wow Corrupted Item System and its Goals Detailed (Official)

[Starym 3,800]

 

We recently took a look at the new Titanforging alternative coming in 8.3, Corrupted items, and today Blizzard are sharing a lot more details on it as well as what their plans and intentions for the system are.

As we've already found out, these Corrupted items will have big and specific bonuses like Benthic gear but will also come with drawbacks which will stack the more of them you have and they'll drop from  content updated for Season 4. Blizzard have explained that the intent is for low corruption to be pretty much ok and everyone will have it, medium will be harder to deal with and even prohibitive in certain situations (depending on player skill) and high corruption won't be something anyone would want/could play around.

The Wrathion Legendary cloak will negate some corruption, and more later on as it's upgraded, but the intent is for 2 pieces of gear to be worn at the beginning and 3-4 later on and be manageable, so the majority of your gear will still be "normal" aka non-corrupted.

And finally, there's a discussion on why Warforging is problematic and this new system is being introduced, as well as a note that the new system is specific to this one patch.

Corrupted Items (source)

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.

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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.

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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!

[Ragingwolf 310]

Just finished reading up on this from WoWhead from a Discord alert lol.  This patch in itself is becoming more and more interesting with all these updates from the PTR.  However I still need to know what the cost is to remove corruption (because it's never going to be free) from certain pieces once you take them to the heart forge to be purified.    

[Whisla 76]

Man I really love this idea. Like it has SO much potential. My only hope is that they somehow give us a way to corrupt gear the same way we can cleanse it. Like, we have ppl running around with the gift of Nzoth the past few months, what if you could put his gift on gear to auto roll some of the affixs your looking for?

[jinsu2301 273]

I have a lot of thoughts on this, mostly negative ones (more RNG, hooray!), but I'm gonna wait and see how it all actually plays out. At least this will solve the whole "can't trade because 5 itemlevel higher lol" issue we had to deal with thanks to personal loot...

[Lith 52]

1 hour ago, jinsu2301 said:

I have a lot of thoughts on this, mostly negative ones (more RNG, hooray!), but I'm gonna wait and see how it all actually plays out. At least this will solve the whole "can't trade because 5 itemlevel higher lol" issue we had to deal with thanks to personal loot...

I wouldn't say it's more rng.

[Monlyth 75]

3 hours ago, jinsu2301 said:

I have a lot of thoughts on this, mostly negative ones (more RNG, hooray!), but I'm gonna wait and see how it all actually plays out. At least this will solve the whole "can't trade because 5 itemlevel higher lol" issue we had to deal with thanks to personal loot...

I think it serves to make itemization a little more interesting, which is always good. When the only thing a piece of gear gives you is a pile of esoteric stats, that's just boring. If it comes with a unique effect that benefits you (Or in this case, gives you a drawback in exchange for more stats), then the item actually becomes somewhat interesting.

[Yolo 40]

15 minutes ago, Monlyth said:

I think it serves to make itemization a little more interesting, which is always good. When the only thing a piece of gear gives you is a pile of esoteric stats, that's just boring. If it comes with a unique effect that benefits you (Or in this case, gives you a drawback in exchange for more stats), then the item actually becomes somewhat interesting.

These effects have a long history: set bonuses, trinkets, legion legendaries, benthic gear... But there is a problem. Not with the game, but the players. Some people have found out some complex mathematical procedure to determine the best gear possible, and it's online, you can find it anywhere. And a very large Number of players determine other players worth by the character's gear. Remember wrath era gearscore? Under 5.2k GS no inv for you to icc10 normal. Mists Cloak? Bis leggos from legion? Even unstable arcanocrystal. And the same will go on and on. Kinda sad. 

[jinsu2301 273]

4 hours ago, Lith said:

I wouldn't say it's more rng.

Well, it's not "more rng" in the sense that this is more random than TF/WF. But it's just one random chance system replacing another. So rather than hoping for that lucky forged with a socket, you are now hoping for that lucky corruption with a socket. Same thing, different color.

2 hours ago, Yolo said:

And a very large Number of players determine other players worth by the character's gear.

If you start a pug, you need some way to determine whether or not to pick up a player. And back in Wrath, there was no other way than to look at the player's gear. If you don't like being judged at face value, don't pug. Find a guild.

[Yolo 40]

3 hours ago, jinsu2301 said:

If you start a pug, you need some way to determine whether or not to pick up a player. And back in Wrath, there was no other way than to look at the player's gear.

Of course. This is why i mentioned GearScore. It solely focused on item level, and not itemization. 

There were specs that required very specific gearing, like assassination rogues. Spell hit cap, expertise, crit and haste. Having any armor penetration was detrimental for damage, a gear piece of severely lower item level could give more damage. And there wasn't dagger option from battered hilt. 

If people would inspect the gear, they would realize that a 5.1k~rogue had better stats and can output more damage than a 5.4k~ with Poor itemization. But, in most cases, they simply looked at GS, and refused to invite. 

 

[Ragingwolf 310]

7 hours ago, Yolo said:

These effects have a long history: set bonuses, trinkets, legion legendaries, benthic gear... But there is a problem. Not with the game, but the players. Some people have found out some complex mathematical procedure to determine the best gear possible, and it's online, you can find it anywhere. And a very large Number of players determine other players worth by the character's gear. Remember wrath era gearscore? Under 5.2k GS no inv for you to icc10 normal. Mists Cloak? Bis leggos from legion? Even unstable arcanocrystal. And the same will go on and on. Kinda sad. 

Think the most extreme player scrutiny I came across was talking to a friend of mine that plays strictly Alliance.  Even though they are part of a Mythic Raiding team they sometimes may have to end up pugging keystones now and then due to school life or work life.  But this is what they go by:

1) pug person must be Lv. 120 with previous major and or current patch gear to max (eg) 445-450 before going into patch 8.3)

2) raider IO must meet 2k or higher with doing 4-5 keys or more on 15+ or higher per week

3) they will run the pugs' info through Raidbots to do an avg. score of single target dps

4) checking overall collective stats to compare said sim dps

If pug doesn't meet these qualifications they are pm'ed to stop applying followed by putting pug on the ignore list.  

For me I'm a bit more lax on recruiting for pugs.  I simply see your collective ilvl score and state the following that we want to attempt to finish the key and even make it to a min of +1.  I do this because half the time I have guildies still learning on managing certain affixes and we are short on a full guild group.  If the pug thinks this is a waste of time they are more than welcome to leave before starting the key.

 

[Aegrotat 80]

17 hours ago, Lith said:

I wouldn't say it's more rng.

corrupted gear is absolutely more rng. 

1: did you get an item? 2: is it warforged? 3: is it  corrupted? 4: what mod did it get, is it useful? 5: what TIER of corruption is it? 6: how much corruption is on the item.

With one of the mods being % crit damage from 5-7%, that's the only piece most dps classes are going to want