Covenant Abilities... this looks BAD...

[FelPlague]

There have never been real meaningful choices in WoW like people here are trying to demand now by forcing players to chose between cosmetics and gameplay.

"I like the play style of holy priest, but i hate holy wtf blizz, let warlocks play as holy spec, i want to play a warlock with all their cosmetics, but the gameplay of holy"


There will always be choice that you are forced to take that effect cosmetic, and gameplay, suck it up, its a good thing.
you cant dps as a tree, you cant tank as a cat, you cant heal as a chicken, you are locked into/out of cosmetic choices for gameplay reasons all the time, this is another one of those. you want the bastion ability? well your allying with bastion, so your getting their cosmetics.

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Faction, race, and class choice: Am I a joke to you?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yeah this pretty much.
"I like the aesthetic of frost dk, but i like the aesthetic of fire mage, let me be mage with all the gameplay of dk"


hey i really love that new ability for druids "cast 16 spells in 4 seconds" fuck druids, give it to me too cause i want it.
oh and well your at it, i want pally bubble too, give it to me, i dont wannt play paladin cause i hate their cosmetics, but give me bubble!

[Elias01]

Again you gotta spell check your posts. Now your argument has flipped to anti choice and punishing people for not picking the right talent for their chosen content. I can see why you linked the D3 devs who helped me the real money action house to help reinforce your position. Poor showing overall.

Idc about spell check. No it didnt there is no choice in picking best talent and play with. Its not choice. And i am not talking to you anymore video i posted it clearly shows that i am right and you are wrong., And those are not D3 devs. They are original D1 and D2 devs and founders of Blizzard North. Thanks showing us you lack of any sort of experience or knowladge about games.

[korijenkins]

well there is this thing called "testing" which will be done over the next few months before the expansion is released. I mean we don't even have them all yet. I am guessing Blizz will try to make them attractive to the type of content that you enjoy doing, whether that be M+ or Raiding or PvP

Just like the "testing" that was done for BFA, only for it to release in a putrid state?

[Elias01]

So Vanilla talent trees are now suddenly 'choices' when in reality most people ran the same cookie-cutter specs? (and yes I mean the original, not classic).

The amount of rewriting going on to try and justify comparing an MMO to a single-player ARPG.
There have never been real meaningful choices in WoW like people here are trying to demand now by forcing players to chose between cosmetics and gameplay.

No most people didnt not run same cookie cutter spec. Resto shaman have 4 viable healing specs and when you pick 1 you were locked into that spec. GL respecing talents based on situation in Classic you will be broke all the time. No you would pick what you like most and stick to that build for entire game.

[FlubberPuddy]

Just like the "testing" that was done for BFA, only for it to release in a putrid state?

You realize Azerite traits were only out a few days (or week) before Live launched right? Compared to these traits being usable as soon as you can quest in that covenant's area (so Kyrian testable first day alpha goes up, and Revendreth up later this month).

How is that the same?/

[MrLachyG]

Just like the "testing" that was done for BFA, only for it to release in a putrid state?

well we don't know how long the testing for Shadowlands will be going for, hopefully a lot longer than it was for BfA. BfA had a 3.5 month beta and I remember one youtuber (Preach I think) mentioning how azerite traits weren't added to be tested til the final week before launch. If Shadowlands has a 2 month alpha that would mean they could have a 5-6 month beta and still make the 2020 release promise. I am cautiously optimistic, I know that I was endlessly frustrated to find bugs in the live version that I reported in the beta (Nazmir final cutscene is the one I remember the most) but hopefully they have listened, thrown all the feedback onto the higher ups desks and flat out told them that this is what happens when you push deadlines over quality and those higher ups will fuck off and let the people do their work. even if it isn't released til 2021 that will be forgiven if the game is polished and relatively bug free

[Shinrael]

48 abilities are plenty to balance. It's way more managable than however many azerite abilities there were.

I gave you example with just 2 exactly identical spells and claimed that even then they cannot be balanced. Can you argue against my example there?
And no, the azerite traits were not balanced.

[ProfessorTjc]

MMOs will never be balanced... you should know this.

[Shinrael]

Maybe I was Quoting you wrong, but I dont talk about Balancing Numbers. (However I dont really have faith that they manage do properly balance Damage Affecting Skills, didnt even work for simple "Procc X Damage" effects on Corruption, but thats not the point here.)

Furthermore, I dont talk about number based power. But i´ll humor you:
You can almost on the Fly change any and all Spell/Trait/Skill related choices. So it doesnt matter if you choose "Poor", "Wrong", or suboptimal. Pay 10G if you need to change it. So other things you need to Sim/Test it dont Punish you for Choosing wrong.

The Problem here however lies that you make a singular Choice of your Covenant, (which is, judging from the Blizzcon reveal, not meant to be easily changed) and get 4 different things.
1. Unique Transmog - There are countless people (me included) who value that stuff.
2. A General Skill - 2 Movement Skills, 1 Defensive Cooldown and 1 Auxilery Skill where its not even clear if you can actually use that in Battle.
3. A Class skill - Which vary GREATLY from Class and Specc, and there is no real common ground between the Covenants.
4. A Talent Tree - Which we know nothing of yet.

Now, I feel its almost Impossible to make an Informed choice factoring in all these Aspects. E.g.
Someone mentioned the "Hunt" skill for the DH, and I agree from its Description it sounds like the most logical Choice of the Class skills, that would lock me in a for DemonHunter rather Useless Mobility Skill, I would rather have from the General Skills the defensive Skill, or the one which removes Debuffs, (which is something that helps the DemonHunter alot).

From my (Main) Tank Paladin perspective, I would love to take Kyrean for their Appearance, but as I play a Dwarf the General skill is Useless to me, and the kyrrean Class Skill is basically just a "several Target" silence (for Tanks), which is (in my Opinion) really really niche.
From a Skill Perspective I would feel the need to take Necro, for the Additional Defensive Skill, but that locks me out of the Nice Visuals, as the Necro Visuals are the Opposite of what a Paladin should wear (in my Opinion).

As its right now, I would not be Happy with either Choice. If I were to choose for appearance I would feel bad for having less Defensive abilities than other Tanks, and if I would choose otherwise I would feel bad for not having the Transmog I´d like.

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This is something I´ve read several times.
It would be really really really really stupid to make such a elaborate/huge system for a rather Miniscule amount of Content.

You pick the first Covenant at MaxLevel, tell me how much Outdoor content do you do?

1) No need to humour me, thanks. Let's have a civilized discussion like proper human beings, not monkeys.
2) So your problem isn't that you cannot choose correct but that you cannot CHANGE your choice once you've made it? You need to get that right first, before trying to convince others.
3) Yes, you did quote me wrong. You need to first understand what the other person is saying first before starting an argument.

[FelPlague]

Just like the "testing" that was done for BFA, only for it to release in a putrid state?

just like the "testing" that was done for every expansion ever.
Just cause BFA had testing, does not mean shadowlands will be the same, cause if so then all past expansions were the same.

[dmitriy138]

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

come on man this is just pure cringe. You are the epitome of the "it's just alpha, it's just beta, it's just release date, etc"

[Hctaz]

Please keep in mind that it is not only a bunch of abilities. a Whole mini talent tree is behind each covenant.

Once again. Blizz shot themselves in the foot big time with this lame idea.

My solutions is, scrap the trees and covenant base abilities. Just add few rows of talents and put all abilities there.

The trees inside of the factions should be okay as they are able to have many options. The abilities themselves though you're stuck with. If they had a couple of different options per faction then it might not be so bad. As it stands now, however, it doesn't look too good that you have a mixture of CC, AoE, and single target abilities locked behind this major decision,.

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just like the "testing" that was done for every expansion ever.
Just cause BFA had testing, does not mean shadowlands will be the same, cause if so then all past expansions were the same.

They were. Frost DKs released in legion in an absolutely horrible state as well despite the numerous amounts of feedback that was given.

[arkanon]

Are you saying it is not?

It was an extremely simple question. Are you unable or unwilling to answer it?

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No one is saying "They will be balanced!"
what people are saying is "its fine if they arnt, they never will be."

Huh? Since page one ppl have been countering anything negative by saying "they will be balanced". I would say every single page has multiple examples of this. Are you reading a different thread?

[Hctaz]

I gave you example with just 2 exactly identical spells and claimed that even then they cannot be balanced. Can you argue against my example there?
And no, the azerite traits were not balanced.

I mean... i made an argument to that point.

The spells don't need to balanced across multiple classes, they just need to be balanced within their own class. If Dks had a spell that was instant cast and did 1k dmg no matter if they were Kyrian, Venthyr, Necrolord, or ... the faerie people then that's fine.

One is shiny and light, one is bloody and spook, one is bone and spook, and one is sparkly. Ez

They honestly should be identical abilities with various forms of cosmetic flavor instead of being completely new abilities. They make it sound like these covenants are supposed to be something you can choose based on who you identity with the most so it seems like a really bad idea to make there be a wrong selection within your own class and spec.

[EasyE]

Please do not contribute to any discussions in the future, this is the most moronic comparison I have ever seen and everyone is less intelligent for reading this post. May God NOT have mercy on your soul.

[FelPlague]

They honestly should be identical abilities with various forms of cosmetic flavor instead of being completely new abilities.

Thing is they cant stray, they will all need to be the EXACT same, its not like "one can be a dot" "one can be a instant cast" "one can be a chain of attacks"
even if they all end up with the same damage, some will be better then others, and people will be 'forced" to use them.

hell there was a glyph for locks, that made their shadowbolt do the exact same damage, but split over 3 small bolts, and it was BETTER in certin circumstances (specific trinkets and stuff)
so yes in a perfect world it would be nice if they didnt, thats how it is, and im fine with that. im choosing necrolords, even though im a mythic raider, and even if its worse then another choice.

[Hyeonh]

Covenant abilities needs more time back in the oven. The gap between them are huge between what's gonna be good and what's gonna be crippling for certain content.

[Beefhammer]

Just like the "testing" that was done for BFA, only for it to release in a putrid state?

Difference between people not liking them, which what most of the complaints were about, and shit not working. They seemed to work just fine.

[FelPlague]

Covenant abilities needs more time back in the oven. The gap between them are huge between what's gonna be good and what's gonna be crippling for certain content.

more time wont make them balanced.
no matter what, unless they make them all boring as shit
"DO damage, do heal, reduce damage" and nothing else, they wont be able to be even sorta balanced.
what the fuck happened to us being allowed to have fun? everything needs to be widdled down to pure numbers and "this is better then that"

they cant balance these, and that is fine, cause they are fun.

[tyrlaan]

The problem with arguing about percentage of people this effects is that it is a flawed argument from the start. You know who loses out from having covenants acting like normal talents in terms of respecing?

That's right no one!

You keep struggling to advocate for a change that does nothing but limit game play for other people. It is getting hard to suspect that you have reasons beyond malice.

Or you could stop trying to presume my intentions. You seem more interested in disparaging than discussing though.

My issue is way more about the "OMG ability X is OP so I have no choice but to go with covenant A" than the respec thing.

To be fair, it will be important to those that like to optimize their characters. It's not like the "whining" is baseless. There's no way in hell the covenants will be balanced. Of course it will be frustrating if someone makes the "wrong" choice.

I just have a different opinion where I think covenants are a cool idea because it offers four different paths to explore. But I'm also pretty casual, if I was more hardcore I'd probably be pretty annoyed by this feature.

Certainly within the realm of possibility, but I think all the complaining now is a tad premature. A tad.

So... how does locking the talents address or fix any of this beyond offering you a way to say fuck you to those people?

Every argument for this is honestly a bit depressing... on the surface they say its "for RP" but once you scratch the surface its always about getting one back at the group that wouldn't invite them...

I wouldn't argue it's for RP. It's for decisions having actual meaning. Talents are meaningless when you can respec them on the fly at nearly no cost.

You can make an easy RP argument for covenant abilities not being free respec though since you, ya know, allegedly get them for aligning yourself with their cause or whatnot.

Maybe you should be able to grind out all 4 covenants so then you can just respec your ONE ability on the fly (Yeah clearly there will also be soulbinds but since we haven't seen any of that yet presumably people are only spazzing about this ONE ability. One.) after you've cozied up to all of them. I could see that even making sense.

For a forum that likes to rail on diablo 3, it sure wants wow to be more like diablo 3

WoW 2.0 - MMOARPG confirmed! ;-)

Permalocking talents only works when restarting the character won't take thousand hours.

I don't think anyone is arguing for permalocking (maybe I'm wrong), but rather something a tad less transient than "per fight".

If covenant abilites were easily switched out, it would be like another row of talents. It’s not exciting in the least.
Changing your playstyle to use that flavored extra ability, that represents your choice of pregression, is somewhat more appealing.
I don’t think having one ability versus another will impact what you can and can’t do, especially since each covenant also has soulbinds.

For me, choosing a covenant abilty that has a long term implication (but that you CAN switch if you regret it, as with aldors and scryers in BC) seems way more fun than another bland talent row.

Indeed.

But apparently thinking this way means you just want to say screw you to other players /shrug