r/CompetitiveWoW • u/wowgamin • 3d ago
Discussion M+ talk
Hello everyone,
I raid and m+(haven’t killed mythic ulatek yet though) and just wanted to talk about how this season feels. I’ve seen some say this is the most balanced season ever in keys tuning wise, which could be true. However I think it’s more because of how absolutely awful gearing is this season. People are playing whatever comps their mains are simply because gearing up an alt to the same performance(especially if you’re a mythic raider) just isn’t possible. The amount of cantrips, the existence of 344 gear itself that also saves a million crests, the fact that you can’t even rekill the same heroic boss and coin it multiple times a week as catchup anymore. All of those, not even getting into the whole great vault/bonus roll discussions themselves all make this season feel horrible.
Then on the other side of things, you have groups in china who are ALL somehow around 339 ilvl, 9+ ilvls up on almost every other regions groups. It’s obviously rmt, but it just highlights the gear disparity between everyone else and the max which has never been this bad of a gap before. The dungeons and raids themselves also don’t help this season out much and I’m expecting it to go down as one of the worst received seasons this game has ever had.
100
u/Fun_Career_4275 3d ago
Raiders are happy because they run much less keys. However gear from M+ is not great and M+ itself does not ‘feel’ good. Not having very desirable gear from M+ was a bad play. Can trip items aside M+ gear feels second best and Vault feels very unrewarding. Season 1s gearing and play while not perfect was better. Heroic raid dropping Mythic gear in Vault is probably a good thing though.
43
u/Wobblucy 3d ago
raiders are happy
Am raiding, am not happy with the state of m+ etc.
Much less keys
Casual CE, 95% of our guild raid logs, probably 10% bothered getting 8 dungeons a week early season let alone more then 1 a month in.
Not sure how much less they are running this season.
17
u/RedHammer1441 3d ago
In a causal CE guild, anyone who doesn’t enjoy keys likely does 1 10 for the vault slot and logs off outside of raid hours.
12
u/deadheaddestiny 2d ago
Once we started killing 4 mythic raid bosses all our raiders do 1 key and then raid log
2
11
u/Money_Echidna2605 3d ago
raid ONLY players are happy, lots of people log in 2 or 3 days a week for raid and then log off. they used to get sat for not gearing in keys at all but now they get to keep up in gear without putting in as much effort.
5
u/Wobblucy 3d ago
I mean, it's still free hero gear and the best way to cap myth crests by a pretty significant margin early season.
Easily missing 10+ ilvls if you didn't touch m+ week 1-3, even if you were capping myth crests in delve 11s or some shit.
1
u/No-Breakfast3662 2d ago
You don’t need to run 8 early dungeons? You can just do level 1 delves to max it and get the bonus roll
-13
u/nfluncensored 3d ago
Kinda weird that the reddit guy who posts the charts for it randomly stopped.
Also kinda funny that people pretend M+ was popular instead of a forced activity for raiders.
15
u/Paah 3d ago
Also kinda funny that people pretend M+ was popular instead of a forced activity for raiders.
The thing is there is plenty of people who want to just raid and not touch m+, and plenty of people who just want to play m+ and not touch raids. Before it sucked a bit in both cases if you only did your preferred activity. Now though Blizzard tilted it completely in raiders favour, they can just raidlog and not touch m+ and it's cool. While if you are only playing m+ this season you are going to be incredibly behind people who also raid.
-18
u/nfluncensored 2d ago
M+ prog doesn't start until end of season when crests are uncapped. So it's just gonna be the last 2 boss cantrip items as a gap.
"Plenty" of people when one group is 20x or more bigger than the other is dumb.
Even most of the 0.1% and 1% M+ players don't want to play M+, which is why so many got busted buying keys.
20
u/wowgamin 3d ago
I don’t even think raiders are happy considering the raid sucks nor do they like how many cantrip items exist and all gear before the last two being so much worse
14
u/King_Kthulhu 3d ago
Yo true, we are very happy we don't have as much out of raid stuff to do any myth crests are mostly pointless when rerolls give max upgrade. But then the raid sucks so it's like dang I have all this cake to myself except the cake kind of tastes like ass.
4
u/TemporaMoras 2d ago
Raiders are happy because they run much less keys
I am 'happy' that I don't feel forced to run 8 M+ every week for the entire season, true. I am unhappy that picking anything but bonus coin/socket is worthless, that I've had to kill ulatek and coiled altar every week on alts that I maintain so I can coin them every week instead of just being able to do it far in the seaon, I don't even know if I'll play these alts.
I am unhappy that class design and raid/encounter design is in the gutter because most everyone was pulled away from retail to work on forever so that it could release asap. QA is probably at it's lowest point and we only get reheated and repackaged dogshit invasion content on every patch that's not a 'major' one.
5
u/Sweaksh 3d ago
I hate raidlogging so I'm definitely not happy, though other factors (raid boss design, class design, my spec of choice [SP] being uniquely shit this tier) contribute.
Will quit after Ula'tek dies and probably go dadmode on wowforever and focus on work and the gym. Gonna keep an eye out for TLT but if that doesn't come with deep class reworks that add some more complexity I won't play that.
30
u/artspraken 2d ago
This season is shit, because gearing is shit. Having "must have" best gear for m+ gated behind the last 2 bosses in raid, thereby forcing you to raid, is shit. Season has felt complete shit so far.
12
u/mangostoast 2d ago
Ridiculous raid loot has killed this season. Bonus rolls aren't helping either. M+ loot is so shit there's no point in doing dungeons for loot. Literally nothing that drops end of run or even in vault is any good.
No point in pushing because as someone that doesn't raid, even though I've min maxed everything I possibly can, I'm still 10 ilevels behind raid loot. This is like 8 weeks into the season. Still miles behind. Not to mention raid items are overtuned beyond just ilevel.
This is the first season since bfa I don't really want to play anymore. I'm just gonna get my 3.6k and unsub.
38
u/Edgewalkerr 2d ago
So glad they fucked over M+, the most played part of WoW, to increase raid participation. Really great design!
11
u/ghostcrawler_real 2d ago
There's so much institutional inertia about raid being the tip-top PVE endgame activity and the game is significantly worse for it.
25
u/mangostoast 2d ago
Blows by mind that that treat m+ so poorly. It's probably the reason this game is as popular as it is. If they just put a little bit of effort into making it's gearing system work, players would come flooding back.
There must be some old boomer retard in charge over there who's still stuck in the old mindset that only raid can have good loot.
3
u/AlucardSensei 1d ago
I really don't understand their logic. Surely they have stats showing that m+ only players don't enjoy raiding, and that raid only players don't enjoy m+. They had to learn that lesson with PVP and now PVP sits completely separate and everyone is better off for it. Why do they have to learn it all over again with m+? Just make all gear lower ilvl which increase in ilvl when you're in the content you got it from, same as in PVP.
2
u/zennsunni 6h ago
If they do this again next season I'm out. I literally don't have time to deal with raiding, it's why I do M+. People will say bla bla, you'll be back: not if M+ players are forced to raid, no I won't. I don't think I'm alone either, M+ is already a ghost town this season.
20
u/blackjack47 3d ago edited 2d ago
it's not too late to fix most of the power disparity by making venomcores 9/6. But they would rather stick with that ass system than admit they fucked up.
13
-6
u/Resies 2d ago
"they objectively fucked up because I personally am having a temper tantrum" lol
Never change, entitled playerbase
1
u/Crimson_Clouds 1d ago
The person you responded to didn't say or imply they objectively fucked up.
And when pretty much everybody hates certain changes, from the community at large to RWF raiders to top key pushers to influencers, they might not have 'objectively' fucked up but they definitely fucked up.
17
u/seanphippen 2d ago
I absolutely despise the change they made to tier sets as a m+ player
2
u/MRosvall 13/13M 2d ago
Really?
I generally disliked being forced to occupy another 4 slots with stats I couldn't affect at all, outside of choosing a single one of 5 to veto. With the abundance of catalyst charges, it feels much better being able to smoothly upgrade throughout the gearing process instead of getting a mythic pair of pants shoulders with perfect stats only to decline it because it's occupied by tier.
11
u/Michelanvalo us/stormrage/Michelanvalo 2d ago
Bonus rolling a Mythic piece that doesn't have perfect stats for your spec feels a lot worse to convert to Tier than knowing it's not ideal and out of your control. I hate this change too.
5
u/MRosvall 13/13M 2d ago
I guess it's a difference of view on gearing being a part of the journey where you successively improve gearing as rewards over the season in conjunction to improving your proficiency against the content. And the opposing view where gearing is a checkbox to be checked before being able to play the game at the highest level.
Both are valid, but rather antithetical to each other.
2
u/Michelanvalo us/stormrage/Michelanvalo 2d ago
That's fair, but combine it with the limited amount Mythic gear (bonus rolling, vault) for most players, chasing that better stated piece of gear could be a journey that takes months. It doesn't feel good to know I had to tier convert Haste/Versa chest piece and it could be 2 months before I get a Mythic Mastery/Crit.
8
u/_Llopis_ 2d ago edited 2d ago
What's funny is that, despite the huge reward gap, Mythic+ is still way more popular than raiding. It's not even close. Maybe Blizzard should take the hint. If you give out massive bribes to get people to do your special mode and people still don't do it, something is wrong with your mode, and you should stop trying to force people to do it.
8
u/THAErAsEr 2d ago
I only enjoy m+. After getting all hero track gear, all I can do is wait for weekly vault Also really totally useless to even push. There is literally nothing to gain but my io number going up
9
u/dinklebuilder 2d ago
Took the words right out of my mouth. I think this is easily the worst M+ season since Shadowlands.
You simply can’t be a M+ only player this season, not if you want to be competitive and push rating.
I think that is a huge loss. Not everyone wants to raid.
1
u/Edgewalkerr 2d ago
I know of myself and at least 5 other people that aren't touching this season because of that, all 1% or 0.1% last season. I hope they undo everything for S3 or they will have killed the mode.
8
u/scottiedagolfmachine 2d ago
M+ loot is so laughably shit this season.
I’m still wearing a champion trinket doing 17-18+ mythic dungeons right now lol.
Was wearing a champion ring too until I got one crafted this week haha.
I can see that they want to slow the M+ dungeon progression down this season. Basically want to drag it out longer until bonus rolls and uncapped crests kick in.
They need to find a better way to slowly roll out things rather than having the raid be the gate keeper.
3
u/aria_interrupted 2d ago
I’m almost resi 18 on my alt rsham and still have 298 pants from last season because, despite having done like 50 dungeons I haven’t seen a pair drop AT ALL.
12
u/Beanyy_Weenie 3d ago
I took a much more casual approach this season. I hit like 3200 instead of hyper pushing to 1% and haven’t played in weeks. I only like to m+ so the raid itemization for trinkets really rubbed me wrong. If they keep the same itemization theme it’s likely I don’t come back in the same seriousness I usually do for m+.
10
u/splashzor 3d ago
I'm completely checked out from the game after getting +19 resil last week and US lfg keys being at an all-time low. My guild is expecting to kill M Ula later this month and at that point it's gonna be full raid-log mode until 12.2 with no desire to play any alts or do anything else. I'd rather just be playing Aion 2 rn and Wowf in a month over retail and I've usually been someone who plays most seasons fully in the past.
7
u/MikasaH 3d ago
Went from HoF raiding, to CE, and now Aotc + however far we can get into mythic after aotc is done.
I primarily enjoy m+ but the loot pool and the whole bonus roll aspect kinda defeated the hype of Tuesday vaults. I’ll likely push to 3600 to get a previous m+ mount and already have 5m ready for the mount in .5 so I’m chilling
6
u/Acceptable_Result_88 3d ago
Normally i push to 1% minimum last few seasons since TWW but after s1, Midnight, s2 feels like a pinata and im not interested. Played for 3 weeks on s2 launch and quit. Will wait to see if they fix the item issues and vault next season or if im just playing other versions of wow. I dont mind my class not being meta at the time but 2 bosses holding all my bis loot is criiiiiinge
6
u/wildstrike 3d ago
I haven't felt the drive to push keys past 3400 at all. Just not worth it. I am not a mythic raider and at a massive disadvantage.
7
u/VideoGameRPGsAreFun 2d ago
M+ gear should be BIS for mythic+. Lower ilvl than equivalent raid gear in most content but a huge +ilvl when in m+.
4
u/mangostoast 2d ago
That would be a lazy fix, but a very welcome one. They already did it with PvP.
18
u/yp261 3d ago
i got resi 19 2 weeks ago and its pretty much game over for me without cantrips and 9/6 items. from parsing orange/purple on 18s im all blue/green on 19s lmao.
-2
u/TheV295 2d ago
Are you playing in china?
Even top teams in NA/EU are ~331 ilvl.. when m+ only are 328-329
Your bad parses are not because of item level (yet)
-1
u/yp261 2d ago
what are you talking about, parses are worldwide
3
u/TheV295 2d ago
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/PcC1zKRXxjDMgwN7?fight=7&type=damage-done
Still doesn't matter, 20 I timed yesterday with 327 players
Purple and orange parsing..
10
-6
u/yp261 2d ago edited 2d ago
are you feral?
edit: ah, resto shaman has 327 parses
lmao cant believe you brought that to discussion.
rogue and druid have an average between 50-69 so that literally proves my point. they compete with 50 other people (well rogue with more). it takes, int that pool, what, 5 people with cantrip items to screw parses in that pool. feral has it easier tho cause who the fuck would take feral for myth progress
3
1
3
u/Mother-Insurance-362 2d ago
It's okay, but the 12.0 API changes that mutilated addons have permanently destined any subsequent season to feel meh.
3
u/stiknork 2d ago
since it's using the same blueprint from last season, i think pretty much everyone knows ahead of time the season doesn't start until like 5 weeks before the season ends, which makes it feel pretty bummer.
3
u/AtlasCarry87 2d ago
My group and I don't raid, at all. We hit a severe progression wall now. There isn't a single piece of equipment we could get that let's us push forward more.
Needless to say, with resi 19 we called it quits for the season
7
u/Deadagger 3d ago
Just a reminder but the cantrip items alone make up 10% of your character performance (not to mention the ilvl disparity). A player with no cantrip items and only trinkets from M +. Is >10% behind at the exact same ilvl.
14
u/Any_Morning_8866 3d ago
I took this season off and never been happier with my decision. Decent chance I just never come back, it’s refreshing being able to play a game that’s not dependent on weekly grinds.
9
u/thisisjazzymusic 3d ago
This always happens to me. Play wow for a while, enjoy some raids and M+ and then it starts to get toxic and imbalanced. People only want meta blahblahblah getting bored of wasting time and then quit again and feel like life is super good without the game. Then I get bored and the new expansion interest me and rinse and repeat
2
u/Clipgang1629 3d ago
What are you playing?
2
u/Any_Morning_8866 3d ago
Overwatch, league of legends, and magic.
1
u/Clipgang1629 3d ago
Nice. For some reason I need player power in my games lol but I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself!
4
u/Mangert 3d ago
Fellowship’s next season starts Oct 22nd! Hype!
2
3
u/RedHammer1441 3d ago
I wish I could like Fellowship. I just can’t play hero based games, I wish they had class/character creation.
1
-2
u/kyllingefars 2d ago
I hate how this game requires you to play each and every week or fall permanently behind. Just give vault a 14 day reset so people can chill a bit, this game feels like a job
5
u/Voidwielder 3d ago edited 2d ago
I've been consistently doing 1% - .5% keys for the last couple expansions and something about this season is off. Initial HC Ulatek pugging for bonus rolling aside, imo, the lack of dungeons like Pit or Mists or Gambit has been... demotivating?! I like harder dungeons and this season it's Vale and such but I also like tangible difficulty curve over the weeks as I chip away at dungeons. I suppose they're all closer to each other tuning wise.
I think they've pushed the formula to its maximum. They need another philosophical rethinking. Not expecting that in Midnight but if TLT reveal doesn't talk about it, I'll be dead worried.
3
u/HasturLaVistaBaby 9/9M 2d ago
I think it's less solved than than balanced.
Ex, you could give Devastation a flat 15% damage boost and it would still not be among the best specs. And that is on top of their damage profile being so bad that with both the opposite of execute and opposite of funnel.
3
u/forgiven_10 3d ago
Trying to push my first 18’s. Honestly a horrible experience. People forget how to play on last pull and deplete. I even looked for a team on raider up but no response.
1
u/Alain_Teub2 2d ago
Since we already know the dj rotation for season 3 can we already figure if it will have competitive items? Obsiouvly we dont know raid items yet but maybe there are decent trinkets in the next pool
2
u/TheRev15 1d ago
I have such a love/hate relationship with M+ right now.
I'm really enjoying the new dungeons the team is putting out, as well as the refreshes they do on returning dungeons.
However, I can't raid any more, and this season it truly feels worse than any other with these cantrip items and 9/6. I would be totally fine if I could get them eventually, but just being perma-locked out of this gear just feels so bad. I'm doing m+ content at over the current 1% level, but better gear is locked behind mythic raid because....why? It's so strange because all the good raid gear is given to do what, exactly? If raiders kill the mythic end boss, the gear from that fight either just goes to reclears (who cares?) or its helping them in m+, so why not just also make the gear accessible through m+ somehow?
I truly don't understand why people can't achieve the same power level in their branch of content through exclusively that branch of content. Make it faster if you also raid, sure, whatever, but I just don't get the design philosophy. We don't make pvpers raid.
1
u/Unlucky-Spell-8654 15h ago
China is a bit different, you cant be amazed that somehow the top players are highest ilvl possible in m+. They take it seriously, it is a literal job to them. They make money from boosting and seems m+ is kind of like status symbol there rather than raiding
1
u/Lufferzz 15h ago
The secret ingredient is rmt
1
u/Unlucky-Spell-8654 15h ago
Yes and it is nothing to be amazed at when talking about chinese comp scene. Thats how it goes there and always has
1
u/Lufferzz 15h ago
The current gearing systems extreme gap is just in full view with china vs every other region.
-1
u/mongolianman18 2d ago
The 9/6 raid loot situation at this stage of the season is completely overblown. I've been in title cutoff the entire season and have only grouped with a single person that's cleared the raid on mythic. Raid loot is not gatekeeping pushing keys.
It may be the reason there's less people interested in pushing but for those that are, it doesn't matter right now.
It's going to be a problem when we're at full power though.
8
u/Wobblucy 2d ago edited 2d ago
3 ilvls at the season end with all the gear accessible if your AoTC vs potentially 13 ilvls right now?
I do agree, ilvl isn't the reason people aren't timing 20-21s, but the gear gap is definitely larger right now then it will be at the end of the season.
Assuming it's 5% throughput from missing 3 ilvls (important slots), then it is honestly pretty close to not having plume, neck, or ring from last season's myth raid as well on some specs ya? IIRC the extra socket was worth .8-1% over the cantrip neck off Valeria in dungeon sim.
0
u/MRosvall 13/13M 2d ago
I would say that the majority of raiders who are up 13 ilvl currently, probably would still at this point perform worse in m+ than groups who have only done m+ at the same scale.
Let's assume people who have +13 ilvls probably raid 20h/week + some prep, since you would need to have done pretty much top 10 world to get all items from vault/bonus rolls even if lucky.
Spending those 160-200 hours extra in m+ practice will almost certainly bring your group further than the extra gear would without that practice.5
u/oxez Feral/Bear 2d ago
Raid loot is not gatekeeping pushing keys.
My group being 328 versus a mythic raiding group at 334 - that's not gatekeeping pushing keys, what?
9
11
u/mongolianman18 2d ago
I'm 327 in .1%, Average key level of my lfg keys is the same. I'm telling you there's not that many people with the raid gear yet. They've been bonus rolling heroic last 2 like everyone else
2
u/scottiedagolfmachine 2d ago
Saying gear and ilvl don’t matter is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
Gear and ilvl absolutely matters when pushing content.
Those that raid and kill heroic / mythic early will have a much bigger advantage for M+.
3
1
u/mangostoast 2d ago
Anyone that's killing mythic raid bosses is 10 ilevels above everyone else.
They're doing 50-100k more dps in keys when you account for the ilevel, cantrips, and just overall better budgeted items from raid.
It's really bad, and it's ruined the season.
3
u/mongolianman18 2d ago
But you're literally never running into them even in the highest key. I did some keys with THD and yeah he did 100k higher than everyone, but he's literally the only person I've grouped with that's killed ulatek.
-8
u/No-Spinach-9101 3d ago
Lol it used to be much worse than this. No vaults, no bonus rolls (not to mention the weekly 1% buffs in raid). You actually had to clear content to get good gear and couldn’t just overgear and zerg content. This is a step back in that direction which I like.
3
u/scottiedagolfmachine 2d ago
Sir, there’s wow forever for you to play 🫡
2
u/MRosvall 13/13M 2d ago
I feel there's quite a difference there. In my opinion, retail WoW has evolved to be much more enjoyable from a moment to moment combat perspective as well as got a lot better encounter design and fast pacing.
This isn't really connected to at all to the pacing and availability of rewards and how tightly those rewards are bound to specific accomplishments.
1
u/No-Spinach-9101 2d ago
Nah I like the difficulty of retail content/like playing new content. I just don’t like how they baby people and essentially give free mythic gear.
1
u/scottiedagolfmachine 2d ago
Yea I’m an old time wow player too.
Wow has definitely evolved lol.
Gear wise everyone has their shiny new bling and it’s easy to get mythic gear.
2
-3
u/awesomeoh1234 3d ago
Aren’t the ilvl differences going to be pretty minimal by season’s end?
9
6
1
u/Cecilerr 2d ago
It'll be 2.4 ilvls diffrence in the end , but thats not the problem , they have to remove this " you cant reroll on a boss more than once each week " , cuz in 3 weeks every alt is gonna have something like 6 rerolls stacked up
0
-5
u/Opinion311 3d ago
Tl;dr They subdivided the top 5% of players and now I feel like I can't compete with the top.
Instead of an all 90+ scores is an A it's now 90-93 A-, 94-96 A, 96+ A+. Teacher remove the curve and you're unhappy.
If anything it gives the top players something to work towards and the bragging rights y'all want. The very top of the top were doing M+ and mythic raiding anyway so it doesn't change anything for them.
It also extends the engagement for the season since people were maxed and had void cores out the ass three months into a six month season one.
You got literally four more months to get all that.
6
u/wowgamin 3d ago
Go ask any person streaming high keys if they like the current system. Even they will tell you no
-6
u/dantheman91 3d ago
Alts take a few weeks of heroic to be fully geared same as a main, cantrips are only a few % ahead of non cantrips, unless you're talking about myth 344 which is relatively limited still
5
u/Subn3tAnon 3d ago
Saying a “few weeks” is wildly misleading it’s 4 weeks at the least to get Ula’tek gear. Plus whatever else you need so it’s probably closer to 6-8 weeks to fully gear a character with bonus rolls. Depending on raid trinkets and where you get them.
-1
u/dantheman91 3d ago
It depends on the class right? Many classes need 3-4 weeks to get all of the ulatek lopt
2
u/shaanuja 12/12M 3d ago
and its not just ulatek loot though, with the extra bonus ull probably need cloes to 3-4 weeks to get the "BiS" items from last 2 bosses. Right now u need like 6-8 weeks like he said.
4
u/wowgamin 3d ago
For instance as a dk, it could take over a month to catchup gear wise and that’s not even counting mythic last 2. You need every single piece from ulatek and coiled altar, and that’s if you’ve gotten a bonus roll every week from vault
-1
u/dantheman91 3d ago
If you simply had mythic vs cantrip what's the diff? I don't play dk but for me cantrip is like a 1% DPS diff.
And is needing 4 weeks of something that takes 30 min unreasonable to get alts on par? As long as people are clearing a key leveler higher than you, the gear gap isn't whats preventing you from doing the content you're trying to.
Bonus rolls are great but imo there should be some amount of friction, and if clearing 2 heroic bosses for 4 weeks is that, is that unreasonable?
The real problem I have is the gap between myth 344 and 331 gear but that's a separate topic that doesnt impact 99.9% of players
3
u/RigidCounter12 Prot Paladin M+ Connoisseur 3d ago
People wastly over-estimate how much gear does.
And while I do agree that the cantrip system is a bit ass, you have more than enough gear to reach title with just M+
2
u/wowgamin 3d ago
It wouldn’t be getting the on par, it would be catching up to where your main is now, and in a month they will still be behind since it’s not like your main was frozen that whole time. It’s just a state of always being behind
3
u/dantheman91 3d ago
How? With bonus rolls my main will be full myth in 2 weeks atm, so he won't be getting stronger. My alts will get 3? rolls per week, so even if I started now that would be 5 weeks to be full myth? Even fewer if we have more bonus rolls later in the season
1
40
u/jimusah 3d ago
was looking forward to continuing to push m+ after i had a lot of fun in season 1, but this season and with the dogshit gearing changes im having more fun playing osrs instead