Blizzard is currently failing with the Covenant system

[Nagawithlegs]

Did not think of that! Needs some rework then. But there are people who does outdoor stuff in groups too, World PvP for instance. But yeah, you are right about that.

I genuinely think that having the covenant combat abilities be usable in raids/dungeons but not the utility abilities is the way to go. Aside from what I mentioned there aren't really that many positive applications of the two abilities in endgame content, moreso they would fuck it up by ruining M+ for anyone that wants to be Kyrian/Necrolord. While some players may complain that they're slower in instanced content that is much better than them being weaker.

[Tradu]

While there has been an increase of the RNG procs, i think corruption in particular is not the greatest example because Ion said that was a mistake on their part and the entire corruption system being one massive clown fiesta.

I think the issue in regards to that is those systems are too much of a hassle to bother around.

Like, even if they relent on this covenant nonsense, you still need to swap the following on a fight to fight basis:
-Talents
-Gear (potentially)
-Covenant ability
-Soulbind (ignoring reconfiguring the soulbind itself)

It's a tad annyoing to swap all that constantly around (though less annoying than not being able to swap at all).

I think this issue just goes back to a problem i keep repeating: The devs no longer have a coherent vision of their game or know who or what their target audience is.

Like, people that point fingers at the "hardcore" players also ignore that Blizzard added a multitude of highly competitive (Arena, M+) game modes and cranked up the difficulty of (the highest difficulty of) raids for years.
If then you also slack on balance, it's no damn surprise that a "Meta" keeps forming where everybody expects to be the Meta choice.

They design more difficult / competitive content and still struggle to get a grasp on balance, these issues multiply each other quite heavily as far as the formation of a "Meta" is concerned.

I'll say it again: If Blizzard believes they want to "save the RPG" of WoW, so much more needs to be done than just putting a lock before a (burrowed) power choice, because i was unable to appreciate WoW as an RPG for years by now.


The point is that Blizzard tries to emulate the concept behind it, not copy it at verbatim.

Yeah, there's probably too many things to consider for your "loadout" already. I think the solution there is to consolidate some of those systems, rather than adding systems that cause problems where they feel like things you can usually change as part of your loadout, but they're too restricted to be able to actually do that.
I think essences are actually in a pretty good spot in terms of how many things you have to change. 1 major change, 3 minor changes. The specific essences in the game are not very good in terms of how much they actually affect your character, but the number of decisions is pretty good.
Having that as the framework each expansion seems like a decent starting point. 1 major loadout change and maybe 3 minor changes(in addition to gear/talents). Then they can design the specific effects around that framework, without inflating the amount of changes we need to make.

[Saltysquidoon]

It's probably not small-time, it doesn't really seem like that huge a deal to me, either. Which is a nice place for these sorts of abilities to sit right? Not fuck-busted to the point where you don't have a choice but to take it, but not insignificant to the point where you'd question why anyone would ever take it. Not saying you implied anything like that ability was broken. It's just a thought I'm having, on the topic of the design or balance of abilities like this.

Or am I just underestimating the magnitude and significance of versatility as a stat? Is a boost like that, 10%/4% for ten seconds, actually ridiculously stupid and game-changing? I'm legit curious.

Well because versi is a damage and healing increase (and smaller damage reduction), in less 'trinity' focused situations (like PvP or high M+) it tends to be more valuable. But I wasn't saying it was strong because it was versi.

I also wasn't saying it was broken, although if it goes live like that it will be very desirable in M+. I was just pointing out to the poster that the whole covenant package is not even close to 'small-time' and suggesting otherwise is wrong.

Another factor I didn't even bring up is different covenant abilities have different CDs so unless it has an ICD not mentioned on the tooltip (which it might have or gain) that's going to be another factor of balance. If a blood tank, for example, can get this up every minute but a Paladin tank can only do it every 4 minutes that's a serious power gap for the same ability between classes.

[Nagawithlegs]

The thing I don't understand is: why do it now?
Introducing something like covenants and more or less locking players in them would probably be fine if they hadn't done the complete opposite for more than a decade. They've introduced so many changes to the game that aimed at making e.g. faction choice less important at the cost of lore (Tauren Paladins omegalul) and the flavour that came from those decisions.
Back then it didn't bother players because that was the state of the game they were introduced to but as they've continued to make all of these "quality of life" changes over the years that give the player a lot more freedom, it naturally makes systems like this feel like players are actually losing something. The sentiment is probably most similar to how people feel about pathfinder/flying in recent expansions.

If you give people the freedom to do something and then take it away at a later point, it's bound to feel like a bad forced/contrived decision.

Because in the case of Covenants, more freedom means less ACTUAL choice. Everyone will roll the same abilities while picking their own story/aesthetics, leading to the same boring meta of every class rolling one or two specs with laid out choices from external websites. This is Blizzard's attempt to shake that up and make it harder to follow a template.

[MagicMiissile]

Are you sure about that?

Wait, so me going warrior and venthyr getting condemn would mean I'd have it on a 100% uptime when boss is between 0-35% hp(with execute talent) and 80-100%? That's insane and I can't see them letting that go live

[Tradu]

I would be more worried if they hadn't expressed their understanding that people are freaked out and they have a contingency plan ready if they can't balance them, and it wasn't something they'd expressed multiple times throughout alpha (I think it was stated at the very beginning as well).

While people are being pessimistic about that (hurr they'll lock it behind 9.3!!!) I think that Blizz definitely doesn't want a repeat of BFA launch and if they can't accomplish anything resembling balance it'll be changed at launch or right after. But from the very start they've admitted this is risky and they have a plan in case they fuck up. This is not how they handled Azerite where they did not plan on it being shit and needing fixes.

As the idea is honestly inspiring and something I'd like to see I can't join the crowd saying "you'll fuck up, stop it" because Blizz does need to get better.

This is fair, but I don't trust them to actually break the glass in case of emergency until after we've had to deal with it on live for months. If they do actually change it before launch, good on them, that'll get added to the list of good decisions/designs along with SL legendaries.

[Doffen]

I genuinely think that having the covenant combat abilities be usable in raids/dungeons but not the utility abilities is the way to go. Aside from what I mentioned there aren't really that many positive applications of the two abilities in endgame content, moreso they would fuck it up by ruining M+ for anyone that wants to be Kyrian/Necrolord. While some players may complain that they're slower in instanced content that is much better than them being weaker.

Yeah, I actually thought I heard them say that during blizzcon lol. Wishful thinking maybe

I think that makes sense, a lot of sense.

[Saltysquidoon]

Wait, so me going warrior and venthyr getting condemn would mean I'd have it on a 100% uptime when boss is between 0-35% hp(with execute talent) and 80-100%? That's insane and I can't see them letting that go live

Yeah, if it doesn't have an ICD it's going to have to get one.
But even then like I said above a DK or DH tank is still going to innately get more value over a Pally tank because of the Covenant ability CD.

[Nerovar]

Because in the case of Covenants, more freedom means less ACTUAL choice. Everyone will roll the same abilities while picking their own story/aesthetics, leading to the same boring meta of every class rolling one or two specs with laid out choices from external websites. This is Blizzard's attempt to shake that up and make it harder to follow a template.

This doesn't really address my question. The question is: why do it now after more than 10 years of giving the player more freedom, more accessibility, more options to play around with what the game has to offer without experiencing major barriers. It's like they've realized that they've taken away all of the "meaningful" choices over the years and now want to bring them back in the form of one choice that has more impact than all of those choices combined.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

This doesn't really address my question. The question is: why do it now after more than 10 years of giving the player more freedom, more accessibility, more options to play around with what the game has to offer without experiencing major barriers. It's like they've realized that they've taken away all of the "meaningful" choices over the years and now want to bring them back in the form of one choice that has more impact than all of those choices combined.

Because at some point they realized "Oh...well this is a problem" sorta like Flying.

[Nagawithlegs]

This doesn't really address my question. The question is: why do it now after more than 10 years of giving the player more freedom, more accessibility, more options to play around with what the game has to offer without experiencing major barriers. It's like they've realized that they've taken away all of the "meaningful" choices over the years and now want to bring them back in the form of one choice that has more impact than all of those choices combined.

Probably because they're building up to some kind of Warcraft reboot to revitalize the game. Honestly, BFA does it with the HUGE lore shakeups (Horde, holy shit) and subraces, Shadowlands does it with resets on multiple core foundations like leveling, gearing, the reintroduction of valor cap (renown) and character customization. 10.0 is theorized to include things like old world revamps in places.

If they want to do a soft reboot of WoW it makes sense they are shifting away from things they feel aren't good for the game or aren't running parallel with their future game.

- - - Updated - - -

Because at some point they realized "Oh...well this is a problem" sorta like Flying.

Basically this as well.

[Kralljin]

The thing I don't understand is: why do it now?

That's pure speculation on my part, but i believe that Ion in particular has set his sight on designing a modern version of Classic.

The fact that they moved away from these automated queuing systems (LFD,LFR) being part of a character's progression is another indicator.
Ion saying in the interview that some of the "friction" that was originally present in the game was actually good, but one didn't realize it until it was gone is another hint.

I mean, think about the flying debate, what was the only "expansion" before WoD which did not have flying?
Classic.

Any other expansion was like "sure reach max level and you can fly, might not be able to fly in every zone, though".

But as said that's speculation on my part and now they want to strike a "balance" between these new, super easy to swap systems they introduced over the last decade and the "older" philosophy via those new systems.

It just doesn't work because the game has moved so far away from that point and some of these things are at odds with each other and make the game less coherent overall.

I think essences are actually in a pretty good spot in terms of how many things you have to change. 1 major change, 3 minor changes.

The minor essences in my opinion do not serve any decent purpose.
If Unbound Force might be a viable choice, fine, but too many of them are just a passive stat boost or damage proc.

The only decent minor essence is Formless Void and Unbound Force, with the latter being not viable on any class.

[Critical92]

People who think locking something away and not be able to change it or only with heavy penalties probably play hunter or demonhunter and use 1 gearset/talents for every kind of content.

Remember the huge azerite respec cost of people who played dps/heal or in short 2 different specs? They had their cost in the 10 to 100 thousands because the hardest content (mythic) demands that you play optimal when you want to get CE in a reasonable amount of time and not on the last day of the patch.

Covenants need to be changeable without a penalty. Maybe not on a per boss basis but atleast once per day, 2 hour cd or what ever.
Ever heard of mercenaries? The best pay wins.
Soulbinds need to specbound and not like azerite, locked in place once choosen.

I didn't read one good statement why "meaningful" choices is good other than "in the past it was bla bla" "rpg bla bla" "meaningful bla bla"
Let the past be past.

The times are over and that is good. I like to switch talents, gear and sometimes azerite to do an m+ after raid or pvp with friends.
Also it can and will be that some covenants are terrible for dual spec classes (dps and heal). A lot of priest/druids/shamans play dps and heal.
Many guilds don't have a roster of 30 people to cover all possibilities. Their ele shaman goes heal for a boss fight that demands 6 healers. Now cov A is good for ele but the worst for heal. What about that?

[Nerovar]

That's pure speculation on my part, but i believe that Ion in particular has set his sight on designing a modern version of Classic.

The fact that they moved away from these automated queuing systems (LFD,LFR) being part of a character's progression is another indicator.
Ion saying in the interview that some of the "friction" that was originally present in the game was actually good, but one didn't realize it until it was gone is another hint.

I mean, think about the flying debate, what was the only "expansion" before WoD which did not have flying?
Classic.

Any other expansion was like "sure reach max level and you can fly, might not be able to fly in every zone, though".

But as said that's speculation on my part and now they want to strike a "balance" between these new, super easy to swap systems they introduced over the last decade and the "older" philosophy via those new systems.

It just doesn't work because the game has moved so far away from that point and some of these things are at odds with each other and make the game less coherent overall.

I agree with you. The genie is out of the bottle. I really don't understand how they can't see the problems of trying to implement two gameplay philosophies that are completely at odds with each other. Making systems that will lock people into single specs/roles, types of content etc. is more restrictive than the game has ever been.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

They are only failing because this community never lets them make the game they want to make.
No matter what is said or what logic is applied, people refuse to ever see it another way than what suits them best.

I'm sure there are a variety of things that could be better, but in reality this is just another system that doesn't line up with what vocal players want so all of a sudden it becomes a problem for everyone.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I agree with you. The genie is out of the bottle. I really don't understand how they can't see the problems of trying to implement two gameplay philosophies that are completely at odds with each other. Making systems that will lock people into single specs/roles, types of content etc. is more restrictive than the game has ever been.

I don't really think they wanted to make a "Modern Classic" Maybe try and push the "Philosophy" to not as modern or some aspects of current WoW that are super convenient to not be there(Flying and no I never advocated Flying removed).

I think it should be noted though that it seems Blizzard has a failsafe if the Covanent plan doesn't pan out.

[Tradu]

The minor essences in my opinion do not serve any decent purpose.
If Unbound Force might be a viable choice, fine, but too many of them are just a passive stat boost or damage proc.

The only decent minor essence is Formless Void and Unbound Force, with the latter being not viable on any class.

That's what I meant, the specific essences that we have aren't great, but imagine if the minors were legendary effects instead. Or old set bonuses, or some of the better azerite traits.

[Vilendor]

Guess you have stuck your head in the sand for too long.

Blizzard is not attempting to make the Covenant abilities equal. The are purposefully being created in a way that they will be "best" at different things. Say you pick the ST covenant, then you'll be a little better than the one that are playing with the AoE covenant in ST situations. You will however logically be worse than them in AoE situations.

What blizzard (Ion) has said is that they are trying to make the abilities different and good at different thing but also making sure that the difference is not to large.

Great. So out of 4 type of situation ill suck in 3, meanwhile someone who choose differently can beat my ass and i can't do anything about it. That's just brilliant game design, lets make the player 3/4 of the time feel miserable and worthless... it will be a huge success (/sarcasm off)

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Great. So out of 4 type of situation ill suck in 3, meanwhile someone who choose differently can beat my ass and i can't do anything about it. That's just brilliant game design, lets make the player 3/4 of the time feel miserable and worthless... it will be a huge success (/sarcasm off)

..Which 3 situations are you referring to that you'll be bad at.

[Nagawithlegs]

Great. So out of 4 type of situation ill suck in 3, meanwhile someone who choose differently can beat my ass and i can't do anything about it. That's just brilliant game design, lets make the player 3/4 of the time feel miserable and worthless... it will be a huge success (/sarcasm off)

Being better at one type of encounter =/= you are terrible at the others. They are intending for you to have an ADVANTAGE, not be terrible at the other pieces of content.