Reputations in Shadowlands?

[genegerbread]

I just realized that Covenants could very well shake up the reputation system that we know and don’t entirely love.

The four covenants rule over the respective zones of Shadowlands, but beyond that, what other factions would exist? I could see a couple more stemming from Oribos and The Maw (though, it has been mentioned that our Covenants play an integral role in end-game, too), and maybe flavorful ones like the Tortollan Speakers or the Kirin Tor.

Would we still earn reputation with all the factions, but just choose one faction as our covenant? What are your thoughts?

[Darththeo]

Well, it is likely we will have a covenant rep for our respective one we choose that will reset when we switch covenant.

But we could have other factions as well. Perhaps smaller groups of something like that.

There is so little we know about what Shadowlands will be.

[Kyphael]

I don't hate the reputation system. I just hated when they took tabards and spamming dungeons away as an option to grind rep and pigeon holed us into having to do world quests instead of having the option to choose one or the other.

[genegerbread]

I don't hate the reputation system. I just hated when they took tabards and spamming dungeons away as an option to grind rep and pigeon holed us into having to do world quests instead of having the option to choose one or the other.

I agree. Also, reputations are mandatory now, which is ridiculously annoying. In 8.3, they were almost optional until BiS essences.

Either way, I like getting them all to Exalted, but getting them all the way to Revered for flying and again for essences shouldn’t be necessary.

And yeah, they shouldn’t be gated behind world quests and emissaries.

[Nyel]

I don't think we'll get other factions on top of the Covenants, it would be way too much reputation grind.

[Darkeon]

This expansion's flavor is reputations 2.0 with Covenants. I doubt we'll see the stereotypical reputations, outside of perhaps on a later patch.

[Carcimomim]

I get why they removed tabards as it made it almost too easy to get rep. I missed the MoP system where if you had revered or exalted (can’t remember which) on one you could received a bonus on alts. On our mains, if we’re doing the stuff we’re supposed to be doing rep grinding is really easy as we level. It’s on our alts where it’s painful.

[Yemkela]

I want emissary quests to go away. It should be easier to focus on the faction you want reputation with.

[Very rare pepe]

I never hated reputations until BFA came out. Even in legion you got shoulder enchants and stuff for hitting revered. Nothing in BFA worthwhile comes from boring ass, awful and unfun reps. If you are going to make the reps the same in Shadowlands then please, please give us an actual reason to farm them, even if it's just a standard shoulder enchant like in legion.

[LordVargK]

I get why they removed tabards as it made it almost too easy to get rep. I missed the MoP system where if you had revered or exalted (can’t remember which) on one you could received a bonus on alts. On our mains, if we’re doing the stuff we’re supposed to be doing rep grinding is really easy as we level. It’s on our alts where it’s painful.

I mean, are worldquests hard? The "too easy" argument not really holds up... It just is more time consuming.

On that note, there are many many possibilities to make reputation more fun than just "grind WQs". Some are already in the game (e.g. pet battle rewards and reputation rewards which are earned by playing the story a zone has to offer. Oh, and missions...). But let me offer some more ideas, right off the top of my head:

- bring back vanillas "staggered reputation gain". Meaning that you can get rep more easily the less known you are with a faction. For example, if you are neutral with a faction, then everything will give you rep for it. Kill a mob? get some rep. Do the factions dungeon? get some rep. WQ? rep. And so on. Then after you hit friendly, grinding mobs no longer gives rep. And after hitting revered only WQs give rep. That way you will be way faster in the beginning, meaning that you unlock most of what the faction can offer early on and only the (often optional) exalted stuff is locked behind a grind, meaning those who like to grind reps can still do that.

- make factions/reputation matter again. Your reputation has no impact in the world, it just unlocks a merchant to buy stuff from and makes said stuff cheaper. That is boring af. Hated/Hostile/Unfriendly aren't even used anymore; at most as part of an introductory questchain, which raises your rep level to neutral pretty in a matter on minutes. So why not spice things up a little? Make more exclusive (or mostly exclusive) factions, have areas on the map with hostile factions that you can befriend bit for bit. My endgame here would be that Horde and Alliance become obsolete and your alignment in the world is dictated by your actions (you know, like in an actual RPG). You help the Orcs plunder a Nighelf village? Darnassus (well, they should rename that...) doesn't like that. But help defeating demons threatening Azeroth itself? Well, both Darnassus and Ogrimmar like that. So in theory you are able to grind your way to befriend every faction. But that's not easy (think of the title "the insane").

- Reputations can be locked behind Story/Dungeon/Raid progress. It's pretty dumb that someone who gathered 1000 flowers and donated them to a faction can have less reputation as someone who killed the archenemy and most hated villian of said faction. Instead of giving like 100 rep for each Raid boss kill (or dungeon kill, or whatever instance this faction is linked to), just give a massive amount of reputation for the first kill (Maybe dependant on raid difficulty setting). Finished the entire story of a zone? Instant revered. Something like that. This way "hardcore" players unlock factions earlier, while Blizz still has the option to timegate reputation for the so called "casuals", because they stagger the release of lfr anyways.

This are just some examples I could think of, which would shift reputations from boring grind to either exiting grind or at least short boring grind. I hope Blizz considers a real revamp of reputations. Just using them to unlock merchants (and worse: timegateting questlines) is beyond boring.

[ercarp]

I don't hate the reputation system. I just hated when they took tabards and spamming dungeons away as an option to grind rep and pigeon holed us into having to do world quests instead of having the option to choose one or the other.

Pretty much this. I loved putting on a tabard and going about my life without worrying about "wasting" time that could be spent grinding world quests.

[Dracullus]

We need more variety. They could do 4 reputations connected to world quests and 4 main zones, but also add something connected to raid, dungeons, torghast, even classic daily hub or something different like aviana reputation in Legion (but with more stuff to do).

[Laqweeta]

Pretty much this. I loved putting on a tabard and going about my life without worrying about "wasting" time that could be spent grinding world quests.

A lot of people did, then again, a lot of people quit so they had to make the game look "good" to shareholders via time played metrics. Removing all ways to gain rep, and only allowing it to be gained every 24 hours via WQs and emissaries = increased time played metrics.

[ercarp]

A lot of people did, then again, a lot of people quit so they had to make the game look "good" to shareholders via time played metrics. Removing all ways to gain rep, and only allowing it to be gained every 24 hours via WQs and emissaries = increased time played metrics.

I thought they mostly just looked at monthly active users? I didn't know they cared about how many hours people put into the game. And if they did, that would certainly be at an all-time low by now considering most people just log in to do their chores and then log out.

[Laqweeta]

I thought they mostly just looked at monthly active users? I didn't know they cared about how many hours people put into the game. And if they did, that would certainly be at an all-time low by now considering most people just log in to do their chores and then log out.

I didn't either until I saw Corruption.

[goldentforce]

Gotta say, while I like the zone design of legion/bfa for setting the scene of the zones, it takes away from endgame having no story elements of a faction and just having a bar be filled up till the end. I also think the emotional connection of honorbound/alliance one is worse than that of suramar, making end game world content feel worse. Ideally i would like rep benchmark content with most reps (obv some reps have different ways to express story or are a gimmicky rep with story as not an element), which would add some story/character progression in addition to normal rep progression. I'm okay with one rep being like this though if it is as quality as suramar was. Outside of pathfinder/recipes theres not much more requirements you need to put on the content to get people to do it, anymore and people will feel forced.

[Newname1234567890]

The filling of a rep bar is irrelevant, how we fill is whats important.

That said convernant could add in new methods etc for future expasions to build on.

I assume there will be other factions; atleast a bolvar and arbiter ones etc

[EbaumsTipster]

There will likely be reputations for the other covenants as well as things like Oribos and the Arbiter. Just you won't be able to do much more than receive a few rewards at rep levels (as opposed to all the exclusive covenant rewards).

The covenants don't seem to be warring so it would be silly that you can't get rep in Bastion by doing Kyrian WQs.

[Erlking]

Reputations should be a choice like expansions before Legion not a mandatory thing. For example in MoP, BC and wrath reputation existed but it wasn't strictly tied to player progression. In wrath sons of hodir rep was necessary for shoulder enchant and in MoP it was tied to flying, if I remember correctly then also to extra roll but even then I played the game without grinding rep. I have been exalted with certain factions for example the klaxxi but it was my choice to grind. In BFA reputation grinding is something mandatory, no choice involved.

[Kathranis]

Well, it is likely we will have a covenant rep for our respective one we choose that will reset when we switch covenant.

Eh. Most likely you'll get reputation with all four Covenants, an Oribos faction, and a Bolvar faction.

Six total, same as BFA and Legion at launch.

Whichever Covenant you join will probably just have some additional layer of progression and exclusive loyalty rewards.