The first week of Mythic+ in this season has been outstanding, and Nightstalker314 is taking a look at the weekly data provided by Raider.IO. Midnight Season 1 beat every important first-week metric for any previous season. More runs, more active characters, higher completion rates. The dungeon tuning had some outliers, but some of those were already addressed in week two. But once we examine the global split, it turns out that not every region saw the same growth in numbers. So, let’s look at the details.
First Weeks in Comparison
Since TWW S3, RaiderIO has access to all global data. Metrics from the Chinese API were not accessible until late into TWW S2. Comparing the current season to TWW S1 or other previous seasons is only possible based on the four regular regions: US, EU, KR, and TW. And even under these restrictions, MN S1 had 36.75% more completed runs than TWW S1, as well as 41% more than TWW S3. For a more detailed comparison, we will take metrics from TWW S3.
The most important metric already shows a remaining trend. 25.54% more completed runs across all regions. 38.64% more timed runs are also reflected by a much higher completion rate. 87.66% instead of 79.38%. The total run numbers are still ahead of the previous season for every season. But the number of active characters is 7.6% to 18.5% behind on Asian servers.
This could be an indicator of less interest in Midnight as a whole in this region. Or there is less interest in M+ because of the massive addon restrictions since 12.0. The Chinese servers in particular were responsible for up to 45% of the global numbers in TWW S3. The next weeks will show if the hype for retail WoW will rebound over there.
Total Runs Across All Dungeons
The split across all dungeons looks quite healthy. The instances with the most desirable trinkets are slightly ahead of the rest, despite one of them having the worst in-time percentage. Maisara Caverns doesn’t have the worst tuning, but it doesn’t offer interesting loot, unlike Algeth’ar Academy. On the other hand, the latest nerfs show a reason why players avoided this dungeon. Seat of the Triumvirate was reworked entirely, so understandably, players were more reluctant to run these keys.
An overall in-time percentage of 87.66% is unheard of for the first week of a season or even of an expansion. Windrunner’s Spire (91.93%) and Seat (91.47%) kept their top positions from the first 24 hours of the week. Pit of Saron (90.10%) is doing really well for a reworked version of a 16-year-old dungeon. Skyreach (89.11%) and Magister’s Terrace (89.10%) are also quite forgiving. And Nexus-Point Xenas (88.41%) is also not too far from the top.
Two Dungeons with Tuning Issues
Maisara Caverns (84.00%) and Algeth’ar Academy (77.32%) were both quite behind the rest in this first week. Caverns has quite a densely packed area before the first boss. Good routing here can save a lot of time. The trash behind the first boss received much-needed nerfs, as well as the 2nd boss, which can be rough when coordinating with random players. Academy saw a few nerfs to boss mechanics, but so far, it is still the worst dungeon during the week. A rather strict timer leads to high-risk trash pulls before the first, third, and final boss.
Split Across All Key Levels
45.96% of all runs were completed at key level 10 and higher. 30.62% on key level 10. On a regional level, these values vary quite a lot. On the Chinese servers, these two metrics went up to 53.49% and 33.34%. Across the remaining four regions, these values stood at 41.94% and 29.17%. Low-level key metrics showed a similar difference. Only 8.45% of all runs were done on +2 in China, 13.78% in the other regions, and 11.93% on a global level. Compared to the first week of TWW S3, we saw twice as many +10s completed. And for the highest comparable levels, the factor went up to 240 in China. This first week had a key level ceiling of 19, while TWW S3 peaked at 17 and TWW S1 at just 13.
The overall success rate of 87.66% is also quite ahead of TWW S3 (82.80%) and TWW S1 (78.23%). 83.38% of all level 10 keys were timed. This value was at just 61.25% in TWW S3. And restricted to the four regular regions at a measly 36.14% in TWW S1. We are experiencing a never-before-seen level of tuning for the start of an expansion. One thing remains, though, the jump in difficulty at key levels 7 and 10. The success rate drops by almost 8 percentage points from 6 to 7 and by 4.19 points from 9 to 10. For the latter, this will flip once +10s are on farm status.
Key Level Split vs. TWW S3
Since TWW S3 and MN S1 have access to the full global data, an overall key level comparison is rather accurate. Both graphs, for complete runs and in-time percentage, look more like a comparison between the first week of a season and the second or third. Players were quite happy about checking off a +10 in the first week in TWW S3. In MN S1, many have already filled their entire vault with +10s.
The success rate is higher on every key level. From 4.23 percentage points at level 6 up to 22.67 points at level 11. We can probably expect a long-term profile that never dips below 90% for the regular key levels up to 10, and lower values around 80% for the more ambitious key levels.
Conclusion and Week 2 Forecast
This is the easiest season of all time. The first week is usually a reliable indicator. And most metrics of just this week were already better than during the best weeks of previous seasons. In general, players stick around when the start of an expansion is easier. DF S1 and TWW S1 had really rough starts, and players dropped off or were reluctant to return to M+ the next season. The next season may start with harder tuning, but until then, players have a couple of months to get used to the new class designs.
As of this writing, the hourly numbers for all regions have fallen behind quite a bit. Looking at a snapshot 120 hours after the season start, run numbers have dropped by 34.72% for the US, 38.52% for the EU, and 18.28% for CN. Rushing towards a high rating and filling your vaults led to a lot more runs in week 1. By now, the efforts are probably a lot lower. But we’ll take a look at that in the next breakdown.