Covenants, most disliked new xpac feature?

[Alkizon]

Eazy
Never in the history of WoW players weren't able to get their BIS abilities for each content.

It's highly unfair and stupid thing.

By the way, this is element of "flexible choice" for the whole class: not of "what is available to you", but of "what you want/decided to press", while almost everything is available to you in principle (albeit not equally useful, but momentary accessible)... unlucky, here goes failure - specs (so you can't "choose" on the go), and now is also another disgrace.

You can't make choice at all, since system will depend not on your choice, but on devs' subsequent actions (previously, only one system's part has such influence and this was Class's one). So now, how, after all that has been said, can “it” be called “controlled/fair choice”? It doesn't exist, since it will have every chance of being depreciated in next iteration, and generally abandoned and forgotten after expansion, how can it be "meaningful" in such conditions? It just don't. And all because it's inserted in wrong place, or... they are lying (which is much more likely) and its purpose is completely different (not provide you with meaningful choices)

(= “outrageous” for players, easy and cheap (don't forget about inflation, which they themselves organized before by virtue of total incompetence) in manipulation for devs (joke pictures stolen from here), who can only think “within limits of this expansion”, but not “within the whole design”) factor that they want it (its current state) to be

[Heartbreaker23]

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.

The covenants themselves are a nice idea. It's basically reputation on roids. The main problem is being locked into one and combining combat abilities with cosmetic stuff and story content.

Imagine playing Legion and having to choose between Farondis, Dreamweavers, Highmountain Tauren, Valarjar and Nightborne. If you pick one, you can't do quest for the others. Why does it have to be that way? What is exciting about that? I just wanna do all the content and experience all of the covenants. I don't wanna be forced to split the stuff up between 4 characters and be forced down a covenant because of the combat ability, even though I like the style of a different covenant more.

On top of that, it's a combination of reputation with an additional talent row for each class. The 4 new talents could just be a talent row for each class which would allow us to switch around like our other abilities.

It's a redundant restriction and only bad things come out of it.

[Tyze]

Ofc, with azerite we don't trust them.

It's the biggest feature of the expansion, and it's the most disliked one

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

The covenants themselves are a nice idea. It's basically reputation on roids. The main problem is being locked into one and combining combat abilities with cosmetic stuff and story content.

The game is good but the problem is the different classes, being locked into only one without having to grind a bunch. /satire

As has been popularly quoted the past couple weeks- "players (if given the chance) willmin/max all ‘fun’ out of a game."
Pick a covenant you like or a covenant you think will perform best for your endgame, unless you’re in a top 10 orogression guild and swap classes from boss to boss it makes avsolutely no F’n difference on the outcome of your raids. There’s way too much elitism going on around the game, remember when we didn’t have free spec changes wherever we are, or when we didn’t even have dual spec? Was that a problem then? did people go to cities/class trainers and respec between bosses? Maybe in top 10 progress guilds, but otherwise no.

Stop making a problem out of everything because of min/max culture, it’s killing the creativity and freedom of the game!

[Luxeley]

In theory Covenants are a very good idea. The problem is - as it always is with Blizzard - it's how the covenants are being implemented and their lack of flexibility that is the problem. Good ideas implements in a terrible way is an on-going trend we've been seeing from Blizzard since WOD. Garrisons, Artifact Power, Pvp Templates, Azerite Gear. Warmode, Warfronts, Essences and now Covenants. the fact Blizzard consistently fails to learn this lesson suggests they know better and simply don't care, their priorities are most definitely in synch with the players' priorities.

[Heartbreaker23]

As has been popularly quoted the past couple weeks- "players (if given the chance) willmin/max all ‘fun’ out of a game."

There is no fun in not being as strong as you potentially could be. It's an RPG. Character power is the one driving motivation. It shouldn't be tied to cosmetics and story.

It's not the player's fault. Blizzard are game developers, they should know these things. Blaming the players is an old meme nobody falls for at this point.

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it makes avsolutely no F’n difference on the outcome of your raids.

If it made no difference, that would mean all the abilities do exactly the same thing. Which they won't because it's impossible.

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remember when we didn’t have free spec changes wherever we are, or when we didn’t even have dual spec? Was that a problem then? did people go to cities/class trainers and respec between bosses? Maybe in top 10 progress guilds, but otherwise no.

I remember dungeon runs when people would fly back to the city and respec to tank or heal because that's what we needed. Sometimes people would offer "if you pay my respec costs, I'll hearth back to my city, respec, and then you can port me back". That was absolutely a thing.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

There is no fun in not being as strong as you potentially could be. It's an RPG. Character power is the one driving motivation. It shouldn't be tied to cosmetics and story.

It's not the player's fault. Blizzard are game developers, they should know these things. Blaming the players is an old meme nobody falls for at this point.

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If it made no difference, that would mean all the abilities do exactly the same thing. Which they won't because it's impossible.

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I remember dungeon runs when people would fly back to the city and respec to tank or heal because that's what we needed. Sometimes people would offer "if you pay my respec costs, I'll hearth back to my city, respec, and then you can port me back". That was absolutely a thing.

There's no fun in not being as strong as you can be? So why don't everyone end up playing the same class/spec? Because they have different strengths and niches, just as Covenants will. Some content/bosses Venthir will be slightly better and other content/bosses Kyrian will be slightly better, just as Fire Mage is slightly better in some content/bosses and Fury Warrior is better at something else. Not being allowed to suddenly change your geared level 60 (in Shadowlands) mage to a geared lvl 60 Warrior isn't possible (without having leveled and geared one up), why isn't this a "problem"? ...because players knowingly have to make a choice and changing your mind comes at a cost. Some people do infact level and gear up a handfull of classes, that's their choice. Just as it's a player choice which covenant to go for and change it if wanted, doesn't mean it's bad... if anything it's good because it means those who min/max to that degree gets even more of a reward for doing it.

What actually should happen with min/maxing is that classes get talent(s) that requires awareness, planning and other 'skill' words. These talents should be so hard that 90% of the playerbase can't use it properly, only around 9% can use it somewhat good and only 1% can use it perfectly. The payoff of (in throughput) should be significantly larger than the passive or "easy" talent choices.
Take the first tier of talents for Retribution Paladins:
Zeal - Judgement increases your attackspeed by 30% for the next 3 swings, all you need to do to use this optimally is pressing Judgement on CD without overcapping Holy Power. [easy and should be the middle performer]
Righteous Verdict - Templars Verdict buffs the damage of your next Templars Verdict cast within the next 6 seconds, requires nothing to min/max. [literally braindead and should be the worst performer]
Execution Sentence - Holy Power spender (3) which increases holy damage the target takes (20%) for the next 12 seconds. To min/max you should build to 5 holy power before starting the window and have holy power builders ready immidiately after pressing Execution sentence, on a 30 second CD this window happens relatively often so you need to plan and be ready for it every time it's available. [hardest ability, or most involved, to min/max and should be better performing than the other two]
However if you look at the last talent tier for Retribution Paladins (lvl 50 tier) you'll see a problem, they're all passive (more or less) and offer very little in terms of reactive or planning your gameplay. You chose between a 45 second buff you keep up all the time (braindead), increasing the duration of your dps CD (braindead) or making your dps CD slightly more involved in planning (slightly less braindead).
You could also look at the level 25 talent tier for Havoc Demon Hunters, it's pretty obvious which one of these should be the inferior choice for better players.

[goldlock]

There's no fun in not being as strong as you can be? So why don't everyone end up playing the same class/spec? Because they have different strengths and niches, just as Covenants will. Some content/bosses Venthir will be slightly better and other content/bosses Kyrian will be slightly better, just as Fire Mage is slightly better in some content/bosses and Fury Warrior is better at something else. Not being allowed to suddenly change your geared level 60 (in Shadowlands) mage to a geared lvl 60 Warrior isn't possible (without having leveled and geared one up), why isn't this a "problem"? ...because players knowingly have to make a choice and changing your mind comes at a cost. Some people do infact level and gear up a handfull of classes, that's their choice. Just as it's a player choice which covenant to go for and change it if wanted, doesn't mean it's bad... if anything it's good because it means those who min/max to that degree gets even more of a reward for doing it.

What actually should happen with min/maxing is that classes get talent(s) that requires awareness, planning and other 'skill' words. These talents should be so hard that 90% of the playerbase can't use it properly, only around 9% can use it somewhat good and only 1% can use it perfectly. The payoff of (in throughput) should be significantly larger than the passive or "easy" talent choices.
Take the first tier of talents for Retribution Paladins:
Zeal - Judgement increases your attackspeed by 30% for the next 3 swings, all you need to do to use this optimally is pressing Judgement on CD without overcapping Holy Power. [easy and should be the middle performer]
Righteous Verdict - Templars Verdict buffs the damage of your next Templars Verdict cast within the next 6 seconds, requires nothing to min/max. [literally braindead and should be the worst performer]
Execution Sentence - Holy Power spender (3) which increases holy damage the target takes (20%) for the next 12 seconds. To min/max you should build to 5 holy power before starting the window and have holy power builders ready immidiately after pressing Execution sentence, on a 30 second CD this window happens relatively often so you need to plan and be ready for it every time it's available. [hardest ability, or most involved, to min/max and should be better performing than the other two]
However if you look at the last talent tier for Retribution Paladins (lvl 50 tier) you'll see a problem, they're all passive (more or less) and offer very little in terms of reactive or planning your gameplay. You chose between a 45 second buff you keep up all the time (braindead), increasing the duration of your dps CD (braindead) or making your dps CD slightly more involved in planning (slightly less braindead).
You could also look at the level 25 talent tier for Havoc Demon Hunters, it's pretty obvious which one of these should be the inferior choice for better players.

This isn't how raiding works...

Single target dmg will always be king as its the universal best thing to have in any situation. Defensive abilities are only valued if they are so powerful as to let you ignore mechanics and necrolords shield isn't close enough to do that.

You can "break the mold" but your going to start off with less potential then anyone who doesn't.

[Drusin]

Covenants are great. Unswappable player power tied to them is rotten.
I hope they just make them talents that go away next expac.

This idea has been rolling around in my head for a while (lots of room up there ) about xpac specific talent trees. I think it could be cool but nothing should be tied to some sub faction element.

[Heartbreaker23]

There's no fun in not being as strong as you can be? So why don't everyone end up playing the same class/spec?

When one spec/class ends up being overpowered, actually many people do.

[Soon-TM]

Ofc, with azerite we don't trust them.

It's the biggest feature of the expansion, and it's the most disliked one

This. Blizzard has an odd tendency, as of late, to put all of their eggs in a single basket when it comes to new features, be it garrisons, legiondaries, azerite or covenants.

Given how two of those came to be complete flukes, with the third one being at least controversial (legiondary drops, you cross your fingers hoping for Fire bracers, only to get pre-buff Prydaz /golfclap), all this Covenants stuff doesn't bode too well. Unless you want to argue that this one time they will get it right from the beginning

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

When one spec/class ends up being overpowered, actually many people do.

...and if one of the Covenants turns out to be overpowered then it will be nerfed until it's "in line" with the other covenants.

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This isn't how raiding works...

Single target dmg will always be king as its the universal best thing to have in any situation. Defensive abilities are only valued if they are so powerful as to let you ignore mechanics and necrolords shield isn't close enough to do that.

You can "break the mold" but your going to start off with less potential then anyone who doesn't.

Then you make that choice, if your endgame or priority is to raid at the cutting edge then go for the best single target covenant. If your endgame priority is pvp... maybe go something else. If you don't really care and just want to see content or collect things then you pick what you think is coolest.
Like you said ST damage (or in some cases mobility) is king for raiding, so everyone who cares about raid min/max will want that in the majority of cases. So I really don't get why some people are upset that they can't freely change between X/Y/Z covenant when they're going to pick the 'ONE' covenant that is best in 9/10 cases.

[DemonDays]

Covenants are great. Unswappable player power tied to them is rotten.
I hope they just make them talents that go away next expac.

Covenants look like an amazing system - just like Class Halls were.

Tying player power to them is the moronic.


Ion and his team proving once again that they are a bunch of baboons.

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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.

Want to choose the ability that looks fun to play with? Too bad - it lies with the fairy faction. Do you want to run around in Fairy armour doing Fairy quests when your character is a Death Knight?

[goldlock]

...and if one of the Covenants turns out to be overpowered then it will be nerfed until it's "in line" with the other covenants.

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Then you make that choice, if your endgame or priority is to raid at the cutting edge then go for the best single target covenant. If your endgame priority is pvp... maybe go something else. If you don't really care and just want to see content or collect things then you pick what you think is coolest.
Like you said ST damage (or in some cases mobility) is king for raiding, so everyone who cares about raid min/max will want that in the majority of cases. So I really don't get why some people are upset that they can't freely change between X/Y/Z covenant when they're going to pick the 'ONE' covenant that is best in 9/10 cases.

The problem is you need to be certain covenants to succeed in certain areas at high end. Necrolords can ignore cc... I can't think of a way to counter that outside of extreme damage in arena. The bats are the best dps wise and offer enough bonus stats that I suspect most healers and tanks will get drawn into them.

I dislike this system because it effectively locks you into one of the three major game modes at high end.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

The problem is you need to be certain covenants to succeed in certain areas at high end. Necrolords can ignore cc... I can't think of a way to counter that outside of extreme damage in arena. The bats are the best dps wise and offer enough bonus stats that I suspect most healers and tanks will get drawn into them.

I dislike this system because it effectively locks you into one of the three major game modes at high end.

As long as the covenant effects end up at max 5% of your overall output (absolute max) but most of the time just be around 3% then it won't be a problem. I can understand the worry if covenants end up making or breaking peoples ability to parse well on bosses, but again that goes back to the fact that there's very little form of "skill ceiling" in the game apart from a few specs.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

As long as the covenant effects end up at max 5% of your overall output (absolute max) but most of the time just be around 3% then it won't be a problem. I can understand the worry if covenants end up making or breaking peoples ability to parse well on bosses, but again that goes back to the fact that there's very little form of "skill ceiling" in the game apart from a few specs.

Did you miss the whole "ignore CC" bit? If you're CC'd your damage output drops usually by roughly 70-100%, depending on how much of your damage is in your DoTs. A 100% increase in uptime for several seconds is significantly more than 5% increase in output, especially if you're layering it with your damage CDs. So basically if you're not Necrolord, you've got a decent chance of being completely non-viable in high end PvP.

That is one of those problems that people bring up where you can't just reduce it to simple numbers, same as the issue with the Venthyr's teleport. Stuff with that high of a utility can't be tuned as simply.

Try to remember that some people do both PvE and PvP content, and they'd like to be able to do it on the same character without getting kneecapped by their Covenant choice.

[goldlock]

As long as the covenant effects end up at max 5% of your overall output (absolute max) but most of the time just be around 3% then it won't be a problem. I can understand the worry if covenants end up making or breaking peoples ability to parse well on bosses, but again that goes back to the fact that there's very little form of "skill ceiling" in the game apart from a few specs.

No system blizzard has made has ever been that finally tuned. not sure why we are pretending this time is different because they made it harder to balance...

[Edward Wu]

Eh I think I hate Covenants just about as much as the Legion legendary system. It'll have a similar impact, or maybe it'll be worse.

[arkanon]

As long as the covenant effects end up at max 5% of your overall output (absolute max) but most of the time just be around 3% then it won't be a problem. I can understand the worry if covenants end up making or breaking peoples ability to parse well on bosses, but again that goes back to the fact that there's very little form of "skill ceiling" in the game apart from a few specs.

Watch some streams - i know its "early days" but this stuff is often the number one damage contributor on some fights. I havnt seen a lot of 5minute+ raid boss fights, so it might change there, but when you combine the systems together, it looks like corruption 2.0, or, more accurately, the same thing we all delt with in legion and BfA.

They have time to balance that obviously, but this late in the picture it seems obvious to me they intend these to be a major factor in your damage output, and that varies a lot from class to class, and cov to cov.

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Eh I think I hate Covenants just about as much as the Legion legendary system. It'll have a similar impact, or maybe it'll be worse.

This is what im seeing from the streamers - very large components of their damage being dealt by these abilities and systems.

[Engal]

...and if one of the Covenants turns out to be overpowered then it will be nerfed until it's "in line" with the other covenants.

If you do this for something that is presented as " very difficult to change and to come back too " you'll have riot. Another convenant will be BIS somehow and people will feel forced to switch to it and the can of worms would be opened.