Will WoW still be Diablo-ified next expansion?

[Tradu]

I can't honestly believe you ever played the game seriously if you quit for those reasons, but either way don't bother coming back.
The legendary system sucked at the start but if you actually played the game you would have every one for your class months ago.

The other two things you mention are not real. Titanforging occurs in Mythic raids too, and the AP catch ups allow people to get multiple weapons up extremely quickly.

Ask yourself this. Will you be a winy casual who doesn't want to actually have to PLAY the game to be the best you can be next expansion?

The answer to both questions will be yes, I'd imagine.

Unless you play druid or monk, or rerolled at some point after NH, or simply want to play an alt without playing a shit version of their spec. Things like the Arms ring, Fire belt/bracers, Feral Soul, WW boots, Demo shoulders and many others have a huge impact on how the spec plays, in nearly all cases making the spec significantly more fun/interesting to play, meaning alts/rerolls without those, beyond being a lot weaker, are also less fun to play. That is a problem, regardless of whether or not mains have "beaten" the system(which does not make the system good, it just means you've beaten the system and have all the legendaries).
And he's absolutely right about titanforging devaluing mythic loot, claiming anything else would be silly. You can quite easily get to 935-940 ilevel just doing heroic, which means a lot of mythic raid drops will go to waste if they aren't also WF/TF. Disenchanting multiple items on first kills is not fun, and WF/TF makes that a very common occurence, especially for slower progressing guilds.
This is coming from somebody who's fine with spending a lot of time on WoW, but it's not fun to have so many rewards be completely random. If I'm going to spend 5-10 hours a day on WoW, I want to know that time is going to pay off, and in Legion that is rarely the case, because of things like legendaries being complete RNG.

[ReVnX]

Not being able to maximize my gear (not getting every 955 BiS item) has actually made me more relaxed about gear than any expansion before.

I got to say, even though at the start I could not see it, this system is better for me

[h4rr0d]

10% is not a massive boost that you are unable to progress without it.
Like it or not, "Diablo-ified" expansion turned out to be something good.

10% across the whole raid is 2 full raid members. I don't see too many guilds progressing mythic raids with 18 people. You happen to know any? Seems pretty massive to me tbh.

It will be even worse with each patch moving forwards.
If you aren't in favor of RNG then you won't be enjoying the game anymore.

Yup, that pretty much sums it up for me and I stopped playing for exactly this reason. If 20% throughput boost (disc priest BiS leggos) is gated behind 2 layers of RNG, WoW isn't a game for me anymore.

[Tradu]

The thing about that was everyone and their dog was screaming "there's nothing to do besides raid" or "raid or die" or "where's my content" and quit in droves during WoD. Do you want stuff to do outside of raid (people complain) or do you want to "not have to grind out the game which isn't so good" (guess what, people complain.) There's literally no winning for Blizzard.

If only there was a middle ground, where there was lots of content, but you didn't have to do absolutely all of it or risk falling behind in terms of power level in an area that might be entirely unrelated. Why do pet battles give AP, for example? It doesn't help you pet battle better. Why should doing PvP make you stronger in raids? Why should raiding make you stronger in PvP? Why should WQs make you stronger in literally every area? I'd much rather have content that makes you stronger at doing that content primarily, while maybe a tiny bit stronger in a general progression system that applies to the whole game. WF/TF would be perfectly acceptable for WQs in my eyes if the rewards from WQs made you better at WQing(through things like the order hall sets that Blizzard just left to rot), which would keep the "excitement" for that section of the playerbase without negatively affecting other areas of the game. Or PvP gear, which should be strong in PvP but less so in other areas of the game. Raid gear should primarily make you stronger in raids, not stronger for absolutely everything.

[gushDH]

We will learn in about 3-4 days, at blizzcon. No one knows and anyone who tries to say they do know, they lie.

Just like the changed wow with legion in so many ways, they may very well change it in even more ways in the next expansion.

[SirBeef]

I just want to stop having 5 different levels of gear. One item, one set of stats. It feels very diablo-like when I'm pushing to get a minimally better upgrade of the same item I already have.

It's better than getting your set and having nothing to look forward to in terms of gear for another two months IMO. There is always a chance for an upgrade. I think people need to stop "trying" to get the top Titanforged gear and look at them as bonuses for prolonged play. Personally, it gives me drive to play a bit more than just raiding like all I did in WoD. You never know, you may find an upgrade doing anything. Doesn't bother me if it may only be 5 ilvls better.

[Corroc]

If only there was a middle ground, where there was lots of content, but you didn't have to do absolutely all of it or risk falling behind in terms of power level in an area that might be entirely unrelated. Why do pet battles give AP, for example? It doesn't help you pet battle better. Why should doing PvP make you stronger in raids? Why should raiding make you stronger in PvP? Why should WQs make you stronger in literally every area? I'd much rather have content that makes you stronger at doing that content primarily, while maybe a tiny bit stronger in a general progression system that applies to the whole game. WF/TF would be perfectly acceptable for WQs in my eyes if the rewards from WQs made you better at WQing(through things like the order hall sets that Blizzard just left to rot), which would keep the "excitement" for that section of the playerbase without negatively affecting other areas of the game. Or PvP gear, which should be strong in PvP but less so in other areas of the game. Raid gear should primarily make you stronger in raids, not stronger for absolutely everything.

Its all about character progression. You do world quests and defeat minor enemies. Your character progresses, gains new traits or even abilities. Sometimes you get money from defeating those enemies or even piece of gear. If the world quests are challenging for you then the rewards should be making you better.
You battle against other players in pvp zone, your character progresses. Actually doing pvp you gain something for pvp, pvp talents. And before someone says "it doesn't take long to get all the talents", it actually does take pretty long in terms of played time.
And pet battles mostly give out pet battle stuff and sometimes they do have ap in there.

Artifact power seems to be something that alot of people just dont care to think about. Its mostly seen as chore and then you see complain threads about it. Because people are not that in to the whole RPG theme to understand the idea behind it.

[SirBeef]

If only there was a middle ground, where there was lots of content, but you didn't have to do absolutely all of it or risk falling behind in terms of power level in an area that might be entirely unrelated. Why do pet battles give AP, for example? It doesn't help you pet battle better. Why should doing PvP make you stronger in raids? Why should raiding make you stronger in PvP? Why should WQs make you stronger in literally every area? I'd much rather have content that makes you stronger at doing that content primarily, while maybe a tiny bit stronger in a general progression system that applies to the whole game. WF/TF would be perfectly acceptable for WQs in my eyes if the rewards from WQs made you better at WQing(through things like the order hall sets that Blizzard just left to rot), which would keep the "excitement" for that section of the playerbase without negatively affecting other areas of the game. Or PvP gear, which should be strong in PvP but less so in other areas of the game. Raid gear should primarily make you stronger in raids, not stronger for absolutely everything.

But then you get back to needing multiple sets for everything. I like the fact that if I want to raid with alts I can gear up in multiple ways as opposed to LFR(Baeful gear was nice in WoD). Mythic plus is a nice way to advance player power for those who love dungeons(not interested in people claiming they need to run them to be competitive). People can still improve themselves if they want to solo and do WQs and pet battles. Finally, people are not guided to do raiding as the only viable choice for gearing and improving their characters. PvP as well. But in the end, raiding will still have the best gear.

This choice of doing what players want to do to get gear is something people have been crying for here and other forums for many years. This is a good thing overall.

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Artifact power seems to be something that alot of people just dont care to think about. Its mostly seen as chore and then you see complain threads about it. Because people are not that in to the whole RPG theme to understand the idea behind it.

There was another thread about new artifact weapons or create your own artifact weapon for the next expansion. I do think they should keep artifacts for post leveling progression. I think they should bring back the old relic/libram/wand/ammo/throwing slots as an artifact slot. nothing with addons like the current weapons, but an item we upgrade with AP over the course of the expansion. It doesn't need a big fanfare and order hall like the weapons. I just like the idea of the AA systems.

[Tradu]

Its all about character progression. You do world quests and defeat minor enemies. Your character progresses, gains new traits or even abilities. Sometimes you get money from defeating those enemies or even piece of gear. If the world quests are challenging for you then the rewards should be making you better.
You battle against other players in pvp zone, your character progresses. Actually doing pvp you gain something for pvp, pvp talents. And before someone says "it doesn't take long to get all the talents", it actually does take pretty long in terms of played time.
And pet battles mostly give out pet battle stuff and sometimes they do have ap in there.

Artifact power seems to be something that alot of people just dont care to think about. Its mostly seen as chore and then you see complain threads about it. Because people are not that in to the whole RPG theme to understand the idea behind it.

Yes, it's all about character progression, but I'd prefer if that progression was primarily specific to the area of the game that the character progression came from, which is not really the case in Legion, with AP and catch-all gear being awarded from basically everything. For example PvP gear having a PvP specific stat/ilevel scaling like in previous expansions, WQ gear giving bonuses in the open world similar to the order hall set, raid gear giving bonuses in raids sort of like what the Argus the Unmaker trinkets will do, 5man gear making you better at 5mans similar to what the cloak/neck set in Karazhan does. It would still make you stronger overall, just not as much, because it'd be more focused on a specific area of the game. I get the idea behind AP, I just don't like it very much, and WoW worked perfectly fine for over a decade without AP.

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But then you get back to needing multiple sets for everything. I like the fact that if I want to raid with alts I can gear up in multiple ways as opposed to LFR(Baeful gear was nice in WoD). Mythic plus is a nice way to advance player power for those who love dungeons(not interested in people claiming they need to run them to be competitive). People can still improve themselves if they want to solo and do WQs and pet battles. Finally, people are not guided to do raiding as the only viable choice for gearing and improving their characters. PvP as well. But in the end, raiding will still have the best gear.

This choice of doing what players want to do to get gear is something people have been crying for here and other forums for many years. This is a good thing overall.

The issue is that it's not really much of a choice, it just means the further progressed you are, the more total content you're expected to do(legendaries massively amplify this by encouraging running easy content like EN/ToV/NH while ToS is out). You no longer outgrow anything.

[Achilles55]

As a whole I've loved Legion but a few things have really made it a lot worse than it could be for me. The things I hate most about the expansion are titanforging, legendary system (this is coming from someone who has ever Paladin legendary), pvp stat templates, and the general welfare gear and catering to bad players which includes LFR. Players are incentivized to be lazy, complacent, and completely devalue any sense or hard work, or meaningful character progression. I think Legion is the best expansion since Wrath but the RNG slot machine theme that the devs are so insistent on pushing is a very negative thing that I hope to see removed in the future.

[Tradu]

There was another thread about new artifact weapons or create your own artifact weapon for the next expansion. I do think they should keep artifacts for post leveling progression. I think they should bring back the old relic/libram/wand/ammo/throwing slots as an artifact slot. nothing with addons like the current weapons, but an item we upgrade with AP over the course of the expansion. It doesn't need a big fanfare and order hall like the weapons. I just like the idea of the AA systems.

This is something I'd quite like to see as well. Weapon drops used to be exciting, weapon models were some of the most iconic parts of new content. Legion relics are... none of those things. Having a specific slot for "artifacts" would be nice, especially something flavorful like the relic/libram/wand slot. They could even add visual effects to them(like the floating skull for Demo locks, quiver for MM, balls of fire that most Fire mages seem to turn off etc), no need to have them be invisible slots. I'd also quite like to see something similar for legendaries if they insist on keeping the currrent model in the future, in order to make sure they're purely utility and have no throughput difference(unlike if they just made all Legion legendaries utility, where head/chest/legs would be used because they have bigger stat budgets), but in the casse of legendaries it could just be the trinket slot, which already has a similar role to legendaries(or at least used to before World of Statstickcraft) in the sense that they're "cool" effects.

[kamuimac]

I quit WoW in Legion after ten years of raiding because random very strong legendaries caused some people to be 10+% ahead of others on pure RNG and the only way to fix it was months of grinding, titanforging devaluing mythic loot and incentivizing grinding old content (especially mythic+) too much, and artifact power meaning an insane grind to switch specs or play alts.

I haven't looked at news much, will the next expansion still be WoW Diablo? I ask because I might want to come back if all those terrible changes were reverted.

ofc it will - all the rng elements that you hate were enormous succes all across casual playerbase

the more mythic players quit over it the better for the future of game so go go blizz

[Tradu]

Problems with the legendary system:
There are still far too many outliers; legendaries that make or break a spec. It's even worse in some cases where the legendary doesn't just define output but changes a playstyle from poor to fun (e.g. Arcane mage).
A secondary issue that would remain even if the legendaries were better balanced or simply weaker though is the true issue with Diablo gear which already exists in wow; the combination of tier sets and legendaries (especially in cases where 2tX+4t(X+1) is a good idea locks your character in a specific gear set and invalidates a significant number of upgrades. It is a foul experience gaining an amazing titanforge proc on an item with perfect stats knowing you cannot use it because that slot is locked either by a legendary or by a tier piece. I have to constantly use SimPermut and wait for quite a while every time I get new gear because I have 4-5 non-set items that are +10-15 ilvls higher than the tier I have in that slot and it's impossible to tell what would be an upgrade).

Very much this. The first issue is probably the one that affects the most people, and would affect them regardless of how nerfed legendaries get. Also I'd recommend using Raidbots.com instead of SimPermut, much nicer way of doing it(just uses the default /simc output and then has a good GUI to select which combinations you want, as well as not requiring you to worry about having an up to date SimC version installed, as it all runs in the cloud)

[kamuimac]

they will probably completely remove items at one point and just have a gearscore or something, already done in PVP why not PVE.

aww somebody is saty that he has now to do actual pvp instead pwnagage with CP gear vs HP gear

[gaymer77]

I don't think the legendary system will be dropped and from the sounds of it titanforging might stay too but AP/artifact weapons are gone. Though I do hate the RNG/randomness of the legendary system, its nice at the same time because if you do get what you want its nice to have. But I agree with the titanforge system needing to be gotten rid of. A random upgrade from a boss should not be BIS for you.

[Tradu]

I don't think the legendary system will be dropped and from the sounds of it titanforging might stay too but AP/artifact weapons are gone. Though I do hate the RNG/randomness of the legendary system, its nice at the same time because if you do get what you want its nice to have. But I agree with the titanforge system needing to be gotten rid of. A random upgrade from a boss should not be BIS for you.

The issue with that statement is that a lot of legendary effects(the ones that aren't just flat +damage, basically) could just be baseline/talents instead, which would also help improve some classes' talent trees or baseline feel(for example Ayala, the execute proc ring for Arms/Fury should be baseline for Arms, like it was in the past)

[D3athsting]

If there ever will be ap grind it should be player-restricted not spec restricted, one of the most shitty aspect of legion is grinding AP for a spec only to see it nerfed to the ground next patch and having to start over again with another spec

[Corroc]

Yes, it's all about character progression, but I'd prefer if that progression was primarily specific to the area of the game that the character progression came from, which is not really the case in Legion, with AP and catch-all gear being awarded from basically everything. For example PvP gear having a PvP specific stat/ilevel scaling like in previous expansions, WQ gear giving bonuses in the open world similar to the order hall set, raid gear giving bonuses in raids sort of like what the Argus the Unmaker trinkets will do, 5man gear making you better at 5mans similar to what the cloak/neck set in Karazhan does. It would still make you stronger overall, just not as much, because it'd be more focused on a specific area of the game. I get the idea behind AP, I just don't like it very much, and WoW worked perfectly fine for over a decade without AP.

Obvious problem would be that if you raid but dont pvp, there will be long grind to get competitive in pvp since you need special gear for it. Same thing with 5 mans. Raids already have this in one way, but because gear is so universal nowdays you can do pvp at 2k rating and then jump to pve and you can still do it without dragging the rest of your raid down.

[Tradu]

If there ever will be ap grind it should be player-restricted not spec restricted, one of the most shitty aspect of legion is grinding AP for a spec only to see it nerfed to the ground next patch and having to start over again with another spec

Yeah, having AP be restricted to 1 spec sucks. It's not a fun choice to make, it just limits you.

[MyndZero]

I hope not, but it will be.