A better way to retire the artifacts? {spoilers}

[Selah]

So, I'm sitting here watching the information coming out about retiring our artifacts and I'm kinda disappointed. It seems to still be incomplete, I'm sure we have to take them back to the class hall and officially retire them with some 8.0 questline. My question is though, wouldn't it be better if the team made us want to retire them?

What if instead of just saying "oh, hey, your weapons are corrupt, better go put them up" the team made us really pay for using them? Maybe it starts out slow and our traits in the weapon start to decay, once in a while we just start to lose ranks of Concordance. Then we start to loose other random traits in the weapons. From there, every time we use our active artifact abilities we have a chance that instead of us actually using their ability the weapons just explode with corrupted titanic essence dealing 50% of our total health as damage to the player and anyone 10 yards of them. With each weekly server reset, the chance for this explode with our on-use ability increases x%. By the time 8.0 hits, we're begging to put them away and ready to return to using regular weapons.

Now, granted, balancing classes while this is going on would be a nightmare so you'd have to restore these artifacts to their glory with instanced content and PvP. Still though, I think it'd be a bit of fun and a reminder that our time with these weapons is very limited.

[Golden Yak]

I would be fine with the whole decaying artifact weapon thing as long as it only starts with the 8.0 stuff, and maybe it happens as you go through the BFA introductory storyline or whatever. I don't want to have to deal with that before the new content drops.

I think its likely this 'Unstable' thing will just restrict us from gaining experience as long as we're using the artifact weapons, forcing us to switch to non-cursed weapons for BFA progression. I like the idea that the artifacts are not destroyed or depowered, just forced to be put away, maybe sealed up inside our order halls. Because maybe someday we'll come back for them and use them in new ways.

[Selah]

I would be fine with the whole decaying artifact weapon thing as long as it only starts with the 8.0 stuff, and maybe it happens as you go through the BFA introductory storyline or whatever. I don't want to have to deal with that before the new content drops.

I think its likely this 'Unstable' thing will just restrict us from gaining experience as long as we're using the artifact weapons, forcing us to switch to non-cursed weapons for BFA progression. I like the idea that the artifacts are not destroyed or depowered, just forced to be put away, maybe sealed up inside our order halls. Because maybe someday we'll come back for them and use them in new ways.

Well, the idea is that the decay starts off really slow and really insignificantly. Just one rank of concordance here and there. Something you just kinda shrug at and move on. Maybe after a month or two everyone gets put back to rank one. Then they start to chip away at the regular traits, and by about the time 8.0 goes live we get to the corrupted on-use ability. The idea is to make the artifacts desirable until the pre-patch where they become increasingly painful to use.

I agree, even corrupted we can't just throw these weapons away. Especially being corrupted and empowered by a very malevolent force, there's no way this doesn't come back to bite us in the ass later.

[Sigxy]

I agree, even corrupted we can't just throw these weapons away. Especially being corrupted and empowered by a very malevolent force, there's no way this doesn't come back to bite us in the ass later.

Which is why I'm hoping that while their new powers from this whole Legion-business are gone, they are not 100% useless. Ashbringer for example: Return it to the paladins, for the next Highlord (I doubt the player can remain Highlord forever, they got other stuff to do.) and while not as strong as before, at least has the trademarked ability to be effective against the undead and turn them to ash.

[Kokolums]

My idea is that when we line up to drain gorribal of corruption, Xal jumps into Gorribal and consumes ALL powers contained within all artifacts to construct for herself a new body and a new pocket realm with a doorway to that realm in the hilt of gorribal. Then shes like “suckers lol”

[Selah]

Which is why I'm hoping that while their new powers from this whole Legion-business are gone, they are not 100% useless. Ashbringer for example: Return it to the paladins, for the next Highlord (I doubt the player can remain Highlord forever, they got other stuff to do.) and while not as strong as before, at least has the trademarked ability to be effective against the undead and turn them to ash.

Well, would the Ashbringer still be something that is synonymous with Paladins after this? Because to me, none of these weapons are going to be the same after this infusion. There's no way that over time these weapons don't become completely corrupt. We know for a fact that the Ashbringer is corruptible just by being in the hands of someone with ill-intentions, what happens after being injected with the burning hatred of Sargeras? Same for all of them really, but the ones with a will or a consciousness (Doomhammer, Ashbringer, Aluneth, Xal, ect.) I suspect would be more susceptible to his influence.

[Trollokdamus]

I'm sorry but I'm strongly opposed to this idea. Nothing would alienate the average player more, myself included.
Firstly, it would be extremely frustrating gameplay with no alternatives. Secondly, it would be equally frustrating to see all you worked for for the entire expansion slowly fading away beyond your control. Both from story and gameplay perspective.
All in all, nothing would come out of this but frustration and bitterness for an extended period of time. No, thank you, I'd rather retire my artifact while it's at its peak.

[Selah]

I'm sorry but I'm strongly opposed to this idea. Nothing would alienate the average player more, myself included.
Firstly, it would be extremely frustrating gameplay with no alternatives. Secondly, it would be equally frustrating to see all you worked for for the entire expansion slowly fading away beyond your control. Both from story and gameplay perspective.
All in all, nothing would come out of this but frustration and bitterness for an extended period of time. No, thank you, I'd rather retire my artifact while it's at its peak.

See to me, that's more frustrating than anything. We get these super charged weapons and then further empower them with the essence of a titan and we just have to put them down because Blizzard said so. Why would we not want to keep these weapons for ourselves or our cause? To me, it makes for more sense to give the players a tangible reason to want to give up their weapons.

As far as the power fading away, that's the end result no matter which path you take. People are going to be bitter and frustrated about losing their artifacts regardless.

Like I said in the OP, for balance reasons you have to keep them where they're at now for instanced and PvP content, it would outright ruin the game otherwise. All that really leaves is WQs and invasions though, which is totally fine because even being super casual myself, all of that content can be completed without an artifact and without problem. So, the impact is minimal and it adds substantially to the story and the immersion.

[Spiffums]

Well, the idea is that the decay starts off really slow and really insignificantly. Just one rank of concordance here and there. Something you just kinda shrug at and move on. Maybe after a month or two everyone gets put back to rank one. Then they start to chip away at the regular traits, and by about the time 8.0 goes live we get to the corrupted on-use ability. The idea is to make the artifacts desirable until the pre-patch where they become increasingly painful to use.

I agree, even corrupted we can't just throw these weapons away. Especially being corrupted and empowered by a very malevolent force, there's no way this doesn't come back to bite us in the ass later.

I'd love to see the forums when that started to happen. It would be EPIC!! The people who have an almost maxed weapon would be screaming from the high heavens. I beat Blizzard local Fire Department would have to put on extra shifts!