Blizzard wants to know our opinions on covenants, or so they claim

[Niwes]

God, virtually all of the comments broken down by a given spec/class are the same. And such a disproportionate chunk of them are based on inherent design issues rather than just a question of number tuning. You love to see it.

Kinda telling how few of these are starry-eyed children talking about how enjoyable X ability is even if it isn't as good as Y - it's almost like trying to go with what works best , rather than simply good, is something more common than you'd think and not just a mean, evil, min-maxer bully thing.

a colleague of mine is a marketing specialist: she never played wow, looked a few mins into a discussion and asked/said the following:

„what is the audience of this design?

- the ppl that REALLY dont care in ANY way about char power will select ANY Covenant, based on style, story, etc. They have no clue and dont care. So for them there is ZERO gain in that „meaningful choice“. they not even realize it.

- the ppl that be aware of game play, but dont „min/max“ to the ground, have to choose between game play and style/story. what a fucked up choice. they will have no fun here. every 14 year old kid will react to covenant choice by asking google „whtas best covenant“. they are also not the audience of „meaningful choice“.

- the ppl thta either min/max or care A LOT about their character, go for „best“ Covenant by default. even when not super hardcore. thats human nature. they have zero meaningful choice because they select on a single most priority term.

so what the hell is the auidence of such shitty concept? WHO is this person that REALLY have a „menaingful choice here“ ??? WTF ???“

hell, she never played wow. from a pure marketing point of view, she showed up the whole fucking predetermined breaking point of that shit, by reading one fukin single discussion in offical forums.

THIS cant end well...

[aceperson]

That might be the case. However, they do not have time to rework one of the pillars of Shadowlands when there's 2 months or so to launch. Not only that, but they went to great lengths to convince the team/management that this is the way to go, and players not liking it looks bad for them so they cover it up as "majority likes it but the vocal minority doesn't".

At least that's what I believe it's like behind the scenes.

they had time when people were complaining in early alpha. they elected to ignore the feedback. this is not an excuse for bad design.

[Echo of Soul]

they had time when people were complaining in early alpha. they elected to ignore the feedback. this is not an excuse for bad design.

Very true, this isn't bad design though. Controversial definitely but it being good or bad is entirely subjective.

[Niwes]

Most gaming communities know that streamers, youtubers and other forms of influencers must be regarded as clowns who thrive on controversy, yet WoW's community think their opinion is worth a damn.

It's impressive.

i agree a bit and you may be right here.

but even your brain must tell you, that influencers based on what you said, would not go that far, that they all together support the same negative oppinion (beware, now come the important point) thta would lead for a lot of ppl to also disliking wow and quit, what leads to the consequence that there is no longer a market (or a lot smaller market) by with they earn their influencer money.

look: when preach and asmongold and how all that guys are called (i just know this 2 by name), when they ALL say „stop playing SL. it sucks!“ by your definition (for the reason of being „controverse“)... and ALL ppl stop playing wow... well then Preach and Asmongold has no longer ANY viewers, because its dead.

makes this really sense to you? they will not tactically destroy their own platform...

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they had time when people were complaining in early alpha. they elected to ignore the feedback. this is not an excuse for bad design.

100% agree. i was there. i was ingame. ppl talked loud and a lot of Covenant system design flaws. in game, in twitter, in official forums, here, in comments and blogs of influencers. the feedback was HUGE. as always. and Blizz had enough time, but sticked from day 1 to their idea. not even varrying it. they had a plan and they stick with it, no matter what. this was obvious.

so everything that now will happen is their own fault, they deserve it and it was calculated by themselfes. there are no excuses, for anything.

personal opinion: i am not sure if i should applaude to such big balls or such big stupidity. but this will become funny, when 9.0 is out for 2-3 months.

[Lolites]

the feedback was HUGE. as always. and Blizz had enough time, but sticked from day 1 to their idea. not even varrying it. they had a plan and they stick with it, no matter what. this was obvious.

it almost seems like they have more feedback than just what you saw... bcs you know, they actualy have framework for the feedback INGAME in alpha and beta...
or should they ignore all feedback from alpha and beta (which is kind of why it actualy exists) bcs someone on twitter said something?

[Niwes]

That's true of absolutely every little thing in life. A special forces unit can technically end a hostage situation without any form of weapons, but they'd all want a weapon if offered.

We won't need the best covenant situationally because Blizzard aren't going to balance around perfect covenant comps. However, having to pick between a huge single target ability & a huge AoE ability just feels absolutely awful when doing content that calls for one moreso than the other. It's not a case of needing it as much as it is a case of wanting to enjoy it to its fullest.

what most ppl imo not yet realize, most of the time, is this:

the problem in the first place is NOT „min/max vs stlye/story“. it is „gameplay vs style/story“.

ppl sooooo often go like „you can choose the Covenant you like, if you are not a myth raider, you can piss on that 2% dmg difference. choose what you like. piss on power“

they always think the problem is power, best covenant and balancing.

but „choosing the covenant i like“ means WHAT ?
- the covenant with prefered style/story ?
- the covenant with prefered game play ?

what if you love to give your Druid the Nightfae, because of style and story. But you really dont like the abilities game play wise. or like others way more. every 12 year old kid realizes the problem, when not decoupling that.

???

this has nothing to do with power, or hardcore/casual, or min/max. this has to do with „pest vs cholera“.

is „meaningful decisions/choices“ REALLY the choice between

Cov1-LoveStyleHateGameplay
and
Cov2-HateStyleLoveGameplay
???

never ever a sane person would say yes here.

ppl often dont get that...

[Lolites]

what if you love to give your Druid the Nightfae, because of style and story. But you really dont like the abilities game play wise. or like others way more

congratulations, you figured out what a meaningful choice means... took you a while...

[Niwes]

it almost seems like they have more feedback than just what you saw... bcs you know, they actualy have framework for the feedback INGAME in alpha and beta...
or should they ignore all feedback from alpha and beta (which is kind of why it actualy exists) bcs someone on twitter said something?

i am not god. i dont know all. but if you really ask me thta question, i say „YES, they REALLY ignored all that feedback“ because i assume they invested allready too far into that direction.

at least to me it definetelly looks like they ignored A LOT of feedback.

amd this is not the first time they did this. In Legion it was similar (just the idea was not that heavy). all ppl told them the deisgn to gain legendaries is bad, or legendaries have too much impact. Blizz tried the half xpac to fix it and a lot of negative feedback happened until it got better. and factually A MILLION ppl told them in beta.

so, history repeating it seems...

[Doffen]

Hehe, don't take me too seriously...but you don't drive your car the way you wish. You drive it pretty much as the manufacturer and the laws want you to. You don't drive 100 mph in a city and you don't drive backwards on the motorway. Also..you very likely don't drive it on 2 wheels...honking all the time and smashing it nilly willy into other cars....you don't even drive it without a seatbelt. You don't even PARK or fuel your car in a way you wish (well...you could do all these things but usually there are consequences).

Yep people are playing a game and pay for it - but there are millions and obviously there will be rules. Also for everything somebody hates, there is somebody who loves the feature. Also other than a car...you own nothing in WoW.

Also..when did we had TRUE gameplay customization? (/cowers in anticipation of "old talent trees") - or what game has those / what are they? And aren't covenant after all a gameplay customization by the look of it pissing ppl off for having to make a choice that sticks?

Finally some logic and common sense. We always had to play WoW the way the devs wanted. Supposedly it was a hidden feature until now. Blizzards secret is finally revealed.

You buy a car, drive it as you wish, drive in 150 mph, get caught by the police, get in jail. Oh, so you can't drive it as you wish. We got rules? No way!

[Lolites]

at least to me it definetelly looks like they ignored A LOT of feedback. amd this is not the first time they did this. so...

sure they ignored A LOT of feedback
and they listened to A LOT of feedback that was oposite of the feedback they ignored...
if you ask 10 people for opinion on a matter you will get at least a dozen different answers now, they ask thousands, so of course they ignore a lot of them, they cant possibly listen to everybody...

[Niwes]

congratulations, you figured out what a meaningful choice means... took you a while...

if you really read my post above, i just would not do this. but i ask the same question again, to you:

you REALLY think this is the definition of „meaningful choice“ ?

in my world, a meaningful choice would be ST/AoE or faction1/faction2, etc but not combined pairs of them.

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sure they ignored A LOT of feedback
and they listened to A LOT of feedback that was oposite of the feedback they ignored...
if you ask 10 people for opinion on a matter you will get at least a dozen different answers now, they ask thousands, so of course they ignore a lot of them, they cant possibly listen to everybody...

for sure. but thats not the base of the problem here. at least imo.

[Tuor]

Hehe, don't take me too seriously...but you don't drive your car the way you wish. You drive it pretty much as the manufacturer and the laws want you to. You don't drive 100 mph in a city and you don't drive backwards on the motorway. Also..you very likely don't drive it on 2 wheels...honking all the time and smashing it nilly willy into other cars....you don't even drive it without a seatbelt. You don't even PARK or fuel your car in a way you wish (well...you could do all these things but usually there are consequences).

All of that is true, but some people keep doing curves on 3rd gear whille others do the same curve on 2nd gear. Some people actually use the cloax to slow down the car whille other can only do that with the breakes... No one drives the same way.

Yep people are playing a game and pay for it - but there are millions and obviously there will be rules. Also for everything somebody hates, there is somebody who loves the feature. Also other than a car...you own nothing in WoW.

Wrong, i own i license that allows me to legally play it.

Also..when did we had TRUE gameplay customization? (/cowers in anticipation of "old talent trees") - or what game has those / what are they? And aren't covenant after all a gameplay customization by the look of it pissing ppl off for having to make a choice that sticks?

Old talents allowed a lot of weird stuff, that includes hybrids, tanking Shamans, tanking Hunters, for instance, when i started playing WoW i leveled as a Prot/fury hybrid because Bloodthirst was very usefull whille questing (we only got enraged regenaration at level 68 back in the days) i had a lot of fun with that built. But obviously none of those weird builts were intended at end game.

The way i see covenents, is that its just a layer of unnecessary complexity to the game, they should be reinforcing the class/spec identity, but they going on reverse way.

[Niwes]

Hehe, don't take me too seriously...but you don't drive your car the way you wish. You drive it pretty much as the manufacturer and the laws want you to. You don't drive 100 mph in a city and you don't drive backwards on the motorway. Also..you very likely don't drive it on 2 wheels...honking all the time and smashing it nilly willy into other cars....you don't even drive it without a seatbelt. You don't even PARK or fuel your car in a way you wish (well...you could do all these things but usually there are consequences).

Yep people are playing a game and pay for it - but there are millions and obviously there will be rules. Also for everything somebody hates, there is somebody who loves the feature. Also other than a car...you own nothing in WoW.

Also..when did we had TRUE gameplay customization? (/cowers in anticipation of "old talent trees") - or what game has those / what are they? And aren't covenant after all a gameplay customization by the look of it pissing ppl off for having to make a choice that sticks?

i agree to 100%.

but when you go in store they not offer you just 2 cars:

1)
looks great, but has a tractor motor with 30 miles max and has only automatic gearbox.

2)
looks ugly like hell, but has a normal 100 ps car motor, but has only manual gearbox.

instead you can buy, with your money, the car you like by style, with your prefred motor and your prefred gearbox. know why ? because they decoupled this decissions to not just offer customers „pest vs cholera“.

i had a good laugh here, by imaging you go into that car store and get this 2 choices with the words „we have meaningful choice here“.

just for the sake of correctness, when comparing these things

[Doffen]

ME i love the system been playing in beta can't wait!

Here, another source. Feel free to link my profile if someone wants source for someone that likes Covenants

[Lolites]

for sure. but thats not the base of the problem here. at least imo.

would you complain they ignored people who WANT locked covenants if they were unlocked?
if not, ignoring feedback is not the issue, but rather the fact their decision is against your point of view...

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i agree to 100%.

but when you go in store they not offer you just 2 cars:

1)
looks great, but has a tractor motor with 30 miles max and has only automatic gearbox.

2)
looks ugly like hell, but has a normal 100 ps car motor, but has only manual gearbox.

instead you can buy, with your money, the car you like by style, with your prefred motor and your prefred gearbox. know why ? because they decoupled this decissions to not just offer customers „pest vs cholera“.

i had a good laugh here, by imaging you go into that car store and get this 2 choices with the words „we have meaningful choice here“.

just for the sake of correctness, when comparing these things

just a wild thought, but if the ability is so important why not choose the covenant with ability you like and then DONT use the armor/mount if you dont like it?
its not like there is any lack of gorgeous looking sets or mounts...
you just have to decide which is more important to you...

[Toybox]

Finally some logic and common sense. We always had to play WoW the way the devs wanted. Supposedly it was a hidden feature until now. Blizzards secret is finally revealed.

You buy a car, drive it as you wish, drive in 150 mph, get caught by the police, get in jail. Oh, so you can't drive it as you wish. We got rules? No way!

I seem to agree with you in a lot of topics, but this car metaphor is pretty ridiculous Laws are in place to protect yourselves & others whilst driving - You can push your car to its absolute limits if you go & book a track day or something. Can we call instanced content track days for the purpose of this?

If we're going to stick with car anaologies, how about this one: It's like the maker of the car saying you can only listen to the one radio station you first tune into. In the mood for classical? Tough luck, you chose the R&B channel first. Sure, their car, their rules, & you did buy it knowing that'd be the case, but it doesn't mean it's a good system & it doesn't mean it can't be criticized. After all, I'm yet to have anyone tell me why it's a good thing I can pick between one huge AoE ability & one huge ST ability & be happy that I don't have the other when I'd like it.

[Hitei]

i agree to 100%.

but when you go in store they not offer you just 2 cars:

1)
looks great, but has a tractor motor with 30 miles max and has only automatic gearbox.

2)
looks ugly like hell, but has a normal 100 ps car motor, but has only manual gearbox.

instead you can buy, with your money, the car you like by style, with your prefred motor and your prefred gearbox. know why ? because they decoupled this decissions to not just offer customers „pest vs cholera“.

i had a good laugh here, by imaging you go into that car store and get this 2 choices with the words „we have meaningful choice here“.

just for the sake of correctness, when comparing these things

This is a bad comparison because video game options are not cars. Obviously, the best option when buying a real world automobile is to have the best look and also the best engine and mechanics, because there is no reason to limit yourself.

That doesn't translate to video games. The answer to "Do you want to be a mage and be good at magic and shoot a bunch of spells, or do you want to be a fighter and be good with weapons and armored and run into battle, or do you want to be an archer and an expert with a bow fighting from the back lines?" is not "I WANT TO DO ALL THREE OF THEM", because now you don't have a mage, or an archer, or a fighter, you just have some generic flavorless character that can do everything, in a multiplayer game where every other player is the exact same homogenized blob that can do all those same things, because everything is accessible.

Meaningful choice is an important part of video games, and it is meaningful precisely because you are limited.

If the game asks you to choose between giving the antidote to the poor villagers for the sake of good and admiration, and giving the antidote to a rich lord, it is a meaningful choice precisely because you are limited to only picking one and receiving the benefits of one, and then you talk to your friend and ask about what they picked and they have a potentially different RPG experience because they picked something else and so got different rewards.

If you have two antidotes, all of that goes out the window. It's just a two part fetch quest of no note, and there's no point asking your friend what he did, because why would anyone not do both?

[Stardrift]

Lmao. So these questions are basically just "which ones do we need to nerf into the ground and which ones do we need to buff above the others". Already swapping the number hierarchy before release. This shit is DOA.

[goldlock]

They're not asking that because it doesn't help them in any way. If everyone voted "Yes, it's dogshit" what would they do with that information?

Blizzard at this point isn't going to scrap a major selling point of the expansion, arguably one of the few selling points of the expansion. Even if people didn't like it a less than ideal feature is arguably better than no feature and at this point with an expected fall release they don't have time to make a decent new feature.

So all they can do is ask "We know it's dogshit, how can we make it less so."

I mean... I would see the removal of covenants as a selling feature. Shows they listen to their community and learn rather then making a worse version of azerite armor.

[Gaidax]

Lmao. So these questions are basically just "which ones do we need to nerf into the ground and which ones do we need to buff above the others". Already swapping the number hierarchy before release. This shit is DOA.

OOOOoooOOOooOoOooo Imagine that, Blizzard does some balancing. Unheard of in history of WoW, totally never happened in any beta before!