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  1. #21
    Immortal TEHPALLYTANK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by munkeyinorbit View Post
    It's not arbitrary. As a player you are making the choice and you are making the choice that has most value to you. If you choose power as the most important choice then that is a meaningful choice. You might sacrifice fun or looks for this power but this is the priority and you have chosen this.
    And if you like choosing power and aesthetics, you have a decent chance that this feature just kicks you in the face because your preferred aesthetic might have literally the worst power for your class+spec+preferred content. Transmog was added to solve this issue, Blizzard is reintroducing a problem they solved a long time ago.
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  2. #22
    Bloodsail Admiral Kalador's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by munkeyinorbit View Post
    This is exactly what the decision makers at blizzard want. They will see this 90% and then they will nerf it. Unbalanced abilities mean a nerf. A nerf will mean players subscribe longer to get the new best power. Then it's patch time and who knows what will be best then. It's clear now that Blizzard doesn't make that many balancing mistakes. They know what is going to happen and they develope like this with imbalances on purpose. It's a lot easier than making a game people like to keep them subscribed.
    Yeah i'm not into conspiracy theory so much.. I believe most shit is easier to explain by fuckup than by a deep hidden agenda.

    There idea of a covenant choice is super cool... It's just extremely hard to do well.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by munkeyinorbit View Post
    This is exactly what the decision makers at blizzard want. They will see this 90% and then they will nerf it. Unbalanced abilities mean a nerf. A nerf will mean players subscribe longer to get the new best power. Then it's patch time and who knows what will be best then. It's clear now that Blizzard doesn't make that many balancing mistakes. They know what is going to happen and they develope like this with imbalances on purpose. It's a lot easier than making a game people like to keep them subscribed.

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    It's not arbitrary. As a player you are making the choice and you are making the choice that has most value to you. If you choose power as the most important choice then that is a meaningful choice. You might sacrifice fun or looks for this power but this is the priority and you have chosen this.
    what about Timmy who chooses necrolord because he likes the ability and then blizzard nerfs it thus making Timmy weaker and thus making the content he does harder and he sees another player doing much more damage than him so he swaps covenants and finds it not as fun so he wants to go back and gets told "no fuck you put in this work before you can come back"

    never happened before in WoW and it generally fucks with the players for absolutely no reason besides trying to make everyone care about the covenants

    i like the covenant system i would have been ok with choosing just based on the story and cosmetics like 99% of players but blizzard wants everyone to care so they added a power locked behind it and the people who want them to be swappabale so they dont feel punished for choosing a covenant when blizzard nerfs them immediately get told "no you cant because others might FEEL like MAYBE they should switch and thats unfair"

    same mentality that led to every decision in BFA

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by CenariusTheForestLord View Post
    Covenants are great. Unswappable player power tied to them is rotten.
    I hope they just make them talents that go away next expac.
    No.

    I hope they keep them, just make them easily swappable.

    I am fucking sick of rent-a-power mechanics.
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  5. #25
    Over 9000! Kithelle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kalador View Post
    It's a multiplayer game. Most people play what is best. I'm not saying it's the right choice. Yes in a perfect world most player would be nice to each other and all class/spec/covenant would see equal play and equal choice. That's just not how it is tho. And that's going to create negative experience for many player.

    The problem here is that blizzard is setting people up to fail.



    I don't argue for swapable covenant. I just think the meaningful choice is going to end up being one most player will be uncomfortable with... And by that I'm saying that yes in the best world people should choose the covenant they like the most. the problem is if most player don't do that it's that there is an inerrant problem behind the system itself. And that the system is bond to "fail"
    Well then that is their problem...they complain that the game has lost all RPG feel while simultaneously demanding that any RPG feel be removed because they want their cake and to eat it too.

    They literally want choices to matter while not wanting to have to make a choice and be handed everything.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by munkeyinorbit View Post
    The point is meaningful decisions. If you choose a covenant because it is the most powerful then you leave your fate to the gods.

    Let's say that you did get nerfed or something is better in the next patch. What now? You have 3 decisions to make. 1. Do nothing. You made your choice and you will stick to it.
    2. Move to the new best covenant knowing that it is possible that it may not always be the best.
    3. Move to the covenant that you find the most pleasing to you

    2 and 3 may be the same as all you care about is power. 3 might be the best looking option but under powered.

    This is what a meaningful decision is. It is sacrificing something in order to get the covenant that has the features you find most important. If power is most important you sacrifice time to keep the most powerful covenant after nerfs and patches. If the way it looks is most important you might sacrifice power.

    Being able to swap covenants with ease makes the decision meaningless and if it's meaningless why have it in the first place.
    They should've started with removing transmog. Choosing between looks of your character and gear power is so much fun and so meaningful, isn't it?

  7. #27
    While Covenants have their potentially disastrous aspects, I don't seem them as a whole being disliked. I think with a bit of adjustment to the power distribution, they coudl be just fine.

    Now for the real most disliked new xpac feature, I think at this point it's borrowed power in all its forms. Borrowed power is the new layered RNG.

  8. #28
    Bloodsail Admiral Kalador's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kithelle View Post
    Well then that is their problem...they complain that the game has lost all RPG feel while simultaneously demanding that any RPG feel be removed because they want their cake and to eat it too.

    They literally want choices to matter while not wanting to have to make a choice and be handed everything.
    I don't get the it's the player fault argument... If you put a system in and that it's clearly not being use or behaving the way you intended it's because the system as problem, not because people are not using it the way the should.

    if you try and make people choose covenant as this big package of ability/theme/story/etc. A big meaningful choice. But a good portion of your active in end game stuff player end up feeling forced to chose a covenant they don't "like" because it's best. Sorry but your system is failing...

  9. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by munkeyinorbit View Post
    It's not an "oops we fucked up phase" it's dragging subscriptions out longer so blizzard makes more money.
    While Blizzard does drag their feet with QoL changes, i think the concept of making your game intentionally suck in order to have a slight boost later on due to the release of QoL changes, is playing with fire.

    Then again, Blizzards overall business strategy currently can be described as "dancing in fire".
    Quote Originally Posted by munkeyinorbit View Post
    Covenants will be broken on release. 9.1 will "fix" them. 9.2 will bring the extra system. 9.3 will bring the currency. That's the pattern and it will keep in recurring
    I think we will have a lot of re balance of the covenant system and an eventual opening up of the ability to swap them, but i don't think what you describe will happen in SL.

    First off, most previous systems (Legendaries / Azerite / Corruption) were largely counterbalanced by pure RNG, the choice was nonexistent, there was just RNG whether you got the right piece or not.

    Most of that was be resolved quite easy via vendor, yet Covenants are not RNG based, Blizzard could simply lift the lock to easily swap covenants.
    No need for a vendor, because what would said vendor sell after all?

    Altough, the system is largely designed around not being easy to swap, so i can imagine that swapping around will still be a pain because it won't be as easy to swap like talents, meaning you probably have to go back to the capital, swap to your covenant, fix your soulbinds.
    Pretty annoying.

  10. #30
    Over 9000! Kithelle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kalador View Post
    I don't get the it's the player fault argument... If you put a system in and that it's clearly not being use or behaving the way you intended it's because the system as problem, not because people are not using it the way the should.

    if you try and make people choose covenant as this big package of ability/theme/story/etc. A big meaningful choice. But a good portion of your active in end game stuff player end up feeling forced to chose a covenant they don't "like" because it's best. Sorry but your system is failing...
    Except it's behaving exactly how they intended...not every ability or choice is meant to be good for everything.

    They want you to choose a covenant for one reason or another...but people want it all. They want their A covenant armor mog while having covenant ability B while exploring covenant D's story because they have cool vampire people.

  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Sunslayer View Post
    I spent a few hours over on the WoW forums and there are several threads with 700-1k replies arguing for and against Covenants having abilities tied to them.

    Is this the most controversial addition to a new xpac to date?
    Do you believe Ion, was being honest when he said they would scrap Covenant abilities if people didn't like the idea?
    Guess we will find out.
    Covenants themselves are great. I love them. But that i have to basically decide what part of the game i want to be good at at the start and will be gimped for everything else... not so good.

  12. #32
    I just don't want another situation where I am stuck with Sephuz's Secret (as a healer without an interrupt and the dispell part wasn't added yet) and Aggramar's stride (beginning of expansion our secondaries were low so it barely gave any movement speed) for months before they were balanced. Blizzard is extremely short sighted with their new systems and how it actually plays out.

    They also soft capped you you with diminishing returns to be able to earn more legendaries with a hard cap at 5. So if you got the wrong legendaries you just got fucked. This is the design team that we are dealing with here. Punish the players to stretch sub time and then make the system how it was supposed to be in X.3.5 to show they were "listening".

    Time and time again they just don't learn their lessons and so players have gotten extremely jaded and don't trust them anymore.
    Last edited by GreenJesus; 2020-07-27 at 06:22 PM.

  13. #33
    People seem passionate, but they seem less upset about this than they did ability pruning or scrapped features like the Dance Studio or Path of the Titans. LFR or 10/20 man raid sizes having equal gear generated more outrage, IIRC. Covenants are obviously the most recent feature generating a lot of discussion, but even most of the discussion I've seen isn't focused on outright disliking them, just concerns about "wrong choices" for performance.

  14. #34
    Ultimately 90% of the whining comes down to "But what if icy veins tells me to pick a covenant I don't want?" which is no different than "But what if icy veins tells me to pick a class I don't want?"

    The irony is that the reason people don't recognize that these are the same problem is that when you make a permanent or semi-permanent choice, like class, you tend to very quickly internalize it and accept the strengths and weaknesses associated with that decision. If being locked into particular kits of capabilities that were not easily changed was such a huge problem, we would see vast gigantic changes in the class composition of the player base every patch... but we don't.

    The fact is that once you make that choice, like picking mage or picking venthyr, you tend to just accept the state of things and move on with your life and play the game.
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  15. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Echocho View Post
    Most people like them just fine. It's just the top end raiders that want homogenization across the board and believe that RPGs should ever only be about narrative and story telling, never about how you build your character.

    They essentially want every single character that ever goes in to a mythic raid to be exactly the same. I wouldn't be surprised if they want to remove gear from the equation too.
    this is an mmo NOT an rpg,in multiplayer games systems so imbalanced dont work,also it wont affect just the top end,we have seen this TIME AND TIME AGAIN,that it trickles down to the most casual of casuals,people in normal guilds and 1-7 m+ WILL discriminate if you have a covenant that is seen as weak

  16. #36
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    even if the implementation of covenants is poor it will still be miles ahead of Island Expeditions and especially Warfronts both of which are the laziest expansion features to ever grace WoW.

  17. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by deenman View Post
    this is an mmo NOT an rpg,in multiplayer games systems so imbalanced dont work,also it wont affect just the top end,we have seen this TIME AND TIME AGAIN,that it trickles down to the most casual of casuals,people in normal guilds and 1-7 m+ WILL discriminate if you have a covenant that is seen as weak
    It's an MMORPG. Stop trying to redefine things until you are right through word games.

    This really won't be a problem. No matter how weak a class is at any given point, even the weakest class in the game is always able to succeed. Have fun putting groups together when you exclude 50% of players becuase of their covenant.
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  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Kalador View Post
    There is no way to make a choice permanent like that.
    The choice has never been permanent. Its just not designed to be swapable on-the-fly for every raid encounter or something like that. You can swap it just fine if you decide you don't like i.

    This misconception really needs to go.

  19. #39
    I wouldn't say the most disliked... in fact I think a lot of people like the concept...

    There is just 0 trust left from the playerbase that blizzard can do borrowed power systems well at this point though and the option to just not swap to what isnt broken by a balance patch annoys people.

    Others like myself are annoyed that they are going to be shackled to a covenant they dislike theme wise because they want to be successful at high end.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    It is easily among the most controversial ones without question.
    However, it needs to be said that it's controversial primarily because of Blizzards track record on these systems as far as balance is concerned.

    Ions admission to "make it easier to swap if necessary" seems hollow.
    Because what he's basically saying is what they've also done with other, similiar systems, release it in an imbalanced state with the lack of obvious QoL features, then balance it over the course of the expansion while also adding said obvious QoL features that could've been in there since day one.

    Most people just want to skip that "oops we fucked up phase".
    I don't know why Blizz is still trying. What is their success rate with these experiments again? Why do we need to play through an entire content patch worth of unbalanced, unenjoyable crap before they listen to the feedback they got months ago?

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