Affixes in World of Warcraft make dungeons a worse place to be. At least that’s what Bellular thinks – and it hits a nerve in the community.
In the World of Warcraft endgame, there are a handful of activities that players can engage in. Anyone who likes dungeons throws themselves into “Mythic+” and has to master an instance there at ever increasing levels of difficulty within a time limit. The higher the difficulty, the more negative effects, the so-called “affixes”, are added.
But they not only make everything more difficult, they also cause massive frustration. At least that’s what YouTuber and analyst Bellular thinks, unraveling the current situation around “Mythisch+”.
The problems of affixes in Mythic+
Bellular states right off the bat that it’s not about taking the difficulty out of Mythic+. But that can be achieved better than with an overloaded affix system. He means:
“This is not a debate about making the game easier. Difficult is not the problem. It’s why it’s difficult. And that’s frustration. Most affixes are easy to master on their own. Just move a little. Just stop doing magic. Just click on the explosive ball. The question we want to ask is: does having to do these things make the game better? It makes the game harder, sure, and that’s obviously the goal. But is it more fun?
Bellular then gives several reasons, summarized here:
The dungeon is hard enough on its own. When you die or fail due to an affix, it feels artificial. It wasn’t the dungeon that caused the wipe, it was the “bullshit” combination of affixes.
The barrier to entry is huge. Mythic+ with changing affixes is “normal” for players who have been playing this for years. But changing affixes on a weekly basis without a chance to learn it in a “safe” environment is massively off-putting. Every time you fail, you could be the reason a party disbands and you wasted half an hour of everyone else. As a result, many are simply afraid to even start with Mythic+.
Affixes don’t always work and appear “cheap”. Affixes are simply layered over all dungeon content and are therefore of lower quality than other mechanics in the dungeon. This even means that Blizzard has to manually turn off some affixes in certain situations. For example, there are several instances where Tremor will disable if another boss mechanic is currently requiring the party to rally.
Affixes are mostly related to specific roles. Many affixes affect some roles more than others. Quaking and Volcanic bother the magic classes in particular, while Stormy and Bloody bother the melee fighters. This means that certain classes and specializations can feel significantly worse and perform less effectively in some weeks – not a good incentive to play M+ that week.
Seasonal affixes have always been better: Bellular rates the affixes with a positive and negative effect significantly better. These are mostly the seasonal affixes, which bring an additional difficulty, but always a reward. In the case of “Thundering”, for example, this is the damage buff with the risk of being stunned if you don’t resolve it in time. “Thunder” feels good on its own. It’s only ever a problem when it overlaps with other affixes – like quivering or volcanic. Then frustration sets in.
How to fix the problem?
Bellular also has some ideas inspired by the community that has been discussing the topic for months.
Probably the most direct approach would be to make all affixes only positive. If played correctly, the affixes should reward the character instead of creating a penalty on failure. A few ideas would be:
- Explosive doesn’t matter if the bullet ignites. Eliminating them, however, restores a healing boost or mana to the healer.
- Bloody: Enemies leave behind a ring of blood. If players stand in the ring, they deal more damage. Alternatively, enemies standing in such a ring will take more damage.
- Trembling: If you fail, nothing happens. However, if you don’t cast a spell at the moment of the trigger, then the next 3 spells become instants.
With such positive incentives, one would still have variety and additional tasks, but they are no longer as frustrating. In addition, the barrier to entry is lower. Because if you don’t play affixes, there is no immediate disadvantage for you – and if you play them correctly, you can tease a little more performance out of your character.
Instead of thinking, “Oh, how are these affixes going to annoy me this week?” you think, “Hmm, what are the cool tweaks I can make to be even better?” That would be fundamentally more exciting for players.
Cortyn says: While I enjoy Mythic+ as a whole, I can understand Bellular’s – and the community’s – struggles. I’ve also often had the impression that some affix combinations are a more than clear hint with the fence post that I shouldn’t play a caster this week because trembling or volcanic in connection with thundering just means “Stay the whole thing.” time in motion”. That’s why I think the basic idea of ​​giving affixes positive properties or “kiss/curse” variants is pretty good.
In general, I would like it if dungeons focused more on the trash mobs of the respective instance and the bosses with their mechanics and not “all the nonsense that affixes add”. It is clear that dungeons without negative affixes should be a little harder. But that would only compensate for the difficulty.
What’s your opinion on this whole thing?