This AK nerf is literally pointless.

#1 - May 23, 2017, 12:16 a.m.

"People were gaining AP too quickly".

Yes. And they're doing this in the mid-30s. NEW players will get Concordance on their way to AK40 STILL. My alts get ~45 traits within a week at AK THIRTY.

The only thing this change does is make collecting AP literally useless after a few points in Concordance because it will quickly take years to get one rank of it.

Why even have it in the game at this rate. Maxing your artifact was insurmountable at AK50 (would require 24/7 grinding for 10 real-world years), so what does this accomplish? lol

They said they lowered it because our efforts now will "feel meaningless", but I'm pretty sure AP will be entirely meaningless to players once they hit that feeling of "welp, I don't feel like grinding AP to get 1 rank of Concordance for 4 months of effort".

I already stopped caring about AP because it felt insurmountable, now with the fact that the time-effectiveness of grinding AP wears off 13 times faster that feeling is only further solidified.

Ornyx

Community Manager

#110 - May 23, 2017, 4:51 p.m.

Echoing what Aerythlea said on the EU forums over night for clarity.

Hey all!

Thanks for the discussion so far! I'd like to provide a little more additional insight here on this change as well as a change to highest Artifact Knowledge Compendium.

The Artifact Knowledge cap was raised from 40 to 50 late in Patch 7.2's development as part of a desire to increase overall AP gains. However, after 7.2 launched, we realised it would be better to increase base Artifact Power gains instead of relying on Artifact Knowledge (which takes time for players to research and can make gains earned in the interim not feel as meaningful).

Since 7.2 we have deployed several hotfixes that have increase AP gains in certain areas, one such example is the Elite Strike missions available while the Command Center is active. Now that these changes are live, the acquisition of AP is faster overall, so we felt that 40 is now an appropriate cap for AK and isn't as daunting a prospect to reach.

We also wanted players to have a solid stopping point for AK research, at which point they will have more freedom to focus on their alts.

To that end, the item Artifact Research Compendium: Volumes I-VII is being changed to grant Artifact Knowledge level 40 instead of level 35. As before, it will be purchasable in the Order Hall by characters who have reached AK 40. This means that players will be able to immediately catch-up to the AK cap on alts once they have access to this book, which should make the process of getting to Concordance on alts less daunting too.

As always, we welcome your feedback on these changes.

As she noted, this change is mainly aimed at increasing base Artifact Power gains instead of an over-reliance on Artifact Knowledge - as we do want players to hit a point where they feel they have capped their Artifact Knowledge so they can move on to other things.

Again, feel free to leave your feedback and thoughts in this thread - I've extended the cap to compensate!

Ornyx

Community Manager

#126 - May 23, 2017, 5:03 p.m.

05/23/2017 09:51 AMPosted by Ornyx
Again, feel free to leave your feedback and thoughts in this thread - I've extended the cap to compensate!

Thank you for providing a Blue post to the US region. But merely echoing what we already know is not enough. We already had people do your job for you by linking that thread and a quote from it. All we ask is more communication about issues without having to go pond hopping for it.

Your words are pretty pointed here, as an FYI. For absolute clarity on this, I hope you understand it's 10am on the West Coast and most of Blizzard is just now starting work.

Our compatriots across the sea are just as legitimate sources of information as we are, and if you have to deal with 'pond-hopping' for a few hours while we sleep, that's not really an issue as we see it of someone "doing my job" since we all share community responsibilities.

Just a bit of meta-information to clear the air and avoid this kind of hostility in the future.

05/23/2017 09:55 AMPosted by Relena
As she noted, this change is mainly aimed at increasing base Artifact Power gains instead of an over-reliance on Artifact Knowledge - and we do want players to hit a point where they feel they have capped their Artifact Knowledge, so they can move on to other things.

That's all well and good but...

what else is there?

I assume you're trying to make a joke about content, because, looking at your Armory, it appears you've only engaged with about 25% of Legion.

Ornyx

Community Manager

#161 - May 23, 2017, 5:24 p.m.

<span class="truncated">...</span>Your words are pretty pointed here, as an FYI. For absolute clarity on this, I hope you understand it's 10am on the West Coast and most of Blizzard is just now starting work.

Our compatriots across the sea are just as legitimate sources of information as we are, and if you have to deal with 'pond-hopping' for a few hours while we sleep, that's not really an issue as we see it of someone "doing my job" since we all share community responsibilities.

Just a bit of meta-information to clear the air and avoid this kind of hostility in the future.

<span class="truncated">...</span>I assume you're trying to make a joke about content, because, looking at your Armory, it appears you've only engaged with about 25% of Legion.

I really don't mean to belabor a hostile point, but everyone in the Irvine offices knew this sort of thing would require a discussion, which is why you put a note on the change to begin with.

But then the hotfix was released and everyone just went home. I think what could've avoided this is having the foresight to realize "hey people are probably going to want to talk about this" and making a forum post about it before you went home yesterday.

It's great that we're having this discussion now, but it really seems out-of-touch with the playerbase if people didn't realize they'd need to communicate about it yesterday -- especially when I'm sure a lot of discussions were had on the back end about making this change.

I think you're getting caught up on a difference between who made the post regarding this, which we wanted to be a reactive message once players started talking about it.

I don't consider it 'out-of-touch' to let the conversation happen and then respond to it once people have had some time to discuss the change. The only reason anyone here may think this is a problem is because there was a post on the EU forums before the NA forums, which, frankly, the community here has been stuck on for years as if there's some vendetta to be had against another region - and we don't see as a problem.

At the end of the day, the information being given yesterday or today does not change the information or what we would have said - so let's move on from this and get back on topic.