Feedback: Mythic Keystone Dungeons

Laronia-lightbringer · January 17, 2019, 2:10pm

I figured I’d give my current 2 cents on what I currently think of M+. I will prefix this post that I haven’t really done all that much M+ in BfA compared to Legion, where I’d do M+ for well over a year quite religiously, though we were never really that great (topped at a +20 NL in the last season). I also didn’t really play 8.1 so I cannot comment on the changes to the dungeons. This will just be why I don’t play M+ as much as before.

Compared to Legion, I think BfA dungeons are too slow and too punishing. In Legion, there were enemies that were dangerous, sure, but BfA adds too much trash that has too many abilities to get a good flow going. Maybe it’s because I still don’t know BfA dungeons by heart, but it all just feels so slow. We have to pull one pack at a time lest we get overwhelmed quickly. As a healer main I feel weak. In Legion I could pop one or two cooldowns and my party would go from empty to full within seconds. I realize this has nothing to do with M+ per-se but it’s an important factor for me. I feel like I can’t really make much of a difference anymore with a well-timed big healing cooldown, or anything else. I’m just slowly watching bars go to full. Too slowly. Overall the pace just seems to have taken two steps backwards which makes the entire thing feel like a drag.

That said, I also feel there’s too many weeks where affixes are so much harder than the week before. This was already an issue in Legion and still continues here. There’s no ‘beneficial’ affixes of sorts, or ‘double edged swords’. It all just feels like a punishment if you fail, rather than a missed boost because you messed up. I’m playing the game to have fun, I don’t play it to get ruthlessly punished over and over.

I get that it’s supposed to be challenging but it just doesn’t feel as fun as before anymore. Class pruning, overal pace slowing, combined with affixes feeling like a drag has me down. Heck, I used to have some 25% haste, I hardly have 15% now. Same with Mastery. I get why it had to happen but I just feel so so weak now compared to before. My heals feel like wet noodles.

I want to enjoy the game, I want to enjoy M+ (heck, otherwise I wouldn’t have made Keystone.guru) but at the moment my friends have stopped/taken a break, and I’m in the same boat. The rewards also feel too much RNG. I’m not sure if they are more RNG than in Legion but it does feel that way. But perhaps that’s me.

Perhaps I should give the changes a go again soon but I wanted to get this out there so hopefully you can incorporate it in your feedback from players. Thanks.

Oh and, you could do so much more with rewards for M+ that don’t necessarily end up in more gear. Think Titles, more achievements, special cosmetic sets, toys, mounts, there’s really SO MUCH you can think of but there’s hardly anything. A missed opportunity to reward those that push keys/their class to the limits.

Aranthor-twisting-nether · January 17, 2019, 2:44pm

I agree with most people that commend here about King’s rest 3rd and 4th boss needs a nerf to the mentioned abilities and hp. Siege of boralus last boss, Underrot 2nd and 4th boss needs to be tuned down tiny a bit.

But what really pains me is class balance between classes. i understand there will always be better classes but did you have a look at guardian druid, protection paladin and restoration shamans and some of the dps specs like survival or feral? some people decides to play better classes but some dedicated to their spec players quit playing just because they feel it is not worth. please try to lower the gap between best classes vs worst. especially for tanks and healers.

For affixes:
Some of them really must be no combine like teeming explosive fortified.
Explosive should be one shotted at any difficulty. isnt that designed to just swich target ? some people can do nothing to them now.
Teeming is ok but some dungeons have random packs that i dont know why but its silly.
Quaking can be more frequent with way less hp dmg so it becames an interrupt to range dps affix?
Sanguine is bring your blood dk at the moment and i remind some adds dont move when they chain cast and it is painful to watch them. just nerf its radius or spawn time.
Bursting can deal a bit lower for more fun.

If you increase warforging and titanforging chance a bit more can deal with m+ rewarding feeling like in legion. we know it is nerfed in bfa.

And can you add something that we can lower the key by 1 with changing it ? No one wants to waste 45 min just to get another key. but at the moment we are forced to it.

Gurkê-twisting-nether · January 17, 2019, 2:58pm

Hey, thanks for this post.

Individual Dungeons

Atal Dazar
I think Atal’s tuning is one of the best right now. There are some bugs I’d like to see fixed like Feasting Skyscreamer on pillars being able to evade for minutes intead of resetting or just flying down, also being in combat with a reanimation Totem and randomly getting teleported around the dungeon shouldnt be a thing
Freehold
During tyrannical weeks with Captain Eudora active powder shot can feel overtuned, but this is a minor thing. During a recent run we had to kill this boss twice as after defeating it we didn’t get credit and had to wait quite long for it to reset and respawn.
Kings Rest
Spit Gold on The Golden Serpent feels really overtuned during tyrannical weeks, same goes for Severing Axe on The Council of Tribes. Kings Rest’s trash still feels overtuned and for higher keys groups get punished for not bringing a rogue as they’ll have to do more trash than needed.
Getting targeted by Constructs “Entomb” in Mchimba the Embalmer’s Room shouldnt lead to a player being unable to move / cast spells / do anything if that tomb is already occupied.
Burn Corruption has a very weird animation and feels like it’s spreading. It’d be nice if the animation could be a bit more defined.
Shrine of the Storm
Shrine propably is the hardest dungeon to complete in a random group. Everything in that dungeon is very punishing. Minibosses (Trash) feel overtuned.
Tidesage Council / Slicing Blast forces you to go with at least 2 melee dps, this feels really bad if you’d rather go with a few friends that are playing casters.
Mind Rend on Lord Stormsong is wayy overtuned as it now hits random targets. The first tick of damage (and propably the second one, too) shouldnt reduce your health to 10% on higher keys. As the first tick is unavoidable I don’t think it should deal full dmg or at the very least the targeted player should be able to know at least 2-3 seconds in advance.
Vol’zith the Whisperer feels like a really long fight and, again is very hard for groups without many interrupts as stuns can’t be used to interrupt Forgotten Denizen’s cast, thus enforcing bringing melees.
The change to Templar was on point.
Siege of Boralus
Sergeant Bainbridge only gets knocked back when standing in Cannon Barrage but Heavy Ordnance gets removed. Nothing bad, but I feels like getting hit by a bomb on the head should stun him just as much as walking into one.
The changes to terrifying roar feel a bit over the top, I don’t think that mechanic was too hard even before the change but it will of course help a lot of weaker groups.
Bananas on the other hand are hard to spot after they landed and make this part of the dungeon annoying.
Viq’Goth is a very, very long fight and having a lower cap on demolisher-tentacles spawn might make this fight feel a lot better.
Also, speaking for Pet Classes: Last platform is a pain. It’s the worst Boss area for any pet class in bfa and pets getting stuck should be fixed asap. It’s not fun to dismiss and resummon your pet when your group needs your damage the most.
Temple of Sehtrallis
the changes made to the dungeon feel really good. Great job
The Motherlode!!
Propellant Blast moves the azerite patches in a very strange way, even affecting patches that aren’t in the animation.
The Gatling Gun animation is a lot smaller than the actual hitbox, the animation should be adjusted.
Mogul Razdunk transitioning into P2 / P1 can be very inconsistent. Aside from Bolstering/sanguine weeks Motherlode was very enjoyable for me.
Underrot
The change to Blood Mirror and the trash before Elder Leaxa was much appreciated. Plants before 2nd boss, combined with the other trash feels like a lot of spells and casts to interrupt, this again favours bringing 2 melees for higher keys.
Tol Dagor
Very good changes, but ofc cannons were hitting a littlee too hard.
The Sand Queen sometimes resets if a hunter feigns death while facing her. This shouldnt happen, as Duck and Cover exists as an azerite trait and the rest of the group should still be in combat with the boss.
During Sanguine-weeks, with now having to play Jes Howlis 2nd Phase can bring a bad experience. If no Rogue or character with Blacksmithing / Inscription is in the group killing the adds during the boss will spawn sanguine and heal the boss back up. If these Mobs are part of the boss they shouldn’t spawn sanguine or at the very least be killable without engaging the boss or bringing a rogue. This won’t be an issue for an organized group but it sure was a nightmare with random other players.
Waycrest Manor
Getting a random path is fun - but it also doesn’t fit the mythic+ timed system as you don’t get to choose your prefered path and can’t plan ahead as much as is needed to complete high keys.
Waycrest manor feels very easy on some affixes but really hard and too punishing on others affixes.

General
I feel like the current m+ system isn’t the right way to go for the entire community.
Unless you jump in without any gear the rewards are super small, and the biggest reason to play for me is to get a higher score. Grinding azerite for azerite feels really bad, getting it for playing the game however feels really good. I can’t see why a mythic island gives more azerite than a high lvl M+dungeon.
For players that want to compete it’s good as long as raider-io exists. (but some classes get favored too much) - For more casual players it might be a bit worse, can’t really speak for them.
What however creates a really bad experience is, if these really competetive minded people and more relaxed players get mixed up, especially when some of these players are toxic in general.
I’ve often seen players leave a group, thus depleting a key, after a minor mistake.
There should be some kind of punishment for people frequently leaving keys of other players.
Other than that I think the ingame tool to find players to team up with should be reworked so you’ll have an easier time finding players of the same skill level. Some kind of ingame leaderboard would be a great addition aswell.

Narumi-sylvanas · January 17, 2019, 2:59pm

Edit: Also the levels between the levels that unlock the keys from the box. For example +8 Mythic, doesn’t give boost to unlock to +375. But you should make it to drop some more azerite and some item that you will need 2 pieces to make it into a +1 item for that specific level as the example was 370 > 375 ilvl. So basically for 375 as an example you will need to do either 5 x +9 Mytics or 10x +8 Mythics. In this way you will have no need to rush content because some people finish your content faster! It will put a break in how fast people will progress!!! DO IT!!! (Basically to not spam too many of those 2 pieces that make an item for that example of 370 to become 371 or how many you have to give +1 ilvl when you compose it / assemble it from 2 pieces, so it can work well and be scaleable you can have a diminishing return mechanism so for lower +Mythics to give +1 ilvl from 2 runs that will make lower ilvl gear upgraded and you won’t need to make 1000x items for each smaller or higher ilvl for that specific frequence / interval / range of ilvl that needs to be upgraded, like for example make the code to be scaleable by the division of the ithem level of the gear or something like that).

{
for(each ++5ilvl)
if [ 375 / 5 ] * ilvl 0.05 < displayed completed “number” of +Mythic Key
then (create for "y ilvl “number” +1 ilvl Chest Boost)
}

You get the idea! You can do it, just make it that people are not that spread all over the place and we don’t have from whom or don’t know if that person ilvl is fake and they have no skill. Just make it so that they need to work a bit longer for higher progression. Lower the process down, make them repeat the same content more! Make them stay in the damn pleace because they need to stay in the dungeon, not leave at first sight of things getting hard then not having people that you can finish the content with!!! Leaving a Mythic+ must be discouraged !!! It ruins the game for others!

Edit 2: Or just make it give +1 ilvl to the Chest on the supposed +Mythic level intended and give 0.5 / 0.33 / 0.25 / … / 0.15 / 0.125 / 0.075 for lower +Mythic completed.

Afkvenjbmuo-hyjal · January 17, 2019, 5:31pm

can you work more on difficulty than timer ? people will do harder key without be focus on timer and dont leave if someone fail during the run.
i think you should add more azerite power for reward too

Kohandrel-auchindoun · January 18, 2019, 9:36am

First and foremost: M+ is brilliant. It offers accessible, challenging PvE content. Thank you.

M+ as e-sport
M+ could be a great e-sport game. Personally, I love watching the MDIs. However, there’s way too much time going between each competition, the qualification structure is FUBAR, and the prize pool, particularly in comparison to the work required to participate, is ridiculously poor.

Please develop a way for third parties to set up tournaments, so that M+ (and arenas for that matter) can become an online and LAN e-sport that can be played in league or tournament formats frequently, not just when organized through your own organization once or twice a year. If you did that, we would see more pros, people who could actually make a decent living on WoW, and a broader interest in WoW. I think it would be great for the game and for the community (particularly the hardcore community).

Tuning
Please be more active with your tuning/tweeking of instances and classes. The discrepancy in difficulty between and the discrepancy in utility and defensives between classes is too big. Small and frequent changes to balance things out more would be greatly appreciated.

E.g. I can’t see a single week where Freehold is harder than King’s Rest. I’d even say that I can’t see a single week where a Freehold is harder than King’s Rest even if the former is two lvls higher.

Likewise, I can’t see a single instance or affix combination where anyone would benefit in any way from taking a arms or fury warrior over a demon hunter or rogue. Or a shadow priest over a boomkin or elemental shaman (btw, it feels great to be able to mention elemental shaman as one of the strong speccs).

Affix combinations
The difference between a good week (aka a push week) and a bad week affix-wise is huge. A group that can do a 15 in a tyrannical, volcanic, raging week may struggle to do a 12 in a tyrannical, bolstering, explosives week. This leads to people not bothering to play at all for several weeks - or to just push through one run per week for chest and key for next week.

Different in playstyle and challenges is great, but not when the difference in difficulty is so big - as long as the reward system is as it is and as long as completing in time is as important as it is.

You could/should consider introducing “positive” affixes. What can you introduce to add something fun and/or something that increases our power? Maybe you could do bolstering + explosives if you also have an NPC in the instances those weeks that provides a huge buff to our output?

Reward system
Not sure about this, but I do think that m+ may benefit from a reward system that more strongly incentivises actually finishing a run. Leavers is a problem. How can we stop people from leaving?

Zyæ-ysondre · January 18, 2019, 11:47am

Trash is way more important than it was in legion. And since it’s 90% of a dungeon, it’s good to have the most part of the strategy about them ('it also makes sense with affixes being rather for trash than bosses). Also they have way more abilities than legion trash which makes it interesting to deal with, i find it more dynamic. and it forces a better gameplay from people. You should not be able to get a decent/high key(associate with the reward) level if you can’t handle the game level you’re going in.

People need to realise m+ is about strategy to beat the timer. Skips & death run are a part of optimising routes. There will always be harder trash and lower difficulty trash. It’s a risk/reward ratio and learning process.

Rewards : Not on point at all when it comes to difficulty & scaling. I dont do m+ for loots at first. But playing for nothing during month = not interesting at all. I’m tired of chasing LEECH/AVOIDANCE/SPEED proc on my gear. I’ve had NO proc over 380 in m+ during the full season, and i do several dozens of them each week

KEYSTONE : How is a team supposed to improve if we constantly have to change key ? Keystone reroll removing was really a hit. M+ community is growing, is also e-sports & has a LOT of streaming. People want to push, have fun, try new strategies. The key system needs to be reworked, let us pick the key level based one some requirement, and what dungeons we want to push. Anyway when it comes to ranking, people will have to do all of them anyway.

BUGS : Fix them. Fix them. Fix them. Fix them. This is the main issue with so many keys…

BALANCING : Alright so, why is there still a difference between healers when it comes to dispell ? I have 2 pushing squad, and when i wanna do key outside of this with my friends, some abilities are a very bigdeal because some healers cant dispell diseases or curse or whatever). Make it the same for everyone.

Same speech about BATTLE REZ. Today we’re LOCKED into picking specific squad composition because we’re LOCKED with Battle rez. Make it a GROUP(and) RAID ability instead of class ability. Having to play with other people, instead of my friend, or having to change classes (which we did, but at some point, ppl will stop playing the game if they cant enjoy their class) is not what i’m looking for. We dont want to play with a DK or a druide BECAUSE of a battle rez. We want to chose optimal settings to go as high as we can. a battle rez has nothing to do with strategy/optimisation or skill. it should be a BASE skill for a group. There is a lot of possibilities here.

Not having a Boss-Wall like we had in legion (ex:Hyrja) is good because a dungeon should never be about ONE thing.
This is where BFA struggles, in m+ atm, one wipe, one boss reset, one mistake and you’re DONE.(beside Freehold, you cant have any mistake or your key is over). This is a bigger issue for pugs because they’d rather leave the key instantly.

Atal’Dazar : Left side of the dungeon is a no go every week. When players are not doing a side of a dungeon at all, it means it’s not tuned properly. M+ is about strategy and options.

The bigpack before the totem boss is also not tuned properly, people dont want to do it because it’s too painful.

Last boss : Too many HP in tyrannical / Spiders needs to have a spawncap. If a squad doesnt have immune, it’s a pain to deal with. (And both my char have immune so i’m not talking for myself)

Freehold : Eudora shot should have a bigger CD if you wanna keep the damage the same. Also fix the boss reseting for no reason when the tank gets bumped.

Freehold is a great example of tuning; there’s so many way to do the trash % and they all have cool abilities.

Sethralis : First boss badcombo needs to be adressed. Also pets are making it very difficult to anticipate cyclone strike since the boss keeps moving non stop.

Galvazz is overtuned. Damage in Tyra/grievous/Quaking are way out of hands.

King’s Rest : Spit gold ability ticking at more than 90-100k in 18+ when we have 150k HP. Makes no sense at all. Yea it’s “doable” but not for everyone and it costs you everything if you manage to succeed. The next event is also slightly too strong on fortified compared to Tyrannical.

Route is nearly impossible to change, always the same, no options and timer is super short.

3rd & Last boss are way too long. U need between 12 & 14 minutes to complete 2 boss with one mini boss in between. Severing Axe on the 3rd boss is also way too strong without immunity. Should be slightly lower (~15%). Or you can simply reduce the amount of tornados on the ground to let the damn healer do his job.
healing is already the most difficult job in m+, add overtuned abilities & affixes and you’re getting them mad for nothing, this is not gameplay and skill if you cant play.

Shrine of the storm : Maybe the most/2nd most punishing dungeons of the game. SO MANY TRASH. I like trash strategy but come on, there’s way too much. Timer is SUPER CLOSE especially because 2nd & last boss HP are WAY TOO HIGH. and there’s no way around it. Also fix them mob evading/TPING yourself for no reason

Boralus : Beside the last boss taking way too long and the spotter abuse on last boss, i think this is one is nearly fine.

Mothermode : There’s a lot of options in Motherlode and i like it. Tho the 2nd boss has never been working properly & has disproportional amount of HP .

Last boss also has way too much HP and his gatling gun animation could be reworked to have better visual graphics.

Underrot : like motherlode, i really enjoyed the tweaks done to UR and there’s a lot of options in trash. I think the 2nd boss could use a bit of rework on the tantrum, running around like idiots to chase a tic spawn isnt really fun especially once u’ve burned everything

Tol’Dagor:

Another good dungeons imo, lots of options with one best (Cannon). Sand Queen may have a bit too much HP. Resets if you’re to close to a wall/tree (right side of his spawn…). Changes applied to TD like UR has been good.

Waycrest Manor : My favorite, because this dungeon is BEAUTIFUL.
And yet i barely do it because it has some of the most punishings mecanics with nearly all affixes (and also a lot of BUGS, with walls/aggro from underground etc)
Every affix is a hell with this dungeon : Grievous/sanguine/quaking/Explosive/necrotic. There’s no SPACE AT ALL.

This one conclude the dungeons part but also introduce the affix part

Grievous : Should not trigger at 90%, in what universe 10% HP loss is considered a Grievous wound. it also shoud STOPS out of combat if you wanna keep it that way.

Explosives : a one shot should be the standard on explosives, you cant afford 2GCD on it. A cap aswell on how many can spawn.

Sanguine : Remove the stacking or lower the healing/dmg but more importantly, the size of sanguine is too big especially in a lot of BFA dungeons.

Tyrannical : Scaling is completely off imo. some boss have way too many HP, a boss should not take more than 4 or 5 mn in the worst scenarios with multiples event/phases.

Fortified : With bfa being much more focused on trash and abilities of trash (i think it’s positive) this may need a slight nerf, like 5%. Tank should not think about running all the time for their life. You know damn well timer forces us to do massive pulls.

Forcestops-bloodhoof · January 18, 2019, 3:48pm

feels like it needs a dungeon only dmg buff for specs that have little utility to compensate

Speedy-moonglade · January 18, 2019, 5:11pm

Season rewards and generally rewards that make it worth push higher keys. An achievement to get every +15 key in time is not rewarding. Give better rewards for mythic plus and people will enjoy it more than arenas. Rewards should be 1 mount for all +15s in time and a recolor or better version for all +20s in time? Or a good looking transmog, not something you would never use.
(The mount should be an original. Please stop re-skinning mounts).

Some dungeons just have very tight timers and some don’t. Some dungeons like Tol Dagor are extremely easy to 2 chest and some dungeons like King’s Rest and Shrine of the Storm and Siege of Boralus are super tight on timers. Just 1 mistake on these 3 dungeons causes the key to deplete as a result. It’s completely understandable that a key gets depleted at a high level for 1 mistake, but this should be equal across all dungeons. You should simply increase the timer for those dungeons.

Also, Kings Rest 3rd boss (the Council fight) needs to be nerfed as for damage and HP. It simply takes WAY too long compared to other boss fights. Last time I timed +16 kings Rest we spent like 6-7 minutes just on that 1 boss alone.

Affixes: some weeks are extremely difficult and some weeks are extremely easy. You should either have a scoring system that rewards score based on the highest key done for that dungeon for that specific affix. For example:

If the highest key done for a certain affix is a +20, that should be the ceiling for scores for that affix and everyone else’s score scales based on that score.
If the highest key done the following week for the next affixes is a +18 that should become the ceiling for that key again.
+18 on a harder affix should equal to a +20 on an easier affix if those are the highest keys done for those specific affixes.
Right now, everyone wants to play Volcanic/Raging/Tyrannical week or Skittish/Bursting/Tyrannical and just afk the other weeks because it’s not worth playing. I want to do keys everyday if it’s worth my time.

Lastly, loot should have a higher chance to Titanforge/Warforge on higher keys. Getting a 370 when timing a +18 or higher key feels very disappointing.

1 more thing: Shroud should not be mandatory for pushing high keys. This causes a lot of melee classes to go out of the picture as you can only have 2 melees in a group of 5 people and Rogues have become a MUST for many dungeons.

Stop catering to casuals who always complain about key difficulty and reward people who play this game at a high level. This game needs to give unique rewards to those who spend a lot of time on it.

Jhot-pozzo-delleternità · January 18, 2019, 5:16pm

Hi, keep in mind this words are just my opinion, you can agree or disagree with me is fine. Im a Semi-Hardcore player, i came back on wow on legion and loved the idea of m+ scaling etc, on Bfa i like the overall m+ dungeons even more, because i think they are more difficult and you have to respect alot of packs in the game with proper stuns/interrupt or you just wipe. The challenge is good, is good try to push 20s+ but i think it will be even better if after all the effort (food/pots/flask/time) something like mounts/trasmo will be a fair rewards at the end of a season.

So my suggestion is:

-all +10s in time rewards : maybe 1 pet and the achi
-all +15s in time 1 trasmo set in a color way and 1 mount (maybe) + achi
-all +20s in time 1 trasmo set(different colorway)+weapon trasmo + 1 mount + achi

second suggestion:

find a way to let us “delete” a key and get a new one, maybe you can give 2/3 reroll evry reset, or maybe you can just use the titan residium vendor for trade your key with another random key(can’t roll the same)

third suggestion:

make high m+ more rewarding, first of all 15s should drop more AP and the AP should scale better on higher keys, the titan resudion from the weekly chest should scale better a 15s and a 20 give almost the same and that’s kinda odd, increse the chance of titan forged on higher keys.

OT: Merg Nemesis and Pozzo dell’eternità they are both dead italian server so a merg is needed <3

Im sry for my english, i hope you can understand pretty much evrything, peace <3

Hotarå-kazzak · January 18, 2019, 7:21pm

Hello! Please let us delete keys again, the game was a lot more enjoyable to play when it was an option, instead of doing the same dungeon three times in a row. The game is a lot more active when we can to some extent control our own fate instead of relying on RNG.

Superkara-argent-dawn · January 20, 2019, 12:23pm

I’m not going to write a massive post like the people above as I feel they have hit on all the key issues really well. (Great posts team) (I also don’t do the high keys they do)

Just one thing I really wanted to reiterate.
Getting the same dungeon multiple times in a week, is really frustrating.

Please add some protection, reduce the chance of that dungeon until I’ve done all the others.
I find myself in freehold and wacrest manor a lot, be nice to get different keys, can’t remember last time I was in tol dagor or TOS.

Aerythlea-2611 · January 23, 2019, 11:11am

Thanks for all the great feedback in this thread. There’s quite a lot to dig through here, but certainly some very common themes. Over the next couple of days we’ll be compiling the feedback and forwarding it over to the US for discussion.

Thanks again.