Everyone was happy when the game devs realized nobody liked the Borrowed Power systems.
So why introducing a fox in the henhouse back?
3 Likes
I guess there’s a few reasons.
From a production point of view it’s easier to make something you’ve already made before, versus making something entirely new.
And when you’re trying to push a patch out before Christmas you’re probably going to rely on as many existing designs and assets as you can, because you don’t really have time to make a lot of things from scratch or iterating and polishing new designs.
From a gameplay perspective I think Blizzard haven’t really figured out a different solution to how to help players get past progression obstacles. I mean, at some point players just hit the wall. And because of the way that gear works now, then you have to get past the wall to get better gear, but you can’t get past the wall without better gear, so you’re stuck!
In the old days there was a borrowed power system, like the Artifact Weapon or Heart of Azeroth, that would slowly get more and more powerful, and that would allow players to get past those progression obstacles, because everything would get easier as time went on. But that doesn’t happen anymore. The difficulty is pretty static and there isn’t a lot of gear progression to be had, so Blizzard’s solution is to sneak in a little borrowed power at the tail-end of the Season - in the form of this ring.
1 Like
I mean, clearly Blizzard’s dev team has a new intern.
6 Likes
WHO thought the new ring (11.0.7) was a good idea?
5 Likes
Just curios about “the old days” - I mean prior to Legion what other borrowed power systems were in place ?
There weren’t.
Borrowed power was Blizzard’s solution to the problem of content being too hard and players coming to a progression halt when they faced challenges they couldn’t overcome.
So Blizzard nerfed the hell out of the content.
At the end of TBC everything received a swooping 30% nerf, I believe it was.
In WotLK it was the same. ICC got some crazy nerfs, and then there was the ability to talk to Tirion and he could undo the nerfs if you would rather play with the extra challenge.
Same in Cata. There’s an NPC at the start of the Dragon Soul raid that basically lets you opt out of the heavy nerfs that Blizzard applied over time.
After that is when everyone starts to get legendaries and Artifact Weapons and Heart of Azeroths that effectively do the same by indirectly nerfing the content by making the players way more powerful.
But since players don’t want borrowed powers anymore and because those sweeping nerfs in the old days were just awful, then Blizzard sort of has to think of something else to help players get past whatever obstacles they’re stuck on. Introducing the ring! And yeah it’s borrowed powers, and yeah people complain about it, but Blizzard haven’t really figured out a better alternative.
Yea could be but I tend to lean more to the side the borrowed power was introduced to encourage more players to step into raids. As the expansion moved on and players felt more powerful the more brave they got too. We saw people who swore blind they would never step into raid come raiding with the guild and to this day they still raid.
I just think somewhere along the way things just got a bit blurred and out of control with this power grinding system they introduced.
Because they just can’t let it be. THEY JUST CAN’T. There is some mind virus, some weird company culture or it’s probably a scheme to make money.
The recent changes was just the tip of the iceberg of stuff for them to realize. It’s gonna be a long time and gonna need a lot of therapy until they get it into their heads. They moved the game into a way different place yet they have all these legacy ideas.
Just.Stop.It.
1 Like
Many hate borrowed powers, but i think it gives a reason to log in the game and do something.
See how pandaria remix played out. Whole stuff was about borrowed powers and many people enjoyed it.
From PTR testing, the ring is going to be a big nothingburger for most players, esp those that already have teh content cleared.
But of course people have to start complaining about it now.
The whole point is an easily attainable power boost to help the last people clear the raid or get their M+ score before the season ends, instead of doing what they did before, that being either further nerfing encounters where the tuning is already fine so that even Steering-Wheel-Sam can stop wiping the raid on mechanic x, or going back further and doing nothing, essentially saying “git gud, scrub”.
The underlying problem is that players have developed the expectation of being able to clear the content they want to, regardless of their personal prowess… that´s why all the major rewards (mounts, portals, tokens) are populated in the more causal level of play, so that these players don´t see the “need” to progress through the actually challengind content, forcing blizzard to dilute m+>15 and M raid down to more manageable levels (and those voices are loud enough already) to appease the players that just want everything for nothing.
I personally would be fine if they went back to the “git gud, scrub” approach. And maybe this second iteration of the the annulet will be a major failure and they won´t do it again… part of me hopes so, and the other part of me stopped caring many years ago…
oh wow we have the most stupid way of doing drop let’s do some weird thing to fix it. ROFL. just fix droprates.
WoD:
- The Garrison
- arguably the Khadgar’s Archmage Ring
I enjoyed the transmog farming for the sake of transmog, not really the bs system to get through
Of course we have. Not preventing the Borrowed Power pipeline right now is like actively supporting it.
oh ye olde pseudo-elitist argument.
Vanilla was better and didn’t need such bragging matters. Frankly I don’t care at all about levels of difficulty mM+, delves, and the iLvL / raiderIO Hamster Wheel.
I’d just rather avoid meaningless disposable game systems as much as possible.
the comment to the article is pure magic.
2 Likes
I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Gives peoples something to do. If people can’t get myth gear they can just get this. I’ll do it just for the content.
I kinda miss the borrowed power legion artifact weapon
I dislike borrowing anything and powers should come from the class design 
Next thing for PUG raids “8/8HC Only / Curved & Fully Upgraded Ring” 
To keep the playerbase loged in.
Right now the game is in a “Sleep mode”, nothing exciting for some people.
So instead of coming with something cool and fun they put another chore into the game that you need to farm.
this game is in this mode since couple weeks if not more
if anything, this ring would not make me renew subscribtion
it will make me rather quit and wait for a new raid tier
so yeah, their way of keeping player base by giving onyx annalet is terribad 
1 Like
My main question is if this ring will be an Onyx Annulet 2.0: a pretty powerful legendary ring with some pretty unique perks that will soon become irrelevant after the first few weeks of the new season.
Another “oh no please no borrowed power” discussion.
Also, don’t forget to enter the game, grind some crests, upgrade your trinkets and tier sets, and then sell them to vendor in 11.1. Oh yes, that’s totally different, I forgot.
1 Like