World of Warcraft: Current Year
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
It's the very definition of pay to win. Spending cash to access power (gear) they didn't earn.
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Anyway, the reason I brought it up to begin with is I log on to toss up my auctions like always, and like always general chat is a sea of nothing but people selling access to every single part of the game in return for gold, and it makes me wonder 1) Why anyone would be such a sad shit to buy their way into said stuff and 2) Why the fuck anyone should want to put the effort into achieving this stuff when little billy is just token'ing his way into it, and 3) Why nobody ever talks about this, despite "pay to win" being a huge fucking issue in every other genre of games.
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Patch 8.3 PTR - The Evolution of Titanforging - Corrupted Items
The latest update to the PTR added a vendor in the Heart Chamber that allows you to purchase corrupted raid gear for testing. This gear seems to be the new alternative to titanforging that Ion mentioned in the 8.3 reveal. This Corruption system seems to be more random than titanforging, and we will have to wait and see how it develops.
Basics of the Corruption System
The latest update to the PTR added a vendor in the Heart Chamber that allows you to purchase corrupted raid gear for testing. This gear seems to be the new alternative to titanforging that Ion mentioned in the 8.3 reveal. This Corruption system seems to be more random than titanforging, and we will have to wait and see how it develops.
Basics of the Corruption System
- Raid gear will be able to drop with a corruption level (indicated in the item's stats in red and also by a N'zoth eye on the items border) that seems to be random and can vary from low to high on the same piece of gear.
- Each piece of corrupted gear adds to a corruption total displayed on your character's stat screen via a N'Zoth eye mouse-over. Your unaltered corruption level and corruption resistance are also displayed.
- Gear will also proc a randomly added benthic-like positive bonus effect. The percentage that the bonus has is increased based on the corruption level on the piece of gear. The lowest comes from the gear having a corruption level of 10 or below, slightly higher below 20 corruption, and maxing when the corruption on the item is 20 or above.
- Increases the amount of critical strike you gain from all sources by X%.
- Increases the amount of haste you gain from all sources by X%.
- Increases the amount of mastery you gain from all sources by X%.
- Increases the amount of versatility you gain from all sources by X%.
- Your avoidance is increased by an amount equal to X% of your haste.
- Reduces your damage taken from periodic effects by X%.
- Increases your leech by X%.
- X% of total health regen now continues during combat.
- Increases your healing received from all sources by X%.
- Increases the damage you deal with critical strikes by X%.
- Your spells and abilities have a chance to grant you a Flash of Clarity, reducing the cooldown of your next 3 spells cast by 2 sec.
- Your character also gains a negative debuff based on your corruption level. Going above a certain threshold adds another debuff. The new one does not replace the old one.
- 10+ Total Corruption - Grasping Tendrils - Taking damage has a chance to slow your movement speed for 0 sec. The magnitude of the slow increases with further corruption.
- 20+ Total Corruption - Corrupted Zone - Your spells and abilities have a chance to create a corrupted zone at your location, dealing Shadow damage to you every 2 sec. The size and damage of the corrupted zone increase with higher Corruption.
- 40+ Total Corruption - Grand Delusions - Taking damage has a chance to summon a Thing From Beyond, which pursues you for 10 seconds. Its speed increases with further corruption.
- 60+ Total Corruption - Creeping Death - All damage taken is magnified significantly, increasing with further corruption.
- In essence, this makes the system way more random and not so much a replacement to titanforging, but an evolution.
- A player will obviously want to get their best in slot items with the lowest amount of corruption and also their best in slot bonus.
- These pieces don't proc item level increases.
- They also don't seem to be able to proc a gem slot.
- Weapons cannot be corrupt.
- Your character visually becomes more and more corrupted by void the higher your total corruption.
- It is likely that the infinite progression slot on the Heart of Azeroth that Ion mentioned will increase your corruption resistance with each point placed in it.
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The most recent PTR build introduced an early version of our Corrupted Items system, and we’d like to highlight a few aspects of how the Corruption system works, and our goals as we iterate on it.
How Corruption Works
Items from Ny’alotha, Mythic Keystone dungeons in Season 4, BfA PvP Season 4, the Heroic Darkshore Warfront, and other new sources of loot that are updated with Season 4 will not be able to Warforge or Titanforge. Items from older content will retain an effective “ceiling” of item level 455, as they do today.
There will be a chance for these new items to be Corrupted by N’Zoth. A Corrupted item has a powerful beneficial property, similar to many of the Benthic effects seen in Nazjatar, but has a new detrimental stat: Corruption. Items can have varying levels of Corruption, with the amount of Corruption present correlating directly with the power of the beneficial upside (for example: an item might give 4% Critical Strike damage and 10 Corruption, or 6% Critical Strike damage and 15 Corruption).
Corruption represents the influence of N’Zoth, which will have negative effects on the wearer. As Corruption increases, a series of drawbacks are activated. You might remember how Corruption worked on the Cho’gall encounter back in Bastion of Twilight – that was a source of inspiration here. The drawbacks currently on the PTR are works-in-progress and not-yet-tuned, and we have changes already implemented in the next PTR build. Our general intent is for low Corruption to activate a minor effect that most people can play around without too much difficulty, medium levels of Corruption to activate a couple more effects that have a higher skill cap (nd may be more situational in where and when someone can handle having them active), and high levels of Corruption to be prohibitive, and virtually never worth it.
Gear that makes your character worse when you equip it doesn’t sound terribly appealing, but fortunately there will be a few ways of dealing with Corruption. The legendary cloak that players will earn from Wrathion early on in Visions of N’Zoth will negate some Corruption, and can be upgraded through entering and completing Horrific Visions to provide even more of a bulwark against Corruption.
Early on, we expect that players might wear one or maybe two pieces of Corrupted gear at a time. Later on, three or four pieces might be manageable. The vast majority of the gear players wear, even later on, will not be Corrupted. And these perks aren’t planned to be slot-restricted, so if there’s a specific power you want, there should never be a concern that your item needs to roll with that affix to be useful.
We also never want an item that would otherwise be an upgrade to feel unusable as a result of being Corrupted, so any Corrupted items can be taken to the Heart Forge and purified without restriction . If you get that trinket you’ve been hoping for, but it’s Corrupted with a beneficial effect you don’t like, or wearing it would push you above a Corruption threshold you’re comfortable with, just purify the item and carry on.
Itemization Philosophy
With itemization, we’re always looking for opportunities to create moments of excitement and choices and options to customize your gameplay to suit your playstyle and the content you choose to play. Warforging created some of this by allowing useful rewards to come from a wide range of content, and ensuring that there was almost always at least the chance of an upgrade from any repeat boss kill or other source of loot. However, as we’ve seen and heard clearly in feedback over the past years, it has also brought significant downsides: Progression feels less rewarding, as players killing a raid boss on a new difficulty for the first time often disenchant much of the loot because they have equal or better Warforged items from lower difficulties or other sources. In addition, the feeling that a given item could have Warforged more and been even better can leave a sense of disappointment at what should have been a clear reward moment. And the sense that these systems are out of players’ direct control makes it harder to work towards a clear goal or state of completion.
The Corruption system isn’t a permanent addition to World of Warcraft, but it is an extension of the theme of N’Zoth’s pervasive and growing influence over Azeroth. As we explore this over the course of the PTR, we’d love to hear feedback about the initial round of powers showing up on items, Corruption drawbacks that may be excessively punitive, and the system as a whole.
Please feel free to reply with your feedback here in this thread. Thank you very much!
How Corruption Works
Items from Ny’alotha, Mythic Keystone dungeons in Season 4, BfA PvP Season 4, the Heroic Darkshore Warfront, and other new sources of loot that are updated with Season 4 will not be able to Warforge or Titanforge. Items from older content will retain an effective “ceiling” of item level 455, as they do today.
There will be a chance for these new items to be Corrupted by N’Zoth. A Corrupted item has a powerful beneficial property, similar to many of the Benthic effects seen in Nazjatar, but has a new detrimental stat: Corruption. Items can have varying levels of Corruption, with the amount of Corruption present correlating directly with the power of the beneficial upside (for example: an item might give 4% Critical Strike damage and 10 Corruption, or 6% Critical Strike damage and 15 Corruption).
Corruption represents the influence of N’Zoth, which will have negative effects on the wearer. As Corruption increases, a series of drawbacks are activated. You might remember how Corruption worked on the Cho’gall encounter back in Bastion of Twilight – that was a source of inspiration here. The drawbacks currently on the PTR are works-in-progress and not-yet-tuned, and we have changes already implemented in the next PTR build. Our general intent is for low Corruption to activate a minor effect that most people can play around without too much difficulty, medium levels of Corruption to activate a couple more effects that have a higher skill cap (nd may be more situational in where and when someone can handle having them active), and high levels of Corruption to be prohibitive, and virtually never worth it.
Gear that makes your character worse when you equip it doesn’t sound terribly appealing, but fortunately there will be a few ways of dealing with Corruption. The legendary cloak that players will earn from Wrathion early on in Visions of N’Zoth will negate some Corruption, and can be upgraded through entering and completing Horrific Visions to provide even more of a bulwark against Corruption.
Early on, we expect that players might wear one or maybe two pieces of Corrupted gear at a time. Later on, three or four pieces might be manageable. The vast majority of the gear players wear, even later on, will not be Corrupted. And these perks aren’t planned to be slot-restricted, so if there’s a specific power you want, there should never be a concern that your item needs to roll with that affix to be useful.
We also never want an item that would otherwise be an upgrade to feel unusable as a result of being Corrupted, so any Corrupted items can be taken to the Heart Forge and purified without restriction . If you get that trinket you’ve been hoping for, but it’s Corrupted with a beneficial effect you don’t like, or wearing it would push you above a Corruption threshold you’re comfortable with, just purify the item and carry on.
Itemization Philosophy
With itemization, we’re always looking for opportunities to create moments of excitement and choices and options to customize your gameplay to suit your playstyle and the content you choose to play. Warforging created some of this by allowing useful rewards to come from a wide range of content, and ensuring that there was almost always at least the chance of an upgrade from any repeat boss kill or other source of loot. However, as we’ve seen and heard clearly in feedback over the past years, it has also brought significant downsides: Progression feels less rewarding, as players killing a raid boss on a new difficulty for the first time often disenchant much of the loot because they have equal or better Warforged items from lower difficulties or other sources. In addition, the feeling that a given item could have Warforged more and been even better can leave a sense of disappointment at what should have been a clear reward moment. And the sense that these systems are out of players’ direct control makes it harder to work towards a clear goal or state of completion.
The Corruption system isn’t a permanent addition to World of Warcraft, but it is an extension of the theme of N’Zoth’s pervasive and growing influence over Azeroth. As we explore this over the course of the PTR, we’d love to hear feedback about the initial round of powers showing up on items, Corruption drawbacks that may be excessively punitive, and the system as a whole.
Please feel free to reply with your feedback here in this thread. Thank you very much!
The only positive aspect of the system is that corrupted gear (just the base concept) is a neat idea when dealing with the sort of void/evil/lovecraftian shit that the game is heading into. Needing to purify things and struggle with corruption is a cool concept. In actual practice though the whole system looks like AIDS.
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Khane
Got something right about marriage
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You're thinking about it wrong. Being in a good (key word here is good) mythic guild requires a ton of time spent playing this game outside of raiding and an abysmal amount of wiping over and over in the actual raids. It's very much a second job. There are people like me who want Mythic gear so they can succeed in the areas of the game they enjoy, like Mythic+. When the game developers spend so much time and effort trying to hamstring the bleeding edge Mythic raiders, at the expense of everyone else's enjoyment of the game, it's no wonder so many people resort to farming gold to spend on buying what they want/need from the people who play this game as a job.
It's a fundamental design philosophy flaw because the powers that be at Blizzard, are hellbent on "beating" these professional gamers. And it's a fruitless endeavor. It's basically the video game equivalent of the war on drugs.
But the relationship between the sellers and buyers of in game currency/content is a symbiotic one. And I honestly don't see any problem with it.
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I think you're projecting your issues (that I mostly agree with) with mythic difficulty into the issue here. Mythic raiding gear is only one part of the selling content stuff. M+, heroic mech, and pvp seem to be the more popular ones available, among other things.
Khane
Got something right about marriage
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Well there has to be a reason there is so much activity in the buying/selling aspect of the game right? The people who are Mythic raiding are generally the ones selling, and the people who want stuff either from that portion of the game, or from other portions in the path of least resistance, need someone to buy it from. My theory is the amount of activity for buying/selling is a result of the state of the game and it's my belief the arms race Blizzard has imposed on Mythic raiders is a root cause.
Take Classic as an example. You barely see any sale runs at all. There is a set of pre-raid BiS gear that is fairly easy to acquire, and even the raids are pretty simple and doable. Certainly much more doable than Mythic in retail. So the demand isn't there like it is in retail. End game is kind of relaxing and there is a clear end goal that once you hit you are done and can sit back and enjoy the spoils. That doesn't exist in retail, so most people find it much easier to farm gold (or buy tokens) and skip the ridiculous time requirements involved in being a high end raider.
PvP boosting is a whole different ball of wax, and since the system works on a population % it has a real affect on people who are trying to earn the rewards themselves. That is an issue that needs addressing but it's a fundamental problem with any ladder system.
Take Classic as an example. You barely see any sale runs at all. There is a set of pre-raid BiS gear that is fairly easy to acquire, and even the raids are pretty simple and doable. Certainly much more doable than Mythic in retail. So the demand isn't there like it is in retail. End game is kind of relaxing and there is a clear end goal that once you hit you are done and can sit back and enjoy the spoils. That doesn't exist in retail, so most people find it much easier to farm gold (or buy tokens) and skip the ridiculous time requirements involved in being a high end raider.
PvP boosting is a whole different ball of wax, and since the system works on a population % it has a real affect on people who are trying to earn the rewards themselves. That is an issue that needs addressing but it's a fundamental problem with any ladder system.
My theory is simply that now the very good players have a reason to earn gold and so they want to put effort into selling their skills, whereas before tokens could be added to Blizzard balance, they were almost all flush with gold even after raid expenditures. This along with people just being about to buy gold now has created a market where none existed before, other than very different ones like GDKP runs.
Khane
Got something right about marriage
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Well the tokens certainly contribute to it but the economy became inflated for a lot of other reasons as well. The Garrison missions and then the Legion Order Hall being two huge culprits. I made over 30 million gold just from the order hall in Legion. It took some time to set up that many order halls but then it was literally passive gold gains.
McCheese
SW: Sean, CW: Crone, GW: Wizardhawk
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Christ, I was actually considering coming back with the Old God stuff becoming more prominent. Even as a casual, I thought it would be fun to dive into that. But this whole cursed gearing system just sounds exhausting. I could feel my desire to play slowly draining as I read the PTR notes above.
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Bondurant
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Unless you're a rabid achievement hunter and/or making a point buying your sub with ingame currency, golds in BFA don't really matter. EU wise even consumables are cheap because mats are farmed 24/7 by russian bots. Of course there's always that sweet 9.99m Black Market AH thing you could get (you won't get it though), but as 8.2.5. goes there's no stress at all farming gold like a mad cunt. BFA wants you grind reps, tokens and AP. Gold surely isn't.
xzi
Mouthbreather
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I enjoy the system as a thought but as a main way of gearing I'm conflicted. I do however enjoy the risk/reward factor. If you don't want your item to be corrupted you can cleanse it, but you also cleanse the positive benefit as well. So if it's a good trinket or some shit it may even be worth it.
The thing I don't like about the system is like, having to hold on to pieces for weeks before they're potentially useful to you. My bags are already full of literally 9 different sets of azerite (all 3 specs, some pvp, some raid, some dungeon).. needing to hold on to some mega corrupted boots cause they have a huge crit boost on them that I'll be able to wear in 2 months is fucking weird.