There are some massive changes coming for players who leave Mythic+ dungeons early! Blizzard are adding two new dungeon party features in Season 3, and they might cause some trouble.
Leaving Together Extended, Leaving Alone Punished
The first feature is smaller. Players will now be able to use the Vote to Abandon feature even after a key is socketed! This isn’t exactly relevant now, but it’s a crucial addition because of the second addition, which wouldn’t work without it.
The second feature might get a little controversial, since players who leave multiple runs early (whout everyone agreeing with the abandon vote) will now be getting a new “mark”- Keystone Deserter. Leaving early means at any time before the dungeons is completed, the timer expires, or a Vote to Abandon is accepted. The specific wording Blizzard used for when exactly this mark will be applied is “eventually”. So we don’t have an exact number on how many runs it takes for it to kick in. The mark can be seen in the Group Finder, which will show players that you’re someone who leaves groups frequently. So while there won’t be a mechanical impact to your character, there will be a social one.
You Can Remove the Mark
You can remove the Keystone Deserter mark, however. The way you can remove it is by completing Mythic+ runs without leaving and even untimed runs will count towards this. Again, same as for the application of the mark, it’s unclear how many runs you will need to complete to remove it, but it’s likely going to be a similar amount. There may even be a stacking element to it.
It’s a First Iteration
There are plenty of ways this can go wrong, from players “holding keys hostage” to the community just deciding to ignore the mark, pre-made groups pressuring the rest to quit, players refusing to do anything until the vote to abandon is accepted, players just spamming the vote until everyone agrees, and many more. A lot of these are fixable within the system, but some aren’t. Blizzard emphasize this is only the first iteration of the system. Player feedback is crucial and it will be iterated on throughout the PTR testing cycle. The feature isn’t live on the PTR yet and is coming with a future update.
What do you think of this implementation? Will it help or hurt Mythic+? What are your biggest concerns with it?
