Heart of Azeroth (HOA) stops working at AP level 50

Community General Discussion
1

Ok, so this is a combination bug report, feedback and suggestions regarding the seemingly unannounced and undocumented AP hard cap at level 50.

I’ve established via in game ticket ( https://us.battle.net/support/en/case/detail/67260205 for Devs) that this is apparently working as “intended”?!? but even if we take that at face value, the fact is the UI display and mechanic are broken, as it continues to display AP gains and tries to apply AP to … well nothing.
So that’s a problem.

Here’s the details:

Michael
My HoA AP is stuck at 0%. When I turn in WQ, weekly quest or any other AP gaining activity it shows the amount of AP gained in the chat box log, but no AP is applied to bar. Please fix as I’m wasting a lot of AP doing everyday activites.
1 day ago
This ticket has been marked as Answered.
1 day ago
-REDACTED-
Hey Michael,

I’m Specialist Game Master -REDACTED- and I received your ticket about your Heart of Azeroth power level not increasing when earning Azerite Power from World Quests, etc. I totally understand the frustration of halted progress and, as it turns out, Zerstoerer has hit the current cap for the Heart of Azeroth’s level, which is 50.

During each season of Battle for Azeroth, the Heart of Azeroth necklace has a limit on how many Azerite levels it can gain. Once the level cap is reached, no further Azerite can be collected until the limit is raised in a future content update.

Additionally, the Heart of Azeroth has to be equipped to earn Azerite Power.

I’m glad we were able to help you out today and, as always, if you need help with anything else or have other questions to raise, don’t hesitate to reach back out to us!

/fist-bump™

18 hours ago
Michael
I appreciate the answer -REDACTED-, but honestly, that just raises more problems - I thought it was just a technical issue on my character, but if this is “working as intended”

  • Why does the UI still reflect AP as being earned (just not applied) and why is there no indication in game that I’m capped? Shouldn’t it say when I perform AP activities that’s the case, or better yet have a quick “dead end” quest to Magni that tells us to come back later
  • Why am I not earning titan residuum, gold or some other equivalent fo these actions?

I did some pretty thorough research before opening a ticket and the closest I got to an “official” answer is that on WowHead they list the HoA cap at 60 which based on the calculations should be impossible to reach. So I’m not sure where you guys pulled 50 from, it’s an unreasonably low cap for where the game is.

As you can see, I’ve been playing this game for a LONG time and all previous such systems employed one or more of the above tactics to bridge gaps.

If I understand you correctly, Blizzard designed this so that an average player will be hard capped, with absolutely no reward or incentive for playing current content for 2+ months until the next patch?
Forgive me, but that seems like a terrible player experience and marketing decision. Not to mention that by the time 8.2 comes out someone who worked hard to power up their main toon will be on par with some alt that just started?

I understand you’re just trying to help, but please pass this on to your designers and management. It’s pretty obvious the ball was dropped on this design.

Regards,

Zerstoerer
10 hours ago
This ticket has been marked as Answered.
10 hours ago

-REDACTED-
Hi there,

This is Specialist Game Master -REDACTED-. I can absolutely understand the upset and confusion here and you have some valid questions regarding the design. Thing is, since Game Masters are not developers, legally we cannot directly take on suggestions or pass them on. This said, you did raise a few concerns and as you said, you have been playing for quite a long time. That coupled with much of the research you have done means that your suggestions have more weight to them just in general because they have logic and data tied to it.

Now, this said, I would highly encourage you to voice those concerns. I can never promise a change would happen, but if the developers do not get the feedback, nothing would happen. There are two options when it comes to feedback where the developers can receive it. While the forums is a great option because it allowas other to add input and can show how important this is to the community. There is also the in game option. Just like the “Report a bug” option sends the reports to the Quality Assurance team (bug testers), the “Submit Feedback” goes straight to the developers. You can submit in both places if you like, but really I mention both because not everyone is comfortable discussing things publicly on a forum.

I know that this will not answer the why on the design, not even game masters are privvy to all the mechanics and limitation whys, but I truly do hope that you do send this feedback up to them. <3

3 Likes
2

Yeah, they might fix this in 8.2. Might. They either didn’t expect people to reach level cap because of how boring it is, or they thought people would be fine with grinding systems that have no payoff.

3

The same thing happened in Legion. It took them a while to convert AP gains into something else (gold or essences) then, too.

4

Sounds like a good way to create the game to me.

I’m at 48, but when I hit 50 I will be happy to be done with the AP grind for a while.

I can feel like I accomplished my goal and feel good about that for a bit.

And that frees up time for me to go do other things in the game.

I wouldn’t mind getting gold once I’m capped instead, for sure, but making the game cap at 50 for now is good, not bad.

1 Like
5

With absolutely no system in place to reward that or at least offset the halt in AP gain with some other minimal gain, though, it essentially renders any source of AP at present a loss of time in that regard.

4 Likes
6

Had the same issue before in WoD.
Same issue, new expansion, no fix.
How many times do you have to make the same mistake before you learn? (classic Blizz right here)

Simple fix - All AP rewards turn to gold after hitting neck level 50.
Trouble is, we are not done with neck levels, we have to wait until 8.2 to continue.
So why put in a fix just to change it later. Probably takes more work than they are willing to put into it, so it just sits there with so many rewards being useless now.

After 8.2, will there be another hard cap on the neck? If so I would expect them to make changes to the rewards once capped. Easy way out, infinite neck levels where you get to the point of taking months for one level.

Sadly, right now so many of the rewards are useless AP -
World Quests
Dungeons
BGs
Arena
Island expos
Mission tables
Bonus rolls
The list goes on and on and on. So many systems tied to Azerite rewards, but there are no rewards.

Disappointing to say the least, I expected better Blizz.

3 Likes
7

I’m happy to see them convert the AP that’s getting lost to something like gold. I think it’s a mistake for them not to do so. But Im talking about the fact that the level caps at 50 is a good thing.

The OP wasn’t just complaining about the lost AP, they were also complaining that it capped at all, giving people who were behind a chance to catch up, and people who got to the end a chance to focus on other things instead of the grind.

1 Like
8

Can’t they at least let you “bank” AP at the cap and give the AP to you when the level cap is raised after a patch? Given the exponential growth of AP requirements, it’s not like you can feasibly get to level 60 by banking AP at level 50, you’d probably be 53 at best on patch day.

1 Like
9

I mean. Hasn’t this been the way WoW has worked since day 1?

You eventually top out whatever at some point. And eventually you can no longer get more benefits?

At some point you had your BiS drops and more gear drops didn’t help you, for example.

Would it be nice if there was something else? Sure. But I don’t feel there has to be. At the very least the UI should definitely be cleaned up to reflect that you are done.

1 Like
10

The fact aside that it would make a cap pointless and they might as well just remove it then, I can all but guarantee that “banking” would drive people to burn themselves out grinding AP ad nauseum until the patch goes live, just to get ahead of the grind and get an edge for the next raid tier. Worse still, because Blizzard knows people will do this, they’ll balance the tier around the presumption that they are, which means that if you haven’t done the grind, you’ll be useless to your raid team. It’s basically what happened when Nighthold went live.

Sooo, I’m gonna have to vote no on this. Just enjoy the vacation from wow when you’re done with the current grind.

11

I may have BIS but the boss still drops loot. I can trade the loot, disenchant it, or vendor for gold. Imagine if you only got loot off a boss the first time, no more loot for you.

That is the state of AP rewards right now if you are neck level 50.

1 Like
12

I guess this is just an example of “which feedback should Blizzard listen to”.

One of the biggest complaints people have about AP is that it “never ends”. Now that people are getting to the end, we complain that it ended.

I dont really care either way. They can add something, or they won’t. I am fine with either.

Its just not a big deal to me either way. As we have long hit points of “stuff doesn’t reward us/give more upgrades to us” in the past.

1 Like
13

You are not understanding the complaint. The complaint is that there are so many systems out there that reward AP (as listed above) and you are just plain screwed out of any reward once capped.

I don’t need the item level 370 boots either, but I can do that world quest, get the boots, vendor/DE and actually get a reward that is useful. I do the 200 AP quest, kill a boss, do an island expo, etc. etc. etc. I get nothing.

Bad by intentional design that they should have known was going to be an issue and done something to fix it before we have to post about here in the forums.

1 Like
14

No. I am fully understanding the complaint.

When I do the 370 boot WQ I can’t DE them. I can only sell them for a pitiful/useless 20 or 30 gold or whatever. At that point I’d rather not even get a reward as remembering to see a vendor for such a small reward just seems like a chore.

So what reward do I get for a 370 boots WQ? Basically nothing. Therefor I don’t do them.

Island Expeditions offer non AP rewards. So that doesn’t quite work.

If you are doing AP quests when you literally don’t need the reward I have to wonder why you are doing them?

1 Like
15

I’m not doing AP quests, that’s the problem. AP comes from MANY MANY systems in the game beyond world quests and AP is useless once capped. This should have been addressed before it was an issue.

1 Like
16

I don’t know. The amount of complaints I hear on these forums is crazy to me.

Your neck is capped so stop farming azerite. They said it’s working as intended, why can’t you just take that at face value and move on and do other things like push keys or progress in bod or cos, play an alt, go outside, take a break. It’s like congrats you beat the game for now lol

Edit: just read some other posts in this thread and see you’re complaining about azerite going to waste cause you’re getting them from EVERYTHING.

I still find it annoying that you hate being capped so much that you want more and more reward. There’s nothing wrong with something having a cap and not getting extra beyond that. You can do things without worrying about the azerite you’re not getting lol

2 Likes
17

These forums have terrible short-term memory. Remember when people made fake Mathematical equations saying it would take 500 days to max out AP in Legion, not taking into account changes to artifact power gains? Now that you can max out the HoA, the argument about the hamster wheel is gone and “we want more rewards” is in.

2 Likes
18

One of these threads pops up every day now. Made mine about 2 weeks ago, and that was weeks after hitting 50. Glad to know the general answer by those under 50 is still “you get a break, don’t worry about it, blah blah.”

Since Blizzard seems to be doing nothing, I have decided to follow that advice and take a break. Log in to do daily emissary, 20min tops, and once a week do my +10. I’m sure Blizzard has no problem whatsoever if thousands of players do the same in the coming 2 months.

19

I’ve had the same issue with XP every expansion. As soon as I hit the level cap the game stops giving me more levels. Blizzard plz fix!!

3 Likes
20

Did you seriously need to waste a GM’s time about the lvl 50 cap? We all knew about it.

1 Like