A few pieces of information about Shadowlands in World of Warcraft should delight players. The endless grind for artifact power should soon come to an end.
After the big announcement of World of Warcraft Shadowlands, there was a “What’s Next?” panel. Here, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas discussed many systems and gave a closer look at the expansion. Fans cheered loudly when it was announced: In Shadowlands you will no longer farm artifact power. Instead, Legendaries are returning.
You can see the cool cinematic for the new addon here – Sylvanas versus Bolvar!
What happens to artifact power? Hazzikostas explained once again why they had used the artifact power system for so long. It would fundamentally be something good to have a mechanism of constant progress in the endgame, like artifact power. However, the team recognizes that it enabled players to complete a certain amount of activities each day. Those who did not complete them would slowly but surely fall behind.
As a result, there was a “compulsion” to farm artifact power every day so that one would not let their guild down. Switching to a twink was particularly difficult, as one would have to repeat the farming process.
For this reason, there will be no new system for artifact power in Shadowlands. Players should have more freedom regarding which content they want to play and can pursue specific goals.
We have more information about the new features from Shadowlands here for you.
How do Legendaries work? Hazzikostas reiterated that Legendaries in Legion were a great thing. They significantly increased players’ power and sometimes even drastically changed playstyle. However, the problem was obtaining the legendary items. If you only got Prydaz while everyone else got the items with the big DPS abilities, it felt bad.
In Shadowlands, players can therefore craft their Legendaries themselves. They have full control over which Legendary they want to go for and can complete tasks such as gathering resources. That way, you can directly choose which Legendary a character should work towards at the start. Once that’s done, you can start with the next one.
Additionally, there is a lot of freedom in creating legendary items. Currently, it looks like you can create a legendary item in such a way that it can essentially be worn in any slot. If you already have a cool helmet, you can simply make a legendary pair of boots.
We will surely learn how the system looks in detail in the coming months, perhaps already tonight at the upcoming “Deep Dive” panel.
What do you think of this change? Do you think it’s good that artifact power is disappearing? Or are you still cautious?
