Corruption - The worst system ever added to the game?

[Mysterymask]

Just gonna say Guild Levels and "Cash Flow"...still the worst as far as damage to wow has been

Imagine your a newbie "OH BOY A GUILD INVITE HOW SWELL" congrats your in a sweatshop guild no one cares who you are, how to help you play...etc. smaller guilds ended up struggling because they can't level as fast, and droves of new players left because these sweatshop guilds were their first experience in wow...

For the vets..those new players never came back...servers stopped getting new players because well "hey man don't join people just use us as cattle"..suddenly servers started going down hill cause half the new players either left or became the crappy "Just carry me" people we have today.

[Gaidax]

I think the system itself was actually good and fun, it's pretty cool - benefits at cost of increasing dangers.

The biggest problems really were RNG acquisition in the beginning and way too much power gained. Corruptions should have been at around power level of Benthic effects, not the monstrosities they pulled out. They should have been responsible for 10-15% of your power total at like 59 corruption level, not the utter insanity of stars/skillvastation or stacked stat buffs.

It was really par the course for BFA, essences aside, good system irreversibly spoiled by RNG acquisition and horrible tuning.

[Gurg]

It also kinda destroyed pvp - again, procs are not reliable so it's not like free wins all the time, but just imagine you being a serious PvPer and you get some random guy with a troll build that just oneshots your team making you lose rating for this. It's the most toxic thing that's happening.

There are videos of Paladin's running around with, last time i checked, +27 Infinite Stars in PvP literally obliterating whole teams.
Paladin, ofc, due to bubbles that they have so they can bypass so much stacked Grand Delusions negative effect.

Its not fun even to watch, its just stupid. my guess is - even less to end up on receiving end of those IS.

Titanforging was an issue since MoP and its a never-ending nightmarish plague for any progressive raider. Corruption system, which replaced it, is a story of its own which, honestly, i can bear for few more months if it will make Titanforging thing of the past.
I hit "maintenance mode" for this expansion already so i dont care much whats happening in the game outside of my weekly things.
Part of the reason why am i in maintenance mode is simply because i did what i wanted to - got the mounts that i wanted, Keystone Master and Ahead of the Curve.
Second, bigger reason, is introduction of Corruption it self. Mainly TD, IS and to some extend EV.

Now, dont get me wrong, I think that Corruption system on its own is fun concept and adds a flavor of a old school enchants that we used to have before WoD.
BUT i think its biggest issue are actually TD, IS and EV and fact that they are on top of several borrowed power systems and two stat sticks and interact with those systems the way they shouldn't have.
Without those 3 corruption effects whole system wouldnt be as bad as it is now, and honesty i could see it carried over to next expansion easily, your character, gear and abilities would still have a value and buttons would be fun to press. Corruptions would be just exclusive enchants that your Covenant would give you as a reward.
Still toned down few notches, but you know, some procs to look for, but again, not those procs that will do 40+ % of your overall DPS. Just boost your damage slightly with visual effect. I remember loving those Executioner, Mongoose Procs and Rune of the Fallen Crusader on my DK.

Now its simply down to fishing that corruption proc - which is not fun at all.

[Thrif]

Just gonna say Guild Levels and "Cash Flow"...still the worst as far as damage to wow has been

Imagine your a newbie "OH BOY A GUILD INVITE HOW SWELL" congrats your in a sweatshop guild no one cares who you are, how to help you play...etc. smaller guilds ended up struggling because they can't level as fast, and droves of new players left because these sweatshop guilds were their first experience in wow...

For the vets..those new players never came back...servers stopped getting new players because well "hey man don't join people just use us as cattle"..suddenly servers started going down hill cause half the new players either left or became the crappy "Just carry me" people we have today.

I had forgotten about this system to be honest. I used to join those guilds on my alts I was barely playing just to see what they were like, and yeah, I can totally see new players getting invited to those and getting the completely wrong idea of what guilds are about.

I don't really know if this system had a huge impact on whether people quit or not, but it definitely had some impact, and any system which actively discourages new players from getting into the game is by default a worse system than any one that is just boring and disliked by the playerbase.

So yeah, agreed.

[mojusk]

Corruption was horrible at the beginning.
I kinda like it now with the vendor, since its now possible to get very close to bis.
Only problem is that visions is the only way to get gems via mementos.
But i hate that blizz made it shit on purpose and then fix it later and call it content. They clearly had the vendor system planned from the start.

I also agree that our power levels are a bit too bonkers. We should never be able to 1shot other players (maybe if theyre severly undergeared) especially not with random procs that are unavoidable and cant be negated.
I dont understand why some people think its ok for the game to be this stupid, just because its the end of the expansion.

[Doffen]

I think the system itself was actually good and fun, it's pretty cool - benefits at cost of increasing dangers.

The biggest problems really were RNG acquisition in the beginning and way too much power gained. Corruptions should have been at around power level of Benthic effects, not the monstrosities they pulled out. They should have been responsible for 10-15% of your power total at like 59 corruption level, not the utter insanity of stars/skillvastation or stacked stat buffs.

It was really par the course for BFA, essences aside, good system irreversibly spoiled by RNG acquisition and horrible tuning.

This is what I hope they do for Covenants abilities/soulbinds, be maximum 20% throughput. Of course, we have utility too which might be unbalanced, but if they manage to keep the tuning down to reasonable levels, much is done.

[Coldkil]

There are videos of Paladin's running around with, last time i checked, +27 Infinite Stars in PvP literally obliterating whole teams.
Paladin, ofc, due to bubbles that they have so they can bypass so much stacked Grand Delusions negative effect.

Its not fun even to watch, its just stupid. my guess is - even less to end up on receiving end of those IS.

Yeah, watched the video, though it was stated pretty clearly it wasn't reliable at all and required pretty much alignement of everything. But the fact it's possible to have something like this is just wrong.

As you say, being at the receiving end just sucks. All the time you're wondering "it's going to be another troll team where i can lose just because procs were in their favor?" and it's basically the death of any strategy or gameplay. It's just buying lotto tickets and hoping your numbers come out.

[Kathranis]

As a casual player I honestly find it kind of fun just how broken some of my corruption pieces are, but I understand where people who PvP and raid seriously are upset about it.

They should probably be disabled in PvP, but at this point in the expansion I don't think Blizzard really cares about preserving challenge for PvE.

[mojusk]

@Coldkill ive heard that the pala did get glad this way, so id say it was pretty reliable.
They did kinda fix it though, since they made it so that if we have too much corruption we die in a few secs from damage that cant be avoided in any way.

[Raelbo]

All i said is that the system would have been fine if they added the vendor in the beginning.

Adding the vendor at the beginning would have been a terrible decision because it would have resulted in ridiculously overpowered characters too early during the content progression.

I am well aware of the numerous vocal complaints that people made about how RNG reliant the system was, but frankly, those arguments were largely hyperbole and number of players who were actually detrimentally affected was almost negligible. I honestly believe that in most cases it was simply people going on gut feelings rather than rational thinking.

The way things played out in reality is that the vast majority of players landed up with a choice of corruptions that reflected their effort and their effectiveness was more about total effort and the choices they made rather than RNG.

[Garymorilix]

Nothing wrong with liking the system. It's subjective. I just think most people would agree it's pretty bad overall.

How about you speak for yourself then and not for "most people"?

I failed to notice your certificate that gave you authority over the opinion of anyone else other than you.

I know MMO-C is the main place where you shit on the actual game you hate but you need to realize you don't even speak for "some" people not even "most".

[slime]

I like it. I am a very casual player though. It's fun for us, but I can imagine how frustrating it is for "hard-working" raiders to watch as their dps is trash compared to a few lucky folks.

[Gaidax]

Adding the vendor at the beginning would have been a terrible decision because it would have resulted in ridiculously overpowered characters too early during the content progression.

I am well aware of the numerous vocal complaints that people made about how RNG reliant the system was, but frankly, those arguments were largely hyperbole and number of players who were actually detrimentally affected was almost negligible. I honestly believe that in most cases it was simply people going on gut feelings rather than rational thinking.

Vendor could absolutely be added from the get go. It's nothing new, like you have Azerite vendor and somehow nobody died there. Besides, you already could buy bis corruptions from AH, which IMO was pretty horrible given the circumstances.

With current prices as is - it would already be prohibitive - you could not run bajillion visions because vision fuel rewards were fraction of what we got now. People getting one 5k cost corruption per 2-3 weeks would not "omgh" destroy the game.

It would alleviate a lot of pain there, because people would have the hope of getting their top juice even if RNG fucked them over. A lot of negativity would be resolved there - it's really same recurring mistake by Blizzard, where they set their stuff to fail over this only RNG acquisition nonsense.

They finally learned in Shlands where it seems that most of the shit so far you can actually consciously target, instead of praying for RNG.

[slime]

@Coldkill ive heard that the pala did get glad this way, so id say it was pretty reliable.
They did kinda fix it though, since they made it so that if we have too much corruption we die in a few secs from damage that cant be avoided in any way.

Aww, when did they do that - my understanding was that he chose to play prot pally for that specific reason, multiple ways to avoid corruption death/damage?

[Mysterymask]

I had forgotten about this system to be honest. I used to join those guilds on my alts I was barely playing just to see what they were like, and yeah, I can totally see new players getting invited to those and getting the completely wrong idea of what guilds are about.

I don't really know if this system had a huge impact on whether people quit or not, but it definitely had some impact, and any system which actively discourages new players from getting into the game is by default a worse system than any one that is just boring and disliked by the playerbase.

So yeah, agreed.

To me..this was easily the nail in the coffin for a lot of servers. People quit wow naturally anyway..and they need a cycle of new players to keep going. Instead of normal leveling guilds to help ease new players along pug with them become friends..maybe help bridge the gap when they decide they want something more...they are cattle to help another dude hoard a crapton of gold from doing nothing but running an invite spam addon (remember those?) Hell will even put this like 10 points ahead of Corruption cause this crap lasted for TWO EXPANSIONS and a huge chunk of people got pissed when they took it away.


Lets not even get started on what guild leveling did to smaller more tight knit guilds...since that entire system practically relied on mass inviting people and questing in order to level up. Smaller guilds struggled a lot because of it....

so I'm sorry corruption is bad but this ENCOURAGED toxic behavior and really drove away a lot of the player base without a lot of people even realizing it....Blizzard was right to just yank it away.

[Coldkil]

@Coldkill ive heard that the pala did get glad this way, so id say it was pretty reliable.
They did kinda fix it though, since they made it so that if we have too much corruption we die in a few secs from damage that cant be avoided in any way.

If he got Gladiator, then it was pretty much broken. Also fixing it later on while who did that before is staying at that rating is just not fair.

- - - Updated - - -

Think this sums it up perfectly.

Yeah, basically maybe not the case now that most players have enough corruption resistance to actually play with them and stack things, and generally they got their gear. Still, corruption is what defines your output as a class and that's just plain wrong.

It's the same as "borrowed powers": they should be something nice that add flavour to your character without drastically changing it. Instead, since some classes/specs just don't work or have serious flaws, they use them as staples to make it work instead of fixing the actual class.

As i said in another thread: classes should just work and be balanced in a "white room" scenario. Then you can add/try new stuff on top of it.

[tearsofflame]

It's definitely the worst. Gear that works against you is never fun. Cool concept and the idea makes sense, but no one WANTS corrupted gear. Glad it's going away. Let loot be loot just like in Shadowlands. Like I dont get why its so hard

[Aucald]

I like the *idea* of the Corruption system in that it confers very visible power at the cost of potential pain and/or negatives that have to be actively mitigated - it's a unique spin on flat power progression in the form of statistical bumps, but the execution of Corruption was pretty flawed and planned badly. I am glad it's an end-of-expansion type of thing and is going away before the next major story beat in the form of the Shadowlands pre-patch. As a short term thing it's more or less okay. I remember a similar going-on in an old MMORPG called Asheron's Call where there was a period where normal mob spawns were replaced by far more powerful elemental-type creatures due to the villain of the month messing with the world - and while that particular period was annoying to play through (especially if you weren't max level) due to the enhanced difficulty and randomness of these mobs, it made the world feel a lot more dynamic and melded with the ongoing story.

I wouldn't be opposed to another patch in WoW that had a system like this, but they need to do some serious iteration and planning to quash the issues it could cause.

[Wuusah]

I dont want to be fully geared and decked out within a week, but I also don't want to gamble on receiving the proper corruption on a piece of loot when it drops.

and it's not a gamble anymore. There is 0 RNG in the acquisition of echoes and 0 RNG in buying the corruptions. All you have to do is play the game, hoard Echoes and buy the goddamn corruptions when they are in the rotation.

You can call a cycle time-gating, however if it weren't for data miners we wouldn't have known it was a cycle.

Until, you know, when the cycle inevitably would start to repeat after a month? Which was when we knew for sure that it's on a cycle and wasn't just a theory.

I still need my BotE 3 and C&S but ever since corruption was introduced I can't be bothered with the painful grind. ( speaking of time-gating )

It's really not a long grind, though. One thing I've realized is that many players who complain on the forums talked themselves into believing that the system is worse than it is. It's really not that difficult or even long to get essences. It's not that difficult or long to get corruptions. It was bad at the start, sure, but now? Come on...
They definitely messed up the catch up mechanics for many essences and it's stupid that everything needs Echoes to buy. And I'm sure it's annoying for PvE players to be forced into PvP to get their essences but well, PvP players have been forced to constantly do PvE the whole expansion. You'll survive the inconvenience of having to do a few arena wins per week. Who knows, maybe you'll learn to like it...

In the end of the line the only thing that matters is the blunt & dreadfullness that is called corruption. It's a bullshit system and should be removed ( it will with the pre-patch )

Corruptions are actually a very fun system. They come with a lot of problems but there is no system without problems. They are interesting, though. They push the power curve to ridiculous heights and it's fun to see your char turn into this powerhouse. Especially with secondary stat corruptions where you reach ridiculous amounts of your preferred stat. It feels great to play a char with crazy amounts of haste, where it feels like you're on the brink of breaking the game. From a gameplay perspective corruptions are the best itemization system the game ever had. It's just a system that only works towards the end of an expansion where afterwards a reset comes anyway.
The problem is simply that it's timegated. You might play a lot right now and acquire a lot of Echoes and still have to wait a month because you've just missed your corruption. That's annoying. The next expansion is going to release in a few months and they still timegate us...

[Itori]

Corruption imo wasn't the worst, imo the worst is that shitty necklace gating you from perks on gear that should have just been a stat to begin with. I would have loved a system where i could go out and grind monster drops, a boss drop and take it to an npc and have the effect or buff i wanted applied to my gear.