Real intentions behind covenant system

[WowIsDead64]

I'm not sure, if you want to read another covenant thread or not. I just want to explain several things to players, who don't understand, why covenants are implemented and therefore they're against this change.

First of all, I was in your shoes. I also was against some doubtful changes in a past, such as overtuned content in Cata, mandatory dailies in MOP, removal of flying in WOD. But I'm on the other side of barricades this time.

Blizzard don't want to tell it directly. But they have been having major problems with alts since WOD. Casual/alt-friendly content of WOD allowed players to level many alts. And Blizzard didn't want to support such playstyle. May be because they don't want to inflate their server DB size. Yeah, we pay sub fee for 50 character slots. But it wouldn't be profitable for Blizzard, if all of them would be used.

But most likely they didn't want to support alts, because THEY DIDN'T WANT TO DESIGN THEIR GAME AROUND EVERY PLAYER HAVING EVERY CLASS AND SPEC.

I think, I don't need to explain, why it's bad. Because when player has access to every class/spec, he is able to be more optimal for every encounter. And therefore encounter should be designed with this fact in mind. And this would make it harder for player, who don't have all classes/specs available. So it would literally force him to have all classes/specs. And whole class/spec system should be made with this in mind then.

That's, why they tried to restrict alts in Legion and BFA. Large amount of per-character grind/time-gating/RNG was intended to restrict your ability to play alts. Especially in BFA. But BFA failed exactly due to this reason.

And now they seem to give up. In Shadowlands you will be able to level new character within just 2 hours. While it's not "instant change class" ability like in Firefall, you were asking for, but it's very close to it.

So, now Blizzard seem to be ready to start designing game around every player having every class and spec. It's solution of another problem - problem with class balance. We have so many classes (12 or 13? I've lost count), around 40 specs and it's possible that we'll have even more in a future. It becomes impossible to balance all of them. That's, why we don't have new ones for the 2nd xpack in a row.

So Blizzard just try TO REPLACE CLASS/SPEC SYSTEM WITH COVENANT SYSTEM. I.e. replace over 9k classes with 100500 specs with just 4 covenants. So, that's why covenants have to be "permanent choice" system. They're actually replacement for classes. Plus borrowed power system. Blizzard will be able to make new interesting "class" system in every xpack.

You should just understand it. It's not bad change. Ion just isn't so good CM, as GC was. He just don't want to explain their real intentions. Players don't understand them and therefore they're negative about them.

[Lucetia]

That's, why they tried to restrict alts in Legion and BFA. Especially in BFA. But BFA failed exactly due to this reason.

Except they encouraged it in Legion because of artifacts. BFA they didn't try to restrict it any. Pretty sure you are just trying to figure out some reason that isn't really there. If they wanted to discourage alts they would've. If anything they've slowly encouraged it over time. They just don't encourage having the power handed to you freely.

[Mysterymask]

you know...just gonna put it out here for you..seeing your post history and EVERYTHING you do on this forum if you put even HALF the energy you put into bitching about wow into literally ANYTHING ELSE you'd probably either take over the world or cure cancer...

just saying

[Relapses]

What kind of ridiculous conspiracy theory is this? Even for MMO-C this is a reach, bud.

[Noctiphobia]

First of all, storage costs for a character aren't that big. Especially when you're not playing that character. I'm pretty sure it's least of their worries. I'd guess 50 character limit is mostly to prevent abuse, and very few people have more than 10 characters anyway.
Then, how are covenants supposed to replace ...anything? That's just two abilities (both of them on a noticeable cooldown, and one of them mostly situational) plus some passives.

[Kumorii]

This is ridiculous... They don't want to design encounter based on people having alts? What?

[Tarba]

But most likely they didn't want to support alts, because THEY DIDN'T WANT TO DESIGN THEIR GAME AROUND EVERY PLAYER HAVING EVERY CLASS AND SPEC.

So your character good for tank raiding CAN'T BE GOOD FOR PVP.
Smart design.
Even in vanilla they managed to not be that retarded.

[The Butt Witch]

Because Blizzard thinks that borrowed power is content, and they would much rather offer limited stuff that they don't want to have to balance in future expansions, than new abilities that need attention every expac.

- - - Updated - - -

So your character good for tank raiding CAN'T BE GOOD FOR PVP.
Smart design.
Even in vanilla they managed to not be that retarded.

Just do like everyone else who wants to do both pve and pvp, and just pick your covenant based on what's more useful in PVP.
PVE works with everything, who cares? Hell PVE works without any covenant whatsoever, however you WILL feel the lack of certain abilities in PVP.

[Neforpubl]

you know...just gonna put it out here for you..seeing your post history and EVERYTHING you do on this forum if you put even HALF the energy you put into bitching about wow into literally ANYTHING ELSE you'd probably either take over the world or cure cancer...

just saying

You owe me a new keyboard since I just spit my drink on it from laughing.

[Sezh]

I think, I don't need to explain, why it's bad. Because when player has access to every class/spec, he is able to be more optimal for every encounter. And therefore encounter should be designed with this fact in mind. And this would make it harder for player, who don't have all classes/specs available. So it would literally force him to have all classes/specs. And whole class/spec system should be made with this in mind then.

You cannot possibly ever have set foot in any raid above Heroic.

[thilicen]

Can't you just live up to your username and fuck off already?

[Zogarth]

Just do like everyone else who wants to do both pve and pvp, and just pick your covenant based on what's more useful in PVP.
PVE works with everything, who cares? Hell PVE works without any covenant whatsoever, however you WILL feel the lack of certain abilities in PVP.

Yeah mate, that only works if you don't intend to do mythic raids at a decent pace. With how the skills are designed there will without a doubt be opportunities to cheese, circumvent, or gain massive advantages from certain covenants in certain scenarios. Which means having a suboptimal covenant will actually matter, and you won't get invited to the raid without it. Also, most serious raid guilds will instantly just pass over someone saying "I got the best one for pvp, so... yeah.". Heck, the pure dps differences with everything factored in is in the double digits on the beta for many classes, a difference far too important to just ignore.

Which is what I hate about the current system the most. I enjoy both types of content a lot, and I always try to aim as high as possible. In BFA it was a struggle, but i still got around 2.6k and killed G'hun in the first patch (quit after that). I seriously doubt that will be possible to do on a single character in Shadowlands.

To make matters even worse, the way gearing works it is advantageous to farm gear from both pvp and pve at the same time. But you are disadvantaged from covenants. And farmed legendaries is clearly an advantage if you only have to do it on 1 char.

[enigma77]

What a load of horse shit.