Future Endgame System in the vein of Corruption - yes or no?

[AngerFork]

I voted yes, though I think the question as written is a bit misleading. It largely asks about something like corruption, which I would hate and alone would've voted no. But the Poll itself talks about a system where you get gear that can titanforge up or gear where you can upgrade it via some sort of currency. That I'm in favor of.

But whatever new system can't be like corruption. As a healer, I saw so many instances of people standing in eyeballs and taking damage out of nowhere, likely from the "Thing from Beyond" or whatever it's called. All corruption did from my standpoint was give DPS players a way to drain my mana while trying to max out their parse. The upgrade mechanic should just be something to make the gear better, not this RNG-on-RNG mess that corruption was.

Here's what I'd try next. Have Titanforging as an extremely rare option, max it at 15 ilevels above the expected gear. Make it so you can trade in VP or whatever to upgrade the gear on your own, so you have control over it. It still gives some excitement to hunting for loot, but players then have control over it and that time investment has rewards rather than just RNG being the the best possible choice.

[Accendor]

TLDR: Corruption-style upgrade system for Endgame Shadowlands, yea or nay?

I subbed back in recently towards the end of 8.3 so I didn't get much time to play around with the Corruption system, but I actually enjoyed it and I think there are some good ideas there. I prefer it to hoping for Titanforged drops, and then hoping for Titanforged drops with jewel slots. With the Corruption system, once you had the base piece of gear you wanted, you could target what bonus stats it was given and upgrade it with a gem-socket, guaranteed upgrades that you could unlock through playing however you liked, since everything was giving you the currency you needed. Being able to upgrade and build up your gear progressively through gameplay of your choice is preferable to raiding raiding raiding and hoping to get super lucky.

The downsides of excessive Corruption, while annoying, were at least a creative spin on the idea of restricting how much super-powerful upgraded gear you could have right away, and the ability to steadily build up Corruption resistance so you could equip more and more powerful gear was another aspect of character progression that was also nicely creative - slowly obtaining greater access to stronger gear.

I wouldn't mind a similar system returning for endgame Shadowlands. Calling it 'Shadowed' gear just for the sake of speculation: Gear would have X number of Shadow Energy points along with bonus stats. Maybe rather than allowing any amount of Shadowed gear and penalizing you for high amounts, your character starts off with a low limit on how much Shadowed gear they can have. For example your character has 50 points of 'Shadow Endurance', and so you can have two pieces of gear that have 25 Shadow Energy. Every week you can gain +10 points of Shadow Endurance, gradually building up how much Shadowed gear you can equip.

Like Corruption you could choose to remove Shadowed gear, getting rid of Shadow Energy as well as their bonus stats, and then upgrade gear with different, better Shadowed bonuses as you gain more Shadow Endurance. And have it all work off a currency that drops from any activity - mythics, raiding, pvp, world quests, etc. So whatever it is you like to do, you can always be progressing towards getting a gear upgrade through acquiring more of this global Shadowed currency.

I prefer the idea of always being working towards a specific and targeted upgrade by playing however you like, to raid RNG. And you would eventually hit a point where you had all your gear fully upgraded with Shadowed bonuses and gems, which would be very satisfying since a lot of it was through your own personal efforts in acquiring targeted upgrades, rather than hoping your raid group can pull off getting you a chance at a random drop that is also a very extra special random drop.

Any thoughts? Disagreements? Downsides to this kind of steady gear enhancement that I'm not seeing?

No. Never why system like that ever again.

[aceperson]

They'll do something over the course of the expansion as people get bored with loot just being loot. I'd take TF over corruption any day tbh.

you ever notice how games like borderlands, divinity: original sin, and many others have been using loot for decades now and yet people STILL aren't bored of loot? loot only gets boring when there is a system that overshadows it. warforge was fine. it didn't create ridiculous swings in balance and added a SMALL twist to loot. titanforging was insane with how huge the power gains could be. this made balancing content harder AND made any piece of loot that didn't titanforge feel awful. corruption was a mess and if blizzard couldn't balance it the first time, why would you think they could balance it a second time?

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so for 10 months of the last raid you rather have no incentive to raid ? corruption has made 8.3 one of the liveliest end expac tiers ever

the game doesn't need to be played 24/7. a person feeling they have reached their goals and can take a break without feeling guilty helps prevent burnout. it's a GOOD thing for people to feel a sense of being finished for the moment.

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Right. So because you made the choice to play it less, that means everyone else did as well. Cool.

right. so because you made the choice to play it more, that means everyone else did as well. do you see how stupid you're argument is?

[Cæli]

rare loot > titanforge > upgradable loot > targeted corruption like > shadowlands with current loot scarcity

[HoodKazekage]

Corruption sucked! It was the worst patch I’ve ever played and is the reason I un subbed until shadowlands. Nothing about the system was okay and that’s not me being sour( I had the max stars) . It sucked all around from content too nylathoa

[Rustedsaint]

A similar system could work if they learned from their mistakes from 8.3(lol ya rite)
No twilight beam or infinite star, targetable enhancements or atleast no 3 ranks for each one, get rid of the obvious useless ones.(avoidance/speed)

[Eurhetemec]

Corruption was fine as end-of-expansion silly business, but has no place anywhere else.

Loot dropping more rarely but being upgradeable is probably the best way to go.

[Sorshen]

Both systems sucked.

[Eurhetemec]

you ever notice how games like borderlands, divinity: original sin, and many others have been using loot for decades now and yet people STILL aren't bored of loot?

Some odd examples there.

Borderlands has never got loot quite right. It's not particularly fun or exciting to get a new gun in any Borderlands game I've played (I haven't played 3, but friends assure me it's much the same, loot-wise), because most of them just suck, even when blue or purple, compared to ones which rolled better mods, and it was quite possible in both BL1 and BL2 to get just a giant run of fucking terrible guns.

D:OS has different loot systems in each game, effectively. D:OS1 has an extremely boring loot system that mildly detracts from the game. D:OS2 has a fucking terrible loot system that significantly detracts from the game, and given how well-designed a lot of other stuff is, you have to wonder why the fuck they put it in. In particular, D:OS2 randomizes the loot you get in most ways, but also is balanced on the assumption that you pretty much fully upgrade your entire character every 2 levels. Which you can't reliably do because of how the loot has been randomized, and how the crafting works. There were some terrible design decisions in there.

So like, if those are supposed to be examples of loot working well, then, damn.

Neither has a loot system that would work well for WoW.

More successful loot systems would be stuff like Path of Exile (excellent system, totally impossible for it to work for WoW) or Diablo III (boring system, even after the improvements - before that it was godawful - but it works - couldn't work for WoW as it relies on farming loot).

The problem you have is WoW isn't the same sort of game as these. WoW isn't a Diablo-clone. It isn't a looter-shooter. It isn't a weird messy turn-based CRPG. It's an MMORPG, with a persistent world, and some limited degree of immersion. That means it really needs a loot system which is a bit different. WoW's recent attempts haven't been great because they've mostly lead to you changing out gear constantly like as if this was Diablo 3, but way crappier. It doesn't feel right for an MMO. So I think Blizzard should think about gearing systems where you stick with the same piece of longer, myself.

[Nite92]

Corruption sucked! It was the worst patch I’ve ever played and is the reason I un subbed until shadowlands. Nothing about the system was okay and that’s not me being sour( I had the max stars) . It sucked all around from content too nylathoa

Corruption is cool WITH a vendor from the start. Remove the negative effects + some max corruption possible. It really allowed gear pieces to be interesting. I actually cared about my items. Oh I got these AoE bracers, which actually DID something instead of having just good stats for AoE.

[Soon-TM]

Right. So because you made the choice to play it less, that means everyone else did as well. Cool.

Given that we have no official numbers about sub #s, I will just go with my personal experience. And just because you maybe liked it, it doesn’t mean that everyone liked it. Your reasoning goes both ways

[Varaben]

So obviously the implementation of and some of the corruptions themselves weren’t great. But from a balance standpoint, it does seem cool to be able to do the “you get x% more of Y stat” corruptions. It’s fun to be able to stack mastery on one set of gear and haste on another. Helps give longevity to gear and even lower tier gear becomes useful. I think if implemented correctly it could be good.

That said, didn’t Blizz say that all the “systems” for SL are here at launch? Like we would expect to see new conduits or legendaries or soulbinds, but not new systems like corruption.

[Vampyrr]

so for 10 months of the last raid you rather have no incentive to raid ? corruption has made 8.3 one of the liveliest end expac tiers ever

It was also one of the worst balanced tiers of ALL time for WoW. Corruption was a terrible mechanic and broke a lot of the game espectially pvp. Let loot be loot, play alts when the main is done or go do other games.

[loras]

I really liked the trade-off aspect of corruption, but the countless proccs and chance-bound effects was just downright silly and very annoying after a while.

[AlmightyGerkin]

No thanks. I just hate having RNG over RNG over RNG on my gear.

Yes thank you for this

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It was also one of the worst balanced tiers of ALL time for WoW. Corruption was a terrible mechanic and broke a lot of the game espectially pvp. Let loot be loot, play alts when the main is done or go do other games.

What you say just makes me go to youtube and watch "state of pvp in 8.3" by Fronk and how some top players laugh at blizzard's horrible design.

[Relapses]

After they made Corruption targetable it was my favorite end-game gear progression system. It was infinitely better than Titanforging. These kinds of systems are perfect for end-of-expansion content droughts and I hope we see their implementation again in the future.

[kaminaris]

It was also one of the worst balanced tiers of ALL time for WoW. Corruption was a terrible mechanic and broke a lot of the game espectially pvp. Let loot be loot, play alts when the main is done or go do other games.

Loot in wow is one of the most boring, braindead loot systems I have ever seen in mmo games. Corruptions was ok but titanforging in BfA (severely nerfed from legion) was probably best iteration in game as it created a variety. Allowed you to use pieces of gear that otherwise would have been a trash.

Loot that you only follow spreadshit is as boring as shopping list and has no place in games.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Bring back VP in the style of MoP, where you would just put a straight ilvl upgrade on your gear with VP (capped at 2 upgrades per piece). Hell no to a system like Corruption, that was an imbalanced shitfest. No to Titanforging as well, 1 layer of RNG (did the item drop) is plenty when it comes to loot.

Targeted straight ilvl upgrades is the way to go, then it just becomes a matter of pooling currency to upgrade your highest value per ilvl items first.

[Uko]

so for 10 months of the last raid you rather have no incentive to raid ? corruption has made 8.3 one of the liveliest end expac tiers ever

This made me laugh. That is a self inflicted wound by blizzard if there is a big content drought at the end of an expansion. Personally I would rather have obtainable end goals in the game. All adding infinite systems like the ap grind and corruption does is lift the veil hiding the treadmill blizzard put players on for years and make people realize it. Gaming is best when there is a treadmill but they don't hit you over the head with the systems so much that you notice it and just do it because you like playing the game.

[kaminaris]

Bring back VP in the style of MoP, where you would just put a straight ilvl upgrade on your gear with VP (capped at 2 upgrades per piece). Hell no to a system like Corruption, that was an imbalanced shitfest. No to Titanforging as well, 1 layer of RNG (did the item drop) is plenty when it comes to loot.

Targeted straight ilvl upgrades is the way to go, then it just becomes a matter of pooling currency to upgrade your highest value per ilvl items first.

VP was absolutely hands down the most retarded ideas they ever came up. It was literally gear tax and not only you didn't get stronger while doing so, you were getting weaker.

Why is that? Because power is not absolute, power is relative to maximum possible. So people who were raiding were able to attain maximum power while everyone else in fact got weaker. Why is that? Power grows somewhat exponentially with item level. Having no item upgrades means:
Max - 400 ilvl
Average joe - 370

However, even with 10 ilvl upgrades it looks like this
Max - 410
Average joe - 380

And there is bigger difference in power in latest example.

Lets face it, content is tuned around upgrades in mind. So it not only did not solve any issues with braindead gear it also created artificial ilvl upscaling.