Order halls and artifact weapons were the best thing that ever happened to the game

[Darkeon]

If they used them again in future expansions, then they wouldn't have just been borrowed power, they'd be fundamental parts of your class.

But they haven't yet. That's my point.

They were fun. They had massive lore significance. They were babied throughout the expansion. And they were abandoned and forgotten.

[jeezusisacasual]

WoW needs more things to get you to log in daily and play, hopefully the days of raid logging never come back.

[Relapses]

Give it a couple years and you'll have Legion Classic.

[Pakheth]

It's a reason Legion sits up there with MoP and Wotlk for me when it comes to favourite expansions.

The artifact weapons could have been carried over by making you unlock more weapon types via quests and boss drops ala Teschalach and perhaps loosen the class/spec requirements for certain weapons.

The order halls could also have been expanded upon by unlocking new rooms and/or changing their location like Acherus flying to a new location or the priest order hall getting another level or new rooms.

But I must say that leveling a new class always makes going through Legion a must for me because I then get to experience all new quests. I'm just sad that due to the artifacts being broken, a lot of the feeling of progression no longer works and in the case of Shamans they have lost a lot of in-zone mini events and quests, like helping elementals around the Broken Isles for a little bit of AP. That class flair is gone unfortunately.

[Biomega]

I never really cared for Order Halls. They didn't actually DO anything. They were a backdrop and little more, cool visually but ultimately useless.

Artifact weapons were okay. They were effectively an extra talent tree, except without choices but with time gating. The weapons weren't interesting - the abilities were. They could have just been new talents, and then we wouldn't have lost them for BFA and have everyone upset their cool stuff is gone. The artifact xmogs could have just been added as rewards in other ways, and let's be real: most of the variants were just stupid to acquire, being either straight drops or grinds or outright time gates. Mage Tower ones were the only ones with meaningful acquisition, and that could again have just been added on its own.

And let's not forget that the AP grind had some pretty terrible spots - having to reach certain levels for big power jumps meant you needed to grind HARD if you wanted to get there in the first reset. It wasn't island-expedition levels of bad, but clearing old raids every week just for AP felt pretty silly.

The idea of having extra abilities that unlock over time is okay. But tying that into a specific item is really what kickstarted this whole avalanche of borrowed power and the inevitable reset that we've been laboring under ever since. If they'd tied that into a character-centered system, it would have been so much better, and you wouldn't think it's the weapons themselves that were good; it's always been the abilities.

[Verdugo]

I believe they commented on why they consider the Order halls sort of a failure in storytelling.

Problem is, there's 12 order halls and class campaigns. But most players play 1 or 2, maybe 3 characters at most. For those players, they're essentially only able to access as little as 1/12th of the primary story content of Legion up until Argus where everyone had the same campaign.

BFA similarly had its story content split between the 2 factions, but you would only miss out on half the story or need at most 2 characters to experience all of it.

In SL, 1 character could experience every covenant. Once the story was fully unlocked, you weren't even penalized for switching to a new covenant. Only switching back to a previous covenant had a pre-requisite, so if you just wanted to experience the story it was fairly easy, and it has only become easier since they pulled the ripcord.

And here we have problem with modern game design, devs being afraid that someone will miss something on one playthrough.

[Hyperaffe]

I believe they commented on why they consider the Order halls sort of a failure in storytelling.

Problem is, there's 12 order halls and class campaigns. But most players play 1 or 2, maybe 3 characters at most. For those players, they're essentially only able to access as little as 1/12th of the primary story content of Legion up until Argus where everyone had the same campaign.

.

Yeah i leveled all 12 classes for Legion (had only 3 before). The Class Halls, their campaigns and artifact weapons were just so much RPG content. Never played as much WoW before or after (and loved it). Guess i just didn't burn out as fast as from only farming dailies and one raid on one or two characters.

[Kaleredar]

Hot take:

Every expansion should feature a class-specific narrative as developed as Legion's. Maybe not necessarily to the same chore-based/borrowed power based degree Legion's was with followers and whatnot, but some sort of story element that's specifically related to each character's class. It insanely boosts replayability between different classes.

[pahbi]

The class hall was cool because each class hall had its own back story and quests and drama and intrigue, they definitely added flavor to the expansion.

I also liked the garrison, it was cool having a space you could decorate yourself, and the garrison had its own quests and stuff to do.

If I had my way, every expansion would have both a class hall and a garrison.

[Relapses]

They won't do anything after wrath, audience isn't there

Thankfully Blizzard uses data a bit more substantive than "random dude on MMO-C" to determine whether there's a market for something.

[XDurionX]

Really? While it sounds a little more probable now, back then no one honestly expected Blizz to only give us one weapon only from Legion onwards.
A return to the regular system of weapon drops etc. was the most expected case.

Pretty much this, and "borrowed power" has been a thing since BC. Everybody was replacing their raid gear with quest greens, that's nothing new.

[Lochton]

I don't want this to become a Legion circlejerk thread, but honestly, Order Halls and artifact weapons were Legion's best feature.

I've been leveling a bunch of alts lately because I really don't know what else to do in the game, and I love love love the order halls. Doing the class specific quests, collecting all artifacts and their different appearances, it's just so much fun.

It really makes me wonder why Blizzard didn't use them again in any other expansion. I really wouldn't mind if we got another expansion with order halls and artifact weapons.

Order Halls, yes, artifact weapons, no. One of the main downsides of Order Halls is that we (the player) were the leader of most (if not all?).

[Very Tired]

And here we have problem with modern game design, devs being afraid that someone will miss something on one playthrough.

Given how much time it takes for the devs to put out so little content, splitting that up further with class or faction requirements only multiples the work they need to do otherwise divides that amount of content people have to play.

Kind of a problem Blizzard created themselves. Pretty much every other MMO I can think of were at least smart enough to realize that they should allow a single character to do everything and different "classes" should just be respecs of that one character, instead of requiring them to level and gear an entirely different alt. I would love to try out a different healer, but with the way WoW is setup that basically doubles the amount of work I have to do to gear them up. 9 hours of raiding for my main is a pain enough... And because of the way WoW also poorly handles power creep, I would have to repeat that work again every raid patch for multiple toons.

[Pakheth]

Yeah i leveled all 12 classes for Legion (had only 3 before). The Class Halls, their campaigns and artifact weapons were just so much RPG content. Never played as much WoW before or after (and loved it). Guess i just didn't burn out as fast as from only farming dailies and one raid on one or two characters.

Exactly! The only other expansion I played so many classes was MoP and that was due to the classes being so fun to play.

That the game encouraged you to play multiple characters to see so much cool lore, weapons and scenery was a huge factor for why I played so much during Legion. Sadly Covenants didn't do it for me the same way.

[WowIsDead64]

I don't want this to become a Legion circlejerk thread, but honestly, Order Halls and artifact weapons were Legion's best feature.

I've been leveling a bunch of alts lately because I really don't know what else to do in the game, and I love love love the order halls. Doing the class specific quests, collecting all artifacts and their different appearances, it's just so much fun.

It really makes me wonder why Blizzard didn't use them again in any other expansion. I really wouldn't mind if we got another expansion with order halls and artifact weapons.

I agree. While I liked Garrisons even more, I also think, that may be they were way too casual for some players. It was first time, when we had endgame casual/alt-friendly campaign. Yeah, we had dailies back in MOP, but they required too much grind.

Negatives about order halls and artifacts:
1) Borrowed powers. They're attempt to prolong leveling period to endgame content. They were way too overused. Leveling is great exactly because it's limited in time. It causes too many problems, when it becomes potentially infinite. Problems with new/returning players, alts and alternative specs. Yeah, gear has always been borrowed power. But at the same catch ups have always allowed player to bypass all this problems.
2) "Forced" alts. Some players think, that if there is some content in game, then this content should be completed. Players wanted to complete all campaigns, get all class mounts and all artifact appearances. They meant, that they needed to level alts of all classes. It wasn't that big problem, because many players had already done it back in WOD. But Blizzard hate alts anyway. Because they don't want to design their game around all players having all classes.
3) End of campaigns was destroyed by terrible 7.2-7.3 content. Broken shore and Argus were that terrible "sandbox" content, not all players like. Dunno, why Blizzard constantly try to force it. May be because it's very cheap to develop it?