Isn't there an obvious solution to the "Mandatory covenants" issue?

[Lolites]

I was specked suboptimal up to mythic and no one bat an eye.

fair point, but then it shouldnt matter if you are able to change them to vast majority of people... yet people treat it like if they are not talent-like easy to change its the end of wow...

[fatgunn]

The fix to the covenants is to make them all deal the exact same damage, with the exact same cd, and the exact same proc rate. The only difference being visual and ability names and descriptions.

That sounds really boring.

[FlubberPuddy]

fair point, but then it shouldnt matter if you are able to change them to vast majority of people... yet people treat it like if they are not talent-like easy to change its the end of wow...

To me it's people want there to be less reasons to do something most find annoying.

There's a reason why for instance in m+ you can't change your talent set up between bosses (idk if you can even change equipment either) but you can do so in normal/heroic/mythic0.

[VinceVega]

fair point, but then it shouldnt matter if you are able to change them to vast majority of people... yet people treat it like if they are not talent-like easy to change its the end of wow...

I don't thin it will affect 80% of players probably. But those 80% would have picked what they wanted anyway. So you just punished a playerbase for fake immersion that apparantly only can come from two fixed abilties.
And of course the apparant raging hate boner people in this forum have for the "top". For no definitive reason. As most of their critics are actually agreed apon by everyone at the top end...

[NineSpine]

Min-maxers: "If you don't like the requirements people have, start your own group"
Also min-maxers: "BUT GROUPS WONT PICK ME IF I DONT COPY EVERYTHING OFF ICY VEINS"

[Orwell7]

Relax bro

There are 144 possible combinations of Class spec and covenant.
Do you think a normal player in LFG will know all 144 possible combinations of covenants and what is best/worst ?

It wont happen IMO

There are -shocking I know- 2187 combination of talents for ONE SPEC in this game alone. (3^7)
And yes, most people do a /inspect and DO know if someone is just goofing around or playing seriously.

[NineSpine]

There are -shocking I know- 2187 combination of talents for ONE SPEC in this game alone. (3^7)
And yes, most people do a /inspect and DO know if someone is just goofing around or playing seriously.

No, most people really don't. The real sickness at the heart of the wow community is the tryhard conviction that everyone else is a tryhard. The vast majority of players don't give a fuck what your talent points are in, at all, ever.

[Lilly32]

looks > stats.

[Soon-TM]

No, most people really don't. The real sickness at the heart of the wow community is the tryhard conviction that everyone else is a tryhard. The vast majority of players don't give a fuck what your talent points are in, at all, ever.

Maybe in LFR/Normal raids. After all, that's where most people dwell

[NineSpine]

Maybe in LFR/Normal raids. After all, that's where most people dwell

Yes, it is. Mythic raiding is a niche activity and should be regarded as such. We should balance the game around it to the same extent we balance the game around other niche activities, like pet battles.

[Soon-TM]

Yes, it is. Mythic raiding is a niche activity and should be regarded as such. We should balance the game around it to the same extent we balance the game around other niche activities, like pet battles.

Idk, highly successful games such as LoL or Dota balance their stuff around what pros can do. Pubstomper heroes are rarely addressed and when they are, more often than not they are tweaked to become less of pubstompers and more fit for high level play. Why should WoW cater to LFR dwellers? If they don't want to swap their covenant of choice for RP/aesthethic/personal reasons, they are free to do so - it's not like they would ever need to.

[FlubberPuddy]

Yes, it is. Mythic raiding is a niche activity and should be regarded as such. We should balance the game around it to the same extent we balance the game around other niche activities, like pet battles.

To put it into perspective, I read somewhere that only 1% of the playerbase mythic raids. Majority of people don't even go above lfr/lfd. There are hundreds of guilds where people only do queueable content and nothing more.

Thinking that the 'average player' is trying to optimize/min-max/cares what min-maxers do shows how out of touch someone is with the reality of the playerbase.

Also, Paul Kubit has even said that these covenant choices need to be thought of as if you're picking a Class.

So if there are players that are fine with rolling up another Class to experience a different Class, then those people should be ok with Covenant restrictions. After all, I don't see these same players months on end complaining and campaigning that Classes should be as easily switchable on 1 character.

[bullseyed]

Damn you Blizzard. Please, no, I DEMAND you make all of the covenants generic, boring clones of each other so I can go back to reading the community complain about how everything feels homogenized! Blizzard has no idea to to develop games with interesting choices, everything just feels "samey"!!!11! XXXXX expansion was better because YYYY felt unique and interesting!

The point you're making here is why Blizzard has always been correct to "ignore feedback" over the years. And WoW is only successful because of it. Every new MMO that came out to beat WoW because they listened to feedback A or B or C failed. Because the "feedback" was always trash.

If people don't like the new covenant design, quit. No one will miss them.

[FlubberPuddy]

Idk, highly successful games such as LoL or Dota balance their stuff around what pros can do. Pubstomper heroes are rarely addressed and when they are, more often than not they are tweaked to become less of pubstompers and more fit for high level play. Why should WoW cater to LFR dwellers? If they don't want to swap their covenant of choice for RP/aesthethic/personal reasons, they are free to do so - it's not like they would ever need to.

LoL and DotA from the get-go are competitive multi-player based games where you're not stuck to 1 character you invest a lot of time in that gains rewards/accumulates tons of accolades.

It's why Blizzard hasn't implemented solo-queue into rated pvp because Blizzard has said those games like League you can very easily switch between 'classes' on the fly per match, something you literally cannot do in WoW so if they had to make queues where 8 dps had to wait for 2 healers they'd be waiting a very very long time (they understand virtually most players in pvp are dps).

If someone wants to play a competitive multiplayer game, WoW is not it.

[Soon-TM]

If someone wants to play a competitive multiplayer game, WoW is not it.

That's weird, I'd have sworn that Blizz gives a lot of screen time to things such as MDI or Arena championships. But maybe I'm mistaken...

[Lolites]

I don't thin it will affect 80% of players probably. But those 80% would have picked what they wanted anyway. So you just punished a playerbase for fake immersion that apparantly only can come from two fixed abilties.
And of course the apparant raging hate boner people in this forum have for the "top". For no definitive reason. As most of their critics are actually agreed apon by everyone at the top end...

well, you might think their immersion is fake, they might think your optimisation is unnecessary, the thing is both groups have their way of playing and neither of you is wrong, there is just no reason why blizz should change the game based on your feedback and not theirs... only reason for that would be if you had vast majority, which i sincerely doubt...

i think I am in majority - i have my opinion (i prefer it the way it is) but if they change it, i wont really mourn...

[bloodwulf]

To put it into perspective, I read somewhere that only 1% of the playerbase mythic raids. Majority of people don't even go above lfr/lfd. There are hundreds of guilds where people only do queueable content and nothing more.

Thinking that the 'average player' is trying to optimize/min-max/cares what min-maxers do shows how out of touch someone is with the reality of the playerbase.

Also, Paul Kubit has even said that these covenant choices need to be thought of as if you're picking a Class.

So if there are players that are fine with rolling up another Class to experience a different Class, then those people should be ok with Covenant restrictions. After all, I don't see these same players months on end complaining and campaigning that Classes should be as easily switchable on 1 character.

My issue is i aesthetically love the Venthyr, love the zone, love the sanctum weekly mission, and love the visuals, but i hate the Mage class ability. It will literally fail to fully function on a large number of boss mobs because they won't use 3 spells or abilities in the time frame.

The point you're making here is why Blizzard has always been correct to "ignore feedback" over the years. And WoW is only successful because of it. Every new MMO that came out to beat WoW because they listened to feedback A or B or C failed. Because the "feedback" was always trash.

If people don't like the new covenant design, quit. No one will miss them.

Blizzard doesn't ignore feedback long. Just look at the last two expansions.

Legion - Feedback - "Legendaries drops were too low, and the power curve for some of them too high to not have" - Blizzard increased drops, and eventually allowed us to pick our legos, per the feedback, thus approving the game.

BFA - Feedback - "Azerite gear is too punishing to respec, and too burdensome to carry multiple sets" - Blizzard lowered the barrier to respec and made multiple sets largely obsolete.

100% guaranteed by 9.1, there will be a major change to covenants if they had not change them by that point. Anyone willing to look at the past 7.1 patch and 8.1 patch that essentially were feedback responses can see this. Blizzard knows this now, and will just explain they were waiting on more people to have access to fix Covenants in 9.1 and people will forgive them for once again arrogantly ignoring mass feedback.

[Lolites]

To me it's people want there to be less reasons to do something most find annoying.

There's a reason why for instance in m+ you can't change your talent set up between bosses (idk if you can even change equipment either) but you can do so in normal/heroic/mythic0.

im sorry, i dont know on which end is the issue but i have no clue what that bolded sentance mean

- - - Updated - - -

My issue is i aesthetically love the Venthyr, love the zone, love the sanctum weekly mission, and love the visuals, but i hate the Mage class ability. It will literally fail to fully function on a large number of boss mobs because they won't use 3 spells or abilities in the time frame.

yeah, as DK with necrolords, I have it the same the ability to pull enemies closer is absolutely useless on bosses

[FlubberPuddy]

That's weird, I'd have sworn that Blizz gives a lot of screen time to things such as MDI or Arena championships. But maybe I'm mistaken...

A few players playing in a tournament under non-standard rules of the game (such as getting to pick whatever corruptions they want for a copper, and kit out whatever class immediately in standardized gear) doesn't equate to the game being a competitive multiplayer game in the same as League/DotA.

Can every single player of WoW get the perks of the switching characters/loadouts/abilities like the tournament players?

In League / DotA / CoD / Fortnite it's completely possible - everyone's on an even playing field.

Your comparison easily falls apart.

[SynDethroc]

Easiest solution: just pick what you think is the most fun. Unless you are in the top 0.9% of whatever form of endgame you prefer, then the choice should really be based upon what you find the most enjoyable.