9.0 General Discussion

[razorpax]

Whatever they decide, IF they decide to "fix it", I hope they don't do it by making changing covenants be free and instant. That'd fuck with immersion so much. "Oh I pledge my allegiance to the Kyrian on tuesdays for Raids, but to the Necrolords on Fridays for M+, and Night Fae on weekends for PVP."
IF they have to fix it, I hope they just let you choose freely for abilities/soulbinds but keeping the same covenant. It will still be clunky as hell but oh well, this is where we are.

Hear me out

If you don’t wanna ruin your immersion by swapping constantly....don’t

A restriction on the player base where the biggest negative is “it breaks immersion” is bad


With that said I guarantee that they will at most make the 2 week quest a weekly

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It's not though, because races have always done this to varying degrees, and more importantly, you even picking fury to begin with means that you could be worse than the other warrior by virtue of you wanting the fury aesthetic/gameplay. It's nothing new, this has always been a thing.

Race differences are at most 2% and has always been a thing

Same with specs

But now if you have two exact same characters the borrowed power system says that you two can’t compete because 1 chose the venthyr and one chose the kyrian

Essentially they added another point of possible failure for the players that optimize because they have an idea that is great on paper but bad on execution

Again you can achieve the goal of a meaningful choice and not attach what in some cases is 40% of your characters effectiveness

[Hitei]

Race differences are at most 2% and has always been a thing

Same with specs

But now if you have two exact same characters the borrowed power system says that you two can’t compete because 1 chose the venthyr and one chose the kyrian

Essentially they added another point of possible failure for the players that optimize because they have an idea that is great on paper but bad on execution

Again you can achieve the goal of a meaningful choice and not attach what in some cases is 40% of your characters effectiveness

That just isn't accurate though. Are we really going to pretend the difference between a dwarf priest in Vanilla and any other alliance priest "is less than 2%"? Or that the difference between various points of EMfH and other racials in PvP was 2%? Or that the advantage of Arcane Torrent or Shadowmeld compared to other races is 2%? Racials have had very serious gameplay effect at many points in the game's history.

"But it was always like that" is exactly my point, not a counter-argument.

If you have two of the exact same characters right now, but one person choses to go fury, and one goes arms, they are not at the same power level. They are not competing. A sub rogue is not competing with a mut rogue, because they made a choice and now they are significantly less effective than a player of the exact same race and class who chose differently.

Adding another "point of possible failure" is a non-issue, because it's already a non-issue.

You are going from
Class > Spec > Race
optimization, to
Class > Spec > Covenant > Race
optimzation.

The idea that there is a "fail" state here is genuinely suspect. If you (read: anyone) subscribe to this idea, I expect you to, right now, only be playing the absolute best throughput spec, of the absolute best throughput class, of the absolute best throughput race. Because if you aren't, what are you even complaining about? If you aren't a person who has one class for raiding, and one class for m+ DPS and one class for M+ tanking, what are you even complaining about? "Oh no, boohoo, there are good and bad covenants for raiding and I have to pick one! But also I am playing a class that is just objectively weaker than X other classes at raiding right this second. I need to be able to switch to do the best I can at M+!! ...but also my class isn't good at M+ to begin with."

You're either optimizing or you're not. You can't compromise your optimality because you want to play a certain class, or a certain spec, or a certain race despite it not being the numeric best, (which very literally 99.99% of the playerbase does) and then turn around and whine that you're being asked to make a choice that potentially compromises optimality.

Effectiveness has been tied to aesthetic, gameplay, quests, etc. locked up in choice, since day one of this game, and it has never gone away. Meaningful choice means impact, and needing to constantly attempt to balance is the price paid for having actual differences and meaningful choice. If an ability and soulbind tree is coming out to 40% damage increase for a spec over other trees and abilities, then clearly there is an outlier in need of balancing. That doesn't mean the entire system needs to be scrapped or homogenized, anymore than Arcane being shit at M+ compared to Outlaw means that classes need to be removed and people allowed to just freely pick spells and talents from any of them.

[Revamp Man]

That just isn't accurate though. Are we really going to pretend the difference between a dwarf priest in Vanilla and any other alliance priest "is less than 2%"? Or that the difference between various points of EMfH and other racials in PvP was 2%? Or that the advantage of Arcane Torrent or Shadowmeld compared to other races is 2%? Racials have had very serious gameplay effect at many points in the game's history.

"But it was always like that" is exactly my point, not a counter-argument.

If you have two of the exact same characters right now, but one person choses to go fury, and one goes arms, they are not at the same power level. They are not competing. A sub rogue is not competing with a mut rogue, because they made a choice and now they are significantly less effective than a player of the exact same race and class who chose differently.

Adding another "point of possible failure" is a non-issue, because it's already a non-issue.

You are going from
Class > Spec > Race
optimization, to
Class > Spec > Covenant > Race
optimzation.

The idea that there is a "fail" state here is genuinely suspect. If you (read: anyone) subscribe to this idea, I expect you to, right now, only be playing the absolute best throughput spec, of the absolute best throughput class, of the absolute best throughput race. Because if you aren't, what are you even complaining about? If you aren't a person who has one class for raiding, and one class for m+ DPS and one class for M+ tanking, what are you even complaining about? "Oh no, boohoo, there are good and bad covenants for raiding and I have to pick one! But also I am playing a class that is just objectively weaker than X other classes at raiding right this second. I need to be able to switch to do the best I can at M+!! ...but also my class isn't good at M+ to begin with."

You're either optimizing or you're not. You can't compromise your optimality because you want to play a certain class, or a certain spec, or a certain race despite it not being the numeric best, (which very literally 99.99% of the playerbase does) and then turn around and whine that you're being asked to make a choice that potentially compromises optimality.

Effectiveness has been tied to aesthetic, gameplay, quests, etc. locked up in choice, since day one of this game, and it has never gone away. Meaningful choice means impact, and needing to constantly attempt to balance is the price paid for having actual differences and meaningful choice. If an ability and soulbind tree is coming out to 40% damage increase for a spec over other trees and abilities, then clearly there is an outlier in need of balancing. That doesn't mean the entire system needs to be scrapped or homogenized, anymore than Arcane being shit at M+ compared to Outlaw means that classes need to be removed and people allowed to just freely pick spells and talents from any of them.

im wondering if you understand how the players who are concerned about this play the game because you are concerned with restricting how they play it

personally i play a monk
i will never top the meters
i will never rank 1 a boss on progress overall
i can however compete within my spec which is what most players do
You dont have to play the best class and spec in the game to be optimal especially in a game where we had people OPTIMIZNG SERVER FIRST FISHING

if you currently go to warcraftlogs and look up any spec you will see very little difference at the top end because players like making the choice to be the strongest they can be. In legion i would jump before using whirling dragon because the artifact added a teeny tiny bit of damage. I would pop touch of karma and taunt the boss for an extra bit of damage. In MoP i would use healing sphere on immerseus. In bfa i used RoP on TD without knowing that was a reason you would bring a monk.

Now lets look at character from legion where borrowed power systems started. As a WW monk you all got the same weapon and you all got access to the same traits and there was a path for best progression. You then had traits you could farm but in the end you and the other WW in the group would be challenging each other because that was the game. In BfA it was mostly the same, you would got to UR and farm the weapon while you also farmed the best azerite and in Uldir did the whole stat food trick for the azerite amp and would solo the ball. In the end the only difference between you and the next best guy is essentially how well you play.

Now it makes it to where i cant compete with the other WW monk based on the spec alone but now covenant is another factor. Competitive players will be in the same one and will only switch when blizzard nerfs the "meaningful choice" you make. Thus making myself and others put in extra effort to not be weaker than we were yesterday which hasnt really been the case even in azerite because theres always an easy way to work around blizzard's choices.

I have tried explaining how a choice that negatively effects the gameplay of a section of the playerbase is bad along side others for months but then we have players who are not effected by it praise it for reasons that they cant actually justify.

yes restrict player choice to lower the skill ceiling so lfr jimmy doesnt feel like he is as shitty as he was last expac because the gap between him and the top guy is only 30% instead of 50% even though its because the top guy got nerfed by 20%.

Swapping would be inconvenient to the casual players because if it is quick and easy then they will feel pressured to only play the best and the system right now allows them to use it as an excuse instead of saying "no thanks" while they will still be kicked from groups for being the wrong covenant. So keep it restricted and have the players who are more likely to swap and take part in that system go through unnecessary hoops that are in place to dissuade the casual playerbase instead of making it swappable easily.

the casual playerbase doesnt like the idea that they might have to put in extra effort to prepare for high m+ well then it needs locked to not be able to swap talents or even gear because timmy in a +5 will see it as a requirement because the top end who push into the 20s do it for fun.....nerf the fun to help the casual players feel better.

the casual playerbase feels like they deserve full access to loot so we should remove masterloot even though "trials deserve loot too" is a common thing and trials always get loot from farm. Add in an ilvl lock so they dont feel "pressure" to trade loot.

[Sondrelk]

the casual playerbase doesnt like the idea that they might have to put in extra effort to prepare for high m+ well then it needs locked to not be able to swap talents or even gear because timmy in a +5 will see it as a requirement because the top end who push into the 20s do it for fun.....nerf the fun to help the casual players feel better.

the casual playerbase feels like they deserve full access to loot so we should remove masterloot even though "trials deserve loot too" is a common thing and trials always get loot from farm. Add in an ilvl lock so they dont feel "pressure" to trade loot.

The casual playerbase doesnt really play M+15s though, if they did they would not be casuals by the general consensus of the community.
The people that do care about not being able to swap immediately are those that want to chase the meta constantly. The people that want to always be optimal in every situation.
The problem is that the casual playerbase is a vast majority, and the players that are militant about chasing the meta are the minority. And it would usually be poor practice to design a system for the minority.
Also, why shouldnt casual players get to feel that they shouldnt have to compromise playing the spec how they want without being locked out of middling difficulty content? The minmax mentality has become so prevalent in WoW that excluding players based on their choice of spec is something that is actually so normalized that players on the forums use it as arguments for why the system shouldn't change, which is insane.

Also, casual players do deserve loot. I know that all the cool guilds back in Classic could be spartan about their distribution of loot and you want to uphold that ideal, but allowing that sort of behavior didnt exactly foster love and caring within the community, it fostered resentment and elitism.
Even without that much of that sort of mentality stemmed from how little loot dropped compared to players in the raid. Even with the nerf to droprates in SL we do have more loot now.
And yes, I am sure that the top 1% of players would love to be able to minmax who in their raid should get loot first based on a variety of factors, but when that same system could be abused to be a dick I could easily see why it was removed.

[deenman]

That just isn't accurate though. Are we really going to pretend the difference between a dwarf priest in Vanilla and any other alliance priest "is less than 2%"? Or that the difference between various points of EMfH and other racials in PvP was 2%? Or that the advantage of Arcane Torrent or Shadowmeld compared to other races is 2%? Racials have had very serious gameplay effect at many points in the game's history.

"But it was always like that" is exactly my point, not a counter-argument.

If you have two of the exact same characters right now, but one person choses to go fury, and one goes arms, they are not at the same power level. They are not competing. A sub rogue is not competing with a mut rogue, because they made a choice and now they are significantly less effective than a player of the exact same race and class who chose differently.

Adding another "point of possible failure" is a non-issue, because it's already a non-issue.

You are going from
Class > Spec > Race
optimization, to
Class > Spec > Covenant > Race
optimzation.

The idea that there is a "fail" state here is genuinely suspect. If you (read: anyone) subscribe to this idea, I expect you to, right now, only be playing the absolute best throughput spec, of the absolute best throughput class, of the absolute best throughput race. Because if you aren't, what are you even complaining about? If you aren't a person who has one class for raiding, and one class for m+ DPS and one class for M+ tanking, what are you even complaining about? "Oh no, boohoo, there are good and bad covenants for raiding and I have to pick one! But also I am playing a class that is just objectively weaker than X other classes at raiding right this second. I need to be able to switch to do the best I can at M+!! ...but also my class isn't good at M+ to begin with."

You're either optimizing or you're not. You can't compromise your optimality because you want to play a certain class, or a certain spec, or a certain race despite it not being the numeric best, (which very literally 99.99% of the playerbase does) and then turn around and whine that you're being asked to make a choice that potentially compromises optimality.

Effectiveness has been tied to aesthetic, gameplay, quests, etc. locked up in choice, since day one of this game, and it has never gone away. Meaningful choice means impact, and needing to constantly attempt to balance is the price paid for having actual differences and meaningful choice. If an ability and soulbind tree is coming out to 40% damage increase for a spec over other trees and abilities, then clearly there is an outlier in need of balancing. That doesn't mean the entire system needs to be scrapped or homogenized, anymore than Arcane being shit at M+ compared to Outlaw means that classes need to be removed and people allowed to just freely pick spells and talents from any of them.

people are worried about the huge dps differences between picks,no racial has ever even come close to anything like the covenant differences,the worst it has ever been was trolls in mop vs beast bosses the 5% increase,a dwarf priest in vanila wont perform better than a human,its the oposite actualy,utility doesnt matter unless its forced mecanicaly on bosses and we know it wont be the case

[razorpax]

The casual playerbase doesnt really play M+15s though, if they did they would not be casuals by the general consensus of the community.
The people that do care about not being able to swap immediately are those that want to chase the meta constantly. The people that want to always be optimal in every situation.
The problem is that the casual playerbase is a vast majority, and the players that are militant about chasing the meta are the minority. And it would usually be poor practice to design a system for the minority.
Also, why shouldnt casual players get to feel that they shouldnt have to compromise playing the spec how they want without being locked out of middling difficulty content? The minmax mentality has become so prevalent in WoW that excluding players based on their choice of spec is something that is actually so normalized that players on the forums use it as arguments for why the system shouldn't change, which is insane.

Also, casual players do deserve loot. I know that all the cool guilds back in Classic could be spartan about their distribution of loot and you want to uphold that ideal, but allowing that sort of behavior didnt exactly foster love and caring within the community, it fostered resentment and elitism.
Even without that much of that sort of mentality stemmed from how little loot dropped compared to players in the raid. Even with the nerf to droprates in SL we do have more loot now.
And yes, I am sure that the top 1% of players would love to be able to minmax who in their raid should get loot first based on a variety of factors, but when that same system could be abused to be a dick I could easily see why it was removed.

1. The m+ loot lock in BfA was praised by the players that never took part in the section of it where multiple sets were required

2. The legion change to ML was perfect but it got dropped under the guise “trials deserve loot too” which again nobody disagreed with however if Timmy the trial was in for farm and got 3 upgrades then on progression the group killed the boss and Timmy was mad because it went to Burt the officer. Did it go to Burt because he was officer or because he has been in the group since the beginning and had perfect attendance and was there for every single pull on that boss. Timmy takes to the forums claiming to be ninja looted by a bad guild and gets players angry at the system until the officer comes in with proof Timmy is lying. (This was a pattern on the forums in legion).

Heck you know how I acted on my trial when I didn’t get loot?? I focused on passing my trial and I eventually got loot.

Now it’s forced personal and the top end finds work around a bit there’s still cases of ninjas and do you know how?? Pugs are brought in for a carry on a split run then after they get the free kill and the group asks for one piece of gear...they ditch.

[Sondrelk]

1. The m+ loot lock in BfA was praised by the players that never took part in the section of it where multiple sets were required

2. The legion change to ML was perfect but it got dropped under the guise “trials deserve loot too” which again nobody disagreed with however if Timmy the trial was in for farm and got 3 upgrades then on progression the group killed the boss and Timmy was mad because it went to Burt the officer. Did it go to Burt because he was officer or because he has been in the group since the beginning and had perfect attendance and was there for every single pull on that boss. Timmy takes to the forums claiming to be ninja looted by a bad guild and gets players angry at the system until the officer comes in with proof Timmy is lying. (This was a pattern on the forums in legion).

Heck you know how I acted on my trial when I didn’t get loot?? I focused on passing my trial and I eventually got loot.

Now it’s forced personal and the top end finds work around a bit there’s still cases of ninjas and do you know how?? Pugs are brought in for a carry on a split run then after they get the free kill and the group asks for one piece of gear...they ditch.

1. Using mutiple sets during a M+ was a needless inconvenience that took no skill outside simply having a second set. It was removed to emphasize the M+ as A run, not simply a timed dungeon.
The existence of said option only served to further emphasize that the optimal strategy was to always pick the ultimate option instead of diversifying.

2. The loot change was done to prevent elitist guilds from being assholes. Sure, this could mean that a trial raider gets loot, but who really cares? Is your baseline of the guild experience really so toxic that you cannot fathom players raiding with eachother because they like it?

If someone is an asshole in a guild then the punishment should simply be to not have that person in the guild.

With ML you did get the freedom to assign loot in a competetive guild for easier gearing, but you also gaave toxic guilds a way to withold gear from pugs. Now with Personal Loot for all you still get to trade gear, but you don't have the possibility of being unjustly barred from getting gear by assholes.

[Nyel]

I'll be perfectly honest, 3- 4(!) new spells per class is ridiculous.

Why? Legion did exactly that. It’s one new skill per spec that matters / interacts with the spec. Now we have 42 skills that barely interact with your spec or class.

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Shadowlands weirdly seems to almost demand less of your alts than it does your offspecs, assuming you want to truly be optimal for all your specs which I'd wager is rare for the vast majority of players. Which is still why I'd like a dual Covenant option which keeps the choice fairly meaningful without being too restrictive.

This is the problem. BfA was alt-unfriendly, which is something I can get behind... a little. Shadowlands is multispec-unfriendly, which is something that shouldn’t be the case at all.

[razorpax]

1. Using mutiple sets during a M+ was a needless inconvenience that took no skill outside simply having a second set. It was removed to emphasize the M+ as A run, not simply a timed dungeon.
The existence of said option only served to further emphasize that the optimal strategy was to always pick the ultimate option instead of diversifying.

2. The loot change was done to prevent elitist guilds from being assholes. Sure, this could mean that a trial raider gets loot, but who really cares? Is your baseline of the guild experience really so toxic that you cannot fathom players raiding with eachother because they like it?

If someone is an asshole in a guild then the punishment should simply be to not have that person in the guild.

With ML you did get the freedom to assign loot in a competetive guild for easier gearing, but you also gaave toxic guilds a way to withold gear from pugs. Now with Personal Loot for all you still get to trade gear, but you don't have the possibility of being unjustly barred from getting gear by assholes.

1. It wasn’t a “requirement” until a +17 and that was because of the mechanics. One boss requires more survivability because the scaling made the abilities a 1 shot. The only reason to push further was for fun because gear upgrades stopped at I think 15. A lot of players found multiple sets fun and quit because of the restriction.

2. The legion ML system required a 70% guild group
Most raids were around 15 so you had 3 pugs in a group where it’s known that ML is the system. Make it require a 100% guild group instead of removing it.

Currently I have accepted that ML is not coming back and heck I’d have almost no issue with the current system if it wasn’t for the ilvl lock where of you got a piece of loot at a higher ilvl you can’t trade it which resulted in so much dead loot this expansion it’s sad. With ML you could gear people quicker. There were cheers in discord back in legion when my group’s mage got their BiS trinket.

Now I have to worry about the chance an offhand will drop for me instead of the 2h because if it does I can’t trade it since I don’t have one in my bags even though it’s a huge upgrade for a guildie.

I liked ML because it HELPED others get loot. It helped a trial paladin get 4pc and BiS weapon in one run.

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Why? Legion did exactly that. It’s one new skill per spec that matters / interacts with the spec. Now we have 42 skills that barely interact with your spec or class.

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This is the problem. BfA was alt-unfriendly, which is something I can get behind... a little. Shadowlands is multispec-unfriendly, which is something that shouldn’t be the case at all.

I don’t see why they don’t make the abilities work differently per spec...would be a hell of a lot easier.

Also I guess you could say hybrid tax is now a feature

[sensei-]

I'm kinda thinking that Bwonsamdi just used the power that Mueh'zala gave him, and basically 'thought' De Other Side into existance/being.

For Helya I'm not really sure, but maybe she/or Odyn made it for her?

Isn’t Helya in the maw now? At least she was when I leveled a toon to 60 in Shadowlands.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I don’t see why they don’t make the abilities work differently per spec...would be a hell of a lot easier.

Also I guess you could say hybrid tax is now a feature

It was part of the misguided "you play a class not a spec" approach. Misguided because they took the in itself good idea and went beyond the extreme with it and then realized it wouldn't work in many cases which caused them to half-ass it. The hybrids are the perfect example here (like shaman) but the same can be said about pure dps classes like mage where most of the "class abilities" just make next to no sense for the specs they don't belong to. Unpruning and torghast abilities are a large part of this as well, as they work entirely based off class, which also causes vast discrepancies in some cases , especially funny when you look at holy and shadow and then disc. If they wanted to make that work then they'd need to redesign alot of the class basics, which also clashes with their other design goal "let's not change stuff, that is too much work", with the only notable exception here being shadow.

[ranzino]

Isn’t Helya in the maw now? At least she was when I leveled a toon to 60 in Shadowlands.

remember: Thrall throws his axe at her in the first hour of the game. of course she is in the maw; because that's where you will meet her almost immediately upon arrival in SL.

[huth]

Why does fire = life? Where does this come from? Elune?

It doesn't, plain and simple. That's something specific to the Red Flight, not Life in general.

[zaxlor]

I'll be perfectly honest, 3- 4(!) new spells per class is ridiculous.

But that's exactly what's happening with Shadowlands.

Take my Warrior example - That single class, really is getting 4 new abilities, as there's 4 new covenants. The only difference is I've got to pick aesthetics over function. If I wanted to RP my Warrior as some kind of Spartain Warrior, who uses spears I've got to choose the Bastion ability, even if the theme/gear of the covenant doesn't suit that.

Come Shadowlands, each class is getting basically eight new abilities, but you can only ever use two at a time, depending on what covenant you pick. I'd much sooner have each and every spec get a cool new button, as well as a covenant utility ability, than what Shadowlands is offering, but I can totally see why that isn't going to happen and that it's not like to either.

[Sondrelk]

1. It wasn’t a “requirement” until a +17 and that was because of the mechanics. One boss requires more survivability because the scaling made the abilities a 1 shot. The only reason to push further was for fun because gear upgrades stopped at I think 15. A lot of players found multiple sets fun and quit because of the restriction.

2. The legion ML system required a 70% guild group
Most raids were around 15 so you had 3 pugs in a group where it’s known that ML is the system. Make it require a 100% guild group instead of removing it.

Currently I have accepted that ML is not coming back and heck I’d have almost no issue with the current system if it wasn’t for the ilvl lock where of you got a piece of loot at a higher ilvl you can’t trade it which resulted in so much dead loot this expansion it’s sad. With ML you could gear people quicker. There were cheers in discord back in legion when my group’s mage got their BiS trinket.

Now I have to worry about the chance an offhand will drop for me instead of the 2h because if it does I can’t trade it since I don’t have one in my bags even though it’s a huge upgrade for a guildie.

I liked ML because it HELPED others get loot. It helped a trial paladin get 4pc and BiS weapon in one run.

1. This is basically arguing that the fix is the problem because it fixed something.
If M+ was tuned in such a way that the required strategy was to stop finding a build that worked overall and instead go for the optimal build on a moment to moment basis then the system is broken. I have yet to see a +20 run or whatever that failed because of the extra versatility that would come from looking at each encounter in a vacuum over making a build that is tailored to the dungeon as a whole, so clearly something worked.

2. I can definitely agree that the inability to trade items with a higher ilvl than what you have, regardless of whether it is better or not is a problem. Though I don't think snapping all the way back to everything being free game is the correct answer.

The thing is as well, you are approaching the removal of ML completely wrong. They didnt change the system so you would not be able to gear people quickly or trade gear, they changed it because of split runs and the toxic mentality that a pug was not safe raiding with a guild.
Requiring a 100% guild group is in a sense the even worse option, because it punishes guild groups that might need pugs, and still doesnt prevent split runs effectively.

[Makorus]

WoW players want a talent tree back yet think that a pretty much talent tree is too convoluted for Shadowlands

[TomatoBisque]

WoW players want a talent tree back yet think that a pretty much talent tree is too convoluted for Shadowlands

people are just sensitive because they didn't like BFA. If this expansion came right after WoD or Legion people would not be complaining nearly as much. I don't think it's entirely wrong to feel this way since their trust is shaken, but comparing the systems to systems of past expansions I think the game will still be enjoyable. It's not like Legion was more multispec friendly until you had played for months to grind up a ton of legendaries

[Greyfang]

Hear me out

If you don’t wanna ruin your immersion by swapping constantly....don’t

A restriction on the player base where the biggest negative is “it breaks immersion” is bad


With that said I guarantee that they will at most make the 2 week quest a weekly

Oh I agree. IF they choose to go the route of "just change your covenant immediately, no strings attached", I will probably still remain with the one I choose first. I dont do content hard enough to warrant constant switching. My point is that if they're going to pull the ripcord they should at least do it in a way that what you can switch is the part that affects your performance, and leave the cosmetic/rp/story part a hard choice. That way min maxers can enjoy being optimal always and people who care about story/immersion can stay with one covenant all expansion if the choose to.

[Makabreska]

WoW players want a talent tree back yet think that a pretty much talent tree is too convoluted for Shadowlands

"Too convoluted" is a bullshit excuse anyway. They handled gigantic WotlK talent tree, they handled developed artifact + leggos + Netherlight Crucible in Legion, they handled developed Azerite gear + Essences + Corruption in BfA, they will handle w/e SL gives us. Let's not fool ourselves, vast majority of players (higher lvl as well) will just copy/paste builds out there. As always. Nothing convoluted about that.

[Baconeggcheese]

Aside from housing, what else is there? Genuine question. I have heard that there's a casino but don't know much about it.

FF14 just straight up gets less content than wow does in updates. A lot of FF14's "content" is you leveling up your "alt" jobs and doing side activities that most people in WoW would just ignore.

But things generally take longer in FF14 as well which balances that out a bit. IMO I've always seen FF14 as a much better game for the "casual" player who doesn't care as much about going hard on raid or dungeon content as everything else in that game is more conducive to that kind of play. The storytelling is just outright better, there's lots of side quests and things to do, its great if you're the altaholic type since you can level all your jobs on one character, the housing is very well done, crafting professions are actually their own job and not just a tacked on thing like in wow.

Where WoW is the better game for people who want that focus on raids / dungeons and or pvp. WoW puts out more raid content, has a far stronger raiding community, has M+, and the pvp is just night and day difference as the pvp in FF14 is god awful.

Also one thing FF14 seems to have over WoW is that content stays relevant in FF14 due to how its structured where content in WoW almost immediately becomes something to piss through or skip over as soon as the next patch is out. Which means it is a ton easier to pop in and out in FF14, where in WoW taking a break usually means you're never going to experience that content as it was intended.