Are alternative power progression systems a positive or negative addition?

[Simple Rick]

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?

[Argorwal]

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...”

[Thelxi]

I got nothing against them inherently. I'll judge each of them on what they are and why they are implemented to begin with; what is the intent and what are the consequences for me. Do I like what Blizzard has been doing with them in WoW for the past 6 years? of course not.

But it can be done well, even by Blizzard itself. In D3 for example they added a large number of progression systems that are done exceptionally well imo, from climbing GRs to farming gold to farming gems to farming materials for rolling ancient gear. It all works together in harmony and pushes you into different content, while still giving you the option to focus on or even skip whatever you want.

[Weeps]

As a true casual, I'm enjoying SL more than BFA. Significantly more.

I like the "order hall feel" of covenants, especially Night Fae. I just wish the Anima was a little more generous due to my time constraints. I feel that it'll increase as the expansion goes on, certainly? I hope.

Right now I'm not even exalted with all SL reps, just 3. I am doing it via callings only.

Torghast, I'm trying to solo it all. I'm at floor 5 of twisting corridors. I enjoy it but wish it had rewards for each run. Anything. More anima or cosmetics. I wish it had a saved checkpoint in Torghast where you can log out after beating a boss (once per 6 floors).

[ro9ue]

Legion's was the best of the last 3 expansions, but at the end of the day it all just feels like the latest gimmick where all your progress will just be lost in the last patch anyway so not really worth giving a fuck about.

I strongly prefer other MMO endgame progression like EQ Alternate Advancement or ESO Champion Points.

ESOs is a little weaker, but what I really like about it is the progression is account wide so the moment your alts hit level cap they're basically caught up (and they have a shared bank so you can bank items and fully gear them too). If you haven't played ESO but have played D3, Paragon points are the closest I can think of to them.

EQ probably has the most evergreen and fun system imo. It's not 'borrowed power' where all of your progression disappears after each expansion. The system was introduced back in 2001, and 25+ expansions later you still have all of your AA points, you just have more and more options with what to spend them on as time goes on. You can either track xp gains into levels or the AA point system. At cap obviously everyones just getting AAs, and then you spend those on skills, passives, and... even cosmetics. A new expansion comes out and they add more stuff to the pool of things you can buy.

What's also cool is you can grind AA past the amount of obtainable things available and when a new expansion hits you can cap out immediately. So extra play time isn't really wasted in that case.

IMO the system is way better than what WoW has, but I still think they could improve on it with a few things. IMO maybe play with capping spend in performance ones per expansion (limiting power) but not AA point acquisition - for the cosmetic / fun stuff. Then extra expansions could extend AA spend cap instead of levels (again - have an unlimited spend/cap for cosmetics and fun stuff). People are still spending their time but nothing ever is 'lost' or 'borrowed'. Your AA points are never reset, you can grind as many as you want, etc etc etc.

[Araevin]

You can have LATERAL endgame progression systems. Never had anything like that in WoW sadly. ESO completely revamped their max level progression system and while it is absolutely insane right now since it is the first iteration and there is far too much vertical progression to be done (roughly half of it is vertical) the second half will be lateral and I expect it to be satisfying (especially given that ESO lets you grind xp very effectively if you play smart).

Imo RPGs of ALL types should at some point cap or at least have very slow vertical progression and then focus on lateral (multiple choices that are mutually exclusive).

[Throwme]

Going by the thread title instead of the OP here:

"Alternative power progression systems" are generally speaking positive additions. Until they become either temporary or mandatory.

Temporary systems have a tendency to feel extremely good while they're relevant, but as soon as they're not, they're really not. Case in point, levelling your artifact traits in Legion, getting the BfA Cloak upgraded to protect against more Corruption, allowing you to stack more with lesser penalties. Totally awesome once you started gaining some progression into those systems. But once they're gone, you feel like you can't perform well without them.

Mandatory systems, on the other hand, makes you feel weak, vulnerable, even useless, when you're in the early stages. Levelling is a mandatory system (not alternative, I know, but still) and any time you're not max level, you are weak and vulnerable compared to when you are max. If you're playing a game where some AA system is required for you to play the game "properly", then you're feeling like you need to catch up before you can actually "play the game" for real. Case in point, Guild Wars 2 have plenty of Masteries that give you access to special abilities or items around the world. Without mastering "all the things", there are certains things you simply cannot do. So you spend more time focused on levelling that mastery for that ability, than you would under normal circumstances. And it might even distract you from playing the content you actually enjoy.

Both temporary and mandatory systems have their pros and cons. I prefer permanent additions over temporary ones, for sure, and something like Planar Attunement in Rift is a good example. Basic version: It works like Paragon levels in Diablo 3. Accountwide, with your alts adding to the xp/point pool rather than starting their own. Mix of buffs and utility spells, with some teleports thrown in here and there and some minor stat increases. Nothing that you can't live without, but a nice addition to your growing power through gear. Of course, this system was designed with previous max-levels in mind, with current max the stat gains are hardly noticable, but even back then, it wasn't a mandatory system. It was a bonus.

[A Chozo]

Positive, of course. Shadowlands is the third time they are doing it for a reason, and while some lunatics keep saying they "ruin" the game, the fact that they insist on buying the game that contains those features for the third time shows how strong those features are.

Without them WoW would have gone stale - as it was becoming during WotLK - Cata. There's also the problem of introducing stuff without causing skill bloat - those systems tackle all of that nicely.

The expansion after Shadowlands will have more alternative power progression systems, and people here will buy it the same.

[Araevin]

Positive, of course. Shadowlands is the third time they are doing it for a reason, and while some lunatics keep saying they "ruin" the game, the fact that they insist on buying the game that contains those features for the third time shows how strong those features are.

Without them WoW would have gone stale - as it was becoming during WotLK - Cata. There's also the problem of introducing stuff without causing skill bloat - those systems tackle all of that nicely.

The expansion after Shadowlands will have more alternative power progression systems, and people here will buy it the same.

You can keep introducing stuff without causing skill bloat. Just make things mutually exclusive.

[kranur]

Titanforging was crap. Rng is fine but rng built on top of rng is not.

Artifacts were good. AP was not. Abilities and bonuses should have been acquired by doing various activities and not a farm every day every week until your eyes bleed.

Legendaries were bad in the rng form. Another example of getting shafted by sheer rng. To the point where some people leveled new characters to have another shot at the first legendary in the hopes it's the "correct" one.

BfA artifact was even worse, especially in the beginning where you could literally get a higher ilvl piece that was worse than you currently had because you did not farm enough ap to unlock the traits. Essences were a very good addition. Had it been only essences and from the beggining it would have been the best iteration of systems so far.

All in all, not all systems are not bad by default but most the time their implementation is just garbage. The same garbage that is now soulbinds and conduits. The ideas are somewhat in the right place but the absurd gating, rng and farming is ruining them.

[kamuimac]

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?

the answer to this is very plain and simple.

SL lost over 50% of playerbase in first 2 months because of lack of progressions systems that gave casual players reason to play game.

when people have no way of progressing their chars in mmorpgs , then those games are dying.

Ion will have his own personal record there. No previous wow game director's decisions lead to such bleeding of subs.

and VP will not stop that. By 9.1 im estimating 70-80% of playerbase will be gone from game.

it doesnt matter if mythic raiders are vocal on forums - they cannot sustain wow as game. without casuals wow is dead.

[A Chozo]

You can keep introducing stuff without causing skill bloat.

They tried and tried and every method was met with one specific type of backlash and downside until they settled with the Legion method, which has worked out the best by far - hence why we are doing it the third time in a row.

[Araevin]

They tried and tried and every method was met with one specific type of backlash and downside until they settled with the Legion method, which has worked out the best by far - hence why we are doing it the third time in a row.

When did they try lateral progression? First real lateral progression is probably Covenants and that is extremely restricted and limited.

Adding lateral progression would be more akin to adding a fourth column or more rows to talent trees.

[Fitsu]

the answer to this is very plain and simple.

SL lost over 50% of playerbase in first 2 months because of lack of progressions systems that gave casual players reason to play game.

when people have no way of progressing their chars in mmorpgs , then those games are dying.

Ion will have his own personal record there. No previous wow game director's decisions lead to such bleeding of subs.

and VP will not stop that. By 9.1 im estimating 70-80% of playerbase will be gone from game.

it doesnt matter if mythic raiders are vocal on forums - they cannot sustain wow as game. without casuals wow is dead.

Correlation is not causation, I personally think a lot of people quit because there just done with MMOs. It's the same game they've played for years and there bored, that's why I and all my friends quit. I think it has very little to do with Shadowlands itself other than the fact Shadowlands didn't bring anything new to the experience... But honestly I don't even know what it could bring to the experience, I honestly think MMOs neither meet the desires of the new-gen player who wants instant-gratification and high skill, intense matches (battle royales etc.) nor the older gen who have lives, jobs, families and don't have time for an MMO. It's target market has shrunk and as such it's playerbase has.

OT

I think the inclusion of some form of character progression outside of gear, that isn't based mostly around luck is good. I enjoy character progression and I think Shadowlands has done it the best because Legion/BFA made it feel to grindy and mandatory. Your character just naturally gaining some strength from playing the game each week feels good for those dry weeks where you get 0 drops.

[Lei]

To me it always felt like the impossible task of "bringing a gift while not bringing a gift"*. If it's not powerful enough, then might as well just not do it? If it's crazy powerful, then players will miss it when they have to abandon it for the new shiny thing. (Not to mention the creative part of it when you have to come up with brand new ideas every 2 year that feel different, new, creative, exciting etc. Which they are failing hard, IMO) And then there is the player fatigue. How many times can you repeat the same concept of chasing some stuff that inevitably goes into the trashcan 2 years later? I was already tired of it by the end of Legion and I didn't even participate in AP farm AT ALL. I already have this... fatigue I NEVER HAD before Legion with the game. Changing gear felt more intuitive, more natural. Losing abilities left right and center? Blergh.

*Seemingly the devs love to torture themselves (and us?) with these impossible tasks. I would really like to be a fly on the Blizz HQs wall when they have a meeting about these systems. How mentally tiresome could it be?

[A Chozo]

Adding lateral progression would be more akin to adding a fourth column or more rows to talent trees.

Yes, also known as the "balance nightmare" approach

They can barely handle 3 columns and you wanna make like 7 extra talents per spec? And then next expansion add more or something? Mutually-exclusive approach only works in small quantities and if they are removed at the end of the expansion due to the bloat it would cause. There's also the fact that designing so much stuff that will be inevitabily be ignored because people google the best ones is a waste of time, while Covenant skills are fewer and even the worst one has it's uses - yes, even that Demon Hunter Necrolord shit thing that's being buffed.

[Simple Rick]

Positive, of course. Shadowlands is the third time they are doing it for a reason, and while some lunatics keep saying they "ruin" the game, the fact that they insist on buying the game that contains those features for the third time shows how strong those features are.

Without them WoW would have gone stale - as it was becoming during WotLK - Cata. There's also the problem of introducing stuff without causing skill bloat - those systems tackle all of that nicely.

The expansion after Shadowlands will have more alternative power progression systems, and people here will buy it the same.

Speaking as someone who doesn't personally enjoy these systems I would argue it shows how strong the foundation of the game is not how successful the systems are.

I can kind of see the draw of such systems for others but to me when I am confronted with them I only see a time sink. When they introduced relics all I saw was regrinding dungeons and pvp to get the max level one for mythic raiding ( I never envisioned maw dailies though so it was even worse then that). When I saw the artifact weapons I was excited. A weapon that showed what you accomplished in the game changing and evolving throughout the expansion? I loved it then they talked about artifact power and I knew even before the reveal ended it was going to turn into a dull grind.

To be clear on that point. I don't think some grinding is bad. Getting a certain weapon or armor piece of a boss is something I can stomach assuming the drop rates are all equivalent. The biggest issue I have with these systems is they are almost always lures to do some of the dullest least engaging content the game has to offer. Content I would of otherwise skipped with pleasure and had a richer experience for it.

When I play wow I want to get a character gear capped then pug a mythic raid or two before moving onto another alt. I like the sense of " I did the hardest content now its time to start over" rather then grinding for months to cap out so carries are easier to sell.

I personally would like to see a more tbc-wod style of end game with small tweaks here and there.

[Toybox]

If all the specs were in a good state, it'd be like a cherry on the cake, but in some cases with how things are right now it is more like a polished turd moreso than anything else.

It's hit or miss for me. Fury is a solid spec & the leggo we mostly play is a nice addition to it, so that's good. Arms is a bit broken, & whenever I play it, I think I'd rather them fix that than spend time adding random shit on top of it that's destined for the dumpster after the expansion ends anyway.

[Neuroticaine]

I've never cared much for alternative progression in MMOs. Once I hit level cap, the only progression I want from my character is better gear. It never feels like anything other than a grind.

[Glorious Leader]

They exist because the developers insist on holding the best gear for the top end players. If you don't want alternate progression systems then give players access to the main one and not gimp ass campaign gear that ends at 197.