Friday, July 10, 2020

Heirloom Changes

Yesterday, it was announced that heirlooms in Shadowlands won't provide XP bonuses.

I think this is a great change. I am not a fan of heirlooms. One of the elements of leveling that I really enjoy is upgrading gear and watching your character's visuals change. But the XP bonus made heirlooms too advantageous.

This way, the people who don't want to upgrade gear can use heirlooms, while others can avoid them. Or maybe only use them for trinkets or weapons, if that's important enough.

I hope Blizzard does not add any other bonuses, and just makes them very optional.

Blizzard should also take the opportunity to simplify the heirloom system. Right now there's a complex series of upgrades with different prices and different sources in order to increase the maximum level of the heirloom item. It would be best if the concept of upgrading heirlooms was just removed entirely. All heirlooms simply scale to the max level before the expansion. When a new expansion is released, all heirlooms have their caps increased simultaneously.

6 comments:

  1. At one time I'd have been really irritated about the loss of the XP bonus given all the gold I spent on upgrading my heirlooms. At this point I've realized that unless I'm leveling an alt for the heritage armor, I likely won't be leveling anything from 1 (or 10 or 20) to max again. I have more alts at high level than I have time or desire to play these days.

    I think I've played Wow for so long it is almost impossible for Blizzard to get me really excited about the game. I've seen too much and everything feels like variation on a long frayed theme. My main enjoyment comes from playing with family, friends, and guildies.

    I do hope they give heirloom gear some perks to make up for the loss of the XP bonus. That would be a nice acknowledgement for the gold folks spend on them over the years.

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    1. I hope they don't give any new bonus. Simply "the best gear at any level which upgrades with you" is more than good enough for people to get heirlooms. Any extra bonus on top of that pushes heirlooms towards mandatory.

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  2. I recall not minding heirlooms and their XP bonus at first, but I welcome this change. What ended up greatly irritating me over the years was how the heirloom system expanded and almost became a minigame of its own, with regards to how/where you acquire it, need gold to upgrade them etc. To me it became symptomatic of Blizzard's tendency to add increasing depth to just about EVERYTHING which I personally feel end up making many aspects of the game overwhelming.

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    1. That's very true. Blizzard likes making a minigame out of everything that seems popular. Sometimes it is best to leave a system clean, simple and functional.

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  3. When they first introduced heirlooms, I disliked them. I felt they cheapened the leveling process and created a group of players who didn't fully understand their classes because they simply steamrolled everything and didn't need to worry about the finer points of playing.

    Over time, I appreciated them simply for the sake of getting through some of the more grind oriented parts of the old leveling process. Flash forward to present day, I haven't played in over two years and I decided to start fresh in order to learn about the changes in the game.

    The heirloom gear makes the leveling process too easy in my opinion and honestly too quick. I just started back up a few days ago and have maybe spent an hour actively playing and have blown through the first 20 levels.

    I am not sure that is good thing and so I have removed the pieces and prefer to run dungeons and do quests looking for the best gear I can find. That is much more enjoyable and definitely has me far more engaged with the storylines of the various zones I would otherwise be steamrolling through on my quest to level cap.

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    1. Yeah, I agree. I have this theory that a game shouldn't shortcut the "central fun" in it. And for levelling, the central fun is doing quests/dungeons and getting upgrades.

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