Infinite grind for echos, for an infinite grind for vessels, for an infinite grind for sockets, for an infinite grind for corruptionss
It’s arguably better than everything being on a pure lotto system.
But then there used to be a better balance between pure rng and deterministic grind.
Remember back in MoP when your gear came with 3 gem slots without you having to grind for them or when random procs didn’t make up 70% of your damage
yea this xpac sucks
the devs nowadays ruined the game. Every class depends on borrowed power that will be lost every expansion. The game was far better in mist of pandarea until they beoke it.
They even broke professions. They all feel so useless now. I remember when enchanting made me enchant all my gear, or when tailoring gave a damage proc…etc.
What blizzard did was remove major glyphs, and profession stuff only to give us back in borrowed power. They are doing too much with borrowed power which is why its losing subscribers
Yea, every class feels awful while leveling up because the base class is unworkable without BFA’s 3+ power systems stacks on top of each other at 120, they love to make classes awful and then giving them back base abilities you used to have as talents.
wish they would go back to the base classes being good without borrowed power systems required to make them enjoyable
The existence of outside power always by extension makes the base look bad.
BFA has too many with Azerite, essence, and corruptions.
But even during MoP, the epitome of class effectiveness/bloat/homogeneity the same posts were on the forums about how you needed your tier set for your class to function or some specific trinket to make things work.
I dont like either.
I want drops that mean something and I want them frequently. Not some crap gear I have to run numbers on for two years.
Boring with a capital ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz
If I was a dev I’d hate MoP because it’s always the xpac players compare to lol.
Not sure if OP knows what the word “infinite” means.
Technically there is an infinite grind for Azerite power but the diminishing returns past 80 (which is really fast) are so low nobody cares.
The rest are definitely not infinite.
I’m starting to think borrowed power is an attempt to do alternative advancement without actually calling it that. Bonus being that since it’s borrowed, you can take it away from the player at the end of an expansion without the need to justify it.
For those who haven’t played many MMOs, alternative advancement is basically a system where you’re still in the leveling grind, even if you’re at the level cap. Everquest had such a system. FFXI also has a system like that in the form of merits (and later, job points). The key difference is that AA offered permanent bonuses (at the cost of perpetuating crappy player behaviors) instead of a grind for effects that went away at the end of the expansion.
My problem with borrowed power is overuse. It sort of worked for artifact weapons because of the nature of the weapons, but it’s already become contrived (and we’re only on the second expansion with borrowed power). And yes, class design seems to suffer in order to justify borrowed power’s existence in-game.
I just see it as a logical extension of an MMO that has longevity.
Borrowed power didn’t come around until later in WoW’s life. They can’t keep adding new abilities forever, or you end up with either a 20 button rotation, or like in Classic. Where you have a ton of spells, but only 1 or 2 are worth using.
Borrowed power allows there to be a “base” class, that you tack on extra to. The extra you add in thats good, can be rolled over. For example. the IP trait for elemental shaman has been a big deal of us all expansion. Its now baked into SL.
If they can’t continuously add abilities every expansion without getting to bloat, then you have to regularly take abilities away. With Borrowed Power its sorta like designating which ones will be taken away unless there is overwhelming support for them to be kept. Then they may be added in a more permanent role.
Introducing new skills as upgrades of existing skills is a possibility. Using rank ups to introduce QoL changes could also work.
You could also justify new abilities by creating dependencies. Giving ret paladins an ability called Divine Strike that, when used after Crusader Strike, grants the next Templar’s Verdict a 50% chance to refund 2 Holy Power when used would justify the existence of a new ability (even if we’re veering in the direction of a combo system).
The problem is that the base class rarely works fine on its own. Instead the design seems to lean towards the class not functioning without the borrowed power. From a design perspective you’re giving the player an incomplete class that doesn’t feel good out of the box, and from a player perspective you don’t feel any progression or growth when your power is constantly being taken away.
Oh I am not disagreeing here. Pre BFA I am sure classes feel stunted.
But at the same time, even passives can have insane bloat.
I understand why borrowed power is there. And its probably an ugly fix. I can accept that. They (the devs) probably expect most gameplay to happen within the expansion, so to them its an acceptable avenue.
The only alternative I can come up with is constantly adding new things (activated abilities or passives) and at some point you’d have to remove things to add more. Which is just another form of “borrowed power”. You are just borrowing it for longer, and you are never sure what exactly would be removed.
Sockets aren’t even theoretically infinite: once every piece of gear that can get one has one, you’re done.
Corruption is theoretically infinite, but only if you enjoy suicide. Otherwise, you’ll have all you can handle before too long.
And, of course, none of these systems will actually meaningfully outlast Shadowlands launch (some may not even survive prepatch), whether they’re infinite in theory or not.
I agree. This isn’t even speculation, it’s WoW history. This was why the Great Pruning happened at all.
Most of the borrowed power systems have also been doing double duty as the progressive nerf – remember when they literally nerfed raids over time so that more people could progress? Now they avoid that crude version by making players gradually more powerful instead.
The world first race is still made up of people who don’t have time to wait for that, but with a power creep mechanic more people can get CE/AotC sometime before the tier closes that would have been brickwalled otherwise.
That has to be reset in the expansion cycle for the same reasons gear does (which, btw, has been the original borrowed power system ever since that TBC-era webcomic about how TBC greens > vanilla purples).
I often hear people say that, but they never give specifics. Pretty sure I’ve played all 36 specs at points where they have zero to negligible involvement in the borrowed power mechanic of the expansion and I can’t recall any that seemed non-functioning. You don’t have to borrow key spells like Fireblast or Aimed Shot or Rampage.
Echoes are not an infinite grind. There is only so much corruption that will fit on my gear and there are only so many things I can buy with mementos.
Considering passives are hidden in this game for the most part, I disagree.
Assuming arms warriors were to get a lv54 ability (this is taking the level squish into account) called Crush that replaces Slam and has the added benefit of extending the Colossus Smash effect by .5 seconds per use, Slam goes away and Crush replaces it in the spellbook. You’ve thus introduced a new ability that improves arm’s output while not adding to bloat.
Passives absolutely can add bloat.
See:
Every Azerite trait, especially the inner 2 rings.
Every minor essence effect.
By passives, I mean adding too many different passive effects to the same spell.
If a passive makes ability A do X. Ok. Now you have a passive that makes abliity A do X and Y also. If yet another passive is added, now Ability A does X, Y, and Z. Eventually thats too many passives.
You are are referring to replacing abilities, thats just another form of depruning, no?
No it’s not better tbh.
Honestly, what I remember most of MoP is the Vale.
Always dailies, dailies, dailies in the Vale. Then they destroyed the Vale and rearranged the dailies, dailies, dailies in the Vale.
The irony of returning for dailies in BFA was not lost on me. I knew it would come for me again someday. Never was I so glad to move away from an area of dailies than the Vale of MoP…I’m a cursed man.
Fair enough. One skill shouldn’t do too much, but that doesn’t negate the usefulness of ranking up existing abilities.
I’d refer to it as “increasing the ability/spell rank without it being called a spell rank”. Going back to my example with Slam and Crush, you could call Crush “Slam Rank 2” and have it do the exact same thing. You could also call it a brand new ability to tick the checkboxes “new ability given” and “improved some aspect of the class without adding more buttons to press”.
Based on my own experiences, Survival doesn’t hit its stride without Azerite traits. Ret also has some gaps that get filled by Azerite traits (like the free Divine Storm proc).
I admit I have heard more of this from people who play classes that I don’t. Like how Shadow Priest and certain shaman and warlock specs felt terrible without the artfiact powers when we transitioned from Legion to BFA.