"Does it matter to you casuals if we hardcores get fluid covenants?" Yes, here's why.

[Nzx]

I made this sound ridiculous on purpose to illuminate how dense it is to assume that people will make data-based decisions on grounds of empathy and trust.

Excellent point. A lot of these arguments in favour of this system seem similar to the ones freshly graduated high school students make about why they should just be able to step into a senior level job because their parents told them they were really smart. They look at job requirements and see "five years experience" and go "yeah but that's just for other people, I'm really good, I should just get given the role" much like they look at pug requirements and say "yeah but that's for other people, I'm one of the best DPS in the world I just don't care enough to put in all the time that these nerds do".

[Hitei]

I mean, that's exactly the point, isn't it? What if you chose your covenant based on the holistic total of it's parts - you love the ember court, you don't really like Sinfall as a location, you're alright with Revendreth as a zone, and the ability is okay because it performs middle of the pack in all content. Next reset they nerf the rewards from ember court and nerf your ability by 50%. Now you have to decide whether an absolute dumpster ability is a good trade for the cosmetic shit that you like.

Why would an ability that is middle of the pack in all content get nerfed 50%? Coming up with situations that will not happen is not going to prove your point. If anything your ability is only likely to improve by virtue of any potential OP abilities in other covenants being nerfed.

Why are people being forced to choose between fun gameplay and aesthetics that they like? The true "RPG choice" here is choosing the location you want to afk in and the stories that your character partakes in, it shouldn't be whether or not your character is fun to play or not.

Because choices are multifaceted. The same way you potentially have to choose between fun gameplay and aesthetics when picking a class; because maybe you really like the aesthetics of a demon hunter, but do not enjoy the way that the class plays, or really like aesthetics and gameplay of survival, or unholy, but hate having a pet. Maybe you really like the idea and execution of engineering, but want to actually make decent and reliable money with your profession. Maybe you really love the aesthetics and lore of Tauren, or Goblins, or Trolls but absolutely hate Orcish aesthetics and yet have to deal with that being the primary aesthetic of the Horde in almost every expansion.

The true RPG choice here is weighing all the factors of a major decision with different impacts and rewards, and picking an option. If the covenant's impact (read: additional bonus power) is what determines whether or not your character is fun to play, then why are you playing a character whose base form you don't find fun?

[Marsc92]

In all my years on this forum, OP's take has to be the single worst take ive ever read

[Nzx]

Why would an ability that is middle of the pack in all content get nerfed 50%? Coming up with situations that will not happen is not going to prove your point. If anything your ability is only likely to improve by virtue of any potential OP abilities in other covenants being nerfed.

Because choices are multifaceted. The same way you potentially have to choose between fun gameplay and aesthetics when picking a class; because maybe you really like the aesthetics of a demon hunter, but do not enjoy the way that the class plays, or really like aesthetics and gameplay of survival, or unholy, but hate having a pet. Maybe you really like the idea and execution of engineering, but want to actually make decent and reliable money with your profession. Maybe you really love the aesthetics and lore of Tauren, or Goblins, or Trolls but absolutely hate Orcish aesthetics and yet have to deal with that being the primary aesthetic of the Horde in almost every expansion.

The true RPG choice here is weighing all the factors of a major decision with different impacts and rewards, and picking an option. If the covenant's impact (read: additional bonus power) is what determines whether or not your character is fun to play, then why are you playing a character whose base form you don't find fun?

You know what? You just believe something completely, fundamentally different from me about how a video game should work. I'm not even going to bother discussing it with you. I find it completely bonkers that you actually believe Blizzard don't just randomly nerf middle of the road things by 50% (it happened with the most irrelevant Azerite traits at the beginning of last expansion, they completely torpedoed a whole bunch of legendaries and conduits in the last beta patch, etc etc), I find it completely bonkers that you would willingly accept being told that you must choose between aesthetics and performance - this isn't real life, Blizzard are in complete control and could allow you to have both the aesthetics AND the performance if they weren't so boneheaded - your mindset is just completely alien to me and I'm ready to accept that it's impossible to change your mind.

I'm tired of breaking down these same moronic talking points over and over again. People who act like choosing a covenant is anything even remotely similar to choosing a class are arguing in the worst kind of bad faith. People who act like this "only effects the 1%" are arguing in bad faith. People who think Blizzard are magically going to get good at balance 17 years into this game's existence are lying to themselves. And, worst of all, people who are acting like this is somehow the magic solution to metagaming (which is a thing in literally every fucking game to ever exist, including card games and board games and actual sports) are absolutely delusional.

I honestly cannot believe the entitlement you have to feel to tell other people that they should be forced into rolling multiple of the same class. There's one option here where all types of players can engage with the content the way they want to (as in, you can just not fucking change covenants if you want to be locked in), and there's one option where a huge percentage of players have their engagement taken away from them (as in, no one is allowed to change covenants because you petulant children have convinced yourselves that will make you get invited to groups). Casual plebs and biting off their own noses to spite their face, name a more iconic duo. When SL is closer to WoD than it is to Legion and it finally falls apart, at least Blizzard will still have heaps of engagement with the world quest and LFR heroes!

[Elyon]

Imagine I'm a prot warrior that likes being offensive and picks venthyr, therefore condemn (imagine that it's the best for dmg and the worst for survivability)

I'm a tank so doing damage isn't my priority, so I'll probably be subpar compared to other tanks. And I know that, and I'm ok with that. I'll just play differently and put more effort to clear content than the others. I'm ok with being sub optimal cause this way of playing is fun to me, as long as I am still "viable". Pls understand, I still want to clear content (prolly not mythic/16+ M+).

If I could switch covenants like nothing, everyone would ask me more often to change my covenant cause venthyr is bad, even though it still can clear the content, just not as optimal as others. This is what blizzard is trying to prevent with this system. You can't change covenants easily, so people are less encouraged to reject you because of your covenant choice (And I say "less encouraged" cause i know people will still do it, but it could be worse).

All the people that say "Casuals don't lose anything if we could switch covenants" are wrong imo. This way I have more chances of being picked to raid, the way I find it fun to play. That's what we lose, chances of being picked. The ones that really don't lose anything are the more hardcore/optimal players, cause they will go the most optimal route anyway, switchable covenants or not.

I don't want to play bad and be picked. I want to play the way I want while still being competent, and be picked.

[Hitei]

I don't actually have any valid counter-points so here's a bunch of poorly conceived strawman arguments followed by some baseless ad hominems.

If you say so.

[Caerrona]

The salty bois crying over covenants are at full force today it seems. At least it died down for a couple hours there since the blizz update.

[Xeenith]

all this salt over something like that is why I stopped all group content.
I'll get my "garbage" gear playing by myself with the spec/convenant I like for that char, it won't bother anyone and I won't have nobody to nag my choice...
I have more fun playing a char from every class with "emissary ilvl max" than one single class with top of the line.
even LFR is uninteresting, boss have too much HP and take too much time for very little worth.

yes I'll be just like a solo game, yet still WoW. why not play solo games then? I like my characters and want to play them, it's enough.

[msdos]

In my observations I found that people are ignoring the existence of PVP completely when it comes to the Covenants choices. They won't allow you to claim there is meaningful PVP Covenant choice because it dissolves their claim about there being no meaningful choice. Yeah, there isn't a choice if you pretend PVP doesn't exist I guess.

This is why the PVP gear vendor is important. If PVPers can finally split away, then yes, we have our meaningful choice, as much as people want to deny it.
I will enjoy my Necrolord choice in BGs and Arena and that makes people booty bummed.

[Toybox]

Imagine I'm a prot warrior that likes being offensive and picks venthyr, therefore condemn (imagine that it's the best for dmg and the worst for survivability)

I'm a tank so doing damage isn't my priority, so I'll probably be subpar compared to other tanks. And I know that, and I'm ok with that. I'll just play differently and put more effort to clear content than the others. I'm ok with being sub optimal cause this way of playing is fun to me, as long as I am still "viable". Pls understand, I still want to clear content (prolly not mythic/16+ M+).

If I could switch covenants like nothing, everyone would ask me more often to change my covenant cause venthyr is bad, even though it still can clear the content, just not as optimal as others. This is what blizzard is trying to prevent with this system. You can't change covenants easily, so people are less encouraged to reject you because of your covenant choice (And I say "less encouraged" cause i know people will still do it, but it could be worse).

All the people that say "Casuals don't lose anything if we could switch covenants" are wrong imo. This way I have more chances of being picked to raid, the way I find it fun to play. That's what we lose, chances of being picked. The ones that really don't lose anything are the more hardcore/optimal players, cause they will go the most optimal route anyway, switchable covenants or not.

I don't want to play bad and be picked. I want to play the way I want while still being competent, and be picked.

You're right in a sense that people typically playing in organized content with likeminded individuals might stand to lose the least from this system, but I think the real reason is different - They have nothing to lose because they already have each other to play with. Whether it's a normal guild that enjoys doing M+ together or cream of the mythic raiding cake, if you're in a guild with likeminded individuals then the trials & tribulations of the pug world are absolutely irrelevant.

We've seen this before with people seeking picture perfect comps because they saw X/Y/Z do it in an MDI, & that's likely to happen again (although perhaps to a lesser extent) with covenants. With this system, they've just given random group leaders another metric to judge people on, & we all know how that goes.

The only thing that causes this to fall apart for organized groups is for people who enjoy feeling at their best in multiple forms of content, & for me, the level of that content is irrelevant compared to the feeling. If someone raiding LFR feels they'd get more fun out of using a huge single target ability on a certain encounter while using a huge AOE ability for a dungeon then why should that opinion be any less valid than someone who raids mythic? What about a gladiator player who enjoys raiding, but has to make sacrifices on one side or another to remain competitive? Gimp his/her entire raid team & face potentially losing his/her spot, or drop rating because s/he's leaving him/herself without an edge?

You may say they're extreme examples, but I've put enough time on the beta to know they're par for the course. You may say they're going to balance them, but how do you balance a big AoE knockdown & a huge single target damage buff to feel compelling in all forms of content? Without nerfing them to the point of irrelevancy or telling people to just get over it, I don't see a solution besides allowing people to fluidly swap between abilities.

That all said though, I'll be more than fine. Sure, I'm stuck playing a butt-ugly covenant (Venthyr) with absolutely no chance of anything changing because obviously the single target ability is going to be amazing for raiding, but we'll do all the arena we want to do, push all the dungeons we fancy pushing as a guild, & that'll be that. Shame I'll spend the next two years not being able to try out 2 very cool abilities though, as that's really the only thing I'm gonna be missing out on... Good job I'm getting my fill of them on the beta.

[Elyon]

You're right in a sense that people typically playing in organized content with likeminded individuals might stand to lose the least from this system, but I think the real reason is different - They have nothing to lose because they already have each other to play with. Whether it's a normal guild that enjoys doing M+ together or cream of the mythic raiding cake, if you're in a guild with likeminded individuals then the trials & tribulations of the pug world are absolutely irrelevant.

We've seen this before with people seeking picture perfect comps because they saw X/Y/Z do it in an MDI, & that's likely to happen again (although perhaps to a lesser extent) with covenants. With this system, they've just given random group leaders another metric to judge people on, & we all know how that goes.

The only thing that causes this to fall apart for organized groups is for people who enjoy feeling at their best in multiple forms of content, & for me, the level of that content is irrelevant compared to the feeling. If someone raiding LFR feels they'd get more fun out of using a huge single target ability on a certain encounter while using a huge AOE ability for a dungeon then why should that opinion be any less valid than someone who raids mythic? What about a gladiator player who enjoys raiding, but has to make sacrifices on one side or another to remain competitive? Gimp his/her entire raid team & face potentially losing his/her spot, or drop rating because s/he's leaving him/herself without an edge?

You may say they're extreme examples, but I've put enough time on the beta to know they're par for the course. You may say they're going to balance them, but how do you balance a big AoE knockdown & a huge single target damage buff to feel compelling in all forms of content? Without nerfing them to the point of irrelevancy or telling people to just get over it, I don't see a solution besides allowing people to fluidly swap between abilities.

That all said though, I'll be more than fine. Sure, I'm stuck playing a butt-ugly covenant (Venthyr) with absolutely no chance of anything changing because obviously the single target ability is going to be amazing for raiding, but we'll do all the arena we want to do, push all the dungeons we fancy pushing as a guild, & that'll be that. Shame I'll spend the next two years not being able to try out 2 very cool abilities though, as that's really the only thing I'm gonna be missing out on... Good job I'm getting my fill of them on the beta.

I see your point. Right now I don't have the urge to try the other abilities and how they would play in different scenarios, but I have to admit that if that moment came...I wouldn't be happy being locked with my original choice. I still value the effort blizzard is making in creating a "meaningful choice" though, but I can't figure out a solution that's good enough for everyone.

Maybe the slightly increased chances of being picked in a pug is not worth the lack of freedom in how you play.

[Toybox]

I see your point. Right now I don't have the urge to try the other abilities and how they would play in different scenarios, but I have to admit that if that moment came...I wouldn't be happy being locked with my original choice. I still value the effort blizzard is making in creating a "meaningful choice" though, but I can't figure out a solution that's good enough for everyone.

Maybe the slightly increased chances of being picked in a pug is not worth the lack of freedom in how you play.

There's only a few choices they really have: Consider it fine as-is & have (some) of the players feel hard done by, nerf them all to the point of the system being pointless in terms of performance, or detatch the covenant system from their signature abilities (which is the change I'd like personally). I'm all for covenants as a form of RP, world building, & storytelling, but my choice is to play the best ability for what I enjoy the most (raiding) which sadly means I have to skip out on all of the possible benefits of committing to that covenant because, aesthetically & thematically, it's my joint-least favourite.

I get what they're trying to do, but I do think the two ideals can peacefully coexist. I fully expect a 9.3 patch where they admit they could've done things differently, be more careful in the future, only to do the same in 10.0 We've seen it a few too many times at this point.

[orsraunia]

You fail to understand that what will happen is that you just want get invited if you have the wrong covenant for a specific dungeon or raid. Even if they are locked and 80% don't have that covenant, the group leaders will pick the ones that have it. It is not, and has not for many years, been about if you can do a dungeon, but the fastest way of doing it.

The situation gets even shittier if you do both pvp and pve at a competitive level. There is no way in hell that Blizzard in any way can balance the abilities properly enough for them not to matter. So if you want to do both at even a semi-high level you are pretty much forced into rolling two of the same char, or as I will do, unsub after the first month.

This is legion legendaries all over again. But if it is as it is now, it will actually be worse in the long term.

You seem to misunderstand that any new cog in the machine will be used to exclude people. If you can change it or not. If a spec is bad, you won't be invited to high level content with that spec. If your class is bad you won't be invited to that content. If your covenant is bad, you won't be invited to high level content. There is even instances of some races not being taken (or more accurately, you don't get taken without a specific race).

Well spoken. And it seems to me that PvPers will get it even worse. Best covenant for PvP will probably not be best covenant for PvE for most classes. So, one who is interested mostly in PvP, but wants to do some raiding and M+ too, for some variation or because he wants better gear for PvP, will probably not be optimal both for PvP and PvE.

So, if he chooses the "PVP covenant", and he will, will probably not get into PvE groups often, when he does he will feel shitty because he won't be able to help his team as much as he could and he will probably get shit at some point from people, for not being optimal for PvE. And I can't blame him, neither the people who will give him shit for joining high end PvE raids without being optimal for PvE...

This is an obvious problem imo, especially when this new system makes balancing the game so much harder. So, why is Blizzard doing this? My opinion is that Blizzard, worried by the declining subs, is trying to "respond" to some of the long lasting requests of a portion of the player base, hoping to spark interest. So, it's trying to implement old requests that sound good in theory, instead of spending this develompent time innovating new ways to make this game more fun or just improving the many systems that are already in place.

For example, during WoD, garrisons was an attempt to appease that portion of the player base that wanted housing. Now it's trying to appease those that wanted meaningful customization, because "all members of a class are identical". Thing is that people want all kinds of stuff that sound good in theory, but what about the practical application.

I don't mind having a new system every expansion, when it's well implemented we get a breath of fresh air and that is good. But if its practical application messes up our fun, then that is obviously a bad thing.

The most important thing is having fun playing your class, feeling that you can be useful in all aspects of the game, without jumping through too many hoops, and having good content to experience. It has always been like this and this should be the No1 priority. Housing, customization options, etc are fine, but ONLY when they don't come at the expense of far more important things. It's 1000 times better to have identical members of a class that is fun to play and useful in all aspects of the game, at least it's obvious to those with enough experience.

Finally, I hope I am wrong, but Covenants will make it so you can't be optimal both for PvE and PvP, in an expansion that gives you incentives to PvE even if you just like to PvP. So, this will make enough people frustrated and feel bad about their experience. And frustrated people eventually stop playing.

[Vampyrr]

If you want there to be meaningful choice in covenants then you must NEVER attach player power to it or the power must be identical in what it does across each. That way theres 0 power difference and you still get to play the one you want. The moment player power and for that DIFFERENT powers were assigned it was doomed to fail.

[Caerrona]

So, this will be a problem in my -> opinion. <-

I personally don't see a problem. If someone wants to specialize in pvp they are free to make that choice.

- - - Updated - - -

In lack of anything worthy and constructive, ad hominem is your way to go about people disagreeing with you? Real mature.

In lack of a spine the salty bois will continue to hand over money to blizzard.