No Preach...

[Kralljin]

If groups do not choose you, then THEY are the problem, not the Ret player

People aren't going to change their mindset because Blizzard wants to.

Trying to re educate players won't work, because people obviously do not like that and at best those people will quit the game and you hopefully get new people in that replace those.
At worst, those people will leave and you don't get new players.

"Changing" the community in a 15 year old video game won't work.

[Malefic]

Youre wrong. And here's why. I watched your most recent video, about the covenant "imbalances ". Heres the thing. This is an mmoRPG. A roleplaying game. What makes a great role playing game, is CHOICE. Our character makes an important decision, on which cause to fight for. Which to put their strength behind. And, to paraphrase the immortal Syndrome,"When all choices are the same...they don't matter". Preach, your words: you don't care about the story. You don't care about transmog. Without those things, as said by a Blizzard Game Developer, the game is basically a math equation. That's NOT an RPG. Speaking as someone who has made the Lore my area of expertise-as you have made the mechanics-Choice is important. It is VITAL. You, and those in your camp, want all abilities, all flavor abilities, all the things that make up CHOICE-to be irrelevant. Its like going to a restaurant, and looking at the menu, and no matter what you order, its all the same grey goop. It makes PERFECT sense for the Night Fae to be able to move vines and such in a dungeon. It speaks to lore, to who they are as a people, and is flavor. I am not a Mythic raider. I've raided Mythic, but its not my cup. I love the lore of the game, PASSIONATELY. And Transmog-what I wear, whom I represent-it matters. The powers given, the abilities inferred-it matters that only one covenant has the blink ability, or the spirit animal ability, or even an owl butler-if all covenant had the SAME things, they would be the SAME GREY GOO No, Preach, I wholeheartedly, passionately disagree. This isn't aspersions cast on your knowledge of the game play mechanics. This is a player who has that level of knowledge of the Lore. The Story. Which, you said you do NOT care about. So, to close, yes. Choice matters. Not in the minescule dps increase. But in the fact of it matters WHY WE FIGHT. - PANDAREN EMPEROR

There is no story for why you pick a covenant though.

You know what one of the first things you covenant tells you to do when you've joined them? Go help the other covenants.

There is no story reason for why you would need to side with a single covenant, in fact it goes AGAINST the story of Shadowlands.

You've directed your comments at Preach and the videos he makes but he's told you this in videos already. Plenty of other players have too. There isn't a reason in-game why you should pick a covenant and only 1 covenant.

[kaminaris]

Saying that it's a problem with the community is like asking the internet not to be mean. It's a nice sentiment, but it's utopian nonsense.

I don't care about blame. I'm just stating facts. Under a locked covenant system, players with bad covenants will be declined from things like m+ groups at a much higher rate than people with good covenants.

Trying to assign blame is pointless because blame doesn't actually help.

Nonsense is saying that its utopian lol. Been there done that. Find better guild and you will see.
You don't state facts, I've been accepted as demo lock on 20+ M+ previous season. Is it harder? Yes but FAAAAAAAAR from impossible.

And again I will pick whoever has higher score without checking covenants because experience is far more valuable than "right" covenant.

[Lei]

The devs put themselves into a shitty situation. It's like being a parent, and having a lactose intolerant kid, a kid that loves chocolate, a kid that hates chocolate, and parent would go "well, here's a whipped cream chocolate cake, kids sort it out, will ya". "Oh, it's gonna be fine trust me."
This is exactly what's happening and the kids are pointing fingers at each others not at the parent. Now we are at "but momma bought you a candy last week which we didn't get, so you will fucking eat that cake even if you shit yourself because I like it!" type of arguments. Brilliant.

Tbh, I'm really uninterested in the concept of covenants. I don't care for the covenant abilities or the soulbind talents. I do care about collectibles and the story, and my character (altough it seems like raiding is yet again not in the cards for me in this expansion). But then if I want every collectibles from all covenants, see every story, I will have to have a char in each one so the choice is meaningless, because I am one person that will play each and every covenant. Who cares if my shaman is venthyr or whatever when my hunter then has to be something else and my druid something else.

[Sinfelle]

LOL, imagine playing WoW for the RPG element. Lulz

[skorgg]

I've never played an MMORPG that actually had "consequences" to my actions. In EverQuest my Wood Elf Ranger who had Tunare as his deity continuously killer her in Plane of Growth which dumpstered his faction with Tunare. Aside from locking me out of a couple of shitty quests at the time, it didn't actually matter, because everything can be fixed in an MMORPG over time.

Anyone claiming this game has any "consequences" aside from picking your class is very much so blind. Even classes can change by just rerolling and mind-numbingly leveling to max in a relatively short amount of time. There is no permanence in our choices and never has been.

If someone can provide 1 example of a real consequence this game provides based on a user's actions in this game, I will PayPal you $25. And don't think being a smartass with that "lawlallalwlawll you can get banned!!!" bullshit is valid.

Sidenote: I'd hate to be so bored and miserable that I need to make up arguments just for the sake of not feeling like I'm wasting life.

[OrcsRLame]

Nonsense is saying that its utopian lol. Been there done that. Find better guild and you will see.
You don't state facts, I've been accepted as demo lock on 20+ M+ previous season. Is it harder? Yes but FAAAAAAAAR from impossible.

And again I will pick whoever has higher score without checking covenants because experience is far more valuable than "right" covenant.

Of course you can find that magic guild that just loves you as a person and will bring you no matter how shitty your build is.

That's not the reality for most people.

And honestly, my mind has been changed by reading all these replies. I am now against fluid covenants. I love seeing people get bitch slapped by reality. It's my biggest character flaw. Fucking love it.

I'm gonna be fine because I'm gonna pick good covenants on all my characters and I have one of those magic guilds anyways. So I don't even know why I'm bitching. I'm gonna just ready my popcorn and coffee for the inevitable QQ posts. I did it with the classic is hard threads and I'm gonna do it here. Goddamn it's gonna be so funny when people get what they want.

[msdos]

People crying over Covenants is dumb because they've been exposed. If you PVP, your meaningful Covenant choice is there. Basically what people are suggesting (being able to switch around) completely removes that PVP choice from PVPers.

You gotta think about it. PVErs don't think the Covenant choices are meaningful because they can't actually do anything with them, they can't make big plays. All they can do is go into a raid or dungeon and hope they look good on the meter or at most hope they're fun to use inside the confines of their spec.

[OrcsRLame]

People crying over Covenants is dumb because they've been exposed. If you PVP, your meaningful Covenant choice is there. Basically what people are suggesting (being able to switch around) completely removes that PVP choice from PVPers.

You gotta think about it. PVErs don't think the Covenant choices are meaningful because they can't actually do anything with them, they can't make big plays. All they can do is go into a raid or dungeon and hope they look good on the meter or at most hope they're fun to use inside the confines of their spec.

What in the sam hell did I just read? Whatever I'm going to bed. This place is too weird for me.

[msdos]

What in the sam hell did I just read? Whatever I'm going to bed. This place is too weird for me.

If you aren't basing your Covenant choice on PVP, you probably wouldn't understand.

[Hellobolis]

People crying over Covenants is dumb because they've been exposed. If you PVP, your meaningful Covenant choice is there. Basically what people are suggesting (being able to switch around) completely removes that PVP choice from PVPers.

You gotta think about it. PVErs don't think the Covenant choices are meaningful because they can't actually do anything with them, they can't make big plays. All they can do is go into a raid or dungeon and hope they look good on the meter or at most hope they're fun to use inside the confines of their spec.

I mean, even in the best case scenario where blizz makes a meaningful choice for every gameplay style, there would still be the issue that you have to choose a gameplay style if you happen to enjoy more than one aspect of the game.

Which is something i would actually like if it wasn't for the nagging issue that things like link curve and ioscore are so prevalent now as to actually make such a choice just turn into a bad experience. i'd love to make my character a "raiding warrior" or a "pvp warrior" or a "dungeon warrior", but in todays world it's a problem to be a "pvp warrior" if you are doing dungeon content.

[Fkiolaris]

When all this sweet sweet RPG fantasies casuals have imagined turn out to be just empty marketing epic shitshow will start.
Then Ion will press his already prepared ohshit-button and tell everybody "we listen and we learnt a lot, plz subscribe again here is a cool 6 month moutn".
Played you like a fiddle.
Ez.

That's my POV as well. The problem is, I won't be touching SL until they fix this shit and my money will be going elsewhere.

[Tyris Flare]

My favorite part of these is how Preach himself acknowledges his own biases and advocates for his position without being a jerk, yet people still get personally offended somehow.

[Comfort]

I'm pretty sure you choice will have no real impact on the story though. At best you will just see it from you covenants point of view.

The destination is the same, the journey just has different scenery.

I dont think this is a good point to defend "choice" affecting anything.

[Mardux]

The devs put themselves into a shitty situation. It's like being a parent, and having a lactose intolerant kid, a kid that loves chocolate, a kid that hates chocolate, and parent would go "well, here's a whipped cream chocolate cake, kids sort it out, will ya". "Oh, it's gonna be fine trust me."
This is exactly what's happening and the kids are pointing fingers at each others not at the parent. Now we are at "but momma bought you a candy last week which we didn't get, so you will fucking eat that cake even if you shit yourself because I like it!" type of arguments. Brilliant.

You shouldn't be projecting that hard, its not a good look imo.

Your shit analogy implies that WoW players are incapable of making their own choices. While that may be true for some (the ever-present hatetrain for blizzard, the "meta or auto decline" crowd, the people who need r.io to build groups for them, the people who were unwilling to leave shit guilds before they cried hard enough to have blizzard force PL on the decent guilds, etc), thats hardly the case for everyone like you imply.

WoW players have a choice on which cov to use, a choice to stay with that cov, and the choice on which other cov they pick up should they *choose* to swap. Whether they actually make that choice or pretend they are being forced to do something else is entirely on them. They aren't being forced by blizzard or anyone else to pick a specific cov or stay with a specific cov.

[msdos]

I mean, even in the best case scenario where blizz makes a meaningful choice for every gameplay style, there would still be the issue that you have to choose a gameplay style if you happen to enjoy more than one aspect of the game.

Which is something i would actually like if it wasn't for the nagging issue that things like link curve and ioscore are so prevalent now as to actually make such a choice just turn into a bad experience. i'd love to make my character a "raiding warrior" or a "pvp warrior" or a "dungeon warrior", but in todays world it's a problem to be a "pvp warrior" if you are doing dungeon content.

The IO score paranoia thing only applies if M+ is all you do in WoW. Why would I care about IO score when I just go get gear from something else? People's heads are in boxes right now and they aren't thinking about what they can do differently, they're only thinking about what they enjoy and how can they exploit all the powers available whenever they want, basically like little babies. I'm sick of reading it.

There are actually people not complaining like babies, I wish people could be more like them.

[Archmage Xaxxas]

No, cause if Venthyr is better, come 2-3 weeks in, most mages are gonna be Venthyr. People are gonna have an addon to check your covenant. When their addon tells you you're a Necrolord you get kicked from the group. This struggle of finding groups means that your Raider IO ends up low, then you don't even get invited to the group to begin with.

It will be enforced by most of the playerbase. WE SEE THIS WITH CLASSIC. RET. FUCKING. PALADINS.

The experiment has already been ran. The data are already in. In piss easy content, when players have to form their own groups, sub optimal people get kicked to the curb with no regard for what they like or think or care about.

It's not the best assumption to make that most of the playerbase is so weak-willed that they cave into the Elite's Addon Traps. If people are just picking Venthyr because everyone else did, it's just a sad truth spoken about their ability to think for themselves.
Is it gonna happen a lot? Sure! but those players are dooming -themselves- to that. Leave them to it, and don't cater to them.

With the choices under lock and key, there will be many people who realize that diversity is fun and interesting, and not Stressful the way the 1% choose to interpret it.

They'll be understanding of their fellow player's wants and fantasies surrounding their character, and accept Class/Covenant options different from their own, instead of kneeling before the Number Crunching overlords who spoil the fun of the game for them.

Really it does come down to which group is actually enjoying the game more? Y'know the same principles go to IRL. Don't just follow blindly against your own desires in all things, because many people are miserably doing the same, and teaching that "IT'S THE RIGHT WAY", no matter how miserable.

[Lei]

You shouldn't be projecting that hard, its not a good look imo.

Your shit analogy implies that WoW players are incapable of making their own choices. While that may be true for some (the ever-present hatetrain for blizzard, the "meta or auto decline" crowd, the people who need r.io to build groups for them, the people who were unwilling to leave shit guilds before they cried hard enough to have blizzard force PL on the decent guilds, etc), thats hardly the case for everyone like you imply.

WoW players have a choice on which cov to use, a choice to stay with that cov, and the choice on which other cov they pick up should they *choose* to swap. Whether they actually make that choice or pretend they are being forced to do something else is entirely on them. They aren't being forced by blizzard or anyone else to pick a specific cov or stay with a specific cov.

This comment is the clear example that you don't even understand what I wrote. It's fine.

[exochaft]

Your point, is Preaches point. If you choose Ret, you shouldn't be penalized. If groups do not choose you, then THEY are the problem, not the Ret player

The irony is that covenants, as they are now on the beta, probably won't define the meta as much as people think... especially compared to class/spec choices. People focus way too much on the individual class ability, when the signature abilities and the nodes w/i soulbinds can account for way more cumulatively than the class ability. There are still some outliers to be certain, but it's more of an exception and not the rule. This doesn't even go into legendary items and other enhancement items/consumables that, when combined, potentially dwarf the power discussions concerning class abilities.

Regardless, the problem that people are concerned about is not the fault of the high end players making their best/worst lists and/or their personal opinions concerning the outcomes of systems. The actually problem is people who worship the meta without understanding that it's not a one-size-fits-all and optimized around the skills/preferences of the high skill players. More often than not the meta comp/strat isn't the only solution, especially when you move away from the highest skilled players and move towards the rest of the players, who may have less skill, different strengths/weaknesses, and have different preferences. Even top 100 guilds struggle with this concept, as back in my older hardcore raiding days it was a constant battle with leadership about how we should tackle content because they were baffled that the strats/comps used by those ahead of us in progression weren't working at all. This doesn't mean you can't glean information from how others have defeated the content, but a great raiding guild will adapt what they learn to their group's strengths and weaknesses to maximize their own potential.

Now I will say if there's an extreme outlier in existence, that probably needs to be squashed. This doesn't mean there can't be, in the example of covenants, one class ability that appears to you as the player to be the best choice for your. One has to keep in mind that not everyone has the same skill set/level and preferences, so an ability that may be inferior to a highly skilled player with one preferred playstyle may actually be BiS for someone with a lower skill cap, a different set of skills, and/or a different playstyle. Almost all the conversations I've seen about the covenant balance comes from the viewpoint of the highest skilled and proficient players, partly because they get alpha/beta access first and we see their feedback the earliest and the most.

I'll use a super simple example to explain how this works. Let's take the raid leader as the focus. We've seen a recent shift to "21man raiding" in the top end raiding scene, but why is that? Why not just 20man and have the raid leader playing at the same time? Because raid leading requires shifting your focus and paying attention to and adjusting as the fight goes on, and actually participating in the fight at the same time is going to certainly cause a loss in performance in one of the areas. Obviously, your average mythic raid isn't going to have 21st person monitoring and leading the raid, so what should the raid leader do in order to minimize how taking on multiple roles impacts their progression? Typically, the raid leader should play a class/spec they're comfortable with or is relatively easy to execute, not necessarily the BiS min/max meta class. They can adjust their talent choices, builds, etc. to maximize their character efficacy while maintaining a good level of leadership during the raid. They could try to do the most theoretically meta pick for output, but I've never seen a raid leader who is honest with themselves that will not admit that there is a performance loss raid leading. However, the big point is this: there is a realization that depending upon your role in an encounter or raid, you may need to adjust to things not considered the meta to actually get the maximum benefit.

How does this translate to things like covenants? The theoretical BiS or meta pick may not be the best for you depending upon your skills set and efficacy, preferences, role you have in content (whether raid lead, person who will volunteer to do all the mechanics or fills certain roles, the dedicated pewpewer, etc.), the content you're doing, and everything and anything that cannot be accounted for in a 5min ST simulation with a fixed template APL. There won't be and shouldn't be a choice that works for everyone regardless of all the aforementioned conditions, as that would be truly imbalanced.

[Hellobolis]

The IO score paranoa thing only applies if M+ is all you do in WoW. Why would I care about IO score when I just go get gear from something else? People's heads are in boxes right now and they aren't thinking about what they can do differently, they're only thinking about what they enjoy and how can they exploit all the powers available whenever they want, basically like little babies. I'm sick of reading it.

There are actually people not complaining like babies, I wish people could be more like them.

wait. your argument actually is "pvp has a meaningful choice, you just don't care about it." and then say you don't care if M+ gets a meaningful choice or not? that's nice.

i'm also not saying you can't do x or y with a bad covenant choice, just that people will give you shit for it. heck i even said i would love a meaningful choice to be possible.