Originally Posted by
Omedon
Versions of the covenant debate always seem to come down to this point: "Since you're so casual, what does it matter if we who play for keeps push for the ability to swap covenants? Stay out of the discussion if you don't do X high end content!"
Staying out of the discussion is entirely the point of why players like me care. An approachable on-ramp to later game ambition is at the core of why covenants are being presented as intentionally diverse and simultaneously rigid. The entire intent to let new blood try M+ or raiding difficulties beyond LFR (which, once again are more optional than ever and we literally and intentionally have nothing to threaten each other with in regards to content access so long as the main thoroughfare of queuable difficulties include every raid and dungeon), giving people the option, whether it be with the intended established community or the odd available (but less intended) PUG is at the core of why covenants are being presented this way.
"Don't be new on other people's time" is a motto that has grown into WoW as time efficiency rears its ugly head as a key metric in using pick up groups to run PVE team content such as M+ and raids above LFR. The more gears and wheels that will freely rotate into a position that could be optimal or less optimal, the harder "being new" is, and in a situation where WoW does its best to protect us from the worst of each other in as much content as possible (which arguably won't and can't include premade team content, but they're allowed to try), the less approachable that later game content is. This is an important factor.
"But people can just look it up the right configuration," you might say. News flash: that's an answer ignorant to the fact that not everyone will do that, will want to do that, or will think that should be necessary in a game of this caliber. "Well then they aren't entitled to membership in my group and I am free to decline them," you might say... and you wouldn't be wrong, but rigid covenants are exactly the kind of front that WoW can potentially address, on their game's level, the whole "why am I being declined" issue.
I've said before that they will never fully address such a community issue as FOTM and meta, but this might be one of the ways they can actually do that: by cutting down on easily changeable variables and, in a world where the great vault is ticking and you have X number of M+ runs that your OCD is wrongly forcing you to do (another thing that isn't Blizzard's responsibility to work around), making it harder to actually form the perfect group might, in theory, have you take that less meta-class newer player of the "right" covenant into your group just to get it done and over with.
At the end of the day, no, these headaches won't be mine, so long as I can see all the content and achieve my cosmetic goals in queueable or soloable content, I will continue to do what I've done for two expansions now: pretend M+ doesn't exist. The thing is... there is a part of me that might want to give M+ a try some day, and if that moment comes, I will appreciate if the approachability of "no one sane will be asking you to switch covenants" is built into the social compact of the game for reasonable, worthwhile players.
So yes, if you get what you want up there at the high end, the damage trickles down. It matters. There is another viable perspective, people are allowed (intended) to pick their covenant for concept and flavor, and it's blizzard's job to make each covenant "not wrong" for 99.9% of the players doing the vast majority of the content, and we have no reason yet to believe they haven't done that. Keep giving your feedback, and I will keep validating that people seeing covenants as an opportunity for character expression are not wrong.
Thank you for reading!