wow Artifact Knowledge Level 42 Now Live

[Stan 5,240]

In Patch 7.3, all players start at Artifact Knowledge level 41 with no further research required, because you now automatically gain 1 level per week. Ahead of tomorrow's maintenance, all players now have Artifact Knowledge level 42.

Artifact Knowledge level 42 increases Artifact Power gains by 20,800,000%. Patch 7.3 is live in Americas for 6 days (5 in Europe). The change was not intended, and we should get a new level of Artifact Knowledge after the usual maintenance.

Placeholder for tweet 905104821429997569

In Patch 7.3, you no longer need to complete Order Hall quests to unlock the third relic slot. If you're a returning player looking for more information, feel free to read our guide for returning players.

[Yridaa 490]

After all this time I still don't understand Blizzard's design decisions on both artifact traits and knowledge. In the past they condemned their own leveling talent system, replacing it with what we have now (a talent every 15 levels)

 

And now, with Legion, they simply brought it back (Even though they condemned it in the first place), but instead of gating it behind player levels, they hide it behind artifact levels. Then they decided that it was a mistake, based on feedback from pro raiders feeling it was mandatory to max out artifact traits on your main and 4 alts (7.1.5 dev talk) . They still added in new traits and AK at 7.2.0, then they decided to cap AK at 40 and thought it didn't need to go any higher.

 

And now with 7.3.0 we get ak automatically each week.

 

 

I just can't keep track of Blizzard's design philosophy anymore. Remove a system because they say it's bad (Old level talents), add it back in (Artifact levels), agree that it's too much of a grind for mythic players, add in new traits anyway, keep AK at a certain level because they deem it high enough, "ok we'll increase it again in 7.3.0"

 

Do they even know what they want anymore? Is anything they say actually worth some value, or will they go back on their word in... 1 patch, or 3 expansions? I don't think even Blizzard themselves can answer that question anymore.

 

[SMOrcMan 76]

Serious question, does anyone know if this applies to newly created alts? Like if I made one in a couple weeks would it become the highest level, or a few levels trailing?

[Vechna 1]

The stupid Artifacts are one of the only things defeating me on my play time, I feel like I get nothing accomplished so I just don't log on anymore..I hate those stupid Talent Tree weapons.

[Yridaa 490]

1 hour ago, SMOrcMan said:

Serious question, does anyone know if this applies to newly created alts? Like if I made one in a couple weeks would it become the highest level, or a few levels trailing?

It now is 100% server-wide. So in 10 weeks, if you create a brand new character and level it up, it will be at AK 50 just like your main back from 2005. Even if you create a brand new account with brand new characters and no achievements, you will still be at the exact same AK level as everyone else, whether they played 1000's of hours this xpac or not.

 

Of course, you still need to grind the AP to get to their concordance levels, but: AK is always equal to the server maximum on all characters on all accounts, new or old

[SMOrcMan 76]

26 minutes ago, Yridaa said:

It now is 100% server-wide. So in 10 weeks, if you create a brand new character and level it up, it will be at AK 50 just like your main back from 2005. Even if you create a brand new account with brand new characters and no achievements, you will still be at the exact same AK level as everyone else, whether they played 1000's of hours this xpac or not.

 

Of course, you still need to grind the AP to get to their concordance levels, but: AK is always equal to the server maximum on all characters on all accounts, new or old

Thanks for the response :) It is much appreciated!

[Nonameno 0]

Spent a lot of time without result.

[Dvanom 34]

I think the change is good. You don't get punished for not doing the research and alts can easily catch up. Blizzard is trying hard to get people satisfied but you can't satisfy the whole player base. People need to learn to like new things, not always bitch "Vanilla was better" " this is bad, it was better". The phrases that Vanilla or smth other was better should be bannable :D

You can now easily get the whole weapon traits easily, and the bit concordance gives doesn't matter if you are not pushing mythic world first progress or high mythic + keys

[Tri 138]

55 minutes ago, Dvanom said:

People need to learn to like new things, not always bitch "Vanilla was better" " this is bad, it was better". 

Although I 100% agree with you friend, that has been the way since Burning Crusade. It's the internet people like to complain just to complain. They will literally go to forums about a game they aren't playing and complain because...... reasons? It's one of those things you just have to accept is part of the community and mosey along past it. Like a turd in the middle of the side walk, do you walk around it or rub your face in it, same concept :)

[Maruken 31]

1 hour ago, Tri said:

Although I 100% agree with you friend, that has been the way since Burning Crusade. It's the internet people like to complain just to complain. They will literally go to forums about a game they aren't playing and complain because...... reasons? It's one of those things you just have to accept is part of the community and mosey along past it. Like a turd in the middle of the side walk, do you walk around it or rub your face in it, same concept :)

Basically this, people have their own opinions, you don't have to deal with their crap.

With that said, I understand why people get upset over it. It's like if you're not religious but a Christian person walks up to you and starts rubbing the bible in your face, you get annoyed by their opinion and you just want to leave their presence. If you don't want to leave your spot you have to deal with them.

Possibly offensive analogy, but it works. Online people with opinions you hate are obnoxious. If you're browsing your favorite sites and you find these opinions every day, you get annoyed and/or your mood is killed. It gets very tiring.

[Nonameno 0]

The idea of pumping artifact in it? Am I not supposed to get advantages, for the reason that very long time spent on its pumping? You have to be a fool to say that this is the fault of the players that didn't get the obvious expected result.

[Hypersonic 119]

I dont understand this artifact leveling process. They let us after so many expansions to finally select from 3 talents, but they lock & kill this with leveling that separated weapon.. I should love this leveling if i level up 1 then my other artifacts level up as well. That would be nice and i think much better. (Sure this will be easier way, but everybody hate to leveling 2 artifacts at the same time not even talk about 3.. that is a horror, but for some classes is nice if can be used every spec.) 

Edited September 5, 2017 by Hypersonic

[DeathsDesign 92]

36 minutes ago, Hypersonic said:

(Sure this will be easier way, but everybody hate to leveling 2 artifacts at the same time not even talk about 3.. that is a horror, but for some classes is nice if can be used every spec.) 

There's not a class that can use the same artifact for multiple specs as each artifact is bound to a single spec.  Also with the increases to AP gain from the boosts that AK 41+ give getting concordance on multiple artifacts isn't that difficult.  Especially considering that Trait 51-52 (the trait before and the trait that gives concordance) is I think close to 550 million AP.  At AK 42 (20,800,000% bonus AP) each of the order hall missions from Argus that give AP give 108 million AP.

 

11 hours ago, Dvanom said:

People need to learn to like new things, not always bitch "Vanilla was better" " this is bad, it was better".

The only reason that "Vanilla was better" is that it was new in so many ways.  Blizzard did with World of Warcraft what most gaming companies had been trying to do with an MMO but better.  So many races and classes to choose from, so many professions, you even get to choose what faction you can play.  What people don't remember are the bugs that prevented people from progressing a quest for weeks/months, the months it took to level your character, there was no flying and you couldn't even ride a mount until level 40, so it would take hours to cross continents.  The nostalgia that you get from that brand new item that did the thing that no other item of it's kind could do doesn't make it better at all.  People complain about the different expansions saying that Vanilla was the best, yet every change Blizzard has made is to simplify (within reason) the game and increase the quality of life of the game for all players old and new.  Have they done this successfully? For the most part they have, some things they've gone overboard with IMO (class pruning has caused some very interesting conversations between me and guildies) but for the most part they've done well to augment and adjust and progress with a game that is over 12 years old.  The best expansion from a technical aspect is Legion, from a personal aspect the best expansion is only the one that people had the most fun in.  

 

21 hours ago, Yridaa said:

I just can't keep track of Blizzard's design philosophy anymore. Remove a system because they say it's bad (Old level talents), add it back in (Artifact levels), agree that it's too much of a grind for mythic players, add in new traits anyway, keep AK at a certain level because they deem it high enough, "ok we'll increase it again in 7.3.0"

 

Do they even know what they want anymore? Is anything they say actually worth some value, or will they go back on their word in... 1 patch, or 3 expansions? I don't think even Blizzard themselves can answer that question anymore.

Blizzard is trying to please the masses while not upsetting the few, which is understandable but not a good idea.  I think Blizzard felt the artifact trait system was different enough from the old talent system because it was designed so you would eventually have them all instead of being forced into specific ones for the best performing spec.  I don't feel this is a suitable reason but if I had to guess why they went with it being similar I'd guess this is why.  I can't back this up with any actual posts unless someone else can, but I have heard (most probably rumors, not sure if Blizzard has spoken legitimately on this) that next expansion we will no longer have artifacts as weapons and will go back to either the old system where weapons are gained from crafting or from raid/dungeon drops.  At the moment though I would not be opposed to a similar artifact system for maybe an offpiece of gear, as well as a legendary system that does not boost damage but only augments utility.  Heroic Leap shoulders, and movement speed plate boots, sephuz, and prydaz come to mind as the biggest examples I can think of.  But all in all I think Blizzard is trying, and as long as they are trying then they are doing, which means WoW will be progressing.  The moment Blizzard stops trying, is the moment that WoW dies and all these vanilla servers are going to be the only thing people have of WoW.

Edited September 5, 2017 by DeathsDesign

[InfernoRFU 125]

50 minutes ago, Hypersonic said:

(Sure this will be easier way, but everybody hate to leveling 2 artifacts at the same time not even talk about 3.. that is a horror, but for some classes is nice if can be used every spec.) 

It's super easy now with the free AK knowledge. A couple of random ak items, not even quest rewards, just the junk ones you find in the world was enough to level a fresh 110 character's artifact to unlock all the basic traits plus the new bonus traits.

[Valks 2,375]

3 hours ago, Sawzorthn said:

It's super easy now with the free AK knowledge. A couple of random ak items, not even quest rewards, just the junk ones you find in the world was enough to level a fresh 110 character's artifact to unlock all the basic traits plus the new bonus traits.

Yep. The AP rewards are absolutely insane now. A day of clearing world quests is enough to get Concordance on one, if not two, weapons.

[hDszzT 103]

18 hours ago, Blainie said:

Yep. The AP rewards are absolutely insane now. A day of clearing world quests is enough to get Concordance on one, if not two, weapons.

That, and once we're sitting at AK 55, 5 minutes of flying picking up treasures you haven't picked up during levelling and you're well into Concordance. :p

It's ridiculous honestly. No real point in having AP anymore if every new 110 just skips the whole thing entirely and just goes into minimal-reward-Concordance points right away, by picking up random world treasures that give over 126 million AP each.

Not that I'm against minimizing the AP grind, but it feels redundant at this point; might as well just remove traits altogether and have everything unlocked baseline; AP can probably stay with its only purpose being to empower Concordance.

Another idea I've thought about while writing this down, they could have our character progress through AK levels 1-40 at a steady pace while questing/levelling, in a way that has you gradually unlock all the traits from 1-51 on the way to 110, then once you hit 110 you're boosted to whatever the current AK level is and continue from there. There would still be the option to skip it entirely and gain all the traits at once at AK55, but at least the lower amounts of AP required to unlock prior traits still have their purpose in the game.

It would make a lot more sense lore-wise as well, since the class orders would be steadily working their way towards uncovering everything there was to learn about the artifacts during the player character's progress through the Broken Isles, rather than going straight from "knowing nothing about the artifacts" (AK0) --> "we know EVERYTHING" (AK41-55) as soon as you hit 110 lol.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Ammako

[Valks 2,375]

On 9/6/2017 at 8:32 PM, Ammako said:

Another idea I've thought about while writing this down, they could have our character progress through AK levels 1-40 at a steady pace while questing/levelling, in a way that has you gradually unlock all the traits from 1-51 on the way to 110, then once you hit 110 you're boosted to whatever the current AK level is and continue from there. There would still be the option to skip it entirely and gain all the traits at once at AK55, but at least the lower amounts of AP required to unlock prior traits still have their purpose in the game.

You could also allow people to unlock traits as a pickup - remove AP/AK altogether beyond leveling up Concordance, then allow people to unlock traits through quests in zones/through drops in invasions.