I don't see how anyone can deny the "Team A/Team B" expansion theory...

[thottstation]

... when you have an Artifact Power expansion that overflows your bags with unique named AP items,

Then an Azerite Power expansion where you don't.

Then you have an Anima Power expansion that overflows your bags with unique named AP items again.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

Nah, this is just them not learning from past mistakes.

[Biomega]

It's not just expansions, there's also a weird number of other in-game mechanics that seem to work inconsistently - like how certain quest items work, whether something is an item or extra action button, where a quest marker is placed on the map etc. that do seem like there's two variants with no discernible underlying pattern.

But who knows maybe it's just us being pareidolic idiots as usual.

[dewd]

the good expansion, bad expansion alternating theory is busted this time because shadowlands is as bad as bfa so far

[Beuargh]

well, maybe you don't see how because you are narrow minded and confirmation bias. for all I care the same people could go back and forth between two ways of doing stuff.... and if there is 2 teams and the difference is "unique named AP items overflowing your bags", then I don't really care.

if you are saying team A did legion and SL, team B did BFA, then I think "team A" is not that much better (or worse) than "team B".... every player have his own opinion about BFA or SL you know.....

[Biomega]

the good expansion, bad expansion alternating theory is busted this time because shadowlands is as bad as bfa so far

I mean, Legion was pretty shit, too, for the most part. It had a few highlights but man was there some fucked up shit going on in it, too.

It's not A vs. B that people are objecting to as much as corporate design rearing its fangs with time-wasting bullshit mechanics.

[Gasparde]

This is just Blizzard in general. 1 step forward, 17 steps back - and among those 17 steps back it's rather likely to undo your latest forward steps.
I don't there's 2 teams, I actually just think they don't know what they'Re doing - either that or they don't care because it's not like they play their game for more than 3 pet battles per month. Pick your poison.

[kranur]

It's not just expansions, there's also a weird number of other in-game mechanics that seem to work inconsistently - like how certain quest items work, whether something is an item or extra action button, where a quest marker is placed on the map etc. that do seem like there's two variants with no discernible underlying pattern.

But who knows maybe it's just us being pareidolic idiots as usual.

This has always been the case. They have multiple developers (duuh) and each one makes their own inplementation. That's why you have inconsistencies on how items and such behave, same as it wss in Legion with some ap items being vendorable and some not.

[Aresk]

Your evidence seems fairly weak. Legion included no solo-group scalable instance content with affixes, where BfA and Shadowlands both did. I think looking at the specific systems is probably more warranted. In Legion, we had multiple artifacts to spend artifact power on, so it makes sense for there to be a currency to spend. With Azerite, there was only one item to power, so again it makes sense to just have everything go toward that. With Shadowlands, there are multiple covenants to invest anima into, so again they go with inventory items that you can stockpile and then invest into the covenant you want. If you're planning to swap covenants, banking these items can be beneficial.

Now why they need so many different items is a different complaint, but going from having items to no items to items makes perfect sense to me.

[MoanaLisa]

The designers who matter—the lead designers for the various parts of the game—are the same for each expansion. The A and B teams are coders, artists and the like.

[Razion]

Couldn't you just confirm or debunk this by checking the credits between different expansions...

[Lucetia]

... when you have an Artifact Power expansion that overflows your bags with unique named AP items,

Then an Azerite Power expansion where you don't.

Then you have an Anima Power expansion that overflows your bags with unique named AP items again.

There's a difference between the two though.

Artifact Power could be used on multiple items so you had to have individual items so the player could pick and choose what got powered up.

Azerite Power went to one item only so it was easier to funnel it into a resource bar basically.

Then we have Anima Power that while technically most people will only use for their current covenant some might stockpile for when they swap covenants. The other difference is Anima caps at 35,000 so if you are over the cap you'll want to keep the items in your bag until you are able to spend some on whatever.