Should the game be ruined in pursuit of utopian competitive equality?

[TheLucky1]

Yes, you select your class at the character creation screen and there is absolutely no way to change the class for your character.
Are you new to this game? Want me to teach you some more?

Okay so to point it out clearly, and btw. i think it's strange you wouldn't know this as a veteran player or get the irony i am hinting at.

Covenants are opened up: you are expected by the community to always pick what's numerically the best in any given situation, making it a chore to grind out everything, get meme'd on if you don't and basically not making it a a choice but an additional loadout even though it is not necessary for the content you do at all if you're not competing for world 1-100 simply because the power difference is easily offset by a person just playing a little better.

But if:

Covenants "are a given that they can't be changed":It would not put up this community expectation and perception because it's ridiculous to expect someone to play 4x the same character or always pick the fotm covenant and regrind it simply due to the massive investment behind it just like with... i dunno.. the class you have chosen because of thematic/gameplay feel/strengths and weaknesses just like you should chose your covenant based on these factors?

As the Thread title states: stop homogenizing a mmorpg because people play it like a moba/rts, stop optimizing the fun out of the game because a minority cries about not always being able to be optimal.

[Rayzen17]

Okay so to point it out clearly, and btw. i think it's strange you wouldn't know this as a veteran player or get the irony i am hinting at.

Covenants are opened up: you are expected by the community to always pick what's numerically the best in any given situation, making it a chore to grind out everything, get meme'd on if you don't and basically not making it a a choice but an additional loadout even though it is not necessary for the content you do at all if you're not competing for world 1-100 simply because the power difference is easily offset by a person just playing a little better.

But if:

Covenants "are a given that they can't be changed":It would not put up this community expectation and perception because it's ridiculous to expect someone to play 4x the same character or always pick the fotm covenant and regrind it simply due to the massive investment behind it just like with... i dunno.. the class you have chosen because of thematic/gameplay feel/strengths and weaknesses just like you should chose your covenant based on these factors?

Nope.. you just won't get invited to pugs if you chose a meme covenant. Simple as that, nobody will care that you don't switch easily.
And what's between you and your guild, that's your(generally speaking) issue.

Also, i'll play what i like just like i am now with talents and essences.

[Luxeley]

It's not about competitive equality, competitive players (at least ones advocating against class covenant abilities) aren't interested in "equality" they're interested in fairness and optimizing their character. And the bottom line is - if they play multiple roles or engage in competitive Pvp and Pve, they're going to be gimped one way or another. There is no way Blizzard is balancing the covenants, it's just not happening. Blizzard's ambition greatly exceeds their ability. It's about choice, not limiting opportunity due to the insane WOW culture and optimizing your game play.

But, the good news (for you) is, the players who complain about the set up of the Class Covenant abilities will more than likely still play the game if Blizzard changes NOTHING and they probably won't change things.

[TheLucky1]

Nope.. you just won't get invited to pugs if you chose a meme covenant. Simple as that, nobody will care that you don't switch easily.
And what's between you and your guild, that's your(generally speaking) issue.

Also, i'll play what i like just like i am now with talents and essences.

This will come down to numbertuning and community perception (sadly), or did you ever get declined because you played a race that did 1-2%(even more in the past) less damage due to racials? I frequently pug and never had that issue.

It's also a general pugging issue due to the amount of players (especially dd's) you can choose.

[Specialka]

Who determines if it's enjoyable? The majority or the minority? If you ask the entire playerbase I'm sure they'll tell you that it's enjoyable since most of them probably never even touch endgame content that's not queable or soloable

Source ? Imo, it is not because you do not end game content that you will like locked covenant. The opposite is quite true as well.

[Donimic]

It seems that with Shadowlands we will see one of the most varied gameplay ever in the history of WoW. Thanks to the covenant system, not only will your character have different special abilities depending on your choice, but will also be able to bring unique buffs to certain dungeons. An average player will look at those things and think to themselves "how cool - I can do all those things based on the way I built my character". Unfortunately, all of this entertainment is potentially in jeopardy. Why? Because once again, a small albeit vocal subset of players is campaigning against all those things. They want to diminish the impact of our decisions, make everything uniform and meaningless. Some are downright asking for removal of half the new features. To what end? Supposedly to "level the playing field". To make "high end" mythic+ "fair", to make "mythic raiding at the top end" fair. Many other buzzwords related to competitiveness in the game are being used to excuse the gutting of the very interactive and immersive game feature. Will the game be eroded once again, because of dreams of the vocal minority? Will covenants turn into a cosmetic choice just because Johnny Bravo and his friend want to do a +30 key in SL and don't want to feel they are forced into a certain covenant?

It is very sad, because in a way it reflects the situation in real life. A lot of people ignore elections and can't, or don't want to engage in politics for various reasons. What often ends up happening is a clique of people fighting only for their own interests raises to power and just keeps making the life shit for everyone else. The worst part about it is they usually manage to convince a portion of regular people that the interests of these assholes somehow align with the interests of regular people. The same thing has been happening for a couple years in the WoW community. Blizzard listens too much to "content creators" who like to flip flop in their opinions just to increase viewer counts. Even the more "positive" content creators are afraid to be too outspoken about enjoying the new features because they fear ostracism, trolling and bullying. Content creators don't exist in a vacuum, and if they want to be relevant, they have to cooperate with others to an extent. The "positive" content creators are only as positive as the "community overlords" allow them to usually.

Can the regular players do nothing against all that? Can we try to rally the casual players to voice their positive opinions on the forums? I know I will be encouraging people who usually lay low to speak up. As players of WoW, we can't let the game be hijacked by top50 raiding guilds and top10 mythic+ teams. Let's not let them destroy our fun.

Was this an exercise in how many logically fallacies you could cram into a single post?

[Rayzen17]

This will come down to numbertuning and community perception (sadly), or did you ever get declined because you played a race that did 1-2%(even more in the past) less damage due to racials? I frequently pug and never had that issue.

I generally don't have issues getting into groups and i main a ret paladin since TBC(Seal of Blood ftw).

I've used other talents and had better performance, because i know the fights and how to use the abilities.

For example instead of Vision of Perfection essence i'd take the Condensed Life Force one due to less rng and a fight duration that is suited for it, the 10% haste really upped my burst during BL, as opposed to VoP which rarely procced in it.
Or instead of Crusade i almost always take Inquisition, i always have better numbers with it and i sim higher too most of the times.

So this thing about everyone using meta talents isn't always true.
I don't use everything that is on Icy Veins, because even if they say something is best, they just do an overall. I experiment/test, sim and consider what's best for me.
In Shadowlands i can't experiment freely with the abilities due to the 2 week grind back.
Though with how it's shaping up Night Fae is the go-to covenant for Ret for all areas of the game and i enjoy multiple areas: raiding, M+, arenas, bg's... dailies and old raids too.

[Geckoo]

i dunno.. the class you have chosen because of thematic/gameplay feel/strengths and weaknesses just like you should chose your covenant based on these factors?

Precisely because i already made that choice is why i don't like being asked to do it again on top of it.

There is a reason why no one has ever talked in this terms about class but the whole debate exists about covenants. As i said many pages ago, i will always be a rogue, but i will never feel that i am a Venthyr rogue. What i will feel is that they are adding 4 new abilities to my class but as soon as i hit max level i'm being asked to ignore 3 of them, and i don't care how balanced they are because in the end they are different abilities that can be fun to use for different reasons on different content, including playing multiple specs/roles.

[Krakan]

I'm just saying the word CE is being thrown around like a badge of honour. And somehow CE players that have it a week before prepatch think they are hot shit.

But they must be great players huh? Since they are CE and all..

You could also argue that great players don't concern themselves with what the filthy casual do, not that they are below them. They just don't care.

Here is the thing... you can't keep claiming that the great players don't care about this then reel about lost when asked to provide a singular example of a great player who completed the content who didn't use all of the available systems.

We are now at the point where your trying to say that players who full clear mythic are not very skilled... at best the 1% of the top of the playerbase.

Why not just admit your peddling lies and misinformation?

[Specialka]

Precisely because i already made that choice is why i don't like being asked to do it again on top of it.

There is a reason why no one has ever talked in this terms about class but the whole debate exists about covenants. As i said many pages ago, i will always be a rogue, but i will never feel that i am a Venthyr rogue. What i will feel is that they are adding 4 new abilities to my class but as soon as i hit max level i'm being asked to ignore 3 of them, and i don't care how balanced they are because in the end they are different abilities that can be fun to use for different reasons on different content, including playing multiple specs/roles.

And I would add on top of that, that in most case, those abilities do not fit at all the thematic of each class. I would like to be an Arm Warrior, like a martial master, not a warrior using dark power.

[goldlock]

Right now a certain Boromir quote comes to mind....



This might shock you but the "GRIND GRIND GRIND mentality" introduced with Legion that you speak of is entirely self-inflicted. There is a world of difference between what you need to do and what you can do. And the only real problem is players who don't seem to understand the difference.



What a load of utter nonsense.

Firstly, being "good" at the game absolutely matters. No amount of gear, AP, essences or corruption can compensate for being bad at the game. That's not to say that having better gear won't help a bad player to do better they would do without it, but that doesn't mean that they will be able to come close to a good player with the same gear. And they will still be outperformed by better players in worse gear. But any decent player who is prepared to put in a moderate amount of effort isn't going to have to worry about some bad who just spends all day "grinding".

Secondly these systems came into being because of top players whining about not having enough to do and wanting a way to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors. Top guilds would literally max out their characters, but because they still had time on their hands, they found any way they could to turn their spare time into a competitive advantage, and thus we had things like split-raids and gear siphoning happening.

As for this supposed problem of "locking good players into one toon", again I disagree. You do have a choice: Either focus all your energy into one toon and squeeze out that extra 1-2%, or spread your effort over multiple toons and not be quite as strong on any of them, but have the advantage of being versatile. Personally I have zero problem with this philosophy. In fact I think it is the correct philosophy because it makes our choices meaningful.

No amount of skill at the game can overcome missing ap,essences or corruptions as well.

Just like covenants these alternative progression system are going to make or break the game.

[TheLucky1]

Precisely because i already made that choice is why i don't like being asked to do it again on top of it.

There is a reason why no one has ever talked in this terms about class but the whole debate exists about covenants. As i said many pages ago, i will always be a rogue, but i will never feel that i am a Venthyr rogue. What i will feel is that they are adding 4 new abilities to my class but as soon as i hit max level i'm being asked to ignore 3 of them, and i don't care how balanced they are because in the end they are different abilities that can be fun to use for different reasons on different content, including playing multiple specs/roles.

This is what it all boils down to tbh.
Some, many, few? players (like if anyone had the numbers lol) simply don't like to make a choice you have to stick with.

My fear is that if they open up covenants it'll just become a new talent row and some passives you have to grind out and will pick depending on the situation. (Of course no one holds a gun to your head but there we go again with community/pug expectations etc.)
Blizzard knows players are like that and the ultimate form of this is everyone being pretty much the same/choosing the same ideal/mathed out loadout.

Some players might like that, some players love to compete on wcl with absolute equal footing.
I don't, that's not why i would play a mmorpg, there are tons of better games for competing that are also build for that.

[goldlock]

I'm not sure if you are just ignorant or just continually lying to try and "win":
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Patch

Now you might argue a spell they buffed isn't the spell you wanted buffed or that it wasn't buffed enough but to say they hardly ever buff and only nerf is clearly a lie.



You don't need to use your cosmetics during this expansion. You are not entitled to them or using them. Do I get to use druid transmogs I unlocked on my paladin? No
because Blizzard designed transmog so that If im not in the same armor type or covenant I can't use it. I'm fully free to roll a rogue or a monk and use most of the leather options I got from my druid though.

Hmm a single persons post versus the thousand of people like you who continually claim that they are afraid they wont be able to compete at a higher level without instant swaps. Are you all lying and can we then throw that argument out as to why covenants need instant swaps? Cause if thats the case then you guys no longer have any excuses as to why they are needed to be instant swaps. You and I are both saying that instant swaps help people get into higher content I'm just saying its a bad thing while you are saying its a necessary thing.

I am not lying. It is extremely rare a spec much less a class gets a buff that makes it viable if it has started the tier or in some cases the expansion useless.

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This is what it all boils down to tbh.
Some, many, few? players (like if anyone had the numbers lol) simply don't like to make a choice you have to stick with.

My fear is that if they open up covenants it'll just become a new talent row and some passives you have to grind out and will pick depending on the situation. (Of course no one holds a gun to your head but there we go again with community/pug expectations etc.)
Blizzard knows players are like that and the ultimate form of this is everyone being pretty much the same.

Some players might like that, some players love to compete on wcl with absolute equal footing.
I don't, that's not why i would play a mmorpg, there are tons of better games for competing that are also build for that.

I wouldn't worry blizzard hangs onto their broken systems hard. Even when it becomes the clear disaster its going to be they are going to hold off turning it off and will instead try to desperately fix it till the third patch minimum.

[TheLucky1]

I wouldn't worry blizzard hangs onto their broken systems hard. Even when it becomes the clear disaster its going to be they are going to hold off turning it off and will instead try to desperately fix it till the third patch minimum.

I'd agree that the track record isn't good but i don't know if covenants are "broken" like legiondaries, essences, azerite and corruptions are.
Those things came down to accessibility and rng making it horrible, the covenant discussion feels more like: i don't like to actually choose and stick with something that influences my character power.

[Lolites]

Want to say that allowing swaps works for everyone

it doesnt, and if you actualy bothered to read through the thread, instead of repeating this blatant lie that has been said thousand times, you might have learned why

[goldlock]

I'd agree that the track record isn't good but i don't know if covenants are "broken" like legiondaries, essences, azerite and corruptions are.
Those things came down to accessibility and rng making it horrible, the covenant discussion feels more like: i don't like to actually choose and stick with something that influences my character power.

It depends on who you are of course. I can tell you now I will need two characters for my class. One for mythic raiding and one for PVP as the covenants simply do not mesh well with over lap at the high end.

A few classes get lucky and this BiS covenant is for more then one game mode but it just offers a lot less choice then old talent points. If I needed aoe for some fight I could just swap a talent. Now I always have to go with my best single target dmg for mythic raiding. My best covenant for aoe for mythic+ and my best burst covenant for pvp.

It is just to restrictive for the way the game is set up at the high end.

[Azharok]

Here is the thing... you can't keep claiming that the great players don't care about this then reel about lost when asked to provide a singular example of a great player who completed the content who didn't use all of the available systems.

We are now at the point where your trying to say that players who full clear mythic are not very skilled... at best the 1% of the top of the playerbase.

Why not just admit your peddling lies and misinformation?

I mean I'm like at the 1.6% mark according to raider IO (0.3% for spec). I'll admit I haven't raided to any meaningful level (CE and equivalent) in a long time. Mostly because it didn't want to commit to a set schedule. But that's besides the point.

I'm not implying that CE raiders aren't skilled, just that the ones who cleared it early are more skilled than those who cleared it late. But both have CE status.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

That UHDK in that last report is a special kind of special.

[themaster24]

Honestly, with how everyone is bickering, Blizz should just make a change that removes the fun for everyone. You can now change freely, at anytime, but it costs gold. Starts at 15k, doubles every time, resetting every week. There we go, now no one is happy lol

[Geckoo]

This is what it all boils down to tbh.
Some, many, few? players (like if anyone had the numbers lol) simply don't like to make a choice you have to stick with.

When it comes to the mechanical parts that determine how my class will work? true, i do not like permanent choices. In my opinion is a design philosophy that doesn't belong to an MMORPG, specially WoW, precisely because it has a lot of variety in terms of content and it will always be an ever changing environment.

I'm fine being locked to my choices while playing a single player RPG, mostly because since it's not an ever changing environment and there are no other players, then the game is actually balanced to work with anything you pick, no matter how bad it might be if we did the numbers (and people asks for the best builds for those games too). But as it has been said before, even those games usually have a way to reset those power choices that doesn't feel like a big punishment to the player.

But for a MMORPG, i believe that player agency has to be interpreted in the sense that players have to be able to reach a point where they can play around with the moving parts that affect how their class works as they see fit. Not always by default, sometimes after putting some work, sometimes starting with a choice that will be meaningful for a while, but not permanently.

So yes, from my point of view class abilities should be a new talent row themed after covenants. Your covenant choice would immediately unlock one of those abilities and at some point during your covenant progress you would be given the option to unlock a second ability from that row and eventually you'll have all 4 unlocked and you'll be able to use them as you want. And the same can work for soulbinds too, once your progress with your covenant soulbinds reaches certain point, you get to unlock a new one from another covenant. It would be even better from an RPG point of view considering that covenants are not really in war against each other and that you are actually helping all of them.

And just to be clear: i love the idea of choosing a faction with a strong theme and some extra stuff that will impact some world content and the lore i will experience. Make it permanent, really. My problem lies only with the semi-permanent lock to player power and thinking that the solution is asking players to give up the theme they enjoy in a punitive way just so they can enjoy mechanical stuff that is specifically designed for their class.

there are tons of better games for competing that are also build for that.

There are also a ton of better RPG's than wow. But each of us gets to enjoy the game for different reasons and that's totally fine

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Honestly, with how everyone is bickering, Blizz should just make a change that removes the fun for everyone. You can now change freely, at anytime, but it costs gold. Starts at 15k, doubles every time, resetting every week. There we go, now no one is happy lol

At least we can change at will, it's something!

[qwerty123456]

I am not lying. It is extremely rare a spec much less a class gets a buff that makes it viable if it has started the tier or in some cases the expansion useless.

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I wouldn't worry blizzard hangs onto their broken systems hard. Even when it becomes the clear disaster its going to be they are going to hold off turning it off and will instead try to desperately fix it till the third patch minimum.

You weren't lying and yet when you look through all the patch notes there are tons of buffs when you said there were almost never any. Hmmm.....