People were trying to min-max the buff uptime and if you wanted to make sure you can’t wipe to it, like by gripping them to you to clear it, they got mad and started flaming you for not letting you wipe to it.
This happened many times, it was happening even on the beta when it was being tested.
It was basically a “Screw you puggers” affix. Most famous on the beta being some guy playing in a top guild taking to twitter to flame people for clearing it pre-emptively and then got clapped by Zaelia, whom he didn’t know was in the group iirc.
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We just always cleared it instant. You never knew you would get another overlapping mechanic. Just clear and be done with it. We wiped too many times by trying to use the buff.
I didn’t have that experience. I saw a lot of flaming for people failing the affix and stunning the group.
Idk I don’t really agree with OP because I am on the same page as you that most of the seasonal affixes didn’t work and I also really don’t like FOMO. But he does have a point that some affixes actually made the runs more interesting. I don’t think seasonal is the way to go, but maybe if Blizzard did a poll on which of the previous seasonal affixes worked and added them to the permanent rotation that could work. I mean I really am not a fan of some of the new ones they added.
Afflicted for example, I love it on my priest because I can just deal with the affix on my own, on my warlock for example I have no way of helping out and am solely dependent on other people (yes I know felhound can purge it, but I can only do that once every 5 mins and then have a 5s cast to resum the felguard, not fun).
No mainly talking about people I have played with, me included.
Having your performance and progress tied to an rng mechanic that you have no control over, ESPECIALLY when it is timegated (raids/w-bosses/vault) puts me off.
For the S2 numbers, I do not contest that they are bad. Just pointing out that the experience in my circles is that what killed it was the fast gearing and the balance after 10.1.5.
Blizzard’s rational behind the seasonal affix was to introduce something to differentiate the dungeons between each seasons to keep m+ less stale. How is this irrelevant when they achieved the same thing by just changing the dungeons each season.
I am not arguing that one is better than the other, I am just pointing out that by blizzard’s PoV, seasonal affixes were redundant, so they removed them. If general consensus is that people want them back, they will return them probably.
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The only one that did that was the season 4 affix in BFA because it opened up different routes than you usually played, you also didn’t need to bring a rogue for skips.
The rest have all been a mix of “Screw you people pugging” and “this affix is meh”.
S1 BFA was a “screw you people pugging” affix, if you didn’t CC the everliving hell out of the worms they would go through walls and floors and pull the whole instance.
S2 BFA was a “this affix is meh”. You just AOE’d everything spawning every 20%. Wow.
S3 BFA was a mix of “screw you people pugging” and “this affix is meh” and some other issues, like I think death skips are completely degenerate but they were so common with the season 3 affix in groups I joined.
S4 BFA was a nice affix but they can’t just keep doing that.
S1 SL was a “screw you people pugging” affix, if you didn’t follow the route rigidly you’d get the prideful murdering you mid-pull.
S2 SL was “this affix is meh” and a bit of “LOL YOU DON’T HAVE A WEAKAURA QUAKING TIMER? YOU DON’T PULL AROUND IT? WELL, SOGGODON ENJOYS YOUR DEATHS!1! LOLOLOL”
S3 SL was “this affix is meh.”
S4 SL was “this affix is meh.”
S1 DF was a “screw you people pugging” affix.
There’s been one interesting seasonal affix.
Didnt re read that but you are making the assertion that participation is lower because the seasonal affix was removed.
Put up or shut up.
Preferably the latter.
Edit, just re read it, i stand by what i said there. You moaned 4 sets were too complicated then linked loads that were completely passive and had no interactions. You cant make this stuff up.
I am not denying you or ur friends experience of the matter. My point is that there are often claims that the WoW ´´community`` asked for XYZ.
All I am saying is that the so-called WoW ´´community`` are a minority within a minority who do not represent the vast majority of WoW players.
In fact I would argue Dragonflight has been an exercise in listening to this vocal minority within the WoW community, with disastrous consequences.
I mean you dont even have to look at raid participation numbers or M+ numbers, just look at the amount of posters left on this forum.
A lot of people really like S2 of BfA because big AoE DPS. Like I said I found it a bit boring it was generally well received and was the go to example people used for “good affix” examples during the bad seasons, hell even streamers were praising it(still don’t get it).
I mean no harm in polling people in seeing what worked for them and what didn’t. For me storming was fun, I get why people didn’t like it and I fully understand that it will never rank high on such a poll.
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Ive had a bunch of guild mates do m+ for the first time this season just because of the lack of a super punishing season affix and most have enjoyed the experience. I personally have enjoyed not having to play around a super annoying affix in order to time a key.
I just edited my post, back to the question you keep dodging.
Explain your rationale for linking lower particpation and the removal of the seasonal affix.
Fair observation.
If you look at Shadowlands, the M+ affixes actually (sometimes) made timing a key easier. So doing a +10 for example, was actually easier than doing a +9.
I thought S4 SL was also brilliant because it made players incredibly strong throughout the dungeon, so the chances of the grp falling apart towards the end was incredibly low. Which was great for the majority of WoW players playing in low skill environments.
There definitely are downsides to the above though. I concede that.
The problem was it was a season coinflip if it was going to be either fun, good or just flat out annoying.
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Instead you had runs failing at the start because a lot of groups couldn’t kill the big dreadlord because they couldn’t burst hard enough, lmao.
First dungeon I ran for that season was completely faceroll and then there was a series of keys where we couldn’t get past the shield, because people weren’t doing enough damage.
This is the best argument against seasonal affixes (like others have mentioned).
Honestly I feel like Blizzard should just be a good enough company that they should be able to design seasonal affixes that dont make the experience of running dungeons worse.
Only S2 with the Toghast powers. Like Elahri said S1 was a nightmare for pugs and the robot one (I forgot if it was S3 or 4) was just a flame fest when someone killed the wrong one and the group got the wrong buff.
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That was S3.
S4 was the one where u ran around with massive amounts of stats towards the end.
The one where a lot of groups fell apart as soon as you pulled the big dreadlord* because they couldn’t burst the shield down.
*Until it got nerfed.
Mythic+
Affixes
Shrouded
Zul’gamux Blood Barrier absorb reduced by 33%.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/wezo7d/zul_gamux_super_over_tuned/
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/x7wn75/great_dps_is_hard_to_find/
And even after nerfs some groups didn’t make it past that mob.
I didn’t play that one. I think I only did the legion TW ones with the beacons and the infernals. But even so that goes into my “bad affix design” category, by the sounds of it it’s just kill X more bonus mobs to get a buff.
To summarize only 1 affix worked for me in BfA. SL as a whole was pretty lame, and DF had 1. Out of the 10 we have had over the years most people land on 2 or maybe 3 that worked for them as a whole, so the concept is clearly flawed. Blizzard can’t do “good affixes” constantly, and again like I said even now their new ones have big issues with them, so seasonal will just hurt the experience for the majority of the players for long periods of time.
PS might want to remove that like after you read the edit XD.
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I dont only like stuff I agree with.
Its decent points.
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