Are alternative power progression systems a positive or negative addition?

[Soeroah]

I think they're fun, but I think the stuff we gain from them should stick around post-expansion in the form of a new row of talent points, personally. Or at least a set of armour we can use for soloing old raids and Timewalking.

[Alkizon]

After stuff TS mentioned it was more appropriate to say mostly "negative". On the other hand, it's more about place/subordination of such addition in hierarchy of progress design. Too difficult huh? No matter how much I tried to hit that wall, most opponents doesn't really want to understand why this is so (conflicts/overlapping caused by their attempts to equalize elements of different levels of hierarchy in rights, in their degree of influence). Well, to hell with them, if shorter, then it's written there *pointing up* quite simply. Also, I like this message.

[Accendor]

I am kind of curious what the prevailing attitude on this topic is here. Just for clarification I am not talking about professions like enchanting but the new currencies systems introduced from legions onwards. AP, titanforging, weekly leggos, relics, traits and everything else that isn't directly linked to a boss drop.

Has the addition of these systems improved the quality of your game play or have they become chores you accept to advance further in content?

AP system of legion was awesome as hell, titanforging as well. Rest sucks big time.

[Gasparde]

They used to be asked for a lot prior to Legion.

Now, at least by a vocal part, hates them.

Maybe it’s “you think you do...”

Or maybe it's 2 different audiences shouting at each other.
Nah, I think just brushing the entire community off as a singular stupid hivemind makes more sense than considering a more nuanced possibility.

[Glorious Leader]

Just to be clear here, you're asking for all gear progression to be obtainable from mindless, boring world quests. This would literally kill the game overnight.

It would not. Raiding isn't all this game has to offer. What did almost kill it (and exactly why you now have these alt grinds) was raid or die in WoD. They cut out basically any form of alt progression (valor for example).

Its not about need. They could ELIMINATE the need for gear tmmrw if they wanted. The developers have been able to template characters for a while now and they can tune bosses around those templates. Its always been about progressing your character.

[Simple Rick]

It would not. Raiding isn't all this game has to offer. What did almost kill it (and exactly why you now have these alt grinds) was raid or die in WoD. They cut out basically any form of alt progression (valor for example).

Its not about need. They could ELIMINATE the need for gear tmmrw if they wanted. The developers have been able to template characters for a while now and they can tune bosses around those templates. Its always been about progressing your character.

If this was true why was MoP the largest recorded sub loss we know of?

[Glorious Leader]

If this was true why was MoP the largest recorded sub loss we know of?

Yea you brought this up before and I addressed it before. Not wasting time answering the same bullshit inquiry again. When you figure out why they were forced to implement AA schemes into the game get back to e.

[Simple Rick]

Yea you brought this up before and I addressed it before. Not wasting time answering the same bullshit inquiry again. When you figure out why they were forced to implement AA schemes into the game get back to e.

Its an easy way to stretch out content for people who don't want to be challenged. It is why most mobile games have timers attached. I get why they do what they do I just don't see that as a positive thing.

[Glorious Leader]

Its an easy way to stretch out content for people who don't want to be challenged. It is why most mobile games have timers attached. I get why they do what they do I just don't see that as a positive thing.

Except they literally had this concept as far back as cataclysm and REFUSED to use it until Legion came around. Cleary something changed... As for mists you can already see they started to gut end game of alternative advancement. The dungeon tabard gone. Gear gated behind rep grinds now. No more tier pieces on valor vendor. Just dailies and raid.

[Nasuuna]

I'd like alternative progression to not affect primary.

Like, I'd like to be able to Torghast without having do raid/M+ for gear

I'd like PVP and PVE be completely separate gear and progression


That alone would go a long way to me enjoying the game more

[Simple Rick]

Except they literally had this concept as far back as cataclysm and REFUSED to use it until Legion came around. Cleary something changed... As for mists you can already see they started to gut end game of alternative advancement. The dungeon tabard gone. Gear gated behind rep grinds now. No more tier pieces on valor vendor. Just dailies and raid.

Well yes much like I am sure they have concepts for VR but haven't used them...

That is what a concept is...

[ro9ue]

You don´t know that.
We didn´t even get the first patch yet and, based on the last expansions, it is easy to expect at least one large patch with big changes through this expansion.

_-----------

I also think that Legion got it far better than BfA. Shadowlands at least has reduced the grind a fair amount, but I still don´t see the need for these systems.

Is it possible SL comes out with an insanely good patch that turns everything around? Maybe. But historically they don't make massive changes in patches, it's all done with expansions. BFA everyone knew before the first patch the expansion was going to suck because of how bad the core end game system of Azerite armor was.

SL does have a better baseline to work with though. So far it seems like people just heavily dislike how bad the RNG is, how little anima you get, and how restrictive everything is. It's possible the devs can just loosen all of that up and it'll make everything a lot better.

But I also think they need to expand that valor system out for casual people to make progress even if it just much slower.

[Amstrup]

I could play the game more when endgame was just raids,pvp,professions and gold farming.

legion,bfa,sl burns me out in 2 months and leaves me apathetic.

[Count Zero]

Comparing Tier Sets to borrowed power systems is a very superficial comparison.

The "modern" borrowed power gets artificially broken by Blizzard, X.0 rolls around, Blizzard moves in and intentionally breaks the system in some fashion so players can no longer use it, whether they just straight disable it like Artifacts or don't allow you to use it in the zones of the next expansion is irrelevant, the result is the same, you lost that power. Period.

Tier sets however, usually are not broken in this fashion, you move from TX to TX+1 because TX+1 is usually superior, whether it's just because it has higher Ilvl or the set bonus in itself is better is irrelevant, your character ended up being stronger.

This is the crux, your character massively loses on power once the progression of the last two years gets removed, whereas with tier sets, you obviously "lose" them, but your character still got stronger in the process, because you replace tier set items with items that are in the grand scheme of things, superior, despite losing those tier set bonuses.

In order for that comparison to make sense, you'd have to lose Artifacts & Azerite in the same organic fashion, yet i can't imagine what sort green weapon is supposed to replace the fully powered artifacts of Legion or Azerite pieces.

They've nerfed lower tier sets before so that people don't stick to them in favor of the higher ones. And with all the squishing they completely broke them for ostensibly the same reasons they've broken artifacts and azerite.

[Glorious Leader]

Well yes much like I am sure they have concepts for VR but haven't used them...

That is what a concept is...

It was a concept they SPECIFICALLY rejected on the grounds of it being too grindy. Actually iirc path of titans was almost a complete system they removed from cataclysm. Only to embrace in Legion...

[Kralljin]

They've nerfed lower tier sets before so that people don't stick to them in favor of the higher ones.

Tier sets get nerfed, Borrowed power gets removed.

When we talked about a "strong" setbonus, it's like in the 10% range, so it gets nerfed down into the 5% range in order to be line.
Imagine how hard they'd have to nerf the Artifacts in Legion to get naturally replaced by some green weapon in BfA, same goes for the Azerite - and how much that would impact your character's performance.

And even then, it's still not the norm, not every setbonus had to be nerfed, that's more the exception than the rule - every borrowed system so far was effectively removed however.
Also, they're just doing it to fit their "play the patch" philosophy, it wouldn't be the end of the world if a certain spec at a certain point uses the 4 pieces from a previous tier, unlike borrowed power systems where it's a massive elephant in the room for every single player.

And with all the squishing they completely broke them for ostensibly the same reasons they've broken artifacts and azerite.

Considering that statsquishes are solely happening so we can more easily process those numbers, rather than for any strictly design reasons, i think that arguement is a stretch.
At a certain point you just can't squish the lowlevel numbers any further because they already operate in the single digit area and the game doesn't use decimentals, or at least displays them.

Disregarding that said borrowed systems are a huge reasons for the massive growths of the powercreep, BfA, the expansions with the most borrowed power systems (Azerite, Essences & Corruption) takes the dubious honor of being the expansion that both started and ended in a statsquish.

Borrowed power systems don't disable themselves when you move up the progression ladder, tier sets do.

[Simple Rick]

It was a concept they SPECIFICALLY rejected on the grounds of it being too grindy. Actually iirc path of titans was almost a complete system they removed from cataclysm. Only to embrace in Legion...

In wrath they said they wanted to go after phone gamers. The old blizzard is gone all modern games concede to marketing eventually. Its just like when blizzard said there would never be a cash shop since it didn't belong in a game as high quality as wow.

[SirBeef]

They give me something else to do besides raiding that actually contributes to my character progression. So for that alone they are good. I don't need anything powerful though. Power creep is bad enough they had two ilvl squishes in a level squish in 6 years.

I can take small power increments or none, cosmetics, ne abilities, ways to mod abilities. Doesn't matter, as long as there is something besides the gear grind. And that is my thoughts across all genres.

[Mardux]

They give me something else to do besides raiding that actually contributes to my character progression. So for that alone they are good. I don't need anything powerful though. Power creep is bad enough they had two ilvl squishes in a level squish in 6 years.

I can take small power increments or none, cosmetics, ne abilities, ways to mod abilities. Doesn't matter, as long as there is something besides the gear grind. And that is my thoughts across all genres.

That power creep kicked off 12 years ago when OS dropped.

[Lane]

Wrath was still the best system, IMO. A week's worth of running random heroics would net you enough badges to get a full set of the previous tier raid gear. I was not a fan of the Wakening Essences and the RNG chance to get legendaries in Legion, the cost of the items was too high and WQs rewarded a paltry amount. Emissaries offering previous tier raid gear would be nice instead of scaling with your current ilvl. I also liked the Argus system with Veiled Argunite, that was primarily how I geared my alts after Unsullied items since I hate raiding.