An idea to replace Borrowed Power

Classes Paladin
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Quick history lesson:

  1. TBC, WotLK, and Cata: Blizzard adds 2 or 3 spells as each expansion comes out, 4 or 5 if you count talents, and players are very happy to receive them.

  2. Around Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard notices they’re running out of room on spellbars, and starts kind-of-removing spells by making them spec-specific, and slowing their rate of adding spells

  3. Around Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard decides we shouldn’t be gaining new spells each expansion, at least not ones that we’ll get to keep, so they begin the borrowed power concept—garrison abilities in WoD, Artifact Weapons in Legion, Azerite Powers in BfA, Covenant Abilities in SL.

So ever since WoD, we got new things at the start of each expansion—one new active ability and plenty of new passive perks—but then we lost them at the end of each expansion.

To Blizzard, borrowed power looks like a solution: they don’t want to have to deal with spellbar bloat again, and this way, they have freedom to add a new ability each expansion without spellbar bloat becoming an issue. To them, this looks like sustainability.

To players, borrowed power looks like a problem: we get a system where our characters can do less this year than we could last year, which is the opposite of how an RPG is supposed to work. Plus, it’s hard to get that excited about abilities that we know we won’t be able to keep. To us, this looks like stagnation.

Now, I have an idea that might just be a good replacement for Borrowed Power that will look good to players and still work for Blizzard:

Slotted Upgrade Abilities.

Here’s the idea: as you level up through an expansion, you gain spells that function as replacements/upgrades for your existing abilities. However, instead of permanently replacing those existing abilities, you have the option to swap these upgrades in and out. And you have a limit to how many upgrades you can have equipped on your character at a time.

For example, let’s say that paladins can upgrade their Holy Light spell to become Holy Bolt, which would let them cast holy damage on enemies. (Yes, I concocted this because I miss Denounce and really wish they’d unprune it, but I digress.) And let’s say that paladins can also upgrade their Divine Steed spell to become Speed of Light, which lasts longer than Divine Steed. And let’s also say that, when the expansion first comes out, there is only one upgrade-slot available. That means that the paladin can replace Holy Light with Holy Bolt, or the paladin can replace Divine Steed with Speed of Light…but the paladin cannot do both at the same time. When they’re out of combat, they can downgrade Holy Bolt back to Holy Light, and then upgrade Divine Steed to Speed of Light. But as long as they have only one upgrade-slot available, they can only have one ability upgraded at a time.

This also allows for players to be rewarded with additional upgrade-slots as they progress, allowing more upgrade-abilities to be equipped at a time. For example, at level 65, the paladin could receive a second slot, allowing both Holy Bolt and Divine Steed to be equipped at the same time.

For that matter, there could be more than one possible upgrade for the same ability. For instance, Holy Radiance (another spell that should’ve been unpruned) could be an upgrade for Holy Light, which costs more mana but deals splash healing—though Holy Radiance couldn’t be equipped at the same time Holy Bolt is equipped, as they’re two different upgrades for the same base ability.

In principle, Blizzard could keep adding these upgrade-abilities with new expansions without having to remove them at each expansion’s end. And since each upgrade-ability would come with its own animation, effects, and nuances, each one would feel different and new, and would be rewarding to get. If Blizzard did this, they’d be increasing what each character would be capable of over the long haul, but they’d also avoid the problems of spellbar bloat, since this doesn’t technically increase the number of spells on our spellbars at any one time.

Does this seem like a good idea? …Or at least a better idea than borrowed power?

7 Likes
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So, talents?

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Ehh, kind of.

Not every talent replaces an existing ability, plus talents are pretty rigid: you get 3 of them each time you reach a given level, and can only have one of those at a time. This slotted upgrade system is (in some ways) more flexible.

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The concept is the same just implemented differently. I don’t know what the long term answer is honestly.

I have been feeling as though too many buttons IS a problem so I get why they would want to prune but it can feel bad as a result. I just don’t know how they, or anyone, can square that circle without taking the approach of a wizard from DND.

In case you’re unfamiliar, a DND wizard has a spell book and can only bring a limited number of them to their excursions. So in town they’ll think about what they’re about to do and try to pick appropriate spells for the situation leaving many behind.

I mean that could work and it’s very RPG which this game lacks lately. Dunno/

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you get 3 of them each time you reach a given level

Doesn’t necessarily have to stay that way… I see no reason they can’t start expanding talent trees sideways instead of down… Instead of adding another row, add a column - no new buttons required over the previous amount if you had already been using an active talent on that row, just more options.

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You still run into eventual issues with real estate. Assuming that real estate is used for a quick eyeball comparison.

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No please not! I already can’t decide. xD

@OP: That’s similar to something I thought about. My ideas would have been glyphs to change spells (for example change TV to Final Verdict, change Blade of Justice to Divine Hammer, add Long Arm of the Law to Judgment, and so on).
But I’m afraid this amount of costumization leads to an absolute balancing nichtmare.

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What if you could only have three glyphs active at a time, each for a different ability, and each glyph had a different purpose?

My idea’s been compared with Diablo 3’s Skill Rune system, and while I’ve not played Diablo 3, from what I can tell, I agree with the comparison to an extent.

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They would definitely have to limit how much glyphs one can use. Three sounds good (we already had that). And the more I think about it the more it seems feasible.
I mean we are discussing the possibility of wearing two legos in the ptr forums (which was already possible in Legion) so if they managed to (somewhat) balance this I don’t see where the problem with glyphs would be. Besides Blizzard being very lazy. On the other hand they balanced azerite powers which seems like more of a hassle.

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On the other hand they balanced azerite powers which seems like more of a hassle.

I think that Blizzard development teams tend to get themselves invested in a system in-game, and then when that system shows its flaws, they keep investing time and effort into the system, instead of cutting their losses and discarding the system for something better. It’s a vicious cycle, and just once I’d like to see Blizzard make an expansion with either very simple systems or no systems at all, and devote the effort that would’ve gone into a more complex systems into making content, and into making sure each spec’s design is fun and feels complete.

Anyhow, back on topic…

The idea behind these glyphs (if we want to call them that—it’s as good a name as any, really) is that Blizzard can keep on adding a few more of them for each class/spec each expansion, and they can keep adding them indefinitely if they want, and no matter how many they add, they’ll never run into the problem of spellbar bloat.

Plus, since the glyphs aren’t borrowed power, no one will ever say “My class can do less this year than it could last year”—there’ll be a sense of progression instead of regression.

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I think this idea has potential! So like current talent trees, but keep adding new columns for each row. You have more and more options per row, but you can still choose one per row.

This might create a lot of balancing issues though, because they’ll have to test more and more combinations of selected powers. But I like it.

1 Like