Their comparison of essences to gear and trinkets is interesting. I'm glad they've finally given a reason. But I think it misses an equally valid comparison -- talents. Talents are part of your base kit and one of the most fundamental ways you customise your character. It would feel utterly terrible if you were forced to do various sorts of content to unlock your talent tree. And yes, of course we all have to level up. But we all sign up for that. And, yeah, even if we were made to do content for our talents I'm sure we'd all manage. It's just a few battlegrounds. It's just a mythic dungeon. It's just a dozen island expeditions. But if that were the case -1) You'd only unlock the talents you needed to avoid the slog of unlocking everything. 4) This would apply doubly so to your alts. 2) That would diminish or destroy the main purpose of the talent system, which is customisation. 3) At that point it no longer feels like you're being made to do content for a reward (customisation, in this case); it feels like you're being made to do content to unlock your basic abilities. 5) All of this together means you're going to feel discouraged to interact with or experiment with the system. Is your spec fun in PvP with Vision of Perfection? You're going to have to run Mechagon to find out!You can play your character with a trinket that's not BIS. You can play without having maxed AP. Those things give you goals. Those things reward you with power. But not having the essence which fits your character feels bad because you don't have the basic equipment your character requires. I feel they should simply make all rank 1 essences account-wide unlockable. Ranks 2 and 3 provide power. Rank 4 provides prestige. The system as a whole should provide customisation, but rarely does because the rank 1 essences are such a bother to unlock. Make it so people only have to unlock the rank 1s once (or simply unlock them for everyone) and alts would be immediately playable upon hitting 120. They would be weak, but they would have all their base kit. Plus, it would encourage you to experiment and have fun with the system.
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Ion: "Now, in the case of Visions of N’Zoth, we’re always excited when we can find a way of marrying our systems to the world we’re building and the story we’re telling..."Well your world is outdated and your story is crap. Focus on gameplay and keeping your players happy, because the gameplay is actually somewhat enjoyable.
He didn't say anything about not having plans for a 8.4!Boys, there's another raid coming!
The hesitance to make essences and their requirements account wide in this patch or at least massively reduce the grind required just baffles me. It's "player power" and hence you need to earn it on all characters - this statement falls flat the moment you realize that the essence system was the band-aid blizz implemented for the failed azerite gear system. It's a core part of how your classes play now in BFA. The difference in gameplay with and without essences is massive, and the missing player power is also very noticeable on anybody who's not got at least 3 essences at rank 2 or above. Essences are not a "nice-to-have". They're a must-have if you want to stand a chance at contributing to current content. So god help me if blizz screwed my class over and I wish to play another class just so I don't pull my hair out everytime I'm on my main, I have to put up with the same long ass time-taking and time-gated grind that I had done on my first character already. We ALREADY have the normal gearing grind that's been in the game forever, which is plenty of hardwork if you decide to swap classes on the fly. We do NOT need another level of grind and gating keeping us from actually playing our characters. Just how are they justifying this to themselves? There are so many people who like hopping between characters in WoW these days at the casual end, but noooooo, let's make design decisions based on what affects those who only play competitively, which is what, sub 10% of the WoW population? Inb4, "you don't need essences as a casual" comments - No. Even casuals like to enjoy playing their class. Nobody likes a scuffed class/spec gameplay. I play 6 level 120s, i know just how horrible my alts felt to play (except the DH cuz they're fun regardless) until i got my essences slotted. Just...ugh. 62 hours left on my sub. I'm just gonna watch it count down to 0 and call it a month.
No 8.3.5 would be really disappointing
Without account wide essences, players midway through this patch are going to get bored of their mains, so naturally they'll play an alt right? Nope.They're going to log into an alt, attempt to gear it; then realize they're going to be forced to replay what I can only call "Extremely Tedious" old content with ZERO replay-ability. Players are going to park their accounts and subs are going to drop prior to Shadowlands- which could effect the Shadowlands development budget.With choices like this, I wonder how alt friendly Shadowlands is REALLY going to be...TL;DR: stupid decisions are stupid.
Me, too, even with my main, until pre-patch, but mostly because the story is over. It shouldn't be. There were five warfronts planned with Silvermoon as finale, by now there should have always been a different warfront up, if that's the end of the story and I have to wait until 9.0 to see what the hell is going on with Lordaeron, fine. We're done.
Agreed. Two choices: spend more money and make it bomb or tell us to like it and abandon an expansion I paid full price for and got parts of because Blizzard is cheap and more interested in finding a formula that works for all expansions than doing what it takes and spending what they need to to make each one rock on its own accord. If you don't want to spend the money to make a good game, I don't want to spend the money to play it. If I'd known there's be no 8.3.5 I don't know that I'd have cared at all about 8.3. Now I really don't.
-Account-bound Essences.. the azerite traits system is bull#$%^ because (as always) u have to be lucky dropping the BiS ones OR buying them after a ton of time (in the meanwhile luckier player will take ur spot in progress raid and even not all the gear u buy got good traits -class depending). EssenceS are bullcrap too because there is already titanforge/corruption and azerite to farm. Put ONE essence for role and gg. -We’ve heard a lot of player feedback in the last couple of years, and we’ve agreed with a lot of it, about the feeling of randomness and the way that it can undermine the value of item level. Translated: People hated titanforging because is too much rng so we give u corruption! thats NOT ONLY must proc but now u got even MORE rng because u must find the good corruption effect between 10+ of them.. and thinking that a "limit" will cover for this is insanity. (no pun intended).-The new mythic + affix. "Im not 100% sure on this but I believe there are a couple of different locations" nuff said. (game director)-The players feedback (ptr) "It was UNVALUABLE!" Then on live we get infinite stars trait that deals 30% of a player damage and Ech. Void Absolutely BROKEN. (Corruption balance uh?)The player/group skills and coordination should matter and if somebody manages to do harder content they should get HIGHER rewards. SOMETIMES u can break that rule and let casual player get an end content loot like the chest from the follower in legion or draneor.Usually in a mmo game u grind for being rewarded , now here in wow u grind for HAVING A CHANCHE of being rewarded. GG really, nice management. Black desert here i come.
Well said.