Fantastic! I hope that scaling will be adjusted for both tyra and forty to be live at the same time, but otherwise this is such a fantastic change and making 2-11 keys different is also I think is really cool and lets you mix stuff up a bit!
Great changes! x100 better than previous iteration. Looking forward to testing them!
I think you seriously need to reconsider making Fortified/Tyrannical permanent at +10.
One thing I will say for Fortified is it does at least impact trash pulls and packs and therefore does mix things up… on the weeks it’s active or not…
The thing is about boss wipes, it that’s it’s a binary pass/fail. If you get the boss down to 0.0001% that’s just as bad as 99% health. In fact it’s worse the better you do, because you’ve wasted more time and cooldowns (dying after 5 seconds wastes less time than after 2 minutes 19 seconds).
Tyrannical also adds nothing interesting, it just makes bosses damage sponges and makes them take longer, and means almost any mistake = death. The bosses are not more engaging, doing the same thing for 3-4 minutes is not more interesting than 1-2 minutes.
Meanwhile trash packs are not binary pass/fail. If I kill a nasty mob the pack is easier on attempt 2.
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i mean the Idea is nice. but on a +12 Key to have forti & tyrannical + 20% more health and damage sounds like pain… how long will high health bosses will take with additional 50% health and +35% damage?.. if people remember back in shadowlands on tyrannical Mists of Tirna first boss - if you took longer then 6min on the first boss you could leave the dungeon because you wasnt able to time the dungeon anymore… now he will have with xal’atath’s Guile additional 20% Health.
I mean we will see when its goes live hows the tuning is of everything but all those affixes just say one thing to me: Already unfriendly PuG Dungeons will now have in addition “go in first boss go out” feelings on mid keys. Rest in Peace Pugging finally …
What also means the in future existing Meta will be even more used than in retail right now because of the cherrypicking to make things easier even on lower keys. (ye +12 is in the beginning a “High” key, but we all know it will be after 1-2 Month a semi mid key)
Excellent changes to mythic+ system. Thank you very much. I was on the verge of quitting, and I’m gonna blast keys instead now. There was no worse feeling then “this week is dead” for week over week for m+. Now we can play any time, any day. Thank you.
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Getting rid of the weekly DMG-modifiers esteblished with the recent beta changes is great news!
The new system looks OK/fine at a first glance. My only ‘concern’ is the difference in the +2 options of Xal’atath’s Bargain:
- XB: Frenzied just happens passively, no player interaction no chance on positive a outcome
- XB: Ascendent can be used by the player as a gain for yourself
I don’t expect this to be a make or break difference. However, it still feels a little odd to have more rewarding possibilities in Ascendent weeks; especially after you mention removing ‘push weeks’ was one of your targets 
So much better than the previous affixes announced! 
3 Likes
Honestly having both tyrannical and fortified active at the same time makes no sense to me. If they don’t fulfill the purpose of offering some variance from week to week and just act as a boost to scaling then you can simply remove both and change scaling.
As for the ascendant bargain… i thought that it would be some orbs that players had to intercept before they reached enemies and that sounded okay, but apparently is a bunch of nameplaetes with a cast bar that requires some damage and CC. Please, don’t do that.
In my opinion affixes should not be intrusive or disruptive, they should just be something that happens in the most natural and passive way possible.
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Very well done, this is exactly the kind of change that the m+ system needed
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Their goal is to challenge you with a difficulty boost at +10 because that is where the traditional rewards end with the portals. While I agree its not the most elegant solution but they need to tell players ingame what they can expect going into a +10. Everyone is familiar with tyra and fort so using that makes sense there is no need for explanation.
Its the first iterations so I expect them to smooth out the whole going from +9 to +10 and +12 breakpoints. They should just classify keys above 12 something completely different to avoid using 20% scaling modifiers, and treat keys 10 and 11 as the endgame of the regular M+ system
Make Challangers Peril with +10 or +12. I see it, that flaming and toxic comments are coming… “Why are you dead again”… This will not do a flavour for playing middle-skilled ppl.
If the difficulty of the keystones stay similar to what we have now, namely a few weeks into the season once gearing is done a large percent of players get their +10 done, the whole 15s death timer makes absolutely no difference. When was the last time you did a +8 and you failed because of a death timer, or even a 10. This just does not happen ever.
Tbf if it does make a difference begs the question why is it in there to begin with, but I just dont get how can anyone see this being a problem. Its a non issue is these essentially weekly keys.
Overall I feel that the proposed changes represent a positive step forwards in the overall design of affixes for M+ certainly in comparison to previous affix sets or the last proposal - that said there is still a lot of "devil in the details.
For context I mainly do M+ keys in the 8-10 range to fill my vault currently.
+2 Affixes
Frenzied
This affix is fairly passive and doesn’t offer any gameplay opportunities. AT lower keys it’s likely to be unnoticeable.
Ascendant
The affix generate a lot of extra nameplates this generate visual clutter which will generate additional cognitive load. This also runs counter to one of the state goals for the affix changes which was to reduce nameplate clutter for affixes.
The need to deal with it via cc or interrupts plays into the strengths of high level organized groups - in more mainstream (esp PUG) groups where coordination and use of cc/interrupts is often inconsistent - this affix will be quite punishing.
One specific issue I noticed is that the affix seems to spawn about every 60 seconds which is faster than the cooldown on my main spec (protection Paladin’s) AoE crown control ability (which is 90 secs) - this means that groups will likely need to coordinate their use of abilities - a very big ask for PUG groups with no voice comms.
Overall the affix seems to be more designed for the higher level players who will play at +12 and above and less so for lower tier groups - and in my opinion fails to deliver on the goal to target affixes at the playerbase who mainly focus on lower level keys.
I feel this is particularly the case for players who play in the +2-+6 range, and the level of difficulty posed by the affix will be a potential barrier to new and returning players seeking to transition from M0 into mythic plus.
Affix Balance
The two current affixes seem to be at polar opposites in terms of difficulty for players in the lower tiers of affixes with one being almost “invisible” and the other somewhat punishing for players in lower keys.
While they do achieve the goal of creating a different feel from week to week this difference is entirely in difficulty rather than how the dungeon will be approached.
Overall I feel that these affixes are not well suited for affixes being that are introduced at +2.
+4
As someone who does a lot of mainstream keys I have never found the fortified/tyrannical rotation to meaningfully affect gameplay (unlike high key levels). While delaying them to +4 isn’t harmful - in my view these affixes do not deliver on the goal of varying the feel from week to week., not do they contribute to enjoyment of M+, and I question if they are worth the (likely) design complexity they add.
+7
While a 15sec penalty seems innocuous at first glance a full wipe will now mean 1min 15 secs of lost time. The +7-+10 range is one where rage quitting even viable keys is rife and such a high penalty will IMO increase levels of quitting (and other forms of toxicity) markedly in PUG groups which are a large proportion of the +7-+12 range.
Overall I feel that this affix would be better introduced at +15 and above where coordinated groups mean that quitting generally only occurs by a group agreement.
+10
Having both fort and tyrannical all the time essentially just means that +10 will have a difficulty cliff.
How much this matters will depend on how the reward drops are tuned (which we haven’t seen) so it’s not possible to comment on the impact of this - beyond questioning if having the same two affixes week by week really delivers anything (beyond design complexity for the devs) that tweaking the key scaling would not do.
+12
I don’t really play at the level so I don’t have a strong opinion on Xal’atah’s guile, but the removal of affixes that seem to be mainly targeted at players who play at above this levels is a odd choice.
This is a direct consequence of the way that the design of Ascendant plays more into the strengths of players who play at above this level than below.
Summary
Overall I feel that the stated design goals of the new affix proposal is sound, but I don’t think the proposed +2 affixes are really designed to play into the strengths of players who play at this level of key, instead being more suited for higher level players
The removal of affixes at +12 and above presents an opportunity to use affixes to focus of adding fun for players who play at lower levels but neither of the current affixes really do that with “frenzied” being too passive to be even noticed in lower level play and “ascendant” imposing requiring far more coordination than is the name in lower key levels.
Personally I’d like to seem more impactful but less frequent affixes similar to Seasonal affixes like Encrypted.
For example Instead of Ascendant spawning a tonne of nameplates and requiring stops, I’d originally envisaged something more like a bunch of orbs we have to run through before they expired - provided this wasn’t too frequent (think 3-4 times a dungeon) this could offer a fun minigame with a nice reward for success. Without the competitive needs of higher keys simply losing out on a buff that could help time a marginal key - would be punishment enough for failure.
This sounds potentially pretty annoying to me, but we’ll see how it plays.
Overall positive changes.
I really like Xal’atath’s Bargain: Ascendant as it “forces” you to adjust your gameplay.
Xal’atath’s Bargain: Frenzied on the other hand is imo missing the mark again.
Punishing tanks and heals while rewarding dps.
I would love to see affixes that are require dps to care.
Random example:
there is an absorb shield that has to be removed via damage in X amount of time.
If not Y happens.
You could argue that Xal’atath’s Bargain: Frenzied is quite similar.
Yet the “curse” part of the affix punishes tank and heal regardless of dps focusing those mobs/npcs.
I am so happy! this is such a great response to feedback and such a healthy change to the game, It is making me look at the WoW team as people who are not afraid to explore or discuss new ideas and concepts for the game and it also shows the wisdom to listen and respond to feed back in the best manner, im sure that going forward with this type of a healthy mentality will make the entire game much more fun and much more loved. gg wp thank you so much <3
This is a good move overall but I fail to see the logic on some points.
Blizzard assumes that players who do keys before 12 are not pushing, that is absolutely wrong. They do it at their time and level.
Blizzard also assumes that the players that do the most number of keys won’t get bored with no affixes. I have a hard time believing this. Some will, most won’t.
And then, Blizzard assumes that players who do low level key will have a clue with the new affixes system, and that is wrong too.
So in Blizzard mind, and probably in a lot of streamer minds, there is 2 categories of players : the “elite” who can have a specific system - because they’re worth it? - and the rest of the pack who will have to struggle with complex system which will be underdocumented on internet (compare the number of lvl7 key vs lvl 17key videos on youtube). And they created a big-12-level-key-step between the twos.
The current system has flaws but it is somewhat universal. I don’t think having a two-speed game is the answer.
We need to look into Tyra/Fort scaling because if it goes as it it’s now, we will have some crazy stuff, especially with the new +12 affix. Ideally key pushing should be gradual increase in difficulty, but as it stands now, the difficulty will go from a hilly trail to free rock climbing in couple key levels.