World of Warcraft’s Mythic+ dungeons will be getting one of their biggest updates in history alongside the launch of Dragonflight season two, as Blizzard is set to sunset seasonal affixes.
Each Mythic+ season, WoW’s dungeons were accompanied by a unique mechanic that thematically fit the season and would uniquely spice up Mythic+ runs. Moving forward, though, seasonal affixes will no longer be a part of the Mythic+ experience.
“In terms of the philosophy of affixes in particular for season two, we’ve definitely taken a big step back there and are looking at it very holistically,” WoW associate game director Morgan Day told Dot Esports in a group interview. “One major change we’re making is we’re actually just not going to have a level 10 [affix], which is to say the seasonal affix, like Thundering. There won’t be a replacement for Thundering and Thundering is being retired.”
Moving into season two, dungeons will continue to scale upwards in difficulty at keystone levels 10 and higher, although no seasonal affix will be present in those high-level dungeons.
This season, affixes have come under fire from the WoW community, with Thundering being one of the most targeted points of discussion. For many players, the extra mechanic has proven to be counterintuitive to the overall Mythic+ experience and ended up proving to be more of a nuisance than a gameplay enhancer.
Seasonal affixes were first introduced to WoW during the Battle for Azeroth expansion, and have become one of the game’s core mechanics ever since. For players running high keystones, seasonal affixes were something that could be looked forward to consistently, regardless of the other affixes that were present during a given week of play.
“We added those seasonals to try to solve the problem of it feeling like dungeons were solved,” Day said. “Like, there was a specific route, there was a specific way everyone approaches a dungeon, and seasonals were there to kind of mix that up and change the way that you approach the dungeons…Ultimately we just kind of have heard a lot of feedback around, really just complexity, right? Like, ‘how much stuff do I have to know, what to do and what’s going on, and how many wrenches are you gonna throw at me?’”
In addition to the removal of season affixes, the WoW dev team hope to make Mythic+ dungeons a bit more simplistic by taking a “really close look” at the affixes found at keystone level seven, which includes Explosive, Grievous, Quaking, Storming, and Volcanic. Players have bemoaned affixes like Quaking—which can be particularly frustrating for spellcasting classes—and Grievous—which can be so deadly at certain keystone levels that healers will just stop playing the game until it’s out of the rotation. Across the board, affixes have become particularly difficult to deal with as the natural design of the game (and its enemies) grows more complex. In season two of Dragonflight and beyond, Blizzard hopes to take a deep look at gameplay issues caused by rotating M+ affixes at all levels.
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“So [we’re] definitely taking a close look at individual dungeons and really cutting some things that are even existing today in Mythic Zero and really asking like, ‘once affixes are in the mix, do you really need his pull to have three creatures that all need to have a kick rotation?’ or something like that,” Day said.
While Blizzard has not yet announced or revealed any set-in-stone details regarding an overhaul to low-level Mythic+ affixes, WoW players should expect their runs in season two to feel a lot different than they have thus far in Dragonflight.
Dragonflight season two will launch later in 2023 alongside WoW Patch 10.1: Embers of Neltharion.
