Afflicted/incorporeal are almost at the doorstep of feeling rewarding to deal with, if they weren’t so class exclusive.
Even explosives would’ve been fun if the spawn rate was capped.
But loved?
“Oh boy, it’s spiteful this week! Can’t wait! Let’s gooo!” - no one ever.
Which is sad, because it’s like our expectations have dropped so low, we’ve forgot that a game absolutely should make players feel that way.
I feel like not enough people substantiate why they don’t like affixes, but I don’t mean to point fingers at anyone in particular. I find it hard to say affixes are guilty of anything unique, relative to mechanics inherent to the dungeon, especially right now. All of them have been made pretty simple and frictionless for the majority of players. The affixes fairly reflect situations you’d already find inside the dungeons and feel purely supplemental.
That being said, there’s definitely valid criticism toward them. I can understand why people would rather see dungeons made harder as a baseline instead of having the affix combinations; something I’ve seen suggested a few times now. I hesitate to call affixes in their current state “lazy,” per se, but there’s more to be done about the situation, for sure.
I think it’s also unfair to say people are merely attention seeking, I don’t think that’s been demonstrated here. If there’s one problem I’ve had in my experience in this thread, it’s the lack of charity toward others.
I’m very torn on the design. I personally like both affixes, but I think I do dislike the heavy-handedness and would prefer all classes have fair ways to deal. I’d like more design in the realm of choice, especially since mythic plus is built entirely on replay value.
Haha, you’re not wrong. To be fair, I don’t think any of these are supposed to entice you to play, much like no boss or trash mechanic has ever been the specific reason I want to play the game. It’s always been very much, “what crap do I have to deal with this time?” The fun isn’t necessarily the mechanic, it’s more earning the success by engaging with the learning curve. At least, that’s how it’s been for me.
I think I disagree there. At least to my understanding the goal of affixes is supposed to be to add challenge and to add variety from week to week. And a lot of the affixes miss the mark at both of those objectives.
With volcanic and storming especially, a lot of the time there isn’t really any counterplay involved. With things like visual ground clutter and spell effects, or not having any real room to maneuver, you spend a lot of the time just having to soak them. I can not see how that brings flavour OR challenge. It’s just constant irritation for the sake of it.
Some seasonals in the past have done a great job of adding both challenge and making the dungeons more interesting and a lot of them were well loved. So we already know that affixes players look forward to engaging with is perfectly feasible.
But Blizzards “Random b****** go!” approach just adds very minute challenge and variety at a huge cost of enjoyment and player engagement and it’s just not worth it.
It’s absolutely not hard to make a game difficult. Any game designer can achieve that. Difficulty is irrelevant if no one wants to play your game in the first place though. It’s making a game hard in a way that players enjoy that takes skill and creativity from the designers.
And the fact that Blizzard have proven that they can do this but openly stated that they’re just simply choosing not to is why I call their design philosophy lazy. Because they know creative affixes take effort, not because “wE dOnT wAnT 13s tO feEl haRdEr thAn a 14”
Urgh, spare me Ion. You can tell you used to be an attorney.
There is way too much discussion in this thread about a feature that clearly needs to be removed entirely.
Nobody wants to play the Affixes. Everyone wants to play Dungeons.
Complexity should be more in class design and rotation execution, and less in the combat mechanics. This would reward long term players of a character, and it would make it easier to get into new content or different endgame pillars since the burden of knowledge would relate to the class and spec, which is a more transferrable skill.
The only thing I like about affixes is that they bring value to some otherwise underutilized abilities - but that can just be solved in the encounter design space, Once the encounter designers are not hamstrung by oppressive affix mechanics potentially ruining their plans.
Another valid reason I despise affixes. There’s always garbage interactions with preexisting mechanics.
The amount of times we’ve seen affixes adjusted with hot fixes due to this just shows how little they test anything and they’re just tossing affixes into the mix so they can call it a day.
There are barely enough dispels available to deal with the dispels required, let alone on afflicted weeks. Why on earth did Blizzard add such a long cooldown if they wanted the players to have to deal with this much dispelling?
Affixes are garbage and they always have been. I never get any excitement from looking at what affixes are for a particular week, even if they’re easier ones. I don’t like them and I never have. The only affixes that are fun are good seasonals and blizzard hates those because making something fun goes against their philosophy I guess.
I’m with this guy.
And where did I say that affixes were loved? I said people enjoyed them, which a lot of people do. If you are calling for balances to the game based around the top 1% of players then you understand nothing about game balances.
I agree there are definitely valid criticisms towards affixes and the specific affixes that are in game, I also agree there are valid criticisms towards the game as a whole, but if you cant actually substantiate an argument as to why you dont like them further than “lazy game design” then I think its time you just accept you dont like that form of content and move on, the game physically can’t be balanced around every single players wants, thats just the truth of mmo’s.
And I am more than willing to accept peoples criticisms towards the game but if you just keep repeating the same point without any thoughts added or just regurgitating “well high level players say this” then you should just stop playing for a while and actually take a step back and decide if the game is for you, its perfectly fine if the game is not for you, but dont try and make it everyone elses problem and basically say “the game isnt balanced around me so its bad”.
I think it’s fair to say they add extra variety & challenge; definitionally so. What I think you’re hitting at here, that I actually super agree with, is the absurdity of the floor devolving into a nearly unintelligible Jackson Pollock painting. At some points, the extremes are simply too much. I have a problem placing the blame squarely on the shoulder of affixes, since the dungeons are equally, if not more, guilty. A solution to this is simply a more focused design. You seem to want a better measure of obstacle; something more curated, or fair. Regardless of my taste for affixes as they stand, I support that.
This could be true. I actually look back fondly on the Obelisks from BFA and have been less enthused with seasonal affixes since their departure. However, did everyone find this fun? I’m sure we could look at the numbers and come to a conclusion based on metrics. Assuming more keys were run, you might insist on the seasonal affix being the primary reason for the greater success, but I don’t think it’d be that simple. Personally, I think the purportedly low participation in keystones is a symptom of greater issues because it seems to be so in other areas. That being said, we could see a more organized and supplementary challenge born from the ashes of seasonal affixes. Instead of mere combinations, we could have multiple, extra layers added that actually belong together or complement each other.
While supportive, I do have a problem with this. Enjoyment isn’t exactly measurable. Like, how do you even begin to gauge this? The closest measure is by majority, but that’s arguably the path that’s lead WoW one degree of separation from disaster. You’re absolutely right, in that it takes all the skill and creativity in the world to make fulfilling content, but the problem with your framing is that it’s solely up to the developers. Entertainment is derived, but it’s not quite inherent to content consumed. Just look at engagement with Dragonflight. For all intents and purposes, this expansion is a fine list of changes players have been asking for since modern WoW came into full swing with Legion, yet no one’s playing it. I’d wager this is more due to perception of the game and the company.
You can fairly say you, yourself, do not find affixes fun. You can say others reportedly do not find them fun, but this is hardly a consensus. Let’s not minimize the difficulty of acquiring the best information here. This is especially true when you take into account their process of design and how it relates to feedback from players. The lion’s share is built on a simulacrum of the playerbase from years ago because they’re engineering content in advance to keep their schedule; a necessity for keeping everyone content. This is why I hesitate to refer to their design as lazy. If the game was solely mythic plus, I’d be right there with you, but we both know there’s so much more going on.
Hang-ups aside, I agree with some of this and would also like to see improvements. I’d be foolish to say that affixes are at their peak as they are. Blizzard can always do better.
I think people “say” they want the dungeons to be harder baseline and then will be the first crying about their bricked tyrannical key when they are stonewalled a boss.
I think people ought to engage in more introspection and come to a better understanding of why they feel the way they do. Not just regarding WoW, but in all aspects of their life. Part of this is removing yourself from the material causing you issues. That’s absolutely valid advice, which I echoed earlier in the thread.
Part of the problem is they just might not be able to fully articulate why they feel a certain way, but it’s still good for them to air it out. If they’re conceivably wrong, someone in our shoes can come along and give push back. This a valuable process. Even if we’re dealing with repetitive feedback, it gives a latecomer like me a chance to engage and see what I make of it. Perhaps other, better conclusions could be drawn. Either way, I think both sides could benefit from a little less obstinance, which seems to be the theme here.
Ah, jeez, you’re really making me ride the good faith line with that one. Undoubtedly, yeah, there would absolutely be people like that. I don’t think I get that feeling about anyone I’ve argued with in this thread, at least.
I think the core of that argument is ultimately cohesion. They want the mechanics to complement each other, rather than feel mashed together. I personally like the chaos of mythic plus, but I can understand why this would disturb someone who wants a more structured challenge. Though, I think there’s something to be said that people are pushing into the 30’s of keystones, despite the supposed unfairness of affixes. Is it really accurate to say the system is dysfunctional when people are achieving the same depths they always have? I’m sure someone would gleefully bring up the Exodia comp, but then we’re in the realm of class balance and away from affixes again. I don’t think the argument ever stays on affixes, despite everyone insisting they’re the problem. You might see people criticize single affixes, but they can never articulate what’s wrong with them as a category. There simply isn’t a principled argument there, except asking Blizzard to improve the system by virtue of always being able to do better.
Ask yourself this.
Have you ever seen a content nerf that wasn’t praised?
Players will never stop asking for things to be nerfed.
It’s true, every barrier to entry will be met with attackers and they’ll be happy when they see it fall.
I just find it hard to argue with the subjective pushes like, “this is unfun.” On one hand, I feel for them, I’ve also found WoW unfun at times and it sucked. On the other, are they really doing themselves the favors they need in order to complete the content? I know I’m low on the ladder, but I still haven’t hit that point where compartmentalizing problems and assessing them objectively hasn’t yielded success. I have a hard time believing that just disappears within 8 levels or so. It feels structured enough, from my point of view. There’s other things Blizzard could focus on instead of this, especially when they already gave it so much attention between 10.0 and 10.1.
The majority do not enjoy them. Enjoying the game despite affixes =/= enjoying affixes.
I didn’t say anything about affixes being a balance issue. I don’t see difficulty as the issue. Many people who criticize the affixes; like myself, are constantly having to reiterate on deaf ears that the difficulty is not why we dislike them.
Fair point. Without a poll or something you can only really go on anecdotal evidence. But the anecdotal evidence when you look beyond the scope of these forums and a few in-game encounters is pretty abundant. And Blizzard can clearly see there has been enough negative reception for them to have adjusted the affixes for season 2 and engage with content creators in interviews about the state of affixes. All I can say is that if there ever was an actual poll of people feelings towards affixes, I am absolutely certain enough to bet my last dollar (or yen I guess in my case) that overwhelming consensus would be disdain to at least mild indifference.
And if I’m wrong, I’d gladly eat humble pie.
And yeah, quite a few people who want affixes gone maybe do just want an easier game, in the same way that quite a few people who defend just do so because they seem to relish the opportunity to accuse other players of being bad. I’d like to see those people who accuse the top end players who aren’t happy with the state of affixes of needing to “git gud” though.
I’d accept this is a fair point on behalf of Blizzard, if not for the fact they’ve had 5 years of feedback to go on. Or they haven’t openly said “We think players taking off weeks is fine” when a game you pay a monthly subscription for should never want you to take an off-week. When they’ve had seasonals which had mostly very positive feedback for Blizz to then say “We’re not doing this again.”
They had the mechanics in place, tried and tested, to warm reception, and just thrown it in the trash anyway and then gave players more of the same.
Again, I don’t think you’re making the point that you think you’re making. Whether people play the game and do the content has no actual inference on whether they feel a certain system is good, or bad.
It’s especially true when we know significant chunks of people doing M+ have varied reasons for even doing it in the first place. For example, a lot of people who do M+, are simply raiders. They do not want to be doing M+, M+ doesn’t necessarily offer any actual enjoyment to them, but they need to do it as part of raiding. The idea that their participation somehow confers approval, or enjoyment of affixes, is patently ludicrous.
Then, on top of that of course, is the fact that it’s not like there’s an alternative to affixes. For anyone who wants to engage in any remotely challenging PvE content that doesn’t first including putting 20 people together, they HAVE to engage with M+ in its current incarnation. There’s no choice, or alternative involved. Taking their very participation as tacit approval, or endorsement, of affixes is again, silly.
And of course, of the people who are criticising affixes, even in this very thread, all of them are also playing in M+, and participating in it. It’d be extremely weird to count the stats of people who play M+, and use that to pretend it represents enjoyment, without first doing ANY attempt to filter out how many of that population actually supposedly have any opinion, let alone any positive opinion towards affixes.
And even from people who enjoy the concept of affixes, they can and will have issues and lack of enjoyment with the current suite of affixes, or the current implementation of affixes in WoW’s content. If you’re making the argument that there’s some majority of people who enjoy affixes, you’ll need to do far better to actually substantiate that claim.
Feel free to cite this clearly. Provide one example of one game, and go ahead and show any kind of stats that would actually show or prove that “almost all saying they are looking forward to” affixes. Are you looking into a game’s forum, an opinion poll, where is this supposedly “almost all” coming from?
Because so far, what you’ve actually done is completely make some vague stuff up.
Side note: I fully suspect that if you find a game where people do like affixes, or a system akin to affixes, what you’re actually going to find is people enjoying them in that game for many other factors. For example, people sign up to play a Roguelike knowing the kind of procedural content it involves, and of course that particular Roguelike might have interesting design aspects to it. THat’s not the same as WoW, an MMO, chucking in Afflicted, or Explosive, or Sanguine, or whatever. It’s entirely plausible you’ll find a game where people like the way THAT GAME does affixes, but they’d absolutely hate it if that same game did something akin to how WOW uses them in M+.
As I said, this is extremely questionable for several affixes. Just picking one example out, what additional complexity or things to take into account do you have as a DPS Warrior on Afflicted week? There’s literally no interaction you have with the affix, the only complexity or impact it has is on how long you might spend hitting the Sign Up button in Valdrakken. Volcanic, Afflicted, Incorporeal, Entangling, even Raging, Bolstering, and Spiteful, require very little thought, and add pretty much no complexity to most dungeon runs. Except for those few random timings where some of them can be just unfair. Which isn’t really “complexity”, cause you don’t end up having counterplay anyway.
I mean, I don’t know if you’re being very stupid, or very ignorant, but the lazy aspect of the design IS one of the things that causes frequent issues with affixes. We have extremely uninspired concepts like Afflicted, and Incorporeal (which are essentially the same concept as Explosive) for that reason. On top of that, many of the issues, hotfixes, and so on that have needed to come up for affixes - like Quaking needs to be disabled on bosses or mechanics it can’t co-exist with, or Explosive needing to be disabled on certain bosses and adds, or Bursting and Bolstering needing to be disabled on certain mobs, etc., etc., are all issues that come down to the lazy design.
When Blizzard sits there, comes up with an idea like “Every 20 seconds, do X”, without any consideration for how X interacts with classes, how X interacts with dungeon mechanics, that laziness ends up causing issues that we as the playerbase face. That kind of makes the laziness of the design itself not just a valid criticism, but an important core criticism that hits at an underlying issue that underpins the entire content system. It’s literally the same issue that leads to, say, Mass DIspel becoming too important in the dungeon pool. Or Augmentation in its current state.
I think I’m at the same point on the other side of the fence. If Blizzard collected information that was large in sample and was fairly reflective of the playerbase that also contradicts how I feel, I’d admit my wrongs.
I think git gud would be a bad way to engage with that and I would reserve that criticism for those who it’s appropriate for. My counter to higher rated players would be the reasonable heights of Blizzard’s balancing act. At some point, Blizzard does not balance the dungeons and affixes anymore; at some point, it is simply unfair. If I had to take a guess, the balancing stops shortly after the gearing curve ends because that’s when most players will stop engaging with the system. I feel this is a disconnect with talented individuals always striving to improve themselves and being met with obstacles that are no longer purely deterministic. The source material mythic plus is derived from is very much the same way. Instability is the nature of infinitely scaling content and I think players have to accept this.
This is precisely why I make that point. Look at that span of time. There’s no way Blizzard is collecting wholly consistent feedback from different generations of players; defining generation by expansion, let’s say. An easy example of this is Artifacts and the nature of borrowed power. This system was met with immediate praise despite its faults at the time. Fast forward to BFA and SL, suddenly borrowed power is taboo, and the conversation has evolved to such an extent that no one can even agree on a definition of borrowed power; flinging excrement at the slightest hint of its design. This rate of change undoubtedly stymies their ability to assess problems because we’re actually really bad at giving feedback. This very reasonable conversation might be an anomaly.
Well, I kind of agree with that choice. I actually like that I can do that in Dragonflight. I like that so little of this expansion is begging me to log in and I can do so precisely when I want to. One of WoW’s direct competitors, FFXIV, addresses their playerbase in a similar way and I think it’s a good design intent to have. However, if I’m to be fair, I think you mean to state your distaste for feeling dissuaded to play the game and Blizzard’s complacence with that has perturbed you. I can’t really rebut that and it’s an unfortunate relationship you’ve found yourself in with the game. The only conclusion I can come to is agreeing to disagree.
I think this is a mistake on their part. If they come across a good idea and have overwhelming evidence to such, they should make use of those resources again. I see no reason why they shouldn’t. This is why I love that they’re bringing old dungeons into the mythic plus rotation. I’d probably, equally, love it if they revived seasonal affixes that were popular and tweaked the system. I’m sure I’ve missed some good ones over the years too because I haven’t played every season they were around for.
I feel we’re mostly on the same page with acceptable progression for dungeons, but we have some pretty key philosophical differences affecting how we engage with the game and its staff, which is okay. Like I said, I’ll eat my words if Blizzard turns up with information that suggests the majority of players want affixes gone. The real thing I’m trying to avoid is having dungeons missing several dynamic, moving parts they were designed to have because that would be unfun to me. I’m very much in the realm of compromise, wherever that takes us.