"Forced" or "Mandatory" covenants

[DemonDays]

You won't hear me arguing against any of that. I said that Blizzard considers Legion a success, since your question involved someone being fired. Precedent is two failed expansions in a row to fire a lead designer.

I know. I was agreeing with you.

Unfortunately I don't think Ion is going anywhere. He's responsible for implementing many of the systems that keep the addicts playing this game.

[SirBeef]

Lads, if you can't defend your opinion without made-up statistics (90% of WoW's population will behave like this if X happens - source: dude, trust me), then your arguments lose a lot of credibility.

The incessant whining about not being able to be optimal for every aspect of the game make them lose credibility IMO. The love to say you can't compare covenants to choosing a class but you really can. No one complains that you can't tank as a priest. But why should the be locked out of it just because they took a non tanking class?

The first meaningful choice is choosing your class. You take the pros and cons that come with it. Not many would argue that a character should be able to change class when they feel like it to be most optimal at any situation.

Covenants are no different, other than you can change them. It's a choice presented to players, chose with faction you want to hook up with(whichbclass you want to play) and accept the pros, the abilities, story, and the transmog, and accept the cons, possibly not being the most optimal at every situation.

I'd accept the whining from some if they feel classes should be able to be able to be changed. But really, it I want my cake and I'm gonna eat it all or else.

- - - Updated - - -

I know. I was agreeing with you.

Unfortunately I don't think Ion is going anywhere. He's responsible for implementing many of the systems that keep the addicts playing this game.

I'd rather be an addict enjoying the game than a masochist who constantly bitches about the game, calls others dumb for enjoying the game(not you personally), but continues to play.

[DemonDays]

The incessant whining about not being able to be optimal for every aspect of the game make them lose credibility IMO. The love to say you can't compare covenants to choosing a class but you really can. No one complains that you can't tank as a priest. But why should the be locked out of it just because they took a non tanking class?

The first meaningful choice is choosing your class. You take the pros and cons that come with it. Not many would argue that a character should be able to change class when they feel like it to be most optimal at any situation.

Covenants are no different, other than you can change them. It's a choice presented to players, chose with faction you want to hook up with(whichbclass you want to play) and accept the pros, the abilities, story, and the transmog, and accept the cons, possibly not being the most optimal at every situation.

I'd accept the whining from some if they feel classes should be able to be able to be changed. But really, it I want my cake and I'm gonna eat it all or else.

- - - Updated - - -



I'd rather be an addict enjoying the game than a masochist who constantly bitches about the game, calls others dumb for enjoying the game(not you personally), but continues to play.

I've been un-subbed for the majority of this expansion. Un-subbed 4 or 5 weeks into 8.3 too(holy shit what a bad patch). I can say that plainly and I can walk away at any point. That doesn't mean I won't continue to point out their shit design practices in the hope this game somehow becomes better.

There are many aspects that are improving in Shadowlands(hopefully). Class Design is not one of them.

On the flip side, I'll never understand peoples incessant defending of the game at every opportunity they can. You are defending a corporation that does not have your best interests at heart.

If you can identify they purposefully design these systems to fuck you over, keep you addicted and keep you paying. Then why do you feel the need to defend them? (not you personally but this forum man, holy shit).

[Malix Farwin]

Talents are also swappable, that is not an admission that you need to be able to swap your class in rested areas as well.


That's what you get when you have a shitty community that's obsessed with needless and arbitrary optimization. There's no real reason any of those systems couldn't be freely chosen, except that people don't want them to be. Look at classes, they have the exact same problem (i.e. there are very good classes in an expansion/patch, and very "bad" classes) yet the community at large has simply decided to ignore that disparity.

Class populations don't wildly fluctuate with each expansion or patch. When monks or warlocks are very strong, and paladins are bad, you don't suddenly have 90% of DPS playing monks and warlocks and 0% choosing paladins. Because players just get over the fact that they are playing something other than the optimal class, and play what they want to play. Top 10 guilds class stack, a handful of low-end players imitate that, and the other 99.99% of players in the game pick a class they want to play and play it.

That druids are objective garbage in vanilla hasn't stopped 8%+ of players from picking them in classic. Yet as was mentioned above, people will needlessly obsess over shit like world buffs even in content that's a complete pushover. And that blood elves were non-optimal in most content for a very long time hasn't stopped them from being the most played in the game for most of its lifespan, and far and away the most played Horde race.

The fact is, all any of these systems need to work fine as free choice is for people to stop being retarded and understand that no part of the game is balanced around pure optimization, and that they can just choose what they want and play the game, like they do every single patch of every single expansion with classes and races.

I'd have to disagree because we have seen situations in the past when things were actual choices even at the highest level. an easy example i can give is with Affliction in Legion. in 7.0 People were running Absolute corruption over Contagion even when Contagion was a DPS increase simply because it felt better with Soul Effigy. Another example in that same Expac was Affliction locks taking Soul Conduit over Soul Effigy in 7.1.5 even though Soul Effigy performed better and simmed higher simply because of not liking it.

Simply put its not because of the players that choice is void from the game, its because of Blizzard themselves and the reason people do not believe that covenants will be a choice is because of A. Blizzard usually gives up on balancing things after the first couple weeks and B. Based off what we are already seeing on Alpha some covenants are clearly better than others to even the naked eye.

[DemonDays]

I'd have to disagree because we have seen situations in the past when things were actual choices even at the highest level. an easy example i can give is with Affliction in Legion. in 7.0 People were running Absolute corruption over Contagion even when Contagion was a DPS increase simply because it felt better with Soul Effigy. Another example in that same Expac was Affliction locks taking Soul Conduit over Soul Effigy in 7.1.5 even though Soul Effigy performed better and simmed higher simply because of not liking it.

Simply put its not because of the players that choice is void from the game, its because of Blizzard themselves and the reason people do not believe that covenants will be a choice is because of A. Blizzard usually gives up on balancing things after the first couple weeks and B. Based off what we are already seeing on Alpha some covenants are clearly better than others to even the naked eye.

Fanboys like to act like it's players who set the meta.

"People just pick whatever talents are set in the guides."


Then you look at Battle for Azeroth and how Blizzard didn't do a single tuning pass on talents for the entire expansion.

[SirBeef]

I've been un-subbed for the majority of this expansion. Un-subbed 4 or 5 weeks into 8.3 too(holy shit what a bad patch). I can say that plainly and I can walk away at any point. That doesn't mean I won't continue to point out their shit design practices in the hope this game somehow becomes better.

There are many aspects that are improving in Shadowlands(hopefully). Class Design is not one of them.

On the flip side, I'll never understand peoples incessant defending of the game at every opportunity they can. You are defending a corporation that does not have your best interests at heart.

If you can identify they purposefully design these systems to fuck you over, keep you addicted and keep you paying. Then why do you feel the need to defend them? (not you personally but this forum man, holy shit).

I don't feel they design anything to fuck anyone over. It's a business model to keep people subscribed. The while point of subscriptions is to keep people playing so they keep paying. Nothing from that regard has changed since Vanilla. What has changed is that you no longer need to log in every single day to feel like you have made any progression. Still in the long run one would need to play consecutive months to see content and "keep". But with catch up mechanics leaving for a bit isn't as detrimental as it may have been before.

As for defending, I enjoy the game, I like the direction SL is headed, especially with meaningful choice in covenants. I understand Blizzard doesn't care about me as, but that doesn't mean I cannot enjoy their games, and criticize, what I feel are entitled players because Blizzard might make them 95% optimal over Dallas opposed to 99% optimal.

As with you I can walk away anytime I choose. Afterall, these are just games and I have many. I have walked away from many other MMOs and games after they were no longer fun. WoW will be no different. So when raiding with my friends a couple nights a week becomes a chore or I feel I'd rather do something else, I'll leave as easy as that.

[cancel]

The expansion is garbage, nobody argues.

The patch is even worse, which is kind of an accomplishment too, but that has nothing to do with whining people who don't understand that nobody is forcing them to do something and pick something in that game, besides their own selves if they want to achieve something in game. If you want to raid more competitively, of course you will pick the covenant for that... If there is super noticeable difference between covenants dps/hps/tank wise, which i don't doubt there will be, I myself won't want to play with someone who picked the worst one, it talks of commitment and logic. If your transmog/mount/story is more important than your raid performance, be my guest and pick what you want, but don't rant about not being picked for raiding, why should the other 19/29 players have their raiding experience worse, because you like that pony.

Everything is based upon personal decisions, they are pros and cons of everything you choose to do. You put yourself within a group of like-minded people in the best scenario, so if you prefer to raid you expect your other 19 friends to make same logical decision as you and pick the best raiding covenant. If you prefer the casual approach to things, you will play with similar players as you and hopefully not struggle clearing the content, tho there is a LFR version of the raid and there are Mythic 0 dungeons, so I'm missing the whole point of this rant when the only person responsible for you picking up a bad covenant because of transmog, is you.

[Hitei]

I'd have to disagree because we have seen situations in the past when things were actual choices even at the highest level. an easy example i can give is with Affliction in Legion. in 7.0 People were running Absolute corruption over Contagion even when Contagion was a DPS increase simply because it felt better with Soul Effigy. Another example in that same Expac was Affliction locks taking Soul Conduit over Soul Effigy in 7.1.5 even though Soul Effigy performed better and simmed higher simply because of not liking it.

Simply put its not because of the players that choice is void from the game, its because of Blizzard themselves and the reason people do not believe that covenants will be a choice is because of A. Blizzard usually gives up on balancing things after the first couple weeks and B. Based off what we are already seeing on Alpha some covenants are clearly better than others to even the naked eye.

You aren't disagreeing though. The underlined is my exact point. The choice to pick the numeric best option is arbitrary and on the player's side. It doesn't actually matter if one convenant ability is objectively better, because players can and do just choose what they want to play over optimality frequently, in specific situations (like classes, or races, or your talent example), but players also arbitrarily decide that they can't possibly pick some other choice because it's 0.1% suboptimal compared to some other option.

Balancing has little to do with it. DKs were outright broken at Wrath launch and quickly slammed with nerf after nerf, but their population remained extremely strong for several expansions. Monks were very strong at launch but had very little population, to the point that Blizzard realistically overbuffed them for a long stretch, and they still had very little population.

At every single expansion launch in the history of the game, there have been classes that are clearly better than others to even the naked eye, yet at no point in the game has there been a time where absolutely no one is playing X class, and absolutely everyone is playing Y class. Because like the talent example you gave, in actuality, people aren't forced to pick one option at all, they can play what they want. There is no reason covenants can't work exactly as is, people can pick the one they want, just like they pick the class and race they want to play, despite that frequently not being the best choice. But instead players (not Blizzard, who doesn't balance for perfect optimization) will decide that the spell is a make or break issue and that they HAVE to pick the best one even though it's not the one they want to play, while simultaneously playing a class that probably isn't the best at a given role because they WANT to play that class even if it's not the best choice.

[mhdoe]

It really doesn't matter except to those looking for something they deem is wrong and feel the need to explain why. Most people who complain that people will be 'kicked' for the wrong choice will never even be in that situation. People will still run mythic+ and mythic raids and have no issues alot of people like to compare themselves to world first or competition teams but they will never play at that high a level.

[DemonDays]

As for defending, I enjoy the game, I like the direction SL is headed, especially with meaningful choice in covenants.

Yeah except you repeated this entire song and dance with BfA too. I guess you just like anything Blizzard puts out, regardless of it's quality.

[Krakan]

I don't feel they design anything to fuck anyone over. It's a business model to keep people subscribed. The while point of subscriptions is to keep people playing so they keep paying. Nothing from that regard has changed since Vanilla. What has changed is that you no longer need to log in every single day to feel like you have made any progression. Still in the long run one would need to play consecutive months to see content and "keep". But with catch up mechanics leaving for a bit isn't as detrimental as it may have been before.

As for defending, I enjoy the game, I like the direction SL is headed, especially with meaningful choice in covenants. I understand Blizzard doesn't care about me as, but that doesn't mean I cannot enjoy their games, and criticize, what I feel are entitled players because Blizzard might make them 95% optimal over Dallas opposed to 99% optimal.

As with you I can walk away anytime I choose. Afterall, these are just games and I have many. I have walked away from many other MMOs and games after they were no longer fun. WoW will be no different. So when raiding with my friends a couple nights a week becomes a chore or I feel I'd rather do something else, I'll leave as easy as that.

I'm not actually sure if you play wow to be honest...

We moved closer to needing to log in every day not further from it...

In the past you easily got to the point of raid logging compared to what we have today.

This is such a utterly baffling argument to make I honestly have to ask if you are playing world of warcraft or if WoW means world of wonder or something else to you.

[Specialka]

I'm not actually sure if you play wow to be honest...

We moved closer to needing to log in every day not further from it...

In the past you easily got to the point of raid logging compared to what we have today.

This is such a utterly baffling argument to make I honestly have to ask if you are playing world of warcraft or if WoW means world of wonder or something else to you.

Or maybe he is just doing world quest and lfr, and yes in that case, you can just log once in a while.

[Malix Farwin]

You aren't disagreeing though. The underlined is my exact point. The choice to pick the numeric best option is arbitrary and on the player's side. It doesn't actually matter if one convenant ability is objectively better, because players can and do just choose what they want to play over optimality frequently, in specific situations (like classes, or races, or your talent example), but players also arbitrarily decide that they can't possibly pick some other choice because it's 0.1% suboptimal compared to some other option.

Balancing has little to do with it. DKs were outright broken at Wrath launch and quickly slammed with nerf after nerf, but their population remained extremely strong for several expansions. Monks were very strong at launch but had very little population, to the point that Blizzard realistically overbuffed them for a long stretch, and they still had very little population.

At every single expansion launch in the history of the game, there have been classes that are clearly better than others to even the naked eye, yet at no point in the game has there been a time where absolutely no one is playing X class, and absolutely everyone is playing Y class. Because like the talent example you gave, in actuality, people aren't forced to pick one option at all, they can play what they want. There is no reason covenants can't work exactly as is, people can pick the one they want, just like they pick the class and race they want to play, despite that frequently not being the best choice. But instead players (not Blizzard, who doesn't balance for perfect optimization) will decide that the spell is a make or break issue and that they HAVE to pick the best one even though it's not the one they want to play, while simultaneously playing a class that probably isn't the best at a given role because they WANT to play that class even if it's not the best choice.

No you misunderstood what i was saying. I was saying that i disagree that its the PLAYERS THAT ARE MAKING THE INFLUENCE on choice when its blizzard. Even the examples i used the choice was made solely because of Blizzard, people wouldnt of chose those talents if Soul Effigy didnt exist.

[Amariw]

I see terms like these being throw around way too much, like you won't get to choose the covenant you like.

This is pure bullshit. You can do whatever the hell you want. It won't cost you a raid spot, you can still do m+ and pugs won't spit on you.

Making permanent choices is a crucial part of the RPG experience. We should have more things like this so we could express ourselves and make our character unique from others of our class.

You're mostly wrong, depending if the covenant effects are strong or not. If they're strong (and blizz implies that they are intended to be, both abilities and passive bonuses combined), then they will favor a type of content (as a broad example, aoe-oreinted covenant choices will mostly favor m+).

This will make those speccs feel forced to get that covenant if they want to, for example, m+ at the highest level. WoW is a game with a competitive mindset and many players wish to at least be able to play optimally, even if they're not at that level. The choice should be lore oreinted, which fits wow design while still enhancing its choices, and the abilities should be something relatively easily switched like talents or essences. It won't hurt your joy to be able to relatively easily switch abilities, but it will hurt others if they can't.

That's without getting into the fact your favourite gameplay ability might require your most hated lore covenant, which basically fucks over everyone, gameplay-first players and immersion-first players alike. Its a backward decision, i still hope they reconsider.

[Sunslayer]

Im not looking forward to Covenants, at all. Why? Covenants are 5 separate, choices all rolled into a single choice. Ive always played classes based on different roles available to keep it fresh. Such as, with DK I equally tank and DPS. As Shaman I love playing all 3 specs in a competitive nature and at the highest level I can attain. Covenants are going to make us choose the following: class ability (which is great for tanking but poor for DPS or visa versa). Utility: (which could also be good for one spec, not for another). Such as, a 4 second cast absorb is worthless for my Resto Shaman whom I play only in Arena. 4 seconds is a lifetime in Arena for a small absorb...no thanks.

I need to stop here because this will be a novel by the end. Hopefully, you get the gist. I think Covenants as they are look awful. It's too many, important choices rolled into a singular choice. It doesn't match how many play this game.

[Lurker1]

You aren't wrong. I'm very interested to see how they handle covenant abilities, but at this point I'm so casual that I'm just picking them based on flavor so in the end it doesn't matter much to me, the game is infinitely more fun and interesting now that I'm not giving a shit about it.

Well said!

[Echocho]

You aren't wrong. I'm very interested to see how they handle covenant abilities, but at this point I'm so casual that I'm just picking them based on flavor so in the end it doesn't matter much to me, the game is infinitely more fun and interesting now that I'm not giving a shit about it.

Sounds like a healthy approach. Everyone should probably come at it from that angle, WoW isn't supposed to be your whole identity.

[Erous]

It's a massive disservice for my raid team to not choose a specific covenant for my class and spec. I guess because I give a shit I'm penalized.

[Dizzeeyooo]

It's a massive disservice for my raid team to not choose a specific covenant for my class and spec. I guess because I give a shit I'm penalized.

Giving a shit = elitist nowadays, sadly.

[SirBeef]

Yeah except you repeated this entire song and dance with BfA too. I guess you just like anything Blizzard puts out, regardless of it's quality.

Got it so I'm supposed to be bitter and yell at the clouds over something I like. I can't help that you guys don't like change, or the direction Blizzard takes with WoW. I like that they take risks. Have they all panned out? Nope. Have I liked them all? Nope. The difference is I don't whine and bitch about it. As personally I don't care it's just a video game. Granted a game I've put in thousands of hours in, but the main reason I play is to see the worlds Blizzard creates, and to raid. Nothing else matters for the most part.

I've been a life long Paladin main, mostly Prot/Ret, sometimes Ret/protect, only holy when I had no choice in Vanilla and most of TBC. Yeah the class has had it's fair share of good and bad times. I didn't like some iteration and loved others. The reason I didn't quit over them is not one class change, nor game change was big enough to ruin my fun.

So you guys can cry all you want about this or that. I'll be having fun. The moment I'm not having fun, I'll leave and no one will notice because I don't need to blog about it as this is just a game and not really that important in the overall scheme if things.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not actually sure if you play wow to be honest...

We moved closer to needing to log in every day not further from it...

In the past you easily got to the point of raid logging compared to what we have today.

This is such a utterly baffling argument to make I honestly have to ask if you are playing world of warcraft or if WoW means world of wonder or something else to you.

You say that yet I logged in exactly 3 nights a week with an occasional 4th during the winter for the last 10 years or so. 2 nights to raid, a third night to raid if we wanted it level alts and such, and the 4th was BGs, levelling, or working on transmog when we were laid off and I only need to be in on the office a couple days a week.

Not once have Inever felt I was behind due to catch up mechanics and my guild. I've said this over and over we just don't give a shit about what anyone does. You all feel like you have to run M15s or whatever so you can keep you world 5000 rank or something. We all did that shit back between Vanilla and WotLK. All of us are older professionals with lives not dedicated to WoW. So yeah, I don't need to log in every day. If I ever felt I needed to to play hiw I like I'd stop in a heartbeat.

But sure we may not kill Mythic N'zoth because we don't have enough corrupted gear. Oh well. We had fun trying and not forcing ourselves to do things we didn't want to do. Like we didn't kill mythic Argus,or Mythuc KJ before Antorus came out. We haven had a final tier Mythic Kill since Mop and that is just fine because we have other things more important than spending every day playing WoW in out mid 50s to 60s. We have a couple in their late 30s and a gentleman in is 70s.

But just because we do things our own way and take a much longer time doing it, usually a week or two before the next tier or expansion if we are still raiding, doesn't mean I don't play. As I've said before, my time giving a shit about rankings and keeping up with others in games died in ICC. Was foing to get server first HC Arthas 10 man(strict) and was upended by a 25man heroically geared guild overnight before we were to raid. Sure those onnthe server gave us credit but they got it officially. I said fuck worrying about this crap and set out looking for others that just wanted to have fun.

- - - Updated - - -

You're mostly wrong, depending if the covenant effects are strong or not. If they're strong (and blizz implies that they are intended to be, both abilities and passive bonuses combined), then they will favor a type of content (as a broad example, aoe-oreinted covenant choices will mostly favor m+).

This will make those speccs feel forced to get that covenant if they want to, for example, m+ at the highest level. WoW is a game with a competitive mindset and many players wish to at least be able to play optimally, even if they're not at that level. The choice should be lore oreinted, which fits wow design while still enhancing its choices, and the abilities should be something relatively easily switched like talents or essences. It won't hurt your joy to be able to relatively easily switch abilities, but it will hurt others if they can't.

That's without getting into the fact your favourite gameplay ability might require your most hated lore covenant, which basically fucks over everyone, gameplay-first players and immersion-first players alike. Its a backward decision, i still hope they reconsider.

Wrong, you are still free to choose what you like.

- - - Updated - - -

It's a massive disservice for my raid team to not choose a specific covenant for my class and spec. I guess because I give a shit I'm penalized.

Don't see how you are penalized. You choose to participate in a guild that requires you to make decisions like this. You knew what you signed up for. You don't get to play the victim.