It’s to smooth out the jump from a +11 to a +12, not make a Grim Batol play the exact same way to an Ara-kara.
I agree with the former, because that’s what I also said. They’re smoothing out the difficulty (and reward) to be more favorable to the player.
But of course they’re making the gameplay experiences the same to the extent that a Cataclysm dungeon can be similar to a dungeon from The War Within.
Is there, to your awareness, any bosses in Grim Batol that are intentionally designed and tuned to be easier or harder than the bosses in Ara-Kara, individually or as a whole?
Yes, for example the first boss in GB is pretty much a joke, it’s pretty much move out of the thing, while the first boss in Ara-kara is is all about tank positioning and dps either bursting down or CC-ing the adds that spawn. To spare you all the details I would say that GB has only 1 boss that is actually scary while Ara-Kara has 2 (maybe 3). The main difference between the 2 dungeons is that one is more challenging on bosses and the other is more challenging on mobs.
But is that by intent or is it simply the result of the dungeon being made back in Cataclysm? I would argue it’s the latter.
If Blizzard made Grim Batol today, they would have sought to make the bosses similar in difficulty and gameplay to the rest of the dungeon bosses in The War Within.
Again, the design approach is to smooth everything out so that players don’t feel like they lost the lottery because they got a key to one dungeon instead of another.
And whilst that makes for a fair and balanced gameplay experience, it also makes for a freaking boring one. In my opinion.
And I’ll predict how it’s going to go down. Exactly like Diablo IV. Because every Season serves up the same gameplay experience, and because the design changes just seek to smooth that experience out a bit and make it more approachable and more rewarding and generally easier, then players just wolf it down in no time. As soon as the Season starts it’s just full-on blasting for a few days or weeks, purely on auto-pilot because it’s all repetition of what they already know and are able to do, and then it’s done.
It’ll be the same in World of Warcraft. Once the Season starts, players are going to blast through it all in no time. Because it’s the same experience they’ve just had for 6 months and they are perfectly capable of executing it again. The only thing that slows the speed on that train is Blizzard’s own tuning screw-ups and time-gates and throttling of gear rewards and so on.
But from the player perspective? There’s nothing on the menu for the upcoming Season that players can’t blast through with muscle memory alone.
And I am not impressed. But that’s just me.
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It wasn’t made back in Cata, the M+ version is redesigned to to somewhat fit the overall difficulty of the current dungeons. The layout is the same but mobs and bosses do different things than they did in cata.
But you get what I’m saying, right?
The design philosophy for Mythic+ is to smooth out the gameplay experience, the difficulty, the challenge, and the reward, across all the dungeons and all the keys, so that players are equally happy to get a key for one dungeon as they are for another, and have equal chances of success if they’re doing one dungeon with one group or another dungeon with another group.
Because that’s fair and balanced.
And I personally think that’s a boring gameplay experience to serve up again and again and again.
I think the bosses and everything in GB is harder than in Ara kara 
It ARE complete different dungeons though. Also different utility and dispells needed per dungeon.
1000+10% = 1100
2000+10% = 2200
200 is more than 100 ok.
But, more importantly. OUR POWER ok. Loot being distributed over less keys makes us OVERGEARED for two keys down. It is significantly easier to fix depleted key than in old 20keys model.
Irrelevant. When you cap out on +18 in old and +8 in new then the difference between a keylevel is still the same. A +6 is 21% easier than a +8. Same as +16 and +18 in the old keylevels.
And the system is completely the same. They only removed the bottom 10 keylevels. So when you talk right now about +8 you actually mean +18.
Wowhead quote;
A +2 in the new system will have a level of difficulty similar to that of a +11 in the current Mythic+ system. Following this pattern, a +5 should be as difficult as a +15, and a +10 should be as difficult as a +20, and so on.
No I’m not, because
There are some parts you are not understanding here, we already had a smooth progression path (not talking about rewards just key level progressions) before Blizzard did the key level squish and the TWW affix changes , now if you want to start doing M+ you are jumping straight into what was a +12 before. Blizzard likes to say that the new M0 is just like the old +10 but they are dead wrong, there are no modifiers in an M0. Another thing that needed to smoother was the jump from a +11 to a +12. In an 11 you had tyranical, fortified, peril and the kiss/curse affix (which is pretty much a player buff unless you are running with monkeys). In a +12 the kiss/curse affix is replaced by another steroid buff to enemy HP and DMG. To TLDR it in an +11 you get a buff while in a +12 you get nothing and everything hits harder and is takes longer to kill. The is just to big from 1 key level to the next one.
I absolutely think that GB is the harder dungeon but I find bosses in GB to be way easier than those in Ara. But then again it also depends on what you are playing I guess.
Yeah, Ara kara is a bit of a joke in comparison. I am 2 keylevels up for Ara kara in comparison because the bosses are slapping hard in GB.
Only the dragon is easy in GB, when the tank can survive the terrible spot while eating all the damage.
Meanwhile i cant handle the last boss in ara kara at all 
its always a 
show 
my nemesis this season!
What you do for yourself is just before the big pull in mechanic start, you are at one of the spots where the small adds spawn and you flame shock one, so you have just created your private puddle 
You did fine when I was using freedom on you.
Idk what happened that time, think its the only time that boss hasnt been an absolute poop show. Getting out of the root isnt my issue though, i just thundershock and get out of it. Its mostly getting killed by someone elses poison wave while im rooted that gets me killed.
Aaah, well I usually go out of the the boss and check where the ranged are before removing the poison.
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I consider that the “hard one” in GB because people keep failing the adds XD.
Because what? You said a lot of nitty-gritty things – none of which I disagree with – but the goal of them all is still to deliver a more streamlined progression, a lower difficulty, and a more rewarding experience. Smooth, in a word, is what Blizzard are aiming for.
And fair be it, I’m not trying to rain on other people’s parade. Lots of players enjoy Mythic+ for what it is, and this looks to be a more polished version of that (turd).
It’s just not something I am enamored toward. And I have said why.
And if the penultimate goal of all of this is, as Álaric suggested, to get players back, then I think that it will be a very short-lived spike in player popularity. Because all that these changes accomplish is to make it easier for players to blast through Mythic+ and be done with it quicker. Exactly like in Diablo IV.
The first boss is a back and forth with full time aoe damage while i am a caster healer. It can be very terrible.
The 2nd boss is just doing so much aoe damage including a dot damage overlap. You just run out of healing cooldowns. And when you get yourself the dot you are ducked since you need to move and heal at the same time.
The dragon is a joke when the tank is able to survive it since the adds are not on the field.
The last boss is doing big AOE which you need to use a cooldown and then still people can die. And in the small circle the 2 players are getting a deadly dot and you basically need to choose who you can save. The other player is dead unless he uses a potion or something.
Because the challenge is still there, it’s just on a higher key level and you not have to make the jump. You scoff at the notion of key progression but it is there, it’s a slow but steady climb and that was how people learned. Just smashing your head against a +12 when you are not ready for it wasn’t fun for a lot of people and there was no where to practice for said +12 other than a +12.