"Does it matter to you casuals if we hardcores get fluid covenants?" Yes, here's why.

[Empyrean-Dawn]

"Optimal for my class" = "Optimal for my covenant" which you 100% can do. That is my point. You can souldbind and conduit your any character to be optimal for that covenant in that content. You have the agency to do that.

We are comparing classes and covenants, but you're desperately trying to get around the fact that they are the same by instead trying to compare covenants to secondary choices within a class as evidence that classes can be optimized but that you can't optimize a covenant choice.

You can be optimal for your class by picking the right secondary choices within that class to perform the best you can.
You can be optimal for your covenant by picking the right secondary choices within that covenant to perform the best you can.

You cannot make your class more optimal than a different class that is actually better at that activity.
You cannot make your covenant more optimal than a different covenant that is actually better at that activity.

As it stands it's "Optimal for my class", with Shadowlands it will be "Optimal for class and my convenant", not just the latter.
Classes and covenants are not the same, there can be two classes with differing covenants and one will start from a more optimal position in any given content than another. Does it mean they will end up in the same place as they start? Maybe not, but to equate the two as the same thing isn't true. Even to the point that you can change your covenant (with limitations, penalties and hamstrings) but I can't change my class on a character.

The covenants are meant to be a rewarding, empowering choice, but to some (possibly the minority, but that doesn't negate their opinion) they actually feel like a hindrance in other forms of content they previously were able to optimise for.
Sure I can optimise my class in SL for Raiding with my covenant choice, maybe even make myself passable at M+ with a few conduit swaps and different soulbind, but I won't be as optimal as the SAME class with a different covenant.
I don't know if this has ever happened in the game before?

[facefist]

"Don't be new on other people's time" is a motto that has grown into WoW as time efficiency rears its ugly head as a key metric in using pick up groups to run PVE team content such as M+ and raids above LFR. The more gears and wheels that will freely rotate into a position that could be optimal or less optimal, the harder "being new" is, and in a situation where WoW does its best to protect us from the worst of each other in as much content as possible (which arguably won't and can't include premade team content, but they're allowed to try), the less approachable that later game content is. This is an important factor.

"But people can just look it up the right configuration," you might say. News flash: that's an answer ignorant to the fact that not everyone will do that, will want to do that, or will think that should be necessary in a game of this caliber. "Well then they aren't entitled to membership in my group and I am free to decline them," you might say... and you wouldn't be wrong, but rigid covenants are exactly the kind of front that WoW can potentially address, on their game's level, the whole "why am I being declined" issue.

I've said before that they will never fully address such a community issue as FOTM and meta, but this might be one of the ways they can actually do that: by cutting down on easily changeable variables and, in a world where the great vault is ticking and you have X number of M+ runs that your OCD is wrongly forcing you to do (another thing that isn't Blizzard's responsibility to work around), making it harder to actually form the perfect group might, in theory, have you take that less meta-class newer player of the "right" covenant into your group just to get it done and over with.

Your argument is at fault, because this actually makes it harder for the new players. This won't make meta builds go away, it will just change it so that you will have to play the meta from the beginning and there is less room for wrong choices. And because of that, making things harder to be swapped on flight doesn't actually make it easier for the new players: it will make it harder for them because there is less room for wrong choices.

If a seasoned player makes a non-optimal choice, he probably knows that it is not optimal and understands the consequences. If a new player makes a non-optimal choice, he probably doesn't know that he is making a non-optimal choice and might not understand the consequences.

TLDR; Less room for wrong choices is actually worse for the new players. Seasoned players who care about output will cope just fine, because they will not make the wrong choice. There will always be enough people with the meta-choice to build up a group for late game content, just like there is always enough people with FOTM classes to build a group if you so wish.

[Mayia]

eh, as a raider now casual the system and locked off changing is just bullshit there is no reason for it.. no reason you couldn't just swap into what spec/layout you wanted for the content/dungeon you wanted to run then everyone would have the same access to the same tools.
going with the special snowflake option only causes issues.

they could've made all the factions do very similar things do nobody would feel butthurt picking a theme over a power increase, as a rule don't lock power behind choices it feels really bad.

So if the system was fluid, it wouldn't matter perhaps you should be able to pick all the rewards so you can just mix and match.
We go to the place to help all these folks out, don't know why they're picky.. we aren't going to join their cult anyway.

[Doffen]

I was talking about the forums and this one in particular, not people in-game right now.

Yeah, I am also talking about this forums and other forums as well. The point is that people in game right now as I said are those who play this game the way it is presented to them. They don't come to forums because they are not unhappy, or they just don't care enough as they treat WoW as a game only. So many threads on mmo-champ alone about people complaining about Covenants, much more than the opposite.

[Isaelyn]

As someone who does all forms of content short of mythic raiding, I'm happy the system is setup the way it is. While I was really happy for the change at the time, I feel like ever since they added the ability to change specialization whenever you wanted that something that has been missing from the game is character identity. It's only in modern times I realized what we kind of lost by upgrading from dual specialization and I kind of wish we could go back to that.

For anyone that wasn't around back than, dual specialization would allow a character to have two talent setups, they could be from the same spec or different specs. So if you were a paladin for example that mained ret, you might have one ret spec that was geared towards single target damage, and one that was setup for more AoE, OR you might have a more general purpose ret spec that had a little bit of both so that your second spec could be a general use holy or prot for when you needed to play backup. You could still change these, but to do so you had to return to a major city with a class trainer and pay an increasing cost to do so.

It just seems to me that over the years the game has shifted from being more rpg focused where you craft a character identified by their specialization with different strengths and weaknesses, towards being more action focused where your character is a packet of numbers with a bunch of different tools for the job. I'm not saying there is necessarily anything *wrong* with the second approach, it absolutely makes the game play smoother and offers more flexibility, and quality of life but you definitely lose something in the process and it's nice to see the OTHER side of the equation catered to for the first time in a *very* long time.

In reality I think the covenant system in general would have been a lot less polarizing (and that alot of "dead" talents would probably see more use, but that is another discussion entirely.) if we had never upgraded from dual spec to what we have now. I can understand and sympathize with the notion of wanting to be optimal for any situation, and the ability to change your loadout and spec on the fly is very conducive to that and makes the game feel smoother but I'm just don't feel like it makes the game better in the same way that I used to.

The ability to change your mind and respec is important in an mmo, don't get me wrong. In a single player game, dragon age:inquisition for example once you pick a specialization you can't *ever* change it. If you don't like it you're rerolling or hoping you have a save from somewhere before you picked it. This gameplay would not work in a multiplayer game and even in the singleplayer game it's frustrating but I just think there is a limit to how far you can take the ability to change your decision before it becomes unhealthy for the game in the long term. This mentality of always having the right tool for the situation and pushing each spec further and further into a niche where that was all it could do well is the *exact* mentality that ruined the (in my opinion) amazing talent system rift had at it's launch.

[Sondrelk]

eh, as a raider now casual the system and locked off changing is just bullshit there is no reason for it.. no reason you couldn't just swap into what spec/layout you wanted for the content/dungeon you wanted to run then everyone would have the same access to the same tools.
going with the special snowflake option only causes issues.

they could've made all the factions do very similar things do nobody would feel butthurt picking a theme over a power increase, as a rule don't lock power behind choices it feels really bad.

So if the system was fluid, it wouldn't matter perhaps you should be able to pick all the rewards so you can just mix and match.
We go to the place to help all these folks out, don't know why they're picky.. we aren't going to join their cult anyway.

Blizzard has been shown that the playerbase isnt always going to be working in its own best interest. If you remove all barriers for entry and all power based choices then they will just move to where everyone is.
Classes can also not all play the same or the entire point of them is lost, so if you make it too easy to swap then everyone will just pick whatever is best.

Blizzard has wanted diversity for years, and so has the playerbase, but blizzard making swapping easy has only made things worse, so now they are trying the opposite approach by making swapping difficult to try and make players comfortable with not always having the optimal choice at hand. You can still chase the latest trends, but Blizzard is now rewarding those who are willing to take a hit to optimal performance. And who knows, maybe the playerbase will realize that only a very, very small percentage of the players are actually able to play to the highest level anyways.

[Gorsameth]

I swear, this neverending demand from the vocal part of the playerbase for perfect balance will be the downfall of this game. In the pursuit of "perfect" balance, Blizzard has stripped down this game at the point were every class feels the same soon enough.

There needs to be some middle ground to this never ending complaint about perfect balance. Last few years people have complained about classes being stripped down and plays more or less the same, and it feels dull. Well guess what, thats how perfect balance looks like. Every class can do everything, nothing separetes them except class name and spells.

At a point we gotta ask ourself if we want fun and engaging gameplay or a dull gameplay experience but everything is balanced.

Now im not saying the game shouldnt be balanced, ofc it should. But shouldnt we also consider the downside of this neverending chase for "perfect" balance?

Example: Back in vanilla and all the way up to relaunch of classic, people said certain specs couldnt be in a raid, like a ret paladin. Turns out, they can. Are they optimal? No. Can they do theyre job and can you still clearn content with them? Yes. Maybe not in mythic raiding, but come on - how many are really pushing the hardest content in the game?

No
One
Is
Asking
For
Perfect
Balance

[Woobels]

I swear, this neverending demand from the vocal part of the playerbase for perfect balance will be the downfall of this game. In the pursuit of "perfect" balance, Blizzard has stripped down this game at the point were every class feels the same soon enough.

There needs to be some middle ground to this never ending complaint about perfect balance. Last few years people have complained about classes being stripped down and plays more or less the same, and it feels dull. Well guess what, thats how perfect balance looks like. Every class can do everything, nothing separetes them except class name and spells.

At a point we gotta ask ourself if we want fun and engaging gameplay or a dull gameplay experience but everything is balanced.

Now im not saying the game shouldnt be balanced, ofc it should. But shouldnt we also consider the downside of this neverending chase for "perfect" balance?

Example: Back in vanilla and all the way up to relaunch of classic, people said certain specs couldnt be in a raid, like a ret paladin. Turns out, they can. Are they optimal? No. Can they do theyre job and can you still clearn content with them? Yes. Maybe not in mythic raiding, but come on - how many are really pushing the hardest content in the game?

I don't give a shit if the game is balanced or not, I just don't want to level 4 different mages if I want to comfortably mess with options in a video game.

[crusadernero]

No
One
Is
Asking
For
Perfect
Balance

Yes they are. Thats what this all comes down to. Pick wrong covenant and you wont get into dungeons, raids or pvp content(atleast thats what people on this forum says). Meaning, people should never take anything else than whatever is simmed and decided to be best by the community. It doesnt matter if you can clear content with whatever covenant choice, cause the community has decided whats good and whats bad. If people were more relaxed about this and realised most content can be cleared no matter what covenant you pick, it would solve alot.

Instead people demand to swap covenant choices all the time, like talents & specs. And come on, how many people swap around with talents constanly? You figure out whats best, and lol to the rest. We are left with no choice at all in the game cause we can swap to whatever we want whenever we want.

And to further add; This is about balance because people are afraid certain covenants will be better than others. Thats about balance. People dont trust Blizzard to fix this, and just want to pick what they want(the optimal one told on icyveins or whatever).

Cause lets realise it, if people were to pick whatever they wanted, the "choice" would be diminished into nothing.

And atleast now Blizzard actually gotta fix, tune and balance the covenants. If we could swap freely, they would never bother cause we could just take whats best.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't give a shit if the game is balanced or not, I just don't want to level 4 different mages if I want to comfortably mess with options in a video game.

as you said yourself, its a video game. So you dont have to level 4 mages. Pick a covenant and live with it, you can and will clear most content with whatever choice.

[Woobels]

Yes they are. Thats what this all comes down to. Pick wrong covenant and you wont get into dungeons, raids or pvp content(atleast thats what people on this forum says). Meaning, people should never take anything else than whatever is simmed and decided to be best by the community. It doesnt matter if you can clear content with whatever covenant choice, cause the community has decided whats good and whats bad. If people were more relaxed about this and realised most content can be cleared no matter what covenant you pick, it would solve alot.

Instead people demand to swap covenant choices all the time, like talents & specs. And come on, how many people swap around with talents constanly? You figure out whats best, and lol to the rest. We are left with no choice at all in the game cause we can swap to whatever we want whenever we want.

And to further add; This is about balance because people are afraid certain covenants will be better than others. Thats about balance. People dont trust Blizzard to fix this, and just want to pick what they want(the optimal one told on icyveins or whatever).

Cause lets realise it, if people were to pick whatever they wanted, the "choice" would be diminished into nothing.

And atleast now Blizzard actually gotta fix, tune and balance the covenants. If we could swap freely, they would never bother cause we could just take whats best.

- - - Updated - - -



as you said yourself, its a video game. So you dont have to level 4 mages. Pick a covenant and live with it, you can and will clear most content with whatever choice.

No, it's a video game and I mostly play those to have fun, not to stress out over "meaningful choices" that actually aren't meaningful at all. I like experimenting and messing around with stuff, one day I might want to play frost with y covenant and the other day I might want to play fire with x covenant, it's the exact opposite of some min/max meta mindset. The current system doesn't allow for that (unless you level multiple characters, which frankly is a genuine solution but not one I think is fair), you pick your covenant and that's it. No experimentation allowed unless you want to wait a ridiculous amount of time.

[Araxie]

Does it matter to you hardcore players - if we allow my mage to tank and heal as well as a DH and/or Priest ?

Any justification of homogenisation of covenants works equally well for justification of homogenisation of classes.

So the answer is yes - homogenisation affects everyone.

Given there is no valid reason to swap your character class between pulls, there is also no valid reason to swap covenants between pulls.

Couldn't agree more. People want to swap covenants so they can be the best in every situation, when in reality, that's not already possible. Some classes are better in different situations already, and I could never condone the hot-swapping of classes, therefore, I take the same stance on covenants.

This is almost like "spotlight" play. People's idea of "I want to be the best in every situation!" but forget we're playing a multiplayer game. Let other people shine in other situation. You made the choice to be X class with Y spec, and that makes you somewhat better in some situations. You're not only valuable in that situation, but you shine a little more there. Why can't players just come to terms with not being the best at everything, and bring players into the group that could help push them through their weaknesses?

[Katchii]

No
One
Is
Asking
For
Perfect
Balance

They (meaning the folks asking for being able to switch whenever they want to, or without much problem) pretty much are, given their argument is that if the Covenant abilities can't be perfectly balanced we should be able to switch "on the fly."

They're basically arguing for one or the other but basically with the assumption that "perfect" balance is pretty much unattainable so they're defaulting to the switching on the fly thing.

Because, unless it's "perfectly" balanced...it's unbalanced and that means there's an optimal choice and they want to be able to always be using the optimal choice for any given situation.

[prwraith]

I love blizzards response...we're going to try and balance them.


Yea and fuck all good you are at that

- - - Updated - - -

They (meaning the folks asking for being able to switch whenever they want to, or without much problem) pretty much are, given their argument is that if the Covenant abilities can't be perfectly balanced we should be able to switch "on the fly."

They're basically arguing for one or the other but basically with the assumption that "perfect" balance is pretty much unattainable so they're defaulting to the switching on the fly thing.

Because, unless it's "perfectly" balanced...it's unbalanced and that means there's an optimal choice and they want to be able to always be using the optimal choice for any given situation.

Can you blame us? Blizzard has developed a game where being optimal is de facto required.

[Tortuga234]

Couldn't agree more. People want to swap covenants so they can be the best in every situation, when in reality, that's not already possible. Some classes are better in different situations already, and I could never condone the hot-swapping of classes, therefore, I take the same stance on covenants.

This is almost like "spotlight" play. People's idea of "I want to be the best in every situation!" but forget we're playing a multiplayer game. Let other people shine in other situation. You made the choice to be X class with Y spec, and that makes you somewhat better in some situations. You're not only valuable in that situation, but you shine a little more there. Why can't players just come to terms with not being the best at everything, and bring players into the group that could help push them through their weaknesses?

Why would someone who wants A \ B \ C done bother dragging someone weak through it when there's an option to take someone strong and increase your chances of doing said A \ B \ C?

It's good that X class with Y specc shines at A, I'll bring them to A. But why would I bring them to B when that clearly diminishes my chances at achieving success in B if they suck at it? We had a good time at A, all that, now make way for something that is good at B and so on.

Point is - you don't use an old rusty car that breaks every 10 min, or is not powerful enough to climb a slope if you 100% can afford a better more powerful car.

That's why people want to be good at everything. They want to experience everything the game has to offer e.g. they JUST WANT TO PLAY THE GAME and not be excluded from content for no fault of their own and purely due to Blizzard's inability to balance classes\speccs\systems and so on.

[Araxie]

Why would someone who wants A \ B \ C done bother dragging someone weak through it when there's an option to take someone strong and increase your chances of doing said A \ B \ C?

It's good that X class with Y specc shines at A, I'll bring them to A. But why would I bring them to B when that clearly diminishes my chances at achieving success in B if they suck at it? We had a good time at A, all that, now make way for something that is good at B and so on.

Point is - you don't use an old rusty car that breaks every 10 min, or is not powerful enough to climb a slope if you can afford a better more powerful car.

That's where the argument is flying off the handle. What I said was, your class won't be useless in that situation, they just might shine better in others. Just because a Resto shaman is better at AoE healing than Holy Paladin, doesn't mean the Holy Paladin is bad or can't AoE heal. They're just not as good in certain areas of healing. You're looking at the situation like "If they're not the absolute best, then they're worthless." Which is not the case AT ALL. If that were indeed what was happening, everyone would play the EXACT SAME THING. The same class, the same spec, the same everything. That's not the case at all. Certain classes and specs do better in certain areas of play than others, they have Strengths and Weaknesses and that is NOT a bad thing.

[Tortuga234]

That's where the argument is flying off the handle. What I said was, your class won't be useless in that situation, they just might shine better in others. Just because a Resto shaman is better at AoE healing than Holy Paladin, doesn't mean the Holy Paladin is bad or can't AoE heal. They're just not as good in certain areas of healing. You're looking at the situation like "If they're not the absolute best, then they're worthless." Which is not the case AT ALL. If that were indeed what was happening, everyone would play the EXACT SAME THING. The same class, the same spec, the same everything. That's not the case at all. Certain classes and specs do better in certain areas of play than others, they have Strengths and Weaknesses and that is NOT a bad thing.

I'm not saying they're worthless. I'm saying that in your example if a Shaman is stronger in AoE healing than a Paladin then bringing a Shaman to AoE healing intensive fight over a Paladin increases the chances of succeeding, meaning there's no reason to bring a Paladin to that fight. Doing so would be self impeding, people are not masochists.
I do not think it's a GOOD thing that classes have glaring weaknesses when it means that people playing those classes are locked out of content.
Try playing Enhancement for your main, and enjoy your "apply to groups queue never to be invited" simulation in your playtime sessions.

[Katchii]

Can you blame us? Blizzard has developed a game where being optimal is de facto required.

No, it absolutely is not required, not to play the game and clear the content. Unless you're part of the bleeding edge progression groups, that is the ONLY exception, but that's such a small fraction of the player population, for such a small period of time and should be treated as a statistical outlier (ie ignored by most metrics), because the vast majority of players simply cannot perform at that level.

The GAME doesn't demand it from you, I admit that it's other players that do, though. But that's only a problem if you play with those players, and you certainly don't have to do that.

[prwraith]

No, it absolutely is not required, not to play the game and clear the content. Unless you're part of the bleeding edge progression groups, that is the ONLY exception, but that's such a small fraction of the player population, for such a small period of time and should be treated as a statistical outlier (ie ignored by most metrics), because the vast majority of players simply cannot perform at that level.

The GAME doesn't demand it from you, I admit that it's other players that do, though. But that's only a problem if you play with those players, and you certainly don't have to do that.

Honestly this mentality, and I honestly do not mean to offend, shows little to no understanding of how this game works.

100% when players find out what is ideal for XYZ that will become all that is acceptable. Try to get into a high key as let's say a kyrian paladin? Why on earth would we take you over a venthyr paladin get good. Trying to get into raid teams with the wrong covenant people will absolutely decline you based on your covenant.

No it's not ideal. It's not good. But that's the game the players have built and that's exactly what's going to happen. You already have people requiring AOTC for normal runs (why anyone wouldn't have aotc is beyond me), 2000 IO for a +10. This game has been built on and encourages elitism. Throwing a wrench into it this late in the game is just going to piss everyone off.

[Tyris Flare]

The only thing I want to come out of this covenant nonsense is just the recognition that you don't have to be in Limit or a 6k io team to care about performance.

[prwraith]

The only thing I want to come out of this covenant nonsense is just the recognition that you don't have to be in Limit or a 6k io team to care about performance.

Apparently you do...as posters in this thread repeatedly say you don't need to be optimal if you're not a top 100 raider :/

Which is so disappointing to hear.