9.0 General Discussion

[huth]

There's a difference though. Illidan wasn't hated.

There's a lot more differences. Not that Ersula would ever admit that.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Saw last page, can someone spoon feed the art leaks?

Red Shirt Guy should have most if not all of them on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/TheRedShirtGuy

[razorpax]

"Is never a good thing." No it can be depending on the circumstance, saying never just ignores context of why a choice isn't offered.

In the covenant system it isn’t good

Restrictions on conduits hurts players more than it helps in terms of
Relic like destruction makes hoarding a thing
Weekly cool down makes players less likely to experiment or multi spec
A charge system coupled with weakening the trees removes impact

Possible solutions were spec based trees
No Cd at all (not needed personally the charge system with spec based trees works)

The covenant system has so much meaningful choice outside of players power but it’s being overshadowed by the obvious balance issues

In WoW you always have had choice but the restrictions were ones that had minimal impact on the players enjoyment of the game

In vanilla you could respec if wanted and the restrictions were your gold and gear

Until WoD that was the case but in WoD the restrictions were lifted a little bit.

Legion had you restricted by gear and AP which was still entirely in your control.

BfA had azerite gear and the essence system along with corruption at the end. Except for corruption prior to the vendor you still had control over it.

SL restrictions take control away. No matter how much anima you farm you have a renown cap (is a case of a positive restriction) you have a 2 week quest to return to a covenant (bad restriction because it exists in a way that it dissuades players from making the choice) you have a charge system for conduits (again dissuades players) and conduits are essentially a glyph system with extra steps.

Now a good form of choice in terms of SL systems would be the legendary system. You choose the power to target and then you choose how to craft it and even at the end of it all you have the choice of which one to wear. You place effort and meaning into it and you have 0 artificial restrictions past that point.

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There's a lot more differences. Not that Ersula would ever admit that.

Don’t you remember illidan calling his people worthless

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For that matter, having no restrictions in an MMO is just asking for a world of Pen Islands.

There are good restrictions and in WoW they exist but are in the control of the players

My gear restricts me to one spec but through time and effort I can overcome the restriction

[Nyel]

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

For that it's too late. They just should have done that from the start. Now we have 4 skills per class that have in most cases zero interactions with most specs and are just "trinket skills" that buff us in one way or another.

And it seems like Blizzard hates multispec players in Shadowlands.

[Hitei]

For that it's too late. They just should have done that from the start. Now we have 4 skills per class that have in most cases zero interactions with most specs and are just "trinket skills" that buff us in one way or another.

And it seems like Blizzard hates multispec players in Shadowlands.

Letting players freely respec was a mistake in the first place.

[Nyel]

Letting players freely respec was a mistake in the first place.

I do agree with that, I just don't see how any of the Shadowlands restrictions help with the general, bigger problem of this.

[Sondrelk]

In the covenant system it isn’t good

Restrictions on conduits hurts players more than it helps in terms of
Relic like destruction makes hoarding a thing
Weekly cool down makes players less likely to experiment or multi spec
A charge system coupled with weakening the trees removes impact

Possible solutions were spec based trees
No Cd at all (not needed personally the charge system with spec based trees works)

The covenant system has so much meaningful choice outside of players power but it’s being overshadowed by the obvious balance issues

In WoW you always have had choice but the restrictions were ones that had minimal impact on the players enjoyment of the game

In vanilla you could respec if wanted and the restrictions were your gold and gear

Until WoD that was the case but in WoD the restrictions were lifted a little bit.

Legion had you restricted by gear and AP which was still entirely in your control.

BfA had azerite gear and the essence system along with corruption at the end. Except for corruption prior to the vendor you still had control over it.

SL restrictions take control away. No matter how much anima you farm you have a renown cap (is a case of a positive restriction) you have a 2 week quest to return to a covenant (bad restriction because it exists in a way that it dissuades players from making the choice) you have a charge system for conduits (again dissuades players) and conduits are essentially a glyph system with extra steps.

Now a good form of choice in terms of SL systems would be the legendary system. You choose the power to target and then you choose how to craft it and even at the end of it all you have the choice of which one to wear. You place effort and meaning into it and you have 0 artificial restrictions past that point.

Meaningful choice for player power is the point though. The game has been starved on this type of choice for years, even more so now that levelling a new alt will be easier than ever.

The point of making it a meaningful choice is to make the player consider the various things they would want out of such a choice. Do they choose based solely on what ability sims best? Do they choose based on what aesthetic they like? Maybe they choose based on a compromise between all of these.

What the game has been lacking for a while now are good reasons to diversify and make builds that are not great at any one specific thing, but instead good in a lot of situations. The game has made swapping builds so easy that the expected way to go about a raid is to swap not just gear, but even talents and sometimes even spec and class to specialize in that one specific type of fight.

The point of restricting how often you can swap covenants is to try and make the player aware that the choice has consequences, and that they should pick a choice they want to stay with.
This could mean specializing in a specific type of damage, trying to diversify your class, or simply patch up holes in what kind of damage your class can or cannot do.


The point of a choice is usually that you can only have one, not change your mind an infinite amount of times afterwards. If someone offers you a house or a car it might be nice of them to allow you to swap if you chose wrong, but not really if you use that to constantly swap daily based on whether you need a car at that moment.

What you want is total freedom, which is nice and all in theory, but unless you restrict the player at some point the game won't really be that interesting.

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I do agree with that, I just don't see how any of the Shadowlands restrictions help with the general, bigger problem of this.

It is a step in the right direction. If we can manage to keep these restrictions in place then we have a chance to revert some of the damage incurred on the game from the lack of restrictions.

[Makorus]

I feel like Blizzard should stop listening to the community so much and cave in at every choice.

[Razion]

Letting players freely respec was a mistake in the first place.

I think this has two major components for the MMORPG side of things.

Class and spec identity is important to get an individual to start and keep playing the game for their own enjoyment and fulfillment and fantasy.
But it's important to allow spec swapping so that others can have enjoyment and fulfillment and fantasy in multiplayer content like dungeons if players leave and roles need to be adjusted and filled. While I personally like spec fantasy focus approach a lot, I think that's probably because I value my solo play a lot more than I had in the past and that multiplayer play has become frankly a lot harder to coordinate - or rather, is generally less approachable in terms of difficulty in terms of pugging which is probably where I consider where I fall nowadays. People will always reference guilds of course, but as the audience of WoW ages it seems like having less free time may be more of the name of the game and keeping people engaged for their own enjoyment is a bit more important, though it comes at the cost of multiplayer enjoyment. It may be why we see a shift in WoW going more solo and less multiplayer in new systems as of late. Things like Torghast seem to be built solo first multiplayer second and I think looking at specs it's a little clearer why in terms of the landscape of players and how old they may be now. It is hopeful for the future of multiplayer for the game that they are working on ways to facilitate new player engagement. But with a stronger solo focus, perhaps these new players will be staying around for different reasons than new players did in the past.

[Hitei]

I do agree with that, I just don't see how any of the Shadowlands restrictions help with the general, bigger problem of this.

I don't think they are intended to.

They are just intended to provide a bit of player chosen identity for the duration of SL, which must be tied to power/toolkit rather than vanity to be substantive, and must lock you into the choice to some degree, because as with specs, giving the players the ability to swap doesn't given them a choice, it just makes them both of the two things.

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I think this has two major components for the MMORPG side of things.

Class and spec identity is important to get an individual to start and keep playing the game for their own enjoyment and fulfillment and fantasy.
But it's important to allow spec swapping so that others can have enjoyment and fulfillment and fantasy in multiplayer content like dungeons if players leave and roles need to be adjusted and filled. While I personally like spec fantasy focus approach a lot, I think that's probably because I value my solo play a lot more than I had in the past and that multiplayer play has become frankly a lot harder to coordinate - or rather, is generally less approachable in terms of difficulty in terms of pugging which is probably where I consider where I fall nowadays. People will always reference guilds of course, but as the audience of WoW ages it seems like having less free time may be more of the name of the game and keeping people engaged for their own enjoyment is a bit more important, though it comes at the cost of multiplayer enjoyment. It may be why we see a shift in WoW going more solo and less multiplayer in new systems as of late. Things like Torghast seem to be built solo first multiplayer second and I think looking at specs it's a little clearer why in terms of the landscape of players and how old they may be now. It is hopeful for the future of multiplayer for the game that they are working on ways to facilitate new player engagement. But with a stronger solo focus, perhaps these new players will be staying around for different reasons than new players did in the past.

Dual spec was fine. I don't think there's a need to punish hybrids for doing roles other than DPS. I do think that allowing people to freely swap between all three specs and any talents by stepping into a rested area that is always <2 minutes, or an instant tome away, is much too loose.

[Razion]

Dual spec was fine. I don't think there's a need to punish hybrids for doing roles other than DPS. I do think that allowing people to freely swap between all three specs and any talents by stepping into a rested area that is always <2 minutes, or an instant tome away, is much too loose.

I think the main important situation, dungeons where one person leaves and has to be replaced, is probably the most common factor that specs kind of address and Dual Spec does still address that. It's when multiple people drop out and multiple roles have to be re-assessed where Dual Spec starts to seem less good. If a tank and healer drop and you have two classes that can do tank or healer but were dps before, it would be faster to find other dps -- which helps the dungeon progress sooner and people would find more enjoyment out of that rather than sitting around. But if everyone had Tri-Spec of Full Spec manipulation, that's basically what we have now - and I guess the problem here with this part of that, is that it may present a situation where for example dps players may be asked to heal or tank when they may have no desire to - which is a less satisfying group experience when that discussion has to come up. So I guess the main question here is which is worse: players sitting around and waiting for tanks and healers more often in cases when there could be people who would be willing to do it, or players having the uncomfortable situations of being asked and having to clarify they aren't willing to adjust their role and in that situation have to wait longer for potential harder to find roles to fill. On a much larger scale it seems to me like the flexibility is more valuable to overall player enjoyment, but on a selfish level I certainly agree that being asked at all to switch is a situation that isn't ideal for the game at all and it would be nice if there was some kind of indicator that could be there for people who are perhaps more willing to swap specs when necessary to prevent these kinds of uncomfortable situations. I would worry if perhaps the Finder or player community would value players differently depending on this kind of self-labeling though.

[huth]

There are good restrictions and in WoW they exist but are in the control of the players

My gear restricts me to one spec but through time and effort I can overcome the restriction

No. A game is essentially a set of restrictions on what you can do. That's what's called "rules". Restrictions are necessary, especially in multiplayer games. Putting them in the control of the players is not a good thing, because the players will often try to do away with the restrictions.

The restriction to only 2 Power conduits actually improves choice, because before there weren't enough conduits to actually make any decisions on.

Besides, without restrictions you cannot have any actual choice to begin with, since you can just switch things at will. Your argument is fundamentally flawed.

[Revamp Man]

Meaningful choice for player power is the point though. The game has been starved on this type of choice for years, even more so now that levelling a new alt will be easier than ever.

The point of making it a meaningful choice is to make the player consider the various things they would want out of such a choice. Do they choose based solely on what ability sims best? Do they choose based on what aesthetic they like? Maybe they choose based on a compromise between all of these.

What the game has been lacking for a while now are good reasons to diversify and make builds that are not great at any one specific thing, but instead good in a lot of situations. The game has made swapping builds so easy that the expected way to go about a raid is to swap not just gear, but even talents and sometimes even spec and class to specialize in that one specific type of fight.

The point of restricting how often you can swap covenants is to try and make the player aware that the choice has consequences, and that they should pick a choice they want to stay with.
This could mean specializing in a specific type of damage, trying to diversify your class, or simply patch up holes in what kind of damage your class can or cannot do.


The point of a choice is usually that you can only have one, not change your mind an infinite amount of times afterwards. If someone offers you a house or a car it might be nice of them to allow you to swap if you chose wrong, but not really if you use that to constantly swap daily based on whether you need a car at that moment.

What you want is total freedom, which is nice and all in theory, but unless you restrict the player at some point the game won't really be that interesting.

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It is a step in the right direction. If we can manage to keep these restrictions in place then we have a chance to revert some of the damage incurred on the game from the lack of restrictions.

i get wanting meaningful choice and even as a player that multi specs i would be ok with the cost coming back

the problem for me is that blizzard has tried to make every player care about the covenant choice which sounds good on paper
and personally i love the idea of that choice and taking my character and pledging them to a covenant is a fun choice
the story and the rewards are fun
thats pretty much universally agreed

now the part that i have an issue with is the power connected to it. For the first time in the games lifetime the player has restriction on their power that he has no control over. Even a respec cost was something i could control for azerite gear. I could farm gold and gear and AP and in the end what i decided was in my control. The consequences of the choice were always there either in gold or in time spent farming. My power was my choice and it was fine. Now the consequences here in SL will be a time lock. You can not outfarm the timelock. You can not game the time lock. You can not interact with it. Placing this restriction also does not make the choice meaningful. I wont suddenly care more about the 4% buff to my damage ability just because theres a lock on it. I wont suddenly care more about the class ability because of the time lock.

The restriction doesnt make it meaningful. That is my point, its always been my point. You will never hear someone say "aww man the new expansion is super awesome i mean the covenant abilities are so meaningful". This is like the TF debate, yeah when it happened it was rewarding but the other 90% of the time it was a let down and thats the covenant system, yeah the covenant has some cool stuff in it and pledging yourself to one and having a restriction on that is good...on paper.

i guess an easy way to explain it is you have two groups of players

1. they like the cosmetics of the game they go transmog and mount farm and like stuff like that.
2. they are the ones that will do stuff for the sake of optimizing

having the covenant system exist has group 1 and a bit of group 2 happy with it. The restrictions dont make the rest of group 2 care about it in fact it makes some kinda annoyed because they might like the looks of one covenant but another is 40% stronger (not an outlier thats just the general gap taht we are seeing because you cant balance a ST ability and aoe)

so instead of lightening up on the restrictions we get the classic blizzard move coming up and you have seen it with conduits. Instead of balancing the soulbind trees they hit them with the nerf bat and removed a potency conduit so fewer people are going to really care. You cant force a meaningful choice in a game with a diverse player base and trying to do so will not fix anything.

however i am convinced that the system we are being presented with is not what they wanted. The game being in this state has me convinced that they couldnt make the system as deep as they intended so instead of a system that comes with meaningful choice we get a discount talent with a few glyphs.

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No. A game is essentially a set of restrictions on what you can do. That's what's called "rules". Restrictions are necessary, especially in multiplayer games. Putting them in the control of the players is not a good thing, because the players will often try to do away with the restrictions.

The restriction to only 2 Power conduits actually improves choice, because before there weren't enough conduits to actually make any decisions on.

Besides, without restrictions you cannot have any actual choice to begin with, since you can just switch things at will. Your argument is fundamentally flawed.

like i said there are good restrictions and bad restrictions

the potency conduit change is not a form of good restriction. It just goes from top 3 to top 2...it just removes meaning. In legion we could experiment with 2 legendaries at a time and that was fun, much more fun than 1 which is what the potency change does.

in gta5 "your character can run this fast" is a restriction
you can overcome this through placing time and effort into it which causes meaning
that is also essentially how WoW worked for over a decade

idk who decided suddenly that it is awful and needs updating...personally i disagree because i like having control
ya know "player agency" that blizz likes throwing around with meaningful choice


i will never agree with the SL restrictions and thats fine because they can launch it in the current state and ill have a work around which will feel less fun but since the restrictions are on simple and meaningless systems i can just make a choice and forget about it for a while....unless they try something like restricting covenant abilities to SL content again...no

[Dracullus]

I feel like Blizzard should stop listening to the community so much and cave in at every choice.

Sometimes I'm tired of wannabe designers as well. I get people give feedback what they like or not, but we often have discussion about fundamentals of game design here.

Of course in many posts it's Blizzard devs who are viewed as people that have no idea what they're doing. Someone forget we are playing their games for often 10+ years, no other way around.

[Sondrelk]

i
-snipped for length-

There is pretty much no good way to prevent players from endlessly changing covenant for the ability outside a timesink. Making it cost gold and have it be as restrictive as it needs to be would place the gold cost somewhere in the region of 40-50k.
There are ways Blizzard could obfuscate the timesink, but not really any way the ycan keep the choice meaningful without placing a massive restriction somewhere else.

Restrictions are important because what I find players enjoy most is creatively exploiting the mechanics in place, not being given everything on a silver platter.

The thing with covenant giving player power is that it instantly makes the choice that much more meaningful compared to if it was just cosmetic. But more importantly it also goes back on the absolute freedom that Blizzard has given players. And while some might argue that more freedom is always good that is just not the case when you want to make a diverse game, especially not in a results oriented RPG like WoW.

I imagine the system is as deep as they wanted it, because any attempt at adding more depth would just cause further outcry in the playerbase.
If WoD proved them one thing it is that players care more about convenience than they care about the game actually being built solidly.

Flying as it currently exists in the game is the ultimate mobility tool. In many ways the truest expression of freedom in WoW. Obstacles on the ground don't matter, enemies don't matter, natural barriers between zones don't matter. Is there a mountain in the way? Just fly over it. Is the rare enemy behind a load of elites? Just fly past it.
With flying gone for most of the expansion we now instead have choice, and more importantly a fertile growbed for mobility. Having stealth in uninstanced content now matter because that rare behind elites can be bypassed. Having double jump now matters because enviromental obstacles are less of a concern. Are you on the top of a mountain and need to get across the zone fast? Goblin gliders are there.
And because of these restrictions the moments where players overcome them are far better. On top of Mount Mugamba there are some easter eggs, and getting up there is enough of a challenge that it feels rewarding to get to see it, additionally you now get to jump down with a glider or something. Maybe you will find other normally inaccesible areas.

The lack of meaningful choice and the inclusion of absolute freedom in how power is distributed in WoW in a sense robs us of similar moments.
Is there a giant pack of enemies that a raid boss summons? Just swap to AoE talents or specs and that's the end of it. Whereas what it should be is that players who specced into AoE centric builds, or play AoE centric specs are given that moment to shine.



Everyone likes having control, but too much of it can be just as paralyzing, if not more so.
Restrictions are important because if there are no boundaries on what a player can or cannot do then all the challenge is lost.
Consider for instance the difference in enjoyment oyu get from blowing up a highway and hundreds of cars in GTA compared to Garry's mod. It is easier, and likely possible to get a far more impressive explosion in Garry's mod, but without the restrictions and the game almost fighting against you the reward would not be nearly as sweet.

[huth]

the potency conduit change is not a form of good restriction. It just goes from top 3 to top 2...it just removes meaning. In legion we could experiment with 2 legendaries at a time and that was fun, much more fun than 1 which is what the potency change does.

Quite the opposite. You only have 4 potency conduits to begin with, allowing you to pick 3 means there is basically no need for experimentation. Restricting it to 2 actually increases it.

You don't like being restricted, sure, but restrictions are necessary, especially the ones you don't like.

in gta5 "your character can run this fast" is a restriction
you can overcome this through placing time and effort into it which causes meaning

No, you cannot overcome that restriction. There is a hard limit to how fast you can move. The game wouldn't be much fun if you could just teleport everywhere. Don't mistake being able to put in extra effort to get closer to the limit with that limit being overcome.

[Revamp Man]

There is pretty much no good way to prevent players from endlessly changing covenant for the ability outside a timesink. Making it cost gold and have it be as restrictive as it needs to be would place the gold cost somewhere in the region of 40-50k.
There are ways Blizzard could obfuscate the timesink, but not really any way the ycan keep the choice meaningful without placing a massive restriction somewhere else.

Restrictions are important because what I find players enjoy most is creatively exploiting the mechanics in place, not being given everything on a silver platter.

The thing with covenant giving player power is that it instantly makes the choice that much more meaningful compared to if it was just cosmetic. But more importantly it also goes back on the absolute freedom that Blizzard has given players. And while some might argue that more freedom is always good that is just not the case when you want to make a diverse game, especially not in a results oriented RPG like WoW.

I imagine the system is as deep as they wanted it, because any attempt at adding more depth would just cause further outcry in the playerbase.
If WoD proved them one thing it is that players care more about convenience than they care about the game actually being built solidly.

Flying as it currently exists in the game is the ultimate mobility tool. In many ways the truest expression of freedom in WoW. Obstacles on the ground don't matter, enemies don't matter, natural barriers between zones don't matter. Is there a mountain in the way? Just fly over it. Is the rare enemy behind a load of elites? Just fly past it.
With flying gone for most of the expansion we now instead have choice, and more importantly a fertile growbed for mobility. Having stealth in uninstanced content now matter because that rare behind elites can be bypassed. Having double jump now matters because enviromental obstacles are less of a concern. Are you on the top of a mountain and need to get across the zone fast? Goblin gliders are there.
And because of these restrictions the moments where players overcome them are far better. On top of Mount Mugamba there are some easter eggs, and getting up there is enough of a challenge that it feels rewarding to get to see it, additionally you now get to jump down with a glider or something. Maybe you will find other normally inaccesible areas.

The lack of meaningful choice and the inclusion of absolute freedom in how power is distributed in WoW in a sense robs us of similar moments.
Is there a giant pack of enemies that a raid boss summons? Just swap to AoE talents or specs and that's the end of it. Whereas what it should be is that players who specced into AoE centric builds, or play AoE centric specs are given that moment to shine.



Everyone likes having control, but too much of it can be just as paralyzing, if not more so.
Restrictions are important because if there are no boundaries on what a player can or cannot do then all the challenge is lost.
Consider for instance the difference in enjoyment oyu get from blowing up a highway and hundreds of cars in GTA compared to Garry's mod. It is easier, and likely possible to get a far more impressive explosion in Garry's mod, but without the restrictions and the game almost fighting against you the reward would not be nearly as sweet.

personally the restrictions dont make the choice meaningful

the ability doesnt make the covenant meaningful. Honestly it would just be more enjoyable for myself to have taht free swap available for the ability because its a glorified talent. You could have players have to go kill an elite or clear 3 dungeons or anything beyond a time lock. The 3 minute cooldown taht is fire and forget doesnt add meaning to that choice for me instead it makes the choice almost entirely based on the power attachment. Covenants have so much cool stuff but you dont really get to take those into account if you optimize because its attached to player power. The restrictions are also insaaaane compared to what we have had for a decade.

Flying is convenience and as for the stealth example, you can overcome the need for stealth via effort in powering up your character...like always in the past.

Shifting the design of the game systems is a bad idea especially with their reaction which only made it worse after saying "the ripcord doesnt exist" when theres an interview where they say it does. "the abilities are too integrated into the system" not really when if you take out the conduit and the 1 soulbind trait per covenant you wouldnt notice....at all....in any way so try again blizz.

Like i said its a system that exists and its not a deal breaker for me but that doesnt mean its a good thing. It restricts diversity and i think a majority of players will see this once it launches.

[Sondrelk]

Quite the opposite. You only have 4 potency conduits to begin with, allowing you to pick 3 means there is basically no need for experimentation. Restricting it to 2 actually increases it.

You don't like being restricted, sure, but restrictions are necessary, especially the ones you don't like.



No, you cannot overcome that restriction. There is a hard limit to how fast you can move. The game wouldn't be much fun if you could just teleport everywhere. Don't mistake being able to put in extra effort to get closer to the limit with that limit being overcome.

I mean, there are ways to overcome the restriction in GTA.
If you want a faster base movement speed you can train, which takes time.
If you want to move from A to B faster you can use a car, which cannot go everywhere and for which the really fast ones are rare.
If you want to go even faster then you can use a plane, which has even more restricction on where you can find it, what areas are large enough to allow takeoff, and are likely not reusable, and likely not surviveable unless you have a parachute.

You can overcome the restriction of the running speed, but then you run into even more restrictions layerred on top of whatever solution you want, which is something WoW doesnt really have.

[Revamp Man]

also its going to be really fun when i can gear my alts through WQs giving norm ilvl loot after a couple months again...and thats not the calling reward.

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Quite the opposite. You only have 4 potency conduits to begin with, allowing you to pick 3 means there is basically no need for experimentation. Restricting it to 2 actually increases it.

You don't like being restricted, sure, but restrictions are necessary, especially the ones you don't like.



No, you cannot overcome that restriction. There is a hard limit to how fast you can move. The game wouldn't be much fun if you could just teleport everywhere. Don't mistake being able to put in extra effort to get closer to the limit with that limit being overcome.

i mean there doesnt have to be a need for something especially experimentation

with 3 conduit slots i coul have my top two and change the third around....or well once a week i could but now technically 10 times a week if i only change taht one slot.

Now...meh my performance is more reliant because of the restriction.

like ive said, i see no need for it and i dont see it working but ill still be here because i like the content. i survived bfa i can survive an expansion with 1 bad system.

[Sondrelk]

personally the restrictions dont make the choice meaningful

the ability doesnt make the covenant meaningful. Honestly it would just be more enjoyable for myself to have taht free swap available for the ability because its a glorified talent. You could have players have to go kill an elite or clear 3 dungeons or anything beyond a time lock. The 3 minute cooldown taht is fire and forget doesnt add meaning to that choice for me instead it makes the choice almost entirely based on the power attachment. Covenants have so much cool stuff but you dont really get to take those into account if you optimize because its attached to player power. The restrictions are also insaaaane compared to what we have had for a decade.

Flying is convenience and as for the stealth example, you can overcome the need for stealth via effort in powering up your character...like always in the past.

Shifting the design of the game systems is a bad idea especially with their reaction which only made it worse after saying "the ripcord doesnt exist" when theres an interview where they say it does. "the abilities are too integrated into the system" not really when if you take out the conduit and the 1 soulbind trait per covenant you wouldnt notice....at all....in any way so try again blizz.

Like i said its a system that exists and its not a deal breaker for me but that doesnt mean its a good thing. It restricts diversity and i think a majority of players will see this once it launches.

The restrictions are precisely what makes the choice meaningful. For a chocie to have meaning you need consequence, otherwise there is no point. The consequence of choosing the wrong covenant in this case is that you have to change it, which is not trivial.
Again, as I mentioned before. Imagine if you were given teh choice of a car and a house, you can only have one, but you can swap freely, which means there is no reason to stick to one of the two when you don't actually use both at the same time.

Flying is a supreme convenience, and yes, you can overcome things like stealth with better gear, but you don't simply get more gear at the drop of a hat, it takes time and effort to get, most likely more than whatever effort would be spent by someone with stealth, which is the point. Flying just removes that distinction since it is trivial to get and completely consequence free.

You say it restricts diversity and I would counter that it likely increases it. Because the baseline barrier for minmaxing is so low that it isnt just the dedicated few that are expected to do it, it is everyone who has even some semblance of how the game functions.
There is no incentive to make a hybrid build for AoE or ST when you can just change your entire build on the drop of a hat depending on the situation, which is something the covenants prevents. Now instead you are forced to choose between being optimal and picking what aesthtic you like, which in turn will make it so more players are not in fact optimal, and thereby giving us a more diverse playerbase.

You might not like it, but it does increase diversity in the playerbase, which could hopefully lead ot more options like these, or more restrictions which will further diversify the playerbase instead of homogenizing it.