Covenants, most disliked new xpac feature?

[Relapses]

They won't there aren't even bosses that require a specific talent, there is no way that there will be any that require a specific covenant.

Eh. Blast Furnace in BRF required two Priests for MC. Tomb of Stungeras is known as such for a reason. Mythic Jaina first phase was once again easier if you had Priests to yeet mobs off the edge. The encounters may not require you to have certain Covenants but I can certainly see certain strategies making bosses significantly easier if you're able to use an ability to game a mechanic. And that again comes back to the opportunity cost: Is it worth it to shave 100 pulls off a boss if it requires the entire raid to commit an extra 20-40 hours a week to the game? For guilds at the top end, sure. But for everybody else they'll likely just spend more time progressing.

[Argorwal]

I don't get the it's the player fault argument... If you put a system in and that it's clearly not being use or behaving the way you intended it's because the system as problem, not because people are not using it the way the should.

if you try and make people choose covenant as this big package of ability/theme/story/etc. A big meaningful choice. But a good portion of your active in end game stuff player end up feeling forced to chose a covenant they don't "like" because it's best. Sorry but your system is failing...

You just described race, class, and spec choices lol.

[Elbob]

Yes they are.

https://www.wowhead.com/guide=10597/...or-shadowlands

Light's Reach (Potency Conduit) Blade of Justice's range is increased by 2 yds and deals 20% more damage.

The max rank of it gives 50%.

The confusion here is that they are conduits which go into your soulbinds. Soulbinds have their own notables and open conduit slots. Conduits come in 3 forms Potency(damage) Finesse(utility) and endurance(survivability). Many of the conduits have not yet been added to the game. Paladin in particular have almost none of their potency conduits. Your example is different types of conduits on top of that so they are never competing for the same spot in your soulbind.

Edit: the conduit slots in your soulbind have assigned types. The most anyone conduit type can be used is 3 in any tree due to how they are laid out.

[Geckoo]

To me, it just further supports that Ion in particular wants to design a modern version of Classic, which just doesn't work because a large portion of the game no longer resembles Classic in the slightest.

I can agree with him that some things could use a more 'classic' approach, but this is not the way to do it.

Taking your gear example, sure, choosing to focus on one spec in terms of gearing meant that you would perform a little bit worse with other roles. But eventually you could get those golden pieces, those trinkets and weapons for your off-spec too. Even when we didn't have things like dual spec or smart gear that changed main stats people did this, even with tier sets. Who didn't have different sets? even for the same role we had some gear variety for certain encounters.

Back to the present, i know people that carries around a full collection of azerite and corrupted gear in their bags, for very similar reasons: adapting your gear to certain encounter, playing around with corruption levels, different roles or specs, different types of content... of course they started with whatever they could get, but they build their tools slowly over time.

My point is that those kind of choices can be great as long as you can eventually reach a point of flexibility that suits the way you like to play the game.

And what the whiners are asking for is basically a new talent row, yippee how exciting.

Let's imagine something for a moment: If back at Blizzcon they had originally announced that every class would have a new talent row with 4 options for Shadowlands, how many forum post of people asking for those talent options to be locked to each covenants do you think we would have? My guess is 0.

But personally? yes, i would rather have the abilities designed for my class work in a similar fashion to all the other abilities designed for my class.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Haha no, Covenants are not Garrisons.

[Nevcairiel]

There goal is to make it permanent... the swap is intended as a: I fuck up and want to reroll, not as a swap every week thing.

To me that is the definition of permanent choice. yes there is a safety measure if you fuck up. But blizzard goal here is that you choose a covenant and stick to it for the expac

The intent may as well be that, and I fully understand and support it, and will likely not change myself, but there being a mechanism to change entirely kills any arguments of "what if they nerf it later", or anything of that sort. If all you want is the best player power for the content you do, you can just follow the masses whenever the favored one changes. You may need to do a bit work for it, but you are not locked in - its not actually "permanent". You are not "screwed" as many will believe currently.

[Demeisen]

The intent may as well be that, and I fully understand and support it, and will likely not change myself, but there being a mechanism to change entirely kills any arguments of "what if they nerf it later", or anything of that sort. If all you want is the best player power for the content you do, you can just follow the masses whenever the favored one changes. You may need to do a bit work for it, but you are not locked in - its not actually "permanent". You are not "screwed" as many will believe currently.

Except if you do change, you don't take your renown with you. So you're locked out of all your soulbinds, which is where the bulk of the power is going to be. Unless the catch-up mechanism is extremely generous, you'll be significantly more "screwed" as a result of changing covenants than you would have been as a result of levelling up a new artifact weapon in Legion, which was possible to progress in parallel with your main spec.

And if the catch-up mechanism is extremely generous, and players can essentially switch on a weekly basis by doing a bit of busywork, then what was the point of all this in the first place?

[Sunslayer]

Most people like them just fine. It's just the top end raiders that want homogenization across the board and believe that RPGs should ever only be about narrative and story telling, never about how you build your character.
.

This is not even close to correct. I am not an elite Raider, nor am I a PvP Gladiator. But, I do try to play to my best potential. Who doesn't?
Why would the Devs design anything for WQ and LFR crowd? You can do that content in a pink dress and fishing pole you purchased a vendor in your main city.

Let's look at it from another direction, I don't even like 60% of the abilities to start with. You act like they are even remotely on the same playing field. So, you pick the theme you want and the Covenant you want but you hate the ability you got. That isn't gonna work.

[Swnem]

Yeah... i dunno. Covenants are not a bad idea. It's tying them to power systems that's not.

It is not unlike garrisons. A cool feature being poisoned by other unecessary systems.

[Sunslayer]

I'm going to pick based on the theme I like for my characters, and every single person I have spoken to that I play with is going to do the same.

Not at all believable. Do us all a favor and speak only for yourself. Saying "me and everyone I know" just sounds outright dishonest

- - - Updated - - -

The vast majority of people just though the weapons were awesome, the quests were awesome and enjoyed unlocking things for them. This fringe minority that has a meltdown when they aren't perfect does not represent the vast majority of players. The vast majority of players never even see a heroic raid.

How do you know what is or isn't the majority? Show some data because all the data I've seen are people that care about their DPS or healing. If they weren't the majority would "Icyveins" even exist? And why do YouTube videos made as class/spec guides have 200k views?
Your argument doesn't seem to be set in reality.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Let's imagine something for a moment: If back at Blizzcon they had originally announced that every class would have a new talent row with 4 options for Shadowlands, how many forum post of people asking for those talent options to be locked to each covenants do you think we would have? My guess is 0.

But personally? yes, i would rather have the abilities designed for my class work in a similar fashion to all the other abilities designed for my class.

I don't even get that argument tbh. Why would having 4 talents be a bad thing? That means I get to play around with 4 new things - instead of picking one and being either locked out of the other 3 or having to jump through some pointless hoops. How is the later supposed to be the fun choice in any way?

If anything it's just Blizzard being lazy here, because they could very well create a few more spell effects and just theme all the abiilites for every covenant. That way there would be a connection and you'd still be able to have fun with 4 abilities instead of 1. Half of them might as well just be blue instead of red sparkles anyway, it's not like every single one of them looks awsome.

[Kyux]

Not at all OP.

I'm hugely in favour of covenants, including the abilities tied to them. It's a great expansion feature that's getting unjustified bad press.

[Ezyah]

The way i see it, this would potentially be a very good looking xpac if they scraped the active abilities tied to covenant and it's looking to be indeed one of the most frustrating one if they stay. I dont want to swap covenant, i want the abilities removed alltogether

[Sunslayer]

The way i see it, this would potentially be a very good looking xpac if they scraped the active abilities tied to covenant and it's looking to be indeed one of the most frustrating one if they stay. I dont want to swap covenant, i want the abilities removed alltogether

Same here. I don't ever want to swap out my Covenant. I think Covenants would be awesome if they didn't have abilities tied to them.

[Palapop]

No.
I am fucking sick of rent-a-power mechanics.

Agree completely.

They are bleeding subs for 2 exps now cus of that retard Ion Hazikus-kus

[goldlock]

I don't even get that argument tbh. Why would having 4 talents be a bad thing? That means I get to play around with 4 new things - instead of picking one and being either locked out of the other 3 or having to jump through some pointless hoops. How is the later supposed to be the fun choice in any way?

If anything it's just Blizzard being lazy here, because they could very well create a few more spell effects and just theme all the abiilites for every covenant. That way there would be a connection and you'd still be able to have fun with 4 abilities instead of 1. Half of them might as well just be blue instead of red sparkles anyway, it's not like every single one of them looks awsome.

A lot of non competitive players crave being unique. Its a hard thing for them to do since most of the sought after rewards are all tied to high skill activities. Them cheering for this system is in essence them begging to be recognized.

[Good ol Stroggylos]

It is so easy to go on rooftops and criticise a system that is going to struggle only because later on you can go out and say I told you so.
Ofc choices in wow always impacted not only aesthetics but also player power. The race/class combo when creating your first char, and even the professions, (hell I recall that early on bs got armor and weapons smith even and it was a hell to change between these...).
We can cry about covenants all we want and probs many iterations, balancing, and even amount of them active per reset will change during the expansion and all the dooms ayers will be there to remind us how they told blizz that 5his is kit going to work

[arkanon]

Not at all OP.

I'm hugely in favour of covenants, including the abilities tied to them. It's a great expansion feature that's getting unjustified bad press.

I think the justification for those who are concerned about the system is quite founded, especially with Blizzards most recent iterations of borrowed powers being so insanely powerful. The main difference is with those systems, given the right RNG, they could very easily be swapped in and out as the balancing was done. This system will not be as easy to swap in and out, but, it does remove the RNG factor.

I think anyone crying from the rooftops that this system will be the death of wow or using hyperbole and massive assumptions to support their opinion are the real issue. There was even one clown comparing swapping covenants to rerolling an entirely new character, and continually implying the system was "irreversible". These players detract from some of the good conversations going around about legitimate concerns and a hushed nervous excitement that this new system brings.

Personally, i like the idea behind the system, but personally, i wish it was cosmetic / flavor ONLY with no power increase attached to it at all. But i might be in a minority in that i would prefer ALL additional systems were removed from the game that impact player power at all, and focused back to the roots of talents and gear, with the differentiation between players being player skill, rather than how hard they had farmed currencies.

[Relapses]

Personally, i like the idea behind the system, but personally, i wish it was cosmetic / flavor ONLY with no power increase attached to it at all. But i might be in a minority in that i would prefer ALL additional systems were removed from the game that impact player power at all, and focused back to the roots of talents and gear, with the differentiation between players being player skill, rather than how hard they had farmed currencies.

If it was only flavor the choice wouldn't be meaningful enough. If you need proof that cosmetic rewards are pathetic motivation for people who play this game simply look at the participation numbers of Challenge Mode for the two expansions it existed.

[arkanon]

If it was only flavor the choice wouldn't be meaningful enough. If you need proof that cosmetic rewards are pathetic motivation for people who play this game simply look at the participation numbers of Challenge Mode for the two expansions it existed.

Lets call a spade a spade - CM were far FAR too tough for the majority of players who focus on cosmetics and collection. If you needed to do a M+20 to unlock a cosmetic reward, it would have very low participation as well. Proof of that is the mage tower early on vs right at the end when it was a free-for-all.

If the covenant system remained in place, but had purely cosmetic rewards, I believe it would have extremely high participation, although less from bleeding edge raiders, and much more from the remaining 99.9% of the playerbase.