Constantly switching spec/talents/trinkets is not fun?

[Popokolara]

... can't you just leave it be?

If I go to the extreme:
Your fun relies on me not having fun with WoW-RPG mechanics, that's an issue that needs to be resolved too. That's the point that has been repeated over and over.
I can not have my fun with switcharoo Covenants.

Why do you still not understand? Even though multiple people have explained why they won't have fun with switcheroo Covenants



Did I say you did? Where.Can you please not make stuff up? I've noticed this for quite a while now. You keep saying I'm saying things you didn't say ... or even before, what other said. But that has never actually been the case. I'm not putting things out of context either, if they are connected to each other, I quote and adress the whole thing.
If I did I'm sorry - but, yeah... where?


"And how the heck is it "foolish" to support something I consider to be fun. If it's fine to enjoy it, it should be fine to support it. Lol."


That part? How about using the context. You said it's okay to like the system (which is me having fun with it) but it's foolish to support it.
I'm saying it's not foolish to support something I consider fun. It's what I *should* do. It would be foolish to not do that because how can I enjoy these systems if there is no support for it.

where you say: I'm not a snowflake because I prefer different things than you. I didnt say u are a snowflake because of that, but because of the dire need to feel something for yourself based on what others are doing.
yes?

Its foolish to not understand the implication beyond: me like me want have.

[KrayZ33]

where you say: I'm not a snowflake because I prefer different things than you. I didnt say u are a snowflake because of that, but because of the dire need to feel something for yourself based on what others are doing.
yes?

Its foolish to not understand the implication beyond: me like me want have.

And that is somehow something I said? Or just the thing you interpret me saying because you fail to understand what's going on?
And why do you quote a completely post then and didn't adress this when you first answered it?


A snowflake is someone who is unable to deal with opposing opinions. I can deal with your opinion just fine.
As I said, it doesn't mean I'm a snowflake because I prefer different things. I'm also not "offended" or "entitled" to anything.

I'm here saying I prefer X because I think it's better. Not "ANYTHING ELSE IS UNACCEPTABLE"
Opinions happen to clash, what's the deal? You can't have everything you want, I can't have everything I want. I would love X to happen, you think X will make your game worse. I accept that. But X not happening makes my game worse.

That's a normal conflict to have that doesn't require derogatory slang terms. It's a direct attack to a person and not the matter at hand.

I used the term because your motivation is not just overcoming a challenge but entering a very specific scenario that is not about the challenge at ALL , but rather a specific way to deal with a situation

So? And how is it not about overcoming the challenge? Have you never done anything in your life that requires teamwork, or done something with sub-optimal conditions? What is different from using the correct Covenant at the correct time when it comes to overcome the challenge?
I'm enjoying the aspect of it to think about stuff I have and how to deal with the situation. You enjoy the aspect of dealing with the situation by choosing the right tools beforehand.
But it isn't about that, is it? It's about how you think my gameplay experience doesn't change because other players do X while I do Y, right?
Well, again - it does change. (Want me to quote everything again, which I already did in part a page ago? Well, you better take a look yourself if you are interested.)

to simulate a specific feeling you enjoy, and you feel its fine for this to affect actual gameplay on the hard difficulty, whilst the opposite would not effect you.

Yes, that's what features are supposed to do, arn't they - and yes, it does affect gameplay, or otherwise it would be pointless to include this, and why wouldn't it affect gameplay on the hard difficulty, what's the problem? All the changes ever made so far affect gameplay on the hardest difficulty. Every balance change, every gear mechanic, every progression ability.

Its entitlement. And trying to create a noble feeling in an insecure twisted way.

It's not entitlement. I'm not entitled to anything, I'm giving my opinion here saying that you are just doomsaying non-sense in an attempt to devalue my/the opinion of others. It's not "insecure" or "twisted" either. It's a commonly accepted way of doing things in RPGs which I support.
You are reading one thing after the other into it when these things have ever been stated, nor implied.

I'm not "fighting" for the bads (or the goods), I will play and raid exclusively with my friends anyway. I joined a guild that has people with a similar mindset and that's it. Or what do you mean by noble?
Wholesome maybe? Yeah, that's more likely. What can I say. I enjoy playing Pen&Paper - RPGs - I think the gameplay features in these things are what makes a great game. I could care less about playing the optimal character. I'm not going to create my character depending on what's optimal, I'm creating it depending on what I like and think is "cool".

And just like in Pen&Paper, if you play with people that play an "optimal build", if you don't play it yourself, your fun is sure as hell going to be affected by that. Because the only "GM" WoW has is the mechanics, tools and possibilites available to you.
And this time around, the WoW-GM decided to implement a tool that caters to people who prefer optimization less, and RPG more.

Since you stated that you play DnD I believe, you should know and understand this too.

[Popokolara]

And that is somehow something I said? Or just the thing you interpret me saying because you fail to understand what's going on?
And why do you quote a completely post then and didn't adress this when you first answered it?

A snowflake is someone who is unable to deal with opposing opinions. I can deal with your opinion just fine.
As I said, it doesn't mean I'm a snowflake because I prefer different things. I'm also not "offended" or "entitled" to anything.

I'm here saying I prefer X because I think it's better. Not "ANYTHING ELSE IS UNACCEPTABLE"
Opinions happen to clash, what's the deal? You can't have everything you want, I can't have everything I want. I would love X to happen, you think X will make your game worse. I accept that. But X not happening makes my game worse.

That's a normal conflict to have that doesn't require derogatory slang terms. It's a direct attack to a person and not the matter at hand.





So? And how is it not about overcoming the challenge? What is different from using the correct Covenant at the correct time to overcome the challenge?



Yes, that's what features are supposed to do, arn't they - and yes, it does affect gameplay, or otherwise it would be pointless to include this, and why wouldn't it affect gameplay on the hard difficulty, what's the problem? All the changes ever made so far affect gameplay on the hardest difficulty. Every balance change, every gear mechanic, every progression ability.



It's not entitlement. I'm not entitled to anything, I'm giving my opinion here saying that you are just doomsaying non-sense in an attempt to devalue my/the opinion of others. It's not "insecure" or "twisted" either. It's a commonly accepted way of doing things in RPGs.

You are supporting a design that overules and enforces specific rules on other players and would not agree to covenants being free to swap correct?
This design ENFORCEs a certain type of situation on other people.

The difference is your focus is using non standard/meta tools not trying to be the best you can. Its 2 very different approachers to the game. One of the two actually tackles content a lot more competitively. So they ARE different. But thats obvious no?

I think we should not make a choice that hinders gameplay in mythic, while the alternative is leaving you open to do what you want. What it does against you is a lot les s people might be acomodating of your non standard methods.

In rpg yes. In mmo rpgs most often means u didnt get selected. And placing so much focus on what others do and how they do and you draw ur own fun and value from how u are different than the trend-that can be a sign of something bad. But i already explained it.

[ping-pong]

I don't understand how anyone think it's fun to bring a stack of switch-any-talent-for-1min in their bag and between every single boss fight, they switch to the optimal talents for that boss. I have even seen people switch for trash mobs then back to boss talents. How is choosing a talent a choice, if you change them around every fight?

Same goes for Arenas. You see you meet a certain 3s matchup? Switch up those talents before the match starts. Always the perfect talents.

Always the perfect trinkets.

In BfA it's even worse with the azerite traits resepcing people do. Some are good at AoE, some are good at single target, some are good for PvP... And you keep them all switching all the time by respecing in the city, or, even worse, have bags full of them. Playing a Shaman, raid leaders demand I switch from Ele to Resto for certain bosses. Yes I want to be helpful but I chose Ele, not Resto. Noone asked me to switch from Resto to Ele on a certain boss in TBC. It was way too big of a hassle, and the gear would not fit at all either. And that was a good thing.

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

How is that fun?

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.

Even in WotLK with the dual spec introduction. People wanted to finally have 1 Resto spec and 1 maybe PvP Ele spec. But already back in WotLK, guilds wanted 2 differently focused PvE specs in both those spots.

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?

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?

Yes, some of us like to min-max and research everything. You don't have to. Groups that require you to are not the groups you'd enjoy anyway.

[Aggrophobic]

No you're not, who is FORCING you to do this?

I'm confused. Was that a question or a statement?

In any case, you're wrong. Blizzard designs this nad it's beyond stupid.

[Baconeggcheese]

Frankly I preferred when we had fully functional base specs and talents augmented what you had instead of a base spec with a bunch of holes in it and then choosing what holes you wanted to plug via talents.

With the current system I'd rather have the flexibility of constantly swapping, but I'd prefer if they dropped the current design philosophy and went back to better base specs.

[ihate2beapessimist]

2 kinds of people still playing WoW in 2020, those who want to be the best and those who don't give a shit.
Those that want to be the best want the ability to do so and push the limits of every aspect of the game. Blizz caters to this crowd because it really doesnt affect those who dont give a shit. Your fun isnt affected by the ability to optimize, so there's no harm done.

[sephrinx]

Are there other MMORPGs that let you do that? I'm trying to come up with one but memory fails me

Guild Wars 2, SWTOR, RIFT, BDO, ESO, ArcheAge to name a few.

[goldlock]

Frankly I preferred when we had fully functional base specs and talents augmented what you had instead of a base spec with a bunch of holes in it and then choosing what holes you wanted to plug via talents.

With the current system I'd rather have the flexibility of constantly swapping, but I'd prefer if they dropped the current design philosophy and went back to better base specs.

We can't go back to that otherwise the hardcore players who only run lfr will quite without a bar to fill.

[WaltherLeopold]

I'm confused. Was that a question or a statement?

In any case, you're wrong. Blizzard designs this nad it's beyond stupid.

But you said you're forced to have multiple characters of the same class to play the game, when you're not.

[Daffan]

I don't understand how anyone think it's fun to bring a stack of switch-any-talent-for-1min in their bag and between every single boss fight, they switch to the optimal talents for that boss. I have even seen people switch for trash mobs then back to boss talents. How is choosing a talent a choice, if you change them around every fight?

Same goes for Arenas. You see you meet a certain 3s matchup? Switch up those talents before the match starts. Always the perfect talents.

Always the perfect trinkets.

In BfA it's even worse with the azerite traits resepcing people do. Some are good at AoE, some are good at single target, some are good for PvP... And you keep them all switching all the time by respecing in the city, or, even worse, have bags full of them. Playing a Shaman, raid leaders demand I switch from Ele to Resto for certain bosses. Yes I want to be helpful but I chose Ele, not Resto. Noone asked me to switch from Resto to Ele on a certain boss in TBC. It was way too big of a hassle, and the gear would not fit at all either. And that was a good thing.

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

How is that fun?

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.

Even in WotLK with the dual spec introduction. People wanted to finally have 1 Resto spec and 1 maybe PvP Ele spec. But already back in WotLK, guilds wanted 2 differently focused PvE specs in both those spots.

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?

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?

Arena makes sense though.

PvE per boss is kinda annoying only bcuz of item...

[Ryzek]

No constantly switching spec/talents/trinkets is not very fun, but I get that its fun for some people. I don't really follow the meta and our raid does fine we only do heroic raiding so its not like we need to be slaves to the meta to get passed it.

[Aggrophobic]

But you said you're forced to have multiple characters of the same class to play the game, when you're not.

You are, as respec is not a thing anymore.

[Delano]

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.

[facefist]

What I don't understand is how are people so dense that they can't believe that we all enjoy different things? This goes for both sides of the table.

Personally I think both are fun in their own way and they both have their pros and cons.

[Alkizon]

Delano
Where is the middleground? Again, not easy to define.

It's actually very simple, all you have to do is stick to base hierarchy. And since it will be foundation/starting point/backbone of game's design and balance, so any monipulations will be carried out in full obedience to basic rules - no global problems will arise. All claims and suggestions to "move" the rules will be smashed against the wall "maybe then this is not your game? maybe the one, that obeys rules you like, will suit you better?"

...kind of...

That is, racial part goes cross-classes (bonuses, base animations), class' (abilities and mechanics) part goes cross-specs (build = talents), talents' part goes cross-roles, since last one is mostly controlled by “momentary choice”: priority of abilities, used gear and other temporary "progress" stuff.

...or with another words...

Technically, what you argue about as part of content is 1. "situational" every second choice + 2. choice that is made within system's work for a fairly long time together (both are parts of one system): 2. is "permanent" not for 1 fight, but for a while before meeting with class trainer together with loosing time and money for "re-qualifies" you (it's class “umbrella”, which consists of full set of class' abilities (mostly permanent completely) and, being overwhelming majority of them passively, talents of build (not spec)) - choice, and 1. consists of equipped items (= characteristics) + particular using spells during encounter - flexible options.

...new systems...

General requirement| they won't need to be unlocked or part of class' talents/mechanics (key part of build, only reinforce/strengthen it, even less significant, more general non-specific), but can be stackable/replaced and be part of professions/RPG-customization system (can exist/functioning outside of any items/locations/reputations), mathematical part of engine, otherwise they will spoil progress/balance system, class' fantasy and provoke more and more "unrecorded results".

If being permanent, they should end with being in class; if being difficult to change, they should not give significant abilities, but only passive and be in the field of talents (that is, they should remain outside choice of reputation of local races, for both from above); if they're “external” then shouldn't go beyond “influence” of characteristics (= gear) and be quick and easy to switch.

...eg. like sets did...

Sets along with raids' content were carrot and balancing/separating part for further/more difficult part of progress/gameplay...
- - - - -
they were kind of "easily switchable" talents that polished shortcomings of particular class/direction of class development (depending on period) recovery/survivability/damage for different types of content, while not changing their essence/emphasizing chosen role (again, depending on period)

...or even just talents...

Current design of classes' organization is very flawed in quality of "development", since perks are too "greedy" for influence (a lot of them are too significant to be just talents (they create spec mechanics, not complement/benefit specific "whole class'" ones), as well as what is distributed to specs separately by default - these systems disrupt organization of healthy, both momentary and long-term choices
- - -
there happened not only possibility, but also need for constant switching of what was previously always available, hanch such general dominance and demand of min&max-ing mentality; think for yourself, how often you would need to switch old talents in side-altars of your priority build, mmm? maximum "PvP/PvE and other role" right? because there was no such significant burning feeling that you were losing something class related much and this despite fact that if your build will be very different from "standard", you were staying just representative of your class, highly specialized or broad-based on your choice; and all because degree of influence and appointment of new and old talents differs greatly within design
- - -
that over past six months we have also discussed in sufficient detail, and even devs didn't miss opportunity to turn this into ridiculous meme/put in service of marketing), which is why, when trying to return "build" significance within classes in Legion, the latter one were simply smashed to pieces (which we, in fact, have been talking about for years, and smart people talked about this already during process of new system's formation). The latter speaks (again) in favor of fact, that no matter how pleasant new system is/was, but foundation laid in Cata and implemented in MoP wasn't in favor of game.

Problem is in class structure and specifics of talents. There was no such thing before, which means that in general there was no such urgent need. Sad that there are some individuals asking for "more and more really significant talents". When offering something it's worth thinking about consequences first. I repeat, main talents' task is to support certain mechanics available in the whole class (at the same time, freedom of choice must be respected/without spec's "default" stuff, useful or unhelpful, significant or irrelevant, mandatory or optional, it's player, who has to make any decision, even every another +1%, but none of devs; this is players' right to do "like everyone else", find cunning stuff or make mistake, it adds flexibility (even if just imaginary), since, due to insignificance of 1 step in chosen direction, error/assumption doesn't seem as catastrophe and therefore doesn't require constant momentary change/moderation; system must obey hierarchy without random/misplaced/borrowed~temporary $hit), but not turn each of directions into separate one.

And when there are no rules, then you'll have absolutely nothing to argue for your actions that led to conflict.

ps. Of course, I was describing old design, but even if we were talking about new one, it won't have saved "current new" systems implementation.

[mysticx]

Thats the great thing about the option to change at will you can do it if you want or dont if you dont want to. You sound like blizzard in that you are upset players arent playing how you think is best.

I don't mind that people do that sort of thing (I for one don't do that, but i'm sure there are people who think *that* is wrong :P ), but between talent rows with one correct choice (and two wrong ones) and being able to switch talents around like you're swapping trinkets, i'm left wondering what the actual point of talents is anymore...

[Kendros]

9/12mythic down, we are taking it slow, thank for asking...
i thought we are average, but given we dont rly care about having the best classes/talents, and still progress i guess we must be amazing, given how many people claim its necessary to be omptimal in all situations...

- - - Updated - - -



"optimized" yes, optimized to 100%, no
you can have couple "worse" talents and the difference will be pretty much unnoticable, ofc not all specs and all talent rows...

Thats pretty bad actually a month away from pre patch, and corruption vendor pretty much giving free dps for as long as its been out. Ive seen really crappy guild being 12/12 by now.

[msdos]

When I first read OP's post, I was like yeah, I think I agree. But then after a few pages I pondered it, went back and read it again.. The problem is this paragraph:

In BfA it's even worse with the azerite traits resepcing people do. Some are good at AoE, some are good at single target, some are good for PvP... And you keep them all switching all the time by respecing in the city, or, even worse, have bags full of them. Playing a Shaman, raid leaders demand I switch from Ele to Resto for certain bosses. Yes I want to be helpful but I chose Ele, not Resto. Noone asked me to switch from Resto to Ele on a certain boss in TBC. It was way too big of a hassle, and the gear would not fit at all either. And that was a good thing.

This is a fake paragraph, over blown, the reality of it probably uncommon, like within the confines of high Mythic raiders and people who play at a high level in all 3 areas (so play WoW exclusively basically), so like 5% of the playerbase maybe?
Some specs don't switch az traits, some of the traits do so much damage there's no point to switch really. A lot of the traits are not balanced like "aoe vs st", they're either good or bad, with varying degrees either way with each spec.
Arena players don't really switch traits, they find one gear set that works after trying many things (usually switching around trinkets) then swap honor talents and there isn't anything unfun about it, it's actually kinda fun. There's a very specific time PVPers actually shuffle all their talents for raid and it isn't common enough to be an annoyance.
As far as switching for every boss, people don't actually do this. Yeah sure maybe in raid I guess if you wanna pad meters or there is a specific fight with hectic 20+ adds out on the screen at the same time or they need a specific talent. But most of the time dedicated raids will allow people to play to their strengths, build around strengths, omit weaknesses, class stack, etc, removing the need to switch around. (If your raid is boomy, fire mage, outlaw rogue, DH, no one needs to switch anything, it literally doesn't matter)

As far as the TBC comment, I played Ele and Resto in TBC. The reason raids didn't care about you switching is because as Ele you brought the Wrath totem and a little utility and as Resto you had that spell power talent that scaled your SP with your Int, so resto could already provide some damage on downtime, also Resto was a really powerful healer, prompting raids to build around them so much so. The complete opposite of that is true in BFA, prompting them to ask you to go Ele in the first place (Ele in BFA atm is arguably better than Resto, especially in PVP, Resto healing output is undertuned atm).

Lastly, I actually found switching legendaries between encounters fun and miss that gameplay, I also didn't mind having giant shield trinkets in case some boss in the raid hit extremely hard (Antorus), having to switch to that trinket for the boss. It shows awareness and ability to overcome progression, you know, resourcefulness?

TL;DR: I have to disagree ultimately about switching trinkets and gear between encounters not being fun and because of that very off base, false paragraph I quoted. Shame on you OP!!!! Jk. :P

[Lolites]

Thats pretty bad actually a month away from pre patch, and corruption vendor pretty much giving free dps for as long as its been out. Ive seen really crappy guild being 12/12 by now.

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...