Quote Originally Posted by Brightamethyst View Post
Temporary systems and borrowed power aren't inherently bad. Just because something won't be useful forever does mean it's not useful now. Even simple ilevel systems aren't immune from that. "Why should I bother gearing up in 5.5 when EW is coming?" Because even if your gear current gear will be useless in the next expansion you still need it today.

Legion artifacts and the Heart of Azeroth are actually great examples of how to do borrowed power well. Adding new powers mid-expansion makes the players feel stronger in a way that just adding more stats to gear can never match. So what if we lost all the azerites and essences in SL? That doesn't somehow negate how much fun they were at the time.
Legion artifacts were great, in my opinion. Those were borrowed power done right. Azerite armor and the like though...that was terrible. Absolutely terrible. They've basically been doubling/tripling/quadrupling down on the worst aspects of what could otherwise be fine systems for years and then seem genuinely shocked when people get mad.