First I would like to say this is likely going to be my last thread on the forums for awhile, I just don’t like how things are ran around here. I’ll hang around to discuss this topic for a bit but then I’ll be peacing out.
Now onto the topic, RPG elements something Blizzard seems to want to really focus on lately and a noble cause which I both support and understand. A RPG game should absolutely feel like an RPG game even when it is an mmo. However I feel like there is a major part of an RPG that has been missing for quite some time. Character growth, Our characters have been stuck on a endless loop. It never really ever feels like it gets anywhere due to how the borrowed powers have been the center piece the last few expansions. I understand this is to hinder ability bloat, and power creep however at what cost? Expansion after expansion we lose all growth our characters have gained, often times even having to earn them back. How does this make sense in the story or as an RPG element? When the key part of every RPG has always been characer growth threw story.
I feel as though the recent way of handling our loss of power by incorporating it in the story is okay for a single expansion however if its expansion after expansion this entire “It was all a dream” style approach is going to grow very old and make the game feel like the expansions are unrewarding or pointless. Why purchase an expansion when we already know the powers we gain in it will simply be lost and we start from square one in the next expansion? It is my hope that Blizzard will someday examine this issue and come to understand the damage these borrowed power type systems have to the true RPG element. Character growth.
I was thinking about this for a while. I think that they do this model of game release (as opposed to the game 1, game 2 model) so that we can keep our characters’ progress as we switch from one version of the game to another. Although it feels weird to gain power and then have it taken away, if you just focus on the two-year periods between expansion releases, there is quite a bit of power to be gained!
I feel like WoW truly expands on itself. I suppose I can deal with losing a little bit of power in exchange for being able to keep everything else.
Yeah, I often feel lately as if our characters are not the same character each expansion but rather one we simply inhabit. It’s like each expansion we are inside the Caverns of time or something.
If we don’t get cut back one way or another regularly, we’ll end up with endless DBZ-style power inflation which, in my opinion, would be worse. I’d rather have some borrowed power than have everyone throwing literal planets at each other.
I can relate to this feeling. It is certainly weird to lose a power we once had.
Perhaps it may be helpful to change your thinking about this: We are not losing power and regaining it, but we are instead keeping our old power and gaining more power it in a new zone! We will be as powerful or more when we go to cleanse the evils of N’Zoth in Shadowlands!
And level/ilvl scaling is super weird. No argument about that from me. I have an XP-off level 1 character that one-shots mobs while level 20s around her struggle.
I mean for the most part Blizz has made it work somehow (Corruption being the only thing I consider a total fail)
But I do feel pretty bad each time we are near the end of the expansion and know i’m going to lose a lot of my stuff… I mean yeah I get new stuff is coming to replace it but I wish we had something to carry with us.
I feel the best success on this was the artifact skins.
Thought this is a controversial idea but I beleive we should have never gotten rid of our artifact weapons, I feel Blizz you have tried to bring them to BFA instead of starting the trend of borrowed power with them.
So far no other system has even come close to how amazing and enjoyable Artifact weapons were.
You may be joking when you say this, but I legit miss ammo on my hunter, I stopped playing hunter when they took ammo away. I understand why they did it, but i feel like a better solution would have just been making something like the keyring was but for ammo instead of keys.
Even when running out of ammo sucks, I always enjoyed that difference in DPS plus all the options they could have had with different types of ammos had they chose to expand on it. If they wanted to deal with running out of ammo they could have atleast just made the Ammo type a equipment slot for hunters and made it somehow unlimited.
Under Ion’s leadership as game director, Blizzard has removed 90% of the game’s RPG elements up to and including BFA. It’s funny how now - in order to justify a terrible system that EVERYONE knew would be terrible from the second they announced it - he’s coming out here saying that “Oh, it’s an RPG element! We’re bringing choice back to the game!”
I don’t know what you consider a great RPG element, but I don’t think another Azeritifact system attached to a four-way Aldor/Scryer rep situation would recapture WoW’s soul. Something like that isn’t what makes Baldurs Gate one of the greatest RPGs ever made - it’s a PR statement and people are eating it up, sadly.
I kinda feel the rpg disconnect when we start killing gods. And then somehow we end up lowly enough to help a farmer get rid of pests and can even die from said small pest. It kinda goes way too far out there in the spectrum of things lol.
I think there’s a delicate balance that WoW hasn’t achieved with escalating power vs borrowed power.
Escalating power is something people often dismiss thinking that balancing is easy, but it isn’t. If you paint a picture and someone asks you to add more and more to it every year, its tough to maintain the integrity of the original vision under the strain of constant additions.
And of course that’s where borrowed power becomes attractive. Its additions you can just wipe away with ease with every new season. But of course that conscientiouslessness in design translates into less passionate and meaning design choices.
I personally enjoy that wow is constantly changing and am looking forward to pre-patch and SL for the chance to rediscover my characters i.e. figure out how they are played/decide on a main and have some fun on new alts.