I know one thing. Each class needs a serious new starter zone unique to each class and on par with the complexity of Panda/Goblin start. Have existing racial starters segue into class specific starters that teach the finer details of your classes.
Maybe even branch slightly off for each spec.
Build a story around our classes. Make it like an extension of class halls.
Asking a lot.
This sort of feedback didn’t start gaining tons of traction until partway through BfA (probably as a result of them stacking -3- parallel systems on top of each other instead of replacing the previous ones).
Blizzard develops expansions WELL in advance. I think I remember them saying that they start working on whatever expansion is 2 releases out before the one that’s 1 release out is, well, out.
Which means by the time this sentiment became popular, Shadowlands was too far in to backtrack.
(And Prior to this, Legion was received fairly well in general, and the common complaints weren’t really about “borrowed power”, they were about RNG, Alt Unfriendliness, etc.)
10.0 is our first real chance at a deviation from this “era” of WoW.
We’ll see if they take it. But it can’t be Shadowlands.
Exactly. Gear is “thank you Hero. Here is a sword that is better than the sword you had.” Feels good. Linear power increase.
Systems are “Hero, thank you for sacrificing your Incredible Sword of Demon Slaying to save the planet. Here is a necklace that might someday be as cool as the sword you had, but it will take, like, a lot of work on your part.”
Did you lose the gear? no. did you lose the affects the gear had? no. the tier set bonus still worked.
That’s what I said anyways. I know we replace gear, but if you had the best gear in the game going into the next expansion, that was often solid gear for the first couple levels. Sure, it’s trivial after a week or maybe even a day, but you didn’t lose your work.
What If I decide to just ‘stay’ in BFA and I don’t want to go past that. Why shouldn’t I still be able to enjoy my hard work on the content I earned those corruptions from?
Going into TBC, and to an extent even Wrath, the best gear lasted past level cap. The bonuses were usually quite good and the items themselves just very powerful - especially since hit and crit were a % and not a fixed value, so that artificially extended the lifespan of the gear.
It eventually got replaced, but many pieces lasted a very long time still. But Blizzard didn’t like that idea and by Cata that no longer happened.
That’s replacing gear. I don’t recall losing abilities and having my class overhauled every expansion into something unrecognizable.
Exactly. Gear was one thing, and sure by the latter expansions we started getting very big tier bonuses and trinkets that changed some aspect of the spec, but it was extremely minor in comparison to the vast systems that radically alter the class/spec itself.
In none of those patches did we ever feel far weaker when the systems were disabled, as there weren’t any to disable. In many cases we got absurdly broken - because we were still in content designed when we weren’t as powerful.
Yep. That and the BC gear with all the sockets was still functional after enchants and gems. That was awesome. Sure, we eventually replaced it, but it just felt nice to know that my efforts weren’t completely wasted.
I get new expansions come and we are going to replace that gear, but considering how much effort many of us put to get the corruptions and essences… and now, before the next expansion even launches, I’m basically going to lose that.
It’s not anger, just disappointment. Seems like they could handle this better to not completely invalidate all our work.
Hopefully the expansion after shadowlands actually makes classes not feel like garbage to play.
It’s borrowed power at its core. It’s not supposed to last past the expansion you grind it out in, as that would have multiple conflicting systems. So they scrap it entirely going forward - which ends up feeling awful after spending so much time and effort building it up.
It’s basically one of the biggest problems of borrowed power, along with classes/specs not feeling complete until the entire grind is complete.
Nope, you can’t keep everyone happy.
What would you prefer?
You said it. That’s exactly it. Not feeling complete. I think that’s why this stings so much. After an entire tier of grinding, it was only a few weeks ago that my druid was finally ‘complete’ relative to what I felt I could get. There are only a few things left in game that I would even want. And… now, I’m going to lose it all.
It took so long to finally feel like I could actually do what I want with the ability I have and I wasn’t fighting against gear and corruptions. I want to enjoy this effort. 5-6 months to work for something and soon it will all be taken away.
It’s frustrating.
I hate borrowed power. I hate what they have done to this game.
I’m all for going back to gear instead of corruption and essences. I’d actually prefer that.
Losing borrowed power one expansion and losing gear to better green pieces in another expansion all feels the same to me though. Just my opinion.
This is my issue .
I understand that when an MMO gets as old as WOW, the devs are going to hit a wall when it comes to new abilities. Just how many new abilities can you learn and keep over a period of years? But taking the time to grind new abilities that I can only keep until the next expansion doesn’t work either. This was why I didn’t spend much time with corruption. I had already grinded azerite and benthic. Why spend all that time grinding ANOTHER temporary system when I know that the pre-patch for the next expansion is coming up and it will all be gone?
Yes.
The Covenants are the frame of the expansion and everything is tied to that frame. This was been the set-up all along. It shouldn’t be taking so long for people to comprehend something so elementary.
but you aren’t losing gear though. It’s still yours. You can keep it. You can do time walking with it. You can do old raids with it. I kept my old wrath gear for ages… you know why? because when I finally got some of those pieces it meant something. I worked for it. And even now, that piece of gear still functions how it should.
you must be fun at parties. i mean, that person must be just terrible for asking a basic question…
It is a Rhetorical question, Meaning that it is simple to answer, but it is designed to better establish a point, and encourage further, more complicated questions.
But I don’t need to reply. My friend here said it best.
Cool man. I hope you get what you want one of these expansions. For me, my wrath gear is long gone and I could care less what blizzard does with this part of the game.