World of Warcraft: Current Year

Just bricked a +10 all 2600 rated DPS and Tank/healer. DPS died repeatedly to trash and didn't kick a single cast.

Tank was begging guys with time on 7 or 8 different 10-13 key runs to kick spells lol. Can't make this shit up.

Even if you put 1-2h into making a group, check runs and rating-- that's just not good enough.

M+ is in it's worst state ever. This isn't even disputable whether 1 guy made 2500 or not.

jayrebb said:

The healing and to a lesser extent the tanking difficulty is a major issue.

Prior expansions were more of a DPS check.

This time around there's too many degrees of difficulty making M+ generally unfun to participate in, even as an experienced high key runner.

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It's very difficult to learn, it's not difficult to execute for a tank. Here's an example:

Ara Kara Boss 1 has an ability called Gossamer Onslaught. It's an AoE that also spawns webs beneath you.

In Heroic you just step out of the webs and the healer deals with the damage.

In M0 you start to notice your health going down and you need to use a defensive.

By M4 the defensive isn't enough anymore, this is when you learn that the ability has a limited range and you can use a movement skill to avoid it entirely.

By M8 the webs start to get unmanageable as the encounter lasts longer and you learn to purposefully place them around the edge of the arena.

I really like that difficulty curve but it's not a difficult boss. Kite from adds then jump out of webs and run around edge of arena.

The problem is tha this stuff isn't usually mentioned in guide videos or the dungeon journal. You don't naturally learn it in lower difficulties as initially you don't even notice the ability doing much damage. You only learn it by dying or almost dying.

If you die you make your group angry. If you talk you make your group angry. Because the timer, because of earning the key. It's unpleasant and people don't develop tactics and share information.

They designed a system where relatively easy dungeons feel like shit to do and hard to learn.

I tried healing and it felt nerfed to the point I didn't bother trying much. I usually heal as my main and healed original MC, BWL and AQ40 as a Druid. It's the first expansion I didn't main my Priest I made in 2006.

They need to remove the timer, remove the keys and buff healers. That would allow them to increase the mechanics difficulty.

Chris said:

It's very difficult to learn, it's not difficult to execute for a tank. Here's an example:

Ara Kara Boss 1 has an ability called Gossamer Onslaught. It's an AoE that also spawns webs beneath you.

In Heroic you just step out of the webs and the healer deals with the damage.

In M0 you start to notice your health going down and you need to use a defensive.

By M4 the defensive isn't enough anymore, this is when you learn that the ability has a limited range and you can use a movement skill to avoid it entirely.

By M8 the webs start to get unmanageable as the encounter lasts longer and you learn to purposefully place them around the edge of the arena.

I really like that difficulty curve but it's not a difficult boss. Kite from adds then jump out of webs and run around edge of arena.

The problem is tha this stuff isn't usually mentioned in guide videos or the dungeon journal. You don't naturally learn it in lower difficulties as initially you don't even notice the ability doing much damage. You only learn it by dying or almost dying.

If you die you make your group angry. If you talk you make your group angry. Because the timer, because of earning the key. It's unpleasant and people don't develop tactics and share information.

They designed a system where relatively easy dungeons feel like shit to do and hard to learn.

I tried healing and it felt nerfed to the point I didn't bother trying much. I usually heal as my main and healed original MC, BWL and AQ40 as a Druid. It's the first expansion I didn't main my Priest I made in 2006.

They need to remove the timer, remove the keys and buff healers. That would allow them to increase the mechanics difficulty.

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That's the biggest complaint right now in high keys. Forced defensives.

Personal defensives on DPS were optional in high keys in Shadowlands, and things felt a lot more fun. If a DPS didn't use his defensive properly, no big deal, a good healer will cover him. Players used defensives to help a healer out-- not to avoid bricking a key.

BIG difference. Defensives are now required to avoid bricking keys, by all DPS. Every DPS has to time defensives because no healer can keep up with the damage. And the underlying reason and demand for these defensives is a major contributing reason to why M+ is not fun right now. There are way too many "forced personal defensive" moments, and not enough heal power from the healer going out.

Personal defensives should be to help a healer, not carry a fucking healer.

pysek said:

And there is NO acknowledgment if you've been around since the start either.

Wasted opportunities everywhere.

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Shouldn't I at least get a discount?

Chris said:

If you die you make your group angry. If you talk you make your group angry.

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This is actually good dark comedy this expansion.

No discussion allowed in group chat about interrupt order, or which interrupts or symbols you're responsible for are comical.

The key just instantly melts into nothing at the breakneck pace you would expect from not being allowed to coordinate anything-- lest you feel the wrath of some head case in group, then the key doesn't even start.

jayrebb said:

That's the biggest complaint right now in high keys. Forced defensives.

Personal defensives on DPS were optional in high keys in Shadowlands, and things felt a lot more fun. If a DPS didn't use his defensive properly, no big deal, a good healer will cover him. Players used defensives to help a healer out-- not to avoid bricking a key.

BIG difference. Defensives are now required to avoid bricking keys, by all DPS. Every DPS has to time defensives because no healer can keep up with the damage. And the underlying reason and demand for these defensives is a major contributing reason to why M+ is not fun right now. There are way too many "forced personal defensive" moments, and not enough heal power from the healer going out.

Personal defensives should be to help a healer, not carry a fucking healer.

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I had no idea.

So when did they teach the DPS that they need to use defensives? I'm going to guess "20 years into the game by forcing them to die on high M+ keys and a psycho screams at them for ruining his day because he had to farm loads of dungeons to get the key".

Terrible game design.

There's a few moments in the other MMO where I'd use a defensive as DPS, it's optional but it's when the boss is spending 30 seconds charging up it's ultimate attack and the entire screen is starting to turn white from the explosion. Usually it's just for when you fucked up a mechanic and want to give the healer more reaction time.

The bigger issue is the change to stops. By making casters immediately start casting again unless an interrupt is used, they increased the coordination requirements which completely fucks pugs.

jayrebb said:

That's the biggest complaint right now in high keys. Forced defensives.

Personal defensives on DPS were optional in high keys in Shadowlands, and things felt a lot more fun. If a DPS didn't use his defensive properly, no big deal, a good healer will cover him. Players used defensives to help a healer out-- not to avoid bricking a key.

BIG difference. Defensives are now required to avoid bricking keys, by all DPS. Every DPS has to time defensives because no healer can keep up with the damage. And the underlying reason and demand for these defensives is a major contributing reason to why M+ is not fun right now. There are way too many "forced personal defensive" moments, and not enough heal power from the healer going out.

Personal defensives should be to help a healer, not carry a fucking healer.

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Changing the way keys are numbered for this xpac was the biggest mistake then? Aren't you trying to compare what it felt like playing a M+10 in past xpacs to what would be a M+20 in those xpacs, but is now called a +10? People, that liked grinding M+, constantly asked for gear ilevels to scale higher in the past, so they made that happen.

These complaints sound a bit like someone complaining about how Mythic raiding is too hard , that 200+ wipes on a boss is not fun to learn, and that PuGs should be able to clear the whole raid without a core of hardcore overgeared raiders carrying them.

In other words more complaints by people that expect they should be able to get the best gear, regardless of how skillful they are, or how enjoyable it is. In previous xpacs, I read that the meta for M+20 (anything over +18?) was the dumb-ass strat of the tank grabbing a bunch of mobs and kitting them around until dead. That shit sounded retarded, so why should the new +20 (now a +10) not be retarded too?

Burns said:

Changing the way keys are numbered for this xpac was the biggest mistake then? Aren't you trying to compare what it felt like playing a M+10 in past xpacs to what would be a M+20 in those xpacs, but is now called a +10? People, that liked grinding M+, constantly asked for gear ilevels to scale higher in the past, so they made that happen.

These complaints sound a bit like someone complaining about how Mythic raiding is too hard , that 200+ wipes on a boss is not fun to learn, and that PuGs should be able to clear the whole raid without a core of hardcore overgeared raiders carrying them.

In other words more complaints by people that expect they should be able to get the best gear, regardless of how skillful they are, or how enjoyable it is. In previous xpacs, I read that the meta for M+20 (anything over +18?) was the dumb-ass strat of the tank grabbing a bunch of mobs and kitting them around until dead. That shit sounded retarded, so why should the new +20 (now a +10) not be retarded too?

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The co-ordination he is describing really is only needed at 12 and beyond, due to the Guile affix and the bargains going away. You get nothing from doing that other then a fight to get into the top 0.5% for a title. 10's are infinitely puggable with an understanding of mechanics, decent players and an ilvl about 625. After that there will be fewer and fewer people capable of pugging due to having to have better comps that can rotate AOE CC's.

But again there really isnt a point other then the challenge of it and really you should be looking for a static with discord. You get Myth track vaults and portals at 10 which is where the character power rewards stop (and really so will I other then trying my hand at some 11's for the fun of it). I really have no desire to do a static other then playing with friends. People are trying to do 10's in a pug at like 615 ilvl so yea it will be way harder then it needs to be for them and they would be better off farming 8's to cap Gilded Crests and get a few crafted items + maxed out hero track gear then trying 10's if they are going to pug. Hell I am 629 ilvl and have never stepped into a raid so its real easy to do. Plus the cap on Gilded is a season cap so you can catch up to people doing them week one at your own pace (I grinded hard).

So yea tomorrow I get a choice of three myth track items (hopefully one is something I can catalyst into a set piece) and will grind out my crests to do some modest upgrades and that will be the season grind for me unless I want to get into raiding which I really not sure I do. But for the "average" player it will take them far longer to get to the point I am at, purely because they look at the M+ season incorrectly. They will go an roll a meta class and maybe not be great at it, or rage at not getting invited to keys but not doing their own, or not grinding out the correct M+ levels to really get their gear up to make the push to 10. This happened in Shadowlands as well, the same complaints etc, meanwhile if you know which M+ levels to grind out you could make that final vault push easy and get your mount and portals like I did.

BoozeCube said:

I haven’t played this game in years but most of the complaints I see tend to fall into the same thing.. exponentially scaling content is dog ass especially in games that are by design meant to be SOCIAL. Hard content is cool and adding things like the old school mage tower was a great addition to the game but group content should never make you want to exclude your friends once you reach that point you done fucked up.

I am not saying you should be able to carry a smooth brained controller enjoyer in a shit spec forgoing proper rotations but you should never have to tell your friend to fuck off because they aren’t the right meta class, build, spec… there is a reason EQ and Classic were pinnacles of MMORPG design and it wasn’t because you needed a PHD in American Inventormonics, Weak Auras, Macros, 30 alts, split farming, and research guides to play the fucking game…

WoW has been dogass for a long long time and that’s excluding the lol lore and other retard shit. Reading the thread it seems less to do with M+ and more of a never ending hole you that as you dig deeper and deeper you have to sacrifice more and more fun and enjoyment for a dick grinder and a carrot forever just out of reach.

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Well the philosophy at release was, if you are not good enough to do X content in Vanilla (Naxx would be the pinnacle of that), then you just don't do it and you can go grind AV forever or whatever else you want, but at the games apex (WOTLK) they changed it to, content is very accessible but you can make it harder if you want for better rewards (3 drake Sarth, Hard mode Ulduar, 50 attempts remaining caches etc), to well that was complicated and unintuitive so now there's normal, hard, and hardest.

Part of the problem is that at "normal" its easy. like REAL easy, but I think we as a whole underestimate how many people like to stay in "easy" M+ participation rate at M+2 is 50% of the unique characters, so theres half the population gone and it goes down the higher you go, but of course people want the "best" gear to do stuff even if they are not really capable. Back in the MC or BWL days you carried those players and they would comprise of half your raid. Its the same as EQ TLP servers even to this day, but you cant really carry about in the Mythic raids anymore and those require high knowledge and WA and addons etc. Raid finder or normal really doesnt, but people dont really like "staying in their lane" as it were.

I think people have a hard time setting goals based on time they can commit to and a self realization of their own skill within the game. Do I as a non meta warrior have the capability of finding a static and playing to a high enough degree that I could do 15's? Probably with practice sure, but it would require that I put aside time every day to be online with a set group of people and fail over and over practicing to do that, and I have ZERO desire to do that. Do I then say well this game is dogshit that should be puggable with Randoms of varying skill but I want no rewards other then a title that I prob wouldn't be eligible for? God no. Player power rewards cap out at a level that is doable with randoms. Thats enough, the rest is a dick measuring content i want no part in.

They created a raid tier that around 1000 guilds a tier will complete in mythic to keep the "hardcores" infilitely engaged and lower skill reequired tiers for players who wither cant, wont, and dont want to can be engaged by as well. I dont mind the system myself but I know what I wanted to do and am happy playing in that system. I dont want to be carried around in a Mythic raid where I shouldn't be, people back in Vanilla just didnt care if that was the case because there was little else to do. Oh I have MC gear so why ever go to Stratholme again? Well you wouldn't, now you can with M+.

BTW I have 47 of those celebration tokens, I will have my warrior mog tomorrow, its really not that grindy. You can get 950 of them over the 2.5 months the event is going on thats 4x the amount you need.

BoozeCube said:

Game doesn’t need 1000 version of the same content, nor 600 variations of the same gear. Yes people are always going to strive for the best of X item so maybe go back to just have 1 version of it.

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That will either require the game going to the point where its mind numbingly easy or lock 90% of the playerbase out of content they create for an entire expansion. That may have worked when there was 500k people playing at a games peak, but its really not what people want anymore. Like OKAY, EQ TLP is dogshit easy up to a point where I have never played, but those people are not playing for that reason, they are playing to talk shit in forums which most people under the age of 40 have never nor will never do lol.

I like a hard game and would play it if there was one difficulty but I think the playerbase would shrink to the point where its not really financially viable to create expansions for anymore. I dont want a Darkpaw-esque expansion released for WoW.

Burns said:

These complaints sound a bit like someone complaining about how Mythic raiding is too hard , that 200+ wipes on a boss is not fun to learn, and that PuGs should be able to clear the whole raid without a core of hardcore overgeared raiders carrying them.

In other words more complaints by people that expect they should be able to get the best gear, regardless of how skillful they are, or how enjoyable it is. In previous xpacs, I read that the meta for M+20 (anything over +18?) was the dumb-ass strat of the tank grabbing a bunch of mobs and kitting them around until dead. That shit sounded retarded, so why should the new +20 (now a +10) not be retarded too?

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WoW is not hard even at the highest difficulty level.

It's all time investment and the game does not respect your time. It's minutes of running back after a wipe in a raid or breaking your key in a dungeon, it's designed to slow you down and prevent a learning process so you are stuck paying the sub.

I actually really enjoyed progressing through the key levels in M+, I didn't enjoy half the people I was playing with. The game design mind broke them and they were angry.

I had a positive attitude coming from the other MMO, otherwise I'd probably be crazy like them.

Juvarisx said:

The co-ordination he is describing really is only needed at 12 and beyond, due to the Guile affix and the bargains going away. You get nothing from doing that other then a fight to get into the top 0.5% for a title. 10's are infinitely puggable with an understanding of mechanics, decent players and an ilvl about 625. After that there will be fewer and fewer people capable of pugging due to having to have better comps that can rotate AOE CC's.

But again there really isnt a point other then the challenge of it and really you should be looking for a static with discord. You get Myth track vaults and portals at 10 which is where the character power rewards stop (and really so will I other then trying my hand at some 11's for the fun of it). I really have no desire to do a static other then playing with friends. People are trying to do 10's in a pug at like 615 ilvl so yea it will be way harder then it needs to be for them and they would be better off farming 8's to cap Gilded Crests and get a few crafted items + maxed out hero track gear then trying 10's if they are going to pug. Hell I am 629 ilvl and have never stepped into a raid so its real easy to do. Plus the cap on Gilded is a season cap so you can catch up to people doing them week one at your own pace (I grinded hard).

So yea tomorrow I get a choice of three myth track items (hopefully one is something I can catalyst into a set piece) and will grind out my crests to do some modest upgrades and that will be the season grind for me unless I want to get into raiding which I really not sure I do. But for the "average" player it will take them far longer to get to the point I am at, purely because they look at the M+ season incorrectly. They will go an roll a meta class and maybe not be great at it, or rage at not getting invited to keys but not doing their own, or not grinding out the correct M+ levels to really get their gear up to make the push to 10. This happened in Shadowlands as well, the same complaints etc, meanwhile if you know which M+ levels to grind out you could make that final vault push easy and get your mount and portals like I did.

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Less than 5% of the playerbase can complete a 10, forget time. That's not "infinitely puggable".

That's a serious key grind to stay on 10 key-- repeatedly pushing 8's and 9's with trash players. Bricked multiple 8 and 9 keys with 2500 rated DPS and 2900 tanks, 2600 resto mythic raid prog healers. Doesn't matter how long you put into forming a group on a 10, chances are it's not going to time. Pretending otherwise is delusional.

Okay so the game needs to be far easier to be more social while having one difficulty level so when you are done with say dungeon content you have no reason to go back while being puggable by anyone at any time. And the best rewards either need to be out of reach by 99% of the userbase (IE. vanilla Naxx), OR available to everyone at any time or locked behind raids that need to be easy enough for 5 people to carry 15 others but not hard enough to not frustrate anyone?

I guess end game is logging in for 2 hours a week to clear a raid that you are guaranteed to be able to clear as a pug then log out since there is nothing else to do.

I guess I am just lost as to what people want. Going no further then M+8 you can get full 626 without crafting a thing, but if you have been gathering sparks you can have 5 so far and each crafted 636 costs 1 (2 handers cost 2). If the argument is to move myth vaults to 8, I haven't read anyone say that here, so then anything above 8 is dick measuring instead of 10? Or does it always need to be puggable regardless of how high you go (unless you take Booze's argument in that there is nowhere else to go, its just either hard or not ).

10's can be done as a pug. I have done them, and even if you fail to time they credit your vault anything for myth track, the only diff is you don't get as many crests, but if you do the smart thing you will be capped on crests anyways from doing 8's. Yes you will have bad runs, no you dont need to do your own key, hell last week I didnt do mine at all. Do I feel the best gear in the game outside of crafting should be a challenge to get? Yea I do. Is it impossible? No not even close, the "impossible" tier is above 12 which has zero reason to do unless you want your IO ego inflated. It was harder in Shadowlands to get all this shit done, they made it a joke in Dragonflight and now there is a pile of really terrible players, what a shock.

Juvarisx said:

Okay so the game needs to be far easier to be more social while having one difficulty level so when you are done with say dungeon content you have no reason to go back while being puggable by anyone at any time. And the best rewards either need to be out of reach by 99% of the userbase (IE. vanilla Naxx), OR available to everyone at any time or locked behind raids that need to be easy enough for 5 people to carry 15 others but not hard enough to not frustrate anyone?

I guess end game is logging in for 2 hours a week to clear a raid that you are guaranteed to be able to clear as a pug then log out since there is nothing else to do.

I guess I am just lost as to what people want. Going no further then M+8 you can get full 626 without crafting a thing, but if you have been gathering sparks you can have 5 so far and each crafted 636 costs 1 (2 handers cost 2). If the argument is to move myth vaults to 8, I haven't read anyone say that here, so then anything above 8 is dick measuring instead of 10? Or does it always need to be puggable regardless of how high you go (unless you take Booze's argument in that there is nowhere else to go, its just either hard or not ).

10's can be done as a pug. I have done them, and even if you fail to time they credit your vault anything for myth track, the only diff is you don't get as many crests, but if you do the smart thing you will be capped on crests anyways from doing 8's. Yes you will have bad runs, no you dont need to do your own key, hell last week I didnt do mine at all. Do I feel the best gear in the game outside of crafting should be a challenge to get? Yea I do. Is it impossible? No not even close, the "impossible" tier is above 12 which has zero reason to do unless you want your IO ego inflated. It was harder in Shadowlands to get all this shit done, they made it a joke in Dragonflight and now there is a pile of really terrible players, what a shock.

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"Easy" and "Hard" are too vauge.

The game needs to be more difficult in terms of what you need to perform, but less punishing if you fail.

I like the M+ system, but all the punishments need to be removed.