The community of “Mythic+” dungeons in World of Warcraft is frustrated. If you are not playing in a steady group, you simply do not have a good time with the affixes.
For almost 6 weeks, the first season of the expansion The War Within has been running in World of Warcraft, and by now it has become clear: The new affixes are both a curse and a blessing. Currently, there are these affixes that are relevant:
- From level 2: Xal’atath’s Trade – A changing effect that must be circumvented so that enemies do not receive a buff. If the trade is executed correctly, the whole group receives a strong buff for 30 seconds.
- From level 4: Tyrannical or Fortified – One of the two effects is active every week. Either trash mobs are fortified or the bosses.
- From level 7: Challenging’s Trick – The death of a character subtracts 15 seconds from the remaining time of the dungeon.
- From level 10: Tyrannical or Fortified – The second, missing affix is activated, making both bosses and trash mobs significantly stronger from level 10.
In this regard, I cannot even make a major accusation against Blizzard. When the affixes were introduced a few months ago, most in the community agreed: This will be quite good and will focus primarily on the dungeon rather than just the “play of the affix,” as was the case in previous expansions.
Back then, there were often “dead weeks” in which hardly anyone wanted to play Mythic+ if the affix combination was not good. Meanwhile, basically every week is equally good so that you can play whenever you want. The affixes only have a minor impact on that; the difficulty is roughly the same every week. In theory, it was perfect. But only in theory.
Challenging’s Trick regularly destroys groups
The biggest problem is the affix that has no effect at all as long as the dungeon is running perfectly. “Challenging’s Trick” can let the remaining time to finish a dungeon sink to 0 in the blink of an eye if something goes wrong.
The longer I think about it, the stranger I find it to punish death in a dungeon additionally by loss of time. Because if the group dies, that fact alone is punishment enough, which is already acknowledged with a significant loss of time:
- The path back to the combat site can take between 30 and 60 seconds.
- Depending on when the hero group was wiped, you lose progress on the boss or the current enemy group, which can mean another 30 seconds to 3 minutes – depending on how far the fight had progressed.
That adding another 15 seconds per character – which means a maximum of 75 seconds – on top of this punishment feels very harsh in retrospect. It is something I did not see coming.
PUGs despair, players insult each other
This punishment is not so bad for tight-knit guild groups or dungeon groups that consist solely of friends. They usually forgive mistakes, and the affix ensures that players are forced to play more perfectly.
However, many players in World of Warcraft do not visit dungeons exclusively with guild or friends, but as part of PUGs, meaning with people they have never seen before. This is simply the reality of how a large part of the community plays World of Warcraft.
A single wipe results in a loss of 75 seconds in time, in addition to the time losses of the lost fight that must be repeated. In dungeons that have a time limit of about 30 minutes, a single defeat can cause a loss of 10% of the time limit. This is a pretty draconian punishment and has fueled toxic behavior in the community for weeks.
This, of course, comes in addition to the fact that many simply treat all affixes as a healing affix.
Those who want to help only make things worse
The problem is further intensified by the changes made to the interruption system of spells and abilities. In most cases, hostile spells are only considered “interrupted” when a “pure” interruption like Kick or Counterspell is used. If a spell is interrupted by a stun or by pushing enemies away, they can immediately recast the spell.
Those who panic and try to save their group by stunning can cause a proper interruption to fail, and the corresponding mob can then channel the devastating spell unhindered. This can then lead to the death of one or more characters, which in turn activates the time penalty.
These two effects compound each other and create a tense atmosphere that often ends in insults or even causes group members to leave the dungeon early, as it becomes evident after a single defeat that they will not make the timer anyway.
I do not have a perfect solution for the problem. For organized, tight-knit groups, the current affixes are an absolute blessing, as “perfect” gameplay with communication in voice chat is rewarded. However, those who set out with random players – and that is indeed a large part of the community – are currently unhappy with the affixes and are sometimes harshly punished.
It seems clear that Blizzard must experiment with different affixes for season 2 of The War Within that do not punish already punishing incidents (like a death) even harder. Because this is going to be a test of endurance for everyone who does not play in a fixed 5-man group. And there are indeed quite a few in World of Warcraft.
Especially healers are currently often in despair.
