Solution to the whole covenant problem.

[Vakir]

Liking meaningful choices is my playstyle. You may dislike those words as much as you want, it doesn't stop being a valid reason for us to like the next expansion's premise.

Your choice doesn't become less meaningful because one concession was made.

[Soon-TM]

Your choice doesn't become less meaningful because one concession was made.

Dude, the whole point is not to have meaningful choices, but rather shove them down everyone's throats. I mean, if the RP/"choice" part was sooooo important, they wouldn't give a crap about swapping or not, since no one would prevent them from not swapping their chosen covenant ever - and they'd have to live with their Choice™

[glowpipe]

the issues are highly overrated. Some people chose a coven that looks cool, some chose one that sim the highest, its easy to swap, hard to go back, if you chose one that is garbage, you can change coven easily. When blizzard inevitable nerf the op coven or buff the marginaly worse one, thats on you and you just have to put in the effort required to swap back.

How covens are designed will force blizzard to spend a lot of effort balancing it. So it won't be a issue for 95% of the people playing the game

[Vakir]

Dude, the whole point is not to have meaningful choices, but rather shove them down everyone's throats.

Oh, I know this. I'm waiting for them to admit it rather than be cowardly about it.

[korijenkins]

Don't think there's a problem.

You're unbearably naive. Remain oblivious all you want, but the issue is covenants are tedious to unlock, cost a lot to change, and have abilities tied to them that will get buffed and nerfed throughout content and will be situationally better or worse depending on what you're doing.

[Tiev]

I mean, making meaningful decisions seems to me like it's destined to bite them in the ass. If they had to balance however many classes there were in the past, they now have to balance those classes, with choices they share with other classes. The complexity of balancing seems to be a lot harder, especially since it's not like you can change it as you can with talents.

So if you have to spend god knows how many hours grinding to respec back and forth to the best covenant to do harder content being able to pull your weight, meanwhile not being able to hop on alt because you need to spend your game hours grinding covenant respecs, it doesn't really feel such a big departure from AP, isles and whatnot.

Depending on how this is done, this can really f.up competitive high-end content and the enjoyment of the game for those who like that sort of thing.

[Codah]

Covenants are PERFECT. The harder it is to have a mathematically 'perfect' character, the better.

Words of wisdom, Lloyd.

[LorDC]

That's quite the negative outlook.

No wonder you are so unsatisfied. I would be too.

That is a roundabout way of saying "GTFO if you don't like it". And it's "mythic raiders that come off as extremely entitled".
Problem is, games are designed for people not the other way around. If WoW was a new game on the market, I would agree with you. Not every game is for every player after all. I would agree if Blizzard came out and loudly said: "Hey, we don't care about people who care about their performance, you are not our audience and we are not going to design the game around you."
But right now Blizzard wants to eat their cake and have it too. They are just keeping everything the same, while slapping a bandaid with a fancy graphic on top of it.

That's on you, then.

Blizzard won't stop designing a RPG just because some nobody disregarded all RPG aspects of World of Warcraft.

"Some nobody" is their whole team for the past 15 years.

[Sharnie786]

Don't think there's a problem.

There is! Too much power and too many systems to balance.

[Matt0193]

I'd love to see everyone saying "It's fine, pick what you want" still saying the same thing after they nerf their chosen covenant's abilities week after week because it's overturned in a certain aspect of the game they don't participate in, and then being shafted if they want an ability that's actually impactful.

[Echocho]

I'd love to see everyone saying "It's fine, pick what you want" still saying the same thing after they nerf their chosen covenant's abilities week after week because it's overturned in a certain aspect of the game they don't participate in, and then being shafted if they want an ability that's actually impactful.

That's why you don't choose whatever does the most damage, you choose the one you like. It's just like classes, you don't change those every time there's a round of tuning

[ClassicPeon]

Yes it is truth. Its just few entilted players what demands option to be optimal in all situations and in all type of content. Games are about solving math, pick best thing and play with it. Its avout making decisions no matter if bad or good.

Absolutely nothing about this post makes any logical sense.

A large disparity in balance hits everyone who is trying to push themselves in this game. We arent talking the 1-2% difference here, hardly anyone cares about that. We are talking massive difference because the covenant abilities are way differently powered.

A blood dk who can continuously pull a mob after him? Thats extremely strong for m+. Nothing else compared even if its better damage wise. Its useless for raids though.

These things shoehorn people who even care a little about their performance. I get it, it doesnt matter for the people who only pick flowers and sell them on the AH. People like that shouldnt voice ther opinion on this though.

[Starscream101]

Im just sick of the borrowed power and the grind to get it. Soul binds nothing but another version of artifact weapons from legion it has been done for 3 x-packs now move on away from that grind. and it going to blow if you play tank and dps 50-50 on your choices which will suck. and will suck for alts too the grind like all ways.

[Delever]

Alternative power progression is put in the game to force competitive players (both pve and pvp) to grind. Disabling them in competitive content would let people play that content without grinding beforehand, and we can't have that. Have to pad these player activity metrics somehow.

Blizzard wants to force everyone into everything, pvers to pvp, pvpers to pve, and everyone combined into their shitty "world content" that is boring and awful but "can't have an MMO without making the world feel ALIVE" aka forcing players to sit in it for prolonged hours. Because god forbid "WOW is turning into a lobby game / instance simulator" (real complaints from real people(?) I've read here on MMOchamp).

Covenants are just next step of mandatory rep grinding / world quest fiesta that gets worse with every expansion.

Yes actually god forbid. I imagine league of legends players would be very upset if it suddenly turned into an open world game which it initially was not. (yeah yeah bad analogy cause its a moba but you get the idea).

[MrKnubbles]

I already don't like that my character feels different in the world vs. in dungeons and raids because of War Mode and PvP talents. I wouldn't want an even more complex system with fun passives to be disabled during my most important battles.

[ClassicPeon]

Im just sick of the borrowed power and the grind to get it. Soul binds nothing but another version of artifact weapons from legion it has been done for 3 x-packs now move on away from that grind. and it going to blow if you play tank and dps 50-50 on your choices which will suck. and will suck for alts too the grind like all ways.

You arent as informed about the system as you think you are. Thats clear from how you describe the problems with covenants.

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I already don't like that my character feels different in the world vs. in dungeons and raids because of War Mode and PvP talents. I wouldn't want an even more complex system with fun passives to be disabled during my most important battles.

agree with this. I dont think thats the solution. Perhaps you could disable the covenant specific abilities(the utility ones) in instanced content. THat would at least make it easier to balance. But getting rid of the class specific abilities aswell as soulbinds and stuff is a mistake.

[NineSpine]

Absolutely nothing about this post makes any logical sense.

A large disparity in balance hits everyone who is trying to push themselves in this game. We arent talking the 1-2% difference here, hardly anyone cares about that. We are talking massive difference because the covenant abilities are way differently powered.

A blood dk who can continuously pull a mob after him? Thats extremely strong for m+. Nothing else compared even if its better damage wise. Its useless for raids though.

These things shoehorn people who even care a little about their performance. I get it, it doesnt matter for the people who only pick flowers and sell them on the AH. People like that shouldnt voice ther opinion on this though.

The funny part about this is that I’ve seen people argue that every different DK power is “mandatory” for M+. It’s almost as if they are all going to be useful in different scenarios...

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You arent as informed about the system as you think you are. Thats clear from how you describe the problems with covenants.

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agree with this. I dont think thats the solution. Perhaps you could disable the covenant specific abilities(the utility ones) in instanced content. THat would at least make it easier to balance. But getting rid of the class specific abilities aswell as soulbinds and stuff is a mistake.

It’s not feasible either way. All of these things interact. Soulbinds change how covenant abilities work.

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For starters, they were always very few, if you compare them with RPG classics such as Baldur's Gate, Divinity or Dragon Age. And they were progressively removed for the sake of player's convenience, which begs the question - why now? And please don't resort to inane buzzwords such as "meaningful choice".

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Imagine if going with Wolvar in WotLK would have prevented you from using a very useful spell, e.g. Blink as a mage. How many mages do you think would have chosen Oracles in that case? Yeah, only the [insert obviously made up number]%, damn those dirty elitists!!

“Can you imagine this absurd hypothetical I made up?”

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I mean, making meaningful decisions seems to me like it's destined to bite them in the ass. If they had to balance however many classes there were in the past, they now have to balance those classes, with choices they share with other classes. The complexity of balancing seems to be a lot harder, especially since it's not like you can change it as you can with talents.

So if you have to spend god knows how many hours grinding to respec back and forth to the best covenant to do harder content being able to pull your weight, meanwhile not being able to hop on alt because you need to spend your game hours grinding covenant respecs, it doesn't really feel such a big departure from AP, isles and whatnot.

Depending on how this is done, this can really f.up competitive high-end content and the enjoyment of the game for those who like that sort of thing.

You have this backward. More knobs are easier to balance, not harder to balance. It’s counterintuitive, but it’s true.

[Specialka]

Wait til ppl pick a covenant because it is the best dps/tank/heal wise than Blizzard will proceed to nerf it for some reasons. Can't wait to see that shitstorm.

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The funny part about this is that I’ve seen people argue that every different DK power is “mandatory” for M+. It’s almost as if they are all going to be useful in different scenarios...

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It’s not feasible either way. All of these things interact. Soulbinds change how covenant abilities work.

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“Can you imagine this absurd hypothetical I made up?”

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You have this backward. More knobs are easier to balance, not harder to balance. It’s counterintuitive, but it’s true.

Any source to back up that claim about the "knob"? Because I can make shit up as you do (not as good as yours since you have so much more practice in the matter).

[Elias01]

Im just sick of the borrowed power and the grind to get it. Soul binds nothing but another version of artifact weapons from legion it has been done for 3 x-packs now move on away from that grind. and it going to blow if you play tank and dps 50-50 on your choices which will suck. and will suck for alts too the grind like all ways.

You play wrong kind of game if you dont like grinds. Maybe mobas would suit your playstyle better.

[NineSpine]

Wait til ppl pick a covenant because it is the best dps/tank/heal wise than Blizzard will proceed to nerf it for some reasons. Can't wait to see that shitstorm.

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Any source to back up that claim about the "knob"? Because I can make shit up as you do (not as good as yours since you have so much more practice in the matter).

My source is me. I used to work at Vicarious Visions, and it’s my opinion having worked in game design. I’m happy to explain the theory behind it, but not if your only mode of discourse is “condescending douchebag”.