Covenant Abilities... this looks BAD...

[Todesbote]

Except each of these abilities will be an improvement. The difference between one or the other will probably amount to the differences between one talent and another, a percentage point or two of DPS, etc.

The majority of players either don't give a shit about squeezing out an extra 0.5% dps at the expense of playing what they enjoy OR only give a shit about such meager gains because elitist internet warriors have convinced them that failing to play like a member of Method is somehow failing at the game.

Have you played the game at all lately? We are not talking about 0.5% dps gain or something like that. Having the best corruptions in the game vs. having the worst is more like 40-50% dps difference. I know not everything is about competition in WoW but you brought it up. Lets compare two similar geared characters only one of them uses the best available Azerite traits and the other one uses a combination of the worst ones. You will see DPS difference of at least 20-30% not 0.5%.

Implying that the difference between covenants will be ~0.5-1% would mean that the abilities have either very low impact on the game (would be OK with me) or be almost perfectly balanced (would be OK with me). But looking at their latest power systems Azerite and Corruptions, how likely will Covenants be either of those two things? Exactly.

The only way to save this system is allowing players to switch covenants in an easy way.

[tyrlaan]

Why even play DPS role if you don't aim to do the best you could?

Because you also play the game for fun. And eking out an extra 1% dps by playing a covenant you don't like might not be fun for some (read: a lot) of people.

So either:
You play the game to push out the best numbers and squeeze out every ounce of min/maxing you possibly can, therefore everything else is secondary, which means you don't actually care what Covenant you pick (or at least don't care enough).

OR

You play to have fun. Of course you want to be good at the game, but you also don't treat it like a job with a year-end performance review so you know that if you do 1% DPS less because you really want to be Necrolord that's just fine. And if you play with people that can't handle a 1% DPS loss because you hate the Night Fae, you are playing with the wrong people.

[Jujudrood]

Here's what's gonna happen:
- They will be in the alpha with probably close to what they were shown already (for the ones we've seen)

- There will be feedback based on how over/under-powered they are and they will be tuned
--- The feedback will be focused and concise, usually with evidence supporting claims

- They will eventually get into Beta and more hands will touch them, showing they are still over/under-powered overall, so more tuning will happen
--- The feedback will be a mix of useful/useless, but the useful stuff will show evidence and most likely be more plentiful than alpha

- They will eventually release to live with launch and, with eve more hands touching them, they will still be found as over/under-powered
--- Feedback will be all over with some providing empirical evidence supporting their claims while others say 'lol dumpster fire'

- They will tweak them after a few months when most have picked one, and their choice will get nerfed, causing sadness as people flock to change covenants

- After the change, the next patch will further alter them, with the herd shifting to yet another

Rinse and repeat the last step until end of 9.x.

[NineSpine]

Covenants give 2 abilities: so-called covenant ratial, utility one and class specific combat one. Let's call them utility and combat abilities.
During our leveling in shadowlands we meet and help all 4 covenants. After finishins each covenant's story we unlock new combat ability in special interface. Four abilities total. And at the end, we join one of covenants, get acces to cosmetics and utility ability, while still beeing able to pick 1 of 4 combat abilities anytime.
This is how it should be done. That way we can have interesting, unique abilities with no issues.

Those aren't interesting unique abilities. Those are just four new abilities that EVERYONE of your class has. That's the opposite of unique.

[tyrlaan]

Have you played the game at all lately? We are not talking about 0.5% dps gain or something like that. Having the best corruptions in the game vs. having the worst is more like 40-50% dps difference. I know not everything is about competition in WoW but you brought it up. Lets compare two similar geared characters only one of them uses the best available Azerite traits and the other one uses a combination of the worst ones. You will see DPS difference of at least 20-30% not 0.5%.

Implying that the difference between covenants will be ~0.5-1% would mean that the abilities have either very low impact on the game (would be OK with me) or be almost perfectly balanced (would be OK with me). But looking at their latest power systems Azerite and Corruptions, how likely will Covenants be either of those two things? Exactly.

The only way to save this system is allowing players to switch covenants in an easy way.

You can't argue numbers when we have no numbers. You also really shouldn't act like the corruption system is in any way supposed to be balanced. It's end of expansion crazy-go-nuts mechanics that were sold to us as an experiment.

When the covenant abilities have numbers and there are 20%-50% dps disparities, we'll talk. Until then you're crying wolf.

[NineSpine]

Have you played the game at all lately? We are not talking about 0.5% dps gain or something like that. Having the best corruptions in the game vs. having the worst is more like 40-50% dps difference. I know not everything is about competition in WoW but you brought it up. Lets compare two similar geared characters only one of them uses the best available Azerite traits and the other one uses a combination of the worst ones. You will see DPS difference of at least 20-30% not 0.5%.

Implying that the difference between covenants will be ~0.5-1% would mean that the abilities have either very low impact on the game (would be OK with me) or be almost perfectly balanced (would be OK with me). But looking at their latest power systems Azerite and Corruptions, how likely will Covenants be either of those two things? Exactly.

The only way to save this system is allowing players to switch covenants in an easy way.

Thank you for this brilliant insight into the future, time traveler. Perhaps you can share your spreadsheets from shadowlands with us.

[Laughingjack]

Customization requires some degree of permanence. If you can change at any moment, it isn't customization.

And the fact that this board is full of crybabys who throw tantrums over everything in the game does not mean that the general playerbase thinks that way.

No...no it doesn't..

People are voicing their opinions because we just had a entire expansion of terrible lengthy grind "customization" and a lot don't want to stomach another.

[Lahis]

Because you also play the game for fun. And eking out an extra 1% dps by playing a covenant you don't like might not be fun for some (read: a lot) of people.

So either:
You play the game to push out the best numbers and squeeze out every ounce of min/maxing you possibly can, therefore everything else is secondary, which means you don't actually care what Covenant you pick (or at least don't care enough).

OR

You play to have fun. Of course you want to be good at the game, but you also don't treat it like a job with a year-end performance review so you know that if you do 1% DPS less because you really want to be Necrolord that's just fine. And if you play with people that can't handle a 1% DPS loss because you hate the Night Fae, you are playing with the wrong people.

So you're implying doing best possible performance is not fun? That only playing badly is fun?

[Todesbote]

Not everyone is obsessed with optimization and perfection. That's the min-maxer attitude, and you are welcome to play the game that way, but stop demanding the entire game be organized around your irrational, OCD approach to a video game.

Ah, so you agree with my points. So the question is only how many people care about "min-maxing"/getting the best performance out of their character and how many people don't. I would say that at least 50% or more (a majority) of players care about getting the best performance out of their character.

[tyrlaan]

It's threads like these that confirm for me that the players ruined wow not Blizzard.

Blizz: here's four interesting abilities per class. You choose! They all do fun and interesting things.

Players: BuT ThIS oNE dOeS 2% better in MyThiC PlUS.

There will always be a mathematically superior option. Using this an excuse to say game systems should have no player agency is moronic. People play mathematically inferior classes all the time. Just because fire mages are the superior choice in all PVE content doesn't mean everyone is a fire mage. If you're a top tier mythic raider then pick the best option. Everyone else will pick what they prefer.

Bingo. This right here.

The only saving grace is most of the bitching is here on forums and plenty of people just play the game blissfully ignorant of all this nonsense.

[Pury]

Because you also play the game for fun. And eking out an extra 1% dps by playing a covenant you don't like might not be fun for some (read: a lot) of people.

So either:
You play the game to push out the best numbers and squeeze out every ounce of min/maxing you possibly can, therefore everything else is secondary, which means you don't actually care what Covenant you pick (or at least don't care enough).

OR

You play to have fun. Of course you want to be good at the game, but you also don't treat it like a job with a year-end performance review so you know that if you do 1% DPS less because you really want to be Necrolord that's just fine. And if you play with people that can't handle a 1% DPS loss because you hate the Night Fae, you are playing with the wrong people.

Nobody would care about 0,5% dps difference, fuck of with that strawman. Azerite and corruptions showed us how blizz suck with numbers already, but it is even worse with covenant abilities, they have utility/cc/mobility baked in some of them as well, this is going to be a shitshow on all this levels.

You can't argue numbers when we have no numbers. You also really shouldn't act like the corruption system is in any way supposed to be balanced. It's end of expansion crazy-go-nuts mechanics that were sold to us as an experiment.

When the covenant abilities have numbers and there are 20%-50% dps disparities, we'll talk. Until then you're crying wolf.

Yeah, let's keep silently waiting without saying anything, it workes so well all the time, right?

[NineSpine]

No...no it doesn't..

Yes, it does. If you are exactly the same all the time, you are not customized. The fucking upside-down world you have all erected to defend your delusions is amazing.

People are voicing their opinions because we just had an entire expansion of terrible lengthy grind "customization" and a lot don't want to stomach another.

Nothing in BFA was substantive customization like we are talking about.

[Frolk]

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

Wait for em to be "balanced" in each patch by +50% and -33% making u re-farm a new Covenant unless u wanna be bottom of the meters.
Its ALMOST like people dont trust the devs with this sort of stuff after seeing how Azerite power and corruption have gone by.

[tyrlaan]

So you're implying doing best possible performance is not fun? That only playing badly is fun?

Clearly I'm not.

I'm implying you prioritize what is the most fun for you. Yes I have an obvious bias, but if you want to squeeze out every last drop of DPS you have to do it at the expense of something just like if you want to make decisions that make RP sense for your character you have to do it at the expense of something.

[Laughingjack]

Also: It is not like everyone is a robot. In my raiding experience, sure we had awesome players that could make any specc and class work...and work well. But we also had players who couldn't handle their theoretically most dps specc to the max and performed better with a specc that in theory did less dps.

Basically the poste you reply to IMHO looks at issues that concern a tiny minority...and that competitive minority will and always has rolled with whatever is best, not what they like and they will go through whatever it takes to perform at the top. Even if that means playing a class that they dislike and a race or faction that they loath.

So?

I don't get this "lets stick it to min maxers" argument... instead of saying that how about you make a compelling argument for why requiring a massive time sink to simply change a talent in the way we have been so for a decade is a positive change?

[NineSpine]

Ah, so you agree with my points. So the question is only how many people care about "min-maxing"/getting the best performance out of their character and how many people don't. I would say that at least 50% or more (a majority) of players care about getting the best performance out of their character.

Thank you for your made up, bullshit number. It was very useful.

What percentage of players complete the mythic raid every tier. I'll wait.

[Nerovar]

Here's what's gonna happen:
- They will be in the alpha with probably close to what they were shown already (for the ones we've seen)

- There will be feedback based on how over/under-powered they are and they will be tuned
--- The feedback will be focused and concise, usually with evidence supporting claims

- They will eventually get into Beta and more hands will touch them, showing they are still over/under-powered overall, so more tuning will happen
--- The feedback will be a mix of useful/useless, but the useful stuff will show evidence and most likely be more plentiful than alpha

- They will eventually release to live with launch and, with eve more hands touching them, they will still be found as over/under-powered
--- Feedback will be all over with some providing empirical evidence supporting their claims while others say 'lol dumpster fire'

- They will tweak them after a few months when most have picked one, and their choice will get nerfed, causing sadness as people flock to change covenants

- After the change, the next patch will further alter them, with the herd shifting to yet another

Rinse and repeat the last step until end of 9.x.

Yeah, pretty much this.

[NineSpine]

So?

I don't get this "lets stick it to min maxers" argument... instead of saying that how about you make a compelling argument for why requiring a massive time sink to simply change a talent in the way we have been so for a decade is a positive change?

Because customization and meaningful choices are fun, make your character more interesting, and in this case tie you to the world in a mechanically interesting way.

[Todesbote]

Thank you for this brilliant insight into the future, time traveler. Perhaps you can share your spreadsheets from shadowlands with us.

I never said it would be this way. I only said that given how Azerite and Corruption systems have been implemented and given their impact on player power balance that I am worried about the Covenant system locking players into a choice when the system is not balanced. No time travelling needed at all.

[tyrlaan]

Nobody would care about 0,5% dps difference, fuck of with that strawman. Azerite and corruptions showed us how blizz suck with numbers already, but it is even worse with covenant abilities, they have utility/cc/mobility baked in some of them as well, this is going to be a shitshow on all this levels.

Until we have actual numbers for covenant abilities, it's not a strawman.