Introduced with Mythic+ dungeons at the beginning of Legion season one, September 2016, seasonal affixes have always added more flavor to World of Warcraft by spicing up routes and introducing more lore fantasy to dungeons. Unfortunately, seasonal affixes are retiring in Dragonflight season two, launching May 9. But, not all hope is gone as WoW devs hinted that they might return in the future.
On April 20, Blizzard Entertainment hosted a live chat featuring the WoW Community Council and Mythic+ devs Morgan Day, Matt Villers, and Andrew De Sousa. During this Mythic+ discussion, Morgan Day emphasized that you should “never say never” to seasonal affixes making a return in the future.
“Never say never. I do think there’s something really cool about the fantasy and the theme of who’s the big bad this patch and that fantasy making it to the dungeons is really cool. We love that element of it. I’d definitely say that the door is open to that,” Day said.
When first introduced to the game, the Mythic+ dungeon pool didn’t change from season to season and WoW devs had specific goals they wanted to achieve with those affixes. So, seasonal affixes were supposed to affect the routing, your approach to the dungeon, and have an impact on how your role plays that season. In addition to that, Day says that the players needed the option to plan around seasonal affixes.
But, Dragonflight took a different approach to Mythic+ dungeons, changing the Mythic+ dungeon pool every season. So, Day explained that dungeons changing up every season meets all those previously mentioned goals and seasonal affixes are unnecessary.
Blizzard is “taking a step back when it comes to the complexity of Mythic+,” Day explained, and the devs are trying to reduce the number of mechanics in Mythic+ dungeons as players can often be overwhelmed with dungeon mechanics, three regular affixes, and one seasonal affix.
Dragonflight season two starts on May 9 and it won’t feature seasonal affixes at all. So, this could be considered one big experiment as WoW devs see the community’s reaction to the new version of Mythic+ dungeons.
