I don’t think M+ improved very much with BfA. It feels less fun in many ways and in large part it’s the affixes. I thought somewhere I heard at blizzcon or otherwise that they were planning to change all if not most of the affixes. For people like myself who have pushed m+ since the start of legion(did first mdi) even before raiderio. It has become very redundant(having the same affixes for 3 years now) and adding in an affix that is there EVERY WEEK, that is as annoying as infest almost requiring an addon to plan for (and that changes position every week and interacts awfully with some other affixes). I had hoped BfA would be a breath of fresh air for m+ but instead it’s more of the same and a lot of it negative. As of this post 4/5 members of my group have unsubbed, their feedback is that it’s just not fun anymore, and is an exercise in tedium. This is a game I have played for 14 years and absolutely fell in love with m+. But with lack of rewards from m+, uninteresting azerite for many specs even with the patch, m+ seems like an afterthought. In a game that insists on reinventing the wheel every expansion the fact that m+ was left largely unchanged except for (in my opinion) unfun changes and additions is a big disappointment. Since this is a m+ post I won’t comment on class design but it illustrates to me further that design for this xpac feels like a step back from legion, and at best stagnated.
A few side notes, I despise kiting by the tank, that is the most unfun degenerate gameplay in the world, and if you have ran any decently high keys recently you know because of the tank changes in BfA it just becomes a kitefest. This is an mmo with the trinity of roles, our groups tank should be able to tank the mobs, not run from them. Perhaps the argument is, we are pushing higher than intended? Then why not tell us that. Design decisions and blizzards thoughts towards certain gameplay don’t need to be shrouded in mystery. Which comes to shroud, since the second mdi it has been mind blowing to me that rogues are the only class with mass stealth. There isn’t even a reason for this that makes any sense.
Hopefully some changes are in the pipeline for m+ Affixes and class design in general.
I’ve been playing Path of exile recently and the way their devs react to community outcry/feedback and make changes is such an amazing breath of fresh air, other companies could take note of, and truly build some community goodwill like they have.
I don’t know if they’ve fixed this, but Explosive orbs have always spawned from other Explosive orbs, further compounding the problem.
I really do like Infested as an affix if for no other reason as it heavily changes strategy on a case by case basis. I think MDT being so required now has more to do with the sheer quantity of trash that needs to be pulled. Last expansion, Lower Kara was the main outlier with regards to quantity of trash, and I never ran it enough to get a good feel for what I should pull and what I shouldn’t. But in BFA, we have a couple instances that have that level of trash. It’s just too hard to keep track of the kill count requirements as someone who doesn’t spend hours and hours in M+'s every night.
If my 380ish geared characters can’t get through a +10 on time without resorting to kiting, the instances were surely designed with it in mind. There’s not much more in gear upgrades I can get from either the dungeons themselves or the weekly chest without getting lucky, so it would be rather disturbing if I was told +10’s are too high for me.
M+ mobs just need to do less melee damage. Rebalance the keys so that trash does less damage but has more health, to account for the tank actually standing in to fight rather than resorting to kiting.
I think anything can spawn an orb, its funny when mobs that get consumed by other mobs or are fighting with something in the back ground spawn orbs… its like there for roleplaying but ends up bolstering or skrewing you lol
Yea they definitely have not fixed explosive spawning explosive, I forgot to mention it and it’s a huge problem. Just keep adding dice rolls until it’s fun again is what this xpac and affixes feel like.
Edit: Forgot to mention teeming patterns being randomized too, what is up with that? That affix is already hard enough without being different every time in Atal and Underrot, probably others as well.
As a new player and healer it can be overwhelming. I don’t want to be the cause of poor performance and at the same time I want to have a chance to participate, learn and get better.
I recently joined a guild that has given me the opportunity to run some higher keys. I was just starting in on the second affix (level 4-5) and then all of a sudden I was running third affix dungeons (level 7-9).
I was able to make on time runs right away, but I had no idea I was capable of that.
From a newbie perspective, there is very little to introduce you or ease you into running dungeons without feeling like you may “ruin” others keys.
I wonder if there might be some consideration for a more crafted learning curve.
I thinks there may be some solutions to consider:
Add an additional non-affix tier…
Mythic 2 and 3 have no Affix and only increase damage/health
Mythic 4 and 5 introduce the first Affix
Mythic 6 and 7 introduce the second Affix
Mythic 8 and 9 introduce the third Affix
Mythic 10 has all 4 Affix
Consider some tools to improve matchmaking based on progress, run history, class and gear level
Progression Queue - Groups forming to work on content they have yet to complete, but have completed the prior tier
Timed Queue - Groups forming to work on content they have completed but are trying for time
Note: I am not suggesting a LFD style matchmaking but simply allowing for filtered listings and perhaps a more generic Player Looking for Group interface
Sandbox mode helps new players too
Like the arena matchmaking system with no consequences, giving players a chance to try a Mythic+ level with little to no consequences would allow us to see what we are capable of without causing the loss of keys or time for our fellow players.
We had this in Legion and it was completely free. +2 only adds 10% damage and health to the instance, but is otherwise a 0 without Fort/Tyr. Below the 5-7 range, those affixes do very little to adjust the dungeon other than making the trash or bosses last a bit longer.
I do think that having a no loot “skirmish” mode would be an interesting addition for teams to practice in, though.
I didn’t play in Legion, so I am not sure how it played out. As a new player having success at +2/+3 level would encourage me to try a +4 with an Affix. It may not add a ton to the actual game play, but it would server to smooth out the transition.
That’s my theory anyway. Did that prove to be true?
No. It was the opposite. The dungeon was a cake walk at the 2 and 3 level and then at 4 (or 5) end up with a rude awakening of a wrench like sanguine or bolster (like now). The 7 affixes were the same (adjusted for bfa). Then at 10, you’d get the Fortified and Tyrannical which was enough to stone wall a lot of people.
With the 10 affixes at 2, you have to strategize for longer trash or longer bosses right away and in my opinion, this is significantly smoother as the key levels increase. Of course until +10 and infested which is a bit of a jolt still. Hopefully the new seasonal will be slightly less involved and prohibitive.
I think I understand the plan here, they want to have people stop pushing M+ completely because they’ll be too busy farming islands and WQs for AP since the only rewarding content needs to be stuff that everyone can do and bores you to death.
BFA dungeons are actually 100% terrible compared to legion m+ dungeons. Way to much trash forcing even less specs to be taken. Balancing in general for classes is pretty trash this expansion. Like how does MM not have a stun when DH’s have a stun,talented immunity, short DR mobility, purge , insane aoe insane st. I think thats the biggest thing i hate about bfa is the class balance in dungeons. Like some classes were literally gutted and some classes remain basically untouched like DH. actually i think they got MORE than they had in legion. It’s okay though im perfectly fine doing my 1 +10 for the week since I hardly play this game anymore.
The first few weeks had a lot of people just jump off wanting to push because of how broken some of them were. I think we’ve seen more nerfs to affixes and dungeons within season 1 than we have throughout all of Legion. Even with the nerfs, I’d say BfA M+ is still probably overall harder than Legion.
I think their current design for +10 affixes are pretty mediocre.
They don’t do the “job” that tyrannical and fortified did. Infested did nothing to increase the dungeons difficulty, it just made the timer more difficult. I get the logic behind why fort and tyrannical were moved down to +2 because they were huge difficulty spikes, but now the single highest difficulty spike is +7 affixes. Infested just kills the timer, at a point where the timer is no longer relevant for the majority of players because at +10, regardless if you complete it on time or not you get the max end of week reward.
I think there’s minimal reward, because of the gear squish and iLevel. I’m 355/356/359 on my 3 characters right now. I don’t have time to do Heroic or Mythic Raids. The world quests don’t reward anything hardly over 325-340. So my options are LFR (LOL) and Mythic+
I ran my first Mythic+ 3 weeks ago, I haven’t played since 2014. It was a +4 Freehold (I wanted the iLevel items). It almost went flawless. As someone who hadn’t played (competitively) and raided for over 40 hours in college and afterwards for almost 9 years, I have met more bad players, than ever in TBC/Cata/WoTLK/MOP/etc. At this point, I’ve joined more groups on three toons that have quit, died or wiped 5-30 times on +4 Mythics than I have completed. 13 disbands. 7 completed instances.
The last 3 +4 Shrine’s (For Item Upgrades) I’ve done have all disbanded right before, or right after the 2nd boss. It’s super hard to find “committed” Mythic players (that aren’t pushing 10-20+), especially knowing that I couldn’t handle a +7-+20 and I don’t want to pay anyone to carry me.
In legion 2-3 had no affix.
4-6 had 1 affix.
7-9 had 2 affixes.
10+ had 3 affix with the third being either tyrannical or fortified.
For me personally, it was definitely more encouraging when I started doing keys back in legion. It eased me in and made me want to see how far I could go.
You mentioned hearing from Healers of other specs, so I’d like to chime in on behalf of Holy Priests (Though granted, I don’t have a lot of playtime when it comes to the BFA M+ scene).
During Legion, I found myself hitting the wall of unavoidable deaths from lack of major defensives at around +18-21’s T, depending on the dungeons. Desperate Prayer only gave us an HP boost, but often times that wasn’t enough without finding some non-elite mob to sit there and wail on us for Focused Will (A very cheesy strat that only worked in very specific circumstances). In BFA, we’ve been given the option of getting the Desperate Prayer CD reduction if we talent into it, but at the cost of Feathers - our only movement speed increase. It would be a difficult decision… if I was getting to that point of OHKO abilities.
Right now in BFA M+, I find my very VERY low damage thrown out while not healing is what will eventually get me snubbed from groups. (Not to mention the lack of damage reduction on others)
ST healing is also very mana intensive and caps out very low. Had a +10 Fort KR Shadow of Zul where after the Tank’s CD’s were over, all I was doing was delaying his death for as long as I was able - I can’t imagine what that would be like on say, a +15.
My overall impression is that like Legion, we -could- do Mythic+, but once you get high enough you will stop seeing us around entirely. Which is depressing, but not altogether unexpected.
All anybody ever does on Fort Shadow of Zul is delaying the tank’s death. The mob is the shining example of Blizzard forgetting how unavoidable damage scales in M+, and is probably the single most difficult yet stupid part of M+ in total.