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Mythic Dungeon Invitational Community Opinions
Blizzard
Criado
14/5/2018 em 22:31
por
Squishei
Welcome back to the Community Opinions series. This week we've decided to take a break from the Battle for Azeroth Beta to talk to the community about the recent Mythic Dungeon Invitational!
We reached out to the NA and EU MDI teams who participated in the Mythic Dungeon Invitational Regional Stage to give their thoughts and opinions on the recent event. We asked each team a series of questions with some teams answering together, while others answered individually.
Here are the Community Opinion articles we've done in the past on the Battle for Azeroth beta classes:
State of Death Knights
State of Demon Hunters
State of Druids
State of Hunters
State of Mages
State of Monk
State of Paladins
State of Priests
State of Rogue
State of Shamans
State of Warlocks
State of Warriors
What are your thoughts on how the Time Trials worked for this MDI?
Kjell's Angels (Cirra, Divine, Ashine, Dorukjell, Herudra)
: We loved the concept of an additional stage allowing more people access to the tournament realm. Time commitment largely equalled success, which seems reasonable.
Did you like the way Blizzard conducted map picks? How did you feel about using map pools?
Kjell's Angels
: The way in which maps were chosen was nice however it did end up with the team who won map 1 having a big advantage assuming both teams were of equal skill and would win their pick. With regards to map pools they definitely showcased a large number of the dungeons, it would have been nice to see perhaps an additional pool of maps so we didn’t have 4 rounds of map pool 2.
Did you like being able to choose the third affix, with two affixes already preset on each map?
Kjell's Angels
: From a strategy perspective yes it was great and allowed us to pick affixes that we knew our opponents would struggle with (our pick of Sanguine in Vault as well as Team PogChamp's tendency to pick explosive comes to mind.) From a practical perspective it's a nightmare! Not being able to change your composition between matches to adapt to whatever your opponents put you against just put even more importance on winning map 1.
What did you think of the spectator experience?
Kjell's Angels
: The observers did a good job. Was nice and clean to follow the groups as they traveled through the dungeons. The casters had varying degree of success in presenting the decisions made by the players. That being said running these keys in an MDI setting is wildly different from the runs you will see on live so we would welcome a little bit more interaction between the casters and teams pre tournament just so they can better get into our mindset.
We were not really a fan of the Fullscreening mentality (except for the few cases where a team more or less had given up) that seemed to be encouraged in most games. When it comes down to it this is head to head match between two teams, and if you remove one of them from the broadcast you don’t get the full experience of what both teams we’re doing. It'd be cool if each team had an observer broadcasting their own stream so you'd be able to follow that team in fullscreen in addition to following the main broadcast. This could also clear up the complaints of teams gameplay being to small.
Only other things we think would be nice additions are a way to see when cooldowns we’re used (perhaps expanding on the inspect technology brought in this MDI? or something as simple as warcraft logs) and a way of being able to tune into the teams voice comms, however that might cause teams to change the way they play or communicate so perhaps some sort of postgame interview or comments from the casters section could be added?
Overall, how do you think this MDI went?
Kjell's Angels
: So far it’s been a thrilling experience to be a part of. Bearing in mind how new PvESports are and this being only the 2nd MDI ever it's gone extremely well. Obviously there are some improvements to be made but we look forward to seeing both player and viewer feedback being taken onboard for the next MDI.
What improvements would you like to see Blizzard add in any future MDIs?
Kjell's Angels
: We’ve already touched on a few but aside from those the only huge changes would be ideally not having any bugs, perhaps some better communication across the board when bugs do occur and it goes without saying that BRHMages should have been fixed at the time things like ProtWarr UpperKara nerf was put in and various dungeon events (Lower Moroes/Opera, Vault Prisons) we’re locked to keep the playing field even. Obviously everyone would like to see a game without bugs and we believe Blizzard is doing the best they can to accomplish that.
Any other comments?
Kjell's Angels
: Massive thank you to the blizz staff and admins who have worked tirelessly to put this whole competition together.
Thanks to the many people who have supported us this far.
Finally thanks WoWHead for inviting us to share our thoughts here and we look forward to seeing you all at the Global Finals in June!
What are your thoughts on how the Time Trials worked for this MDI?
Emangle
: I think that the Time Trials is an interesting concept that was poorly implemented in this version of the MDI. I would like to see the Time Trials continue, but in a heavily revised format.
Blizzard’s initial goal with the Time Trials was to eliminate gear as a concern for competing/qualifying in the tournament. While that is a good and lofty goal, the reality of the situation was that only the EU region had more than 8-10 teams complete all 3 dungeons in the Time Trials. All of the other teams that qualified from the 1st stage to compete in the Time Trials quit trying when they realized that they wouldn’t be in the top 8. This meant the Time Trials for this MDI were meaningless outside of small seeding differences within the top 8.
In order to give meaning to the Time Trials, they should have a larger reward tied to them. 1st and 2nd place in the Time Trials should be rewarded for their time/effort. Rewards such as, 1st round bye, ability to pick opponent, or ability to choose the 1st map in the pool, are all ideas that could work. Regardless of the specifics, if Blizzard wants to continue using Time Trials their needs to be a meaningful benefit to placing well.
Jdotb
: The time trial format was a fun addition to the MDI. By giving teams unlimited attempts, Blizzard encouraged teams to take a very aggressive approach to dungeons with lots of high risk strategies that would fail frequently but pay off handsomely when everything lined up.
The biggest issue with the time trials was the level of the keys -- 20 Maw, 22 Upper Kara and 24 Neltharion’s Lair. Those keys were in line with the regional and global finals but dramatically lower than what teams were doing on live servers. The reason that MDI features keys several levels lower than what’s being done on live servers owes to the head-to-head format of the MDI and the scheduling of a live production. You don’t want two teams to struggle to complete a key and potentially cause their series to extend past its budgeted time.
Time trials are different from head-to-head, though, and consequently free from the constraints of a live production. Since teams had a full week to run the dungeons as many times as they wanted, there was no reason why the keys couldn’t have been +25 or +26 or even +27. This would more closely resemble the keys that teams were accustomed to running on live servers and would have precluded the gimmicky 4 DPS setups that many top teams ended up using.
I think time trials is a natural fit in the MDI, it just needed to feature more difficult keys.
Mittbitt
: The Time Trial system worked fairly well in terms of determining the seeding for the competition, because it allows groups to post their best times possible, however may favor teams with ample practice time.
Did you like the way Blizzard conducted map picks? How did you feel about using map pools?
Emangle
: Blizzard’s handling of map picks was one of the most contentious issues in this year’s MDI. The biggest complaint with the map pools is that the 1st map is set. This meant that the best way to approach every map pool was to win the 1st map and win your counter-pick (completely ignoring all of the other dungeons). Based on how the map pool was set up, it was possible to make it to the Global Finals by only winning 4 different maps (MoS, +1 map from 22 dungeon pool, BRH, and HoV).
Overall, i’m fine with Blizzard having “map pools,” but they should be larger and the 1st map shouldn’t be set. If the 1st map isn’t pre-determined it forces teams to practice the entire pool, instead of focusing on only 2 dungeons in each pool. With larger map pools you would also introduce a map ban for each team to prevent the constant BRH/Mage and Arcway/Warlock picks that were considered “auto-wins.”
Jdotb
: There are a lot of ways that Blizzard could improve the map picking system moving forward, but I think a necessary change is to make the first map of each series completely random. The current MDI format (locked in first map, loser’s choice thereafter) encouraged teams to practice a very limited number of maps (Maw, BRH, HoV) because those maps had a substantially higher chance of being played than any others. Assuming you win the first map, all you need to practice is your counterpick map of choice to guarantee your win in the third game. This led to some pretty lopsided second and third maps because the team that isn’t picking probably hasn’t spent nearly as much time in that dungeon as the picking team has.
The MDI needs to find ways to encourage teams to be formidable on all maps. The solution might be to take even more of the process out of the players’ hands and feature more RNG, e.g., the losers can select the affixes on the next map but the map itself is randomly chosen. The advantage given to a team by letting it select a map is in some cases almost insurmountable.
The map pools were fine, and I don’t know that they make much difference in the tournament.
Mittbitt
: I like the way that Blizzard conducted the map picks, and approve of the use of map pools. Map pools may however require a ban system implemented to smooth out the competition and prevent seeing the same maps picked repeatedly and forcing players to have all maps practiced well.
Did you like being able to choose the third affix, with two affixes already preset on each map?
Emangle
: I don’t think being able to pick the 3rd affix had a meaningful impact in the MDI. The only pickable affix that significantly alters the way you pull a dungeon was explosive and most teams avoided picking it. If Blizzard wanted the 3rd affix to matter they would have to make affixes like Teeming/Bolstering pickable.
Jdotb
: Having some preset affixes makes practice much more approachable. Some affixes don’t really affect how you pull a dungeon (like Volcanic), but some can completely alter your route (like Explosive). Limiting the number of affix combinations that you have to prepare for makes it much easier to develop alternatives for each of the dungeons.
On the other hand, there is probably something to be said for a team’s ability to adapt to a dungeon on the fly, and having totally unlocked affixes (while being more difficult to prepare for) would test teams in a way that we haven’t yet seen in the MDI. Allowing teams to practice for specific affix combinations leads to cleaner play, but throwing curveballs to teams would let them demonstrate how well they can think on the fly.
Mittbitt
: Being able to choose the third affix is a neat idea that forces players to practice for all affixes and be ready for surprises, however seeing completely set affixes could result in seeing more rehearsed and cleaner runs.
What did you think of the spectator experience?
Emangle
: I didn’t spectate too much of the MDI, but I can offer a few comments/criticisms based on what I saw.
1) Camera Work/Stream UI were both significantly improved from the last MDI. There’s still changes that could be made to the stream (1080p and larger sections for each team’s gameplay), but it was significantly better than the MDI prior.
2) Commentators - It’s difficult to be overly critical of the commentators because this isn’t something that they do for a full time job. I would still like to have them slow down in their commentary and have a clearer line between analyst/play-by-play caster.
Jdotb
: The most common complaint from the MDI is the UI. Blizzard made adjustments throughout the regionals this time around, and the improvements helped, but there is still a lot that can be done. The screen space isn’t utilized as efficiently as it could be; there is a lot of dead room. The information presented has gotten better (e.g., the additions of battle res charges and the Bloodlust cooldown) but could still probably use some work. Blizzard did add a stream overlay that lets you inspect the talents and gear choices of players in real time so you could see what legendaries and trinkets players used on certain bosses. So far as I’m aware, that tech doesn’t even exist on live servers so it was super cool to see that implemented for the tournament.
I think the casting is great and continues to get better. You could see some of the junior casters get more confidence as the tournament went on, and the level of analysis has improved.
I also think the global finals will really dial it up in terms of production value. The teams will be arriving to Columbus a few days early so that they can do some media stuff (interviews, bios, etc.) and I think it will give the audience a much better look at the players themselves.
Mittbitt
: Blizzard has a great spectator experience setup that involves explaining dungeon mechanics, a great presence from the casters, and for the most part great camera angles. I don’t think that there is much to improve on from the spectator point of view other than the game content itself for most viewers.
Overall, how do you think this MDI went?
Emangle
: I think this MDI is significantly better than the last and I would like Blizzard to keep going forward. There’s obviously interest in the MDI based on viewership (20k-40k sustained viewers) and hopefully the MDI will continue to grow.
Jdotb
: I think the MDI was very entertaining and a near-total success. The elephant in the room, though, is the remake issue. I don’t know that there will ever be a way to eliminate remakes completely, but Blizzard needs to have a more robust and fleshed out system for remaking maps. The process felt arbitrary this time around (and it probably was). You can’t necessarily fault Blizzard for that because it hadn’t really come up in the previous MDI, but it obviously caused a lot of controversy in the EU and NA regionals and left players and fans feeling angry and cheated.
I think Blizzard’s ability to limit the need for remakes and have a remake system that feels fair will determine how seriously people take the MDI going forward.
Mittbitt
: I think that from an overall standpoint this MDI has gone well, however there have been a few bumps that should be avoided somehow such as a 4man roster, and inability to come anywhere close to completing a dungeon.
What improvements would you like to see Blizzard add in any future MDIs?
Emangle
: Most of my complaints/improvements for the MDI are for Blizzard’s interactions with the teams/players. Alongside some of the changes i’ve mentioned earlier, I would like to see more open communication from Blizzard. There were multiple instances during this MDI where Blizzard did not communicate with everyone regarding a rule change/clarification.
Jdotb
: As a participant in the MDI, the thing I’d most like to see change in future MDIs is the length of the tournament. Between the +23 qualifiers on live servers to the conclusion of the global finals, this MDI will have lasted nearly three months. If I was regularly playing during those three months, it would be a little different, but most of this time is just spent practicing. I’d either like the tournament to wrap up faster or give the players more opportunities to play. Having the MDI hanging over our heads for weeks on end is quite stressful, and for those of us that stream regularly it makes it very difficult to balance the competitive advantage of practicing off stream with the need to stream for a living.
Mittbitt
: Some improvements i’d love to see are fixes for bugs and dungeon issues improved on prior to the tournament taking place, and a well defined ruling system for remakes.
Any other comments?
Jdotb
: It was quite apparent that EU was head and shoulders better than the rest of the regions, and several of the teams that just missed the cut for EU regionals would have easily taken a top 4 spot in any of the other regions. There have been and will continue to be calls for a more merit-based regionals system because it feels pretty bad watching very deserving teams get sent home after time trials.
But this is (at least for the time being) a necessary evil for the MDI. Right now the thing that the MDI needs most is an audience, and the easiest way to build and sustain an audience is broad appeal. There are a lot of viewers in China, APAC and the Americas, and one way to lure them in is by creating rooting interests in the teams. Locality is perhaps the oldest and strongest of rooting interests, so guaranteeing proportional representation in the tournament makes sense as a way to increase viewership. Maybe in the future the MDI can loosen up its regional representation, but for now it’s likely here to stay.
Mittbitt
: I’ve enjoyed being a part of this MDI and appreciate the effort from everyone that has taken place to allow us to be able to compete in this Mythic Dungeon Invitational.
What are your thoughts on how the Time Trials worked for this MDI?
Imfiredup
: I liked the concept of the Time Trials, but didn’t like how it ended up. Due to having unlimited attempts at each dungeon to try and get a perfect time, this allowed for teams to take on a different approach from what we’re used to on live. On live servers most people played “safe” and that was often enough to complete keys in time. For the Time Trials, the opposite was the case where you wanted to do super crazy pulls throughout the entire key until you had one run where everything goes perfectly. This was fun at first, but it became very mind-numbing after the first couple of days where I felt like we were just banging our heads against a wall until the stars aligned in our favor.
Xyronic
: Time trials were an interesting concept this time around. All in all, I liked the idea that the top 8 teams from each region qualified for their region. The biggest problem with time trials in my opinion was the vast difference in skill levels of each region. In APAC, you barely had to complete all 3 dungeons just to qualify, whereas in EU if you didn’t have top tier times in all 3 dungeons you’re out. We placed second in the US time trials, and we essentially took two days off due to a member’s unfortunate death in their family so they could attend the funeral. If we were in EU and that happened, no chance we would have qualified for the regionals.
Zongoso
: Personally, my favorite part of the tournament structure was the Time Trials segment. The thoughts of running something over and over until you get that one ideal run, as well as the concept of “let’s see how much we can pull at once without dying”, were both prominent throughout this stage of the tournament, due to the unlimited tries offered in the week's span. Possibly because of my perfectionist-like attitude, or just my love for grinding, both of these key features intrigued me.
Did you like the way Blizzard conducted map picks? How did you feel about using map pools?
Imfiredup
: I personally dislike having a guaranteed map pick pre-selected by Blizzard. Since you only need to win two games in a series, this encourages teams to solely practice for the guaranteed map pick and one other dungeon in that map pool. A way to fix this would be to eliminate the guaranteed map pick and make the first map random. This would force teams to practice all the dungeons in that map pool rather than only practicing for 2 dungeons, with the strategy of planning on winning the first map. I feel like a change like this would make the tournament much more competitive and skill based.
The part I enjoyed most about the tournament format this time around was how the losing team would choose the next map and its affixes. There were some problems with this in my opinion, specifically in the second map pool. A common strategy that we saw this time around was to bring a warlock or mage for map pool 2 due to these classes having their overpowered niches in Arcway and BRH. Teams did this to basically lock in a win if the opposing team didn’t have a mage or warlock on their team. We’ve seen classes with similarly strong effects get nerfed, such as prot warriors in Upper Karazhan. If these equally if no stronger effects got a similar treatment, then it would make having map pools much more balanced.
Xyronic
: I both don’t particularly like the way Blizzard constructed the map format. I think the first map of each best of 3 should be randomly selected, other than a default pick. The current system of the tournament allows for a complete disregard of the opponents’ pick, as long as your team is confident enough if the guaranteed map choice and your own counter-pick. That’s all you technically need to win. The map pool system was pretty weird, in that there were some maps that you only saw in the first round, and then never again. On top of that, pool 2 this time around was particularly cheesy with both Arcway and Black Rook Hold in the mix, two autowin dungeons for your team if you ran either warlock or mage.
Zongoso
: I did enjoy the way Blizzard conducted map picks. I also felt that the maps specifically chosen in each pool fit well within the flow of the competition.
Did you like being able to choose the third affix, with two affixes already preset on each map?
Imfiredup
: I thought that the addition of being able to choose a third affix made the tournament much more interesting than the last MDI. It introduced being able to make certain strategies that played to your strengths or your enemy’s weaknesses. The only thing I would like to see different for the next MDI if this rule is moved forward is for the losers to be able to select the third affix from all affixes. It felt odd that there were some pre-selected affixes in some dungeons such as bolstering, that you weren’t able to choose as a third affix if you lost.
Xyronic
: The third affix was great, although I think the team not choosing the map should be able to choose the affix. Would be a better competitive experience. The current system is way too advantageous for the team that wins the first map, and being able to pick your own third affix on top of your map choice solidifies your winning chances even more.
Zongoso
: This was also one of my favorite parts from the tournament. A huge improvement was made from last MDI with the added components of choosing a third affix, as well as the two already pre-picked depending on the dungeon. This allowed for more strategic counterpicks, along with a better structure for teams when they were practicing. The two affixes that were pre-chosen were also clearly thought out for that dungeon, and were made fair to the rest of the dungeon picks.
What did you think of the spectator experience?
Imfiredup
: While the spectator experience wasn’t perfect, I think it was vastly improved from the last MDI. The addition of the inspect button made watching the tournament much more interesting. Being able to look at and see what gear/legendaries each player was using improved the spectator experience significantly. Some things people have suggested adding are healing meters, overall damage meters, etc. I think those would be nice, but could add unnecessary clutter. The thing I want to see get added over anything would be defensive and offensive cooldown trackers for each player, similar to the ones they use for pvp. It would be very interesting to see how each player is using their cooldowns instead of just looking at the damage meters and guessing what is happening.
Xyronic
: The spectator experience this time around compared to last MDI was greatly improved. The inspect tool, for instance, was a great addition, letting spectators know what choices the players were making in their trinket and legendary choices. The casting is getting to a point where it’s more professional, and the casters are picking up on tiny individual things. A couple of days after the tournament I went back and watched some of our lower bracket matches, and was particularly impressed with small catches such as
this clip
. Nuances like that are what turn a boring cast into an informative one for the viewer, which is greatly needed in a relatively new competitive environment like the MDI.
Zongoso
: I thought the spectator experience was as close to the best as it could be. Although it would have been awesome to see personal cooldowns of each team and player similar to PVP, but with the nature of Mythic Dungeon racing that just isn’t really possible without cluttering the UI/HuD. I was very happy to see the minor changes from last year, including the team names, and bloodlust and battle-rez tracker. The biggest improvement was the inspect feature available to all viewers. This was a significant addition that allowed spectators to receive knowledge behind the choices individual players were making.
Overall, how do you think this MDI went?
Imfiredup
: For the most part, I think this MDI went pretty well. The casters did a great job of explaining boss mechanics, while being entertaining. There were certainly many positive improvements to the rules and UI compared to the last MDI. I’m looking forward to see what further improvements there might be at the global stages.
Xyronic
: Aside from the remake fiascos, I think this MDI went pretty well so far. There were some pretty glaring issues from the player side, where the communication between tournament admins and players was less than ideal, but I think this is being worked on for future events.
Zongoso
: In my opinion, I felt that this years Mythic Dungeon Invitational was an overall success. The noticeable improvements and changes made from last year's MDI proved to show positive growth and direction for the future.
What improvements would you like to see Blizzard add in any future MDIs?
Imfiredup
: Apart from the improvements I suggested in the earlier questions, I think there are two solid aspects of the tournament I would like to see improved. The first is better communication from Blizzard to the competitors. The amount of miscommunications by Blizzard throughout this tournament was pretty crazy. The biggest example of this was the remake situation with Method and FSY, which all started due to a miscommunication by Blizzard. When a competitor asks a question to a Blizzard admin that could impact tournament play, the answer should be available to all competitors. The second change I’d like to see in the next MDI is the removal of the rule which doesn’t allow you to switch between classes between dungeons in a series. I don’t understand why this rule was ever added, players should be rewarded if they have the ability to multi-class.
Xyronic
: I think it’s pretty ridiculous that Blizzard’s response to 4 dps comps was to make teams lock in their comps for a series. That’s just lazy ruling, just say we can’t 4 dps. This ruling allowed for teams to completely exploit pool 2 with picks like arcway and black rook hold, where if the other team didn’t have the corresponding class to the dungeon, you get a free win. In the same vein as the last question, communication between the admins and players needs to be better. We didn’t have an FAQ channel in the MDI discord until the Black Rook Hold reset on Smashspite happened, where all the players were spam ??ing the admins for resetting that. On top of that, there were many situations in which questions were asked to admins regarding the legality of strats, and that information was only told to the asking team instead of to everyone. This resulted in the Method Court of Stars reset. A final note - 4 weeks of practice after time trials before regionals was incredibly draining. Any way to shorten this would be great.
Zongoso
: The only main concerning factor in this years MDI was the structure and guidelines of remakes. Personally, I felt that when the unfortunate events that appeared during the EU and NA regional bracket happened, the flow of the tournament was stopped with little satisfaction from players, as well as the viewing experience. I don’t know what exactly could be done to reshape the unlucky remake scenarios, but having a more clear and concise rulebook for when unexpected events happen, would apply an extra layer of support for the competition.
Any other comments?
Imfiredup
: Fix your bugs pls :)
Xyronic
: So far, it’s been a great experience. Looking forward to the LAN in columbus!
Zongoso
: Thank you to Blizzard and everyone involved in the making of the streaming experience and tournament. Memories have been made that I will remember forever! In addition, having Sours as a caster was a great decision.
What are your thoughts on how the Time Trials worked for this MDI?
Crenix
: I think overall time trials worked well, I think the maps that were picked and the level of the keys were appropriate for what the time trials were trying to accomplish. Overall nothing bad to say about this part of the MDI.
Greg
: I’d like to preface this by saying that I have a full time job and have around 5 hours of free time each day, max.
Overall, I think the Time Trials worked pretty well. They put all players on equal footing for the real qualifying (proving grounds wasn’t really the qualifying) and ran key levels that would actually occur in a tournament setting. My concern with the Time Trials is exactly that, time. There are a limited amount of people in the world who can put their lives on hold for an entire week to min max dungeon times to achieve the best possible seed. I know this sounds like I’m complaining as someone with a job who can’t play all day, but unlimited runs can actually put teams through who do not deserve to be in the competition. I think placing a run cap per dungeon that still allows people ample room to experiment would go further to level the playing field and make sure the teams that go through are the 8 best teams per region. For example, something like 100 keystone attempts per dungeon of Maw of Souls, Upper Karazhan, and Neltharion’s Lair (maybe that’s too low, just an example). I don’t want to limit experimentation, but for example, I know one team practiced 83 hours during the course of the Time Trials week. This comes down to more than 10 hours every day, an obscene amount of time for 5 people to have free all at once. This gives this team a distinct advantage over a team who may be phenomenal players, but simply can’t compete with that level of time commitment. What do I know though, maybe the tournament is purposed for players with 80 hours of free time each week. Just a thought.
Idled
: Whichever team has more leisure time and no occupational responsibility will get better seeding.
Tettles
: It felt as if there was no ramification as to just ramming your head into the keys for a week. I wish there was a far more punishing system with more skill that will accurately reflect seeding than something that showed which team had more play time during the time trial week.
Did you like the way Blizzard conducted map picks? How did you feel about using map pools?
Crenix
: I think having map bans would of been an interesting thing to add. Having it so teams with certain classes (mages/warlocks) but specifically mages in Blackrook Hold made for really boring matches to watch. Specially when every team with a mage would pick this dungeon. But if each team had a chance to ban a map it would likely force the team with a mage to pick a different map, and result in more interesting games. Everything else I liked however. I liked how each map had 2 affixes that would always be in play and 1 randomly picked by the losing team. Made it easier to practice for each dungeon and come up with strats.
Greg
: We need picks and bans, like many competitive esports. Bans require a team to be ready with their own competitive strategy for whatever comes their way. This tournament essentially played out in a way that emphasized perfecting a starting map, and one comfort pick. Secondary maps were often ignored by the winning team because they knew they had their comfort pick waiting to smash the opposition.
Idled
: They are fine. I would like more varied beginning map picks
Tettles
: I thought map pools were a neat design, but on some level it made it very difficult to practice for as a whole. I think more defined map pool expectations in terms of affixes and what-not will be extremely helpful moving forward. I also think map bans would be beneficial as well, allowing you to not get pinched into some weird rock, paper, scissors matchup in regards to comp. (Rogues and Locks being extremely problematic classes in this regard).
Did you like being able to choose the third affix, with two affixes already preset on each map?
Crenix
: Yes like I said above I think that this worked well. It allowed teams to play around there strengths and take advantage of the opposing team's weaknesses. For example picking sanguine as your 3rd affix when you know the other team doesn't have a class with the ability to knock mobs back.
Greg
: This did add some variety, and I thought it was a positive addition to the tournament.
Idled
: Yes
Tettles
: No, I thought that some of the affixes (Bursting and Explosive) changed your route up too much. There were times in practice whenever we asked ourselves “what if they pick explosive,” and it always went “FF? xd.”
What did you think of the spectator experience?
Crenix
: The spectator definitely improved from the 1st MDI, I appreciate the addition of the inspect feature was really nice addition the stream. The layout of the UI I think looked nice having each team visible as well as the affixes and times for killing each boss. I did notice Blizzard would sometime full screen one team, and I understand the reason for this but sometimes felt like it was too soon.
Greg
: The spectator experience has come a long way. Inspect was a huge plus. I don’t have any major complaints.
Idled
: Inspect is a nice addition. Maybe provide a more detailed information of who the player is and their experience leading up to competing.
Tettles
: I thought the inspect function was quite a nice addition. I honestly struggle to watch the matches as a spectator because I am watching for different things than what the commentators are giving.
Overall, how do you think this MDI went?
Crenix
: I believe the MDI was a success for the most part, it was unfortunate that the Asia-Pacific portion of the tournament was plagued with internet issues but to my understanding that was not Blizzard’s fault. The China and European regionals were very exciting to watch especially the European regionals alot of very close games. I don't believe the same can be said for the NA regionals unfortunately. I think a lot of people would agree the NA regionals was not very exciting to watch for a lot of the games. Some of the teams just were not up to par compared to a lot of the teams in the other regions.
Greg
: Some remakes and communication of rules was questionable. The handbook states that the admins are the lawmakers. Thus, when an admin states something, Blizzard can’t play the “oh this team didn’t know this wasn’t allowed so we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt”. Admin communication with players should be completely transparent. If they are worried about giving away a players strategies by stating that something is allowed, the handbook should be finalized before the tournament begins, and then the handbook is definite and complete law. Anything not stated in the handbook is fair game.
Idled
: NA was a sh**show. Needs more regulation and clearer explanations right after time trials. NOT 1 WEEK BEFORE STAGE. Better communication please.
Tettles
: I thought they have made steps in the right direction since the last MDI, but at the same time it is not on a level that I would expect out of a company such as blizzard.
1.) The event was too long. We qualified in Feb and it will conclude at the very end of June
2.) No clear expectation of rules. With some of the “bugs” there should not have been remakes and the officiating was quite the spectacle.
3.) It’s hard to warrant competing in the MDI not only from a monetary standpoint, but from a time investment. I ended up making $400 for approximately 200 hours of practice. I actually ended up losing money because of how I took time off for a few weekends in order to practice. In addition to that we spent countless hours not even counted in the “practice time” setting up routes and discussing what we wanted / needed out of our comp / players. It really wasn't worth the time invested unless you're confident that you will win the whole tournament. All in all I enjoyed it and will probably try again, but there are many players who not deem the time required worth.
What improvements would you like to see Blizzard add in any future MDIs?
Crenix
: I would really love to see the addition of a 6 player roster, OR having the ability to swap a player in if one does not show the day of the competition for whatever reason. My team was unfortunately knocked out of the tournament way earlier than i believe we would of been had we had our 5th member available.
Greg
: For obvious reasons, I think it makes sense to have 6 man rosters, or a named alternate at least that can permanently swap in at any point. Replacements were limited to 3 days prior to the competition, but our team had a player not show up on the day of the competition. As a result, we had to forfeit essentially. There should be rules in place to handle this case of unavailability. It reflected poorly on us as a team, and the professionalism of the tournament as spectators watched 4 players take on 5.
Idled
: Have someone that actually do the dungeons have a say in the future. Current organizers don’t have any knowledge that the players know.
Tettles
: Clearer communication is the most important element to this. A completely different setup for time-trials would be nice. How they handle comp swapping should definitely change. I would also like to see a bit more professionalism from both the players but the admins. There is no reason to get into shouting matches with the players, and there is no reason to allow players to push you to that point either. I really hope this MDI improves from like a 6 to a 10. I really want it to succeed and I ultimately believe it is good for the game. However, if they allow it to wallow and get caught up in all this sh** then it will be very poorly received.
Any other comments?
Crenix
: Looking forward to more MDI stuff in BFA :)
Tettles
: Team Sinking Ship recruiting for MDI #3.
What are your thoughts on how the Time Trials worked for this MDI?
Stupid Mistakes (Sense, Leaxa, Naeno, Neeb, Piecez)
: The Time Trials / competing on the Tournament Realm worked out pretty well, giving everyone an equal footing to qualify so that things like raid gear didn’t give you an unfair advantage (like when qualifying for the first MDI). The keystone vendor was handled 1000% better than the first MDI as well, so it was nice to see such improvements.
Did you like the way Blizzard conducted map picks? How did you feel about using map pools?
Stupid Mistakes
: There are definitely pros and cons to the way current map picks work. There being a dedicated beginning map highly incentivizes practicing those certain maps (Maw of Souls, Blackrook Hold, Upper/Lower Karazhan, etc), to such a degree that we feel like you are ‘forced’ to only run those dungeons and sacrifice quality on other maps. This can end up being a valid strategy for your team if you’re able to only practice 2 maps in a pool (team Limit used this to great effect), foregoing map 2 to focus on winning map 1 / your pick in map 3.
One of the things that would have been nice to see done differently was that the starting maps weren’t the ones from time trials (Maw of Souls / Upper Karazhan), and maybe the starting map being random, incentivizing being familiar with all of them.
What did you think of the spectator experience?
Stupid Mistakes
: The UI could still use improvements - there’s tons going on in some of these dungeons and only being able to see a tiny square of the group can be hard to tell what’s going on sometimes. Casters (for the most part) have been pretty strong, with a few mishaps here and there.
Overall, how do you think this MDI went?
What improvements would you like to see Blizzard add in any future MDIs?
Stupid Mistakes
: The MDI has definitely improved from the first iteration to the second, and as long as this type of progress continues to happen then we’re looking forward to more of them in the future. Competitive PvE feels way more interesting to watch than PvP and 5 man dungeons are the perfect outlet for it.
One thing that we weren’t fond of was the class restrictions - we like the option of being able to swap classes between dungeons based on certain strengths, instead of being locked for each round. Another improvement we would like to see is better consistency with changes in regards to classes / abilities - nerfing spell reflect in Upper Karazhan during time trials and leaving the BRH mage spellsteal for majority of the tournament seems really strange.
Any other comments?
Stupid Mistakes
: Contrary to popular belief, we didn’t intentionally throw our Seat of the Triumvirate pick ‘for the memes’ - I (Sense) had been working 5-6 day weeks with 12 hour days, so coordinating practice with my schedule and my teammates was a headache. We only really practiced a couple maps - the Seat pick was a team decision of ‘we don’t know this dungeon at all, maybe the other team won’t know it that well either’, which didn’t pan out whatsoever. Special shoutout to Naeno for not realizing there is an extra action button on the first boss for 5-6 pulls (most of our wipes on 1st boss).
What are your thoughts on how the Time Trials worked for this MDI?
Dark Slashers (Dylemma, Glickz)
: Actually thought it was pretty successful outside of one thing. Teams weren’t forced to have the typical 1 tank 1 healer 3 dps composition so the whole 4 DPS 1 Blood DK thing got out of hand. We thought that was just a bit unrealistic because you will never see a team use that strategy in the real tournament unless they allow class swapping which there wasn’t any allowed during regionals. It’s just to be cheesy since you have unlimited runs in Time Trials. I will say though it was more of a balance issue than anything else (DK leech, DPS leech etc being too strong). Which still remains an issue to this day even on live. All in all we thought time trials was fine in the NA region at least because there wasn’t as many teams doing 4 dps like the EU region. I think EU would have a better opinion on Time Trials.
Did you like the way Blizzard conducted map picks? How did you feel about using map pools?
Dark Slashers
: We mostly agree that the map format is fine. It makes sense and at the end of the day everyone had to practice that first map so it’s not like one team had an advantage over the other. The winner of the first map should get some kind of advantage for the third map so it makes sense, but there is other issues outside of the map picks which will be talked about later. Map pools are completely fine, for one it stops the tournament from being boring which is the most important part (the spectators enjoying watching so we grow etc). I think map pools should stay because no one wants to see the same maps played over and over which is likely to happen without map pools. I feel strongly that they should keep this format going forward with minor tweaks.
Did you like being able to choose the third affix, with two affixes already preset on each map?
Dark Slashers
: Here’s where we feel the most improvement can come from, basically this tournament it was either pick explosive as a real counter or you just pick basically a 3rd affix that’s super easy because it’s low keys (volcanic for example) and it’s like you don’t even have a 3rd affix. One member suggested that picking between Fortified and Tyrannical would be more interesting than what the current format is. This area definitely needs improvement. Honestly picking the third affix felt like it had no meaning unless you were picking explosive. Because that’s actually an affix that you have to deal with unlike grievous, volcanic etc which almost do literally nothing in 22-24s.
What did you think of the spectator experience?
Dark Slashers
: We thought it was great, as players in the tournament obviously we were very engaged into the games when we weren’t playing and watched the streams, all of them. We enjoyed it a lot and even as players you can see what other teams are doing and maybe implement something we didn’t think of into our runs. Also just being long time PvE players this is literally a dream come true for a lot of us. It’s really cool seeing m+ in a tournament scenario and not just as some “dungeon showcasing” thing. This has real potential for the WoW audience, it’s very fun to watch.
Overall, how do you think this MDI went?
Dark Slashers
: Very well. One minor complaint is the crucible for the players was a pain for no reason. They spawned the crucible next to the vendors during the tournament but they couldn’t have it there the whole time the tournament realm was up? Doesn’t make a lot of sense. Spectator wise the tournament went great. I would say regionals was extremely successful, at least in our eyes. We had no issues whatsoever and the tournament was smooth. Viewership was great as well which is a great sign and what matters the most.
What improvements would you like to see Blizzard add in any future MDIs?
Dark Slashers
: Some of us feel like they should go back to allowing class swapping per map. Picking map/affix needs tweaked a bit like we talked about earlier. Also the scaling was a major major issue for a lot of classes. Every single item was scaled to 970 which included weapons which severely hurt diversity in the tournament. Some classes just got shafted because of the scaling, making them much worse than the class actually is. It was an issue that never got solved. Basically they knew it was an issue but went forward saying that they are going to keep it this way because they thought it was too late to change. Hopefully next time this won’t be an issue. Most of us if not all found the scaling to be extremely annoying just in general, would like to see a different solution instead of a buff that only works when in instances.
Any other comments?
Dark Slashers
: The Mythic Dungeon Invitationals have been awesome and I think all of us players/viewers are really excited for the future of this whole thing. For a lot of us we crave the competition and WoW has always been PvE dominated, finally having real PvE tournaments ran by Blizzard that has an actual future in this eSports world is so exciting for us all. We are truly happy seeing how successful the MDIs have been and I really hope Blizzard has more to come and more frequently!!
What are your thoughts on how the Time Trials worked for this MDI?
Parse Culture (Jason, Waffle, Feral)
: The Time Trials were a good and logical change of pace, focusing on the speed aspect of running keys as opposed to last year’s MDI qualifiers which just rewarded pushing high keys, something that is largely irrelevant in the MDI. The execution of this idea was really poor, however, as having unlimited tries and only a week to post times led to a degenerate meta solely focused on using the riskiest but potentially fastest strategies with no regard for consistency. Whichever teams had the most time to dedicate to running the dungeons the most in that 1 week period and were able to make their insane strategy work one time out of hundreds were able to move on and compete in the real tournament where consistency was as important as speed. To do well in the MDI you must take risks of course, but you must balance that out with your ability to pull it off at will and the Time Trials were not at all indicative of that.
Did you like the way Blizzard conducted map picks? How did you feel about using map pools?
Parse Culture
: We’re a bit split on this. Some of us believe that the map pools were interesting but poorly balanced in that certain map pools greatly favored certain classes while others were average or worse for the same classes. Having BRH and Arcway available for teams running Mage or Warlock against teams without that class resulted in a near automatic win each time for the team with the favored class. This could have been avoided using map bans or allowing character switches so that we weren’t forced to practice entire map pools using a specific comp and were able to tailor our strategies for each map.
Others of us believe the idea of map pools to be redundant with the increase in difficulty with each round, especially when allowing a 3rd affix to be picked by one of the teams. Enabling all maps in each round and letting teams ban maps before each series would prevent situations that allow teams with a certain comp to be totally favored through large parts of the bracket simply because they play/main the right class. It would keep teams from being able to focus solely on a few dungeons since they may not be able to pick them leading to a more rounded map pool for a lot of teams involved.
Did you like being able to choose the third affix, with two affixes already preset on each map?
Parse Culture
: It was an interesting experiment to be sure. The idea that you could pick an affix led to some interesting strategy decisions where you could force a team to alter their route to deal with the affix you chose or just generally keep opposing players on their toes whether it be adding sanguine or necrotic to change up how the tank plays to grievous to force the healer to work harder.
It does however detract from overall practice time to practice different routes or pulls based on what the 3rd affix might. They did well not to include Bolstering or Skittish in the Affix pool but Explosive still massively changes what you can do in a lot of dungeons to the point where routes are completely unrecognizable to what teams may have wanted to do a lot of the time. I don’t think it’s a fun choice in practice a lot of the time.
What did you think of the spectator experience?
Parse Culture
: There were some cool additions to this year’s MDI such as the inspect feature on stream. The on-screen information was also quite good after the 1st couple weeks, adding Bloodlust, Brezzes, and affix information to the presentation. Beyond that it was extremely clear only a few of the casters had any idea what they were talking about. It seemed only a few of them played this game in general and even fewer played at a level close to the competitors. A lot of the time casters were talking about mechanics of bosses or trash that had already been done many times over which wasn’t interesting to listen to at all and only served to inform viewers just tuning in for the 1st time that had no idea about the mechanics of a dungeon what was happening.
The map pools and overpowered strategies did not help the viewer experience at all with Black Rook Hold being the greatest offender. Having such small map pools led to too much of the same in the middle rounds where most of the action was had. Time between series and maps was also too much at times
Overall, how do you think this MDI went?
Parse Culture
: This MDI saw a much greater level of competition than the 1st with each region having better teams across the board. It was very watched and a huge topic of conversation and the matches themselves were fun and competitive for the most part.
What improvements would you like to see Blizzard add in any future MDIs?
Parse Culture
: Rules and decisions should be communicated more clearly. Remakes should be rarer with more focus on squashing bugs that appear in dungeons beforehand. Remakes also need to stop being called for known issues that players themselves can control such as Smashspite reset, Maiden melee, and DHT snap points since they have a dramatic effect on the outcome of not just a single map but potentially an entire series or region. The people making these decisions need to be very familiar with not just the game but the dungeons as well since they are making decisions that could cost teams thousands of dollars.
DC issues were present in every region and could be alleviated somewhat with a pause feature that could be used for limited amounts of time to negate the effect of short duration DCs without dramatically affecting the spectator experience. To counter this, a map ban/pick phase should be held BEFORE the series begins, possibly live on stream to limit the amount of time between maps and keep a series flowing. Having each team pick a map for the 1st 2 and then having the 3rd map of a series set in stone would really lend itself well to diversifying your map pool so you could have a chance at beating teams at their pick and shift the importance of winning the 1st map into being able to play multiple maps at a high level.
Forcing us into a comp for an entire series was a bad call. We had to practice with certain comps for entire map pools rather than tailoring a strategy to each map because that’s all we were allowed to do. We absolutely would have liked to sub in different classes for certain dungeons to take advantage of a player’s skill with a class or spec that isn’t universally good but had a strong niche but instead felt forced to pick classes that are universally good just to cover all the maps we had to choose from and the one we were forced to play. Allowing an alternate for a team after Time Trials would also have allowed us to practice more interesting strategies since each player could focus more on niche classes or smaller map pool as well as cover people abandoning their team. I don’t think a 6 player roster should be forced if a team wants to take home a bigger cut, but we should have the option.
Any other comments?
Parse Culture
: Blizzard gave us next to no recognition for playing in their tournament. There was no article coverage of any of the teams until after a region was over where they would talk briefly about the winners. The amount of time needed for a team to do well in this tournament cannot be justified by their prize pool alone unless you are able to win the whole thing. Publicity for the teams and player’s streams where applicable is a must if this tournament is to continue. It would get spectators more invested in the players as well, it’s really a no brainer.
Also, given how limited many good “push weeks” there are, losing them to practice or play in tournaments is pretty disheartening when it's one of the few things left to do in this game for those that don't enjoy most of the other content outside of M+. Moving these weeks around to follow the tournament would be a really great QoL change especially since the best players won't be preoccupied with the tournament. This change would lead to more push streams and records set.
What improvements would you like to see Blizzard add in any future MDIs?
Preheat
: Since I have a lot of emotion and criticism for the tournament, this will be the only question I answer; I will try to keep it concise and constructive.
In order to have a successful tournament, you must create an environment where the people competing feel as if they have a fair shot at winning. It is my view that this was not the case for the last tournament. The rules for the tournament must be clear and adhered to. Rules regarding remakes are one example of this, but they stand out the most in my opinion. There must be more thought put into what constitutes a remake, and how they are conducted when it is ruled that a remake must occur. If Blizzard is serious about making the MDI a success moving forward, they must address the process for qualifying and conducting remakes to ensure fairness and integrity for the tournament.
Any other comments?
Preheat
: Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback! I’m excited for the MDI tournament moving forward, and I think that a little mindfulness would go a long way to making the tournament as successful and professional as I know it can be.
What are your thoughts on how the Time Trials worked for this MDI?
Jedslims
: Time Trials were a big improvement from the proving grounds from the first MDI, gear & keys are normalised and it tested a skillset closer to that of the actual playoffs. The only thing that I would say had more impact than it should have was time. You were rewarded massively for playing more hours that week and it led to some teams playing 14 hours a day, you got to a point where you couldn't run certain strategies because it would take too long to get a good time out of one. Whether that's a bad thing or not I'm not sure, but it's certainly not enjoyable for the competitors and I know this week period caused internal strife in multiple teams. A potential antidote for this could be that the time trials only take place over a day, or a few runs or something.
Lepantoe
: I think the Time Trials for this MDI was a better solution than the first MDI. Doing 5 23 keys in time is a very simple task for anyone thats serious about competing and it puts everyone on an even playing field. Some people have expressed their thoughts about 4 dps comps during Time Trials and how it doesn't accurately represent your usual MDI comp, personally however I don't see a problem with this, even during actual MDI games people decided to play 4 DPS in some dungeons, and I think you should be rewarded by being able to play more than 1 role. My only complaint would be the RNG with tentacle spawns on Helya because the best compared to worst rng is 20-30 seconds of time, which is huge in a dungeon that was completed in 7 minutes and 10 seconds.
Did you like the way Blizzard conducted map picks? How did you feel about using map pools?
Jedslims
: I would have liked the ability to ban maps to increase the impact of your decisions in the map picking, because of the presence of the /who function on the tournament realm, every team had a pretty good assessment of which map every other team was going to pick, so that wasn't as elusive as you might hope.
The use of map pools is good for variety and testing people on different key levels, but the third map pool being segregated to just the finals and lower bracket finals was a bit of a shame. Map pool 3 barely saw any practice from any team because it's significantly less useful practice than the other map pools, devoting significant practice time to map pool 3 was generally an act of hubris. If you've made it to the grand finals then you're already through, and then there is only one other game that uses map pool 3, which you may or may not end up even playing, while map pool 2 is guaranteed to be played at least twice by every team. So I hope Blizzard either place more emphasis on the grand finals, or integrate the finals map pool into other more important games. The way it was done, the grand final is bound to be one of the least interesting games, in contrast to your expectations.
Lepantoe
: Overall they were alright, I'm not a big fan of MoS being the first map, it is hands down the hardest dungeon in any pool, every pull is really sketchy and you can wipe to bad RNG because of the pulls you do here.
BRH is another starting map I didn't like, you are forced to play mage here or you will lose the first game, so if you didn't want to play mage here you had to practice every other map in the pool, where the mage team could just practice BRH and perfect another map in the pool. Spellstealing in BRH has been known for a long time, if blizzard knew about it before making the map pools are unknown to me, but if they were aware of it and still decided to put BRH as a starting map i think it was a poor decision. BRH being in the pool itself is not a problem as long as its not a starting map, because mage is not ideal on any other maps than BRH in that pool and you would only get an advantage on your pick rather than the entire BO3.
Did you like being able to choose the third affix, with two affixes already preset on each map?
Jedslims
: I wasn't that bothered about the choice of affix, we ended up practicing easy affixes and just getting exceptionally good at the dungeon so nothing could *in theory* go wrong. It was cool in the few instances where a team made a good pick, like they pick sanguine when they have 2 knockbacks against your 0 knockbacks. But mostly it was inconsequential and I hope Blizzard find another place in the map pick sequence to allow creativity, perhaps comp changes between maps or map bans.
Lepantoe
: I would rather have affixes be preset and be able to swap comps between every game. In a tournament like this you should be rewarded by being able to play more than 1 class. Tanks and healers especially were forced to play DK and Paladin for the most part. Its also very easy to counterpick teams when they are locked into a comp because they dont even get the chance to change one of their DPS to a mage and have a chance to win in BRH. You don't have time to practice every map in the pool with every affix combination, which is why for the most part you just focused on 1 combination of affixes for the maps you wanted to practice.
What did you think of the spectator experience?
Jedslims
: I thought the spectator experience was much improved from the last MDI, the observing was better, neat lil' bird's eye view on Cordana for example. Not a massive fan of the UI once more, not always disclosing the information people want (key level, affixes, item level), not sure if they changed that during the tournament or continued to only show it occasionally, a lot of dead space on the screen. The level of play was a lot higher this MDI and the games were often a bit closer, so I think it was more fun to watch in that respect, I had family members and friends watching it who said it was exciting which is neat.
Overall, how do you think this MDI went?
Jedslims
: Really well, viewership was good, even better than last time which itself was a positive surprise. Level of play was higher and that made it more fun to watch and play. Also, contrary to some community opinions the communication from Blizzard to the players was great, all 160 players have the ear of Blizzard admins/devs 24/7 and it almost feels unreasonable to have that level of access, but they give it.
Lepantoe
: Lots of upsets to be honest, I think Blizzard could have handled it better, there was a lot of miscommunication between the admins and teams, for example Method doing a pull in CoS they thought were allowed when FatSharkYes were told no. There are also way too many bugs that are yet to be fixed that has been known since Legion beta, DHT comes to mind, it really is unacceptable how many spots in that dungeon mobs will teleport or evade, I don't really blame Kjells Angels here because its ridiculous to expect any team to know about every single spot a mob can evade or teleport. Also, speaking as a tank it's very annoying to have to kite mobs and actively try and avoid every single object or sharp edge you can see so mobs wont teleport and oneshot you. I think Blizzard should have made it more clear in a public post on the MDI discord what was allowed if a team asked them directly so there would be no second guessing.
Another incident I want to give my opinion is the Lower Lara remake. It's crazy to me how this can be classified as a bug when its basic NPC behaviour to not attack Incapacitated players. Any mob in the game will always melee someone that is not CCd before attacking the target with highest threat, the question here becomes whether or not the boss is supposed to melee between the cast and applying the shield to herself, as a tank I have always noticed that she does a melee swing at that point. At the end of the day it was Blizzard's call to say it was a bug and call for a remake, but I think it was a poor decision to award a remake here.
As someone that qualified for both MDIs I have to say this MDI was a lot better than the first one in terms of communication between players and how the tournament server worked in general. I'm sure Zorbrix is happy he didn't have to rotate keys for 3 hours straight so we could practice dungeons as well.
What improvements would you like to see Blizzard add in any future MDIs?
Jedslims
: Being able to pause maps. Blizzard might not be remotely responsible for people's internet connections, but it affected this MDI a great deal and it would be cool if Blizzard could do something to help.
Perhaps either increasing the size of a LAN or increasing the frequency of the MDI. At the moment you can be the best team in the world and on any given day you might not be able to beat 4 great EU teams without losing 2 games, then you have no opportunity for another ∼6 months to reach the LAN stage, which is ultimately every team's objective.
Lepantoe
: Pausing. I don't know if this would be hard to implement, but this would solve most issues with disconnects or DDOS. If you want to have an online tournament then please for the love of god we need an option to pause, as much as its on the players to have good internet, for some people its hard to "just get good internet LOL", some countries are notorious for shitty ISPs and most of it is outside of players control, everyone has DCs and it could happen at the worst times for anyone.
Tier 3 transmog and Corrupted Ashbringer.
Any other comments?
Jedslims
: Hope to see more support coming out of Blizzard for these kinds of tournaments and this arena of competition. There's apparently a lot of eyes willing to watch it and a lot of dedicated people willing to compete. What more can you ask for?
Lepantoe
: Remake.
What are your thoughts on how the Time Trials worked for this MDI?
Games Revolted (Kuriisu, Peem, Childintime, Dregan, Eclecto)
: We felt like Time Trials were pretty much perfect, keys were easy to make and it was just : “hey here are this 3 dungeons, 1 week of time go and do your best”, it was kinda like old school Challenge Modes and it felt great, no key RNG, same affixes, everyone had access to same exact gear, it felt really good.
Only downside was that weapons were capped to 970 (For MDI as well as for Time Trials) so some classes reigned supreme as for example rogues and ww’s don’t really care about item weapon item level, this was due to a bug that was not fixable at the time but still, that sucked.
Did you like the way Blizzard conducted map picks? How did you feel about using map pools?
Games Revolted
: Did not like it, it was however due to a completely different reason - it was due to compositions being locked in, looser choosing map was to strong because it basically meant that all you had to do was all in on the first map, lose the second and then win the third map again because of your superior composition ( for example team without a Mage in BRH or Warlock in Arcway were at a massive disadvantage).
If comps were not locked in, every team would have an option to play optimal setup for any dungeon, which would make it a lot more fair or if first map pick was random while each pool had 5 dungeons
Did you like being able to choose the third affix, with two affixes already preset on each map?
Games Revolted
: There was not enough time to practice every single dungeon with every single affix therefore most teams chose easy affixes so it kinda felt irrelevant honestly.
All affixes but bolstering and skittish were in the “pick pool”, which was odd since skittish promotes class diversity so why not allow it. We agree with bolstering being left out, it should get cut from game completely as affixes that do nothing but slows teams down and have 0 counterplay are bad for the game.
What did you think of the spectator experience?
Games Revolted
: Caster bias towards certain teams (In every region) can get pretty annoying as there is so much of it.
Blizzard should find and hire more Slootbags, he makes it a lot more fun to watch and also has great game knowledge witch is often lacking in other casters.
Other then that it felt fine.
Overall, how do you think this MDI went?
Games Revolted
: Honestly, it didn’t go that well, there was so much drama and remakes. There were also some miscommunication problems, blizzard should find better solution to most of these problems. Amount of remakes was stupid, if Blizzard wants to make eSports out of WoWs PvE they need to make sure things work and that things are fair, it makes no sense that BOTH team need to re-start the run when only one team encounters the bug, for example, what happened in US MDI in lower Karazhan was straight up stupid, that should not have been a remake and even if it was then the bug free team should’ve kept their time, they literally got their win stolen from them by blizzard, it was such a blunder, crazy.
What improvements would you like to see Blizzard add in any future MDIs?
Games Revolted
: More consistency, better communication, actually fix bugs that everyone knows exists, add more slots to super dominant regions, MORE MDIs, bigger prizings for regionals, unlock setups, remove and don’t make affixes which only purpose is to slow groups down with 0 counterplay, like bolstering, better time distribution of the events parts (time trials - regionals gap etc)
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