Is there a divide?

[Stardrift]

You're on MMO-C. A lot of the users here are Twitter users. So of course there's a large percentage of them that get all tickled pink and excited for the next big pet battle dungeon and more (insert female lore character) tshirts on the merch store.

[Omedon]

I can see the hair the poll is trying to split, so I voted “do not care,” but as others have said, it’s far more nuanced than that.

Of course I want a higher ilvl so what things I do go faster. That said, I play almost every spec in the game to a degree and only know the stat weights for one. I haven’t run any instanced content that requires a non-automated group since a single siege of Boralus run was needed for the alliance war campaign. I consider “meeting the ilvl for LFR” my only real power goal each patch. I kill one current LFR final raid boss every 6 months as story quests require. I think people that PUG M+ are swimming upstream for a degree of gear they don’t need and will be reset every 6 months. All my addons are for transmog, world quest and alt management.

My point is, there’s a degree of “care for performance” in all of that, but no, I don’t consider other people’s time when I build my character, because it’s blizzard’s job to make it “not wrong” to be in an instance where I’ve met the blizzard-determined item level requirement, and I apply a reasonable amount of effort, which I of course do.

On the axis this thread is clearly asking about, I likely fall under “don’t care,” but it’s of course far more nuanced than that. It’s blizzard’s job to make my “main thoroughfare of the game” level of give a damn not-wrong in automated instance groups. I am confident they will do that in shadowlands. So I’m content... more than content, because I love the conceptual expression covenants offer.

Oh, and I’m an officer of a RL friends guild that, on this axis we are discussing here, generally think the same way.

In the immortal words of Dorian Pavus: “There are more of us than you know!”

I care about performance, just not up to the point where I feel it has a higher priority than core RPG gameplay elements, such as racials or covenant abilities.

Losing ~1-10% DPS isn't the deciding factor over whether or not you'll be defeating Mythic content.

Also, this, very much this. I don’t have any interest in playing any content where sacrificing my character concept for numbers is even remotely expected of me. That sounds miserable and I can not empathize with seeing this artful game through such a colorless lens.

[T-34]

Some people are good players and want to improve themselves and find it rude to waste other players time by being bad at the game.
Some people are bad players and refuse to improve themselves and find it rude when other people don't want to play with them.

A sizeable part of the posters on this forum belong to the second group, which you can see from the constant complaint-threads about mythic+, raider.io, "gate-keeping", "elitism" and being rejected from groups.

Luckily there are virtually no reason for those 2 groups to meet each other in-game anymore: LFR gives no usuable gear to good players and with the help of raider.io and other tools the good players can filter out the bad players. So now both groups can enjoy the game how they want and not make each others life miserable anymore.

[kaminaris]

For me top performance is being able to play 300 consecutive "rounds" with boss without making a single mistake in tactic and not dying, not taking any extra damage that could be avoided.

Another form of performance is being able to teach your muscle memory fighting with boss with just 1-5 attempts.

And godlike is being able to perform boss tactics perfectly while not playing it before. So just one attempt and zero mistakes.

Dps is fairly irrelevant.

[Th3Scourge]

I will choose whatever provides the highest dps for the content I'm doing. Unfortunately, if I play DK, that means having to be Nightfae. And it's actually turning me off wanting to play.

Unless they redesign the other covenants, there's no other viable option. So now I have to be a gay tree DK. Great

[Donald Hellscream]

I care about performance, to the point where I can do the content I want to do, which is M+ and heroic raids, so because I am not aiming for the most challenging of challenging content, I can pick whatever the hell I want and still complete my goals, case in point I am going Venthyr on my blood dk even though the Night Fae ability is better, because I like the Aesthetics of the covenant and the spell animation more than the Night Fae one.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

If I cared about performance I wouldn't still be playing the same Warlock for 13 years without switching mains. For Covenants I'm doing the same thing I did when picking a class, whatever I like.

So now I have to be a gay tree DK. Great

Haha because nature = gay haha get it?

[callipygoustp]

What's there to understand? I have plenty of casual friends and family that play the game that most definitely don't give a thought to their performance. They just don't care. I still have a hell of a good time playing the game with them, playing at their level, and I never EVER expect them to rise to my level. *shrug*

[WaltherLeopold]

The 1-2% are those mythic raiders and cutting edge progression players. The ones who will go to extremes, and do whatever the game allows them to do(and some that the game doesn't).

Then there's everyone else. Sure, the heroic and M+ key pushers are going to follow the path that the 1-2% set, but not to the same extreme. And the vast majority of players are going to follow the meta, but aren't going to spend 16 hours a day doing it. They'll just lean in that direction.

It's weird that you think only 1-2% of raiders are clearing mythic, when its more like between 10-20% depending on the raid.

[Redroniksre]

It's weird that you think only 1-2% of raiders are clearing mythic, when its more like between 10-20% depending on the raid.

Thats probably right. Last number i heard for people in general entering Mythic raids was about 8% or so, much less completing. So of raiders it is probably much higher.

On topic, the poll is way to black and white. I am sure there are Mythic guilds who wont give a shit, and normal guilds who will. Probably even some LFR people wanting to play the best.

[Th3Scourge]

If I cared about performance I wouldn't still be playing the same Warlock for 13 years without switching mains. For Covenants I'm doing the same thing I did when picking a class, whatever I like.



Haha because nature = gay haha get it?

I dunno if you've played though it, but they're all about fairies and furries and all kinds of debauchery. That's a hard pass from me

Nothing screams DK like nature and furries. Unless we are all Bolvar's DKs now and we're flaming

[Baine]

I care about my performance as I want to do the content I do efficiently (well I only world content and up to M0 dungeons) so it is not that hard. But in reality, I don't care much about my performance. I mean I don't enchant, gem etc my gear I picked the essence strictly based on convenience to acquire them.

[Sezh]

And so when Blizzard sets things up(like covenant swapping) to stop the top players from going super-optimal, but applies it to EVERYONE......it becomes a detriment to the vast majority of the game and the players. .

Wait do you think that the covenant swapping philosophy was in any way designed by Blizzard as a way to prevent the top players from going super-optimal? Because that's definately not the case. Blizzard will never be able to stop them from going super-optimal and they know it, they don't make any design decisions based on intents to curb the top players.

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If I cared about performance I wouldn't still be playing the same Warlock for 13 years without switching mains. For Covenants I'm doing the same thing I did when picking a class, whatever I like.

To be fair, if you cared about performance, you could have kept playing the same warlock for 13 years. The class has pretty much always been a top contender in high end content.

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It's weird that you think only 1-2% of raiders are clearing mythic, when its more like between 10-20% depending on the raid.

He didn't say 1-2% of raiders are mythic raiders. He said 1-2% in general.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

To be fair, if you cared about performance, you could have kept playing the same warlock for 13 years. The class has pretty much always been a top contender in high end content.

I should have specified I've always been Destruction Warlock. Where has that spec at for high end content?

[WaltherLeopold]

He didn't say 1-2% of raiders are mythic raiders. He said 1-2% in general.

Read the parts I didn't specifically reply to, he's talking about raiding and raiders.

[SirCowdog]

It's weird that you think only 1-2% of raiders are clearing mythic, when its more like between 10-20% depending on the raid.

That's not what I meant. I only meant that 1-2% are extreme players. I'm sure there are lots of guilds that tackle mythic at a more reasonable pace.

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Wait do you think that the covenant swapping philosophy was in any way designed by Blizzard as a way to prevent the top players from going super-optimal? Because that's definately not the case. Blizzard will never be able to stop them from going super-optimal and they know it, they don't make any design decisions based on intents to curb the top players.

I think the bolded part is exactly what initiated this crap. But it's morphed since then to include the entire meta of players swapping skills or talents in a more general sense.

I don't know why this is a problem, but Blizzard has bren stuck on it for awhile.

[MoanaLisa]

I complete the content I want to do. I care about progression. My only concerns about performance are related to doing well enough to do the stuff I like doing.

Do I care that I don't perform at the same level as a mythic raider? No, I don't. I don't even want to. I play to have some fun, have some laughs with friends, occasionally get serious about something if it interests me and have zero interest in treating the game as some test of intellect or manhood or whatever. It's not a job; it's a game.

[WaltherLeopold]

That's not what I meant. I only meant that 1-2% are extreme players. I'm sure there are lots of guilds that tackle mythic at a more reasonable pace.

Is there even a metric for this? Mythic is meant to be the hardest of all pve content in wow and bfa is at the forefront of this, aka the hardest pve ever has been.

With the middle ground of 12-15% of raiders can clear the hardest content, isnt this an argument that the necessity to min max to the "1-2percenters" level is completely unecessary?

[Azerate]

So imposing extra limits on them based on the idea that they're more than that is where things get out of hand.

Even looking at them from gameplay perspective only, there's plenty of positives coming from semi-locking them, which the rest of my post was about.

Or you could not, form your own group, or run with friends/guildies. This feels like the personal/master loot argument. No one forces you to adhere to the meta. If you agree to join someone else's run, you agree to their rules.

The alternative is that if you prefer a sub-optimal spec, you just won't get invited. Which is OK! Just find a run that isn't as stringent.

Even if you do have a guild and a group of friends, you will sometimes find yourself in need to PUG something. Players in casual guilds aren't online 24/7 and you often find yourself lacking people for a group. That's the reality of it. Also, some of the high end meta trickles down to casual guilds too, which is also pretty common knowledge too.

And I refer you back to what I just said. If the choice is too onerous to swap, then you may not be required to switch. But you also may not get invited to the group at all if you don't use the "optimal" setup.

Personally I'd rather have the option to change easily if I so desired. If you choose not to use that option, that's ok! But the mistake is in assuming that forcing a semi-permanent choice is going to increase inclusiveness for sub-optimal builds. It won't. Any group that would have asked you to respec just wont take you at all.

Here I will just have to disagree. People in pugs aren't as meta crazed as they are often portrayed to be. For example, many groups might prefer some specs over others, but in general a decent player has no problem getting into groups as a 'sub-optimal' spec right now. There's no reason why the same shouldn't be true for covenants, especially considering that every covenant has a buff in different dungeon. Making covenants more permanent will make it even harder for people to realistically have these kinds of demands. If it's just "one click change" then many more groups will be asking for that.

Favoring a small upgrade for the individual over a large upgrade for the group is a bad decision in an organized raid group. No offense, but that sounds like a raid team full of selfish people.

Not everyone is in a tight mythic guild of dedicated individuals with 100% attendance who are driven in the same way towards the same goal and have strict loot rules. There are many different dynamics in play in more casual guilds. You have people who show up once a week instead of every raid and you have no strict rules to treat them worse loot-wise than others. You have people who severely underperform. You have people who only join once in a while. On top of that, when you are doing normal/heroic difficulty distributing gear "to benefit the raid in the best way" is not really that important, because the raid is probably easily clearable by a better group without that gear. It's more of a personal achievement to get geared, rather than necessity. Personal loot is great help in all those scenarios I listed. Is it a bit shitty that people aren't straightforward about loot and use the system as an excuse? Maybe a bit. But at the same time, I think that having to have courage to "defend" your loot from some entitled assholes is not something that should be a requirement for raiding. Part of the reason why retail is so much more easy for players to get into than classic is because you don't have to play weird mind games and conduct mental warfare to fight for your loot. It just drops for people and others can do fuck all about it.

So instead of those casual players just taking the time to find a group that's less strict, lets lower the bar for the entire game, and change it for every player?

Wow....great basis for it. I mean...imagine the gall...requiring people to learn their class before being picked by a PUG that can be replaced 100 times a day. How horrible!

You know there's already a solution for people who are THAT casual? It's called LFR.

Well yes, yes The game should be designed in such a way so as to benefit the most players and make the gameplay experience better for them. Making a change that benefits 20% at the cost of 80% of the player base is just a bad change. Learning one class is something a lot of people are capable about than learning 4 classes, which is what effectively learning all 4 covenants would be.

[Surfacin9]

May be it's not a question of whether you care, but rather whether the random people in-game in your groups think you do or not. Group finder is filled with fake elitists, who know a couple of things about a class because they main or alt it, and who can start harassing another player of that class for a 'wrong' choice. If I don't play mage or shaman, no way in hell I would know their 'best' covenant ability, or talents, or stat priority. I would not even bother to check, regardless of whether I lead the group or join one. The only times when I would bother inspect someone is when I see they are performing extremely good or extremely bad, if its the same class as one of my 2 mains, I'd either give some pointers where to improve or try to learn smth myself.

Like many said here, its not black & white - caring or not. I care enough to make sure I do my rotation well, learn the tactics, gem/enchant/food/flask, I try to gear appropriately, read up on talents and other systems and use that knowledge for my build, based on what I care enough to get. I do not care enough to spend hours farming a particular gear piece that increases my dps by 1-3%, I did not care enough to grind AP liek a madman in Legion and BFA, nothing more than what I do for fun (WQs early on, couple of runs of m+ a night and raids).

By now most people know what covenants are, what they do and how people will choose them based on their own preferences. I expect there to be some bigots who will kick players with a 'wrong' choice, but only as a minority. The majority will only take spec, ilvl and experience into account (didn't see anyone questioning essences, traits or corruptions in BFA PuGs either).