World of Warcraft: Current Year

jayrebb said:

Or at least some type of anti-bricking insurance that allows a key to be restarted. I don't care even if it costed currency that had to be grinded weekly or if it was gated. Even the possibility existing to restart a key would tone down the rabid toxicity. Having to re-push a key in PUGs is a serious driver of the most toxic experience possible. It forces the key holder to become a part of the problem. More elitist, more vetting, more flaming and brow-beating. Even if it's gated or you can only restart a key a certain number of times per season, it would massively tone down the current all-time level of toxicity the game is seeing-- since War Within is the most popular expansion in many years, along with like you said, the most Heroic geared population of all time. It's a double whammy for toxicity right now, and it needs a few things added or subtracted to make it more forgiving.

A "key insurance" system that could be activated by the key holder would tone toxicity down just by players being aware that such a system exists, even if it wasn't all that impactful.

Seems like a no-brainer to me and doesn't affect the MDI e-sport crowd too much. They'd probably appreciate being able to re-attempt those 14's and 15's without pushing again a handful of times or however much it'd be allowed.

I know I'd shut up for awhile if I was allowed multiple 10 key attempts. Pushing 8 and 9's in PUG's remains the most unfun in any expansion. Pushing a 14 key in SL S1 was dreaded, sure, it was a nail-biter-- and there was a ton of anxiety about it if you fell down to 14 key, but you could reasonably find a team to get it done. It wasn't the omg wtf is happening chaos that War Within brings with it's massive record population in recent history. Re-pushing in War Within has killed most people's desire to even play.

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Something along these lines seems like a pretty easy fix. They could add even more qualifications to make it so it does not affect the poopsockers, at all. Such as, you get 5-10 mulligans a week, but only up to key level 10 (or level 8), after that, no do-overs.

Unfortunately, the person(s) that would know how to implement that fix, probably doesn't work there anymore.

As they've said in the past the keystones are a system that limits players farming the easiest dungeons. Now that was before ratings required all of them but for loot I can still see it being valid.

Of course one might ask if players dislike a system so much they'll run the easiest/shortest one over and over for loot only, what the fuck is wrong with your content and incentive structure. But of course that's all you're going to get from these people.

Burns said:

Something along these lines seems like a pretty easy fix. They could add even more qualifications to make it so it does not affect the poopsockers, at all. Such as, you get 5-10 mulligans a week, but only up to key level 10 (or level 8), after that, no do-overs.

Unfortunately, the person(s) that would know how to implement that fix, probably doesn't work there anymore.

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This is another big fix someone suggested to take all the suck out of PUGs.

If they'd make kicks unable to go off if there's nothing to kick, it would prevent so much overlapping of kick CDs in pugs, which might make things a bit easier.

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Unable to trigger interrupts when there is nothing to interrupt in M+

This would be major but e-sport crowd would rage.

Khane said:

People have been complaining about the key system for years. Since its inception in fact. But Blizzard is filled with unimaginative hacks who believe things like that somehow keep people subbed longer

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Not wrong-- but the difference is BFA complaints were mainly laser focused on rewards and how mandatory M+ was. SL complaints were across the board so M+ couldn't be laser focused, and DL complaints about M+ were pertaining to the lackluster dungeon design and lack of effort from Blizzard (Several MDI teams quit in DL Beta and sent Blizzard a "Furor letter" on M+ to fix the dungeons or they won't participate in the MDI).

This is the first time that all 3 cross-sections of the playerbase are unanimously focused on M+ bashing specifically, with minor complaints elsewhere.

This type of noise could finally tip the boat and get real change.




There is no denying it's a major community topic at the moment.

Daidraco said:

Wrong thread entirely. lul

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I got you bro

The fact that you have to kill fixed amount of trash is the biggest piece of shit design decision ever. No one likes trash mobs.

Palum said:

The fact that you have to kill fixed amount of trash is the biggest piece of shit design decision ever. No one likes trash mobs.

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Long story short, thats just to protect little timmie type groups from being extremely disadvantaged against properly made groups with particular class combinations.

The biggest thing that Ive thought of in retrospect is to just change their philosophy on interrupts. In that if they refunded interrupt casts on an unsuccessful attempt at interrupting - it would be a tremendous boon in the lower ranks of Mythic+. There still needs to be someone paying attention to the other mobs casting, so there still needs to be coordination with it at the higher levels. But the mechanic is overly simple to a group in voice chat, and overly complicated with a PUG that doesnt say a word to each other the whole dungeon.

Daidraco said:

Long story short, thats just to protect little timmie type groups from being extremely disadvantaged against properly made groups with particular class combinations.

The biggest thing that Ive thought of in retrospect is to just change their philosophy on interrupts. In that if they refunded interrupt casts on an unsuccessful attempt at interrupting - it would be a tremendous boon in the lower ranks of Mythic+. There still needs to be someone paying attention to the other mobs casting, so there still needs to be coordination with it at the higher levels. But the mechanic is overly simple to a group in voice chat, and overly complicated with a PUG that doesnt say a word to each other the whole dungeon.

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Literally don't care what the scene is, just want to play a good game. It shouldn't be balanced it should just be accessible. This whole quest to homogenize everything is dumb.

Some other games have the counter ability not even active unless there is something to interrupt. Literally impossible to press unless it will work. But games that dual-use abilities for PVP will always have issues and interrupts are one of them.

BoozeCube said:

The refund an interrupt or not using an interrupt if there is nothing to interrupt would just end up with them macroed into every fucking ability in the game.

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In a way, sure. This would work up to a point. But there are NPC's in every pack that spam a base line spell, and the only one that someone like a Spriest or Warlock (45s CD's, if at all) should be interrupting are the NPC's major abilities.

Or, think of it in a more random/active situation like PVP - Imagine how fucked you would be if you used your interrupt on their first bait ability? (Yes. I know you dont PVP. But its a good example.)

The objective here is to smooth out low/no communication in PUG groups, not eliminate skilled/knowledgeable gameplay. Addons help, but it still doesnt alleviate the fact that the few people that are interrupting will all blow their interrupt on the same NPC. Then the mob on the other side of the group starts casting his major ability, and that situation has a high probably of snow balling from there.

Yea. The ultimate answer is to just fucking TALK - but that seems to be the hardest ask out of all of them.

Daidraco said:

In a way, sure. This would work up to a point. But there are NPC's in every pack that spam a base line spell, and the only one that someone like a Spriest or Warlock (45s CD's, if at all) should be interrupting are the NPC's major abilities.

Or, think of it in a more random/active situation like PVP - Imagine how fucked you would be if you used your interrupt on their first bait ability? (Yes. I know you dont PVP. But its a good example.)

The objective here is to smooth out low/no communication in PUG groups, not eliminate skilled/knowledgeable gameplay. Addons help, but it still doesnt alleviate the fact that the few people that are interrupting will all blow their interrupt on the same NPC. Then the mob on the other side of the group starts casting his major ability, and that situation has a high probably of snow balling from there.

Yea. The ultimate answer is to just fucking TALK - but that seems to be the hardest ask out of all of them.

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The only alternative given was longer cast times in lower keys. This could be a mediocre bandaid if done right. People criticized it saying it would train people to react slower, but M+ increasing difficulty is part of the design.

Longer cast times scaled to key levels seems like an easy to implement fix Blizzard could go for that doesn't negatively affect e-sports or change fundamental design.

People want an overall rework of M+ fundamentals and reward structure. But the best we'll get is probably something like this, or more affix changes. Hell, it's Blizzard...It'll be a =20% flat spelldamage tune across the board and call it a day. Expect a token response from Blizzard.

A flat mulligan system where if a key disbands within 10 minutes it's refunded is necessary given the high amount of key trolls.



This has been my exact experience in high keys. The population and queue is so large that you can't even make a group this expansion. Doesn't matter how elitist or what your vetting process is.

2800 rated key trolls show up every time and brick it instantly. Raider IO no longer works to make a "guaranteed" run the same way that players could reliably do in Shadowlands and to a lesser extent Dragonflight.

I still out there puggin away (the addon is bugged 6 of the dungeons are actually at ++ IDK why the addon doesnt show it the site does)



I'll be gettin into 12's more or less when im back from an upcoming vaca, but some complaints are for sure valid and some are overblown.

So a few things I did that I dont see the "average joe" player doing.

1. Completely learning the class, including niche and relatively unknown tricks you can do with you class kit. For example, most warriors dont know you can use reflect on the last boss in Mists to take ZERO damage from acid puddles or consumptions AND it doesn't consume reflect. Makes the fight a joke. Or you can leap away from the cosmic singularity on the last boss in Ara Kara but you cant leap through the boss, to trivialize the mechanic. Most people just go zug and dont learn shit. Every class has little stuff they can do.

2. There really isnt much route variety anymore....so learn the fucking route. Yes tanks will adjust pull sizes occasionally but knowing when to use CD's is a skill.

3. Stay in your lane. You have 615 ilvl? Run some 4-7's to get gear and crests then go for 8-9's. So many people love whining about insta declines, theres a trillion dps out there gotta make yourself standout relative to the content you are supposed to be doing. Just cause some streamer is doing 12's at 620 ilvl doesn't mean you will be. I maxed my hero gear at 619 then started going for 9's for Gilded (its even easier to do now since they drop at 8 they didn't back then).I am now at 631 ilvl and slowly gettin there weekly, but noone was going to invite a 619ilvl warrior to a 12 no matter what my IO said.

4. BigWigs / DBM will auto tag mobs with markers. Say before you go "Ill interrupt star" or whatever. Then just don't interrupt fucking everything, get a cooldown tracker to interupt the important shit (like Marauder fear, or Water Shell in Siege), then deternmine if you can interupt the random fireball. The little shit will get interrupted by AoE knocks etc resetting casts.

5. Dont fucking die. Yea I die, prob too much but I use everything in my kit to try not to. Hey buy a healing pot or its your fault. Unless the healer just sucks if you die its cause you stood in something or didnt understand a mechanic.

6. Rewards stop at 10, if you just want gear who cares. This is what I am seeing from YouTube etc a lot. Those people complaining? Yea 12's suck. But for the "average joe" player they will never see it so its irrelevant. You know what else sucks? Raiding (imo), but where are the people are whining about not being able to kill Mythic Nerub Palace. They know what that entails and they dont want it. 12's are the "Mythic Raids" of dungeons. They are hard, harder to pug, more fun with friends, but unlike mythic raids they don't give you anything. AT ALL. So lets circle back to the 8-10 key range.....

7. 8-10 are easy. Yep they are. The struggle I was having was getting invited to groups cause my class isnt meta and people will take the path of least resistance. Once you know the class and the dungeon and your role in both, its just blasting through it. Mistakes happen, and the 15s death affix is still retarded but its very manageable. If you dont go around like a retard and rage in group chat people will generally stay till the end. Every class and spec is more then capable of doing keys in this range for the best rewards. They dont need to refund interupts or whatever, its player knowledge. If that sounds like too much aof a pain to do in a pug environment do it with friends or a guild. I do pugs cause I work from home while I play sometimes so I cant be consistent, but even in the FoH guild other then Daidraco, noone asked me to play so IDK.

That 2800 IO player joining the 8? Yea dont invite them, their expectations of the key are not the same as yours even if they can blast better then the 2300 player signing up. They want to test something or peen out over a log or whatever and the second shit gets bad they go nah and leave cause they can get into another in about 5 seconds. Inviting people generally relative to you in IO and ILVL is a great way to ensure people will stick it out either for gear or the possibility of timing it if only barely.

So what's there to solve? Well there's a lot going on and it would be swell if Blizzard communicating what is happening A LOT better. I have more weak auras and addon then you can shake a stick at to just communicate with me what a pile of mobs is doing and facing. Most players dont have the knowledge to setup Plater (its a beast), but its damn near required where I am at. ALso the death timer affix needs to go even if what replaces it makes it technically harder. I'd also like to see loot dropping from 12's to be mythic but have it not tradable, and only like 2 pieces a week drop (make it guaranteed however). I dont have much of a reason to go for 12's or above, I doubt I will get the title by being in the top 0.5% so some motivation might be nice. Based on the Season 2 dungeon pool that we know of, its going to be an eh season. Have the non TWW dungeon part of the pool cultivate routing to vary shit up a bit.

I dunno, I doubt im the furthest progressed person commenting here but those are my thoughts. I can control what I can so I aim to and making shit harder on myself by not talking or not learning or not doing seems counter-productive.

10s were hard af the first week at ilvl 605ish. This season was still easier than DF season 1 and SL season 1. The next seasons of the xpac will be much easier as usual with higher starting ilvl/embellishment.

The difficulty has never been in question so much as the PUGability compared to previous expansions.

Crossed 2500 today with casual play.

A few keys a week.

Key trolls remain a major problem, and keys still need to be refunded if disbanded before the 10 minute mark.

Had a 2800 rated tank tell me to poly adds on Amarth after he refused to reposition to mages when all interrupts are down.

He wouldn't kill adds and said "CC them"

"Poly"

Fucking retard. That's basic spell knowledge 101 but someone would think he's some kind of key pro because of his rating. What a fucking blowjob.

The healer and keyholder both flamed him, rightfully so.

The problem with key troll is that io isnt a real elo: you dont lose point for failing, and the amount you gain for timing doesnt account for how good your teammates were. So it s very easy for people with friends or meta class to have inflated io.

The pug scene is bad because tank and healer are too rare. These roles were always unpopular but it gets worse expac after expac.

Razzes said:

The problem with key troll is that io isnt a real elo: you dont lose point for failing, and the amount you gain for timing doesnt account for how good your teammates were. So it s very easy for people with friends or meta class to have inflated io.

The pug scene is bad because tank and healer are too rare. These roles were always unpopular but it gets worse expac after expac.

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Yeah Im not gonna lie I refuse to PUG keys this season its pure ass. I literally had a random pally leave after a successful no deaths boss clear one the 1st boss of city of echos. We 4 manned it no problem seeing it was only a 8 but its like the fuck why even bother signing up for the key.