The seventh week of Mythic+ in this season is over, and Nightstalker314 is taking a look at the weekly data provided by Raider.IO. The week before the final Voidcore upgrades saw just a small drop-off of 6.94%. The affix was a bit more generous for farming keys, and players pushed further towards the 3,400 mount reward in +16s. Beyond this, high-end players seemed to be waiting for their major item-level bump. But let’s look at the details.
Weekly Total Run Performance Compared To Other Seasons
A global decline of 6.94% once again varied across the major regions. Activity in the four regular regions dropped by 9.31%, while the drop-off was smaller in China, with 3.51%. Their global share also kept rising to 42.38% for this week. Long-term, the global split should approach the common pattern of ~20% US, ~30% EU, ~45% CN, ~2.5% KR, and ~1% TW. Compared to previous seasons for the regular regions, MN S1 is still leading in absolute numbers, but is still behind in relative change.
It remains to be seen how much interest in farming M+ will fluctuate once players have gotten all their desired bonus roll rewards. The item level upgrades for weapons and trinkets have led to increased activity or minor drop-offs so far in week 8. Week 9 will be a regular week with no additions or extra incentives, and in week 10, we’ll get another dungeon event. The second half of the season adds more rewards and benefits. But the new raid boss and the new boost to player power are not tied to M+. Crest upgrades should also reach their ceiling in a few weeks. And from then on, it’s mostly about the 3,400 rating, top 1% or 0.1%.
Total Runs Across All Dungeons
The split across all dungeons decreased a bit, while the order did not change at all. Bonus rolls for trinkets and well-itemized slots seem to keep the top dungeons in focus. But performance in Maisara Caverns seems to benefit from basic gameplay improvements over time. Maybe the devs count on that instead of continued nerf efforts.
The overall success rate improved once again by 0.19 percentage points to 91.47%. The change in affixes had a minor impact on this, as we’ll see in the key level breakdown. Increased item levels and more experience in the popular key levels had the biggest impact. Pit (93.06%) remained ahead of Skyreach (92.37%), which had the one significant drop-off this week. In a Fortified first week, this can be attributed to the more chaotic trash pulls in rather narrow spaces. Seat (91.93%) and Academy (91.65%) barely changed, while Terrace (91.52%) and Spire (91.45%) caught up to them. Nexus-Point (90.47%) kept its 2nd-to-last place with a decreasing but distinct gap towards Maisara Caverns (88.69%).
Split Across All Key Levels
88.13% of all keys were completed at key level 10 and higher. The share of +10s shrank to 32.91%. The shift towards +12 (18.53%) is becoming more noticeable lately. In China, +12 has almost replaced +10 as the favorite key level in week 8 by now. Decreased activity in low-level keys had the biggest impact on the weekly drop-off, between 12.9% and 25.8%. The shift this week was clearly toward the range from key levels 12 to 16, the only spot to see clear increments. Meanwhile, numbers for higher key levels barely grew. These players were clearly waiting for the weapon and trinket upgrades.
The change in affixes barely affected the success rate for low-level keys. A small upward trend of up to 0.56 percentage points was noticeable from levels 2 to 11. But the major improvements only showed at levels 12 (+2.4) and 13 (+1.74). The bonus roll rewards and continuous item-level rewards clearly helped players get their 3,000 rating mounts. Meanwhile, key levels 16 to 22 saw large drop-offs of up to 6.19 points. A clear lack of motivation and ambition, when the next week (8) was going to be so much more effective.
Conclusion and Week 8 Forecast
The devs are clearly trying to fine-tune the upgrade and progression curve throughout the season. But it is a fine line to walk between setting new expectations for upgrade stepping stones and preventing a dragged-out process that feels too punishing in the early weeks. DF S1 and TWW S1 stand out as clear examples, where rough tuning deterred a lot of players early on.
As of this writing, 120 hours after the US reset, hourly numbers for the major regions are volatile. The US is down by 2% despite the massive gear upgrades in week 8. Meanwhile, EU player activity is almost 10% higher. And Chinese players are also slightly more active (+1%). But we will examine this further in next week’s breakdown.
