We've gotten too powerful

[AngerFork]

The problem is the inherent absurdity that one of these soldiers (us) was lucky enough to live through....3-5 end bosses per expansion for 9 expansions. At some point one of these Old Gods/Eredar/Dragon Aspects/Wizards/Demons/Elemental Lords/Vampires/Titans would have gibbed us.

And there's definitely no solution to this problem that would make everyone happy. A power reset creates problems...but it's not like we can really go up anymore

A few of them have "gibbed" us as it were, but we've always had a way to come back when we need to. As an example, the Lich King destroyed us, but then forgot about Tirion and we were saved by the breaking of Frostmourne. But even beyond that, pretty much every boss we've faced has had the same inherent issue that takes down most supervillains: overconfidence. None of them ever seem to take us seriously as we are "just mortals" and thus tend to spend far more time toying with us than actually killing us. This is partially why we keep living through these events: because we actually are quite powerful and none of our enemies ever take us seriously enough to just eliminate us right away. They either look past us or try to use us for their plans without ever considering that we have our own free will.

Beyond that, a reset at this point would feel weird without some sort of device to push it through. Even if we go to another world, we'd be going as Alliance or Horde heroes, which itself brings that sort of legendary hero title. A timeskip and bards are singing our tales, so we come back to the same reception as Alleria & Turalyon.

At least we aren't quite as far down the power creep scale as FFXIV. Love the game, but there's a ton of power creep to be found there.

[erifwodahs]

There is so much you can do.
People in TBC were like.. "I killed damn Ilidan and I am still a random adventurer"
I mean there is so much you can do after so many expansions. Either don't start that at all and always be a side character in the story or continue to establish your character.
I kind of liked the simpler times, but I can remember thinking "Come on, how would Thrall not know me by now"

[Yarathir]

What should they use?

apparently people would prefer "filth," "random peasant," and "Joe the farmer," after over a decade of stomping out the biggest threats.

Because.. immersion or something. (Even though it's the opposite)

[Eapoe]

Thread about us becoming too powerful glosses over:
We’ve defeated the master and his sister of the Black Dragonflight. One of the most, if not the most, powerful of the dragon aspects.
We defeated a universe spanning insectoid race by running thru their empire with ties to the Old Gods, while also managing to defeat one of the Old Gods himself.
We defeated the literal Lord of Fire. An elemental.
We defeated an undead horde in their own citadel with direct ties to the afterlife we’ve now infiltrated.
All of that was just the raids.
Player characters weren’t as insignificant and no named heroes as people like to believe.

[Pandragon]

I've really liked Shadowlands, but our power is so out of control that the real-life equivalent would be having Vladimir Putin as our plumber.

Over the last 15 years we've stabberized every archvillain, deity, and archvillain-pantheon-of-demigod-deities, then gone back in time (Caverns AND Warlords) for repeats, then traveled to the realm of death itself just to rub it in one more time.

Our characters either need to die or ascend to godhood or something so we can start back out as something reasonable.



(And if possible I'd really like to keep this in general chat because it's not about the minutiae of lore details but the general idea that power creep has made the storyline unbelievable with our arch-god status with demi-gods as our minions.)

oh good, this discussion again. First of all, Warlords was not "time travel", we went to another timeline, we didn't go back in time. Also, most of the big bosses that have been killed, WE didnt kill them. We assisted a powerful lore figure who killed them, or gave us the power to do it.

We didn't kill N'Zoth, the Forge did
We didn't kill Argus, the Pantheon did
We didn't kill Deathwing, the Aspects did.

We just served as a way to weaken them so the lore figures could finish them off. Or acted as a conduit for their power, MoP cloak, WoD, ring, BFA cloak and neck.

Shadowlands is the first expansion where we are actually something exceptional and beyond more than just an adventurer with the Waystone of the First ones activating to our presence. Our power in the Shadowlands isn't even 100% ours with the covenants giving us their power to use.

[MasterOfNone]

I've really liked Shadowlands, but our power is so out of control that the real-life equivalent would be having Vladimir Putin as our plumber.

Over the last 15 years we've stabberized every archvillain, deity, and archvillain-pantheon-of-demigod-deities, then gone back in time (Caverns AND Warlords) for repeats, then traveled to the realm of death itself just to rub it in one more time.

Our characters either need to die or ascend to godhood or something so we can start back out as something reasonable.



(And if possible I'd really like to keep this in general chat because it's not about the minutiae of lore details but the general idea that power creep has made the storyline unbelievable with our arch-god status with demi-gods as our minions.)

not really sure how to reply to someone who is worried about the status of a character progression in a virtual world.....

[Newname1234567890]

What should they use?

Oi Cunt

/10chars

- - - Updated - - -

At this point our heroes are basically randomly named hero in Wacraft 3.

[Razion]

So like what, some kind of system where every expansion we canonically 'ascend' and can no longer use that character, and just appoint an heir or pupil or something? Kind of sounds like what heirloom gear was kind of trying to do. But I think there's a section of people out there with only one character who would probably quit altogether if they couldn't just keep playing that character. The game has historically been able to set us back down to ground level and fighting boars over and over again - why can't they just keep doing that? It may seem unreasonable sometimes that our god-slayers have problems killing... like, basic enemies, but it's a consequence of stake raising. It's better for us to rationalize (or ignore) that we're back at ground 0 every expansion and just put aside what we've done so that we can continue to enjoy our characters. I don't think there's as much enjoyment in a system that demands us to like, kill off our mains every expansion and make new mains every expac. It does kind of strike me like a roguelike, or like a hardcore nuzlocke or hardcore ironman, where if you die you have to make a new character. But at that point people just start playing very safe because they don't want to lose their characters and they maybe just resent the difficulty of the game at that point. WoW is pretty approachable because you can just die and not sweat it very much - you can get better. But if you died or reached the end of an expac and had to start from scratch every time, some players not only wouldn't ever be able to catch up due to playing at a slower and different pace, but they may not also see all the content the game has to offer and also they may never properly settle on or come to love any one thing they play if they're forced to switch all the time. There's a lot that can go wrong with this formula, and I think it's a lot easier just to respect that players can and are capable of being able to reset their headspace back to ground 0 at the start of new expansions. Expansions are great for resetting the playing field and setting new expectations in new lands. It may be hard once in a while, but I think that's just part of what as players we have to accept and learn to deal with if we don't want to throw away our characters regularly.

[Cyanu]

I've really liked Shadowlands, but our power is so out of control that the real-life equivalent would be having Vladimir Putin as our plumber.

Over the last 15 years we've stabberized every archvillain, deity, and archvillain-pantheon-of-demigod-deities, then gone back in time (Caverns AND Warlords) for repeats, then traveled to the realm of death itself just to rub it in one more time.

Our characters either need to die or ascend to godhood or something so we can start back out as something reasonable.



(And if possible I'd really like to keep this in general chat because it's not about the minutiae of lore details but the general idea that power creep has made the storyline unbelievable with our arch-god status with demi-gods as our minions.)

i was hoping that Shadowlands would be that case: it's a realm in which you can find pretty much everyone from the beggining of time across infinite worlds other than the tiny fraction of people that happen to be alive at this short era...

NPCs had every reason to be like: so you're a fabled hero for the last few years of world 4657? not impressed

instead once again everything hangs in the balance and it falls to us to fix it...

[Kumorii]

Oi Cunt

I approve of that.

[clevin]

People have a hard time separating gameplay element from story elements. There has to be a gameplay loop that supersedes the story, otherwise after taking out C'thun 15-16 years ago, there is no reason to do menial tasks anymore. Talk about a boring game if that were the case.

But there IS no reason, given the in game lauding of the player, for us to do menial tasks. The problem started in WoD when we were not just a highly skilled member of a class but we were leading the assault on Draenor and in charge. It continued in Legion and up to now.

When Arthas himself promoted me to head of all Alliance forces in WoD, why the hell would I go back to doing menial tasks? When I'm the best (insert class) and the only one capable of wielding a fearsome artifact level weapon against the Burning Legion, why would I ever go back to doing make work tasks for some farmer etc? When the gateway out of the Maw reacts to me, not Anduin, Jaina or other leaders, proving there's something the frigging UNIVERSE feels is special... why would I gather poop or whatever?

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

When Arthas himself promoted me to head of all Alliance forces in WoD,

I'm surprised he managed to do that from the Maw.

[MasterHamster]

Also helps getting rented powers for every single patch :-)

[clevin]

I'm surprised he managed to do that from the Maw.

in WoD,

Read the whole thing next time.

[Newname1234567890]

in WoD,

Read the whole thing next time.

Arthas wasn't in WoD. He was in the Maw since WoTLK.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

in WoD,

Read the whole thing next time.

When Arthas himself

Maybe read what you type?

[Lazerbrain]

Dejavu.

There is only one player champion, only one went into the maw, only one hero, and the champion/hero is immortal, ask bwonsamdi, the champion hero is also a time-traveler and a mawwalker.

When/if we die we just spirit run back to our bodies, or get a spirit to bring the body to us.

It could also be argued that all player characters are the same one hero champion from a multiverse of timelines.

We can not get more powerful, because we started vanilla with the most powerful ability of all, immortality.

[Raghnar]

I think it would be more reasonable and interesting if the game would consider the title of our character as the only great deed he achieved. A character titled as "Kingslayer" would be seen as one of the hero who defeated Arthas with Tirion but wouldn't be considered as one who killed Kiljaeden, Cthun, Guldan, etc ...
This could be reflected by making the dialogues of some specific NPCs changing when talking to us, like Saurfang does in Northrend with a character that killed Nefarian or opened the gate of AQ - or more recently with Vashj who recognizes characters that slayed her. Only it should be more frequent and based on the character's title.

[Sansnom]

I've really liked Shadowlands, but our power is so out of control that the real-life equivalent would be having Vladimir Putin as our plumber.

It is a game. It is progression. Without increasing powers, players will complain. If you look back at the forums, there players complaining about no new talents. Even now, there are some complaining about borrowed powers.

This is something that really no company has much experience since there really has not been a game that has the same activity as WoW for the same durations.

Blizzard current solution is a level reset and possibly new expansion specific abilities. Will this work in the long run? I do not know. Personally, I am okay with borrowed power and level reset.

[Jinpachi]

I've really liked Shadowlands, but our power is so out of control that the real-life equivalent would be having Vladimir Putin as our plumber.

Over the last 15 years we've stabberized every archvillain, deity, and archvillain-pantheon-of-demigod-deities, then gone back in time (Caverns AND Warlords) for repeats, then traveled to the realm of death itself just to rub it in one more time.

Our characters either need to die or ascend to godhood or something so we can start back out as something reasonable.



(And if possible I'd really like to keep this in general chat because it's not about the minutiae of lore details but the general idea that power creep has made the storyline unbelievable with our arch-god status with demi-gods as our minions.)

Azeroth is funneling her power to our characters. That's why we have the effect on the story that we do. That's why she's so feared, that's why everyone wants her dead or to steal her power.