wow Community Reactions to the New Mythic+ Weekly Key Structure

[Starym 3,800]

 

In the official 9.0.5 patch notes Blizzard added a fairly major change to how the level of the first weekly Mythic+ keystone everyone receives is calculated, reverting the new Shadowlands method to the old Battle for Azeroth one. The change itself seems more detrimental to players than not, as you will now have to keep up with your M+ key levels every week if you want to run higher ones directly:

Mythic+ Keystones (source)

Mythic Keystone Dungeons

• The formula for determining the level of the first Mythic Keystone players receive each week has been adjusted.
  • Previously, players would always receive a Keystone 1 level below the highest they'd completed so far in Season 1.
  • After this change, Keystone level will continue to decrease by 1 per week until players again complete a higher level Keystone.
  • For example, a player who completes a level 15 Keystone will receive a level 14 Keystone the following week. If they do not complete a 15 or higher Keystone that week, they will receive a level 13 Keystone the week after.

One interpretation could see it as a benefit for those that got sort of stuck on a high key every week when they completed a very high one, as they will now have control over their levels in the long run. Another theory is that this change was, at least in part, made to combat the rampant boosting, as a player could just get a boost once in the season and have access to a high key for the rest of it.

Regardless of what the reason behind the change is, the community reaction to the news wasn't all that great, with posts popping up immediately after the patch notes were announced. And while the Valor Point system has been greeted fairly warmly (aside from that whole "regrind all the items you already have thing), this 9.0.5 change is being torn apart fairly unanimously.

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Blizzard does on thing good then does another thing so monumentally stupid it makes no sense. The ONLY reason this exists is to reduce the amount of people getting KSM each week and subsequently access to gear upgrades. - Millilux
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There's a reason they waited until the last second to add this change to the notes.
This is a bad change, but if they're going to do something like this they should at least not decay your key below the level you ran last week.
So if you run a 15, you get a 14. But if you run a 14 the following week you shouldn't then get a 13.
I wonder if this is related to how failed keys will give an extra piece of loot now. Now if you're not pushing higher keys than what your vault gives (presumably by timing them and running them again) then your key will just keep degrading week after week. - slalomz
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Ahh, yes. The patch that was supposed to "fix" the problems with M+ - Worgslarg
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"I give them two weeks max before they revert this change."

Nobody has ever accused blizzard of quickly reverting things that players hate. I expect them to double down in 2 weeks while trying to spin it as a positive.
See also: GCD changes, target capping. - newyearnewaccount21
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i genuinely see 0 reason why they would think this is a good idea except simply to make the player’s life worse. Basically their forcing everyone to push their keys at least once every week - seandablimp

Even the more level-headed players and those that don't actually care about it aren't quite fans of the system:

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There has to be some kind of middle ground here, I'm willing to concede that if you completed a +16 on week 3 of the season you shouldn't get a +15 the rest of that season simply because of that reason.

But just going back to the old system brings back a ton of pain points for players that do a lot of m+, no matter how you slice it you will spend more time building keys to the level you are progressing. There are 0 valid arguments against this, from top to bottom lower keys will be completed on tyrannical weeks which will snowball into the fortified week. So now you spend 3-4hrs upgrading your groups keys to pick a good pushing key and this is a bi weekly occurence if you try your best to push no matter the affixes so it actually punishes those that plays the most too.

My suggestion would be coming to some sort of compromise, maybe if you did a +19 you would get a +18 key for 2-4 weeks to cover for bad affix combinations and maybe just taking a week off? This way an alt cant just get boosted through an easy 15 that one week and ride the weekly +14 forever it eventually has to complete some keys at the proper level.

I know nothing like this will be implemented though, this change is just to get their hrs played up as usual now that the hype finally died down a little. - Slanerislana
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Not that bad of a change honestly. Is it necessary? Not really but it's whatever. - idrinkcleaner

On the other hand a fair number of players didn't even notice the system had changed since BfA, so perhaps it's not as dramatic as it's being made out to be. Whatever the reason for this change, whether it's to combat boosting, to get more players playing additional M+ keys, or just to add more challenge/work in, as Keystone Master and its new lower level achievement siblings are now worth a lot more, due to the Valor Point system item level being based on them, we'll see how it plays out and whether Blizzard re-revert it in the future.

[Thejaargh 15]

I never understood the idea of keys. Why do they exist anyway? Why not like for example Diablo be able to select the difficulty at the entrance? The only limitation should be the ability to finish in time for certain bonus loot. Like in raids

So right now you are a raider or PVPer, u have to “push your key” to the level u want to play at. So u have to do “low lvl” keys first? U can enter endgame mythic raid but u cant do “endgame dungeons” that is just weird.

[Bobbis 208]

1 hour ago, Thejaargh said:

I never understood the idea of keys. Why do they exist anyway? Why not like for example Diablo be able to select the difficulty at the entrance? The only limitation should be the ability to finish in time for certain bonus loot. Like in raids

So right now you are a raider or PVPer, u have to “push your key” to the level u want to play at. So u have to do “low lvl” keys first? U can enter endgame mythic raid but u cant do “endgame dungeons” that is just weird.

Outside of KSM, some dungeons would never be run. People would just push the easier ones non stop.

[Thejaargh 15]

Sooo, bad dungeon design, players dont like it so choose to do something else. + there is still loot that can be obtained. Maybe we will just get back to the vault problem. Not enough loot from runs..?

[ResoWho 68]

i cant really see the problem here. if you did a +20 key last week you dont do the +19 next week and try to improve? do people really pause an entire week cause they dont like the affixes? 

[Starseed 113]

3 hours ago, Bobbis said:

Outside of KSM, some dungeons would never be run. People would just push the easier ones non stop.

exactly that would happen and blizz is just to lazy to balance all dungeons to the same dificulty

[SidonisAntares 290]

Quote

But just going back to the old system brings back a ton of pain points for players that do a lot of m+, no matter how you slice it you will spend more time building keys to the level you are progressing. There are 0 valid arguments against this, from top to bottom lower keys will be completed on tyrannical weeks which will snowball into the fortified week. So now you spend 3-4hrs upgrading your groups keys to pick a good pushing key and this is a bi weekly occurence if you try your best to push no matter the affixes so it actually punishes those that plays the most too.

Key runs are already affected by the primary affixes, for example ToP is more popular on Fortified weeks because the bosses that are a bit more pain in the a$$ have less health, and there's very little variation in getting % or chances of a$$ pulls. Mists is more popular on Tyrannical weeks because the bosses are still easy and if you get 7 pulls in the maze instead of 5 it doesn't add as a significant amount more time getting through it and just means you're making up less % on the back end from skipping thrash packs up front.

Edited March 5, 2021 by SidonisAntares

[Starym 3,800]

9 hours ago, ResoWho said:

i cant really see the problem here. if you did a +20 key last week you dont do the +19 next week and try to improve? do people really pause an entire week cause they dont like the affixes? 

I think it's also about alts. Right now you can push a high key once and then comfortably play some alts some weeks and always be able to jump in to the same level when you want. With the new system you'll have to either play all the alts and keep their keys up or have to grind up the ladder when you play the ones you may have skipped.

[Nyfaria 4]

10 hours ago, Starym said:

I think it's also about alts. Right now you can push a high key once and then comfortably play some alts some weeks and always be able to jump in to the same level when you want. With the new system you'll have to either play all the alts and keep their keys up or have to grind up the ladder when you play the ones you may have skipped.

I get it that people don't want to have to put in effort to play this game, but like this change makes more sense than the way it was. 

[Starym 3,800]

41 minutes ago, Nyfaria said:

I get it that people don't want to have to put in effort to play this game, but like this change makes more sense than the way it was. 

Perhaps (I don't really have an opinion on it one way or the other), but it's aaaalways a bad idea to give players something better/easier and then revert it. It's how Diablo 3's loot drops got utterly messed up - 1 double drop change weekend and then the whine was infinite to have Blizz keep it forever... and the did, pretty much ruining the loot game (this was before seasons if i recall correctly).

[Znifler 58]

On 3/5/2021 at 1:32 PM, N3ilo said:

exactly that would happen and blizz is just to lazy to balance all dungeons to the same dificulty

Yeah that's literally impossible. If you have different events, there will always be different variables. A dungeon set up against another, can never be exactly the same, and why would it? *filtered* mindboggling comment of you to make dude.