Covenants will ruin Shadowlands.

[MyndZero]

I think they could suck if someone wants to play multiple roles, or rather switches role e.g from DPS to tank then they don't have the tank ability.

[Relapses]

You do know a whole bunch of the abilities were announced and shown off so you can see for your self how balanced or unbalanced they are based on what was announced at blizzcon. What was shown to me shows there will be clear right choices and wrong choices for classes but feel free to believe just like the gcd changes and class pruning blizzard will do as good a job as those changes on balancing covenants.

Of course! Right. I forgot this is BLIZZARD we're talking about here, where the developers have pornographic fantasies about ignoring player feedback and everything we see in pre-Alpha builds at BlizzCon ends up in the game.

...like, seriously dude. Does being this pointlessly cynical help you sleep better?

[Uko]

Of course! Right. I forgot this is BLIZZARD we're talking about here, where the developers have pornographic fantasies about ignoring player feedback and everything we see in pre-Alpha builds at BlizzCon ends up in the game.

...like, seriously dude. Does being this pointlessly cynical help you sleep better?

Just as much as the white knighting does for you lol.

[Relapses]

Just as much as the white knighting does for you lol.

Absolutely nothing I've said is defending Blizzard. The only thing I'm critical about is rebuking them for things that haven't even happened.

[FelPlague]

Unless Blizzard plans to overhaul the system and release Shadowlands in 2022, what you see is generally what you get.

"What you see is what you get"
Correct.
yet we havent even seen, what we are gunna get so far.
We have seen 0 of the soulbinding
and we have only seen 1 covenents abilities for all classes, but mage.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Nothing Blizzard does will make you happy. You could open up MMO-C to a personalized letter addressed to you from J Allen Brack himself letting you know he read your feedback and he's instructed the team to design the game around your individual desires and you'd still have some petty cynical take on the outlook of the expansion. You aren't looking for Blizzard to change anything, you just want validation of your incredibly original opinion that everything Blizzard does sucks ass and will continue to suck ass until the end of time "because reasons."

As an aside, I really don't understand the point of holding an opinion like this. Do you really value meaningless internet high fives over constructive criticism?

Yes I know Blizzard can do no wrong, you as one of the resident mega fans are obviously the authority on that.

I would find a message from JAB quite amusing though, I mean it has become quite the meme how many words he can use to say they fucked up and are kinda sorry, without actually saying they are sorry. Not sure about the high fives, I merely stated that I have little to no hopes that they will suddenly change their ways. On the other hand when it comes to high fives - pun intended - you seem to be one who is constantly looking for validation for your blind brand loyalism, since all you do on this forum is bitch and moan about people not sharing in your whorshipping.

[Florena]

I dont' think this will 'ruin' shadowlands but do feel like this should be more of a story thing and not a player power thing when it comes down to which one you pick.

[huth]

You do know a whole bunch of the abilities were announced and shown off so you can see for your self how balanced or unbalanced they are based on what was announced at blizzcon. What was shown to me shows there will be clear right choices and wrong choices for classes but feel free to believe just like the gcd changes and class pruning blizzard will do as good a job as those changes on balancing covenants.

General designs. Nothing more. Also preliminary ones. We could end up with none of them actually making it, and values getting shifted around so much that the current interpretation ends up being completely wrong. All before we ever even get to test any of them.

[UndedoKoleda]

General designs. Nothing more. Also preliminary ones. We could end up with none of them actually making it, and values getting shifted around so much that the current interpretation ends up being completely wrong. All before we ever even get to test any of them.

Yep, it wouldn't be the first time they do that. Just remember the Blizzcon they announced WoD, how they said that Karabor and Bladespire will be the Alliance and Horde capital cities. And that you could choose which zone to build your garrison in. And bunch of other stuff. None of that happened. So, chill, everything is under control.

[Advent]

Yes I know Blizzard can do no wrong, you as one of the resident mega fans are obviously the authority on that.

I would find a message from JAB quite amusing though, I mean it has become quite the meme how many words he can use to say they fucked up and are kinda sorry, without actually saying they are sorry. Not sure about the high fives, I merely stated that I have little to no hopes that they will suddenly change their ways. On the other hand when it comes to high fives - pun intended - you seem to be one who is constantly looking for validation for your blind brand loyalism, since all you do on this forum is bitch and moan about people not sharing in your whorshipping.

That's what you call worshipping? Geez dude, get out more.

[dreamdaddy]

Outlier. For the most part balance is pretty great and the difference between the best and second / third / fourth / etc is quite small. So yeah for the most part it's a tryhard only issue unless you're at the very top end. Comparing best to worst is a little disingenuous, and also dealing purely in percentages - 20% of a nominal amount of still a nominal amount.

They aren't outliers. Check out https://bloodmallet.com/ and look at single target azerite traits for UH DK, Havoc DH, BM Hunter, MM Hunter, Balance Druid, Frost Mage (best trait is almost double the next best trait), Sub Rogue, Enh Sham, Demo Warlock, and Arms Warrior (almost triple the next best trait). The balance for Azerite traits for many specs is awful and the fix was to put the optimal ones on almost every piece of gear rather than rebalance everything, which works, I'm not complaining about that. I'm saying that Blizz historically has a terrible record at balancing systems like Azerite, Legion Legendaries, and Trinkets (think back to WoD and MoP and some trinkets would account for >50% of some specs' DPS).

Hopefully covenant abilities will only account for <3-5% of total DPS so they will be negligible and only really optimized by tryhards, but then they won't hold any significance and will be kind of pointless flavor.

[Uko]

General designs. Nothing more. Also preliminary ones. We could end up with none of them actually making it, and values getting shifted around so much that the current interpretation ends up being completely wrong. All before we ever even get to test any of them.

That is why voicing our displeasure now is important. If we wait they won't have time to fix things like what happened with azerite armor and how it got almost no testing before it went live.

[Accendor]

- - - Updated - - -



No so you can pick what you think is best/most fun and don't give it any afterthought

Thats not how this game or the players work, sorry. As long as character progression is tied to it, it either needs to be perfectly balanced from the start or be changable.

[Feral Druid ist Op]

Outlier. For the most part balance is pretty great and the difference between the best and second / third / fourth / etc is quite small. So yeah for the most part it's a tryhard only issue unless you're at the very top end. Comparing best to worst is a little disingenuous, and also dealing purely in percentages - 20% of a nominal amount of still a nominal amount.

https://bloodmallet.com/index.html#d...tacking&tier=3

(my favorite)
https://bloodmallet.com/index.html#w...tacking&tier=3

https://bloodmallet.com/index.html#d...tacking&tier=3

https://bloodmallet.com/index.html#p...tacking&tier=3

"just an outliner" i could go on with corruptions/essences and shit but let me tell you every single class has a substantial diffrence in bis and dog traits

[MrLachyG]

The covenants abilities are not going to be slight power differences. The swings in power are going to be ridiculous depending on if you have the good one versus the bad ones. Its like someone using a rank 1 crucible of flame versus someone with a rank 3 bis essence. Sure you can do content while just using the rank 1 essence but nobody will want you if you don't have the good ones in any meaningful or challenging content.

um have you even looked at the sample Mage ones they put out? they were very similar in damage (only difference between them being some are obvious aoe abilities and some are ST) and yeah we haven't seen the others yet but I would imagine that they will be similar damage numbers

[Asaliah]

He's right but the worst is the 10.0 concept which is an abomination and will ruin the game

[Feral Druid ist Op]

I don't really understand the argument about how the Alpha/Beta process always amounts to nothing and how Blizzard never listens. They very obviously do listen - and as a Beta tester I've actually had developers respond to my feedback, and I've even seen implementation of a handful of my own ideas here and there through the history of expansions. This is not to say Blizzard will always implement player feedback - sometimes player feedback is absolute dreck (even when it's not just leveraging for class-specific buffs), and sometimes Blizzard thinks they know better (which is generally true, given that are the actual people coding the game) but get it wrong for both foreseen and unforeseen reasons.

Providing feedback is not a guarantee your or anyone else's feedback will be acted on - but providing no feedback ensures an existing mistake will likely go on to make it into the Live version of the game. It's unfortunate that Beta feedback about Azerite traits in BfA wasn't acted on, but that does happen - sometimes the developers gamble on something and lose, and sometimes they win. I remember back in the day there was a lot of negative player feedback about Transmogrification of all things - about how it would "devalue the aesthetic nature of gear and make the artists stop creating new and unique sets." Obviously that didn't come to pass, given that every expansion since has contained its own unique aesthetics in terms of armor and weapons.

I personally gave "feedback" the last 3 betas (togheter with 80% of my raid)

including: uncapped ap grind, azerite, islands, garrisons and legendary rng, now tell me has anything changed to a positive?

And dont get me started on the class feedback i gave on warriors, dhs, rogues (the classes i play on progress with 99%-100% parses, all of them were butchered with downtimes and shit masterys in legion/bfa)

[Aucald]

I personally gave "feedback" the last 3 betas (togheter with 80% of my raid)

including: uncapped ap grind, azerite, islands, garrisons and legendary rng, now tell me has anything changed to a positive?

And dont get me started on the class feedback i gave on warriors, dhs, rogues (the classes i play on progress playing with 99%-100% parses, all of them were butchered with downtimes and shit masterys in legion/bfa)

Reiterating what I said above: "providing feedback is not a guarantee your or anyone else's feedback will be acted on." The best you can do if give the developers the benefit of your experience with what they've made, and provide feedback on moving forward or what is working and what is not. They're under no obligation to listen, and sometimes they don't - which can be detrimental or beneficial to the game, depending on how things go. In the BfA Beta I proposed a system that sounds eerily close to what became Essences in 8.2, basically saying that Azerite Traits were boring and that the Heart of Azeroth needed to confer a class-specific active skill/spell of some kind that would actually change up how a class/spec rotation works. I wasn't alone in issuing that feedback, either; and I'd like to think my feedback along with the others are what made Blizzard finally see that before BfA was over.

Supposedly Shadowlands is also addressing the issues with skills and pruning as well, and the Alpha/Beta should show us more about how they're going to go about fixing those issues.

[Sharby]

Responding to no one in particular I will say:


It doesn't matter if its only a 1% diff or not, the conversation and any arguments should be centered around why an aesthetic choice has any sort of power diff and the principle of it.

Covenants are most likely going to end up like racials, power should never be tied to aesthetic. And Blizzard choosing that road or complete homogenization is their fault and theirs alone, they could very easily make them covenants feel unique by deepening how much visuals they bring i.e spell effects/skins.

Its dumb and we all know its coming.

[Aucald]

Responding to no one in particular I will say:


It doesn't matter if its only a 1% diff or not, the conversation and any arguments should be centered around why an aesthetic choice has any sort of power diff and the principle of it.

Covenants are most likely going to end up like racials, power should never be tied to aesthetic. And Blizzard choosing that road or complete homogenization is their fault and theirs alone, they could very easily make them covenants feel unique by deepening how much visuals they bring i.e spell effects/skins.

Its dumb and we all know its coming.

I don't disagree with this - and I feel like the Covenant choice would be a lot more static if it benefits it bestowed were entirely incomparable - either aesthetic in nature, or providing utility-type benefits that didn't translate to any statistical advantage in combat. It could even provide an active ability of some kind but if so I think it would be ideal if they were all baseline, with only aesthetic or visual differences (for example a %-based stat buff like an Augment Rune with only a unique visual flare that relates to the Covenant of choice).

Basically put, you ideally shouldn't be able to choose the wrong Covenant - it should all come down to what part of the story you want to experience, what kind of cosmetic stuff (xmog gear, toys, pets) you want, etc. etc. Whether you side with Maldraxxus or the Night Fae, your performance in combat should be unchanged.