Shadowlands has major problems up ahead

[Paula Deen]

For it to happen every single time it has to be intentional.

I am guessing its just a typo shift is next to Z.

Gonna take a guess and say it is intentional.

zZz

Thats what he is doing I bet.

Regardless of his possible jabs at Blizzard being...boring (Whut? I'd call em alot of things but boring isnt one)

He does make some points here. It is really concerning what they will do once this shindig is out.

[Chonar]

Why are you capitalizing the 2. "z" of Blizzard everytime?

I came here to ask this question also, it's damn weird.

For it to happen every single time it has to be intentional.

And CaspLock is next to A, but you don't see him randomly capsing partial words after every a. 100% has to be intentional.

This is literally the only thing I want to hear from the OP, cause everything else is just same old, same old.
Is it some sort of super secret blizzard bashing gesture? Let us into the club, OP!

I'm thinking he's trying to secretly tell us Blizzard HQ is actually a MegaZord.

[BraskClark]

I've been reading all your posts... and I get the distinct feeling almost all your arguments are based upon second-hand information, not actually thoroughly testing the alpha/beta across a variety of classes/specs/roles. Well, lucky for you, I have been thoroughly testing the beta acorss several classes/specs/roles... and almost everything you're worried about is way overblown, taken out of context, or has already been fixed.

Most of the covenant issues seem to default back to the rogue example as well as some more generic comments seeming to fit the perspective a rogue, maybe perhaps your main is a rogue? I'll say out of all the classes, rogue is probably in the worst shape when it comes to choosing a covenant and their covenant ability, but even with that disparity the chasm is mitigated by other factors (such as soulbinds, conduits, etc). Sub rogue is actually looking like a favored PvE spec beyond one niche fight for once, which is a nice change to be certain. I will submit we're still in the numbers pass phase, and we're even toying around with GCD's, some classes still have NYI and broken aspects beyond rogues... basically, there's still a ways to go on the beta.

I think you're confused about what player agency actually means, especially when related to someone wanting to switch specs to do another role. Your definition is as follows: allow the player to do whatever they want, whenever they want. That's not the correct definition, and many people have been falling into this trap. Player agency is allowing the player to make an impactful choice, and that choice affects your gameplay and experience. In today's world this may seem like an odd concept, but choices... have consequences! These can be good consequences, they can be bad consequences, it can be a mixture of both. The problem with the mentality I see with the #PullTheRipcord is that it comes from the former mentality, not the later. If you can just swap freely between talents, covenants, etc., it's actually the opposite of player agency as you have removed the consequence of the choice. Stated another way, your 'choice' is essentially inconsequential and meaningless because you can undo that 'choice' whenever you want. This topic bleeds into aspects of the game from a development and design aspect that I could talk about for pages on end... but I'll keep this as short as possible!

Anyways, back to the more specific choice as it relates to the actual definition of player agency when it comes to someone playing a class who delves into multiple roles: you have to make a meaningful choice when picking your covenant! Do you pick the covenant that gives you an ability that's great for DPS but not your cup of tea for tanking? Do you pick the covenant that's ideal for tanking but very underwhelming for DPS? Or do you pick the covenant that has the all-rounder ability that's not necessarily the best for any role but a solid choice for all of them? These are questions you will have to ask yourself when picking a covenant, which I already have had to grapple with while playing the beta since my guild tends to have me off-spec a ton. In my case, I'll likely pick the all-rounder since that's what I intend to do with my main, and it'll fit my playstyle and will work fine clearing mythic raids. Keep in mind that if you could just click a tome and change covenants in less than a second, all this choice and decision-making disappears and becomes meaningless, and there are no consequences to your covenant choice.

I will caveat everything with what I referenced earlier, and that is we're still in beta, nothing is finalized, there are still some outliers but Blizz has been squashing them, etc. If there is a covenant choice that is 'BiS' in every scenario, that's a problem and should be fixed. Ideally you want nothing to be 'BiS' with things being situationally good and/or having an option that's a good all-rounder, perhaps some options having higher skill cap potential, etc. Again, don't want to keep extending this post (because good Lord, I could), but this ties into the concept of balance... and what actually is good balance for the game versus "everyone's a winner, no one's a loser" balance. Even if one covenant ability sims BiS and top 0.1% world first raider uses this ability, it may not be BiS for you individually. Maybe your reaction time is different, maybe you have a preferred playstyle, maybe you have a different skillset, maybe you group/raid has different needs, and so on. What's the 'right' answer for 0.1% world first raider by no way means it's the 'right' answer for you and your situation. This gets into the topic of meta slavery, and how it's mostly the players enslaving themselves (with game design not always helping in some cases), but the main point is this: there are various solutions to any problem you encounter in WoW, and blindly following what is perceived as the meta will more often than not cause self-imposed issues or hinder your progression in the game. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, but one wheel does not work for all applications.

Hey OP, can you respond to this? I feel like this person had hit the nail on the head and you've chosen not to respond unless you have and I missed it? Apologies.

[rrayy]

I know that by looking at the stuff they're bringing in with Shadowlands in general, the state of the beta, the near release date and their efforts to fix underlying problems. A look at their class design is telling also - there you can see that they're neither going all in nor giving their best. For most specs they did the absolute minimum.

Your opinion, not fact. Again, this is nothing more than falsely accusing them of something becuse you don't like what you see. YOu aren't the only one playing the game so stop acting like the game has to solely revolve around you.

[Trend]

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BlizZArd
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BlizZard
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BlizZard
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BlizZard
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BlizZard
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BlizZard
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BlizZard
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Blizzcon
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BlizZard
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blizzcon
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Be consistent you lizard. Everyone knows it is BlizZcon.

#FAIL

[MakePvPGreatAgain]

@Mafic

Hats off to you for not arguing with trolls and stupid people who post here. Rarely do I see someone like you. Good job btw.

I'm all for "Pull the ripcord" as well, but what can you do at this point? Blizzard is aware this is a problem, so many people in the community are talking about it. I don't think sharing here on the forums is going to change much tbh...

At this point, people who are saying that covenant are right? Are probably extremely casual who will play for a month or two and be done with the game. Don't know much about what's coming and give their opinions anyway.

WoW has had problems like this for quite a while now. Blizzard have a reason to keep them, and I think that reason is often hidden because it's motivated by greed, money and catering to the casuals. Convenants, as they are, are bound to cause a lot of problems and frustration. I really hope deep down they will unlock them, or as bellular suggested, making the Class abilities swapable and the signature stick more.


All I wish would happen, is if Blizzard would be like : "Let's try to listen to the community and do everything they want us to do. Just for one expansion, see what it does to our subscribers". I know I dream, but that would be impressive and would actually renew my faith in Blizzard honestly, who has lost a lot of its feathers of the recent years.


Cheers!

[kiramon]

I don't agree because anyone can access the PTR. Right now on the PTR there are so many issues and prepatch is very near. Lots of bugs, scaling is really bad and the squish of gear is not consistent across content (eg BFA).

And with BFA you can't really choose to level in BFA as the HoA is not unlocked to level 50 now which defeats the point of doing any BFA content again if you desire to do so.

For most rogues they’ll still suck regardless of which covenant they choose. Blizzard is well aware most players are bad.

[Soluna]

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it may indeed be that easy to swap covenants. what wont be simple is grinding reknown on several covenants. reknown is tied to the covenants, not the player. so expect to be doing catchup (ie chores) on every additional covenant you want to use.

I actually doubt it will be this easy. No way blizzard will allow you to respec every 2 days. They've already said it's gonna be a tough task. They will most likely make it so that it takes a lot of time really. As for Renown, it's not that huge imo, you can unlock pretty early on your second soulbind, and with the catchups it should be near instant.

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Then stop using incorrect terms. Just say you find it inconvenient. You don't need tonwritena dissertation about it.

Well I am sorry for making a goddamn mistake while rushing, and you acting like you don't get what it is. For christ's sake.

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Just roll a second toon if you want to do more then one game mode. At worst its just a newbie trap right now.

Not sure why I should play 2-3 of the same class, and having to gear/grind on all 3 of them, to get the same content I used to get from playing only one character in literally every previous expansion? Atm I like kyrian/venthyr/necrolords abilities fun wise, and I wanna play both venthyr and necrolords in m+ as affli, I wanna play destro necrolords, and I want to have kyrian ability for add fights where I think that it would beat to have a burst of shards. Purely for fun. But now in order to enjoy the full experience of Warlock, you are telling me I have to repeat the same tasks 3 times? That's fucking unreasonable.

And why should I do that? How is that benefitting blizzard? The way I see it, there are two choices, I get locked out of specific things for my warlock class, and I get bored and level more warlocks, but I get burnt out and quit, or I level other alts to have different experiences on, but I eventually quit cause my main cannot reach the full potential it could the other expansions. When I could be having all abilities, on all characters, and actually fucking look forward to playing an alt, on top of my main, to double/triple/quadruple my gameplay choices.

[Niwes]

read a 10th of this thread, and without adding ANYTHING to this so called discussion, i just have to say:

omg, this time xpac release and the first 1-3 months will be sooooo funny. not to play. just to watch. SL release will make my xmas great again and will make me smile so often. great.

when i just imagine all that shit storms, and white knight vs complainers rants, all that bugs, that shoutouts, that cool Ion Hazzikoala bear lawyer statements about tis and tat, „da commmmunitttty“, that genius curves in marketing, subs, sells, bursting up and crash back down, all that great stuff. omg this will be a so funny xmas time this year.

SL will become the most funny joke and best watching material, a multibillion dollar company ever did for me. genius.

[arkanon]

For most rogues they’ll still suck regardless of which covenant they choose. Blizzard is well aware most players are bad.

Wouldnt most players be average?

[Th3Scourge]

Blizzard doesn't care. They know the core base will pay their sub price either way. The covenant system is really bad. Like possibly the worst system introduced to wow. It adds nothing to "MuH rPg" experience. It literally changes nothing. These abilities could have just been baked into classes as a new talent row and the everyone would be happy.

As it stands, most classes have one or more covenants that are total garbage for 66% of content, while one is completely niche and some classes have a covenant that is better than all others for every spec.

I've had beta for some time now and I don't log in anymore, even when changes are pushed through. The system is too rigid to want to try out different builds without having to create a new character, create all the legendaries all over again etc etc.

We all know that in a future patch they are going to remove restrictions with covenants. We ALLLLLLL know it, they know it, everyone knows it. And it will be because the system is stupidly restrictive and they start losing subs again

Who knows, by then they'll release The Burning Crusade Classic and that will keep their subs afloat

[Kyux]

I really struggle to make the connection between "This ability is bad for certain types of content" and "The covenant system is terrible".

You don't have to use your covenant ability in every form of content. Of course one ability will be theoretically BiS. If you're made the choice to value a theoretical BiS power increase over themes, story, transmog, mounts etc then good for you. You've made that choice. The system is working as intended. I will choose Night Fae because I like the faeries. Couldn't care less about the ability. I've made that choice.

And yeah, you should be locked into it. It's good that you can't just swap whenever you want. You should decide how you want to play your character and you should not be able to be all things at all times. Flexibility in covenants is the exact 'watering down' that's come as a result of double-spec and then spec swapping, ability removing, and allowing every player to be everything in their class. It's a return to player identity. Like picking Aldor or Scyrer. They offered certain items that were better than others, much like the abilities here. I don't recall people claiming that was game-breaking. Sure, abilities are more powerful, but the other things that come with covenants balance that out, imho.

Bottom line is it's not that big of a deal. The world won't stop spinning if you don't select the most optimal ability. We should be locked into covenants to foster more of a character identity even at the cost of flexibility.

[goldlock]

Wouldnt most players be average?

You would think so but wow players are not on a normal curve in terms of skill. Those at the highend seem to constantly perform at higher and higher levels as the bulk of players seem to do easier and easier content.

Granted I have no numbers. It just seems that the average wow player isn't that skilled at the game.

[Codah]

Nice analysis. Nobody cares about your opinion.

This made me laugh so loud.

[RCA]

Where does my character go when they die in the shadowlands? Detroit?

Joking aside this is major problem I see with this realm, but for gameplay.

[Toybox]

It's a return to player identity. Like picking Aldor or Scyrer. They offered certain items that were better than others, much like the abilities here.

Not even remotely comparable. If Aldor offered Mortal Strike & Scryer's offered Bladestorm then maybe, but heyo.

I'm not even all that concerned about covenants all things considered, as I feel there's bigger things to be concerned about at the moment. Beta feels far further behind than any other previous expansion this close to launch, to the point where I'm actually concerned about how the game is going to release. I know the internal build is always a few iterations ahead of the beta build provided to players, but damn, they've got a LOT of work to do to have the expansion in a launch-ready state for October 27th.

[Palapop]

The problem Shadowlands faces is it will soon become 'the current expansion'.

And MMO-C has shown us that 'the current expansion' is always terrible, the worse, absolute garbage etc.

Nothing new here.

Actually, SL it self (even tho I'm gonna play it) ALREADY has few issues that MANY players complain about.

1. COVENANTS! Yes, they are HUGE issue. Especially for players who play multiple specs/chars.

2. "Legendary" items (which are awarded by random quest)

3. Class design.

pretty much everyone complained about similar things during BFA beta, but no one bat an eye about it.. and thus, we got.... what we got.

[Watchers]

no new class, no party

[Mafic]

For most rogues they’ll still suck regardless of which covenant they choose. Blizzard is well aware most players are bad.

I am not so sure about that.

You see the problem with covenants in general and more specifically with Rogue Necrolord bonespike is that it is so good. Builds CPs at range, low energy, does more damage past ten seconds than anything a Rogue can do and is great in multi target situations. I think I have read that it can even Blade Flurry with Outlaw spec.

[Kyux]

Not even remotely comparable. If Aldor offered Mortal Strike & Scryer's offered Bladestorm then maybe, but heyo.

I addressed that in my very next sentence. I concede that abilities provide more player power than items, but the other benefits offered by covenants are greater to compensate. It's comparable in that player power is tied to a locked choice at all.