitate that and not one shot tanks).
Alternatively, they could continue to be interruptible and target random players, but instead of doing a flat amount of damage that infinitely scales with key level to the point of one shotting, they can just do a static percentage of the targets health, like 35%. You are still rewarded for kicking by reducing outgoing damage, but if you miss a kick, someone doesn't instantly die unless the kick is missed at the same time as some other dangerous damage event, and I think that's reasonable.
Reduce the amount or frequency of dangerous trash mechanics in general.
Don't get me wrong, it's important for trash to maintain some sort of difficulty. However, a lot of people look back fondly on M+ design in Legion, and at a core level that's because M+ was all about just going into a key and *blasting*. Most trash just wasn't all that dangerous. That doesn't mean M+ was perfect in Legion, I do think the current reward system is better than the Legion style of "do it fast enough to 3 chest it or don't bother", but just doing the dungeons was undoubtedly more fun in my eyes.
Just speaking for me and the people I know who play this game, I find M+ to be at its most enjoyable when trash is relatively simple and bosses are relatively complex. Trash should still have mechanics like high priority kicks, swirlies to be dodged, melee range AoE's to step out of, unkickable casts that need to be CC'd, unavoidable damage (ST or AoE) that has to be defensived and outhealed, mandatory dispels, all that stuff. I'm not saying any of these mechanics are bad, just the total amount of them across a dungeon should be toned back, OR the frequency of these things should be toned back.
Just speaking for me and the people I know who play this game, I find M+ to be at its most enjoyable when trash is relatively simple and bosses are relatively complex. Trash should still have mechanics like high priority kicks, swirlies to be dodged, melee range AoE's to step out of, unkickable casts that need to be CC'd, unavoidable damage (ST or AoE) that has to be defensived and outhealed, mandatory dispels, all that stuff. I'm not saying any of these mechanics are bad, just the total amount of them across a dungeon should be toned back, OR the frequency of these things should be toned back.
Reduce the amount of incoming damage, and put the emphasis on whether a dungeon is timeable or not back on player damage throughput.
Specs like Aug are mandatory at the highest level because otherwise players simply couldn't survive, not because Aug does insane damage (they don't). The meta is often more defined by what specs can survive rather than what is doing the most damage. As long as mages do anywhere above average damage, they'll always be top tier in M+ as a good mage is near unkillable. Conversely, squishy specs and classes like Hunters or Boomkins have to be doing *a LOT* more damage than other, tankier classes to even be considered, and even then it's only if there are other powerful classes with enough externals to cover that weakness.
This current design isn't without its upsides, it does mean that specs that aren't necessarily tuned extremely well can still be valuable just on the merit of being unkillable, but it makes playing those squishy specs feel just awful. It doesn't matter how well you play, if you run out of defensives you just die to unavoidable damage, while other classes still have 2 defensives available and easily survive.
Ultimately, if defensiveness isn't able to be better balanced, which it isn't and has never been, it should not be the primary determination on whether or not a key can be completed.
This current design isn't without its upsides, it does mean that specs that aren't necessarily tuned extremely well can still be valuable just on the merit of being unkillable, but it makes playing those squishy specs feel just awful. It doesn't matter how well you play, if you run out of defensives you just die to unavoidable damage, while other classes still have 2 defensives available and easily survive.
Ultimately, if defensiveness isn't able to be better balanced, which it isn't and has never been, it should not be the primary determination on whether or not a key can be completed.
Increase average pull sizes!
Doing big AoE is fun. It's the most enjoyable part of doing M+. There's a reason why Algethar Academy was probably the most well liked dungeon in DF, and I am certain a big part of that reason is how fun the giant pull in the tree room was.
This ties into the above point regarding amount/frequency of dangerous mechanics. Big pulls like that were possible because there weren't many mechanical checks to doing it, dodge a few swirlies, maybe kick some casts, soothe some enrages, otherwise just blast. But when half the mobs in a pack are threatening to kill you if they are allowed to cast anything and you have to perfectly layer CC/kicks to never let that happen, a lot of the fun of blasting is taken away, and the pulls get so difficult that the average pug just can't do them and have to pull smaller.
It is important to have forced lower target pull sizes, like minibosses or packs of 2-4, so that damage profiles other than "massive uncapped AoE" remain valuable, but in general, we need more big pulls that have a low amount of mechanical checks that your average pug can deal with.
This ties into the above point regarding amount/frequency of dangerous mechanics. Big pulls like that were possible because there weren't many mechanical checks to doing it, dodge a few swirlies, maybe kick some casts, soothe some enrages, otherwise just blast. But when half the mobs in a pack are threatening to kill you if they are allowed to cast anything and you have to perfectly layer CC/kicks to never let that happen, a lot of the fun of blasting is taken away, and the pulls get so difficult that the average pug just can't do them and have to pull smaller.
It is important to have forced lower target pull sizes, like minibosses or packs of 2-4, so that damage profiles other than "massive uncapped AoE" remain valuable, but in general, we need more big pulls that have a low amount of mechanical checks that your average pug can deal with.
Chill out with the anti-melee mechanics.
I have no issue with anti-melee mechanics existing, it's always been the case that some mechanics are more punishing for melee and some are more punishing for ranged. But I really feel like anti-melee mechanics have gone overboard this expansion. When I play on my rogue, it feels like I am *constantly* forced to move out of melee range to dodge some swirlie or move out of an AoE or something.
Conversely, when I was briefly playing rsham up to KSH, I felt completely relaxed most of the time as there's just not that much I had to care about. You dodge the occasional swirlie targeted at you and that's about it. The dichotomy between these two experiences was night and day for me, there is no question in my mind that melee is significantly more annoying and miserable to play.
Conversely, when I was briefly playing rsham up to KSH, I felt completely relaxed most of the time as there's just not that much I had to care about. You dodge the occasional swirlie targeted at you and that's about it. The dichotomy between these two experiences was night and day for me, there is no question in my mind that melee is significantly more annoying and miserable to play.
Long, drawn out RP sequences or mechanics that force you to slow way down have got to go.
An example from this season would be the section between 1st and 2nd boss of City of Threads. It was boring and dull the first time I did it on normal, and it continues to be boring and dull doing it at +10, except now I'm just extra annoyed at the timer ticking down while I spend 3 minutes running across a massive courtyard.
I am very concerned that Darkflame Cleft is going to be even worse, I don't see how anything after the 3rd boss is even salvageable as a fun M+ dungeon. I get it, you want to add some flavor into these dungeons, but there has *got* to be a better way. Does *anyone* do the CoT courtyard or the Cleft darkness sections and still enjoy it after the first time?
I am very concerned that Darkflame Cleft is going to be even worse, I don't see how anything after the 3rd boss is even salvageable as a fun M+ dungeon. I get it, you want to add some flavor into these dungeons, but there has *got* to be a better way. Does *anyone* do the CoT courtyard or the Cleft darkness sections and still enjoy it after the first time?
Add a 1 or 1.5s grace period before taking damage from standing in a puddle
Obviously you should be punished for standing in something bad, but accidentally dipping a toe in a puddle just to get chunked for half your HP instantly is crazy.
Changes suggested by others that I do NOT think are good ideas:
Removing the timer.
The timer is critical to making M+ enjoyable. Similar to an enrage timer on a raid boss, it exists to make damage throughput relevant. Without a timer, the best comp would probably end up being something like 5 Blood DKs or 5 Prot Paladins or some combination therein. There must be a timer so that we are forced to find the perfect balance between pulls small enough we can handle but big enough that we are able to beat the timer.
Remove keys in general, just select a dungeon and key level then go do it.
While I can appreciate how convenient this would be, and how annoying it can be when your key rolls Siege of Boralus 3 out of 5 times, fundamentally I think the key systems accomplishes its purpose of forcing variety. Sometimes, players have to be saved from themselves, and if everyone could just pick the easiest key and run it on repeat, they would. You might say, "What's the problem with that, if they want to do it then let them", but that would have a noticeable negative impact on the number of keys being run of less desirable dungeons, and it would make it much harder to find groups for unpopular dungeons that you need loot or score from.
I’m sure this was a complete waste to take the time to write and few will read it, but I still wanted to put these ideas out there to get them out of my head, and I am very confident that any of my suggested changes would be a net positive for the M+ experience. Thanks for reading.
