Do I really need to say any more? Low level alt runs can be horrible for seasoned players in a PUG, and before anyone says learn to play the game, I thought blizz wants to make this as playable for everyone as they can. I think a bit of your more casual players need that easier ramp up to the higher levels to make it accessible. I never really got why they did the whole M+ level crunch. 20+ levels was fun for everyone. Possibly offer bonus rewards/incentive for going over 20?
Preferably I’d like to go back to when Mythic+ didn’t exist, it’s needlessly turned this game into a game where everybody sweats way too hard to be optimal. It’s thoroughly killed my enjoyment of pretty much all PvE content and has convinced me that PvP of all things is less toxic and sweaty than trying to time a key.
They were clear on why they did the level squish because +20s in DF S3 was far too rewarding for the difficulty, whether you agree with it or not. Blizzard even further reiterated that recently by stating that challenge and rewards should be directly correlated.
I see the two very connected because it wasn’t just a squish. They squished it and tuned things in a way to be more balanced between difficulty and reward. A +20 in DF S3 is not the same as a +10 now. Which is a response to the OP stating that they liked DF S3 the most.
To me then, it seems that the rewards themselves should be changed. I see that they’re already going to be rewarding more for a +12 right now when this could have been done with the more gradual M20 learning curve.
The crazy thing is, I feel like TWW +10s are far easier than +20s in DF, at least for season 1. Granted TWW +10s are easier to fail with Challengers Peril, but the bosses/trash are easier.
It’s the difficulty jump at +12 that has me turned off, I feel like this could have been more spread out over a few levels, instead of a hard wall. I only pug my groups, so I get that the +12 wall may not exist in the guild/friend run groups. But it is a serious wall in the pug world.
People have a difficult time understanding relativity and how we started this season with a 34 ilvl gap from pre-season to max for tier when we always had a gap of 27 ilvls in the past.
People were also constantly comparing S1 difficulty with S3 difficulty when we don’t start S1 with previous season’s tier, trinkets, and embellishments.
+20s during DF S1 had Thundering, Fortified/Tyriannical, and 2 other affixes. Was definitely tuned harder than +10s are right now.
SL S1 was harder on tanks than TWW S1 and DF S1 was harder on DPS and Heals.
DF S1 +20s were absolutely harder than TWW +10s. Even beyond gear scaling this is true, keys that would earn you title in DF S1 aren’t even close in TWW.
SL S1 was more brutal than DF S1 imho. Nobody even pushed keys on Tyrannical weeks.
DF S1 was only hard because they went and made the healing checks insanely hard and this was before all the healers got +30% single target healing buffs.
Yeah, pretty much everyone who runs keys consistently agree that SL S1 and DF S1 was easier than this season. The people who keep claiming that this season is the hardest are the ones who barely touch the content or didn’t even play previous season 1s to compare.
Kite meta because of how hard trash was hitting tanks.
Prideful seasonal affix that required routes to be perfect, including DPS face pulls.
Tyrannical got multiple nerfs.
1 wipe on a boss was a dead key because you needed Prideful + Lust on some of them.
DF S1:
Tanks felt fine, but unavoidable AoE was through the roof.
Major healing checks on bosses and trash.
DPS checks on multiple bosses.
Thundering seasonal affix that requires high mobility during mechanic overlaps.
GB is +2 key levels ahead 5/7 dungeons.
CoT and SV are +1 key level ahead of the remaining 5.
I’m basing this on regional rankings based on where a GB +12, for me, is ranked 2,875 and a +13 NW is ranked 3,164. +13 DB and Mist are ranked 7.5k+.
My CoT +13 is ranked 2,815 which is just slightly better than the GB +12.