Covenant Abilities... this looks BAD...

[ArenaDk]

To me this boils down to the same complaint / stories we had in the past: "I got the wrong legendary, now I am benched". "My LFR hero guildmate got a TF procc, now he got my spot in the mythic raid" "RNG keeps getting me the wrong corruption, I got kicked out of the guild"

I wonder how often that happened in reality and can you honestly point to an ability for one covenant that is SO overpowered, you can already guarantee that you will lose your raid spot over choosing the "wrong" one?

I actually agree with the people who say that with all the classes and speccs, stuff is impossible to balance 100%. You just gotta live with people being unhappy and sometimes being unhappy even about perceived imbalance. The alternative is indeed to completely remove flavour like that and to me that would be worse.

I know people ask "What is so bad to have gear just like it was in Classic" - and that is IMHO already the answer. If we'd have 15 years of the same old, to me the game would be in a worse state.

Well I actually got benched from playign high rated arena , as to this day I dont have any viable corruption to compete with a non meta class. I still play with my mates on their twinks, but it wasn fun for anyone to try and compete without corruption against the meta. So I guess it does happen sometime

[Raven]

Playing with suboptimal talents has always been a reason to remove underperforming people from groups. Covenant Ability will be no different.

But that is also a player created issue, for probably more then 99% of the players having a player with suboptimal talents in the group or raid wont make any diffrence.

[Kralljin]

The easiest and most pragmatic solution would be to put them on the talent tree that you can then easily swap.

Alas, rather die on the same hill as Legion with Artifacts & Legendaries, as well as BfA with Azerite Armor.
Even if you balance them, these options are designed to shine in different situations, thus they will always be a pain point for players who engage in multiple aspects of the game, which is ironically something that Blizzard wanted to encourage since Legion.

[keelr]

How do they intend to balance this? The abilities have such HUGE differences that will result in one being far better than the other three. Did Ion not see this coming?

After the disaster of BfA class design, this has got me worried. Will Shadowlands also have massive issues with class design now?

Saying this after seeing closed alpha's very first information? You are just one of those haters we dont need.

[SkagenRora]

lmao what, "why is this early, not-balance-tweaked version of the abilities so out of whack?" <- This is you.

If we learned any thing from BFA, It is that even tho something is looking like it's in alpha stage dosen't mean that it's not set-in-stone for the entire expansion.

[Lahis]

But that is also a player created issue, for probably more then 99% of the players having a player with suboptimal talents in the group or raid wont make any diffrence.

We have seen how well Blizzard's attempt at social engineering have fared so far.

They have always failed.

People have learned to avoid suboptimal choices and players who make suboptimal choices, and this permeates all level of organized play in the game.

[Luxeley]

And what amkes you think your suggestion would make it more enyoable? Having impactcfull choice is far more fun than have all options avaiable to you for free so you just pick best one and play thats pretty boring.

You obviously DO NOT pvp. Its not enjoyable when a DH basically has 80% up time on you as is currently built. Giving them even more mobility is NOT enjoyable if you're a dps caster. A good game designer realizes that introducing a new class ability also affects the fun and enjoyment of the other 11 classes in the game. There needs to be a balance and there isn't.

[TheLucky1]

Making abilities too much alike but balanced
Community: omg, this is all the same, uniqueness is gone, blizzard is out of ideas, hurr durr classic/tbs/xy was better, muh immersion!

Making unique abilities that are hard or near impossible to balance
Community: my covenant sucks/the system sucks, xy is bad, why did you nerf my covenant?/why don't you buff my covenant? Blizzard lets their interns balance, hurr durr classic/tbs/xy was better, this is unplayable!

Honestly they only can do it wrong with how hard this comm. (especially mmoc turbo nerds) are to please..

[dlhak]

How do they intend to balance this? The abilities have such HUGE differences that will result in one being far better than the other three. Did Ion not see this coming?

After the disaster of BfA class design, this has got me worried. Will Shadowlands also have massive issues with class design now?

Blizzard fanatics will never get your point.

This system will ruin the game like azerite did for BfA.

No one knows why Blizzard abandoned the talent system to implement new abilities.

[cuafpr]

long as then up less than 5% power difference idc and it's balanced. I'll be choosing the covenant i want based on my character screw the abilities. if you are not going for hall of fame per tier it likely wont matter at all.

[Zuben]

Right now I'm most tempted by Night Fae's signature ability, and as for the class ability, well, anyone but the Venthyr. Yet the Venthyr are my favorite aesthetically and by flavor. Blizz dun goofed.

[Shinrael]

This is MMOC forums, please stop being relevant.
Thanks.

Please explain, I am a bit lost ?

- - - Updated - - -

Right now I'm most tempted by Night Fae's signature ability, and as for the class ability, well, anyone but the Venthyr. Yet the Venthyr are my favorite aesthetically and by flavor. Blizz dun goofed.

Honestly... I like the idea of having to make such difficult choices for my signature abilities and class-specific abilities and transmog and storyline and so on...

I love how stuff like this makes me get carried away brainstorming how many alts, which classes, which races, which specs, etc I would need to play to try everything I want to try and to have the most immersive experiences. My Night Elf druid will surely be a Night Fae, but my mage is a very tough choice. Hunter is tough one too. It's gonna be fun filling up my spreadsheets again!

[Aucald]

The problem with Azerite traits initially is that they were boring as compared to the power bestowed upon players using the Legion Artifact weapon system, even with some of the Artifact weapon skills baked into the classes as baseline abilities. The Covenant system's powers are anything but boring as typified by the debates and arguments present in this very thread. They may be OP, yes; but one of the purposes of the Alpha/Beta system is balancing passes - so I'd fully expect some of these skills to be reworked, balanced, or changed utterly between now and Shadowlands going live, as has happened in almost every case. And yes, for those of you who want to repeat the cliched "Alpha/Beta won't fix it" even Azerite Traits got a balance pass and several traits were iterated on, it just didn't fix their primary issue of being boring as opposed to being unbalanced.

I think this new advancement system is quite significant in terms of the choice, and I look that the choice of power structure to pursue is a difficult one that could lock you out of other attractive choices. The choice is meant to be meaningful, after all; and sacrifice is something that bestows meaning. Choose wisely and abide by that choice, I feel.

[Raisei]

This is completely irrelevant and it just shows that you simply don't understand the issue. People aren't complaining about imbalances because imbalances have always been and will always be a part of the game. What people are pointing out is that Blizzard deliberately creates unnecessary imbalance by making it very hard to switch between these covenants just because they think it would make the choice more interesting. They are creating new problems that wouldn't exist if these abilities were e.g. another talent row that you can switch out whenever you want to.

It's also a ridiculous and stupid choice to make. Do I choose what's actually useful for the performance of my class or do I choose what is most aesthetically pleasing/thematically fitting for my character? Why would you design a system in which hypothetically, players who care about their performance would be forced to join the nature themed Fae covenant or Paladins would be forced to join the Undeath themed covenant in order to be most effective?

People that only look to the meta game to let it dictate how and what they should play will always suffer for that nonsensical choice. If your FoTM is not FoTM anymore you have to switch, level, regear, refarm azerite or whatever. As with all expansions before Blizzard will put in a system that allows you to switch Covenants more easily as time passes.
You just want to take the few words we heard 5 month ago and take them as a sign that it will be nigh impossible to switch, because that fits better in your world view of Blizzard hating the players for some reason.

This is such a stupid non-argument if you've ever played any game competetively. Most people don't ENJOY shooting themselves in the foot performance wise because they want to look good which is why cosmetics are usually not tied to actual power increase.

Competetively as in...? MDI, World First, PvP World Championship? Are you saying they should base their design decisions on the few hundred people that take part in this high-level stuff instead of the majority that will be quite challenged enough in Heroic raiding?
Really this is the core problem, people can shoot themselves in the foot on the character creation screen. If you want to top dps meters then you better click that Rogue button there, if you don't want to play Rogue then you will not beat Rogues. The classes are not balanced and they never will be. If you are a victim of the meta game you will have to constantly switch characters anyway from one FoTM to the next. The Covenants do not change this, they just add another layer.
Will this inconvenience the people that hunt those high scores on the damage meter? Yes. But should Blizzard design the game around that crowd? Hell no. It is their decision to let the meta dictate their choices, not Blizzards.

[Zuben]

Honestly... I like the idea of having to make such difficult choices for my signature abilities and class-specific abilities and transmog and storyline and so on...

I love how stuff like this makes me get carried away brainstorming how many alts, which classes, which races, which specs, etc I would need to play to try everything I want to try and to have the most immersive experiences. My Night Elf druid will surely be a Night Fae, but my mage is a very tough choice. Hunter is tough one too. It's gonna be fun filling up my spreadsheets again!

I think in the end I'm making my choice by aesthetics and flavor instead of numbers. If BFA is their model for power progression the early game is going to suck regardless.

[VinceVega]

If you can choose between two players of the same spec with similar skill level, one with the right Covenant/Legendary and other with wrong Covenant/Legendary, of course you should pick the one right items/abilities. The worse one can get pity spot of there are still room in the group.

Or, you know, you have a rotation completely ignoring stuff the player himself does not have any control over it. I still don't have Infinite Stars 3. I don't get benched outside of my normal rotation.
Because... well we raid mythic but we are not in the world first race.

If you are in a guild which demands from you to take the best one then well... bad for you. But that is the smaller evil than having a game completely devoid of flavor or meaning in anything you take. I will have to take the best one for PvE raiding. Because it is our main focus. Mind you that the others are not going to be useless. Just not as effective as the others. People act as if it was a choice between all or nothing.

If you want to be a high end player you have to make choices that maybe don't really sit well with you. I don't like playing with stellar flare. But i have to because it sims the highest. Would i only raid Heroic i would not care and i didn't when i was only raiding heroic. Why not remove talents altogether? Just give everyone everything so everyone can do anything in any situation. This way us poor poor mythic raider and high end PVP Players or Key pusher are not pigeonholed into choices in an RPG.

Then why have gear? I have to choose there too and on top of it it is RNG! Bam! You play Dota or lol now.

This is the first thing Blizz did in a long time that has actual flavor. Something meaningful to choose from. And of course MMO-Champion flips completely. Somtimes i think no one actually wants to play a MMORPG anymore and more something like battlefield

[this is caranthir]

So here's the thing: covenant abilities not balanced doesn't matter for 90% of players, they will choose whatever they like most.

It matters for competetive players in higher mythic+ or organized raids. Minority in the game, loud majority on forums.

with this mindset nothing matters when it comes to balance so who cares, just throw some numbers and a nice effect and everything will be fine.

[Nerovar]

And what amkes you think your suggestion would make it more enyoable? Having impactcfull choice is far more fun than have all options avaiable to you for free so you just pick best one and play thats pretty boring.

So choosing what is essentially a talent and locking the option to switch out that talent behind a grind is what makes it "an impactful choice" for you? Are regular talents not impactful choices?

People that only look to the meta game to let it dictate how and what they should play will always suffer for that nonsensical choice.

As I said, I don't look exclusively "to the meta game". I also care about cosmetics and the actual lore of the game. But this doesn't make covenants better for me. It makes them even worse. If I only cared about competetiveness I'd just pick the BiS option and be done with it.

You just want to take the few words we heard 5 month ago and take them as a sign that it will be nigh impossible to switch, because that fits better in your world view of Blizzard hating the players for some reason.

Yes? I'm assuming that Blizzard isn't lying to us and therefor when they say they want to do A they'll do A and not B. Why would you assume that they're not going to make switching covenants punishing when it's literally what they said? Are you ok?

Competetively as in...? MDI, World First, PvP World Championship?

Competetively as in competing with other players?

The rest of your post is simply ridiculous. The existence of imbalance in the game doesn't mean it's ok or good to intentionally add more layers of imbalance to the game.

[Raisei]

The problem with Azerite traits initially is that they were boring as compared to the power bestowed upon players using the Legion Artifact weapon system, even with some of the Artifact weapon skills baked into the classes as baseline abilities. The Covenant system's powers are anything but boring as typified by the debates and arguments present in this very thread. They may be OP, yes; but one of the purposes of the Alpha/Beta system is balancing passes - so I'd fully expect some of these skills to be reworked, balanced, or changed utterly between now and Shadowlands going live, as has happened in almost every case. And yes, for those of you who want to repeat the cliched "Alpha/Beta won't fix it" even Azerite Traits got a balance pass and several traits were iterated on, it just didn't fix their primary issue of being boring as opposed to being unbalanced.

This is indeed the thing. These abilities look a lot more interesting then the Azerites ever did. Their relevance to a characters playstyle feels somewhere close to the "big traits" on the Artifact Weapons in Legion, while the passives will come from the soulbinds. BFA missed out on these defining things at the start and only later gave some of it out with the essences. Meaning the classes were reduced to their basic playstyle with only passive buffs proccing now and then. It wasn't horrible, but something was missing.
This system shows they learned something there and together with the "unpruning" I am quite excited how my DK will play in Shadowlands, with her third arm and flesh and bone shield bubble.

[Bloodyleech]

We don't need to see numbers to see if something is completely broken. If one just reads some mechanics behind the spells, the brokenness is completely obvious. That's no hating at all, since I exactly know which cov my DK will take - and my alts won't care, they take the ones that look better for them.