Ion Hazzikostas on Dragonflight Mythic+ Season 1 Itemization and Dungeon Pool

[Lumy]

Ion Hazzikostas on Dragonflight Mythic+ Season 1 Itemization and Dungeon Pool

Thanks for raising the concern! Itemization is definitely a big piece of how this will all need to fit together in order to work, and the goal would be for each season’s dungeon pool to provide deep and varied loot options. In some cases, that may mean modifying or supplementing loot from older expansions’ dungeons. If we were to mix in M+ versions of Mists of Pandaria dungeons alongside new Dragonflight dungeons, for example, we’d make sure that the resulting seasonal pool provides full itemization coverage for all specs. It’s likely that we’d also take a close look at trinkets in particular from Mists dungeons, which weren’t necessarily created or tuned with cutting-edge performance in mind (since back then dungeon difficulty capped out at Heroic; Challenge Mode only gave cosmetic rewards).

If we ended up landing in a situation where a specific item from the prior season’s dungeons was beating higher item level alternatives from the following season, we’d make tuning adjustments to correct that. You shouldn’t need to worry about “missable BiS” being a thing. But on the other hand, we’ve heard tons of feedback about how re-farming Soulletting Ruby, IQD, etc., every season hasn’t exactly felt like a compelling progression experience, so we’re excited at the chance to shake things up there.

Aside from a complete itemization refresh from season to season, our hope is for the dungeon gameplay itself to feel fresher, and like a new set of puzzles for the community to solve each season. We’ve seen really mixed (often negative) experiences in the past when we add brand new dungeons into an existing pool of dungeons that the community has already mastered, and try to set them up as equivalent in terms of difficulty and rewards. And while the hardcore M+ community may not experience this issue firsthand, it’s hard to overstate how daunting it can be for someone to try to get into M+ PUGs or try a new role like tanking for the first time deep in an expansion, when the established community is largely focused on routing micro-optimizations and time-saving tech, and groups likely assume complete baseline knowledge of all boss mechanics, positioning, target priority, and so forth.

We’re well aware of the risk that it might be disappointing to not get to experience M+ versions of all eight new Dragonflight dungeons during the first season, but our hope is that mixing in some dungeons that have never before had an M+ component (e.g. Shado-Pan Monastery) will make for a fun new experience there, and that in the long run the complete rotation will make for a much healthier and more dynamic Mythic+ experience over the course of the expansion as a whole.

[Kyanion]

I think I'd rather see all 8 new dungeons in the M+ rotation along with 4 older dungeons to give a pool of 12 M+ dungeons in Season 1. I just feel like only getting 4 of the new 8 dungeons in Season 1 is just missing out on something.

[Vakrath]

I think it would be healthier for season 1 to just focus on the 8 new Dragonflight dungeons - give them their time to shine from the start of the latest expansion. From this they can measure which of the dungeons are played the most and least often by the players and they can use these metrics to create mixed pools of dungeons in season 2 onward, so that we dont end up in a situation where all 4 dungeons are the least played and players lose interest in playing the dragonflight dungeons for that season.

A strength in there only being 8 at a time means that the number of dungeons that you need to complete for KSM each season remains the same, instead of seeing a creep of additional dungeons as the expansion unfolds.

[Bwgmon]

It's interesting to know that they're looking back as far as MoP for the M+ dungeon pool. So we'll potentially have dungeons across Dragonflight and 5 prior expansions that can be on the table.

That said, looking at that big of a list, 8 dungeons feels a bit small. Perhaps they should consider doing 5 DF + 5 Legacy dungeons per season.

[RobertMugabe]

Stratholme UD mythic+ when?

[Dracullus]

It's interesting to know that they're looking back as far as MoP for the M+ dungeon pool. So we'll potentially have dungeons across Dragonflight and 5 prior expansions that can be on the table.

M+ is evolution of challenge mode with timers, which existed since MoP. For sure MoP/WoD dungeons are easier to adapt than older ones.

[Skildar]

it's quite a risky move to go in this direction. Though I understand the gain, I hope playtests will reveal early if there isn't in fact any bad feeling of not getting to experience all the new dungeons in the first season. But for sure it will create more anticipation for season 2.

[Aleksej89]

really great if timewalking dungeons become mythic+ content.

[Unlimited Power]

It's interesting to know that they're looking back as far as MoP for the M+ dungeon pool. So we'll potentially have dungeons across Dragonflight and 5 prior expansions that can be on the table.

That said, looking at that big of a list, 8 dungeons feels a bit small. Perhaps they should consider doing 5 DF + 5 Legacy dungeons per season.

I believe Halls of Origination was mentioned somewhere. Possibly even Halls of Lightning. That would mean Blizzard is potentially looking back as far as WotLK for the m+ dungeon pool.

Though they would obviously need a ton of tuning.

[banelocky]

My first gut reaction was ,,Wait we can't play with all the new dungeons in m+ in season 1??,, , but thinking about it more I really think this is a great compromise between us the players having a lot of fresh content for multiple seasons and developers not having to make a ton of new dungeons every patch. A lot of these old dungeons I haven't played seriously for years and years at this point so they are almost fresh anyway. And you can still experience all 8 dragonflight dungeons in at least normal/heroic/mythic.
I like m+ but it was always kind of annoying how every season the raid folks get a brand new raid while we are stuck doing the same dungeons for 2 years with maybe 1 mega dungeon thrown in midway. This is a huge step in M+ feeling different and fresh every season and I love it.

[Morgaith]

seasonal stuff bleh.

[Dimmune]

In my opinion, ALL 8 Dragonflight dungeons should be available in Season 1. It's brand new content and should be the vocal point of the season for the M+ community. However, 8 is kind of small pool. So like 4 Legacy Dungeons added in would be great. This could go all the way back to Vanilla, some of my favorites. They could revamp 1 Legacy dungeon per season as well to give it a fresh coat/mechanics even. Just something fresh and interesting.
I think my issue with holding back 4 of the dungeons is that whenever a "Mega Dungeon" is introduced. It's not apart of the the Keystone system. It doesn't get ran as often by the casual community. Like Ion had said in his post. The Mega Dungeons come into rotation at a later state in the game and players are intimidated or don't have enough knowledge of the dungeons. I know once I get past a certain point in my gearing where Mythic Zeros won't be sufficient, those 4 dungeons that aren't in rotation won't be seen by the community until the next season. The pool of "New" dungeons will seem even smaller than it actually is! Plus I think the community will still have the routes they think will work when it comes time.

[Relapses]

I think he hit on a pretty important factor there. Anybody who's run a decent amount of M+ knows that there's a shortage of tanks (and an even larger dearth of good tanks). Trying to get into tanking later in an expansion after multiple seasons worth of meta gaming have made the dungeon experience extremely streamlined and regimented can be a daunting task, leaving a feedback loop of players simply not wanting to try tanking. Keeping the dungeon pool fresh every season puts everybody on a level playing field and also has the knock-on effect of alleviating the "farm {x} trinket every season" meta which develops.

For the record, I'm not entirely sold on the idea just yet but I'm interested to see how it plays out.

[mkultra55]

...... Trying to get into tanking later in an expansion after multiple seasons worth of meta gaming have made the dungeon experience extremely streamlined and regimented can be a daunting task

I completely agree.

It's always been tough coming in late to an x-pac but it's been hardest for Tanks who default to the lead role in 5 mans.
M+ has magnified that issue because it's no longer just knowing the mechanics but also knowing the best routes.

[Sugani]

Why do it this way? Open the floodgates. Have keys for everything.

[exochaft]

Feels like Ion missed a point, or Blizz has decided to evade it, when it comes to people not wanting to refarm trinkets like IQD. It's not about there being a lack of other BiS trinkets available to compete, it's having to farm the same stuff over and over every major patch. This delves into the loot system as a whole in conjunction with RNG, amount of loot drops, etc. If the gear acquisition process in relation to the seasonal aspect of the game was fun and engaging, there wouldn't be nearly as many complaints about having to refarm the same gear over and over. However, it's usually a slog that requires you to get lucky with minimal bad luck protection. Again, this is one of those core fundamental aspects of the game Blizz needs to address, and the expansion presentation didn't really touch on it.

Also, I think he missed the trees for the forest when he talked about how the trinkets in MoP weren't tuned with cutting-edge performance in mind, then proceeds to talk about how CMs offered cosmetic rewards and heroic ilvl was the cap at the time... maybe it's better to say they're missing a solution right in front of their faces while trying to search for another. Hate to circle back to it, but this again involves taking a look at the loot and reward structure of the game. Maybe it'd be better to return to having heroic ilvl being the cap and have the hardest content not rewarding an increase in ilvl. There's a lot of problems that adding mythic difficulty to the game has introduced from a loot and scaling/creep perspective, and going back to less ilvls per patch allows for not needing to worry about cutting-edge performance, less power creep, less catch-up required if you take a break between patches, easier gearing in general to allow access to the hardest content in the game, as well as a ton of other issues that would also include saving time on the development side.

Overall, I think my point is that Blizz is still not quite addressing the core issues of the game, and the more information we get from Blizz about the next expansion, the more I worry they aren't going to address said issues. I guess they're looking at some problems, which is nice, but if you don't address core problems you likely won't fix anything long-term.

[Ersula]

Why do it this way? Open the floodgates. Have keys for everything.

They do have to consolidate the content somewhat, but that still seems strange: Shadowlands Season 4 is going to have 16 dungeons in rotation, 10 from SL, 2 from WoD, 2 from Legion & 2 from BFA

[Sugani]

They do have to consolidate the content somewhat, but that still seems strange: Shadowlands Season 4 is going to have 16 dungeons in rotation, 10 from SL, 2 from WoD, 2 from Legion & 2 from BFA

Have time walking rotate expansions on a weekly basis. Have time walking keystones for that expansions dungeons active that week. In addition to scaled-up rewards, you're also rewarded with the number of time walking tokens multiplied by the level of the keystone.

[javierdsv]

He is right, what is not right is he is trying to justify not having 8 dungeons at launch with gameplay reasons when it's obvious they are just planning on not having them ready at launch to save money.

Just like when they used blood elves and humans to create a new race instead of something new. I guess they have a low budget this time around. And that's fine, but they should be clear about it and not make up excuses.

[MiiiMiii]

M+ gear being required for being a raider sucks dick. I don't want M+ and M+ enjoyers can have their own ecosystem.