Covenants will ruin Shadowlands.

[Taeldorian]

I did read your post, i was just quoting that part...but Both your solutions remove the consequences of player choice.

Your "problem" and "argument" is:
"I shouldnt have to choose between Power and Cosmetics"

But in your solutions...you want access to ALL the powers. Which im starting to think you have some kind of agenda here also.
Maybe you want to "spec" for Myhtic + with one covenant and then switch for the raids? I dont know, you tell me why you want all the power?

-----

And i see no problem in a RPG choosing between power and cosmetics.
Like rolling DKP for a mount in the old days or rolling DKP only in good looking items.
You just dont understand this "people" but i assure you...many players have made the choice between power and cosmetics, along the years.

Wanting access to all the abilities so players don’t have to pick between transmog/which covenant they actually like and a huge dps increase means I have an agenda? Yeah, my agenda is to make covenant choice actually matter and not be determined based on which ability is better.

Why does there need to be a consequence for such a massive end game system choice? I understand some choices should come with negatives/positives but I don’t believe that should apply to this system. It’s just going to feel frustrating and unfortunate to anyone that plays to progress/get better at the game.

I see no good argument against giving players the abilities for all covenants as we level up and spend time with each of them. The transmog would still be restricted which means the rpg choice of “which covenant do I actually wanna spend time with” will still be present.

[huth]

Why does their need to be a consequence for such a massive end game system choice?

Because that consequence is what makes the choice relevant. If there are no consequences, you might as well remove the option to choose at all.

[jzhbee]

I did read your post, i was just quoting that part...but Both your solutions remove the consequences of player choice.


And i see no problem in a RPG choosing between power and cosmetics.
Like rolling DKP for a mount in the old days or rolling DKP only in good looking items.
You just dont understand this "people" but i assure you...many players have made the choice between power and cosmetics, along the years.

This is a really bad comparison, because, having been in many raiding guilds that used DKP from TBC to WoD, all of them were free rolls for mounts, DKP for actual gear. We never chose between cosmetics and gear.

[Big Thanks]

Wanting access to all the abilities so players don’t have to pick between transmog/which covenant they actually like and a huge dps increase means I have an agenda? Yeah, my agenda is to make covenant choice actually matter and not be determined based on which ability is better.

Why does their need to be a consequence for such a massive end game system choice? I understand some choices should come with negatives/positives but I don’t believe that should apply to this system. It’s just going to feel frustrating and unfortunate to anyone that plays to progress/get better at the game.

I know exactly what you mean and i completely understand your opinion...you are a min maxer and thats how you see things (dont take it the wrong way, i know ive used "min maxer" as a derogatory term before but im not using it this time)

And Blizzard usually sees things the same way as you nowadays

I just hate it.
I personally want the choice to have consequences both at performance and cosmetic...because im a sucker for this kind of stuff.

Lets imagine a min maxer picked the best Covenant for performace.
He will be 1st in damage meters every raid and will beat M+ at record times.
BUT
He hearthstones to Orgrimmar and sees someone with the awesome transmog of the other covenant

And i see absolutely no problem with this scenario.
He made a "deal with the devil" and chose performance over looks...an option filled with both "fame" and "regret"...its poetic...is "RPG"

Your solutions...are devoid of any consequence and "drama".
I dont like it call me a drama queen

- - - Updated - - -

Because that consequence is what makes the choice relevant. If there are no consequences, you might as well remove the option to choose at all.

Yeah, my thought also.

[Taeldorian]

I know exactly what you mean and i completely understand your opinion...you are a min maxer and thats how you see things (dont take it the wrong way, i know ive used "min maxer" as a derogatory term before but im not using it this time)

And Blizzard usually sees things the same way as you nowadays

I just hate it.
I personally want the choice to have consequences both at performance and cosmetic...because im a sucker for this kind of stuff.

Lets imagine a min maxer picked the best Covenant for performace.
He will be 1st in damage meters every raid and will beat M+ at record times.
BUT
He hearthstones to Orgrimmar and sees someone with the awesome transmog of the other covenant

And i see absolutely no problem with this scenario.
He made a "deal with the devil" and chose performance over looks...an option filled with both "fame" and "regret"...its poetic...is "RPG"

Your solutions...are devoid of any consequence and "drama".
I dont like it call me a drama queen

- - - Updated - - -



Yeah, my thought also.

I mean you could be right for all I know. I’m speaking purely from my position as that’s all I can do really. Maybe the solutions I’m offering wouldn’t actually make it better for a majority of players, if that’s the case then it should stay as is.

From my position, I’d rather have access to all of the abilities with the choice of transmog being the main deciding factor between what covenant you’ll join, however if that goes against what the majority of players want and actually does remove the rpg choice/feel then it should stay as is. Hopefully they’ll balance the abilities close enough then if that’s the case

[Tarba]

It's funny there is still so many people on this site protecting blizzard décision. Like they still don't know how stupid and bad at designing new things they are. I mean we all know that the "seems bas but wait and see" ends up with "well yeah that's bad"

[Sharby]

Im completely against all of this.

Reasons

1)
Designing content to accommodate min maxers = bad

2)
RPG gameplay is driven by players choices and you are trying to remove the "consequences" of said choice = bad, stop trying to remove RPG elemnents from the gamee

3)
Min maxing is a choice. You chose the path of the undead zombie min maxer. So deal with it like a man and dont force your gameplay on others

Except claiming that them being unbalanced is a + or any sort of positive game design is just wrong. Its not designing anything to accomodate min-maxers, its designing it to still retain all of its uniqueness without making choosing a covenant involve anything but visual taste. Stop this nonsense.


RPG gameplay works in RPGS, WoW is an MMORPG, you are not a single player in a vaccum, you are being compared to others constantly and competing with other players. So these 'consequences' don't work in a competitive setting. Stop being ignorant.

Trying to demonize people who give a shit about their performance to make yourself look better actually ends up doing the opposite, you should stop. Covenant abilities being system-wide between all covenants literally isn't forcing anything on anyone as they haven't even been released you bonehead.

[Skylarking]

There isn't much that can be done. Countless people have spent so much time and effort in bfa beta sending in concise and some essay like constructive feedback in the most detail you can possibly do. But it all got ignored.

They will then spend their time during shadowlands pretending they have learnt their lesson and promise to do better in the future. It's been said so many times. BfA was enhancement shamans time... they were promised a rework and look at what happened.

My only hope is that shadowlands will not be the grindfest it is now. If it is then this would be the first expansion ever that I would spend so very little time on. BfA already tested my patience. These days I only login to do old content for Mount or transmog.

[Penegal]

As with anything related to ANY MMORPG since Everquest days, only the 1% of tryhards care for optimization and go for the more efficient or uber best cookie cuter build. The rest of the playerbase will play wtf they want, how they want and when they want. For me I will definetly go chose that Castlevania covenant (dont remember the name, its the one that looks like vampires) because its the one that looks cooler to me. Don't give 2 flying geese's ass about what some random joe will write on a fansite like WoWHEad on which covenant gives the "bestest" power for your 0.0001% dps increase, this is an RPG (even if blizzard is dumbing it down for years) so we play what we want.

And I honestly HOPE the covenant I chose isn't the best one, or else all the normies will find the guides written by said tryhards, will flock to my covenant in an attempt to mimic what the random streamer said would be the best one to chose, and Blizzard will end up nerfing it and ruin the experience to anyone.

See, this is why there are complaint threads about group content later: people like you, who play the game without giving a fuck about performance join up groups with the 1% tryhards and end up getting kicked because they pull stupid shit in the dungeon / raid or can't provide enough throughput to match their gear. Right now we have a very long thread with people saying m+ timers are "stressful".

There's nothing wrong with playing however you want. The problem arises when you want to join people that expect you to play at a reasonable level. Solo play should not be mixed up with group play.

[vitor210]

See, this is why there are complaint threads about group content later: people like you, who play the game without giving a fuck about performance join up groups with the 1% tryhards and end up getting kicked because they pull stupid shit in the dungeon / raid or can't provide enough throughput to match their gear. Right now we have a very long thread with people saying m+ timers are "stressful".

There's nothing wrong with playing however you want. The problem arises when you want to join people that expect you to play at a reasonable level. Solo play should not be mixed up with group play.

wait, you're actually thinking people like me bring the casual/rpg mentality to raiding/pvp? That's not how this works. Obviously, if I want to raid anything higher than LFR I have to stop playing what I enjoy and play a boring spec but with a good build. This is what double spec was meant for. The same reason there's 1% tryhards, there's also 1% of super casuals that complain of M+ timers or go raiding with no consumes and enchants in Classic bc "people will carry me"

[Penegal]

wait, you're actually thinking people like me bring the casual/rpg mentality to raiding/pvp? That's not how this works. Obviously, if I want to raid anything higher than LFR I have to stop playing what I enjoy and play a boring spec but with a good build. This is what double spec was meant for. The same reason there's 1% tryhards, there's also 1% of super casuals that complain of M+ timers or go raiding with no consumes and enchants in Classic bc "people will carry me"

A lot of people do. While I can't speak for you personally since I don't know you, I've seen enough people that enjoy the game casually be disappointed, surprised, mad that they were unwelcome in a group where people expected some level of performance. I've even seen complete noobs blame other people for their poor performance and leave.

[cface]

I'll pass on the expansion, and see if it's worth coming back into at season 2. Then I will be able to make a better choice after all the dumb fans have paid to betatest for me.

[Tradu]

It's definitely one of the most likely systems to cause problems, yes.

[Liftinmammals]

Oh bless your simple mind.... Just reading into what they have shown it's already a failure. Any system prior to BFA would be better.

Classes will be gutted again to make room and balanced around this one new ability that will wear thin in the first few weeks let alone the LIFE of an expansion...

Epic trans mogs? Cool.... For 2 + years? That gonna cost a raid tier to add more or will the quality of the raid item art to down?

Couple million players and we get 4 options per cov??? With raid difficulty reskins? MASSIVE HYPE /S

It should have been tied to new challenge modes that progressed through the life of shadowblands.

Lol simplicity is what it's all about my friend. Start taking things too seriously and suddenly life isn't too fun. Games are meant to be enjoyed with people whilst tackling the challenge of new adventure. Anything less than that is doing yourself a disservice when it comes to video games.

[Tarba]

Lol simplicity is what it's all about my friend. Start taking things too seriously and suddenly life isn't too fun. Games are meant to be enjoyed with people whilst tackling the challenge of new adventure. Anything less than that is doing yourself a disservice when it comes to video games.

So you enjoy wiping on bosses because one of your friend does not care about learning tacts or playing correctly his character?
Or you just enjoy killing a boss you completely overgear while being able to carry?
You don't have to be the top kek 1% player to be expected to have a character with the good stats the good templates and the good skills.
Every one making progress in raid, no matter the level. Being hero or mythic should be like that.
Else you are a plague to your teammates who do their best to carry you. Unless they are like you.
But then those are just players who want to defeat a boss while overgeared.

Every time there is a challenge, that 1% will matter.

[Razorice]

I'm just going to have 2 or more characters of same class with different covenants. Problem fixed.

[dreamdaddy]

There's nothing wrong with playing however you want. The problem arises when you want to join people that expect you to play at a reasonable level. Solo play should not be mixed up with group play.

This is exactly the answer that a lot of posters here aren't getting: this is a social game. If you join a group, you expect your healer to keep you up through reasonable damage; similarly, your healer and tank expect you, the DPS, to do reasonable DPS. To get to the expected level of DPS, you don't have to have everything optimized but you should be at least 75% of the way there: some viable talents, decent gear, the right essences, learning your rotation, etc.

The complaints people have posted bring up Blizz's horrible track record with balancing new systems in the past several expansions: legendaries in Legion, Azerite in BFA. It's only logical to try to highlight how important it is to see the system flushed out on beta and for Blizz to appropriately respond to beta reviews/testing.

[Penegal]

This is exactly the answer that a lot of posters here aren't getting: this is a social game. If you join a group, you expect your healer to keep you up through reasonable damage; similarly, your healer and tank expect you, the DPS, to do reasonable DPS. To get to the expected level of DPS, you don't have to have everything optimized but you should be at least 75% of the way there: some viable talents, decent gear, the right essences, learning your rotation, etc.

The complaints people have posted bring up Blizz's horrible track record with balancing new systems in the past several expansions: legendaries in Legion, Azerite in BFA. It's only logical to try to highlight how important it is to see the system flushed out on beta and for Blizz to appropriately respond to beta reviews/testing.

If Blizzard wants to balance covenants completely, while providing players with power through that system, the only option is to literally make all abilities and bonuses identical, just change the names / visuals so they match said covenant. This immediately eliminates all choice based on performance and lets people min-max while picking things that are more akin to their taste.

However, since this is not going to happen, I just hope we get a very big period for testing the shit out of covenants so that balance can be achieved as much as reasonably possible.

[huth]

See, this is why there are complaint threads about group content later: people like you, who play the game without giving a fuck about performance join up groups with the 1% tryhards and end up getting kicked because they pull stupid shit in the dungeon / raid or can't provide enough throughput to match their gear. Right now we have a very long thread with people saying m+ timers are "stressful".

There's nothing wrong with playing however you want. The problem arises when you want to join people that expect you to play at a reasonable level. Solo play should not be mixed up with group play.

You do realise it's generally the tryhards who play the "right" spec but have no fucking clue what they're doing that can't provide, right?

[Liftinmammals]

So you enjoy wiping on bosses because one of your friend does not care about learning tacts or playing correctly his character?
Or you just enjoy killing a boss you completely overgear while being able to carry?
You don't have to be the top kek 1% player to be expected to have a character with the good stats the good templates and the good skills.
Every one making progress in raid, no matter the level. Being hero or mythic should be like that.
Else you are a plague to your teammates who do their best to carry you. Unless they are like you.
But then those are just players who want to defeat a boss while overgeared.

Every time there is a challenge, that 1% will matter.

If wiping is done with people I love and care about I'm down for it. Bring on the love!