I think abandoning borrowed power is a huge mistake

[Aydinx2]

You may not remember, but there were times in the game when there wasn't one obvious choice and you had to balance various stats, often through gems and reforging. Hit cap and defense cap meant one did not simply stack one stat.

I've played since late BC. I know all the different system we've had.
The fact that you'd go for a hit/def cap already proves my point. But you would still try to find which stat added the most power to your spec. Worst case scenario, you'd sim it. It wasn't like someone would go "I kinda feel like going a Haste build for the raid today, lemme swap all my gems and reforges around".

You'd find out what stat you needed and then grab those. Having to grab only a certain amount of stats before you picked another stat is not "customization", it's "compensating for bad loot RNG".

[Necromantic]

I kinda agree. Kinda.

I really liked artifacts, I thought the HoA/Azerite was "meh" and the Covenant abilities were a mixed bag. So borrowed powers done right is great, borrowed powers done wrong is not. Though in the long run I'll probably miss something like it in DF, though I'll probably enjoy messing about with my dragon and maybe they'll introduce some BP later on.

This.

The artifact system was awesome. I just wish there was a nice balance somewhere. I think HoA could have been cool if it's levels were account-wide kinda like paragon levels for Diablo 3. This way, people feel welcomed to try different characters instead of feeling like they're being punished for doing so.

[Aydinx2]

But rotations change basically every xpac. Overall specs get reworked from time to time.

And as u mentioned in your other post, ppl will pick what's best a majority of the time. As things get tuned between cycles, or as things scale with more gear, certain abilities will become better than others and ull stop using some and switch to the other. Just as temporary imo

Again, either because they want to redefine the spec or because of added borrowed power. Sure things changed sometimes, but not nearly as much as with borrowed power. Go ask Discipline Priests how they feel about the first patch of BFA.

And switching to another Covenant because of a buff/nerf is part of the problem. Why do I suddenly need to change title, mount, cosmetics and secondary hub simply because they buffed a single ability and that suddenly made another covenant the best option? Oh cool now I need a different 30+k gold legendary too.

They could've easily created a covenant neutral borrowed power system (like Artifacts) that actually stayed after the expansion and then keep cosmetics tied to Covenants.

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XD this community is the best LOL. GTFO WITH BORROWED POWERS. They did take it away. OMG BRING BACK BORROWED POWERS. Seriously ?

You realize that those are probably two separate people right? There are more people on the internet than just you and another guy.

[ellieg]

This.

The artifact system was awesome. I just wish there was a nice balance somewhere. I think HoA could have been cool if it's levels were account-wide kinda like paragon levels for Diablo 3. This way, people feel welcomed to try different characters instead of feeling like they're being punished for doing so.

I thought HoA was a cool idea too. My main problems were acquiring the pieces sucked. And when u did acquire them, u had to grind to make them worth equipping

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Again, either because they want to redefine the spec or because of added borrowed power. Sure things changed sometimes, but not nearly as much as with borrowed power. Go ask Discipline Priests how they feel about the first patch of BFA.

And switching to another Covenant because of a buff/nerf is part of the problem. Why do I suddenly need to change title, mount, cosmetics and secondary hub simply because they buffed a single ability and that suddenly made another covenant the best option? Oh cool now I need a different 30+k gold legendary too.

They could've easily created a covenant neutral borrowed power system (like Artifacts) that actually stayed after the expansion and then keep cosmetics tied to Covenants.

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You realize that those are probably two separate people right? There are more people on the internet than just you and another guy.

I can agree that covenants weren't done correctly. Im just saying things change often enough that without borrowed power, I think things will still change a lot

[czarek]

Again, either because they want to redefine the spec or because of added borrowed power. Sure things changed sometimes, but not nearly as much as with borrowed power. Go ask Discipline Priests how they feel about the first patch of BFA.

And switching to another Covenant because of a buff/nerf is part of the problem. Why do I suddenly need to change title, mount, cosmetics and secondary hub simply because they buffed a single ability and that suddenly made another covenant the best option? Oh cool now I need a different 30+k gold legendary too.

They could've easily created a covenant neutral borrowed power system (like Artifacts) that actually stayed after the expansion and then keep cosmetics tied to Covenants.

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You realize that those are probably two separate people right? There are more people on the internet than just you and another guy.

Yes i do realize it but didnt saw defenders of borrowed powers right before they announce of erasing them :P And thats funny as hell

[Aydinx2]

I can agree that covenants weren't done correctly. Im just saying things change often enough that without borrowed power, I think things will still change a lot

Things will change a lot in Dragonflight because the existing borrowed power is being removed. A hit I am willing to take.
If Dragonflight doesn't add borrowed power and neither does the expansion after it, you can see for yourself how little things need to change.
(obviously if a spec is far behind in balance they will take that opportunity to fix it, but that will only change for that specific spec)

[Flarelaine]

I've played since late BC. I know all the different system we've had.
The fact that you'd go for a hit/def cap already proves my point. But you would still try to find which stat added the most power to your spec. Worst case scenario, you'd sim it. It wasn't like someone would go "I kinda feel like going a Haste build for the raid today, lemme swap all my gems and reforges around".

You'd find out what stat you needed and then grab those. Having to grab only a certain amount of stats before you picked another stat is not "customization", it's "compensating for bad loot RNG".

Good points, but there was also balacing priorities such as defense vs. threat for tanks.

[Aydinx2]

Good points, but there was also balacing priorities such as defense vs. threat for tanks.

Tanks/Healers probably had the closest thing to customization with threat and mana management. I would like to see mana management come back for Healers but I'm not expecting it. Mythic+ has forced every Healer to have a DPS rotation .

[Garymorilix]

No, abandoning borrowed power is the best change they ever did. It worked in Legion because we didn't know it was borrowed power. Back when they announced it we thought we would keep these awesome artifact weapons / get new ones each Expansion which felt great and like a real rpg. Than they abandoned them and gave us Azerite, which felt worse as you lost a huge junk of your power and never really got it back. On top of that, BfA didn't even gave us cosmetics with it's borrowed power system. Once they announced Covenants we already knew that they would abandon them with 10.0, so people never really got invested with them. Why should I care for something that's get thrown in the trash anyways? This game needs more evergreen content like transmog, not more borrowed power crap.

What an absolute joke of a take this is.

I haven't met a single person who thought that Legion legendaries/artifacts were going to stick around after the expansion.
Becasue most people operate with common sense.

[Aydinx2]

No, abandoning borrowed power is the best change they ever did. It worked in Legion because we didn't know it was borrowed power. Back when they announced it we thought we would keep these awesome artifact weapons / get new ones each Expansion which felt great and like a real rpg. Than they abandoned them and gave us Azerite, which felt worse as you lost a huge junk of your power and never really got it back. On top of that, BfA didn't even gave us cosmetics with it's borrowed power system. Once they announced Covenants we already knew that they would abandon them with 10.0, so people never really got invested with them. Why should I care for something that's get thrown in the trash anyways? This game needs more evergreen content like transmog, not more borrowed power crap.

Everyone I talked to at the announcement of the expansion was wondering how they were going to ditch the legendaries after Legion. Not a single one thought we would keep them.

Anecdotal, sure. But even now this is the first time I have ever heard someone even imply that we might have kept them past Legion.

[Omians]

Good points, but there was also balacing priorities such as defense vs. threat for tanks.

At the start of gearing a tank. Just using all stats to get to DEF cap was little bland imo. BUT. When the better gear came out and the def cap was easier and easier to get. I very much enjoyed stacking one of the mitigation stats. Back in Wotlk i loved playing as a Blood DK and tanking with the blood shield and parrying in ICC

[Garymorilix]

I prefer having some kind of borrowed power because it breaks up the monotone playstyle of classes.
That said, the abilities need to be significant for it to make sense.

It really doesn't matter what you call it (tier sets, legendaries, artifacts etc) they need to be significant.
And by significant I mean to have them actually influence your gameplay.

The WW monk 4/4 tier set bonus is a perfect example: after using 10 abilities your next 3 abilities deal more damage.
Sounds simple but it interacts with the WW kit (combo mastery) very nicely and forces you to think about your abilities usage more carefully (and rewards with big damage).

Bad example? Frost mage 2/4 and 4/4 tier set:
You get rando comet storms and your rando comet storms increase your dps by 10% for 10 secs.
Literally zero involvement from the player. I mean, yea, the damage is nice but boring. Make it not boring.

I don't really remember Legion that well, even tho I did the mage tower on like 20+ specs, but as far as I can recall those artifact abilities were all involved in your gameplay.
Most covenant abilities are simply not, they are kinda passive.
Which shouldn't be the case. Give players big flashy moments.

[Revamp Man]

Borrowed power leads to huge peaks of power jumps and then the next expansion you feel half as powerful because you are

Bfa start we were doing what 20k dps?? We ended close to 1m
Legion was similar
Now the gap is still as bad in terms of percentage and again we are going to be in the same spot of feeling worse

I would like some form of permanent power gain considering we have not had any since WoD and idc if that means another culling in 10 years

[Caprias]

I like and want borrowed power.

I don't want borrowed power to replace progression though, which it most definitely did the last 5 years.

[Kilpi]

I kinda agree. Kinda.

I really liked artifacts, I thought the HoA/Azerite was "meh" and the Covenant abilities were a mixed bag. So borrowed powers done right is great, borrowed powers done wrong is not. Though in the long run I'll probably miss something like it in DF, though I'll probably enjoy messing about with my dragon and maybe they'll introduce some BP later on.

Artifacts weren't any better than any other borrowed power. I never liked it gameplay-wise, nor lore-wise.

[StillMcfuu]

Legion systems didn't work on release, they are not an example of "good borrowed power" they had to be adjusted in further patches to get to a healthy spot.

Issues with BP is the classes get pared down to nothing and never change. All the classes are essentially the same as their Legion rework counterpart, unless they've had major reworks done to them. Still the classes are incomplete without borrowed power and that's a huge problem. It's not the class that has the power, it's this crappy system, when the system gets stripped away we are all left playing a weak empty class.

Before Legion, prepatch was a magical time of OP busted classes. Blizz usually released the next expansions talent trees into the game meaning everyone got to play with new talents and abilities, and as you leveled, got higher ranks of those abilities, keeping your character feeling strong. Your character, your actual class was strong. Now prepatch hits and we all get reverted to a crappy base and the game almost becomes a bit unplayable. You lose most of your BP and the class feels bad, only thing keeping it going is massive crit/haste/mastery levels from the last raid tier. But then you start leveling and you encounter level scaling and diminishing returns and half way through leveling, your character feels massively weak.

And that's a great representation of the issues with BP. It leads to poor and lazy class design. Where an add/prune system works much better to naturally evolve classes and keeps them fresh, while also always stepping forward.

[Venziir]

Artifacts weren't any better than any other borrowed power. I never liked it gameplay-wise, nor lore-wise.

Don't care; don't agree.

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Legion systems didn't work on release, they are not an example of "good borrowed power" they had to be adjusted in further patches to get to a healthy spot.

Issues with BP is the classes get pared down to nothing and never change. All the classes are essentially the same as their Legion rework counterpart, unless they've had major reworks done to them. Still the classes are incomplete without borrowed power and that's a huge problem. It's not the class that has the power, it's this crappy system, when the system gets stripped away we are all left playing a weak empty class.

Before Legion, prepatch was a magical time of OP busted classes. Blizz usually released the next expansions talent trees into the game meaning everyone got to play with new talents and abilities, and as you leveled, got higher ranks of those abilities, keeping your character feeling strong. Your character, your actual class was strong. Now prepatch hits and we all get reverted to a crappy base and the game almost becomes a bit unplayable. You lose most of your BP and the class feels bad, only thing keeping it going is massive crit/haste/mastery levels from the last raid tier. But then you start leveling and you encounter level scaling and diminishing returns and half way through leveling, your character feels massively weak.

And that's a great representation of the issues with BP. It leads to poor and lazy class design. Where an add/prune system works much better to naturally evolve classes and keeps them fresh, while also always stepping forward.

I simply don't agree. They were fine on release, and much, much better than HoA/Azerite and much more interesting and unique than Covenant abilities.

[Echo of Soul]

Or intead of funneling a major chunk of development resources every expansion (and patch as of late) on borrowed power systems they can spend them on developing content instead.

[Lady Atia]

I never understood this argument tbh. Every power we have is temporary. We spend the first 3 or 4 months of a patch getting geared up. We enjoy the gear for like a month then next patch comes out with 26 ilvl inflation and we start over.

It's one thing that gear is temporary simply because we have transmog - thanks to that, gear will always have a worth. Borrowed Power without that is just wasted time in the end.

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Everyone I talked to at the announcement of the expansion was wondering how they were going to ditch the legendaries after Legion. Not a single one thought we would keep them.

Anecdotal, sure. But even now this is the first time I have ever heard someone even imply that we might have kept them past Legion.

Well, people for sure didn't thought we would only have the artifact system for one Expansion only. People wondered how they would do the reset at the end of the Expansion yes, but no one expected the system to go away completely. Garrisons f.e. were just re-used as base for the classhalls afterall.

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What an absolute joke of a take this is.

I haven't met a single person who thought that Legion legendaries/artifacts were going to stick around after the expansion.
Becasue most people operate with common sense.

I didn't said legendaries, did I? And I talked about the system in itself, not the artifacts we got with Legion specifically.

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What an absolute joke of a take this is.

I haven't met a single person who thought that Legion legendaries/artifacts were going to stick around after the expansion.
Becasue most people operate with common sense.

What? Every system 'till Legion either got carried forward into the next expansion or got improved upon and used for something else.

TBC: Arena, Flying Mounts - we still have both of these ingame
WotLK: Inscription, Glyphs (got changed / improved), Achievements
Cataclysm: Transmog (I think?), LFR, Archaelogy (which only recently got abandoned)
MoP: Pet Battles, CM's (got changed into M+ later on), Scenarios (still used today for story content), Legendary quest that takes whole Expansion (only dropped with again .... Legion, which was when they first started to do borrowed power instead of keeping or updating existing systems)
WoD: Garrisons (got changed into Class Halls)

When they announced Legion no one knew that "borrowed power" was a thing ...

[Dejiko]

I wouldn`t mind borrowed power if i could get anima rewards from doing old content.
Why is the acquisition of current borrowed power currencies only relevant to new content?

If i want to spend five hours a day fishing, i end up feeling disappointed.
Not because fishing isn`t fun, but because i know i should be doing boring world quests and dailies to progress.