Does artifact levelling need a review?

[ShiyoKozuki]

Well, yes; it is.

This is the first time since I can remember that Blizzard have really thrown their "hardcore" raiders under the bus a little. Sure, we can argue that it's about time - but it's affecting everyone else, too.

Those people really needed to stop being catered to, they ruined the entire game.
However, the current system is even worse than WOD's "nothing to do besides raids" system.

The ilvl system just needs to be removed entirely and we need to go back at proper RPG gearing mechanics.

[Brickwalls]

It's terrible, but some people don't actually play their alts or play very passively some extreme, pointless time gating doesn't matter to them.

WoW is currently one of the least alt friendly MMOs on the market.

[TOM_RUS]

It's definitely needs to be changed, especially when it comes to alts. In previous expansions you could have geared an raiding alt in matter of 1-2 weeks by feeding it all drops from the raid, now in Legion it will take months of AP grind to get all those stupid traits... May be it will become a bit better in 7.1.5, but still very far from what it was in previous expansions, as you will still have to grind that stupid AP no matter what AK you have.

[Deleted]

Currently it's FUBAR of any known definition of sanity, since someone came up with an idea of a huge if covert apology to people who preferred old talent trees and then some Celestalon-level shithead came in and said oh wow look what a wonderful time sink we have here.
It can be made very sensible in trivial manner:

• AP made a property of a toon or perhaps even of an account (account-wide AP is the minimum where Bliz could presume to talk about alt-friendliness after the first months of Legion), applied to all particular weapons as you see fit.
• Weekly cap on base AP (sans AK bonus) you can ever get; the exact amount should be cappable in a single evening devoted to AP farm.
• Free respecs.

Bang, done. Suddenly artefact is awesome and enjoyable feature of the game.

[Pua]

Those people really needed to stop being catered to, they ruined the entire game.

I'm one of the people who does agree that catering to an extremely hardcore minority was a bad plan; and it was always a bad plan. Difficulty fetishism is a problem in any game of any genre, but is particularly difficult in an MMORPG.

But I think we need to grow out of the antagonism a little and, rather than turning on other players, voice our concerns to the designers. They make the game - not Mythic raiders. If anyone is to be held responsible, it's the development team and not our colleagues who merely play.

Just my view.

[Flextt]

So there are some glaring issues but I dont neccessarily agree with a lot of the assumptions OP makes.

Yes, the current artifact system makes alt-ing and filling in for missing raid slots difficult. That is a problem in and of itself. Your artifact choice kinda limits your flexibility towards your raid. It shouldnt be Blizzards business to interfere with my ability to fulfill my role in my guild. Re-rolls and role switches are something you and your raid lead need to figure out. Blizzard should stay the f*ck out of it. So why are they doing it? So you keep playing. We do not have magically more content. It just takes more to do the same amount of content, while the content is more flexibly scaled. Time-gating content should always be the last option and Legion is doing it excessively. Artifact Knowledge and the whole Balance of Power questline is a giant middle finger.

But for some reason I neither see committed, semi-hardcore players doing worse nor would I not see OP succeed in his EN HC guild. As long as you manage to have your Artifact Knowledge up-to-date, getting 2 gold traits as a bare raid minimum is trivially easy. And I wouldnt even see it as mandatory for Heroic, assuming you have guildmates to compensate for you. The first 4 weeks of the Legion released I did the bare minimum of Emissary quest, because I lacked the time. Weekdays I could barely invest 1h in the evening. Doing a single Mythic on weekends was the highlight while my guild mates rushed away from me.

I switched from UH DK to FDK after we killed Nythendra Mythic in early October. We have killed EN M4/7 + ToV HC1/3 with 2 raid days (7 hours total) and a Friends & Family raid for EN HC. Legion is not alt-friendly but it offers plenty of opportunity to catch up and participate. It just boils down to decision-making and priorities. And yes, the obstacles in alt-ing due to AK and reputation are a massive thorn in my side as well. Get AK running on prospective twinks as soon as you can, if you find the time to level.