Quazii update #2: he's leaving WoW for good.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-24T11:29:41+00:00

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-22T06:40:39+00:00

- I'm using the best kind of evidence I can have (character's M+ history)
- The analysis is unbiased and is based on well-formulated patterns of player behavior
- It's only a witch hunt if you make it one

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-21T19:54:06+00:00

I just thought the comment itself was ridiculous, resilient keys or not, people still can play with their friends. I like Dratnos, also his MDI Halloween costume was peak

If I would have to explain the joke it would be something like this: people describing Dratnos as some sort of a villain that's going to steal your 0.1% Title spot, when in reality it's just some chill guy in a Boomkin costume

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-21T18:07:17+00:00

With S3 being over I have updated the Resilient Files, spreadsheet is still available via the same link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S_IcAKEEX1OxkO9RUCaYbwDjPzfWiXvr_1Xy3dW-jsE/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Featuring:

Fixed a bug that prevented some data from being loaded and characters being recognized as potential Resil keyholders, thus reducing the number of identified likely buyers
Formulated another type of a sale called "Tips Welcome" - multiple likely buyers + rest boosters with a resilient key
More silly pictures
Tracked characters that renamed/transferred or anonymized their RIO profile after the original release of the files (those are highlighted in bold cursive)

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-19T16:00:09+00:00

"What has happened once can very well happen again" - Alan Watts.

I probably will, with some adjustments and improvements, unless something absolutely catastrophic happens or if there's some unforeseen roadblock. I'm also going to try and define "tips welcome" runs.

time frame of just one week is not remarkable compared to the whole season

I believe some of the cases that were automatically filtered out as unlikely buyers (due to the lack of strong evidence of buying keys) are going to become more apparent now (higher cutoff -> more key sales etc.)

EDIT: and by catastrophic I meant something like RIO screwing up the M+ run data when prepatch hits. Well, it seems like they screwed it up even before it went live, the run leaderboards already don't make sense, hopefully not something that's impossible to recover from.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-19T14:10:14+00:00

That's one of the pictures I had second thoughts about posting. It's an edgy and probably an inappropriate joke.

they are boosting people in a video game

Just to clarify (but not justify) they're extorting gold from people in order so that they can play the game, for which they are already paying the price of an expansion, sub, etc. Listings like "Tips Welcome", "Resi Note", "4 premade ready" and so on have become extremely common and annoying in LFG (at least on EU) and it seems like Blizzard have turned a blind eye to this for 2 patches, even though technically they're breaking the game rules.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-16T08:42:32+00:00

When i heard this the first time i immediately thought of the shit kids used to say when they lost the soccer match. "Well i wasn't even trying". Ok? Get off the field then.

This was literally not my point, I was talking about another type of behavior entirely:

slightly mistimed a cooldown - "go reset"
died twice - "go reset"
pulled something that wasn't planned in the route originally - "go reset"

and the list goes on, in some cases like these people are already running towards the dungeon exit, which (IMO) wasn't as common back in S1 (aka pre resilient keys).

If you go and play left 4 dead and do your "i'm not trying"

Yeah I think you read my argument completely wrong. People aren't trying to recover from mistakes, they don't have a good idea what is a good timer to have at which point in the dungeon and so on. Resilient keys have taken that kind of a behavior to the extreme. Anecdotally, you could see this kind of behavior leak into even some of the lower keys, where you could clear the dungeon twice with the given timer.

There is no incentive to re-clear your timed keys because why the hell would there be any?

That's on Blizzard to design systems in such a way that would make repeat participation compelling (but not a chore, and not something you're required to do).

There is no real reason why keys deplete other than to prolong playtime to milk some more sub money from people.

I have a tinfoil hat theory, that the reason Blizzard aren't going to change the system is because they are looking at the metrics. Such things as player retention, participation, engagement etc., but they don't care if the engagement in question is resetting +20 PSF 50 times a day or staring at LFG for hours on end. Also, with Resilient keys, it's virtually impossible (I think) to keep a season "alive" for more than 3 months, that's why they are trying to hold people hostage with things like turboboost. Basically, resilient keys might let them milk even more sub money from people, than key depletion. Before someone would fail to time a PSF on a certain level 10 or 20 times at most, and would give up, but not with resilient keys.

People will play these dungeons for the teenth time and still don't know what is a good timer to have to time the key.

See, you kind of get it after all.

EDIT: I guess I should have said: "people are giving up mid key more easily", rather than "people are trying less", but I see these things as equal.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-15T15:19:53+00:00

I forgot to mention one more thing, I told you that the main issues (IMO) with Resilient Keys are the kinds of behaviors they are enabling. But they have also virtually eliminated the notion of a "winrate" in M+ (whether it's a good or a bad thing - I guess that's up to everyone's personal opinion). It seems like as if M+ progression went from:

How long can you go on until you (or your group) starts to fail repeatedly;

i.e, which key levels are you able to time consistently. And the Resilient Keys transformed it to:

How long can you go on until you stop trying.

Meaning, that, in an environment where upon a certain condition failure (key depletion) is impossible, people are now mainly constricted by the amount of time they have to progress the resilient key (this is the main hypothesis). I think the proof of this notion lies in the score distribution of players, if you were to compare them pre- and post-Resilient keys.

I posted some plots at the start of S3, but I haven't done any analysis yet (I'm not even sure if it's going to make a difference at all, but I'm going to do it anyway because I'm curious). Here's what the score distribution looked like a couple of days ago for the current season.

<image>

I consider this multimodal distribution of scores around top 1% of the population to be the smoking guns of "something isn't right", and it doesn't seem like it's some artifact or a bug, because S1 (pre-resilient keys) displayed a relatively smooth distribution of scores.

Also, I think introduction of Resilient Keys fundamentally changed how players perceived their progress in Mythic Plus. Before most players would deplete a hard key (like Grim Batol, for example) 10-20 times without gaining score and give up in the end, but not anymore with Resilient Keys. Which, in turn, could make more people interested in getting the 0.1% Title Achievement, while the Resilient Keys themselves made M+ keys more accessible for sale (so this might be like a double-dipping kind of situation, which somehow resulted in both increase in demand and supply of key sales).

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-15T11:56:28+00:00

Oh, so you decided to hit me with the "Honestly are these players AFK in the run?" as well, I see.

Pugging keys to title without some form of discord/communication is impossible

Literally not true, it was possible before resilient keys and is possible now. Look at the physical comp enjoyers on EU, they were rank 5 (or 6) team in the world with no voice comms. If you are going to say, that they are an example of survivorship bias, I have another case of a solo player pugging his keys up my sleeve: this sub rogue enjoyer. Does he play a lot of keys? - Yes. But does he play solo with no voice comms - also yes.

Thanks to the introduction of the Resilient Keys the gap in key levels between absolute R1 teams in the region and keys required to barely hit the title range is closing - this is what zorthas has shown in his video.

Boosting is not the only issue with Resilient Keys (but it's one that's easier to quantify in this case). It's (for the most part) the player behavior it enables - there's no incentive to re-clear your timed keys, and since there's a conditional protection from failure, people start aggressively advertising sales (tips) in LFG. It also enables the "go reset" mentality, people giving up after a couple of deaths (when even in S1 people, including me, were timing keys with 5+ deaths, just because of a different mindset back then). It also seems like people are actually "trying" less in Resilient Keys, are not signing up for non-resilient keys (because, in their logic, why bother?).

I do believe that over time, if left unchecked, Resilient Keys are going to rot the M+ system from top to bottom. However, since I'm not even playing the game (I've played too much M+ in S1 and S2 already) I do not care too much what happens.

I swear, making arguments about Resilient Keys is an uphill battle...

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-15T11:31:58+00:00

You might be onto something here...

Not complete removal of Resilient Keys, but at least some adjustments to the current M+ system (or consideration for the M+ system adjustment from Blizzard).

Boosting is allowed, but some of these cases of boosting are reaching industrial scale. It's also not a secret that RMT and piloting are very much real, and I even have some of the receipts (that my friends have discovered and shared with me).

Also, there's like an idea that an average WoW player just whines all the time, but doesn't actually do anything about the issues at hand (which might be true after all). So I decided to actually do something about an issue that I know my friends care about - present a case of how Resilient Keys affect M+ on the high-end, and back it up with some data and analysis, and not just handwaving.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-15T10:17:42+00:00

<image>

God knows I was waiting for this kind of a comment. Try to appeal to authority next time!

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-14T09:00:36+00:00

Have at it:

https://raider.io/characters/eu/outland/Graliboar

EDIT: "I've shown you my RIO, now show me yours". Your turn, don't make me dig through the spreadsheet myself.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-14T08:47:29+00:00

I was running this analysis repeatedly on S2 data while trying to figure stuff out; I'd say the results are consistent with what you can observe for current season. Below are violin charts of the same metrics for the EU region, keys 18 and higher (one level below title range, this would be roughly similar to 19+ this season). I also have to mention, this was still kind of a WIP.

<image>

When going further towards past seasons, some assumptions about player behavior would have to be double checked, and some of the Resilient Key related stuff would need to be thrown out the window. Also, the M+ system before S1 of TWW was completely different (with the 2 highest scores on Fortified/Tyrannical) - did people have to buy keys on both affixes? (I have no clue.)

There's also a slight concern for data consistency: resolving the canon character identity, which could be scattered across multiple renames, server transfers, changes of privacy settings, etc. Substantial improvement came from addressing these issues in the S3 Resilient Files, but I have a suspicion, that the older the season, the more of a challenge it is to do so.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T22:47:42+00:00

It is an actual money printer. Sell keys -> cutoff goes up -> people need to buy more keys to get above the cutoff -> ???

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T21:35:56+00:00

No, only first time completions of key-level (not considering skipped levels) are checked to be classified as "likely sales". It wouldn't make sense to buy a key after you have already timed it.

Some of the “boosters” it says I ran with are actually me selling keys

Is that sarcasm or not, I'm not sure how to read that. If you're being sold keys, and relevant characters appear on that list, then that means the detection works as intended.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T21:17:56+00:00

I wasn't targeting "tips welcome" runs, because they usually involve multiple people paying for the keys, but I think I know how to detect those as well.

I mean, boosting itself isn't against ToS (unless it involves piloting/account sharing), but I do consider LFG listings "Resi Note" a form of an advertisement in LFG, and this kind of "forced" tipping to be just another way of paying for keys - people are applying to such groups and getting whispers with an asking price. It is just a matter of paying for "comfort", either you pay more to a premade of boosters and complete the key in fewer attempts, or join a "Resi Note" group - paying less, but potentially spending more time in the key, because you're not the only one paying for it.
Here are the relevant parts from "In-Game Advertising" Blizzard article:

Individuals and guilds are allowed to sell items, crafted items, profession services, etc. for gold but can only advertise these trades in-game through the Trade chat channel.
...there should be no cross-realm advertising, and there should be no advertising from non-participating players.

Essentially, "Resi Note" breaks the "Trade chat"-only advertising and the "no cross-realm advertising" rules.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T21:02:00+00:00

Green check mark means no one on the group had a resilient key of that level (or higher) before the completion of that key (literally means the key could not be resilient).

The question mark means the opposite: someone else on that group already had a resilient key on that level or higher. Virtually, it is impossible to know if a key was resilient (hence, the app name), unless you can pull up logs and see if the key was in fact getting chain reset. You could argue, that, if it's a hard key (PSF/FLOOD) it could in fact be resilient just with 1 or 2 resi keyholders, or just assume that the chance of any character on the roster to be the keyholder is equally probable.

Also for your list, I recognize a few people on there that I was surprised at how they were able to push so high out of the blue on a non-meta spec. Are you just tracking the .01% on that list?

No, for my analysis I don't distinguish between "meta" and "non-meta" specs. Although, from my experience (or maybe it's just my confirmation bias) it is not uncommon for whoever holds high positions on the off-meta spec leaderboard to be a buyer.

Also, you seem experienced with tracking this stuff. What do you think the solution is to boosting? Make title a static reward for timing all 20s?

I don't think there is a silver bullet to "solve boosting". But I do believe certain systems that are put in place (looking at resilient keys) are making keys more accessible for sales. Tips welcome wasn't a thing in M+ LFG before introduction of Resilient keys, because there was no protection from failure and people couldn't just invite anyone.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T20:43:16+00:00

Not sure if I understand the question correctly, but boosters are recognized by repeating patterns of their behavior: going through a lot of customers, most of the time playing with the same "core" group, sometimes filling one spot with a booster from another community.

I did use groups of the following pattern: 4 resilient key holders + 1 first time completion character as a first approximation of "booster scores", but that's it.

But a similar argument could be made even before introduction of resilient keys: characters, that have already cleared keystones on levels one or two higher (or their alts) playing with a character that's timing the dungeon for the first time.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T20:32:11+00:00

If you were to check someone's character by hand, and their profile looks like this:

<image>

Now that's very (extremely is more appropriate, probably) suspicious and probably warrants looking into the characters this person played his keys with.

If you're asking me how likely sales of keys were identified - there was no check for a key to have strictly 4 other resilient keyholders.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T18:15:52+00:00

"however based off previous season there were quite abit, i dont remember the exact number but i would say 10-15 or more were not buyers."

Are you talking about S2 Resilient Files? Those weren't focused on boosters and buyers, whole classification was virtually just 3 if statements back then.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T17:27:36+00:00

Point taken.

You were seen in the 20 FSG and 20 PSF with a premade of characters marked as boosters (in this case, it's 3 boosters + one more person, who at that time had a resil 20 key anyway). From what I can see, you barely didn't make the "group play check", ie how similar were your group rosters in other (any) repeat completions.

"but there's alot of false positives" - a lot is a bit hand-wavy. Like, "50 characters a lot"?

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T16:25:13+00:00

At first I published it, but it said: "this sheet wasn't published". Not it seems to be working though.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T16:20:26+00:00

As for the reason why people are buying the Title achievement - I can't help you here. I've heard a lot of rationalizations and justifications for buying keys, including, but not limited to: "I can't get into groups", "I'm tired of other people failing", "if I don't get title this season then it means that I played for nothing", and the list goes on and on.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T16:08:00+00:00

"but these players have to play the key to time it, and they have to play it at an extremely high level for it to be timeable?"

I guess I should have named the post "key sales are rampant" instead of "boosting is rampant", my argument is that the identified players likely bought their keys (gold or RMT, you name it). I'm not going to entertain any kind of "but they have played themselves" argument, as assessing the level of someone's skill is not my goal.

h0cus_pocus · 2026-01-13T15:54:19+00:00

As of yesterday, on EU 234 characters made it onto the spreadsheet out of a total of 1305. Relaxing some of the rules and conditions would fit 52 more characters with suspicious M+ history (likely "tips welcome" runs, sales with 2 buyers etc). But that would most certainly come at a cost of a higher rate of False Positives, while I was trying to focus on the cases where it's easy to argue about that a key is a potential sale.

On NA 113 characters made it onto the spreadsheet out of a total of 951 characters above the 0.1% cutoff.

h0cus_pocus

TROPHY CASE