Should the game be ruined in pursuit of utopian competitive equality?

[Raelbo]

Mmh, Conflict and Strife is the Bis essence for most dps class and it is only available by doing pvp. Same for Blood of the enemy. So how about no ?

Just because it's "BiS" does not mean that there aren't viable alternatives. In most cases it lands up being a fraction of a %. Honestly, if you aren't someone who PvPs already (meaning that it is pretty trivial to get those essences) there are likely better ways to spend your time that would have more impact on your output.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't get why people who show almost no knowledge of how the game works always get upset when called out on it.

Firstly you've failed to call me out about anything. All you've done is made a few childish insults while failing to put together a cogent argument to support anything you're saying.

Most essences are not simply earned by playing the game but by excessively grinding something. From dailies to pvp. Well maybe excessive is the wrong word. They are excessively time gated to stretch out content.

With every essence pretty much there is an easy/low effort approach, and a hard/high effort approach. The trade-off is simply needing to have a bit of patience. For example, if you're trying to gain reputation, you can get it with a relatively minor total time investment by simply focusing on emissary quests. Alternatively you can do all the dailies every day, investing a far greater total amount of time, but you'll get the thing sooner.

Here's the thing though: Nothing in the game forces you to choose which approach (or combination) to take. What might influence your choice is how competitive you want to be relative to other players.

Like I said though, it is completely viable to simply play the game very casually and you'll get all the essences you need (you might not get all the ones you want, but that's a different argument). I can't think of even a single essence that isn't associated with something else you pretty much need to be doing if you want to complete the content anyway.

If we look at 8.3, you needed to do the weekly N'Zoth assaults in order to get the currency required to run Horrific visions. A good player could probably race through those in 10 minutes each - so 30 minutes a week. There's the rep you need for the essence. Doing the visions gets you another essence. And then raiding gets you the last.

Where is the massive grind purely for essences? And just who is showing a lack of knowledge of how the game works?

[Hctaz]

It seems that with Shadowlands we will see one of the most varied gameplay ever in the history of WoW. Thanks to the covenant system, not only will your character have different special abilities depending on your choice, but will also be able to bring unique buffs to certain dungeons. An average player will look at those things and think to themselves "how cool - I can do all those things based on the way I built my character". Unfortunately, all of this entertainment is potentially in jeopardy. Why? Because once again, a small albeit vocal subset of players is campaigning against all those things. They want to diminish the impact of our decisions, make everything uniform and meaningless. Some are downright asking for removal of half the new features. To what end? Supposedly to "level the playing field". To make "high end" mythic+ "fair", to make "mythic raiding at the top end" fair. Many other buzzwords related to competitiveness in the game are being used to excuse the gutting of the very interactive and immersive game feature. Will the game be eroded once again, because of dreams of the vocal minority? Will covenants turn into a cosmetic choice just because Johnny Bravo and his friend want to do a +30 key in SL and don't want to feel they are forced into a certain covenant?

It is very sad, because in a way it reflects the situation in real life. A lot of people ignore elections and can't, or don't want to engage in politics for various reasons. What often ends up happening is a clique of people fighting only for their own interests raises to power and just keeps making the life shit for everyone else. The worst part about it is they usually manage to convince a portion of regular people that the interests of these assholes somehow align with the interests of regular people. The same thing has been happening for a couple years in the WoW community. Blizzard listens too much to "content creators" who like to flip flop in their opinions just to increase viewer counts. Even the more "positive" content creators are afraid to be too outspoken about enjoying the new features because they fear ostracism, trolling and bullying. Content creators don't exist in a vacuum, and if they want to be relevant, they have to cooperate with others to an extent. The "positive" content creators are only as positive as the "community overlords" allow them to usually.

Can the regular players do nothing against all that? Can we try to rally the casual players to voice their positive opinions on the forums? I know I will be encouraging people who usually lay low to speak up. As players of WoW, we can't let the game be hijacked by top50 raiding guilds and top10 mythic+ teams. Let's not let them destroy our fun.

So... surprisingly enough, the issue isn't with the hardcore players per say. The issue you really have is with Blizzard pushing this game to be more and more competitive.

If the game is strictly casual, then you're able to have interesting and unique situations arise because it doesn't matter as much. The game isn't MEANT to be played competitively until the devs say it is. So when you have the WoW devs making mythic dungeon invitational tournaments and you have competition between players for leaderboard spots and raiding becomes this crazy thing you're announcing to your playerbase that you want your game to be competitive.

There IS still a way to have a casual and competitive scene within your game and have them both be happy. You just need to separate the casual mechanics from the competitive ones. Think games like First Person shooters which can be casual OR competitive. You CAN choose to play ranked mode and go super all in with the best guns, best attachments, and try to maximize your winrate as much as possible... or you can make a funny silly meme build with some bad guns just to troll people in casual mode. The difference here is that the player has complete agency over whether or not they want to play the game one way or the other, and the "bad" guns don't directly affect the good guns. The problem here is that Blizzard wants to make it so that each "gun" is unique and good for different situations while also not being easily adjusted. The answer is either to allow these things to be changed easily OR (and the better idea in my opinion) is just allow their usage in max level play. Can't use them in Rated PvP, can't use them in M+, and can't use them in Mythic raids. Everything else should be fair game. Those are the modes that are "competitive" and this would allow casual players to fully experience the benefit of their choices without competitive players feeling obligated to choose one that is optimal.

By the way, hardcore players like to make choices as well. Don't think they don't. That's actually a big reason why we want this change anyway. I personally enjoy being able to customize my character, but I also like being optimal. Transmog is awesome for me because it allows me to customize my character without forcing me to wear shit gear. I was actually really, really sad when I found out that the Covenants would come with specific player power that would affect how the game was played at the competitive levels because I wanted to choose my covenant based solely on their personality and cosmetic rewards alone.

[Puremallace]

Covenants will be the most divisive topic in WoWs history since Gear Score it would seem given the varied opinion in support vs descent on the subject.

[AngerFork]

Covenants will be the most divisive topic in WoWs history since Gear Score it would seem given the varied opinion in support vs descent on the subject.

I feel like that's the case any time Blizz tries to put in meaningful choices into the game and/or tries to link it to something involving player power.

[Krakan]

Just because it's "BiS" does not mean that there aren't viable alternatives. In most cases it lands up being a fraction of a %. Honestly, if you aren't someone who PvPs already (meaning that it is pretty trivial to get those essences) there are likely better ways to spend your time that would have more impact on your output.

- - - Updated - - -



Firstly you've failed to call me out about anything. All you've done is made a few childish insults while failing to put together a cogent argument to support anything you're saying.



With every essence pretty much there is an easy/low effort approach, and a hard/high effort approach. The trade-off is simply needing to have a bit of patience. For example, if you're trying to gain reputation, you can get it with a relatively minor total time investment by simply focusing on emissary quests. Alternatively you can do all the dailies every day, investing a far greater total amount of time, but you'll get the thing sooner.

Here's the thing though: Nothing in the game forces you to choose which approach (or combination) to take. What might influence your choice is how competitive you want to be relative to other players.

Like I said though, it is completely viable to simply play the game very casually and you'll get all the essences you need (you might not get all the ones you want, but that's a different argument). I can't think of even a single essence that isn't associated with something else you pretty much need to be doing if you want to complete the content anyway.

If we look at 8.3, you needed to do the weekly N'Zoth assaults in order to get the currency required to run Horrific visions. A good player could probably race through those in 10 minutes each - so 30 minutes a week. There's the rep you need for the essence. Doing the visions gets you another essence. And then raiding gets you the last.

Where is the massive grind purely for essences? And just who is showing a lack of knowledge of how the game works?

You simply don't know what your talking about. I don't need to struggle to prove you wrong.

Go onto logs. You don't get any variety for mythic znoth so why do I need argue the point?

You simply are to ignorant on the topic to offer a thoughtful opinion on it. I would suggest you focus more on content you enjoy rather then trying to chime in for content where you would be unable to get your foot into the front door.

[Specialka]

Just because it's "BiS" does not mean that there aren't viable alternatives. In most cases it lands up being a fraction of a %. Honestly, if you aren't someone who PvPs already (meaning that it is pretty trivial to get those essences) there are likely better ways to spend your time that would have more impact on your output.

- - - Updated - - -



Firstly you've failed to call me out about anything. All you've done is made a few childish insults while failing to put together a cogent argument to support anything you're saying.



With every essence pretty much there is an easy/low effort approach, and a hard/high effort approach. The trade-off is simply needing to have a bit of patience. For example, if you're trying to gain reputation, you can get it with a relatively minor total time investment by simply focusing on emissary quests. Alternatively you can do all the dailies every day, investing a far greater total amount of time, but you'll get the thing sooner.

Here's the thing though: Nothing in the game forces you to choose which approach (or combination) to take. What might influence your choice is how competitive you want to be relative to other players.

Like I said though, it is completely viable to simply play the game very casually and you'll get all the essences you need (you might not get all the ones you want, but that's a different argument). I can't think of even a single essence that isn't associated with something else you pretty much need to be doing if you want to complete the content anyway.

If we look at 8.3, you needed to do the weekly N'Zoth assaults in order to get the currency required to run Horrific visions. A good player could probably race through those in 10 minutes each - so 30 minutes a week. There's the rep you need for the essence. Doing the visions gets you another essence. And then raiding gets you the last.

Where is the massive grind purely for essences? And just who is showing a lack of knowledge of how the game works?

You are really out of touch, aren't you ? Strife is Bis in damage and its buff is versatility, that means that it does give you the most dps and it gives you survabiltiy. No other minor essence does that. Get real plz.

[Raelbo]

You are really out of touch, aren't you ? Strife is Bis in damage and its buff is versatility, that means that it does give you the most dps and it gives you survabiltiy. No other minor essence does that. Get real plz.

But that isn't even addressing the point I am making which is that "BiS" in any one individual thing seldom makes that huge difference that you're trying to pretend it does. Especially when it comes to essences.

I don't know what class you play that you think CaS is some kind of universal awesome essence that cannot be substituted. But for most specs and situations it isn't BiS, let alone top 3 (for minor). And typically where it is in the top 3, replacing it with another will result in like a 200-300 dps loss. That is less than half a percent.

So if the grind for it is annoying (eg if you're into PvE but not PvP) then YOU DON'T NEED IT. The next best essence will do just fine. You can focus your efforts on something else that you do enjoy that will likely give you better dps for your time (like running a bunch of M+ to get gear and corruptions).

Farming Conflict and Strife for a non-pvper should really only be something you do if you're ultra committed and ultra competitive. And if having Conflict and Strife would be the difference between you succeeding or failing at whatever content you're doing, then I'd suggest that the real problem is one of skill and ability.

But sure. I guess you'll just tell me once again that I am out of touch without bothering to bring facts to the table (like, for example, numbers from somewhere like Bloodmallet).

- - - Updated - - -

Go onto logs. You don't get any variety for mythic znoth so why do I need argue the point?

Because simply saying "look at the logs" isn't an argument. Nor does the data in those logs disprove what I am saying.

The reason you don't get much variety in mythic N'zoth is because people will go with the cookie-cutter build that will give them an extra 100 dps. It doesn't mean that it is mandatory to succeed.

For example, the top parses on N'zoth have a lot of Destro Locks running Conflict and Strife as a minor. Bloodmallet rates Conflict and Strife as a 72 dps improvement over Worldvein Resonance for Destro Warlocks. Are you honestly trying to tell me that 72 dps (for players doing well over 100K) is enough of a reason to force anyone to do arenas?

My argument was never about what people end up actually doing because of herd mentallity. It's about what people need to do.

[Specialka]

But that isn't even addressing the point I am making which is that "BiS" in any one individual thing seldom makes that huge difference that you're trying to pretend it does. Especially when it comes to essences.

I don't know what class you play that you think CaS is some kind of universal awesome essence that cannot be substituted. But for most specs and situations it isn't BiS, let alone top 3 (for minor). And typically where it is in the top 3, replacing it with another will result in like a 200-300 dps loss. That is less than half a percent.

So if the grind for it is annoying (eg if you're into PvE but not PvP) then YOU DON'T NEED IT. The next best essence will do just fine. You can focus your efforts on something else that you do enjoy that will likely give you better dps for your time (like running a bunch of M+ to get gear and corruptions).

Farming Conflict and Strife for a non-pvper should really only be something you do if you're ultra committed and ultra competitive. And if having Conflict and Strife would be the difference between you succeeding or failing at whatever content you're doing, then I'd suggest that the real problem is one of skill and ability.

But sure. I guess you'll just tell me once again that I am out of touch without bothering to bring facts to the table (like, for example, numbers from somewhere like Bloodmallet).

Since you know Bloodmallet, you could have check it yourself and see that CnS minor is in the top 3 minor essence for most of the dps specs.

At first, I did not check them all but since you seem to be someone that like to nitpick, I did check nearly all and CnS is top 3 in most of them (And bloodmallet does not factor in the survability than CnS bring).

Get your fact straight.


And yes, CnS is better than WV because you do not need to stay in place to gain its benefice.

[prwraith]

I hate the covenent system with a passion.

Like the only viable solution I can think of is to realistically play four chars of the same class to main, for the inevitable second set of balancing that completely ruins the other 3 for any given spec.

How does blizzard keep making these boneheaded decisions.

[Raelbo]

Since you know Bloodmallet, you could have check it yourself and see that CnS minor is in the top 3 minor essence for most of the dps specs.

At first, I did not check them all but since you seem to be someone that like to nitpick, I did check nearly all and CnS is top 3 in most of them (And bloodmallet does not factor in the survability than CnS bring).

Get your fact straight.


And yes, CnS is better than WV because you do not need to stay in place to gain its benefice.

DK:
Frost: Not in top 3
Unholy: Not in top 3

DH:
Havoc: 380 dps loss to go with Lucid Dreams

Druid:
Balance: 50 dps loss to go with Focusing Iris
Feral: 230 dps loss to go with Lucid Dreams

Hunter:
BM: Not in top 3
MM: 10 dps loss to go with Vision of Perfection
Surv: Not in top 3

Mage:
Fire: Not in top 3
Frost: 230 dps loss to go with Breath of the Dying
Arcane: 180 dps to go with Formless Void

Monk:
WW: 54 dps loss to go with Focusing Iris

Paladin:
Ret: Not in top 3

Priest:
Shadow: Not in top 3

Rogue:
Ass: Not in top 3
Outlaw: Not in top 3
Sub: Not in top 3

Shaman:
Ele: 275 dps loss to go with Focusing Iris
Enh: Not in top 3

Warlock:
Aff: 485 dps loss to go with Worldvein Resonance
Demonology: 97 dps loss to go with Worldvein Resonance
Destro: 72 dps loss to go with Worldvein Resonance

Warrior:
Arms: Not in top 3
Fury: 58 dps loss to go with Crucible


I rest my case. That facts prove exactly what I am saying.

Only half the specs have CnS as their top 3. And of those that do, the dps loss is less than 100 (that's ~0.1%). Only a handful of specs even have close to 0.5% dps difference.

As I said, you're grossly exaggerating the importance of this one essence. Just like you grossly exaggerate the effort it takes to get it. But yeah, whatever. Clearly you're not about having a rational discussion as pushing your own narrative regardless of reason and logic.

[Specialka]

DK:
Frost: Not in top 3
Unholy: Not in top 3

DH:
Havoc: 380 dps loss to go with Lucid Dreams

Druid:
Balance: 50 dps loss to go with Focusing Iris
Feral: 230 dps loss to go with Lucid Dreams

Hunter:
BM: Not in top 3
MM: 10 dps loss to go with Vision of Perfection
Surv: Not in top 3

Mage:
Fire: Not in top 3
Frost: 230 dps loss to go with Breath of the Dying
Arcane: 180 dps to go with Formless Void

Monk:
WW: 54 dps loss to go with Focusing Iris

Paladin:
Ret: Not in top 3

Priest:
Shadow: Not in top 3

Rogue:
Ass: Not in top 3
Outlaw: Not in top 3
Sub: Not in top 3

Shaman:
Ele: 275 dps loss to go with Focusing Iris
Enh: Not in top 3

Warlock:
Aff: 485 dps loss to go with Worldvein Resonance
Demonology: 97 dps loss to go with Worldvein Resonance
Destro: 72 dps loss to go with Worldvein Resonance

Warrior:
Arms: Not in top 3
Fury: 58 dps loss to go with Crucible


I rest my case. That facts prove exactly what I am saying.

Only half the specs have CnS as their top 3. And of those that do, the dps loss is less than 100 (that's ~0.1%). Only a handful of specs even have close to 0.5% dps difference.

As I said, you're grossly exaggerating the importance of this one essence. Just like you grossly exaggerate the effort it takes to get it. But yeah, whatever. Clearly you're not about having a rational discussion as pushing your own narrative regardless of reason and logic.

What ? I just take Ele shaman:

It is the second top MINOR essence.

For the retrib pala: it is the fourth but since you take VoP as major, you will have to get CnS.

Same for fire mage, I could go on.

Tdlr: you do not know what you are talking about.

[DemonDays]

That's literally WoW's class design.

Cool strawman.

There are plenty of aesthetic options within a class.

[Raelbo]

What ? I just take Ele shaman:

It is the second top MINOR essence.

For the retrib pala: it is the fourth but since you take VoP as major, you will have to get CnS.

Same for fire mage, I could go on.

Tdlr: you do not know what you are talking about.

No, you can't really go on, because I don't think I missed any others. I did check, but it's after midnight and I am tired and, importantly, you were too lazy to go and present the info yourself.

Importantly though, it's irrelevant. My central point is, and has been all along, that the benefit of having that essence is very, very small indeed. And I think you know this, which is why you'd rather play the person rather than the argument being made.

Seriously, are going to insist that a few 100 dps, less than 0.5% (and in most cases less than 0.1%) is critical in being able to do the content? Because that is what I am refuting. Your complaint is that the grind is mandatory, and I am demonstrating that it isn't. And you keep sidestepping that issue, presumably because you have no answer to it.

The only valid complaint you might have is that you might not get accepted into a guild. But no guild in the world is going to reject a player on the basis of the 10 or 50 dps loss that not having that essence means. What a lot of guilds might reject you for is being too damn lazy to go out and put in the minor amount of effort it takes to get that insignificant dps increase. And that is the crux of the "problem" of these so called forced grinds: They're enforced not by the game, but by other players. Which means your efforts to fight against systems that reward effort are misguided, because exclusive players will always find a means of keeping their group exclusive to those willing to put in the most effort.

[A Chozo]

Cool strawman.

There are plenty of aesthetic options within a class.

Doesn't invalidate the argument.

[Krakan]

But that isn't even addressing the point I am making which is that "BiS" in any one individual thing seldom makes that huge difference that you're trying to pretend it does. Especially when it comes to essences.

I don't know what class you play that you think CaS is some kind of universal awesome essence that cannot be substituted. But for most specs and situations it isn't BiS, let alone top 3 (for minor). And typically where it is in the top 3, replacing it with another will result in like a 200-300 dps loss. That is less than half a percent.

So if the grind for it is annoying (eg if you're into PvE but not PvP) then YOU DON'T NEED IT. The next best essence will do just fine. You can focus your efforts on something else that you do enjoy that will likely give you better dps for your time (like running a bunch of M+ to get gear and corruptions).

Farming Conflict and Strife for a non-pvper should really only be something you do if you're ultra committed and ultra competitive. And if having Conflict and Strife would be the difference between you succeeding or failing at whatever content you're doing, then I'd suggest that the real problem is one of skill and ability.

But sure. I guess you'll just tell me once again that I am out of touch without bothering to bring facts to the table (like, for example, numbers from somewhere like Bloodmallet).

- - - Updated - - -



Because simply saying "look at the logs" isn't an argument. Nor does the data in those logs disprove what I am saying.

The reason you don't get much variety in mythic N'zoth is because people will go with the cookie-cutter build that will give them an extra 100 dps. It doesn't mean that it is mandatory to succeed.

For example, the top parses on N'zoth have a lot of Destro Locks running Conflict and Strife as a minor. Bloodmallet rates Conflict and Strife as a 72 dps improvement over Worldvein Resonance for Destro Warlocks. Are you honestly trying to tell me that 72 dps (for players doing well over 100K) is enough of a reason to force anyone to do arenas?

My argument was never about what people end up actually doing because of herd mentallity. It's about what people need to do.

No actually look at the logs... there are less then a 100 parses of some specs. You have no idea of what is and isn't mandatory because you are woefully ignorant of the content. It isnt heroic.

That also isn't how essences work...your really taking a stab in the dark and shows... your using hypothetical sims to try and disprove logs...

[kaminaris]

No actually look at the logs... there are less then a 100 parses of some specs. You have no idea of what is and isn't mandatory because you are woefully ignorant of the content. It isnt heroic.

That also isn't how essences work...your really taking a stab in the dark and shows... your using hypothetical sims to try and disprove logs...

Nah he is correct. There are people in top 20 that don't have neither of those essences in practically every spec. So if you can go to top 20 without it, its absolutely optional and you just need to git gud. PS I just checked nzoth mythic top logs for every dps spec.

[Thestrawman]

Think of how many threads would not exist if Blizzard just made the covenant abilities were just another talent row and the covenants were just cosmetic choices. What a world that would be.

[kaminaris]

Think of how many threads would not exist if Blizzard just made the covenant abilities were just another talent row and the covenants were just cosmetic choices. What a world that would be.

Expansion as bland as a water with no selling point whatsoever.

[Thorcall]

Expansion as bland as a water with no selling point whatsoever.

So for you the only selling point of shadowland is covenant having 1 specific combat ability? Im wonder why some people still play the game... If an expantion without that would has be "bland as water", I guess all expansion since bc are also then...

[Seramore]

This is some good pasta