Why I like the proposed changes coming to Mythic Plus next patch
There was a bit of furor over the changes to Mythic Plus next patch. However there are heaps of good things about the changes which I am looking forward to. Let me go through the big changes step by step.
1. If you complete the dungeon but don’t make the timer, you’ll get a Keystone for a random dungeon that’s 1 level lower than the one you just used.
No more depleted keys! So you will always have a key. I think that's pretty cool. I like always having a key even if I have one that's depleted, so that I can bring something to a group! I don't think anyone has any issues with this change.
2. If you don’t complete the dungeon at all, you’ll have a Keystone for the same dungeon that’s one level lower than the one you just used.
I'm not sure how this works. If everyone zones out, does the key become "incomplete" and turn into another key? Or is there a time limit to when you can complete it and then it just becomes incomplete (like when it hits the 2 hour mark does the key become "incomplete" and go one level lower). This does concern me a little bit because there have been times when we've wiped and we all zone out to repair (or other instances where we all zone out for whatever reason - like getting rid of blobs) - does that mean if we do that we risk killing the key and making it one level easier? I do like the idea of getting a one level easier key though! This is another change which I think is a great idea.
3. You no longer receive additional chests at the end of a run for completing it quickly.
3 chesting. Something you hear a lot and people make a big deal out of it. I was never really interested in the chests, just the key at the end - I thought 3 chest equates to a 3 level upgrade on your key.
The reason why they wanted to change it was because there was a lot of people just wanting to do low level keys and get three chests - now, it never occurred to me that having 3 chests meant more opportunities for legendaries to drop and more loot. However, that is where a lot of the upset seems to be at. Many people were using mythic plus as a way of gearing up (eg take all leather wearers and a carry and the carry can siphon off all the loot)
Lengthy discussion later in this post. But I am indifferent to this change.
4. Changes to the amount of loot that drops at the end.
If you complete the dungeon, there will be 2 items. If you complete it in time, there will be 3 items. On difficulties above 15, there is an increased chance to get another item in the chest - so that if you do a +20 you will be guaranteed 4 items of loot and 5 if you beat the timer.
I like that it's an incentive to do harder dungeons for the chance at more loot. But I can see that not everyone sees it that way.
DISCUSSION
I have read pages and pages of comments over the WoW forums, MMO-Champion, and Wowhead, and have finally gotten my head around what people are complaining about.
People are upset because when they had fun smashing through mythic plus, getting lots of loot, and doing it quickly - time efficient! Now, because you will get less loot, even if you do it quickly, there doesn't seem to be any point in doing mythic plus.
If you were getting a 3 chest, one of the chests contained the possibility of loot you missed from the 2 dungeon levels you "skipped" ie. if you ran a +9 and 3 chested it, then one chest was for the 9, one was for the 10 and one was for the 11 that you missed since you're skipping straight to 12. If it was possible to get 2 loots in each chest before, then you had a possible 6 loots. Now those extra 2 chests just become one loot. This is the key point that is upsetting everyone.
It's interesting because Mythic plus was originally designed to be a challenging thing to do and loot was a relatively minor thing. I remember thinking that if you were raiding, then loot from M+ was pretty useless. But with titanforging it was possible to get better than raid gear and with more loot dropping, the more chance you have to get titanforged stuff.
I run mythic plus to get a good cache at the end of the week. I also like to run mythic plus to see how far I can go. I enjoy doing high keys to challenge myself, and just finish it. If I don't finish it in time, it means I'm not quite ready for that level and I want to see how I go from week to week.
If you compare mythic plus to challenge modes (which are now removed), which rewarded you NO loot, mythic plus are clearly superior in terms of fun and reward. From what I understood, M+ was supposed to replace challenge modes, giving you something to compete with from week to week. But it evolved into something else - it's become a way to gear and get rewards, when I think the rewards were supposed to be just tokens to show you that you were doing stuff that was appropriate for your gear level.
Gearing alts through mythic plus was a common theme, and I think the decrease in loot will see players not having as much incentive to gear through mythic plus compared to now. I can see that wasn't the intention of M+ and perhaps that is what Blizz is trying to change. Gear was not supposed to be a main focus of the M+.
The overlooking of other classes they were trying to address by decreasing the chests so there is no benefit to speed running except to push your key up faster. Now that there is no benefit to doing it faster, it may give people a chance to take other classes so there is no need to rush. Lots of comments on the forums saying that these changes will not bring about those effects. Lots of comments saying that "carry groups" will not form because they don't see the benefit. I am wondering what Blizz thought about carry groups - did they want people to be "carried" through things to earn their loot/acheivements or did they want people working together?
In all honesty, working together to finish a dungeon with a bunch of pugs is a big ask. Teamwork is best done in a group of friends or guildies. You often find that a bunch of pugs tend to be more angry at one another, more finger pointing and leaving the group because of the run not going well, ruining the key for everyone else. At least, with the key changes, dead keys do not result, but just downgrading of your key. So you can at least feel like you have a key after someone pikes on your run.
How would I have made the changes better?
Let me reiterate that the changes to the keys themselves is great. I wouldn't change any of that because all of those are great changes.
I think being able to bonus roll from the cache at the end is not a terrible thing. I think a bonus roll if you finished the mythic + on time is a good incentive or reward for completing a key successfully. If they let you do that, then people might feel like they're getting an extra something, or at least an extra chance at something. For some toons that don't raid or do LFR, then mythic plus might be a good way for them to use their bonus rolls to try to get something good. I would feel especially stoked after doing a hard key and then it would be icing on the cake to get a roll out of it to and pick up something cool.
I don't mind the other changes nerfing the amount of loot. Mythic plus rewards are supposed to be related to the challenge rewards rather than the loots. Look at challenge modes previously - people did them to try to get the best times and if you make it about that again you might see some cool stuff on the leaderboards as people strive for the best and highest times. At present people are just farming lower keys and not trying for the hardest levels, and I would like to see people going for the highest levels of the week. And maybe give out those cool titles for the week for completing the dungeon that week at the highest level! I would love to have a cool title for the week - which is different from WoD and Pandaria CMs because they would carry their title forever, whereas this one could reset every week so other people could get a chance at it.
In the meantime, do lots of mythic plus if you're going for loot before the changes come! But for me, I'll still be doing the same amount of mythic plus as I was before.
1. If you complete the dungeon but don’t make the timer, you’ll get a Keystone for a random dungeon that’s 1 level lower than the one you just used.
No more depleted keys! So you will always have a key. I think that's pretty cool. I like always having a key even if I have one that's depleted, so that I can bring something to a group! I don't think anyone has any issues with this change.
2. If you don’t complete the dungeon at all, you’ll have a Keystone for the same dungeon that’s one level lower than the one you just used.
I'm not sure how this works. If everyone zones out, does the key become "incomplete" and turn into another key? Or is there a time limit to when you can complete it and then it just becomes incomplete (like when it hits the 2 hour mark does the key become "incomplete" and go one level lower). This does concern me a little bit because there have been times when we've wiped and we all zone out to repair (or other instances where we all zone out for whatever reason - like getting rid of blobs) - does that mean if we do that we risk killing the key and making it one level easier? I do like the idea of getting a one level easier key though! This is another change which I think is a great idea.
3. You no longer receive additional chests at the end of a run for completing it quickly.
3 chesting. Something you hear a lot and people make a big deal out of it. I was never really interested in the chests, just the key at the end - I thought 3 chest equates to a 3 level upgrade on your key.
The reason why they wanted to change it was because there was a lot of people just wanting to do low level keys and get three chests - now, it never occurred to me that having 3 chests meant more opportunities for legendaries to drop and more loot. However, that is where a lot of the upset seems to be at. Many people were using mythic plus as a way of gearing up (eg take all leather wearers and a carry and the carry can siphon off all the loot)
Lengthy discussion later in this post. But I am indifferent to this change.
4. Changes to the amount of loot that drops at the end.
If you complete the dungeon, there will be 2 items. If you complete it in time, there will be 3 items. On difficulties above 15, there is an increased chance to get another item in the chest - so that if you do a +20 you will be guaranteed 4 items of loot and 5 if you beat the timer.
I like that it's an incentive to do harder dungeons for the chance at more loot. But I can see that not everyone sees it that way.
DISCUSSION
I have read pages and pages of comments over the WoW forums, MMO-Champion, and Wowhead, and have finally gotten my head around what people are complaining about.
People are upset because when they had fun smashing through mythic plus, getting lots of loot, and doing it quickly - time efficient! Now, because you will get less loot, even if you do it quickly, there doesn't seem to be any point in doing mythic plus.
If you were getting a 3 chest, one of the chests contained the possibility of loot you missed from the 2 dungeon levels you "skipped" ie. if you ran a +9 and 3 chested it, then one chest was for the 9, one was for the 10 and one was for the 11 that you missed since you're skipping straight to 12. If it was possible to get 2 loots in each chest before, then you had a possible 6 loots. Now those extra 2 chests just become one loot. This is the key point that is upsetting everyone.
It's interesting because Mythic plus was originally designed to be a challenging thing to do and loot was a relatively minor thing. I remember thinking that if you were raiding, then loot from M+ was pretty useless. But with titanforging it was possible to get better than raid gear and with more loot dropping, the more chance you have to get titanforged stuff.
I run mythic plus to get a good cache at the end of the week. I also like to run mythic plus to see how far I can go. I enjoy doing high keys to challenge myself, and just finish it. If I don't finish it in time, it means I'm not quite ready for that level and I want to see how I go from week to week.
If you compare mythic plus to challenge modes (which are now removed), which rewarded you NO loot, mythic plus are clearly superior in terms of fun and reward. From what I understood, M+ was supposed to replace challenge modes, giving you something to compete with from week to week. But it evolved into something else - it's become a way to gear and get rewards, when I think the rewards were supposed to be just tokens to show you that you were doing stuff that was appropriate for your gear level.
Gearing alts through mythic plus was a common theme, and I think the decrease in loot will see players not having as much incentive to gear through mythic plus compared to now. I can see that wasn't the intention of M+ and perhaps that is what Blizz is trying to change. Gear was not supposed to be a main focus of the M+.
The overlooking of other classes they were trying to address by decreasing the chests so there is no benefit to speed running except to push your key up faster. Now that there is no benefit to doing it faster, it may give people a chance to take other classes so there is no need to rush. Lots of comments on the forums saying that these changes will not bring about those effects. Lots of comments saying that "carry groups" will not form because they don't see the benefit. I am wondering what Blizz thought about carry groups - did they want people to be "carried" through things to earn their loot/acheivements or did they want people working together?
In all honesty, working together to finish a dungeon with a bunch of pugs is a big ask. Teamwork is best done in a group of friends or guildies. You often find that a bunch of pugs tend to be more angry at one another, more finger pointing and leaving the group because of the run not going well, ruining the key for everyone else. At least, with the key changes, dead keys do not result, but just downgrading of your key. So you can at least feel like you have a key after someone pikes on your run.
How would I have made the changes better?
Let me reiterate that the changes to the keys themselves is great. I wouldn't change any of that because all of those are great changes.
I think being able to bonus roll from the cache at the end is not a terrible thing. I think a bonus roll if you finished the mythic + on time is a good incentive or reward for completing a key successfully. If they let you do that, then people might feel like they're getting an extra something, or at least an extra chance at something. For some toons that don't raid or do LFR, then mythic plus might be a good way for them to use their bonus rolls to try to get something good. I would feel especially stoked after doing a hard key and then it would be icing on the cake to get a roll out of it to and pick up something cool.
I don't mind the other changes nerfing the amount of loot. Mythic plus rewards are supposed to be related to the challenge rewards rather than the loots. Look at challenge modes previously - people did them to try to get the best times and if you make it about that again you might see some cool stuff on the leaderboards as people strive for the best and highest times. At present people are just farming lower keys and not trying for the hardest levels, and I would like to see people going for the highest levels of the week. And maybe give out those cool titles for the week for completing the dungeon that week at the highest level! I would love to have a cool title for the week - which is different from WoD and Pandaria CMs because they would carry their title forever, whereas this one could reset every week so other people could get a chance at it.
In the meantime, do lots of mythic plus if you're going for loot before the changes come! But for me, I'll still be doing the same amount of mythic plus as I was before.
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I hope these comments work! Not sure why people can't comment lately, it makes me sad :(