There has been some back-and-forth about World of Warcraft’s Artifact Power system. The problem that people have run into, essentially, is that the game’s initial exponential power curve for artifact power starts to flatten after a certain point. So instead of players entering raids with a difference of a few artifact levels, there are people who have just started to put levels into the final artifact trait in 7.1.5 and others who have maxed their artifact or nearly finished it. Designer Ion Hazzikostas discussed this issue and the game plan moving forward on the forums recently, as well as the reasons behind the system and its open-ended nature.
The plan was to avoid a weekly cap that left players feeling as if they couldn’t catch up, but the net result has been that focused players on a single spec can advance far beyond players with less dedication or time. Moving forward, the 7.2 patch and beyond will have a more exponential curve; Hazzikostas puts it as a matter of someone gaining twice the AP per week only making a small additional game over a more casual player. Check out the full rundown if you’ve found yourself hitting the AP wall in the recent patches.
