Borrowed power really makes this game a lot less enjoyable for me. When it was first introduced in Legion it was ok, The artifact weapons were fun and felt unique, but by the time it was over I was glad. I was sick and tired of grinding AP Just to make my Alts playable. Catch up mechanics not withstanding.
So when BFA rolled around I was less than enthused to get a new necklace . By the end of the expansion we are up to 4 borrowed power sources that we will not be carrying into the next expansion.
On top of making your Alts feel eternally behind and introducing loads of RNG frustration, it creates havoc for balancing.
I know you have the people that say “but tier sets are borrowed power!” In a way they are, atleast now that they made them turn into “legacy” gear, which used not to be the case. But even so they were usually just a 4 piece set that interacted with your rotation in a unique way or buffed you somehow. Once you got the 4 piece you were good for that tier. It felt like checking off a mark. It felt good to finally get your 4 piece.
Tier gear enhanced your class by buffing aspects of your rotation. All to often now borrowed power is the ONLY thing giving a class a leg to stand on. That’s why Demon hunters felt so gutted after legion, and will after BFA.
More time and man power should be focused on making the classes complete, to make their rotations feel good, and their utility feel meaningful. If there has to be borrowed power for “player engagement” metrics it should be extremely minimal.
In past expansions when the new expac dropped I didn’t feel like I got weaker, I felt the enemies got stronger, but now on day 1 of the expac I feel like half of the things that made me strong are just gone.
TL:DR stop focusing energy and man power on unbalanceable systems that will be trashed with each expac, and focus development on the core of the classes feeling complete alone.
Wall of text, didnt’ read it, but i know what you’re whining about.
Borrowed power HAS TO HAPPEN, otherwise we’d grow SO STRONG per xpac that the cumulative power would break & destroy the game, so it has to happen, and that’s all there is to it.
FFXIV does it differently; they don’t take away a new power system,
they just gut your class and abilities so they all suck , same effect I guess (shrug) i guess that’s just how older MMORPGs have to balance things I guess.
This is incredibly silly. “Borrowed power” wasn’t really used until the cloak at the end of MoP, and no, legendaries were not the same. Game was fine, and at its best before that.
The reset button feels worse each time it is pressed. Especially when there are fewer and fewer systems that actually persist beyond the expansion in which they were introduced.
Its going to backfire on blizzard in SL I think. I don’t think they realize how many people will simply checkout of SL if the borrowed power systems are really bad and unbalanced.
BFA was a wake up call to the community. It showed just how little blizzard cared about player feedback and player enjoyment.
They abandoned BFA after Naj/Mech and even with that extra time, SL’s Beta is still in a bad state. I mean, we are a month out and they have implemented NEW covenant abilities, how the hell can they balance anything when they are still developing the content? LOL
SL is going to be the end of wow for many I think.
There’s a difference between “I’m replacing my raid purples with this green quest item, because this green quest item is statistically better” and “Blizzard removed the rental system my entire class was built around for the past two years, and until I grind out the new system my class is a shambling husk of itself.”
The difference between the old way and the new way is that tier sets were bonuses for already complete classes; artifact weapons/azerite/covenants are there to fill holes deliberately left in our classes, and when removed the classes look like swiss cheese.
People in general have reached borrowed systems fatigue. You can see it with beta and the level of enthusiasm for these borrowed systems is at an all time low.
What makes systemlands worse is that it front loads it all while with BFA it was a slow burn as the expansion progressed.
. By the end of the expansion we are up to 4 borrowed power sources that we will not be carrying into the next expansion.
