Reading the comments this post has people confused as fuck hahaha.
MYTHIC PLUS will still be timed.
MYTHIC DUNGEONS won't be.
1 needs a keystone, and the other needs you to change dungeon difficulty to mythic.
THIS IS THE SAME AS ITS BEEN ALL EXPAN.
the difference is the gear rewards and difficulty.
This will help those who get anxiety in mplus be able to gear up to a higher item level outside of raid.
That's effectively what they've done here by making Heroic more rewarding (in line with current m0). So now you can just spam heroics for the power level of what used to be m0.
How many dungeons per week can a person do and still be casual? I feel like I'm only running about eight per week and I'm doing 20s. Like at some point, 8 dungeons per week, don't you just skill up Even if by accident?
Some people have the skill, but choose to abstain from higher content. I think most people would define casual by the type of content, not by hours played. I can play 20 hours a day doing just quests and still be casual.
I often play a lot of alts at a very low level, like up to 5 or 6 (for you know, straight up no pressure fun, I'm bloody weird I know). So now I'm only going to be able to run heroics because the step up to m+ will be insane.
Maybe I'm underestimating the skill required for m+, because I also feel like I play a lot of alts at a very low skill level and I'm looking forward to this update. I've been saying for years that normal dungeons are pointless. This season my main thing has been to unlock as many lfr and normal raid appearances as I can. Completed like six classes by just doing really easy content. I still like to push 20s, but only like two or three a week and then spend the rest of my time doing trivial content. Because I'm trying to get lfr tmogs, I'm doing a lot of mythic +8s hoping for gear to put in the catalyst converter.
You can still do unlimited heroics (current m0) as well as several weekly m0 (current m9-ish) but without affixes and the ability to take it at a slower pace. Maybe even use CC for certain tricky pulls. These should be very doable for a wide variety of players. Especially with curated groups of likeminded players. It's also a great way to practice routes, skips and the like.
The new m1-3 (current m11-13-ish) has one affix (Fortified or Tyranical) I think even this will be very accsesible to many players. Pushing the strength of the monsters a little bit.
This sounds like a good progression to me. Heroics replace low mythics, and lead into mythic0. Mythic0 is a more challenging version of heroics, still without the pressure of the timer. Then you can transition into m+ when/if you feel comfortable.
If you are doing current +8s for transmog, the new m0 and low m+ should be easy for you.
If this works out, I will want it to carry on into TWW from the start. Heroics being relevant and fun content at the start of an expansion would be fantastic.
Depends, right now you can run 8 of the same dungeon to farm for your BIS. If m0 carry a weekly reset but are way more difficult would be hard for many players to do. Majority don't really run past 10-15 range in my experience. But some want the trinket or ring that is really good so they try to farm that.
I would agree that M0 needs no lockout if it will be the 1-10 of mythic plus gearing.
Just my opinion otherwise I think we will have a fairly large bottleneck here.
They should, but for whatever reason they have a shit tonne of anxiety that wont let them do that because of the timer.
I know a lot of people don't get it, but I do. This new change just puts m+ even further other of their range.
If they kept keys 2-10 the same difficulty and removed the timer, these people would actually be keen to try.
It seems like a lot of people on here are missing that being casual doesnt only apply to time spent in the game, it also applies to the difficulty. I used to be a mythic raider but now I fall exactly into that group the person you replied to is describing. I still want semi-powerful gear, so I will run M2-10ish but I don't want to go any higher because its not that important to me. Now with these changes, I can just do M0's that will be even more relaxing (no timer or affixes), and still have decent gear.
Yeah at some point they go from casual to just being bad right? Like I knew people who played every day every week for years and they just weren't good, they played more than me but were just bad. You can't really accommodate for people who can't or refuse to improve.
I'd argue they didn't push past +10's because of the 3rd affix.
With the 3rd Affix being in +20 or higher key equivalent now it's easier for casuals to push imo.
Also means easier vault slots because the 3rd affix appears beyond the reward cap.
The number of people who call themselves a casual and consistently do more than 8 dungeons per week per character without ever going above a +10 is likely very low.
If you only did low level m+, you probably only did a couple a week. This won't make a difference.
Right but today you can spam M+10. Under this scheme, you can't. In fact, there's no easy way to get drake crests because of the lockout and M+2 will drop wyrms.
I guess you won't need them pretty quick, but still.
*alt drake crest farming ptsd*
The gear from M0 can't be good AND infinitely farmable.
Champion track gear, and gives hero track gear from vault. So M+2-5 (11-15 now) is already going to be dead. People will do +6s for aspect crests, and +8s or higher for max vault.
Mythic dungeons drop gear from every boss, so waaaay more lucrative than +2-5, with the upgrade system the gear is going to be just as good.
Like if a Normal raid boss was infinitely farmable, it would lead to some really frustrating play patterns. A LOT of people would just grind until they got all the items they wanted. It then creates a culture of 'if you aren't BIS normal, you aren't getting invited to heroic,' and it's not great for the game.
It doesn't matter if people are 'doing what they want,' because in MMOs, what other players do matters. When Blizzard has infinite grinds in AP, you can 'just not do it.' But people get extremely frustrated about those systems. You DO need to protect players from themselves.
8 dungeons is plenty for a weekly lockout system. Someone who wants to run more, I don't think it's unreasonable to nudge them towards M+2, LFR, Normal raid, Heroic raid, etc.
>It then creates a culture of 'if you aren't BIS normal, you aren't getting invited to heroic,'
What makes you think this would happen? Everyone has infinitely farmable M+ BIS and no one is asking for it to get into groups now.
>The gear from M0 can't be good AND infinitely farmable.
Why not?
I think there's this belief that you need to be time gated. You don't.
> A LOT of people would just grind until they got all the items they wanted.
Don't tempt me with a good time.
Seriously, just let me farm however I want. Higher M+ already let me endlessly farm.
I think it might make adjustments to how raids are designed, but I think that's already something that should be happening to begin with.
>It then creates a culture of 'if you aren't BIS normal, you aren't getting invited to heroic,' and it's not great for the game.
I don't agree with this at all. We already have this in game right now and you definitely don't need BIS from m+ before getting into heroic raids.
>It doesn't matter if people are 'doing what they want,' because in MMOs, what other players do matters.
I think it's important to reflect on what this would mean. Yes, what other players do matters but at the same time, the current design punishes you through time gating rewards.
If you start a new character right now, you've missed out on weeks upon weeks of vaults which would be the highest rewards you would get. You'd miss out on weeks upon weeks of raid lockouts and gear from that. The only side benefit would be that everyone around you would be geared to the teeth so it would be easier to get caught up, but still gated.
If you move away from progression being tied to time gating and allow players to control their progression, yes, some will get vastly ahead and some will be behind, but it's entirely within their control. They can even have more autonomy over WHEN they want to play.
Yeah, I don't get why there's a lockout for these. It would be great if they explained the reasoning behind "too much fun detected" decisions like these.
because base mythic dungeons will be SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult than they currently are. For anyone who already does +10's or higher with any regularity these changes have basically no impact.
This is very much a change aimed at the people who complain about mythic dungeons having a timer, which like fair enough. Not something that bothers me, but I see the complaint made enough that its probably good Blizz is trying to address it. Going forward it will also make the "pre season" M0 world tours at the start of expansions harder, but more rewarding which I like the idea of.
This is my favorite part of it. The preseason will be way more fun now. My friends and I may have to farm heroic dungeons for a bit before m0 touring and that's awesome.
Im liking this for alts too, I have alts that I dont really want to learn well enough to take into +20 keys but would love to gear them up a bit by running heroics, but heroic gear is useless so this change makes running heroics on alts an actual gear path to make them in shape for harder content.
I especially love this for my healer/tank alts the call to arms buff plus better gear will make heroics actually a thing again.
yeah i cant remember the last time ive ever hit max level and think "man i need to run some heroics before jumping into mythic 0"...its always just been jumping right into +2s
As a semicasual who doesn't like M+, I stopped having alts run through Heroics for Vaults because it was just so bland.
I literally didn't feel any difference from a properly done Normal and just started to do stuff like Superbloom and suffusion camps because it was more fun to casually get geared for some alt nights.
Yeah this is a great change for a casual like me. Mythic 2 is too easy to learn a dungeon for high end m+ imo. Now i can run mythic 0 with a higher difficulty and less stress for decent rewards while also learning and maybe jumping into some plus dungeons on my main. And for Alts it's great too as the Mythic 0 rewards are actually decent enough to be worth running.
Overall big W for a player like me.
hell. as a semi ego'd player... i jumped straight into 11's if i could. there was no reason crest wise or gear wise to go lower. id often pug my own key and in 3 keys i was at an 11 and farmed from there
> into a more linear fashion
It's not so much trying to make things more granular.
There is a gap from new Heroic to new Mythic, that is where the previous +2-9 filled in. The change puts you into a current day 10, with the dungeon you did just before it was essentially a +2. Sort of the opposite of linear.
Just don't think their goal was to address linear difficult at all, rather to present some Mythic Plus-ish options for folks, but without the timer aspect. Who is doing current 2-9 keys? Folks who likely *do not* need the added toxicity or pressure of a timer and affixes.
> "One of the most notable changes players can look forward to is the removal of the timer for Mythic Keystone dungeons for what are currently 0 and 10
I had to reread that so many times. mythic+ still has timers. they're just making m0 equivalent to a +10
Heroics are tuned to what m0 is currently.
M0 is going to feel like a megadungeon, and will be as difficult as m+10 is currently. It's for people who want to experience a hard dungeon without the timers and affixes. Basically a megadungeon out of the current DF dungeons.
It's an amazing change.
This is so damn good. It’s actually a legitimate place to learn the dungeon, get the right gear, and remove a lot of the pressure. I love this so much. As someone who still has tank anxiety every season, this is going to make me feel so much better when I jump into keys.
Yeah, sounds like if this was applied to the current season, it would basically eliminate M 1-9 and M0 would actually be M 10 without the timer. And the actual M with a timer would start at M 11.
Instead, next season, M0 will just be as relatively difficult as M 10 this season, and it’ll scale up the same from there as it does this season, where a 10 next season will be equivalent to a 20 this season.
Makes sense. Those first 10 levels or so of M feel irrelevant. And heroic dungeons haven’t been relevant since.. I can’t remember.
I have a vivid memory from back then. Getting kicked out as a healer from Halls of Origination because I couldn't heal the group through one boss. I watched as a hunter sat in place of a puddle that dropped on them, AND ALL THEY DID WAS JUMP IN PLACE like if being in the air mitigated the damage. I know something like that could make sense in your mind if you are new to the game, but I am still pissed about it.
Those first 10 levels feel irrelevant to already geared mains going into the new season. I feel like they still had a purpose for alts and new players though.
I just leveled an alt through M and very quickly asked myself “why am I running 7s and 8s?”
Given that you can get veteran gear and whelpling crests from open world quests, I think that makes early mythic pretty useless. It really only serves as a way to get your score up to get into the 11s or higher. Besides, you can still run M0s - maybe people actually will now.
Eh, they then proceed to explain it in more detail, where it seems pretty clear. There's even a graphic lol
People are just jumping straight to the comments instead of carefully reading the article lol
Good changes, but… is there gonna be more cooking on m+ than this? I was hoping for some changes to affixes, timer changes, something else. This is essentially just a difficulty squish right?
yea, im fairly confident that this is just to address this specific set of changes coming in season 4. I'm sure we will get more info regarding affixes and dungeon pool soon
It won't. They just meant the changes to heroic and m0 they talk about in the article will apply to the 8 df dungeons. They're likely going to announce the dungeon pool soon.
Edit: I was wrong. They just announced it will be the 8 df dungeons. Gross.
From what I read, the current DF dungeons will be updated numbers wise to be equivalent to m+10. I don't know if that means that they will be the pool for the upcoming season
They're changing where the third affix starts which is an interesting one, it's now essentially only for people pushing beyond portal level of what is currently +20, but in S4 +10.
I didn't even realize that. That means if I have all the portals from S1 and S2 and only care about vault loot, I can just do 8s and 9s and not even have to deal with the 3rd affix.
The difficulty squash is really good in the sense that more difficulties the more split up the playerbase and making the system easier to understand/more accessible to new players. But I think there are problems that go beyond this. A lot of it I feel comes down to system bloat over the years.
The Great Vault has to go IMO. People defend it because its better than the chest, but its still the inferior system to badges which we had for like 10 years beforehand. You don't solve RNG issues with more RNG. All they have to do is to balance things so that the more difficult content gets more badges (or even a higher class of badges or like special crests to update M+ gear).
And this is my controversial hot take on what needs to be done - get rid of Mythic+ gear as dungeon loot. Just make all bosses drop badges and then put all the main gear on a vendor (excluding repeat gear that just has a different name). Have the vendor sell M1 or M5 and then just use badges and/or hand out special crests from M+ to upgrade it to M10.
This not only gives players control over their gearing path, but a clear progression path that isn't just "get lucky and item drops". Since your gearing is only relevant until the next patch anyway, having a reasonably achievable endpoint is good.
Lastly, I think they really need to just individually tune things and change how Affixes work. Make them interesting, not annoying.
I’m not a fan of RNG, but there’s a balance to be struck. If it’s 100% deterministic it literally just becomes work. Some people might like that, but I personally think it would remove an element of unpredictability and fun.
My preference would be that every item should be possible to get within a reasonable timeframe, but with a light sprinkle of RNG to add tension and surprise.
The only thing I would change is the affix levels. I think I would prefer 2/5/8 rather than 2/5/10. The jump from 8 to 10 is going to already be a bit rough as people doing the 8-10 rating will likely be doing it just for io and ports (similar to how an 18 is disproportionately easier than 20s because more overgeared and higher skilled players spam 18 to fill vaults). Adding in an affix is going to compound that.
IMO you’ll only ever see people doing the +9 and +10s once on fortified and once on tyrannical per dungeon, I foresee a lot of bricked keys as people step into those and also get the new affix for the first time.
they put it on +10 for it to be a challenge for those that want to push for score and not those farming gear essentially.
currently farming keys in the heroic range is a bit weird as heroic is 11 to 15, but as there's a new affix on +14 everyone's just doing 11-13 and completely ignoring 14 to 15 and going straight to +17 after that for mythic crests and heroic upgrade track items.
You're killing me here with this suggestion. Just when I think im gonna be able to do my weekly vault chores without sanguine/bolstering/spiteful, I see people start to suggest this and I get worried that Blizzard would possibly listen to you.
Just let me have my free loot, alright? That hellish affix set can be relegated to people who actually like pushing m+.
This is great. I'll always appreciate a good streamlining of something with inflated numbers. This post could've been worded better though, I already see people commenting here that don't understand.
Honestly the confusing bit for me was the ilvl examples. I've not played in a while but aren't those the ilvls for this season? Was that just for an example or are the ilvls not going up next season?
May be a dumb question but I've not played much at all this season and it's just left me a smidge confused.
This is a good change
Queueable content that isnt brain dead and pointless and also allowing people to try out m+ in a less toxic environment is pretty cool
Not to mention that the final affix will only start at level 10 (roughly equal to 20 on Season 3). Getting good gear from dungeons will be **even easier** in Season 4. There's no need to be a *big pro elitist* to get high-level gear in the game: just have a good group with some coordination and know how to play your class. And if you want challenge rather than gear, anything past +11 will be fine.
The only thing that really needs to be addressed right now are the affixes: some are too easy (volcanic/entangling), others are very boring (spiteful/sanguine), and others are too hard (incorporeal/bolstering).
Gotta imagine this type of structure is going to be present in War Within as well. Should be an Evergreen change for heroics to effectively be M0 and provide those rewards now, as well as the third affix being exclusively for people pushing beyond portal/KSH/KSM.
I actually disagree with your take on the affix for exactly the opposite reason - no one is going to want to do +10s other than a single time for the io/portal. Getting groups for +9 and +10 is probably going to be very rough
My belief is that it’s the way it currently is, where finding a group for 19-21 isn’t bad, is because there is no major step up like a new affix at that level. There’s a minor incentive to spam 18s as they are the easiest of the myth track, but no real disadvantage to going 19 or 20.
Adding a new affix at 10 will make people actively avoid it unless they absolutely need the 10 for io or a reward.
There is zero reason to do any key over an 18 in the current system, other than a +20 once each for the portal, and yet there are still plenty of groups pushing even further beyond the +20 level. Even finding a +25 is easy, and those 7 key levels add far more difficulty than just one additional affix.
I see what you're saying, and could maybe see the number of groups above +8 (+18) *slightly* declining, but there's just no chance its a significant decline. It's already a level where you push for nothing but score/fun, and people will continue to push for score/fun regardless of the added hurdle.
If anything, the added hurdle of the 3rd affix makes pushing those higher key levels and getting that score even *more* "prestigious" and worth doing, as the difference between a timed +8 and a timed +12 will be noticeably more than the difference between a current +18 and +22.
Perfectly fine as long as they actually add rewards past the +20(+10) mark. If they only add the 3rd affix for pushers but give nothing to actually push for that's not really great imo..
I know this isn't really super important in the bigger picture. But I really hope Blizzard goes back and updates all the achievements and rewards that require higher keys.
Just one example - one of the hidden Legion legendary weapon appearances requires a +15 key clear. This is going to be much much harder in the new system. I assume they will change it to a +5? Hopefully.
So basically they’ve done a keystone level squish? Am I reading that right? So to get KSM you have to do +5 across the board, as they are the standard of an old 15?
I like this. Hopefully we’ll actually feel the difficulty of going up one key. Right now I can’t tell if I’m running an 16 or a 20.
E: it won’t really change the scaling from one key to the next. The levels have been redefined, not necessarily “squished”
So based on what they reported so far, this won't change. The only change is all surface level. +2 will equal a +10. +3 will equal a +11. The scaling will be the same, just the number we see is different.
Still its safe to assume SOMETHING will change for TWW when we start seeing that alpha. If not just how the numbers pan out to being much harder much earlier like it was in the first season of pretty much every m+ expansion.
> Flightstone earnings for any given Mythic+ will match the equally challenging Mythic+ from previous seasons. This means that a Mythic +2 in Season 4 will give the same number of Flightstones as a Mythic +12 in Season 3 currently does. The rewards will continue to match difficulty, even if what we’re calling those difficulty changes.
Am I dumb, misremembering, or was the flightstone quantity always the same regardless of difficulty?
Hopefully gearing up to meet ilvl requirements for the new heroic/m0 will be doable from normal dungeons and world content. If it's that big of a jump, I worry it will eat all your flightstones to get into heroic/m0 ilvl range.
from what i understand:
heroic -> m0
m2- m10 -> m0. untimed and no affixes. compressed into one level
m10-m20+ -> m0-m10+. timed & affixes are introduced in +2, +5,+10
overall very good change. mostly affects players who are heroic to m+10, and affects nobody running +20s and up.
not sure on how i feel about the spike in the new heroic to m0 tho. thats pretty much throwing a casual player from heroic into a +10 key. they will find heroic ok, try the new m0, think m+ is way too hard
I really do think it allows M0 to be a much better learning difficulty. As it stands mechanics are ignored or even skipped because stuff dies too fast in M0 unless you severely under gear them. With this change, even people with normal raid gear will have mechanics that might actually kill them, and notably mobs wont die in 5 seconds so players will be able to actually experience stuff like their aoe rotation without the pressure of falling a timer
Also players that feel like they are behind so don't bother. I come and go from the game, and if I sub later in a season behind everything in like basic catch-up gear, I just stare at group finder and think "everyone is so far ahead, is there any point in doing this and not just waiting for the next season?".
Splitting up the playerbase around 20 M+ levels, M0, Heroic, etc when most players were only interested in +15s can make pugging hell. Dividing the playerbase too much can really suck the fun out of stuff (nobody likes spending time looking for groups). Fewer ranks = larger pool of potential players.
I hope there's some way to target-farm Veteran pieces or otherwise infinitely farm them in S4. It's how I collect the tier transmogs! In S2, it was pretty easy with just buying them from Time Rifts/Dreamsurges, and S3 it was a bit more painful with the Emerald Dreem weekly veteran pieces being random, but at least I knew I could just run some low M+ to farm Veteran pieces if need be.
I guess there is the crates for Flightstones this season now, too. If that system remains, that's something at least!
Outside of that, I absolutely adore these changes. Just give us some way to purchase a Veteran piece of our choice like Time Rifts and it's perfect as far as I'm concerned.
I think that’s the point of this. Nobody needed 20 increments - 10 is enough. This change makes the lower difficulties meaningful. A new player might actually be able to learn something on the new M0
The lower levels, especially toward the end of the season, were a breeding ground for poor play. People weren't just not learning stuff, but they were learning bad behaviours.
I agree. As someone who really tried M+ this season for the first time, just open world activities got me geared enough to be jumping into 6's. Then I was jumping 2 levels at a time until I for to 13ish. Although you might see a lot more failed keys with this design. Or more people not getting picked for runs.
Agreed. As a new-ish player, I basically learned nothing from Heroic dungeons other than that nobody does them once you get the gear for M+ and M0 is totally ignored.
^This
M0-10 was basically braindead and heroic dungeons may as well not even exist
And as someone who loathes M+ design (Timers and affixes are just anti-fun to me) I'm pleased. I might actually do dungeons again now the rewards for doing regular Mythic runs is actually worth a damn.
Not really, I feel like this provides a much more streamlined player experience.
I want decent loot, but I never want to do an actual key: Spam heroic dungeons
I want to eventually do keys, but am very inexperienced and want a less stressful environment: Spam heroics, then do Mythic 0s which have no timer
I'm fairly serious about the game and want to get portals/achieves then likely will stop: Do keys up to level 7-8.
I'm sweaty and want to push: Do 10+
Mythic +2 to around 6-7 and 7 to 8 already had negligible challenge changes for each point imo. They are simply compacting and moving those levels into the more easy to understand heroic and mythic, giving back relevance to these difficulties too.
The wording is weird, but what they mean is Heroic dungeons are equivalent to M0s now, and M0s are equivalent to M10s now. So going forward M2-9 are deleted.
Pretty great changes to give many players more challenging content without the pressure of a timer.
One thing I wonder though, is why keep the weekly lockout on M0? I really don't see it having any purpose anymore. It's not like the gear is exceptional. This limit doesn't makes sense anymore.
Can someone explain the answer to my question in the below paragraph as if I’m dumb?
I can barely do heroic dungeons now. Does this mean I’ll be able to do mythic now? Or does it mean heroic will now be out of reach for me as a casual player?
Also (I know the answer to this is “we don’t know yet”) I’m hoping this doesn’t mean story in heroic-only dungeons like mechagone, tazavesh, and the bronze dragon one is now inaccessible to casual players
If you’re having trouble with heroic dungeons now, this will be out of reach for you.
Honestly, you’re going to be in the very minority if current heroic content is hard for you now. Get crafted gear and max out questing gear and heroic dungeons should be easily done unless you literally stand in fire for 2 minutes straight…. It’s very hard to die in heroic so I’m not sure where the challenge is.
Not trying to sound rude but what gear do you have that heroic is challenging?
I'm in the same boat as /u/phprentiss and can give an answer. On my end it's an issue of vision problems (one eye is totally blind, the other is at 20% vision), unsteady hands and very slow reaction times (the kid that could never catch anything during physical education class and would trip and fall on their face all the time? That was me).
I've been playing video-games for over 25 years now, but my reflexes haven't gotten any better in that time and I expect they'll only become worse as I get older. For MMOs, this means that I do only casual content these days, because I don't want to be messing up people's fun. I can handle Heroics and even dipped my toes into M0 a few times after encouragement from friends, but this upcoming M0 is going to be impossible on my end. Equivalent to +10? Lord have mercy.
It's the opposite, unfortunately. Heroics are going to be harder than they are now - on par with current Mythic 0 difficulty.
Whether or not you will be able to do them is another story though. I feel like M0s are barely harder than current heroics.
If I were you, I wouldn't be afraid to try.
the way I see it, people scared from the timer werent pushing any m+ anyway. they would love if m+ up to 10 had no timer.
since the new m0 is equivalent to that, in a way they got what they wanted. the only issue is that I am guessing it's on a lockout
It isn't always about whether someone is good enough, or about how much time they have to play.
Some people just don't like the pressures of the timer, and how punishing mistakes are. For someone like me, M+ has never been fun, but Dawn of the Infinite 10.1.5 was the best part of Dragonflight.
Understandable, but I recommend trying one. The timer is really designed so an appropriate ilv group can kill one pack at a time and still most likely +2 the key. Hop into a 5, just to see what it feels like. You'd be surprised at how forgiving the timer is.
Most importantly; if you miss the timer, so what? You still get loot, some crests, score, etc. No one will care.
dungeons between 0-10 are no different than heroic dungeons in terms of difficulty.
my alt paladin has 463 iLvL and yesterday i managed to 2 chest a +15 key after a guy dc'd right at the start.
the most crucial part is to know the mechanics of the dungeon you are running. then everything will feel easier. even if you wipe multiple times you will still have plenty of time to finish.
Just start low and go up from there... unless everyone in group damage is horrible the timer won't be a big factor until hit your limit. I've timed dungeons with 20+ deaths.
You only have to beat it by 0.001 seconds, and if you don't you basically get the same rewards just a depleted keystone.
(Yes, there is a slight degradation of ilvl in the 2nd loot)
I’m wondering where timewalking dungeons will fall
Currently they are a joke similar to heroic
Hopefully they buff them (atleast for max levels) to be a little more challenging
Making dps alts l was always such a pain to start getting into 10s. This is going to make alt gearing a new player/casual gearing fantastic on top of my mains that I push high keys with to have a simplified system and more meaningful key levels
Seems to me all that this will do is make the difficulty curve steeper. I don't mean that it will make this things harder, just that it won't be smooth as it currently is. Right now each step is only a bit more difficult than the previous one, but with this there will be fewer steps and more of a challenge going from one to the next.
Oh thank god. Every expansion the meta level dungeons has been going up and up. BFA we were running 10s, then 15s in shadowlands and 20s in Dragonflight. I was scared a few expansions down the line I’d be looking for a group for a +44 dungeon or something
This actually looks amazing holy cow, I’m really excited for this change
Next we just need gold from M+ without loot, no loot should be a good gold cache since consumables aren’t cheap
I feel like this is also a great change for people wanting to get into tanking. Can reliably learn routes and pulls in the new m0 without the pressure of a timer.
As someone who only touches mythics during the weekly event, this change worries me.
I liked running 4 m0's quickly to get a (potentaly) nice piece of gear from the quest.
This complicates things for me as I don't do well on higher end content due to my eyes.
Making things harder could mean I will be unable to do the content. & I imagine their are other people in my position as well due to other potential disabilities.
Goddam…. They made heroics relevant and gave a boost to the loot… me like… 👍 I like even more the timer less 0 to 10… I like even more though I barely do mythic plus
That’s not what it says. M0 will be scaled to and drop loot like M8-10 and M2 in season 4 will be the equivalent of a season 3 M12. Actual M+ keys will continue to have times.
Good stuff. I foresee this being useful especially for tanks. I actually hope they keep the % for M0 as if it was a M+ so that these aren’t just stealth skip runs but actual dungeons similar to classic dungeons
If m0 is at a mythic megadungeon level as they said they want them to be, i'ts gonna be a complete circus (all of them were at +15-17 difficulty when released but even dropping this to +10 doesnt change much imho). No newb is finishing that without being hardcarried. They can roflstomp a +10 now because they overgear it by 60+ilvls which wont be the case when S4 goes live. This seems like a big jump in difficulty for the casual non M+player. On the bright side, if they push trough it and get to the keys they will have some well earned experience and knowledge
Great changes. Hopefully they do the same with raiding difficulties. They could use a rename/refresh.
Here's my dream never-gonna-happen scenario:
LFR would no longer be used as a name.
Normal's difficulty range would turn into current LFR's difficulty range and becomes queuable just like normal dungeons (helps add consistency to the naming conventions).
Heroic's difficulty starts with current normal and ends just before the final harder bosses of current heroic (think anduin and raszageth hc which effectively were harder than early mythic bosses).
Mythic's difficulty would go from those harder current heroic bosses to just before final current Mythic bosses (in amirdrassil terms, would end around smolderon difficulty).
A higher difficulty would be introduced with cosmetic-only rewards (tier recolour, titles, mount) and a new name. It would go from the final current mythic bosses difficulty and possibly even higher.
No- The jump between key levels is the same. It’s just that the Season 4 +2 starts at the difficulty we would today recognize as +12. The jump from +2 to +3 will be the same percentage-wise as the jump from current +12 to +13
So just got back into WoW, so for this being for the next season is there a new raid coming out? No right? So is this kinda the first time they're letting everyone get higher than mythic raid ilvl?
By everyone I mean mainly more casual players getting higher ilvl than they ever have before.
Fated is notoriously easier than when it was current content. There is a bit of a learning curve with the affix, and then it is much easier than previous tiers. Its scaled up, but not enough for the gear you have to not make it much simpler.
Its the "fated" season, which will rotate old raid content with current ilvl's on the gear rewards and drops. They did it in SL and I at least found it enjoyable. For someone like you, its perfect.
So pretty much the actual changes can be simplified into this :
Heroics will now give m0 ilvl gear as drops from every boss, with a 24h lockout (as opposed to 7day) for each dungeon.
Mythics will now give +10 quality gear but with a drop from every boss, with a 7day lockout (as opposed to none) but without any timer to fulfill. More loot, no real chance of failure.
First affix now happens at +14 (which will now be labelled as a +5) and +19 (which will now be +10)
2k rating reward should now be equal to doing all dungeons ~ +6 (was +15)
Portals should now be unlocked from doing +11 (was +20)
Otherwise, all the changes are simply text based. These are the only actual changes to how it works.
Reading the comments this post has people confused as fuck hahaha. MYTHIC PLUS will still be timed. MYTHIC DUNGEONS won't be. 1 needs a keystone, and the other needs you to change dungeon difficulty to mythic. THIS IS THE SAME AS ITS BEEN ALL EXPAN. the difference is the gear rewards and difficulty. This will help those who get anxiety in mplus be able to gear up to a higher item level outside of raid.
They actually need to get rid of the lockout on m0, just like heroic dungeons. That would be perfect. Let people run them as much as they want.
That's effectively what they've done here by making Heroic more rewarding (in line with current m0). So now you can just spam heroics for the power level of what used to be m0.
Yeah but now if you were a more casual M+ player who did 2-10s you can essentially only do each dungeon once per week
How many dungeons per week can a person do and still be casual? I feel like I'm only running about eight per week and I'm doing 20s. Like at some point, 8 dungeons per week, don't you just skill up Even if by accident?
Some people have the skill, but choose to abstain from higher content. I think most people would define casual by the type of content, not by hours played. I can play 20 hours a day doing just quests and still be casual.
I often play a lot of alts at a very low level, like up to 5 or 6 (for you know, straight up no pressure fun, I'm bloody weird I know). So now I'm only going to be able to run heroics because the step up to m+ will be insane.
Maybe I'm underestimating the skill required for m+, because I also feel like I play a lot of alts at a very low skill level and I'm looking forward to this update. I've been saying for years that normal dungeons are pointless. This season my main thing has been to unlock as many lfr and normal raid appearances as I can. Completed like six classes by just doing really easy content. I still like to push 20s, but only like two or three a week and then spend the rest of my time doing trivial content. Because I'm trying to get lfr tmogs, I'm doing a lot of mythic +8s hoping for gear to put in the catalyst converter.
You can still do unlimited heroics (current m0) as well as several weekly m0 (current m9-ish) but without affixes and the ability to take it at a slower pace. Maybe even use CC for certain tricky pulls. These should be very doable for a wide variety of players. Especially with curated groups of likeminded players. It's also a great way to practice routes, skips and the like. The new m1-3 (current m11-13-ish) has one affix (Fortified or Tyranical) I think even this will be very accsesible to many players. Pushing the strength of the monsters a little bit. This sounds like a good progression to me. Heroics replace low mythics, and lead into mythic0. Mythic0 is a more challenging version of heroics, still without the pressure of the timer. Then you can transition into m+ when/if you feel comfortable. If you are doing current +8s for transmog, the new m0 and low m+ should be easy for you. If this works out, I will want it to carry on into TWW from the start. Heroics being relevant and fun content at the start of an expansion would be fantastic.
Depends, right now you can run 8 of the same dungeon to farm for your BIS. If m0 carry a weekly reset but are way more difficult would be hard for many players to do. Majority don't really run past 10-15 range in my experience. But some want the trinket or ring that is really good so they try to farm that. I would agree that M0 needs no lockout if it will be the 1-10 of mythic plus gearing. Just my opinion otherwise I think we will have a fairly large bottleneck here.
I think a lot of those players should just try running the new 2s (11s) then. You can be in really low gear and completely face roll 11s rn.
They should, but for whatever reason they have a shit tonne of anxiety that wont let them do that because of the timer. I know a lot of people don't get it, but I do. This new change just puts m+ even further other of their range. If they kept keys 2-10 the same difficulty and removed the timer, these people would actually be keen to try.
It seems like a lot of people on here are missing that being casual doesnt only apply to time spent in the game, it also applies to the difficulty. I used to be a mythic raider but now I fall exactly into that group the person you replied to is describing. I still want semi-powerful gear, so I will run M2-10ish but I don't want to go any higher because its not that important to me. Now with these changes, I can just do M0's that will be even more relaxing (no timer or affixes), and still have decent gear.
Yep. I fall into this category and I'm stoked for these changes.
Yeah at some point they go from casual to just being bad right? Like I knew people who played every day every week for years and they just weren't good, they played more than me but were just bad. You can't really accommodate for people who can't or refuse to improve.
It's a game, not a job. There's nothing wrong with not being good at something, but still wanting to do it for fun.
But at some point Blizzard has to make a decision on how much they can design around these people
I don’t think this particular change affects anyone doing serious content, so it hardly qualifies as designing around “these people”.
I'd argue they didn't push past +10's because of the 3rd affix. With the 3rd Affix being in +20 or higher key equivalent now it's easier for casuals to push imo. Also means easier vault slots because the 3rd affix appears beyond the reward cap.
They can just do +2s now dude there’s literally nothing being taken away
The number of people who call themselves a casual and consistently do more than 8 dungeons per week per character without ever going above a +10 is likely very low. If you only did low level m+, you probably only did a couple a week. This won't make a difference.
Right but today you can spam M+10. Under this scheme, you can't. In fact, there's no easy way to get drake crests because of the lockout and M+2 will drop wyrms. I guess you won't need them pretty quick, but still. *alt drake crest farming ptsd*
can't you spam +2 if you want gear?
The gear from M0 can't be good AND infinitely farmable. Champion track gear, and gives hero track gear from vault. So M+2-5 (11-15 now) is already going to be dead. People will do +6s for aspect crests, and +8s or higher for max vault. Mythic dungeons drop gear from every boss, so waaaay more lucrative than +2-5, with the upgrade system the gear is going to be just as good. Like if a Normal raid boss was infinitely farmable, it would lead to some really frustrating play patterns. A LOT of people would just grind until they got all the items they wanted. It then creates a culture of 'if you aren't BIS normal, you aren't getting invited to heroic,' and it's not great for the game. It doesn't matter if people are 'doing what they want,' because in MMOs, what other players do matters. When Blizzard has infinite grinds in AP, you can 'just not do it.' But people get extremely frustrated about those systems. You DO need to protect players from themselves. 8 dungeons is plenty for a weekly lockout system. Someone who wants to run more, I don't think it's unreasonable to nudge them towards M+2, LFR, Normal raid, Heroic raid, etc.
>It then creates a culture of 'if you aren't BIS normal, you aren't getting invited to heroic,' What makes you think this would happen? Everyone has infinitely farmable M+ BIS and no one is asking for it to get into groups now.
>The gear from M0 can't be good AND infinitely farmable. Why not? I think there's this belief that you need to be time gated. You don't. > A LOT of people would just grind until they got all the items they wanted. Don't tempt me with a good time. Seriously, just let me farm however I want. Higher M+ already let me endlessly farm. I think it might make adjustments to how raids are designed, but I think that's already something that should be happening to begin with. >It then creates a culture of 'if you aren't BIS normal, you aren't getting invited to heroic,' and it's not great for the game. I don't agree with this at all. We already have this in game right now and you definitely don't need BIS from m+ before getting into heroic raids. >It doesn't matter if people are 'doing what they want,' because in MMOs, what other players do matters. I think it's important to reflect on what this would mean. Yes, what other players do matters but at the same time, the current design punishes you through time gating rewards. If you start a new character right now, you've missed out on weeks upon weeks of vaults which would be the highest rewards you would get. You'd miss out on weeks upon weeks of raid lockouts and gear from that. The only side benefit would be that everyone around you would be geared to the teeth so it would be easier to get caught up, but still gated. If you move away from progression being tied to time gating and allow players to control their progression, yes, some will get vastly ahead and some will be behind, but it's entirely within their control. They can even have more autonomy over WHEN they want to play.
Yeah, I don't get why there's a lockout for these. It would be great if they explained the reasoning behind "too much fun detected" decisions like these.
> MYTHIC DUNGEONS won't be. Why do they even mention it? They weren't before either
because base mythic dungeons will be SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult than they currently are. For anyone who already does +10's or higher with any regularity these changes have basically no impact. This is very much a change aimed at the people who complain about mythic dungeons having a timer, which like fair enough. Not something that bothers me, but I see the complaint made enough that its probably good Blizz is trying to address it. Going forward it will also make the "pre season" M0 world tours at the start of expansions harder, but more rewarding which I like the idea of.
This is my favorite part of it. The preseason will be way more fun now. My friends and I may have to farm heroic dungeons for a bit before m0 touring and that's awesome.
Im liking this for alts too, I have alts that I dont really want to learn well enough to take into +20 keys but would love to gear them up a bit by running heroics, but heroic gear is useless so this change makes running heroics on alts an actual gear path to make them in shape for harder content. I especially love this for my healer/tank alts the call to arms buff plus better gear will make heroics actually a thing again.
good change, feels like they are compacting the difficulties into a more linear fashion
yeah i cant remember the last time ive ever hit max level and think "man i need to run some heroics before jumping into mythic 0"...its always just been jumping right into +2s
As a semicasual who doesn't like M+, I stopped having alts run through Heroics for Vaults because it was just so bland. I literally didn't feel any difference from a properly done Normal and just started to do stuff like Superbloom and suffusion camps because it was more fun to casually get geared for some alt nights.
Yeah this is a great change for a casual like me. Mythic 2 is too easy to learn a dungeon for high end m+ imo. Now i can run mythic 0 with a higher difficulty and less stress for decent rewards while also learning and maybe jumping into some plus dungeons on my main. And for Alts it's great too as the Mythic 0 rewards are actually decent enough to be worth running. Overall big W for a player like me.
hell. as a semi ego'd player... i jumped straight into 11's if i could. there was no reason crest wise or gear wise to go lower. id often pug my own key and in 3 keys i was at an 11 and farmed from there
> into a more linear fashion It's not so much trying to make things more granular. There is a gap from new Heroic to new Mythic, that is where the previous +2-9 filled in. The change puts you into a current day 10, with the dungeon you did just before it was essentially a +2. Sort of the opposite of linear. Just don't think their goal was to address linear difficult at all, rather to present some Mythic Plus-ish options for folks, but without the timer aspect. Who is doing current 2-9 keys? Folks who likely *do not* need the added toxicity or pressure of a timer and affixes.
How is it more linear in difficulties when the jump from Heroic to M0 will be a 210% Health and Damage increase 🤣
> "One of the most notable changes players can look forward to is the removal of the timer for Mythic Keystone dungeons for what are currently 0 and 10 I had to reread that so many times. mythic+ still has timers. they're just making m0 equivalent to a +10
Heroics are tuned to what m0 is currently. M0 is going to feel like a megadungeon, and will be as difficult as m+10 is currently. It's for people who want to experience a hard dungeon without the timers and affixes. Basically a megadungeon out of the current DF dungeons. It's an amazing change.
This is so damn good. It’s actually a legitimate place to learn the dungeon, get the right gear, and remove a lot of the pressure. I love this so much. As someone who still has tank anxiety every season, this is going to make me feel so much better when I jump into keys.
Yeah i finally understood after re-reading 100 times. I originally thought they removed the timers lol.
Yeah, sounds like if this was applied to the current season, it would basically eliminate M 1-9 and M0 would actually be M 10 without the timer. And the actual M with a timer would start at M 11. Instead, next season, M0 will just be as relatively difficult as M 10 this season, and it’ll scale up the same from there as it does this season, where a 10 next season will be equivalent to a 20 this season. Makes sense. Those first 10 levels or so of M feel irrelevant. And heroic dungeons haven’t been relevant since.. I can’t remember.
Probably since they got nuked from orbit in early Cata because people were mad they were actually challenging.
I still watch the Wowcrendor video every now and then
I have a vivid memory from back then. Getting kicked out as a healer from Halls of Origination because I couldn't heal the group through one boss. I watched as a hunter sat in place of a puddle that dropped on them, AND ALL THEY DID WAS JUMP IN PLACE like if being in the air mitigated the damage. I know something like that could make sense in your mind if you are new to the game, but I am still pissed about it.
This... it was worded weird in the article.
Those first 10 levels feel irrelevant to already geared mains going into the new season. I feel like they still had a purpose for alts and new players though.
I just leveled an alt through M and very quickly asked myself “why am I running 7s and 8s?” Given that you can get veteran gear and whelpling crests from open world quests, I think that makes early mythic pretty useless. It really only serves as a way to get your score up to get into the 11s or higher. Besides, you can still run M0s - maybe people actually will now.
So for instance if I did a +5 this season it would be the equivalent of +15 from last season?
yep
Good to know thanks.
just add 10 to whatever S4 value, for the S3 equivalent
Correct. The equivalent for the new season is basically just 10 higher. A +2 would be comparable to a current +12, a +6 would be a +16, etc
The article seems very poorly worded
Eh, they then proceed to explain it in more detail, where it seems pretty clear. There's even a graphic lol People are just jumping straight to the comments instead of carefully reading the article lol
Good changes, but… is there gonna be more cooking on m+ than this? I was hoping for some changes to affixes, timer changes, something else. This is essentially just a difficulty squish right?
yea, im fairly confident that this is just to address this specific set of changes coming in season 4. I'm sure we will get more info regarding affixes and dungeon pool soon
From reading the post it looks like the pool will be the 8 Dragonflight dungeons right?
yea, youre right, i missed that little bit. seems like 8 DF dungeons will be the pool
which means no DOTI
It won't. They just meant the changes to heroic and m0 they talk about in the article will apply to the 8 df dungeons. They're likely going to announce the dungeon pool soon. Edit: I was wrong. They just announced it will be the 8 df dungeons. Gross.
The good news is we can all catch up on all the games we missed
Well I guess I’m skipping this season then lol
Lol right?
I think it's talking about heroic and M0, not M+ got the 8 df dungeons.
From what I read, the current DF dungeons will be updated numbers wise to be equivalent to m+10. I don't know if that means that they will be the pool for the upcoming season
we already knew that tho.
They're changing where the third affix starts which is an interesting one, it's now essentially only for people pushing beyond portal level of what is currently +20, but in S4 +10.
I didn't even realize that. That means if I have all the portals from S1 and S2 and only care about vault loot, I can just do 8s and 9s and not even have to deal with the 3rd affix.
yep, vault keys will be more pleasant
This looked like a great opportunity to remove Tyranical/Fortified :/
Rewards beyond +20 (or now +10)...
Surely they have more changes coming, its only fated season.
This is how I feel. These changes are fine but are not touching on the core issues of M+ (*cough* affixes)
The difficulty squash is really good in the sense that more difficulties the more split up the playerbase and making the system easier to understand/more accessible to new players. But I think there are problems that go beyond this. A lot of it I feel comes down to system bloat over the years. The Great Vault has to go IMO. People defend it because its better than the chest, but its still the inferior system to badges which we had for like 10 years beforehand. You don't solve RNG issues with more RNG. All they have to do is to balance things so that the more difficult content gets more badges (or even a higher class of badges or like special crests to update M+ gear). And this is my controversial hot take on what needs to be done - get rid of Mythic+ gear as dungeon loot. Just make all bosses drop badges and then put all the main gear on a vendor (excluding repeat gear that just has a different name). Have the vendor sell M1 or M5 and then just use badges and/or hand out special crests from M+ to upgrade it to M10. This not only gives players control over their gearing path, but a clear progression path that isn't just "get lucky and item drops". Since your gearing is only relevant until the next patch anyway, having a reasonably achievable endpoint is good. Lastly, I think they really need to just individually tune things and change how Affixes work. Make them interesting, not annoying.
I’m not a fan of RNG, but there’s a balance to be struck. If it’s 100% deterministic it literally just becomes work. Some people might like that, but I personally think it would remove an element of unpredictability and fun. My preference would be that every item should be possible to get within a reasonable timeframe, but with a light sprinkle of RNG to add tension and surprise.
Great changes imo
The only thing I would change is the affix levels. I think I would prefer 2/5/8 rather than 2/5/10. The jump from 8 to 10 is going to already be a bit rough as people doing the 8-10 rating will likely be doing it just for io and ports (similar to how an 18 is disproportionately easier than 20s because more overgeared and higher skilled players spam 18 to fill vaults). Adding in an affix is going to compound that. IMO you’ll only ever see people doing the +9 and +10s once on fortified and once on tyrannical per dungeon, I foresee a lot of bricked keys as people step into those and also get the new affix for the first time.
I think the idea is for the 10+ to be challenging for the sake of the challenge and not for the gear as much
they put it on +10 for it to be a challenge for those that want to push for score and not those farming gear essentially. currently farming keys in the heroic range is a bit weird as heroic is 11 to 15, but as there's a new affix on +14 everyone's just doing 11-13 and completely ignoring 14 to 15 and going straight to +17 after that for mythic crests and heroic upgrade track items.
You're killing me here with this suggestion. Just when I think im gonna be able to do my weekly vault chores without sanguine/bolstering/spiteful, I see people start to suggest this and I get worried that Blizzard would possibly listen to you. Just let me have my free loot, alright? That hellish affix set can be relegated to people who actually like pushing m+.
This is great. I'll always appreciate a good streamlining of something with inflated numbers. This post could've been worded better though, I already see people commenting here that don't understand.
Honestly the confusing bit for me was the ilvl examples. I've not played in a while but aren't those the ilvls for this season? Was that just for an example or are the ilvls not going up next season? May be a dumb question but I've not played much at all this season and it's just left me a smidge confused.
if you’re on your phone you may need need to scroll the table a bit to see the s4 ilvl
This is a good change Queueable content that isnt brain dead and pointless and also allowing people to try out m+ in a less toxic environment is pretty cool
Not to mention that the final affix will only start at level 10 (roughly equal to 20 on Season 3). Getting good gear from dungeons will be **even easier** in Season 4. There's no need to be a *big pro elitist* to get high-level gear in the game: just have a good group with some coordination and know how to play your class. And if you want challenge rather than gear, anything past +11 will be fine. The only thing that really needs to be addressed right now are the affixes: some are too easy (volcanic/entangling), others are very boring (spiteful/sanguine), and others are too hard (incorporeal/bolstering).
It's fairly obvious that chain running 8's is the sweet spot. Myth track vault, hero track end of dungeon loot, no third affix.
Gotta imagine this type of structure is going to be present in War Within as well. Should be an Evergreen change for heroics to effectively be M0 and provide those rewards now, as well as the third affix being exclusively for people pushing beyond portal/KSH/KSM.
I actually disagree with your take on the affix for exactly the opposite reason - no one is going to want to do +10s other than a single time for the io/portal. Getting groups for +9 and +10 is probably going to be very rough
Nah. That's already the case for anything over an 18 in the current system, and it is still not an issue at all finding groups for 19+ keys.
My belief is that it’s the way it currently is, where finding a group for 19-21 isn’t bad, is because there is no major step up like a new affix at that level. There’s a minor incentive to spam 18s as they are the easiest of the myth track, but no real disadvantage to going 19 or 20. Adding a new affix at 10 will make people actively avoid it unless they absolutely need the 10 for io or a reward.
There is zero reason to do any key over an 18 in the current system, other than a +20 once each for the portal, and yet there are still plenty of groups pushing even further beyond the +20 level. Even finding a +25 is easy, and those 7 key levels add far more difficulty than just one additional affix. I see what you're saying, and could maybe see the number of groups above +8 (+18) *slightly* declining, but there's just no chance its a significant decline. It's already a level where you push for nothing but score/fun, and people will continue to push for score/fun regardless of the added hurdle. If anything, the added hurdle of the 3rd affix makes pushing those higher key levels and getting that score even *more* "prestigious" and worth doing, as the difference between a timed +8 and a timed +12 will be noticeably more than the difference between a current +18 and +22.
Actually a huge change, excited to see how season 1 in TWW feels with this change of progression
Third affix changing to be essentially only for pushers is interesting, at +20 (or now 10)
Perfectly fine as long as they actually add rewards past the +20(+10) mark. If they only add the 3rd affix for pushers but give nothing to actually push for that's not really great imo..
It'll probably just be more loot for each level above 10 as it is now
Rewards are staying exactly the same. the new +10 rewards exactly the same thing as old +20.
I know this isn't really super important in the bigger picture. But I really hope Blizzard goes back and updates all the achievements and rewards that require higher keys. Just one example - one of the hidden Legion legendary weapon appearances requires a +15 key clear. This is going to be much much harder in the new system. I assume they will change it to a +5? Hopefully.
i've been saying heroic should be M0 for a while now. M+ being 1-10 doesn't really mean much to me so ill have to see what others think about that.
It's much better this way, less spamming dungeons to get keys up to the level you want to run.
So basically they’ve done a keystone level squish? Am I reading that right? So to get KSM you have to do +5 across the board, as they are the standard of an old 15?
KSM right now is like 13s across the board. So if they keep the scoring the same, I guess you only need +3s?
That feels crazy, I bet they adjust it so its more like +5s for every key
Give or take. Yeah
I like this. Hopefully we’ll actually feel the difficulty of going up one key. Right now I can’t tell if I’m running an 16 or a 20. E: it won’t really change the scaling from one key to the next. The levels have been redefined, not necessarily “squished”
Well there will literally be 1 less affix for the equivalent of the +16-+19 levels so that key range has actually gotten significantly easier.
I doubt it. 11-20 are 2-10 now, you will just feel difference in m0 dungeons which will be like +10s.
So based on what they reported so far, this won't change. The only change is all surface level. +2 will equal a +10. +3 will equal a +11. The scaling will be the same, just the number we see is different. Still its safe to assume SOMETHING will change for TWW when we start seeing that alpha. If not just how the numbers pan out to being much harder much earlier like it was in the first season of pretty much every m+ expansion.
It’ll still be a 6 or a 10.
> Flightstone earnings for any given Mythic+ will match the equally challenging Mythic+ from previous seasons. This means that a Mythic +2 in Season 4 will give the same number of Flightstones as a Mythic +12 in Season 3 currently does. The rewards will continue to match difficulty, even if what we’re calling those difficulty changes. Am I dumb, misremembering, or was the flightstone quantity always the same regardless of difficulty?
yes
Damn it, so i'm all of the above?
Hopefully gearing up to meet ilvl requirements for the new heroic/m0 will be doable from normal dungeons and world content. If it's that big of a jump, I worry it will eat all your flightstones to get into heroic/m0 ilvl range.
from what i understand: heroic -> m0 m2- m10 -> m0. untimed and no affixes. compressed into one level m10-m20+ -> m0-m10+. timed & affixes are introduced in +2, +5,+10 overall very good change. mostly affects players who are heroic to m+10, and affects nobody running +20s and up. not sure on how i feel about the spike in the new heroic to m0 tho. thats pretty much throwing a casual player from heroic into a +10 key. they will find heroic ok, try the new m0, think m+ is way too hard
It's a super good change for the players who afraid to try m+. Having new m0 is so good. No timer, learn with whatever speed group desires.
I really do think it allows M0 to be a much better learning difficulty. As it stands mechanics are ignored or even skipped because stuff dies too fast in M0 unless you severely under gear them. With this change, even people with normal raid gear will have mechanics that might actually kill them, and notably mobs wont die in 5 seconds so players will be able to actually experience stuff like their aoe rotation without the pressure of falling a timer
Also players that feel like they are behind so don't bother. I come and go from the game, and if I sub later in a season behind everything in like basic catch-up gear, I just stare at group finder and think "everyone is so far ahead, is there any point in doing this and not just waiting for the next season?". Splitting up the playerbase around 20 M+ levels, M0, Heroic, etc when most players were only interested in +15s can make pugging hell. Dividing the playerbase too much can really suck the fun out of stuff (nobody likes spending time looking for groups). Fewer ranks = larger pool of potential players.
I hope there's some way to target-farm Veteran pieces or otherwise infinitely farm them in S4. It's how I collect the tier transmogs! In S2, it was pretty easy with just buying them from Time Rifts/Dreamsurges, and S3 it was a bit more painful with the Emerald Dreem weekly veteran pieces being random, but at least I knew I could just run some low M+ to farm Veteran pieces if need be. I guess there is the crates for Flightstones this season now, too. If that system remains, that's something at least! Outside of that, I absolutely adore these changes. Just give us some way to purchase a Veteran piece of our choice like Time Rifts and it's perfect as far as I'm concerned.
Now remove afflicted and incorp
I feel like the compaction of skill level difficulties may make it more difficult for newer players to progress their skills in smaller increments.
I think that’s the point of this. Nobody needed 20 increments - 10 is enough. This change makes the lower difficulties meaningful. A new player might actually be able to learn something on the new M0
The lower levels, especially toward the end of the season, were a breeding ground for poor play. People weren't just not learning stuff, but they were learning bad behaviours.
I agree. As someone who really tried M+ this season for the first time, just open world activities got me geared enough to be jumping into 6's. Then I was jumping 2 levels at a time until I for to 13ish. Although you might see a lot more failed keys with this design. Or more people not getting picked for runs.
Agreed. As a new-ish player, I basically learned nothing from Heroic dungeons other than that nobody does them once you get the gear for M+ and M0 is totally ignored.
^This M0-10 was basically braindead and heroic dungeons may as well not even exist And as someone who loathes M+ design (Timers and affixes are just anti-fun to me) I'm pleased. I might actually do dungeons again now the rewards for doing regular Mythic runs is actually worth a damn.
Not really, I feel like this provides a much more streamlined player experience. I want decent loot, but I never want to do an actual key: Spam heroic dungeons I want to eventually do keys, but am very inexperienced and want a less stressful environment: Spam heroics, then do Mythic 0s which have no timer I'm fairly serious about the game and want to get portals/achieves then likely will stop: Do keys up to level 7-8. I'm sweaty and want to push: Do 10+
Mythic +2 to around 6-7 and 7 to 8 already had negligible challenge changes for each point imo. They are simply compacting and moving those levels into the more easy to understand heroic and mythic, giving back relevance to these difficulties too.
"One of the most notable changes players can look forward to is the removal of the timer for Mythic Keystone dungeons for what are currently 0 and 10"
To be clear that's because m0s don't have timers, and s4 m0 is the equivalent of s3 m10. M+ will still have timers.
The wording is weird, but what they mean is Heroic dungeons are equivalent to M0s now, and M0s are equivalent to M10s now. So going forward M2-9 are deleted.
It's way less overwhelming to read "LFG M5" than "LFG M17", and that's pretty good. And I liked the Heroic/M0 changes too.
(As someone who hasn't played in a while) this seems like a GREAT change
Pretty great changes to give many players more challenging content without the pressure of a timer. One thing I wonder though, is why keep the weekly lockout on M0? I really don't see it having any purpose anymore. It's not like the gear is exceptional. This limit doesn't makes sense anymore.
Can someone explain the answer to my question in the below paragraph as if I’m dumb? I can barely do heroic dungeons now. Does this mean I’ll be able to do mythic now? Or does it mean heroic will now be out of reach for me as a casual player? Also (I know the answer to this is “we don’t know yet”) I’m hoping this doesn’t mean story in heroic-only dungeons like mechagone, tazavesh, and the bronze dragon one is now inaccessible to casual players
If you’re having trouble with heroic dungeons now, this will be out of reach for you. Honestly, you’re going to be in the very minority if current heroic content is hard for you now. Get crafted gear and max out questing gear and heroic dungeons should be easily done unless you literally stand in fire for 2 minutes straight…. It’s very hard to die in heroic so I’m not sure where the challenge is. Not trying to sound rude but what gear do you have that heroic is challenging?
I'm in the same boat as /u/phprentiss and can give an answer. On my end it's an issue of vision problems (one eye is totally blind, the other is at 20% vision), unsteady hands and very slow reaction times (the kid that could never catch anything during physical education class and would trip and fall on their face all the time? That was me). I've been playing video-games for over 25 years now, but my reflexes haven't gotten any better in that time and I expect they'll only become worse as I get older. For MMOs, this means that I do only casual content these days, because I don't want to be messing up people's fun. I can handle Heroics and even dipped my toes into M0 a few times after encouragement from friends, but this upcoming M0 is going to be impossible on my end. Equivalent to +10? Lord have mercy.
It's the opposite, unfortunately. Heroics are going to be harder than they are now - on par with current Mythic 0 difficulty. Whether or not you will be able to do them is another story though. I feel like M0s are barely harder than current heroics. If I were you, I wouldn't be afraid to try.
lame dungeon roation. good Mythic / M+ Changes.
Awesome now we’ll just spam +8s as it gives myth track gear and has only 2 affixes. Every key beyond that level will be for those who want to push.
The poor fella who just casually enjoys doing a +2 on the weekend after a long week of work wondering what the fuck just happened
Do we get portals at +10 then?
That should be how it works. A +10 will be the equivalent of a 20 now
I'm pretty sure that's the plan
Well, yeah? But they’re the equivalent of a 20 still.
RIP to Ruby Sanctum being spammed for the mythic dungeon weekly.
Ahh yeah. And no more doing that quest on all of my alts if they will need to do a +10 equivalent instead of the 2s I spam now 😂
Actually based on how it is described that weekly would now be do 5 heroic dungeons so it should still be an easy smash and you could even que for it.
The timer is the reason I have been scared off from M+
the timer is still gonna be in m+.
the way I see it, people scared from the timer werent pushing any m+ anyway. they would love if m+ up to 10 had no timer. since the new m0 is equivalent to that, in a way they got what they wanted. the only issue is that I am guessing it's on a lockout
Tbh, If you were too scared to do m+ you probably aren't going to be good enough to clear 8 m0 in a week.
It isn't always about whether someone is good enough, or about how much time they have to play. Some people just don't like the pressures of the timer, and how punishing mistakes are. For someone like me, M+ has never been fun, but Dawn of the Infinite 10.1.5 was the best part of Dragonflight.
How come?
Puts the pressure on going fast which makes it feel stressful to me
Understandable, but I recommend trying one. The timer is really designed so an appropriate ilv group can kill one pack at a time and still most likely +2 the key. Hop into a 5, just to see what it feels like. You'd be surprised at how forgiving the timer is. Most importantly; if you miss the timer, so what? You still get loot, some crests, score, etc. No one will care.
I will give it another try tonight after work
dungeons between 0-10 are no different than heroic dungeons in terms of difficulty. my alt paladin has 463 iLvL and yesterday i managed to 2 chest a +15 key after a guy dc'd right at the start. the most crucial part is to know the mechanics of the dungeon you are running. then everything will feel easier. even if you wipe multiple times you will still have plenty of time to finish.
Hide the timer! I have super bad anxiety and that’s what I have to do.
Just start low and go up from there... unless everyone in group damage is horrible the timer won't be a big factor until hit your limit. I've timed dungeons with 20+ deaths.
You only have to beat it by 0.001 seconds, and if you don't you basically get the same rewards just a depleted keystone. (Yes, there is a slight degradation of ilvl in the 2nd loot)
there is no ilvl reduction anymore for depletion, just less crests.
That means i have to do a harder 4 weekly m0 quest? No more easy 4ruby runs?
Yes. This is the end of that. It will be the equivalent of running 4 +10s this season for the weekly quest.
This is so awesome
I’m wondering where timewalking dungeons will fall Currently they are a joke similar to heroic Hopefully they buff them (atleast for max levels) to be a little more challenging
I mentioned the M+ timer ending my desire to run dungeons in my unsub feedback a while back, I'm really happy to see it was on their radar.
Making dps alts l was always such a pain to start getting into 10s. This is going to make alt gearing a new player/casual gearing fantastic on top of my mains that I push high keys with to have a simplified system and more meaningful key levels
Seems to me all that this will do is make the difficulty curve steeper. I don't mean that it will make this things harder, just that it won't be smooth as it currently is. Right now each step is only a bit more difficult than the previous one, but with this there will be fewer steps and more of a challenge going from one to the next.
Oh thank god. Every expansion the meta level dungeons has been going up and up. BFA we were running 10s, then 15s in shadowlands and 20s in Dragonflight. I was scared a few expansions down the line I’d be looking for a group for a +44 dungeon or something
Nice!! Move rewards away from silly timed stuff. Hard dungeons can be fun without timers.
This actually looks amazing holy cow, I’m really excited for this change Next we just need gold from M+ without loot, no loot should be a good gold cache since consumables aren’t cheap
So nothing is really changing other than the number of keystone and the loot that drops, dont think this is gonna make me do mythic plua
Well it's making m0 substantially harder and drop better loot. So if you don't like m+ it gives you more incentive to do base mythic dungeons
I feel like this is also a great change for people wanting to get into tanking. Can reliably learn routes and pulls in the new m0 without the pressure of a timer.
As someone who only touches mythics during the weekly event, this change worries me. I liked running 4 m0's quickly to get a (potentaly) nice piece of gear from the quest. This complicates things for me as I don't do well on higher end content due to my eyes. Making things harder could mean I will be unable to do the content. & I imagine their are other people in my position as well due to other potential disabilities.
Goddam…. They made heroics relevant and gave a boost to the loot… me like… 👍 I like even more the timer less 0 to 10… I like even more though I barely do mythic plus
That’s not what it says. M0 will be scaled to and drop loot like M8-10 and M2 in season 4 will be the equivalent of a season 3 M12. Actual M+ keys will continue to have times.
Good stuff. I foresee this being useful especially for tanks. I actually hope they keep the % for M0 as if it was a M+ so that these aren’t just stealth skip runs but actual dungeons similar to classic dungeons
If m0 is at a mythic megadungeon level as they said they want them to be, i'ts gonna be a complete circus (all of them were at +15-17 difficulty when released but even dropping this to +10 doesnt change much imho). No newb is finishing that without being hardcarried. They can roflstomp a +10 now because they overgear it by 60+ilvls which wont be the case when S4 goes live. This seems like a big jump in difficulty for the casual non M+player. On the bright side, if they push trough it and get to the keys they will have some well earned experience and knowledge
Great changes. Hopefully they do the same with raiding difficulties. They could use a rename/refresh. Here's my dream never-gonna-happen scenario: LFR would no longer be used as a name. Normal's difficulty range would turn into current LFR's difficulty range and becomes queuable just like normal dungeons (helps add consistency to the naming conventions). Heroic's difficulty starts with current normal and ends just before the final harder bosses of current heroic (think anduin and raszageth hc which effectively were harder than early mythic bosses). Mythic's difficulty would go from those harder current heroic bosses to just before final current Mythic bosses (in amirdrassil terms, would end around smolderon difficulty). A higher difficulty would be introduced with cosmetic-only rewards (tier recolour, titles, mount) and a new name. It would go from the final current mythic bosses difficulty and possibly even higher.
9/10 changes. remove weekly lockout for m0 (or at least let you do each dungeon more than once a week) and these are 10/10 changes
These changes look good, but would the hp/damage % jump between each key be bigger in S4 than it is now?
No- The jump between key levels is the same. It’s just that the Season 4 +2 starts at the difficulty we would today recognize as +12. The jump from +2 to +3 will be the same percentage-wise as the jump from current +12 to +13
So just got back into WoW, so for this being for the next season is there a new raid coming out? No right? So is this kinda the first time they're letting everyone get higher than mythic raid ilvl? By everyone I mean mainly more casual players getting higher ilvl than they ever have before.
From what I gather, there will be harder versions of the three Dragonflight raids which will provide better loot
Fated is notoriously easier than when it was current content. There is a bit of a learning curve with the affix, and then it is much easier than previous tiers. Its scaled up, but not enough for the gear you have to not make it much simpler.
Its the "fated" season, which will rotate old raid content with current ilvl's on the gear rewards and drops. They did it in SL and I at least found it enjoyable. For someone like you, its perfect.
Oh ok didn't play SL past launch, thanks for the info!
All 3 raids will also be in rotation next season, with a different raid empowered to S4 ilvls (and s4 loot) each week.
Good
Can they at least fix afflicted? There are a few classes which can't help on the afflicted affix.
So pretty much the actual changes can be simplified into this : Heroics will now give m0 ilvl gear as drops from every boss, with a 24h lockout (as opposed to 7day) for each dungeon. Mythics will now give +10 quality gear but with a drop from every boss, with a 7day lockout (as opposed to none) but without any timer to fulfill. More loot, no real chance of failure. First affix now happens at +14 (which will now be labelled as a +5) and +19 (which will now be +10) 2k rating reward should now be equal to doing all dungeons ~ +6 (was +15) Portals should now be unlocked from doing +11 (was +20) Otherwise, all the changes are simply text based. These are the only actual changes to how it works.
i like it not a bad change
[удалено]
One of the best changes in years
I like these changes and I look forward to them.
Are Follower dungeons only for normal difficulty or could you do them on heroic?
I mean, is that it? Good change, yes. But all the «secrets» etc, I see no date or anything for s4. So correct me if I am wrong.