As Zahko reported overnight, an initial testing session of Mythic+ dungeons from Dragonflight takes place this weekend on the Closed Beta. This one started a few hours ago and will end Tuesday at 1 a.m. Two dungeons are accessible, Pools of Ruby Essence and Vault of Azure as well as a prototype of the new affix, Thundering.
Several changes are coming to Mythic+ mode in Dragonflight, and the developers are sharing details about it today. Keep in mind that nothing is final yet.
Seasonal Dungeon Rotation
If you’ve done Mythic+ in multiple seasons, you can dungeon again and again looking for an item, and do the same in the next season. It’s not a good experience and the developers want to do something about it.
With Dragonflight, all dungeons will be rotated every season. This will enhance the experience by:
- Giving Mythic+ players more exploration and progression each season, which raiders are experiencing with the new raids.
What’s fun in Mythic+ is getting better at a dungeon through experience, but the opportunities to learn and improve become rare the longer a dungeon stays active.
- Keep the level of effort required for the best rewards at the same level each season.
Learning a new raid can be fun, but the relative ease of completing Mythic+ dungeons that everyone mastered the previous season can create heavy social pressure to spend time in Mythic+ gearing up even if it’s not your favorite activity.
- Create the space for returning players to go to Mythic+ even if they missed the previous season.
Imagine taking a break from Season 1 and coming back in Season 2, joining a Mythic+ group and feeling like you’re holding them back because everyone knows a strategy you haven’t had a chance to learn. With rotating dungeons each season, everyone starts at a relatively equal level and learns new strategies together.
Season affixes
Mythic+ affixes have been around for years. What purposes do they serve and why are developers creating new ones?
- These play a role in disrupting the gameplay. You play the same dungeon for over a year, and adding new twists helps keep them interesting.
- These give an opportunity to add a theme and give each season an identity. It’s fun that N’Zoth or Denathrius influence Mythic+ dungeons at the same time being present in the raid.
- These are a way to experiment and try new ideas. Those that work well can be saved for future seasons, while discarding those that don’t.
As interesting as the season affixes are, there are also limitations. Due to their relatively high complexity and strong seasonal ties, these are mostly lost once the season ends. While having experimentation value, affixes don’t contribute as much to Mythic+ in the long run as the team would like.
A side effect of the arrival of dungeon rotation is the relief of pressure that the season affix is the ‘main thing’ that transforms your gameplay into a new season, giving developers the ability to think about what that these could be afterwards. Should the team try to make affixes that can become regular in future seasons? Should they be set aside in favor of something else? Many options can be considered.
On the Beta, an experimental version of the season affix, Thundering, is available. This one will still get many iterations and it’s likely to change how it works, but this one gives some insight into the level of complexity developers would like to see about them in Dragonflight. Since you’ll already be learning a new set of dungeons, Season Affixes can be less complicated and more themed-centric (while still giving space to try new things).
You will also notice the reduction in the amount of ‘temporary power’ offered by seasonal affixes. While the feedback for affixes having beneficial effects has been positive and it’s something the devs are still keen to explore, a high level of potency has been achieved with Shadowlandswhich greatly contributed to the effect described above.
The developers will keep an eye on the feedback during the testing sessions, and might try other directions if it doesn’t work as well as expected. For example, there is a world where the beneficial effects are close to Shadowlands, but also make enemies tougher to compensate for that extra power. The team wants to continue experimenting with Mythic+ and hopes players will enjoy seeing a bigger difference in experience with each season of Dragonflight.
Mythic+ Frequent Player Reward
With Shadowlandsthe developers have observed a trend where players who have mastered a set of Mythic+ dungeons see their sense of progression short-circuited in subsequent seasons.
It’s a complex issue that ties into many of the topics above, but something is lost when the best gear you can get in Mythic+ isn’t necessarily something you get by investing the time and effort. to get really good at this difficulty.
That’s not to say the developers want to make Mythic+ any less rewarding. It is one of the pillars of the endgame of World of Warcraft and dedicated players should have access to competitive rewards.
The developers want Mythic+ to have more of a sense of progression as you level up in keys, and for the gear you get to reflect that. Two major changes will be made.
- Starting at key level 11, the developers are increasing the rate at which enemies gain health and damage with each higher key from 8% to 10%.
The impact of this change isn’t drastic, but should help give each stage a deeper sense of progression and make it easier for developers to ramp up the rewards.
- Item level rewards are adjusted for both end of spree chests and the Grand Vault, and item level scaling goes up to level 20.
The developers are also introducing an additional Valor upgrade tier, which will increase the maximum item level of Valor upgrades players can unlock with the higher Mythic+ ratings.
Mythic+ Rewards
| Keys | End of trip | large vault |
|---|---|---|
| +2 | 376 | 382 |
| +3 | 376 | 385 |
| +4 | 379 | 385 |
| +5 | 379 | 389 |
| +6 | 382 | 389 |
| +7 | 385 | 392 |
| +8 | 385 | 395 |
| +9 | 389 | 398 |
| +10 | 392 | 398 |
| +11 | 392 | 402 |
| +12 | 392 | 405 |
| +13 | 392 | 408 |
| +14 | 395 | 408 |
| +15 | 398 | 411 |
| +16 | 398 | 415 |
| +17 | 402 | 415 |
| +18 | 402 | 418 |
| +19 | 405 | 418 |
| +20 | 405 | 421 |
Valor Upgrades
| Improvements | Item level | Cote |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 376 | – |
| 2 | 379 | – |
| 3 | 382 | – |
| 4 | 385 | – |
| 5 | 389 | – |
| 6 | 392 | – |
| 7 | 395 | 600 |
| 8 | 398 | 1.000 |
| 9 | 402 | 1.000 |
| 10 | 405 | 1.400 |
| 11 | 408 | 1.700 |
| 12 | 411 | 2.000 |
| 13 | 415 | 2.400 |
Shorter affix rotation
Several regular affixes will be set aside and the number of weeks in the affix rotation will be reduced.
In Season 1 of Dragonflight, the Inspiring and Necrotic affixes are taking a break, and the affix rotation will be reduced from 12 weeks to 10 weeks. Several objectives for this change.
- Inspirational was a good affix to change up your gameplay when you had knowledge of the dungeon, but this one can be very punishing if you’re still learning. This one didn’t seem to fit with the emphasis on learning dungeons each season.
- Necrotic was originally an affix that was meant to challenge tanks, but the responsibility of tanking already places a huge strain on those players in Mythic+, so this affix is being shelved.
- With a shorter affix rotation overall, the developers hope to reduce the perceived difficulty disparity between weeks and allow players to more consistently feel like they are making significant progress in increasing their Mythic+ rating.
The developers are excited to see the outcome and can’t wait to try out additional changes in Season 2 and beyond. While it’s still too early to guarantee anything, this could include changes like swapping out additional affixes, the level at which different affix types become active, or maybe even trying out a new category of affixes. affixes.