Season 3 of The War Within is still quite fresh, but thanks to Raider.IO, Nightstalker314 can already take a look at the early numbers. So far, the overall metrics look really good. They are on par with, if not better than, in the previous seasons. For now, it seems we got a huge rebound from the lower participation in Season 2. We have yet to see if this trend continues for the entire week.
All data used for this comparison is based on snapshots taken before the reset on Asian servers. So keep in mind that if Chinese data rolls in with high accuracy, the numbers could change significantly. But for now, let’s look at the details.
The First 24 hours of All TWW Seasons
Going by the three most simplistic metrics, TWW S3 is starting quite well. It’s only falling behind in active characters. The first season pulls ahead since players back then were eager to test things out. The second season had to build up trust again after S1 had a rather slow progression. And right after the start, the balancing was still off. After a major tuning pass on the first weekend, things improved significantly. The overall long-term participation in S2 was still a bit lower.
With the start of S3, we are seeing a lot more interest and a higher success rate from the get-go. But most of this also results from the heavy lifting done by the entire second season. With the reset starting soon on the Asian servers, we might finally get to see what the global data for an entire season looks like. But these great metrics are tainted by the impact of one single dungeon.
Detailed Dungeon Data
The spread across all dungeons is quite wide, largely due to one receiving special attention. Operation Floodgate, for now, is highly sought after since it drops one of the best trinkets. The 
Improvised Seaforium Pacemaker is very useful for many specs. And just like in every other season, dungeons with BIS trinkets are leading the list for the early weeks.
The rest isn’t too far apart, and some of the dungeons have quite high success rates. Eco-Dome Al’dani (94.33%), Priory of the Sacred Flame (93.37%), Operation Floodgate (91.71%), and the Dawnbreaker (91.14%) seem to be well-tuned. For three of them, this is no surprise since players have had a lot of experience in prior seasons. But for a new dungeon to be this easy is a nice change of pace.
Ara-Kara (87.19%) follows behind and has seen some improvements since S1. But for the returning Shadowlands dungeons, it doesn’t look great. Tazavesh: Soleah’s Gambit (81.87%) seems quite rough. Here we have to keep in mind that this dungeon was only active during SL S3 and S4, a time when WoW was at an absolute low point. So the overall hands-on experience is missing. Halls of Atonement (80.46%) has also seen a few changes. The benefits of the Covenant pact during Shadowlands no longer apply. And those had been integral in the first and third boss fights for many groups back then.
The Big Tuning Fumble: Streets of Wonder
Tazavesh: Streets of Wonder is looking abysmal. A catastrophic success rate of just 54.08% reminds us of the early weeks in S1, with players struggling in Grim Batol. What could be the reason for this? Looking at the heatmap provided by Keystone.guru, we can see that Commander Zo’far is causing a lot of deaths.
The rest of the instance seems fine, though. But looking at the key level split, we can conclude that Tyrannical becoming active in a 5-boss dungeon is always a hard time. In this case, on a lot more levels since it already starts at level 7.
The tuning for this dungeon, in the past, had been quite rough. The final boss had given PUGs major problems to solve on the fly. And the Postmaster boss allowed little room for error. In addition, long travel sections and a lot of RP added to the run-time during SL. The developers have cut down some of these issues, and the teleports after the first boss save a lot of time.
The (old) 39-minute timer also stands out quite a lot from the rest of the dungeon pool. Between 30 and 33 minutes has become the norm lately. And there lies the actual problem: The timer was at 39 minutes. But late into PTR, Blizzard and RaiderIO, in conclusion, set it to 32 minutes. A massive tuning issue!
The Key Level Split For All Dungeons
The first 6 key levels seem rather trivial in general. Key level 5 stands out a bit. A lot of the runs on this level are done by high-end players just rushing towards the top keys, skipping 3 levels each time. Streets of Wonder is a big part of the decline for the step up from 6 to 7. Keys at level 10 are doing quite well, with a success rate above 60%. A value that was also achieved in week 1 of Season 2 once the major nerfs were implemented.
For now, the overall focus will most likely shift slowly towards key level 7. Capping out your gilded crests in week 1 is a goal for a lot of players. On the same level, KSM can be achieved by timing all 8 dungeons. And toward the end of the week, the numbers for key levels 10 and 12 will likely rise significantly. With major item level jumps from heroic loot and an incentive to fill 8 vault slots, the high-end players will pump up those numbers.
Conclusion
The start of the season is looking promising. The developers recently announced another Boost event after the 11.2.5 patch. So getting your basic rewards and similar results as in last season should be expected for most players. Given that Legion Remix will once again compete for attention with current content, you’ll want to get close to your goals by then.
But for now, we need to see a reaction from the developers to the disastrous results in Streets of Wonder. Once it happens, we will take another look at the numbers. And after the ID is over, you’ll get the regular round-up for the entire week.
