WoW: Midnight beta introduces a new Mythic+ dungeon modifier that's kinda just yellow paint for routing, and you know what? Good

World of Warcraft's Mythic+ isn't exactly easy to get into. Part of the problem is that… well, you're playing World of Warcraft, and as much as I'd like to speak kindly about the population of one of my favourite MMORPGs, let's be real, if you jump into public groups you're starting a countdown timer until someone starts rifling through their books of expletives to describe what they did to one of your familial relations.

One of the hurdles lies in dungeon "routing". Because Mythic+ dungeons are all on a timer, and because WoW's dungeons tend to be a little more open-plan than something you'd get in, say, Final Fantasy 14, every single dungeon has a bespoke route filled with little tricks. And because this is Mythic+, you are expected to know them immediately, lest you be deemed a n00b, or something far ruder, which I won't publish on this website.

Well, Blizzard's tinkering with a solution. On the Midnight beta test servers, the studio's introduced a new "affix"—basically a modifier—to Mythic+ levels 2-5. Per this post on the game's forums by a dev, "While Lindormi’s Guidance is active, certain non-boss enemies will be afflicted with Temporal Sands, visually highlighting them and reducing their health and damage done by 5%."

The real trick here is that if you defeat all the marked enemies, you'll "fulfill 100% of the Enemy Forces count, providing a basic route through the dungeon. Additionally, the affix also prevents player deaths from reducing the timer."

That "Enemy Forces" bit is important, since it stops some sweatily-optimised, out-of-bounds-jumping, breakneck route from outcompeting the one suggested by Lindormi's Guidance. Which essentially makes this yellow paint for dungeon routing, I am sorry to introduce that discourse to the pot but that is exactly what it is.

It is a (somewhat) diegetic marker for where players should be going, designed to reduce visual clutter and confusion, and you know what? I've always been a yellow paint defender, to a certain extent. If I'm playing a platformer where the devs ought to be signposting my next step with good level design and visual cues, then I resent it—but if I'm playing the new instalment of the FF7 remake, then who cares? It's an RPG. Cloud's elite parkour skills amount to quicktime events, so slather where I need to go next with sunshine.

Anyway, in this case, it seems like a good choice. Making Mythic+ less immediately intimidating by shaving off some of the knowledge required to get going can only be a good thing—after all, your Mythic+ greenhorn already has a ton of mechanical knowledge to worry about. Let 'em worry about routing once they've got a handle on the boss mechanics for eight separate dungeons, I say.

And that's exactly the justification given by Blizzard here: "Our goal with Lindormi’s Guidance is to help players learn a reliable dungeon route while they’re still getting comfortable with the seasonal dungeons. We also hope this affix makes it easier for groups to align on a route in the early levels of Mythic+.

"These routes are not intended to be optimal for higher-end play. Instead, they’re meant to serve as a foundation for groups learning the dungeons before pushing deeper into Mythic+."

Best MMOs: Most massive
Best strategy games: Number crunching
Best open world games: Unlimited exploration
Best survival games: Live craft love
Best horror games: Fight or flight