Covenants will ruin Shadowlands.

[UndedoKoleda]

I know you like to assume you're a wise old dude and stuff, right? But I'm a wise old dude by the same standards. I'm 41. I've been playing MMOs since 1999. I've been in every kind of guild, group, and game, from the cutting edge to the super-casual, from pure-FFA-pvp to pure pve.

Do you really want to have some sort of wise old man-off? Because if not, don't give me stuff like "travel and open your mind maaaaaaan". I am traveled. My mind is open. I understand what you're talking.

But I can do math.

This is the problem. Most people can't do math. They're cargo cultists. Most WoW players are cargo cultists. Checkboxers is another word for them. They don't actually understand how WoW works. They definitely don't understand what makes you lose, and what makes you succeed. They don't understand basic math. They just follow the holy guides, and then they rage out when they see something that isn't in the guides. Doesn't matter if it's not in them because it's the result of incompetence, or because they're out-of-date or using bad guides, they rage out. These are the sort of people who blame one guy for the wipe, when his DPS was 2% lower than it could be.

People who can't do math.

You say:



Don't move the goalposts. This is nonsense. You're trying to move it from a 2% or similar difference in DPS output from a covenant choice, to a guy having completely the wrong gear, or completely the wrong build, which might mean a 30-50% difference in DPS. That's a totally different issue. And it's one that people who can't do math don't understand is a different issue. I think you understand perfectly well that it's a different issue, though.

We're not talking about a DPSer showing up with no pots, and crit-stacked when crit is his worst secondary, some dude who is doing like 30%+ less DPS than he should be.

We're talking about an otherwise perfectly well-optimized character who has made a covenant choice that gives him 2% less DPS or the like.

If you want me to agree that there is a line, I agree, there is a line. But it's not this close in. It's fine if you want to self-impose choices to those which you feel help the group most. It's fine if you want to critique Mr Critstacker. But don't give me that it's okay to shit on some DPS who does 2% less because of a covenant choice, when other DPSers in the group are doing 10% less because they have stubby little fingers and can't reach the keys, or shit key-binds, or keep standing in fire because they have slow reflexes, or don't have the right mod installed.

Yeah, that's assuming that ONLY this one guy has taken the un-optimal covenant for his class. Now imagine that 10 dps-ers in the raid do 2% less than they could. Now imagine there is some really cool armor and 15 people of your raid chose it over a 2% increase. If you think that doesn't matter you obviously are full of shit and haven't played MMO-s "since 1999".

[chiddie]

This topic has already been beaten to death. Did you really need to start a new thread on it?

1.) It's early in the development cycle so we don't know exactly how "OP" the Covenant traits are going to be.
2.) There will be a "best" and a "worst" but that's true of many things in the game. Why choose Coventants to be the one thing that "ruins" the game?
3.) We do not know how "difficult" it will be to change Convenants yet. And if you're obsessed with min/maxing that you're changing your Covenant for a sub-1% DPS gain, you deserve all the pain that's associated with this endeavor.

Point 1 is arguable. Of course effects and numbers will likely change a little but the stage of early development ended at least 6 months ago, Blizzard start to think and work to the next expansion when the announced one is 90% finished, they are working on Shadowlands from mid-summer 2018.

[oplawlz]

Yeah, that's assuming that ONLY this one guy has taken the un-optimal covenant for his class. Now imagine that 10 dps-ers in the raid do 2% less than they could. Now imagine there is some really cool armor and 15 people of your raid chose it over a 2% increase. If you think that doesn't matter you obviously are full of shit and haven't played MMO-s "since 1999".

If that many of your raiders take a cosmetic choice the raid group was never serious enough to actually optimize their characters anyway. don't worry, you guys will clear heroic before the expansion ends.

[UndedoKoleda]

If that many of your raiders take a cosmetic choice the raid group was never serious enough to actually optimize their characters anyway. don't worry, you guys will clear heroic before the expansion ends.

So, "I can go for whatever I want, but the rest of my raid should optimize to compensate for me"? Glad we sorted that out.

[Lolites]

But what happens when the Fae fairy faction ends up being 20% dps over?

they will nerf it, thats what happens

[matrix123mko]

I'm just going to pick whatever armor I like best and tell my guild(if they qq about it) to suck a fat one. If the time comes and we wipe because MY damage is too low I might apologize, but considering we're not some tryhard top100 guild I highly doubt that'll ever happen.

My fun > everything else so why should I care.

Amen, brother. Minmaxers should such a fat one on normal difficulty.

[UndedoKoleda]

More like "We are in a raid group that never was about optimizing to that degree and yeah...clearing normal or heroic is all we are in for."

Seems for the ppl here there is only one option and only one type of player.

- - - Updated - - -



Indeed....also ppl bitching and moaning no matter what (oh wait...giving constructive feedback and saying Blizzard never listens / detects fun and nerfs it / etc etc etc)

Indeed. And it seems that they can't accept that there are people like the OP, who care about stuff like this.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Man, am I tired of that "only the top 100" bullshit meme of people that get carried by their raid groups or don't participate in group content at all..

There is essentially 2 ways this can go, either the abilities will get neutered to the point where it doesn't matter in the background noise of the covenant passives, which is pretty much the situation we currently have where the 3rd tacked on system overshadows all others ingame up until this point of the expansion. Or they will break the game and cripple you in parts of the game outside of the niche you've choosen (so far it seems ST, AOE, PvP, generic buff from the 2 classes we've seen).


Either way, the parallels to the beginning of azerite armor are quite apparent and frankly I expect them to repeat the same mistakes; beause Blizzard. Pretty much the same sledgehammer tweaking Blizzard did up until now with Azerite traits. I mean just imagine the essence system without the chance to actually change the primary essence on the fly. By 9.3 we will probably have some passives from the Arbiter that will deal 30% of our damage.

Btw, I will pick the faction based on style/story myself, but I've also given up on pretty much any content outside of casual IDGAF-grouping - I just know that my take on this is not one from the perspective of good design - and just unsub when Blizzard inadvertedly fucks this up again :P.

Edit: This shit pretty much started with Legion when originally they'd expect you to only have 1 weapon skilled, which is a horrible and shit idea. In BfA they tried to lock you into traits by making respeccing of Azerite ludicrously expensive, taking all the fun out of the modular system since you couldn't experiment with it. That they still haven't given up on this forced lock-in bullshit in the third attempt is quite frankly just baffling to me.

[Naiattavain]

Unless they've done a complete 180 on Covenant design since the reveal(lol nope). Then they will be the Azerite of Shadowlands.

We all know Blizzard is absolutely awful at balancing. Locking player power behind a choice that should be for cosmetic and story purposes is absolutely moronic.

There will be a BEST Covenant ability for your spec/class. It will be the best by a long margin. There will also be an absolute worst.

Then - nerfs and buffs will happen and the pendulum will swing again. But Blizzard has already said they're going to make it extremely hard to switch Covenants.

Why can't these morons open their eyes?

this original poster is a moron please close this thread. useless thread on the whole forums..

[Gigantique]

From the examples we’ve seen I feel like picking anything but the PvP-dominant one will gimp you beyond hope in everything PvP. Slight number-differences in PvE is one thing, but the difference in having that abomination grab or not for a DK will make or break a PvP fight. I know I’m gonna have to be forced into picking whatever is «the» PvP ability, because so far it seems like the PvP one is a pretty strong one compared to the others (8s death grip buff/root if you do anything). If all they did were numbers, so some were better for ST and some for AoE I would just pick whichever covenant I find the coolest, but when it looks like ONE of them have a utility-factor that becomes really necessary in PvP, that choice kinda gets made for you.

[PedroloGeo]

Well. If you are really into your progression group you will level 4 chars of the same class and assign them to the different covenants so you will be able to pick the best for every content or type of encounter.

Or you will be the guy who justs picks 1 covenant and does sub par dmg in certain situations until you get replaced by a 4 chars new player.

[VinceVega]

As long as the abilities have fixxed dmg numbers i don't see why they can't balance them. The aditional effects are situational. But not make or Break.

[Eurhetemec]

Yeah, that's assuming that ONLY this one guy has taken the un-optimal covenant for his class. Now imagine that 10 dps-ers in the raid do 2% less than they could. Now imagine there is some really cool armor and 15 people of your raid chose it over a 2% increase. If you think that doesn't matter you obviously are full of shit and haven't played MMO-s "since 1999".

No I do think that matters. I agree. That's why I said there's a line, right in the post you quoted.

On the other hand, what are the odds of that happening in a guild where people are serious about progression?

[TOM_RUS]

OP is right. Convenants are shit if they make them like in announcement.

[Wilfire]

Abilities that are before balance passes and insofar as our information, prior to Beta or even Alpha iteration. Again, I'll wait for the playable Beta to make a firmer determination - trying to pass judgment on them now is jumping at shadows. By all means point out the issue with BiS issues and so forth, but it's highly unlikely they'll remain the same as the pre-Alpha information we were made privy to. As for them being punishing to switch, I'm actually okay with that - I like the idea of having to make semi-permanent and impactful choices when it comes to gameplay and story elements. Adds variety to alt play, and makes said choices more meaningful. Puts me in mind of the old Aldor/Scryer choice back in TBC, which was also an impactful one when it came to the expansion story.

Every alpha / beta / ptr cycle people ALWAYS make the same argument as you just did now that it's "just alpha / beta / ptr" and that we should wait to see the final product and every and I mean EVERY time it invariably ends up being shit. It's time to face that if something is shit on paper, it's going to be even more shit in practice. Tuning or not.

[Aucald]

Every alpha / beta / ptr cycle people ALWAYS make the same argument as you just did now that it's "just alpha / beta / ptr" and that we should wait to see the final product and every and I mean EVERY time it invariably ends up being shit. It's time to face that if something is shit on paper, it's going to be even more shit in practice. Tuning or not.

I find that argument to be a key example of the slippery slope fallacy, and it ignores that while there have been occasions where Alpha/Beta testing still let a flawed system be implemented (e.g. Azerite Traits), there are other cases where iteration improved a system (e.g. Artifact weapons in Legion) or saw it dismantled entirely (e.g. Path of the Titans in Cata). Alpha/Beta is where we see the more or less "final product" for such systems, just like we saw in BfA - and while it was unfortunate the system wasn't improved or iterated on in the Beta, the important fact is that the knowledge of the system's flaws was visible and explored in the Beta and not the final product, as it were.

It's also true that whether or not something is "shit" tends to be a highly subjective determination - even Azerite traits have their devotees, although I think they're a minority of the playerbase. Artifact weapons were largely popular in Legion, but there was still a vocal minority who disliked them.

[Mightytasty]

I don't think Method is a good example here, because they always keep several classes up to speed in case a class gets nerfed or buffed.

Allow me to clarify, they are prepping several of the same class per PERSON. They are doing this to not lose time during the world first race when Blizzard inevitably nerfs/buffs certain covenants (see: corruption).

For the average player, this means we are going to have to eat the high respec cost. We don’t know whether that will be just a high amount of gold, or some time-gated or non-time hated resource. Either way it will be a disaster for the competitive community.

[MrLachyG]

I find that argument to be a key example of the slippery slope fallacy, and it ignores that while there have been occasions where Alpha/Beta testing still let a flawed system be implemented (e.g. Azerite Traits), there are other cases where iteration improved a system (e.g. Artifact weapons in Legion) or saw it dismantled entirely (e.g. Path of the Titans in Cata). Alpha/Beta is where we see the more or less "final product" for such systems, just like we saw in BfA - and while it was unfortunate the system wasn't improved or iterated on in the Beta, the important fact is that the knowledge of the system's flaws was visible and explored in the Beta and not the final product, as it were.

It's also true that whether or not something is "shit" tends to be a highly subjective determination - even Azerite traits have their devotees, although I think they're a minority of the playerbase. Artifact weapons were largely popular in Legion, but there was still a vocal minority who disliked them.

weren't Azerite traits only added late in the Beta? so they couldn't get the proper feedback?

[Aucald]

weren't Azerite traits only added late in the Beta? so they couldn't get the proper feedback?

The later (and most important) fourth and fifth ring traits, yes. But the system itself as well as three-ring gear was available early on, more or less. The main issue with Azerite Traits wasn't statistical inasmuch as it was the fact that Azerite Traits were boring as compared to the Artifact system in Legion. Some of the end-game traits were out of whack, of course; but most of those were fixed when Uldir gear came available and entered play. The system remained boring, though; which is why the Essence system was tacked on in 8.2 to give it an active ability and more impactful passives than the traits alone provided.

[dreamdaddy]

weren't Azerite traits only added late in the Beta? so they couldn't get the proper feedback?

Yes, and there was a huge imbalance between the best traits and the rest. Most specs still have a clear BiS but Blizz just started putting those BiS traits on most gear.

I have zero faith in covenants being balanced in 9.0 but they might be by 9.3!