Hearth of Azeroth

[FAILoZOFF]

Do we seriously need artifact 2.0? Yeah, yeah, I know nothing is final, in fact there is close to no information regarding it, as the whole idea doesn't even seem to be fleshed out in any way, but I am speaking just... conceptually (?).
We all got to acknowledge (on numerous occasions) the fact that once Blizz is on to something, nothing will (or at least... not soooo very easily) will make them change their mind. Even if the mystical "majority" of WoWs community is against something, but Blizz thinks otherwise, it will sure as hell pass.
Remember garrisons? Yeah, most people either didn't care too much or even pretty much hated it. Sure, there were some people loving such "feature", but there always are, even for weirdest ideas.

In Legion (and they are still "empty" in a way, sure now there are players running around instead of NPC, but the interactions aren't all that much improved as there are simply no reasons to), we received them again. Quite heavily changed, but the core idea remained. Now there is a question; an economic one: was it all really worth it?
Imagine how much work did it take to create 12 of them, along with the quests for them and artifact weps. They aren't "bad", but for me the answer is just no.
Legion gave us mentioned artifacts 1.0. Again; were they even that good?
None of my "circle of friends" was somehow amazed with whole system. Just normal: It is what it is- this is what we are playing. But, certainly none was like: "ooooh what a great system, glad we have it !!1!1!!!"
Whole system felt more like vanilla wow style talent nostalgy more than anything else.
Current plans for Artifact 2.0 seems to be based kind of Netherlight Crucible traits and the way they work, but again nothing set in stone as far as I understand. Well, I am not such a big fan of that "RNG" lottery either. Except, perhaps, you will be able to "respec" these traits. I mean, we already have a talent trees, 2 in fact, do we need another one, an RNG one this time?

As for the HoA itself. I think it would be better if the items this artifact interacts with were all jewelry instead of some random armor pieces, that is 2 rings and 2 trinkets. HoA itself is a necklace so it kinda makes sense in magical world that it could interact with other worn or close gems. Rings would be responsible for some passives improvements and trinkets would improve active abilities/provide some abilities themselves (like active trinkets already do), for instance.
Personally I just hate how the trinkets rarely "work" with the class/spec I am playing. By work i mean both, the theme (some arcane damage, sell effect for warrior etc) and general gameplay/class mechanic interaction.
This way it would be a great replacement of current "tier bonuses" too.

[ComputerNerd]

There has never been a "most people" or similar trend.
There are people who dislike something, and feel the need to validate their view with supporting voices, those that agree with them without actually giving a reason why.
Just "because someone else agrees, so it must be right".

Your "circle of friends" is a cherry-picked selection whom are convenient when you want them to be.

Those who are happy do not yell about it.

Give an an actual argument as to why it was bad, and is still going to be.
Rather than "because my friends agree with me".

[Wavebossa]

I love alternate progression and artifact weapons.
I thought I would miss getting weapon drops from bosses... and I still kinda do.

But not nearly as much as I assumed I would.

Its another way to gate progression and power. It didn't negatively impact my enjoyment at all.

[Bearded Sith]

One of my favorite aspects of Legion is the Artifact system. I think it worked out brilliantly and was truly an entirely fresh and fun look on character progression. I'm, frankly, worried about BfA and not having that type of character progression for ALL players in the game. Hopefully the Heart of Azeroth will prove to be just as rewarding as the Artifact system.

One of the biggest complaints I get from friends and people trolling trade chat is how the "grind" for Artifact Power was daunting and painful. Well, to you and all those people, you're playing an MMORPG. This type of game is just not for you if you hate any sort of "grind".

[Heladys]

It's not a hearth, we aren't setting a fire in it.

[rhorle]

As for the HoA itself. I think it would be better if the items this artifact interacts with were all jewelry instead of some random armor pieces, that is 2 rings and 2 trinkets.

That defeats one of the reasons why the system exists. To give tier set bonuses with out restricting you to a class set. Any item can be turned into a "tier piece" if it works with the system.

[ReVnX]

There has never been a "most people" or similar trend.
There are people who dislike something, and feel the need to validate their view with supporting voices, those that agree with them without actually giving a reason why.
Just "because someone else agrees, so it must be right".

Your "circle of friends" is a cherry-picked selection whom are convenient when you want them to be.

Those who are happy do not yell about it.

Give an an actual argument as to why it was bad, and is still going to be.
Rather than "because my friends agree with me".

That works both ways, just so you know

[ComputerNerd]

That works both ways, just so you know

Your reply here only really shows that you had no argument to begin with.

What works both ways, that isn't again any sort of reasoning.
"that" what exactly.

[Steampunkette]

Honestly?

I loved Artifacts.

From the Acquisition Quests to the Tinting and model options. From the pseudo-talent-tree to the click-abilities that helped flesh out my character concepts. The hidden or at least unremarked on effects were wonderful and it was -awesome- to have people recognize that I was a powerful person on Azeroth wielding a weapon of storied power.

I absolutely think we should do Artifacts in -every- future expansion, each one introducing new ways to change how a class feels or plays to reinforce the identity of that class or the playstyle that -I- like when I'm playing it.

That's why the Heart of Azeroth + 3 items thing is so freaking GREAT in my opinion. You get options and choices like Legendaries -without- the complete randomization of a dozen items you get once every couple of months or so, -and- the core-character advancement tied to the central artifact with its ever-increasing power.

One of the -greatest- things that Blizzard has invented in the past decade is Diablo 3's Greater Rifts. Essentially it's a limitlessly increasing difficulty progression dropping ever more powerful items that force you to keep working up and up and up and up to meet ever greater challenges, even after you've gained all of your levels and all of your spells. It turns gear into a nigh-infinite lateral progression system that allows you to work up this whole other set of abilities to be ever more powerful, creating not only a wholly new skinner box, but one which doesn't end and need not continue to endlessly require more and more hurdles to pass before getting your reward.

It's fucking -insidious- but it's also so damned rewarding. That they've found a way to put it into WoW has kept me playing this expansion since it launched until today, with only the briefest of lulls around Halloween but that's just 'cause my interests -always- go elsewhere around that holiday!

I want every future expansion of WoW to make use of this system, or a similar one. I want them to keep producing lateral advancement systems. Hell, I kind of want them to introduce Paragon Levels so that we can play our mains and pass benefits on to our alts. Wouldn't -that- be great? More BoA, please.

[Squiggit]

Alternate progression systems are cool. The only real trouble I had with artifacts is they ran out of new stuff relatively quickly and just became a point dump, which is kinda boring.

[Steampunkette]

Alternate progression systems are cool. The only real trouble I had with artifacts is they ran out of new stuff relatively quickly and just became a point dump, which is kinda boring.

This is unfortunately true.

They needed more point-dump options, really. Like turning in Artifact Power to gain Item Levels while retaining your current artifact trait level.

Imagine taking an 890 Trinket that you -love- and Sacrificing 3 Artifact Traits to make it a 905. Or 6 to make it a 920. Could even have a diminishing returns system applied to it where after a specific ilevel you only gain 3 ilevels on the item for each trait sacrificed...

That would've been -cool-.

[ReVnX]

Your reply here only really shows that you had no argument to begin with.

What works both ways, that isn't again any sort of reasoning.
"that" what exactly.

I have no horse in this race. But asking for arguments without giving any, it's kinda the same attitude.

[Makorus]

Artifacts were good after a bit of growing pain and an amazing concept.
The main problem was balancing around them, but I am sure Blizzard has learned their lesson somewhat.

I am glad they didn't fall prey to Blizzards "if it isn't perfect the first time, just scrap it entirely" mentality.

[Rendark]

Artifacts would have been sweet if they didn't have AP and you just unlocked you'r artifact skills has you leveled up.

[Raone]

Artifact Weapons were great early in the expansion, getting those initial traits were fun. After that though it took a steep downfall. If they can recreate that for the entire expansion I would be totally fine with it as they already got rid of my major problem with Artifact Weapons (seperate AP per spec), also there won't be AK (they will just make early traits easier to get later in the expansion).

[Cosmic Janitor]

Of course they were going to reuse that grind vehicle. Sadly this time it comes without a (more or less) compelling story for your character, besides the main plot of the expansion.

[Wolvenheart]

What bothered me this expansion about artifacts wasn't that we had artifact weapons, but that there is this massive AP grind everything which was disadvantageous to people who couldn't no life the game. And maybe that I had a massive library of cool looking swords and my warlock didn't have a single weapon to transmog them on.

But the core idea was pretty well done.

[Shakou]

Artifact weapons were a vastly superior system for the vast majority of players to raid drops.

Blizzard will have major regrets for departing from that system.

Honestly people that had more criticism than praise for the system were few and far between.

You almost never at any point of the game actually needed to max out your artifact to be competitive. There was not even content in this video game tuned for a max level artifact until mythic NH.

The issue with Artifact Weapons in this Xpac is between the weapons themselves not being balanced very well, the systems being implemented to the game in a half baked stage, and that we were intended to complete most of the grind while leveling up. They just never nailed it down until they finally removed the stupid artifact knowledge grind, and even then there's no enjoyable experience leveling your artifact you just instantly upon reaching level cap have no issue getting enough AP to fill your artifact up now until you reach high levels of concordance.

The Nether Crucible should have been in the game from the start and should have simply offered more customization features (even allowing us to respec those customized options). The rest of that grind should have been solely based on gaining powerful relics to increase the item level of our weapons, and there should have been far more options to customize your artifact appearance.

Instead of this like every other thing ever in this game they went too far in one direction and then the next xpac immediately go too far in the other and never find a nice middle ground.

Our artifact weapons honestly could have very easily been put back to use in BFA if they had put more thought into it. The Heart of Azeroth could have simply been attached to our artifact weapons and that would have been a nice middle ground.

They could have easily finessed the system out without forcing us to go back into the even more boring system where we are gated behind raid drops and shit to even be halfway competitive.