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The original was posted on /r/wow by /u/Saltyhurry on 2024-10-05 09:51:03+00:00.

Edit2: Im adding this to the beginning, because many people are misunderstanding my post. Im not whining about the difficulty of keys. They should be difficult at +10. Im criticizing the difficulty progression and the large difficulty jumps from +6-7, +9-10 and +11-12 and how they are hurting the overall m+ experience, especially in pugs. And no, I dont want easy +10s in week 3 of the expansion.

I have been doing mostly m+ for the last few weeks. My highest timed is a +11 and I have quite a few timed keys in the 10s range, currently sitting at 2600 score. Pugging right now is the most miserable m+ experience I have ever had playing this game. The dungeon pool not being great, and the overall QA being really terrible this season isnt even the main reason.

The problem is the difficulty jump from +9 to +10 aswell as the new prolonged death timer. Pugging a +9 with randoms? Bit of a gamble, but definetly possible with good gear. Timing a +10 in a pug? Nearly IMPOSSIBLE. Due to tyrannical and fortified being active from +10 upwards the difficulty jump is insane. In most dungeons one wipe usually means the key is depleted. The high death timer isnt so bad in +7-10 range, but in higher keys, with the increase in difficulty, especially at +10, it becomes wayyyy too punishing. One wipe means 5x15s on the death timer + usually walk time of up to 1 min or even longer. Thats equivalent to the spare time needed to time a key.

The amount of flawless gameplay that is actually required to time keys above +10 is literally insane. Insane to the amount that heavily incentivizes people to use tools like raider.io, to use tools like warcraftlogs to check dps and also heavily rely on meta classes. I know for a fact that people who have only timed +9 could never time most of the +10 keys which is why i stopped inviting them and ONLY invite people who have actually timed keys on +10 even when Im inviting for a +10.

This creates an INSANE amount of gatekeeping for the +10 keys and ultimately kills pugging at this range, because you literally need to have timed a +10 key to actually get invited to +10 keys. This is not a result of player ego, but rather just bad difficulty progression. Either remove Challengers Peril or make tyrannical + fortified easier on a +10 and slowly start to get more difficult as the key level increases. I think its very stupid to have for one the key difficulty itself increasing aswell as the affixes creating jumps in the difficulty progression. There is no issue with the difficulty getting steeper with higher difficulty, the problem are difficulty jumps, like from +9 to +10.

I ultimately think if they dont change anything on the new m+ system, pugs will be dead in 2-4 weeks, especially when a majority of the player base reaches the +10 key range.

TLDR: I’ve been doing mostly Mythic+ (M+) and have timed up to a +11, but pugging at the +10 level is a nightmare right now. The main issue isn’t even the bad dungeon pool or quality assurance this season—it’s the insane difficulty spike from +9 to +10, largely due to Tyrannical and Fortified starting at +10, making one wipe often result in a depleted key. The new death timer makes things worse, especially as one wipe can set you back so much that it’s nearly impossible to time the key. The balancing should focus on creating a more linear difficulty increase. This isn’t just about player ego but poor difficulty progression design. If they don’t fix this, pugging M+ at +10 and above will die out in the next few weeks as more players hit this frustrating wall.

Edit: Many people have mentioned that 10s should be difficult, because they reward the highest item level gear and I absolutely agree. It was never about loot for me or the content being too difficult, but rather the jump in difficulty. They need to make it accesible for players to actually reach that threshhold. Yes, most people are at around 620 item level and it goes up to 636 which will make +10s very easy. But expecting a semi hardcore player to suffer through depleted +10s every single week so that at one point they have enough mythic gear where they can clear that content is just miserable game design. Most people will quit before they ever reach that point.