SAME old affixes (with minor changes when REALLY REALLY needed) but new mechanics that don't play well with old affixes.Old Dungeons scaled up as "new content" but mostly with same old mechanics that also don't play well with affixes.1 + 1 = Disaster! 🥱😴
To be honest at this point im doing m+ only for weekly, every week I do 4 dungeons and im done. I dont have much fun playing them as I used to.
Bad affixes are one of the main reasons why people skip playing for entire weeks or even stop playing at all, which is a bad thing. I've seen many healers just quit playing for an entire season if they disliked bad affixes on dungeons that are already overtuned/ too difficult for most PUG groups. They might be something fun for competitive pre-made groups, but for PUGs bad affixes are just the worst for any healers, since there are no DD affixes. All affixes are healing affixes.
My vote would be to keep Fortified / Tyrranical and the Seasonal Affix and remove everything else. Let the dungeons and the mechanics dictate how interesting a dungeon is and stop with the bull%^&* unfun scenarios.I also think that would really show the gap in power between classes and allow for better end-game balancing.
Affixes shouldn't be needed in the first place, they're a sign of poor dungeon design and dungeons have come a long way since the first M+, just look at DF trash and bosses compared to jade or shadowmoon. Levels scale infinitely so just let them and tag on fort/tyr and seasonal affix if you really insist. I like the idea of replacing timer with objectives alongside the usual clear too, doesn't necessarily have to eliminate timer at all just give it a rpg spin/element in each dungeon...
I personally wish affixes we’re unique to the key versus the same all week. I also with certain affixes gave more points than others.
Overwhelming a group with multiple locks, class/spec specific counters, healing overload and just visual garbage is not at all good design. It is lazy and immature design. Like deciding to buff everything across the board by 40% as a solution to a problem that your design created in the first place. Incompetent design, completely lacking ingenuity. There are no strategies to employ, no innovative routing to experiment with, no powers to uniquely exploit. It's just end to end running and kiting and trying to survive. Not fun; this season has been a huge step backwards for M+.And don't get me started on the Raz voiceovers, that voice actor just needs to do something else...Start over or get new people then start over.
yep, gotta go. keep seasonal affixes and make cool dungeons that are not depending on tyranical or fortified
The "lazy design" complaint is getting really tiresome to read.
1. Removing Quaking2. Remove certain affix pairings (ie. Fortified + Raging, Bursting + Grievous, etc)3. Nerf Tyrannical and Fortified damage multiplier slightly
I'm pushing up my Shadow Priest. This week I experienced Quaking for the first time on a caster. What a *!@#ing stupid affix. Not only does it ask the player to properly position themselves, it punishes casters hard that fail to correctly time the interrupt (because you always try to squeeze a cast off just in time).Oh and yes my group has died countless times because Quaking went off during a "group up" moment like stacking in the bubble for Hyrja, Fenryr's Claw Frenzy, Telash Greywing's Absolute Zero, Teera's Gale Arrow, Balakar Khan's Static Spear and even during the Thundering affix when it's about to expire and Quaking overlaps.It is absolutely stupid that an affix can be so strongly inconveniencing that it can deny full-output from certain classes each week. You fall into a mindset of "Well, even if I play perfectly I'll still be down dps because I'll be forced to do something I wouldn't normally."Seasonal affix is great, fun, and okay to wrap a strategy around. Tyrannical and Fortitude are fine too because they can change builds and make you prepare differently. These random, negative affixes suck hard and only seek to ruin your day. I'm complaining as someone with ~2700 rating, having gotten into M+ in Season 3 of Shadowlands (skipped 4) and now Season 1 of Dragonflight. Sorry for any player that has endured this nonsense for longer.
Affixes are fine. It was proven in Fated that Raiding needs a M+ version that gives nothing but current season items from previous raids. Season 1, understandable, you want people to play 1 Raid. Season 2 Sure, Mid season 2, why not introduced Fated as Hall of Fame closes and Mythic is cross realm?IF anything for M+ id say Tyrannical and Fort are the problem. Its Generic every week.. what is it this week, oh its fort, best get the aoe spec up, its tyrannical best get the single target spec up. Adding a new Base level one would spice things up.Explosive is what everyone complains about. If you added it to the aoe targets it would just make the affix a joke, solution isnt to make it less impactful but MORE.. instead of 50 little explosives, 1 spawns every minute while in combat. It has a 30second cast timer, It has 1million health (base 10 level)Grevious should go both ways, you get grevious for getting hit, they get grevious for you hitting them. Its a dps increase and a healer problem at the same time.Bursting should be a magic effect as it is. it should be infinite duration and just a damage over time. Above a 15 stack causes major problems. Bursting should also only appear on Hastened Week for faster dispels. More active for healers.Bolstering should also Bolster us. Simples. Its not a problem and if you get a 10% health increase when they get a 10% damage increase its just a flat fun times.Sanguine should still be a thing. Sanguine should deal area damage from a sphere not a puddle and you only have 1 sanguinie in a pack every so often. It should be a Healer can heal it and dps can dps it to kill it issue. Paladins get to lay on hands it to full health, DONE.. Dps gets to spam execute the whole time, im fine with that, they probably are aswell.Thundering is just boring. If you have one person who doesnt know what it does or doesnt want to do it cos of the dps increase it causes problems. Thundering would of been much better if it didnt dispel while in combat, but instead required you to stack with same Sign for the damage increase. Turn that version into a weekly Affix.Going forward with Seasonal affixes they need to make sure that its idiot proof. Im not talking Season 3 of BFA but stuff like Season 2 of BFA stuff.. you know its coming, you can slow pulling at the % that the mechanic is coming. Fated Cartel was a great idea, It was player choice and outside of that 1 named one in the wrong position in certain dungeons, it was no issue at all. Stealth pots were used. Times were had.I understand the concept of Seasonal Affixes is to make it it seem themed after what ever big bad is running around in the raid. It doesnt need to be tho, thats just what you have added, G'huun, Bwosomdi, Azshara, Nzoth, Sire, Sylvannas, Jailer, Fated.Its year of the Dragon, Give us some dragon themed ones. Timewarped for Bronze, Lifebinder for Red, Magic for Blue, Obsidian for black, Hour of Twilight for Twilight, End times for infinite.Timewarped could be something like movement and cooldown reduction for both mobs and players.Lifebinder could Heal everyone, mobs included in dungeons for a certain % every 10seconds. Every time Health pools heal on mobs, players gain a 10% stacking damage buff. new mobs entering combat instantly gain the stacks of other mobs already in combat.Magic could increase spell damage done by mobs and players. Let casters have a season in the sun.Obsidian Melee damage is increased by mobs and players. Let Melee have a season in the sun.Hour of Twilight every minute a tenticle is summoned at the player location, it channels mind flay into its target until killed or dead. While taking damage from it your haste is increased by 30% but damage ramps up over 15seconds and kills you at 20seconds.End Times, Bosses have timers on them. If you do not kill the boss in time it just instantly enrages increasing damage by 200%. Obsidian and Magic are the only ones that limit the playerbase, everything else adds to fights or players via Aspect.
Maybe I overgeneralized a little in my first post but I still think that majority of players who are complaining about affixes are just bad players (I did also mention 0.1% players who want to push even higher but they are irrelevant), it's as simple as that. They think that m+ is supposed to be a source of free loot and considering how easy 15s were in Shadowlands and that they were giving highest ilvl loot having to actually work for loot in DF is a cold shower to them. If you play the mode the way it was intended to be played you will naturally learn all the affixes and all the mob mechanics and you will get the gear you want. But if you are expecting to do 20s while semi afk that's not going to happen.
Step 1) Explosive needs to go, or get a massive redesign. The current iteration is too much of a UI check, too frustrating, spawn way too frequently with no breaks, spawn way too many at any given time limiting larger pulls (one of the best and most important parts of M+), too many wasted globals, no one wants to help with them and half of the specs can't effectively kill them, they still haven't been properly limited to 1 HP after years of it being obvious they need to be, and it is extremely disproportionately punishing when even one single explosive gets missed. The anxiety this one affix causes is extreme and head and shoulders above every other affix. It must go. I will accept no argument against this.Step 2) Evaluate some of the major problems with the other affixes and iterate on ways to fix them, especially in cases like Quaking. Going through the portal to the forest in HoV should NOT be a time when Quaking can trigger. Flying across gaps as a book in AV, same thing. Spiteful should be punishing in some way other than basically instant death for melee just because a ghost spawned close. Reduce the damage done by the player hit for a bit, or at least make the ghosts do less damage when they spawn, and more over time / when they are closer to death. It also needs to be more apparent who is being targeted by which ghosts, sooner.Sanguine is not typically a problem with the affix but a problem with mob AI. If there is ever a mob that will refuse to move and keep casting from one place, that mob needs to be affected by displacements, or it needs to be in an area with adequate line of sight options. No more huge mobs that do 10 second channels that you can't do anything about like the ones in AV.Step 3) Move all the current negative affixes to the +4 affix, and introduce positive affixes. Basically any other game that has infinite difficulty scaling also has positive affixes to partially offset the difficulty. Eventually you are still reaching a point where things just get too difficulty and none of the bonuses matter, but in the middle you can still choose or play around whatever positives you are given to get through. Look back at the buffs from the lieutenants in Season 2, those were *almost* the right idea. Some of those powers were pretty good and could give you a nice little bump in power, but others were pretty much 100% useless. Take some of the better ideas and introduce new ideas that are comparatively good, then give one of these each week. Some kind of buff that maybe makes some weaker specs stronger for a week, or makes people consider different build options to play around something like extra crit, haste, or more DoT damage, or free mana regen (plus something minor for the non-healers). Even just getting to pick one positive power at the door from a batch of 3-4 each week would feel so much better than dealing with 3 bad affixes and no upside.Step 4) Seasonal affixes need to first-and-foremost be FUN to play around, not extremely punishing.Thundering is getting on a lot of people's nerves lately because it's active almost every pull and can be nearly as frustrating as Explosive. Rather than getting to actually enjoy any part of the damage bonus, it just fills people with dread about whether or not they will be able to safely clear. The added 5% mob health was strictly unnecessary. Imagine if this bonus was more like the one in the (normal) raid. Let's say, you get the damage bonus you do now standing by yourself, you share it with players with the same charge in a short range (far enough to not get hit by most frontals and still share with tank), and just do moderate damage to opposite charge players (enough to hurt but not be instant death if you need to stack) or clear like it does now. This way you can either stand on your own and keep the buff the whole time, or try to find friends to stand with for a bigger bonus, but there is no severe punishment like massive damage + stun for not clearing. Even then, it's still pretty boring, but at least it's not punishing for no reason. Better seasonal affixes are the ones that give you different routing options to try. I know there are not a lot of skips to do in current dungeons, but the best season affixes were the ones that facilitated creative routing, like Encrypted or Awakened. It's really going to be noticeable when we start doing Brackenhide or Neltharus, but the seasonal affix doesn't give us any way to skip sections of the dungeon.And then suddenly it's not like every week completely sucks. You may have favorite weeks for favorable buffs your spec likes, or less-liked weeks for the negative affixes people find annoying, but you don't have weeks with two completely ^&*! affixes on top of Tyrannical.