This is all unsubstantiated opinion that frankly does nothing to help push the discussion with either side.
From a business perspective, it’s asinine to think they are “resigned” to lower subs. That’s just not how a successful business operates. Period.
We have so little information on the inner workings that none of the things you stated can truly be proved without jumping major oceans of biased conclusions.
I know and lament the many people that have left Blizzard (Chris and GC my top two), but that’s just part of the cycle of life. There are still A LOT of people there that have been part of wow since the “successful years” or “glory subs age”.
J Allen, Ion, Fitch, Kaplan, Afrasiabi, Holinka are all OG veterans. They aren’t “new kids” to the franchise.
I think as long as we (the players) don’t have any information on the active subscriber count, and detailed gross margins of the franchise, we can’t make any assumptions of what their purpose is behind their design philosophy.
I think you design with the customer in mind (at least attempt to). The issue is whether or not we have a clear understanding of what or who that customer ultimately is. GD isn’t a representation of the wow population by any means.
I used to. But then I kept getting trolled and would keep making the mistake of responding to the trolls and inevitablly get myself suspended. So I try not to do it as much anymore
I think they’re really scared. They’re convinced this is what people want and it’s the only way they can keep people playing. Creating these leveling systems on top of the current one(which btw is completely obsolete so why even have it).
It has to be a grind that keeps you playing. You have to somehow “progress” your character(like leveling but more gated) or you won’t be playing at all.
In a way it reminds me of fps games from early/mid 90’s. They had a scoreboard. That was it. Nowadays they have ladders and EXPERIENCE GRINDS… apparently this is what people want. I guess just playing a game isn’t enough, the players have to be engaged and be sure they’re not just playing for fun but to grind something.
The reason it’s called “borrowed power” is because it’s borrowed. At a certain point you have to give it back. If you didn’t end up giving it back, it wouldn’t be borrowed.
Edit: Oh, I think I realized what you were trying to say. “Why remove borrowed power as a system?”
Why should characters be reliant on someone else’s power? Borrowed power is a cop-out excuse to not take the time to actually design classes properly.
Im not going to dig through every interview Ion did but i do remember around the first few months of bfa during the supposed mass exodus, Ion said something about these systems being easier to balance without the worry of long term gameplay effects. Pretty much why so many systems (like glyphs) and abilities got pruned. He even admitted they went too far.
That is kind of the thing. This game was successful long before these endless grinds that started in legion.
Were raid loggers a thing? Of course, but even Blizzard admitted themselves that most players dont raid past lfr.
It just feels like the failure of WoD has forever haunted them or something, so they trying to overcompensate instead of looking to MoP and prior to see why those worked during the times they did. They dont even understand why legion got the activity numbers it did since they seem to think that engagement numbers determines success.
Apparently neither do you. 100% Legion activity was nostalgia. Illidan was a hook, line and sinker. That’s the hard truth. Legion was an ok expansion, I’ll go as far as to say it was good. It wasn’t a 10/10 as people make it to be.
What’s more, as a community we often fail to realize the outside factors that come into play, not saying you are wrong, but internet gamers are simply not the same as the ones that existed back in Wrath-Mop. That’s just fact. The world has dramatically changed and so has the new generation of players.
Is it so hard to imagine they are trying to adapt the game to the new demands and that comes at the cost of old players not having a place in said change unless they too adapt?
Raid loggers weren’t a thing back in the beginning… neither was Youtube. Or Social Media. It is what it is, and the way to keep the game alive, for better or worse is forward and not continuing to bang our heads against the wall asking for the past to be relived over and over.
That’s what I’m saying too. When I enjoyed fps the most it was just hopping onto a server and frag away. Didn’t care about some “leveling” system or anything like that. Games have changed a lot however and I think blizzard is just trying to keep up but often they’re going way too far. BfA is just riddled with questionable desicions.
Ok, so for people saying we have to work for the powers, how did wow survive when borrowed powers weren’t a thing?
I understand ability bloat can be a problem if they keep adding on top of it. But what I see right now is them taking away abilities then adding it back in the next expansion.
Changes I see are, there is no key defining expac seller anymore
TBC - blood elves, and dranei horde paladins and alliance shaman (ok huge deal)
Wrath - death knights new class
Cataclysm - Azeroth reshuffled and reworked.
MOP- new race new class monk
Wod - ???
Legion - new class
Bfa- ???
SL - ???
To be fair, borrowed power has always been in the game in the form of legendaries. The difference is those were always optional and the game was never configured solely around them.
I think since legion, people have either been slowly conditioned to think that endless stuff is the way to go or so tramautized by the garrison gameplay and lack of stuff to do in wod. Lets not all forget that as great as mop was, there was still a 1-1.5 year long content drought between then and wod.
Not having borrowed power doesn’t necessarily mean button bloat. Sure, some abilities can be unique to an expac. But you can also have features that enhance existing abilities and as such do not require added buttons.
Yeah I’d like to actually get something from an expansion I get to keep other than mounts and transmogs that I dont care about. but Blizzard is bad at balancing so its easier for them to just pretend the last expansion didn’t even happen.
I mean, people constantly complain about how imbalanced classes are now. It would be an absolute clown fiesta crap show if they added 3-5 new abilities per class, every single expansion.
I’m on the fence about borrowed power as a whole, but either way they would have to constantly prune and reintroduce abilities.
For me the problem isn’t borrowed power, but the fact that some specs just don’t feel good to play without borrowed power. This IMO is the big mistake of Blizzard. Specs should feel good to play without any temporary systems propping them up. If you need borrowed power to even start making a spec feel functional, then you have failed with that spec since you’ll just have to keep fixing it xpac after xpac.
Agreed. This is the biggest issue. Classes and specs should be fun all the time no matter what gear or build you have. If you ever need a item/talent/build/whatever to have fun then something has gone very wrong in the design process. There’s a new expansion on the way, we should be excited about what’s coming next, but instead we’re worried about what happens when we lose our azerites and essences.
Because it’s easier to “balance” classes when they have a set skill set and only ~2 new skills each xpac that get thrown away after.
It kinda sucks but if we all had 80 different abilities it would be a nightmare. Not sure if this is the ideal middle ground or if there’s a better solution but I imagine skill bloat is the biggest reason for borrowed power.
