Constantly switching spec/talents/trinkets is not fun?

[Popokolara]

well, if we ignore vast majority of players who dont raid mythic at all, and check raid logs for mythic nyalotha only, less than 40% guilds is on 10 or more, so actualy, we are above average, not "pretty bad"... ( https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/ra...ss&partition=3 )

but as i said to someone else saying its "bad" - who gives a fuck?
we have progres, we have fun, and we have good enough life so we dont need to measure our ego by what we killed in video game...

less then 40% of the global raiding population.
that is your metric?
noone is saying you dont have fun. some people are saying you mentioned something along the lines: not bad we are number 5000 but there are 9999 guilds so pretty decent and you shouldnt say that as a point. Understand a criticism that is not judging you preference, only the idea of building on the performance of something it cannot really support.

[klaps_05]

The right corruptions for every situation. The right essenses for every situation.

How is that fun?

Fun is subjective. No one said you should play THIS way or THAT way, all people want is CHOICE to play the way they like. Everyone should have the option to play the way they like.

[Echocho]

It's a moving target that is hard to define... you can't make it too hard to easy to switch between things or it feels meaningless... but if you make it too hard, it feels unnecessarily punishing. Where is the middleground? Again, not easy to define.

They could just make switching extremely easy but with like a two week cooldown or something. That feels like a good compromise. The players that are asking for meaningful choices get a small temporary singular system that they can enjoy and the minmaxers get to keep all their current minmaxing tools and if they absolutely feel like they have to switch they can do it easily.

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well, if we ignore vast majority of players who dont raid mythic at all, and check raid logs for mythic nyalotha only, less than 40% guilds is on 10 or more, so actualy, we are above average, not "pretty bad"... ( https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/ra...ss&partition=3 )

but as i said to someone else saying its "bad" - who gives a fuck?
we have progres, we have fun, and we have good enough life so we dont need to measure our ego by what we killed in video game...

That's assuming that everyone log their raids which they don't. When you're logging your raiders performance you've already indicated that you're pretty hardcore.

[Elias01]

Fun is subjective. No one said you should play THIS way or THAT way, all people want is CHOICE to play the way they like. Everyone should have the option to play the way they like.

What he described isnt choice. Its you following meta or with free swap respecing into meta and play meta. Thats not your choice. You can also use ground mounts guess what. Nobady who have acess to flying is using ground mounts. Is it their choseen option? Or they simply used what is most efficient way to travel? Exactly its not choice at all.

[Fitsu]

"Until we hit today, where mythic raiders gear out 5-6 characters just to make sure they can play the flavor of the month spec for every boss. Where people can't seem to enjoy playing a main and needs to "main 4 different characters". How about designing the game to make playing 1 character what's fun?"

This statement seems to contradict everything else your complaining about, on one side your complaining that people have to much freedom on 1 single character (gear working for all 3 specs, easily swapping spec etc) and yet in this in this your complaint is that people need to gear out 5-6 characters so they can meet fotm requirements. Surely by removing all the things you claim to not like people will only be forced to have even more characters to suit fotm requirements? This is why people are so mad about covenants because being locked into a certain choice effectively forces those who enjoy to play optimized to simply have multiple characters of the same class.

I am at a bit of a loss as to what is it you actually want? You want people to be locked into choices they make on there character but you don't want people to feel forced to make multiple characters as you want them to be able to just "enjoy there one character". You don't like that 1 gear set works for multiple specs but you also say a big issue with azerite gear is needing to have multiple pieces to swap around (Which is exactly what people used to have to do but with entire gear sets).

So which is it do you want people to have to lug around gear sets for each spec or do you want people to have 1 set fit all? Do you want people to just need 1 character that does everything they need or do you want people to feel forced to have multiple characters to fit the fotm requirements? To me it seems like your just looking back to at the fun you used to have with the game and your not having that anymore but rather than accept maybe you've just grown out of it your randomly picking at parts of the what has changed in the game and blaming them.

[Lolites]

They could just make switching extremely easy but with like a two week cooldown or something. That feels like a good compromise. The players that are asking for meaningful choices get a small temporary singular system that they can enjoy and the minmaxers get to keep all their current minmaxing tools and if they absolutely feel like they have to switch they can do it easily.

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That's assuming that everyone log their raids which they don't. When you're logging your raiders performance you've already indicated that you're pretty hardcore.

didnt want to go that far, that seemed far too complicated for someone who thinks either you are on method level or you are bad

[ID811717]

snip

Over the past years there were periods when I played this game 12h/day. Being able to switch gear in the middle of M+ runs in Legion was amazing, I had 20 gear sets and was doing it many times per dungeon. In BfA, I was still spending 5 min before every run to think whether I need to switch my talents/gear/azerite/essence choices. I did theorycrafting. Being open minded lead me to inventing different meta choices way ahead of them going mainstream (such as versatility stacking), even though it was not always needed for the content I was doing. It was super fun, and added tons of depth to the game.

Over the past years there were periods when I played this game at best 1h/week. Being able to log in and run a plug'n'play setup for a small slice of content with friends was a true blessing. Last thing I wanted to do was to spend 1h of my play time to fiddle with some pointless min-max decisions.

If you currently exist in the "cannot be arsed to min-max" reality, why take away that option from people who do play the game 12h/day right now? No one can possibly force you to make min-max decisions when you are playing more casually.

[Lolites]

If you currently exist in the "cannot be arsed to min-max" reality, why take away that option from people who do play the game 12h/day right now? No one can possibly force you to make min-max decisions when you are playing more casually.

nobody is taking minmaxing away... everything you are able to minmax now you will be able to minmax in shadowlands PLUS soulbinds and conduits on top of that...
only thing you will not be able to minmax is single covenant ability...
so no, but "screw anybody else as long as i can minmax 100things instead of 99" is rly not good attitude...

and no, nobody can "force" you, but you can surely be benched if you are unwiling to change, so you might not get to see content bcs someone else needs to minmax 100 things instead of 99...

[goldlock]

"Until we hit today, where mythic raiders gear out 5-6 characters just to make sure they can play the flavor of the month spec for every boss. Where people can't seem to enjoy playing a main and needs to "main 4 different characters". How about designing the game to make playing 1 character what's fun?"

This statement seems to contradict everything else your complaining about, on one side your complaining that people have to much freedom on 1 single character (gear working for all 3 specs, easily swapping spec etc) and yet in this in this your complaint is that people need to gear out 5-6 characters so they can meet fotm requirements. Surely by removing all the things you claim to not like people will only be forced to have even more characters to suit fotm requirements? This is why people are so mad about covenants because being locked into a certain choice effectively forces those who enjoy to play optimized to simply have multiple characters of the same class.

I am at a bit of a loss as to what is it you actually want? You want people to be locked into choices they make on there character but you don't want people to feel forced to make multiple characters as you want them to be able to just "enjoy there one character". You don't like that 1 gear set works for multiple specs but you also say a big issue with azerite gear is needing to have multiple pieces to swap around (Which is exactly what people used to have to do but with entire gear sets).

So which is it do you want people to have to lug around gear sets for each spec or do you want people to have 1 set fit all? Do you want people to just need 1 character that does everything they need or do you want people to feel forced to have multiple characters to fit the fotm requirements? To me it seems like your just looking back to at the fun you used to have with the game and your not having that anymore but rather than accept maybe you've just grown out of it your randomly picking at parts of the what has changed in the game and blaming them.

Most of them desire the impossible dream of being tolerated for being LOLRNG in a game that thrives in strategic setups .

Another large part of this is simply the desire to inflict any level of harm possible on players better then them. Nothing makes these people as mad as reminding them a lot of players full clear mythic playing six hours a week when their sixty hours of week only nets them a lfr clear.

In order to cope with their own short comings they create the story in their head that anyone more successful then them must of played far longer then them when the reverse tends to be true. What you are seeing is envious rage and spiteful glee towards those who push progression in the game.

[ihate2beapessimist]

Switching stuff around actually is fun.
I change hairstyles, transmog, spec on a near daily basis.
I would get into the gear swapping thing but I dont really have much to choose from yet.
More ability to change shit the better.

[ID811717]

nobody is taking minmaxing away... everything you are able to minmax now you will be able to minmax in shadowlands PLUS soulbinds and conduits on top of that...
only thing you will not be able to minmax is single covenant ability...
so no, but "screw anybody else as long as i can minmax 100things instead of 99" is rly not good attitude...

What do you mean? I'm not sure your response is addressed to me. I was responding to OP who complained about having to switch spec/talent/trinket setups all the time, and that it's a necessary chore. I'm saying that it's super fun, but not necessary (or even relevant) for everyone.

I could not care less about Blizzard's covenant design right now. I have no commitments to a world top 1-30 guild (or whatever sub-100 rank guilds it might affect). And I'm not a streamer who has to play WoW for a living... So I can afford to wait the final product, the Shadowlands expansion, before I form any opinions about expansion design and its implications for me. Worst case scenario: Blizzard produce a bad product and lose me as a customer. I'm sure I'll survive if that happens.

and no, nobody can "force" you, but you can surely be benched if you are unwiling to change, so you might not get to see content bcs someone else needs to minmax 100 things instead of 99...

If you are getting benched for not pulling your weight (in terms of being able to min-max) then there's certainly a mismatch between you and the guild of your choosing.

[WhirlwindTV]

The whole reason Classic WoW has increasingly more expensive respeccing costs is to explicitally discourage this. You are a PvE resto shaman, that's what you are. You don't shine in BGs, you don't shine in duels, you don't shine in solo world PvP. And people used to be OK with this. Yes I know people are so good at making gold now, that this respec barrier is nothing and people respec all the time anyway, but I personally think that is not fun. It's not interesting.

....

Blizzard try to bring a tiny bring-back of this kind of choice in Shadowlands Covenants. What do we see? People complaining like never before.

At what point do you realise you changing your talents and trinkets to the spreadsheet-perfect ones on every boss, and you see that other Ele shaman do the exact same thing, that you are just doing chores?

Except that is the thing. People were NOT ok with it. They just had no choice. You even acknowledge that gold farming in classic isn't a problem anymore and so people respec all the time. LIKE THEY WANT TO. You know what isn't fun? Being unable to play other parts of the game because the design makes it so that you have to farm for hours just to be even remotely viable for it. Enhancement Shaman was just flat out not good for raiding. I raided. Thus I was a resto shaman. I wanted to be Enhancement but you couldn't without gear, and that gear came from raiding. I was a college student at the time, I had classes, homework, commute, and scheduled raid. There was no way I could remotely consider farming for 2 hours just to play PvP as Enhancement for an hour and a half.

You talk about extremes. Yes, raids CAN want you to do other specs. Individuals CAN change talents on a boss by boss matter. But that doesn't mean you have to. The only place that matters is the extreme high end, and that high end isn't going to take a shitty spec no matter what talents. World first guilds didn't bring an Enhancement Shaman. They brought 400 Shadow Priests. Play what you like and find a level of guild that accepts you for the quality of player you are. If your existing guild is on your case for not changing your talents, just tell them that if the other people in your guild stopped failing at basic mechanics then you'd get the boss kills even if your character is doing 1.5% less damage than optimal.

Being locked into talents doesn't give you "choice" it restricts you to a generalized spec. It defines what is the overall best and every other choice becomes meaningless until a nerf from on high.

The reason why people are freaking about the Covenants is basically imagine the Classic respec cost wasn't just gold. It was a week of playtime you had to put back into farming for it. It isn't about wanting to be able to easily swap between things on a boss by boss fasion like talents and tomes, it is that they'll be locked into a choice that is only good for one aspect of the game despite the game having expanded to feature many things at once. That's the problem. They don't want to pick one thing, and then get screwed by a nerf or the fact that it is complete trash for any other aspect. Generalizing the best for the spec instead of picking the faction they think is the coolest. I personally saw the Necrolords in the Shadowlands reveal and thought to myself "yuck, what a gross looking faction. Why are there essentially undead in what is supposed to be an afterlife." And of course karma then dictated that it is looking pretty likely that the Necrolords have the only good ability set for my spec. Great, i'm gonna have to choose to do their storyline and get their ugly covenant armor set simply because they have the best active abilities.

So yeah, wanting the ability to change between abilities in a reasonable fashion isn't reserved to the spreadsheet users.

[WaltherLeopold]

You are, as respec is not a thing anymore.

None of this tell me that you're forced, you're opting into these systems.

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The reason why people are freaking about the Covenants is basically imagine the Classic respec cost wasn't just gold. It was a week of playtime you had to put back into farming for it. It isn't about wanting to be able to easily swap between things on a boss by boss fasion like talents and tomes, it is that they'll be locked into a choice that is only good for one aspect of the game despite the game having expanded to feature many things at once. That's the problem. They don't want to pick one thing, and then get screwed by a nerf or the fact that it is complete trash for any other aspect. Generalizing the best for the spec instead of picking the faction they think is the coolest. I personally saw the Necrolords in the Shadowlands reveal and thought to myself "yuck, what a gross looking faction. Why are there essentially undead in what is supposed to be an afterlife." And of course karma then dictated that it is looking pretty likely that the Necrolords have the only good ability set for my spec. Great, i'm gonna have to choose to do their storyline and get their ugly covenant armor set simply because they have the best active abilities.

So yeah, wanting the ability to change between abilities in a reasonable fashion isn't reserved to the spreadsheet users.

You guys are just dragging this out of thin air though, has blizzard explicitly said what downside there will be, except just using vague terms like "consequences"?

You have no idea what the consequence will be and how intensly you need to play in order to fast forward these "consequences"

[Krakan]

None of this tell me that you're forced, you're opting into these systems.

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You guys are just dragging this out of thin air though, has blizzard explicitly said what downside there will be, except just using vague terms like "consequences"?

You have no idea what the consequence will be and how intensly you need to play in order to fast forward these "consequences"

Beta has it being a two week grind and needing to level your new covenant from scratch it effectly puts you weeks behind in it's current iteration.

[Shizenjin]

Any encounter can be done with any set of talents on any set of characters, you do not have to swap around all of your stuff all the time. If you want to log better than others you might want to swap around, if you want to specialize for a fight to focus on burst aoe, sustain aoe, sustain single target, burst single target, you can swap around for that as well. There is literally no way to make this not doable, there is too much variance in world of warcraft for a system that limits customization on the fly without breaking a lot of systems that define the game as an MMORPG.
Youre free to think it sucks that you feel "forced" to swap around but ive played with so many people in so many guilds who play sub-optimally because they find it fun and its surprising how tolerant people can be if you communicate and have to skill to just be above average in this game.
If you constantly face issues related to not swapping talents its not a community problem, the problem is you.

[WaltherLeopold]

Beta has it being a two week grind and needing to level your new covenant from scratch it effectly puts you weeks behind in it's current iteration.

That's beta and even if this is the implementation version, how much real-time are you actually spending on this two week grind?

Having to level the new system is completely fair, it's nothing new and shouldn't change, even if you were allowed to swap between covenants at a whim.

[Echocho]

Except that is the thing. People were NOT ok with it. They just had no choice.

Just because people dislike something doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad game design. If you remove every inconvenience in a game you end up with a shallow, soulless and boring experience that nobody enjoy. WoW has moved a bit too much in that direction already over the years, humans need a little friction for to keep things interesting and the work we put in to feel fulfilling.

[Dellis0991]

None of that shit is fun, switching specs trinkets and gear at the drop of dime is fucking annoying. I play to have fun, and fun shouldn't be trying to stick with the new meta every fucking time/

[Shizenjin]

None of that shit is fun, switching specs trinkets and gear at the drop of dime is fucking annoying. I play to have fun, and fun shouldn't be trying to stick with the new meta every fucking time/

Competetive gaming isnt for you then, play casually with other casuals instead of trying to play with people who make an effort to perform as well as possible.

[Krakan]

That's beta and even if this is the implementation version, how much real-time are you actually spending on this two week grind?

Having to level the new system is completely fair, it's nothing new and shouldn't change, even if you were allowed to swap between covenants at a whim.

Honest the rl timer makes the in game rather a mute point. You lock yourself to raiding, mythic+ ,pvp or bench then play