Please remember all the times Blizzard were wrong - Launching WoW in Beta.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I will still stick to it: It's possible and if there is a demand, then people will supply and it's easier to balance because it's just stats.

Maybe you should re read the systems you've mentioned, because all of them have been pretty easy to swap.

Like, you could swap essences on the fly, you could swap your Azerite gear, and so forth.

Because no sane person considers world content in terms of power worth talking about.

And quite frankly, your arguments are most of the time grasping at straws which makes this entire argument absolutely not enjoyable.
You just take something that has at best a distant relation to covenants and go "but it's like that", while having to ignore major factors that set them apart from covenants.

So pretty much you've just given up on your original stance then? Because that's what this is conceding on all of these points.

You couldn't optimize your character pre legion and bfa because you had to rely on some one else supplying you stuff for prof changes that might not have been there depending on your server economy. But it also doesn't matter that you couldn't optimize because it was easier to balance and stats don't matter when it comes to maximization.

You could also swap all of the systems in bfa easily so it didn't have the same problem that shadowlands does so its just legion and shadowlands that has that problem I guess?

oh also being able to maximum in any given situation doesn't matter because some situation's don't count because you don't think there worth talking about.

why not just say that shadowlands is worse even if you couldn't always be maximized before? I would completely agree with you on that.

[HitRefresh]

There are other more expensive games I've bought that have been more unfinished and buggier, at least WoW there's a pretty good level of polish upon release even if there are some bugs that get through, and they're pretty good about hotfixing stuff. Things like Warfronts have sucked but I still enjoyed the game enough and played long enough that it isn't a waste of money or time.

[Kralljin]

So pretty much you've just given up on your original stance then? Because that's what this is conceding on all of these points.

On what?
That certain Garrisons buildings are more powerful?

You couldn't optimize your character pre legion and bfa because you had to rely on some one else supplying you stuff for prof changes that might not have been there depending on your server economy.

That's continues to be a damn weak argument, because the professions were pretty balanced and thus never had to swap between them that much during that period.

You could still do that if you wanted because gold was your only lockout and that "muh economy" argument remains to be weak, because that was rarely the case.
Even then you could just log on an alt who had the necessary gathering professions to farm that stuff yourself.

This is virtually grasping at straws yet again.

oh also being able to maximum in any given situation doesn't matter because some situation's don't count because you don't think there worth talking about.

A M+ dungeon or Arena Match is not the same as doing a world quest, so yes.

It's tiresome to argue with you about so obvious things, so it's better to stop at this point.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Nothing blind about it. This system is much different than the ones you listed.
You should realize that, and the fact that you don't proves why this argument has been a waste of everyone's time.

Those previous problems were because of poor execution of an idea.

This system is executed quite well, people just don't like the idea of it.
It doesn't matter how well it rolls out, people will act like its a failure because they fail to understand its goals some how.

That's the big difference here.
Its the community that is wrong this time.

[Razorice]

Yes, some of the systems are horrible, but it's not like there's a better MMO on the market for me, since I exclusively raid.
So you either accept it or quit.
Simple really.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

On what?
That certain Garrisons buildings are more powerful?

On pretty much every thing at this point.

That's continues to be a damn weak argument, because the professions were pretty balanced and thus never had to swap between them that much during that period

So is the problem that you don't know what optimizing/maximizing is? If they were pretty close but not the best you weren't optimized, you aren't maximized when you settle on "this is good enough".

You could still do that if you wanted because gold was your only lockout and that "muh economy" argument remains to be weak, because that was rarely the case.
Even then you could just log on an alt who had the necessary gathering professions to farm that stuff yourself.

your right you could Could put the time in to farm the mats your self on an alt if you couldn't get the items off the AH which was rather likely depending on your economy, that's the whole point. if you were on a low end server where you couldn't just buy every thing you need it would be an insane amount of time spent to farm the mats your self if you wanted to constantly be optimal going from dungeons to raids to pvp or even change stuff around for different specs and bosses.

This is virtually grasping at straws yet again,

more so you desperately trying not to be wrong to the point where your making my point's for me that you'd need an alt and a metric ton of time spent to be optimal if you couldn't rely on just buying what you needed.

A M+ dungeon or Arena Match is not the same as doing a world quest, so yes.

It's tiresome to argue with you about so obvious things, so it's better to stop at this point.

sure if you want to say you could optimize for only the things you care about go ahead but that's not the same thing as optimizing for every thing.

[jzhbee]

That's, how this game has been working for ages. That's because Blizzard try to squeeze maximum profit out from such systems before actually nerfing them. And, I guess, this is by design, because they don't learn any lessons.

Examples:
1) WotLK class balance, godlike Paladins and DKs, crappy Shamans, etc. Problem isn't fixed in time.
2) Cata 4.0 heroics were obviously overtuned. Problem isn't fixed in time.
3) All rewards gated behind rep grinds in MOP, while reps are only available from mandatory dailies. Problem isn't fixed in time.
4) WOD flying removal nonsense. Problem isn't fixed in time.
5) Legion grind/RNG/time-gating crap. Problem isn't fixed in time.
6) BFA azerite/essences/cloak/corruptions. Problem isn't fixed in time.

P.S. Garrisons are ok.

Me (and a lot of players) disagree with 2). I don't believe Cata Heroics were "overtuned", I believe that they required a level of coordination you don't usually get out of a PUG, which I was fine with. Unfortunately, WoW had just exited Wrath of the Lich King, in which the difficulty spike from Normal to Heroic was "most bosses have one more mechanic".

- - - Updated - - -

Here's the thing

If you are the top 1% and your covenant choice actually matters and is important to actually killing bosses (protip; if you're raiding heroic or doing 15s or lower, like 99% of players - you can pick what you like without fear you can't do what you want to do) - then by now surely you're used to these choices being made for you? You can't be at the very cutting edge and also expect to play exactly how you want - you have to make concessions. I don't know why we've decided it's such a huge issue in shadowlands.

If you are not raiding mythic, pick what you want and ignore everyone who gives you shit for it - they are wrong.

I don't think this is a fair assessment. From a guild perspective, if you have a fairly active Heroic raiding guild, and only interact with people in that guild, depending on the guild atmosphere, sure, you can do just about anything provided you pull a respectable amount of DPS.
But what about the people who don't play in those groups? Due to time constraints, or other social factors?
I've had a 2.5k+ Raider.io and 476+ geared Warlock and been denied on principal to 13-15 keys in Group Finder. Can I complete those keys? Absolutely. Any day of the week. Blindfolded. Do pugs think Warlocks can complete those keys? They don't think picking anything less than optimal is worth even considering. Surely if they wait 5 mins a BM hunter, Havoc DH, or rogue will come along.
People aren't concerned somebody's gonna tell them in a group "hey dude you should be running Kyrian it's better than Venthyr in Single Target". People are concerned they're not going to be invited in the first place.
Now, I don't even have this problem. I do Heroic raids with my friends and do Mythic raiding with more focused individuals. I can get a +15 done if I need to just asking in guild. People absolutely don't invite certain classes and specs to keys because nobody does it in MDI.

[arandomuser]

LEGION artifactts were amazing
legendaries were fun
corruption was good and keeps me playing 8.3

[Amsden]

I liked Garrisons... Only problem was Blizzard forgot to add other shit to do...

[Varitok]

Yes, some of the systems are horrible, but it's not like there's a better MMO on the market for me, since I exclusively raid.
So you either accept it or quit.
Simple really.

I get enjoying WoW more but FF14 has plenty of raids of a far grander scale.

I personally just enjoy how WoW plays and feels. It still feels good to me.



OT: Gaming has hit this point of every community having a subset of very loud people who will bend over backwards to say everything done is good and to keep on trucking with their changes, regardless if it's good for the game or not. A very powerful motivator is hindsight. If I hated X feature but next expac there is something worse, X feature will look far better in comparison to the point of ignoring criticisms and being so detached from downsides of the system that you can't remember it's frustrations. We're all guilty of it, even me. This thread is a bit of a mistake in that it comes off as a personal attack at something someone liked and they will defend it because of that.

There is a bit of a point to be made that, in fact, all of the systems listed as failures or disliked enough to be removed. They aren't around and never came back (Yet, I don't know about SL). Blind Trust and a personal defense force are something every game community is suffering from and the lack of constructive criticism is why games turn out so badly nowadays.

[WowIsDead64]

Me (and a lot of players) disagree with 2). I don't believe Cata Heroics were "overtuned", I believe that they required a level of coordination you don't usually get out of a PUG, which I was fine with. Unfortunately, WoW had just exited Wrath of the Lich King, in which the difficulty spike from Normal to Heroic was "most bosses have one more mechanic".

Vanilla level of class mechanics in WotLK difficulty level outdoor and 5ppls - was complete nonsense. I haven't played Vanilla on official servers. That's, why I didn't know, what was actually happening back in Cata. That it was first time, when Blizzard attempted to rehash old xpack for nostalgia reasons. So... All that crap about "coordination" was complete nonsense. It was about bringing back Vanilla's class mechanics for nostalgia purposes. Problem is - content should have been as easy, as Vanilla one then. Right? Not WotLK level, where all classes were very strong. The strongest in Wow history, except may be current corruption nonsense. It was zero-mistake-tolerance-one-shot-graveyard-running-simulator. Only 1% hardcores could enjoy it.

[Razorice]

I get enjoying WoW more but FF14 has plenty of raids of a far grander scale.

I personally just enjoy how WoW plays and feels. It still feels good to me.

FF14 are not for me, sorry.
They just don't have that same vibe.

[Venziir]

Sure, but remember the many, many many times the players were wrong too.....

[Queen of Hamsters]

I am capable of making up my own mind, thanks.

[Dismayxz]

If we want a game where everything is 100 % polished (as in the opinion of the community, who will always find something to QQ about), we will never have a release. I think covenants are one good example: half the community is saying it is the worst things ever, while half of the community is saying it is the best thing ever. No matter how this turns out, someone is going to be pleased and someone is not going to be pleased.

I rather get a new expac that has some shitty mechanics than wait 6 months to get a expac that still has shitty mechanics. I know that some things will be totally shit, but I'm so bored with BfA that I rather have that than wait for longer.

I know it's entirely unfathomable and all, but it's hardly a relevant statement if either side agree or disagree. The people actually hating the system for what it is, not for the implications for the larger playerbase, are mostly semi-hardcores who believe they are being referred to when somebody spews any phrase containing "The 1%".
Meanwhile the 1% will be fine, despite seemingly also championing for certain changes.

On the other side you have the cringelords alá Yuli who these days either sit in Goldshire on Moonguard/Die Aldor/Argent Dawn doing exactly what we all know they do... or... roleplay? Which ironically, RP in WoW generally speaking, specifically has so very little to do with player power or player power involved systems, to think there's a horse in the race for roleplayers because a system with zero meaningful RPG-esque interaction or implementation is cited as an 'RPG-System', is - well you can fill out the blank.

Ultimately the system from a critical PoV has no impact whatsoever. You get an ability of your choosing. There's a universal best for whatever your main form of content is. You will be either not be; mildly or heavily inconvenienced in other types of content you may want to do, for making said choice, for no tangible reason - meaningful choice is fine and dandy, unless it's main purpose seemingly is just so the choice exists, whilst also potentially negatively impacting the gameplay satisfaction of your players, some, all a few, or otherwise, across different types of content, which ideally you'd want to have a healthy amount of cross-polination within.

Just no discussion to be had, really. Opposition doesn't have a horse in the race, could spend their time complaining about the most recent example of pointless, bad system Design from Blizzard's side, improving their level of play instead. The people supporting the system mostly seem to have gotten personally hurt in their little feely wheelies by the former and because the former seem to do the same type of Content as their current target of 'internet revenge', picking up the pitchforks alá "Casuals, rise up!" and thus are obviously part of the crowd, despite being so far from it, it's hilarious.

[Armourboy]

I am curious to those who are unhappy with the way blizz is handling covenants, will you not buy shadowlands or are you going to buy shadowlands anyway?

I mean money talks, more than any forum post, thread or youtuber, money talks. I would assume that if SL underperforms at launch then blizz would probably change their mind on covenants really quick but if this is a case of "I don't like how blizz is handling covenants but I will still buy the game anyway" then I would have to assume blizz is seeing their handling of covenants as "correct" if the money, if the subs are there.

For the first time in 15 years my wife and I won't be purchasing a version of WoW. She really lost it with Cata but has kept trying since. I quit in 8.1.5 and had high hopes initially with SL, but have come to the reality that until this Dev team is gone nothing will ever really change. The sad part is they have solid ideas, but then always throw in some unnecessary stuff to screw it up.

I'll keep an eye out for what they do with the versions of Classic. If nothing else I can just play a version I know I liked. Although there is always the risk of players making those unenjoyable.

[Arkura]

They messed up big time indeed they did.

But maybe you didnt play back in the day when the entire game didnt work for the first 2-4 hours of a launch. On patch day in wotlk when Ulduar released the entire world zone was down for several hours.
So we got some buggy systems but you can still play the game. So I'd say they are doing better in alot of things too compared to previously.

Now lets hope they can stop being so stubborn and listen to what their playerbase wants instead of pushing their own visions of a system only to admit 2 patches later that it didnt work out. This is the main issue.

[kaminaris]

Now lets hope they can stop being so stubborn and listen to what their playerbase wants instead of pushing their own visions of a system only to admit 2 patches later that it didnt work out. This is the main issue.

Yeah I hope they will listen to playerbase and keep covenants as they are and not listen to couple streamers instead. This is the main issue.

[Dhrizzle]

I'm tired of still playing beta when Blizzard releases their new expansions. Blizzard keeps launching systems in a horrible state and then end up having spend a lot of time in order to "fix" it.

Please remember how bad these systems were when they launched and how wrong Blizzard were from the get go.

- Garrisons
- Legion Legendaries
- Artifacts
- Azerite gear
- Essences
- Corruption gear

Please think about how awful these systems were when they were launched. And how much time Blizzard had to use during the expansions to fix them. It amaze me how people can still have this blind trust in Blizzard that they will get things right. How can you trust that Blizzard will be able to fix things with balancing after you have experienced the corruption gear.

Blizzard have often been wrong. Blizzard don't deserve your blind trust.

All I want from an expansion is new lands to explore, new stories to experience and the occasional epic moment to make me feel badass. Add to that some pretty armour to collect in a gentle gear grind and I'm happy, and so far pretty much every expansion has provided that (Cata's new lands were a bit naff and I couldn't stand MoP's gear grind, but it wasn't terribly bad.)

Crap that you've mentioned is just window dressing really, little side activities to give you some sort of connection to the world or extra bits to fiddle with as you get through the main game of killing stuff and stealing its treasure.

[Soluna]

Man, I will get a macro for this argument.

You cannot pretend that you are locked into your covenant. People advocating for harder swapping wants a game where your choice matters. The game will be fundamentally different if you can swap it at any time.

Also you are free to choose, you just do not want to stick by that choice. That is it.

Player agency means you get to choose, but you also get to live with the consequences of that choice.

I love how you mark only a tiny part of my argument, and have nothing to say about the rest. If you think that making a choice between gameplay FUN or LOOKS is a valid choice, instead of looks vs looks, and power vs power separately, then you are sick.