Shadowlands Covenants - Making the choice. Is it really as bad as people think?

[Meillassoux]

Since the release of Alpha I have seen many threads, videos and streamers bashing at the Covenant system and how it restricts players from having basically everything that they want.

In my opinion a choice is meaningful only when you actually sacrifice something because you want something else more. People base their concept of "optimal" depending on what kind of content of the game they like digesting the most. At the end of the day this is what makes people feel unique and proud or even regretful of their decisions. Having a clear winner or being able to change what you chose to fit your needs every time, transforms the concept of choice into simple diligence and preparation.

Is it really a bad thing if you are forced to choose between a great raid ability and a pvp ability, a mythic+ ability and your ideal aesthetics? Doesn't it just mean that you simply value one thing over another? Isn't that what actually makes it a true RPG choice? Isn't that the thing that will make you feel this sense of accomplishment against your peers that chose differently based on their own needs and wants?

I totally understand why people are so sensitive about this. We are all scared when provided with a meaningful choice, both in a game and irl, that we will be judged based on that or that we will be negatively affected in some way. But I would like to urge you to think about something. If there are no negative consequences whatsoever for the choices you make and if you can always pick the optimal path or the one of least resistance, then what's the point of choosing in the first place?

Anyway, I wasn't trying to be philosophical here or anything. All I am saying is that if you want to actually have a choice in the game, you also have to accept that you will not have it all or that you will not be the best at everything. If you don't want that, that's also understandable but I think there are game genres out there that would cater more for such people than a mmorpg that supposedly WoW is.

I am not trying to trigger anybody here. This is just my opinion.

[Revamp Man]

The big complaint that people have about it being powered choice is that blizzard can change it at any point so you can choose one covenant two weeks later that covenant is completely NERFED so you choose another one to not be weaker and then that one gets nerfed and it’s just extra work

Disconnecting the covenant ability from the company itself does nothing to devalue the choice of the covenant

The people who play for the abilities are the ones that can possibly be negatively affected by it the ones who do not care about the abilities will find themselves not affected by it

The system itself seems to be almost entirely designed around aesthetics especially when you take into account that the best ability for some classes seem to also be an ability that lines up with a covenant who shares an aesthetic with the class theme

It’s a butt nugget in an otherwise good system and I see no reason why disconnecting the abilities from the covenant choice it’s self is a bad idea

[The Butt Witch]

Just consider what you are mostly doing, and then pick the covenant that offers the abilities that fit that style.

For example. As Hunter
Necrolords -> M+ because they have a strong aoe attack
Venthyr - Raids and pvp because they have a strong single target attack
Kyrian - Arena pvp because they have an ability that lets you shoot through pillars
Nightfae - If you're a girl(?). Really they don't really have anything special, and their esthetics are pretty cutesy and stuff.

Sure, I would have wanted to go Necrolords because I like the esthetics and fantasy, but...VENTHYR'S FLAYED SHOT IS SOOOO GOOD!!!!

[Saltysquidoon]

The problem isn't that there's going to be a best option you have to pick (even for non-numbers reasons eg the vampire blink will probably be borderline broken in M+). The problem's going to come when everyone picks the best covenant for their class and desired content and blizzard nerfs it or buffs another.

[Kralljin]

Before one even talks about the system itself, i'd rather talk about the fact that Blizzard has driven the game away from "meaningful choice" for over a decade by now.

Talents? Swapping them in rested areas is free, else you need a tome, no problem, the entire system is even designed for you to switch around.
Specializations? Fuck Dual spec, a five second cast and you can virtually switch to any spec you like, no CD, no cost, nothing.
Gear? Barring Weapons and Trinkets, any gear is re useable for any spec, you don't need to gather a completely gear set for another spec.
No "choice" of what spec you'll gear first besides those few slots.

All these things are still in the game, none of these are even touched by Blizzard in any shape or form and they are completely detrimental to the principle of "meaningful choice".

And now, Blizzard set themselves up for the 3rd round of that discussion.
We had that in Legion with Artifact Power and Legendaries.
We had that BfA with Azerite powers and respec costs.
We have now the discussion regarding Covenant abilities.

Blizzard cannot expect any sort of "understanding" from me if they keep designing the [current expansion system] around a certain philosophy, which goes completely how the "framework systems" (if you want to call them that) of the actual game has been designed.

That is what upsets me, there is no design coherence present, except for systems that keep replacing each other as they are on a rental basis.

[Revamp Man]

Just consider what you are mostly doing, and then pick the covenant that offers the abilities that fit that style.

For example. As Hunter
Necrolords -> M+ because they have a strong aoe attack
Venthyr - Raids and pvp because they have a strong single target attack
Kyrian - Arena pvp because they have an ability that lets you shoot through pillars
Nightfae - If you're a girl(?). Really they don't really have anything special, and their esthetics are pretty cutesy and stuff.

Sure, I would have wanted to go Necrolords because I like the esthetics and fantasy, but...VENTHYR'S FLAYED SHOT IS SOOOO GOOD!!!!

Now what if I told you that you could choose Necro Lord but still get the Venthyr ability??

Because that’s what this should be it’s OK to have meaningful choice based on the cosmetics you don’t have to make every single aspect gain a choice which you have to make connected to the covenant and that’s all the argument really is

Just let me choose the covenant that I want based on aesthetics what I want for my character that’s enough of a meaningful choice the downside is I won’t be able to experience the other story

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The problem isn't that there's going to be a best option you have to pick (even for non-numbers reasons eg the vampire blink will probably be borderline broken in M+). The problem's going to come when everyone picks the best covenant for their class and desired content and blizzard nerfs it or buffs another.

Exactly and they could simply get rid of that if they allowed us to make the choice based purely on aesthetics and have The ability something you could swap like a talent

[Kemsa]

THe first time you choose a covenant, shouldnt be "stressfull" or "dramatic" how people are making it. Because as how interviews are going. Changing to anothr covenant its easy... RETURNING to a covenant its the hard part.
Now THE SECOND TIME you will choose a covenant its the one that needs time and thinking.

Like, little jimmy choose Bastion because X reason (paladin, friends, good guy) but then 2 weeks later, min maxers discover that the best covenant skill + soulbind + armor set + idk heroes, are on Venthyr. Little Jimmy then decides that he is also wants to be competitive, then he will choose Venthyr. Done, no more problems.

But then if little jimmy actually misses Bastion, now thats the problem.

[Meillassoux]

And this why Blizz should obviously never nerf or buff the covenant abilities after Shadowlands gets released. I totally agree with you on that. But didn't Ian already say that the soulbind system is the one that will get modified to minimize balancing issues? Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

[NineSpine]

Now what if I told you that you could choose Necro Lord but still get the Venthyr ability??

Because that’s what this should be it’s OK to have meaningful choice based on the cosmetics you don’t have to make every single aspect gain a choice which you have to make connected to the covenant and that’s all the argument really is

Just let me choose the covenant that I want based on aesthetics what I want for my character that’s enough of a meaningful choice the downside is I won’t be able to experience the other story

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Exactly and they could simply get rid of that if they allowed us to make the choice based purely on aesthetics and have The ability something you could swap like a talent

Like how you can pick the warlock aesthetics and the paladin abilities, right? Oh wait, that's not how it works.

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And this why Blizz should obviously never nerf or buff the covenant abilities after Shadowlands gets released. I totally agree with you on that. But didn't Ian already say that the soulbind system is the one that will get modified to minimize balancing issues? Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

I've been very critical of the last couple of expansions as far as systems design goes, but I think that the design here is actually very clever. Soulbinds being swappable and full of passives that can easily be rebalanced without sweeping changes to the covenant is going to mitigate the need to do any rebalancing that has a significant effect on the abilities themselves.

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Before one even talks about the system itself, i'd rather talk about the fact that Blizzard has driven the game away from "meaningful choice" for over a decade by now.

Talents? Swapping them in rested areas is free, else you need a tome, no problem, the entire system is even designed for you to switch around.
Specializations? Fuck Dual spec, a five second cast and you can virtually switch to any spec you like, no CD, no cost, nothing.
Gear? Barring Weapons and Trinkets, any gear is re useable for any spec, you don't need to gather a completely gear set for another spec.
No "choice" of what spec you'll gear first besides those few slots.

All these things are still in the game, none of these are even touched by Blizzard in any shape or form and they are completely detrimental to the principle of "meaningful choice".

And now, Blizzard set themselves up for the 3rd round of that discussion.
We had that in Legion with Artifact Power and Legendaries.
We had that BfA with Azerite powers and respec costs.
We have now the discussion regarding Covenant abilities.

Blizzard cannot expect any sort of "understanding" from me if they keep designing the [current expansion system] around a certain philosophy, which goes completely how the "framework systems" (if you want to call them that) of the actual game has been designed.

That is what upsets me, there is no design coherence present, except for systems that keep replacing each other as they are on a rental basis.

In the framework system, you pick a class and that's it forever.

[Kralljin]

In the framework system, you pick a class and that's it forever.

Your argument completely misses the point that so many of your choices in WoW can be changed without issue, that's why these stick out like a sore thumb.

That aside, between the fact that it's utterly trivial to level a character nowadays and that there is a softreset every tier, it's not even difficult to reroll, so there's that.

[huth]

Disconnecting the covenant ability from the company itself does nothing to devalue the choice of the covenant

Yes, it does. Otherwise, there'd be no incentive to do so to begin with.

The complaint is also not particularly relevant. You can change covenants if there really is that big a power shift. But it's unlikely to happen every other week, and if they overnerf one, there's a good chance they shore it back up. What you describe is an inability of the player to commit to a choice, not a problem with the system.

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Your argument completely misses the point that so many of your choices in WoW can be changed without issue, that's why these stick out like a sore thumb.

That aside, between the fact that it's utterly trivial to level a character nowadays and that there is a softreset every tier, it's not even difficult to reroll, so there's that.

But then the fixed choice of the covenant isn't an issue either, is it? You can just roll up a new character.

[StrawberryZebra]

Since the release of Alpha I have seen many threads, videos and streamers bashing at the Covenant system and how it restricts players from having basically everything that they want.

First of all, lets just break down what it is a player could potentially want to get out of a Covenant.

There are things which give you direct power;

• One Covenant exclusive ability
• One Covenant Class Ability
• Soulbinds

Then there are the none-power related aspects;

• The gear sets
• Covenant Story

Covenants are functionally an umbrella for multiple systems. You're not making a singular choice in isolation. You're making a choice that is going to affect your character and your play experince you have in some pretty dramatic ways going forwards. What that leads to is a conflict of interests for the player.

I've mainly played as a Paladin Tank for most of my time in WoW. I see General Draven, for the Venthyr Covenant, has a soulbind that gives +10% Stamina and comes with a host of other nice tanking perks.

How do you balance for that? 10% Stamina is going to lead to some *huge* disparities between tanks that have it and tanks that don't. Either you balance around everyone having it, which makes it mandatory for any tank to choose that Covenant, or you design content with the assumption that no one has it. Which makes that Soulbind unnessesary. Fundamentally however it that puts the choice firmly in the hands of the developers, not the players.

That goes completely against the idea of it being any kind of choice at all. It's already made for you before you even start playing the game.

I admit I'm someone who doesn't care about the story or how my character looks. So for me covenant choice boils down to just one question; "Which Covenant gives my character the most power?" That's not a "meaningful choice" at all, that's a math problem pure and simple.

What about the people on the other end of the spectrum, those who like the lore and the game world or collectables. By choosing one Covenant, they've shrunk their experience to just a slice of the content, not all of it. They're almost certaintly going to swap between them all or have a character in each Covenant. Which makes the restriction completely pointless because they're going to do them all anyway.

All Blizzard are doing is forcing a more restrictive play experience on everyone for a facade of choice.

There is a way that Blizzard can have their cake and eat it here though. They don't need to nerf or change the idea of covenants exclusive powers at their core, what they need to do is ramp up the power they give you to 11. Just flat out go make all of the Covenants supercharge your character to an absurd level. Then restrict that power to working in just Torghast.

That gives clearly defined boundries for those powers and a means to balance them against themselves. With a self-contatined system for progression it means they can go crazy with how powerful the abilities are knowing that they'll never break other forms of content.

[Kralljin]

But then the fixed choice of the covenant isn't an issue either, is it? You can just roll up a new character.

"Issue" is the wrong terminology here, the core question at hand is what sort of game you'd want WoW to be in that aspect.

I am pointing out how Blizzard essentially drives a two way track in their design philosophy.
On the one side, you can switch between talents, spec without issue with even your gear adjusting to your specializations (despite all of these points being different in the rather long gone past).
But since Legion, the new system makes a complete 180° turn and wants to hammer down the "importance of choice".

That's why there is in my opinion so much drama around this system, Blizzard has designed the game in a very different fashion since Wotlk, Blizzard has not reverted any of those changes but simply flipflops between player convenience and the importance of choice.

That aside, rerolling to another class because your current one is terrible is one thing, maintaining four characters of the same class for a single ability is another.

[goldentforce]

people keep acting like the argument is this choice or no choice when that is not the case. You can make a meaningful player choice that doesn't have to be like this one. In my opinion there is so many points of conflict to the player that the reward of this system succeeding will never feel better than the negatives. Here are just some examples of pain points.
1. aesthetics/thematic and gameplay can conflict. The choice you would make about they way your character looks and the faction you would support in a game will very likely conflict with the way you would want to play your class.
2. Conflict over types of content: so far based off covenant abilities we see that some index largely into single target/aoe/pvp. There are abilities like mirrors of torment that seem a very clear pvp choice, with extremely little to none use in other content like m+ and raids (torghast maybe cause of ap). There is a high chance that abilities are so dominant in circumstances they are good compared to other choices that you just feel bad about what you don't have and not good about what you do have more often than not.
3. Conflict between your specs: SL is doing a lot of changes to create a stronger general class identity over a spec identity. Different covenant abilities will almost certainly be better depending on your spec like abilities better for tanking compared to a better performing dps ability. This will make covenants tunnel you into one spec, which was a complaint of legion, and something that was supposed to improve in this xpac.
4. Over complex of the choice: theres so many parts of the covenant choice with general covenant ability, class covenant ability, 3 soulbinds, conduits, legendaries that there is so many factors that you would have to account for that its not even a good choice. If it was just 4 abilities or something at least its very clear and very simple, but now it requires probably a lot of simming and breakdown of each part to find the best and the best could be because of things you don't interact strongly with compared to abilities and aesthetics like one soulbind being super op only launch.
5. Impossible to balance: theres so many factors that balance on launch is not possible. Parts of your choice will be nerfed and buffed and the system punishes you so you can't adapt and change easily. This issue existed with all the other borrowed power systems so just limiting players here means there will be issues during the expansion as a direct result.

this doesn't include things like just wanting to play with fun abilities they are making and be able to feel good about the type of content you go into. I dislike the system but to act like this choice not going through means everyone hates choice and we can never have choice is just not true. They can totally make clearer simpler choices, or have multiple choices that aren't are tied together. Or have choices that feels more rewarding and less punishing.

[Revamp Man]

Like how you can pick the warlock aesthetics and the paladin abilities, right? Oh wait, that's not how it works.

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I've been very critical of the last couple of expansions as far as systems design goes, but I think that the design here is actually very clever. Soulbinds being swappable and full of passives that can easily be rebalanced without sweeping changes to the covenant is going to mitigate the need to do any rebalancing that has a significant effect on the abilities themselves.

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In the framework system, you pick a class and that's it forever.

So you’re saying that a covenant ability which is a single button is now equivalent to an entire class

Yeah that’s cool that’s totally reasonable argument

[cuafpr]

depends on your play style and how you view the game... min/maxers wont be happy. some will chose the best raid ability or best PVP ability. Then some are like myself, I'll choose the one that fits my toon, and how i view them from an RP stand point. My pally will be kyrian. still a bit torn on the DK, prob necrolord, but vamps would fit a blood DK well..

[Revamp Man]

Yes, it does. Otherwise, there'd be no incentive to do so to begin with.

The complaint is also not particularly relevant. You can change covenants if there really is that big a power shift. But it's unlikely to happen every other week, and if they overnerf one, there's a good chance they shore it back up. What you describe is an inability of the player to commit to a choice, not a problem with the system.

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But then the fixed choice of the covenant isn't an issue either, is it? You can just roll up a new character.

But the covenant itself is supposed to overall be a meaningful choice

You make a choice as to which aesthetic to commit to bed because of the armor or the mounts

You make a choice on which story to commit to

Heck you can make a story on which characters from the experience you enjoy

Why do we need to have the choice for the ability which unlike every other aspect blizzard can change

Lizard will not change the covenant campaign storyline to be more about getting random bore kills and they won’t change the armor to look more like questing armor and they won’t change the mounts to be a generic horse

But they can and undoubtedly will change the damage and possibly functionality of some of the covenant class abilities

Plus I’m not just playing a Single speck I’m playing a class in pretty much every case so the best ability for my tank spec might be crap for my damage spec and maybe I enjoy the ability to be competitive but this system removes that fun form in the guise of being a meaningful choice

The system is built around like for meaningful choices taking away one does not negatively impact anybody you can choose to stick with your covenants themed ability you do not have to change

[Omedon]

And this why Blizz should obviously never nerf or buff the covenant abilities after Shadowlands gets released.

They won't just buff or nerf them, they will add things. That's the bigger deal, IMO. We won't know 100% of what a covenant commitment means until potentially... much, much later in the expansion than launch. Not even with the reach of datamining.

[Phryx]

Yes, it does. Otherwise, there'd be no incentive to do so to begin with.

Your opinion is worng. Blizzard can make other incentives than player power. For example, you can only mount your covenant mounts if you are acutally bound to that covenant, use it's transmogs etc. Should be enough incentives for the people that hate min-maxing and want to play casually. They don't make use of the variety of actual gameplay choices anyway. It does not hurt them to not have them. Their choice is only imaginary. Let people making gameplay choices who actually benefit from it.

[enigma77]

I think it's gonna be terrible. Like many people I like to do both pvp (Arenas mostly) and raiding/m+.

I know it's gonna piss me off when I have to go into arenas with a subpar toolkit because I chose the covenant that is best for raiding.