Why kill Legion before BFA is released?

[Psygon]

I logged in today to find my artifact weapon dead.

Why kill Legion before BFA is released?

[Nnyco]

its prepatch and they told us it will happen long time ago, you must've lived under a rock

[ablib]

The previous expansion always dies with the pre-patch. For all intents and purposes, BfA was released 2 days ago, and we're waiting for the gated content to become available.

[BlueRemedy]

its prepatch and they told us it will happen long time ago, you must've lived under a rock

People complain about pre-patch every expansion

And for good reason, it's just as stupid every expansion.

It's even stupider now that game systems and class design is more half-assed and untouched than ever and they still can't keep their game in a functioning state.

If anything it's actually buggier than it ever has been. Maybe Ion could take time away from cutting his own hair to work on the game?

[LiPiNo]

So you can get used to the squish and scaling..I mean cmon, whatever. This is not new.

[Temp name]

People complain about pre-patch every expansion

And for good reason, it's just as stupid every expansion.

Yeah, it's entirely stupid that they want to make sure the game works for when the expansion actually launches.. 100%..

If anything it's actually buggier than it ever has been. Maybe Ion could take time away from cutting his own hair to work on the game?

Ion is the game director, he's not a programmer. They got loads of those working on it, why'd he have to go and code when it's not his job?

[HavokHeart]

This is the way it's always worked. New systems are released in a pre-patch, before the next expansion goes live.

Sure. However, this time it is atypical. The insane decrease in player power feels bad. Usually a prepatch changes up skills sure but the power drop from the artifacts was painful.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Sure. However, this time it is atypical. The insane decrease in player power feels bad. Usually a prepatch changes up skills sure but the power drop from the artifacts was painful.

I think that was true for many patches until legion. Legion gutted most classes as well to make room for artefacts, though I guess they didn't squish back then so that probably helped. This time around 3-4 effects come together:

- squish with abyssmal testing of the resulting scaling
- before the patch we were given a short period of extreme power
- we lost artefacts
- some of the class changes amount to detrimental perception of power

In the past you tended to get more power by a prepatch, mostly because you got new talents, skills, content was nerfed, etc. Some of the class changes also tended to make you stronger. I'd say previously you could expect a 10-50% increase in power with a prepatch and get your last raid kills in before the expansion, this time around it feels like we went the opposite way and that is just raw numbers, there is probably also something to be said about QoL features and subjective perception of class mechanics.

So all in all it's not atypical, it's probably closer to the new norm.

[Peacemoon]

Prepatch is essential as it lets Blizzard roll out big changes in advance and smooth them out ready for the expansion release. Granted this time there’s a to be smoothed out, but it’s only for four weeks. Legion had its day, and while I’m sad it’s now a ‘previous expansion’, it’s time to move on.

[Maylander]

I do feel it was a bit drastic this time around, given the combination of factors that Haidaes mentioned. Also, is there a quest missing? After powering up the weapons, I was expecting there to be some sort of quest or cinematic that would explain why they're suddenly totally drained of power. We all knew it was coming, but it felt a bit.. flat.

[Ergunk]

I like that they introduce it 20+ days before BFA so we can get accustomed to all the new changes, and be ready to actually play the expansion on day 1 instead of probably wasting a few hours sorting your UI, removing missing abilites, talents etc.

[Canield]

One day. One day blizzard will wise up and allow a handful of servers to operate with outdated expansions.

One day. PepeHands

[Deleted]

They basically turned live into a public Beta version, so everyone can enjoy 2 months of broken content and scaling that's tuned for level 120.

[Deleted]

I do feel it was a bit drastic this time around, given the combination of factors that Haidaes mentioned. Also, is there a quest missing? After powering up the weapons, I was expecting there to be some sort of quest or cinematic that would explain why they're suddenly totally drained of power. We all knew it was coming, but it felt a bit.. flat.

I was wondering this too! We got them supercharged, nothing said they would eventually drain (ingame, I knew out of game, obviously) and then they suddenly just stopped working with some stupid out of character text in a menu. It also made little sense, getting all this power in it and then it just stops working? I'd assume the extra power would either make it extra powerful or make it explode, not just... stop...

[Maylander]

I was wondering this too! We got them supercharged, nothing said they would eventually drain (ingame, I knew out of game, obviously) and then they suddenly just stopped working with some stupid out of character text in a menu. It also made little sense, getting all this power in it and then it just stops working? I'd assume the extra power would either make it extra powerful or make it explode, not just... stop...

Exactly!

I was personally expecting it to overload. Either that or get a quest that would tell the player they had to direct the power of the weapon back into the wound to help heal it, or to be used as a catalyst for creating the Heart of Azeroth (I haven't read up on or completed that questline, despite playing the beta, because I want it to be fresh).

[Mask]

Everything seems fine to me. The most annoying part of this prepatch is all the broken mods. I have to say, though, I'm glad they are broken *now* where I still have a month to find replacements or for the authors to fix them rather than breaking on august 14th and ruining my BfA launch experience.

I usually enjoy the prepatch time. It's always fun to explore the changes to my character and get used to how my specs play again.

[Shakou]

The insane decrease in player power feels bad.

Relative to current content no it absolutely does not. If you're having a rough time the issue is you need to learn to play. Unless you're a shaman, then...sorry I just got mine in decent shape in time to complete challenges on it b4 patch day, and now it's not remotely as fun to play. But the rest of the specs did not really get nerfed (relative to the overall stat squish/rebalance of content) contrary to all the bellyaching on forums, some (fire mage for example) barely got changed at all they just lost passives but get this, all the current pvp content is pretty balanced around those changes. A lot of specs are genuinely stronger than they were before actually.

- - - Updated - - -

Everything seems fine to me. The most annoying part of this prepatch is all the broken mods.

Full heartedly agree with you, I especially need new weakauras for 8.0 but I don't wanna use one for each class that isn't similar and had been using Ipse's WA's for legion and that was great.

Although far as class changes go, I am definitely digging more into it now with every class, but I already had been on beta for months so this just makes it easier for me to actually enjoy live while we wait for the prepatch content to release.

[Paulosio]

Sure. However, this time it is atypical. The insane decrease in player power feels bad. Usually a prepatch changes up skills sure but the power drop from the artifacts was painful.

There hasn't really been a decrease in player power relative to content (apart from a few short term tuning issues with things which haven't balanced properly after the patch)....

Things die just as fast. For example my guild did the Chosen achievement in Trial of Valor about a month ago. It took us around 37 seconds to kill Guarm. We did it again on Tuesday and it took us 27 seconds to kill Guarm...

Apart from a few old raids which haven't been tuned properly in the squish (which will no doubt be fixed within days), stuff dies just as fast if not faster than before..

[hulkgor]

Yea, probably bet to have things break at BFA launch than now, with time to fix, 'uh?

That sounds VASTLY more reasonable.

You dudes are completely oblivious.

[beelgers]

Imagine if they waited to release 8.0 with all the BFA content in a month. With so many people taking off work (I'm still giving it a couple days before I take off work personally). Would have been fun to watch though.