I play wow ~6 months a year. I take long breaks.
Console rpgs / computer rpgs are nice for other reasons - often due to really in depth stories (pillars of eternity, divinity, etc).
Also, walking away from those for a day, a month, a year has no consequences.
Your save is there waiting for you to play again, unlike an mmo where the world continues to evolve without you.
Well so far if they donāt overhaul the covenants Iām gunna call it for a bit on wow. I donāt have time to grind that stuff out anymore just to do bgs and those abilities will be mandatory and if you pick wrong then you are SoL.
In my now several expansion experience of starting off first patch, and then leaving until last patch - last patch is the way to go every time.
Things are smoothed out and the grinds are reduced with catch up mechanics.
Legion I came back for the last few months and it was a breeze to gear and the artifact crap was handed to you.
Same with azerite now.
Honestly I donāt do much in game besides what I want to do. I do the assaults bare minimum - no dailies - and sometimes just on a lower geared character to try and get a piece.
Outside of that I queue pvp, run m+ and thatās about it.
I do Emissaries only if theyāre azerite or weapon upgrades for an alt.
Iāve never flown since wod, probably never will, and am completely content with it.
On an aside, alliance has been wrecking shop in bgs lately. Iāve been mercing more because of that and every game is a romp.
Yeah, I thought he was poking fun at himself.
Over the past couple interviews and blog posts from Ion, I do feel like he has a bit more sense of humility about him instead of the pistol pete arrogannce that we saw in Legion. Maybe BFA performing poorly humbled him.
This might be the only thing that could bring me back. I have previously concluded that I wouldnāt decide on buying shadowlands until at least a week after launch and it was going to have to be 100x better than it has been. PvP vendors is going to be one of the must haves/havenots in order for me to come back. Another is a resource grind like for our weps in Legion and neck in BfA. NOT doing that again.
So you want them? Or you donāt want them?
I do see that, it just comes off (to me) like heās trying to jump right to āhaha, look guys, itās funny and I can joke about it too just like you all did for 4 yearsā somehow ignoring the consistent justifications over and over and over for how vendors were bad, new system good, players too dumb to know where to go or what to buyā¦
It just comes off as ingenuine.
Itās going to be covenant grind which is why Iām backing off of wow. Each covenant gives vastly different abilities there will end up being an end all be all covenant that you must pick to be viable. If it just gave a unique story and some cosmetics Iād be happy but I am absolutely done with borrowed power systems.
Too trueā¦ Honestly it would be a great system if it was literally just some cool lore and cosmetics. Why do we need to lock power behind stuff? Give the power back to classes and their class designs.
Yea I agree with the distaste for rented power. I think it was a Legion Q & A that Ion talked about the need to prune because of the constant adding new abilities every expansion and how they liked the rented power idea. Sadly I think the rented power nonsense will be around for a few more expansions unless enough of the pve playerbase throws a fit about it.
I kinda get why theyāre doing it. Looking at wrath- wod they have these giant gaps in content where Iām sure subs drop drastically. Trying to find some power system you can grind infinitely to keep people invested would be a goal.
Issue is I donāt think the random power grinds (that are usually infinite) are any better at keeping people subbedā¦ Bfa subs Iām sure weāre not hot until this crisis happened (my friends list is bouncing again lol)
Sorry lol. Itās a must HAVE.
This might kill it for me too. Iāll see how long I can stay interested in classic but idk. It made me realize how much Iād come to hate the direction the game was going but it has many of itās own downsides as well. If the rumored BC classic comes true, Iāll try to stay in to give it a go since I missed out on all of that.
Yeah my buddy exclusively plays classic. He got a survey that asked a few questions about tbc. Pretty basic questions, doesnāt sound like itās anywhere near completion. Maybe next year sometime during a content drought.
Yeah thereās still some classic stuff to come out. The thing for me is whether or not I can stay interested in it during the time it takes as well as being able to keep up. Which is not looking so good for me atm. I heard about that questionnaire, hereās hoping! 
What might you suggest as an alternative to expansion-specific abilities/systems? Bearing in mind that, like you said, you canāt just keep adding permanent abilities indefinitely.
I was referring to what ion said and not my thoughts. I think you misread. But Iām as opinionated as anyone so hereās my 2 centsā¦
Rotations shouldnāt have holes for rent to own abilities to even have a place. Classes should have more talents/talent rows to where rotations can have a variety of playstyles from passive heavy to make them beginner friendly to very complex yet do more damage and then combined mixtures of AOE and single target. Rent to own abilities shouldnāt exist.
If blizzard wanted to add expansion specific utility that only works in world content then by all meansā¦ like that fae thing flying around in the city with no cool down. Stuff like that is ok but expansion specific dps abilities shouldnāt exist.
So no new abilities with new expansions? Or just un-impactful ones that donāt make it into the rotation?
this.
Fair enough. I think itās fine for exactly one keybind to be expasion-only like the atifact weapon ability in legion or the one active essence ability in bfa. I also like passive effects as long as they arenāt just basic damage increases that saturate the buff bar and actually impact your rotation/gameplay.
I think itād be sad for an expansion to come out that gives you no new abilities at all or doesnāt change anyoneās gameplay.