Shadowlands Covenant Ability Location Restriction Removed

[Inukashi]

I do understand where you are coming from. I wish wow would be somewhat similar to RPG's. But I am not sure that will be the case. People were already complaining about how complex the character screen was, for Shadowlands, when you first make your toon. Which made me laugh cause I was thinking that some of these people must not have ran into games such as Soul and Blade and Black Desert Online which that is complex when you first make a toon. To be honest it is hard to get "Good" thing for WoW because people moan that it is too much or the best phrase ever..."It is toooo OP"

Yeah, the other thing is. Look how many people got nzoth myth. Close to 2%. WoW isn't about competition either. So why do they try so hard?
I also get my myth kills whenever I have a guild, but not being able to switch a 2% dmg conduit was never the reason those guilds arent top 100. It's because people are standing in fire.
If decisions don't have down sides, why even have them? Just throw another small reward at the player. Covenants where close to being a real rpg element and got dumped down to something close to a mobile game quick reward.

[mojusk]

Yeah, the other thing is. Look how many people got nzoth myth. Close to 2%. WoW isn't about competition either. So why do they try so hard?
I also get my myth kills whenever I have a guild, but not being able to switch a 2% dmg conduit was never the reason those guilds arent top 100. It's because people are standing in fire.
If decisions don't have down sides, why even have them? Just throw another small reward at the player. Covenants where close to being a real rpg element and got dumped down to something close to a mobile game quick reward.

2% might not be elite competition, but it is still competition.

[zaxlor]

This entire BS could be resolved if Blizzard would simply scrap borrowed power entirely.

I want MY BASE CLASS AND SPEC to feel great. I don't want that to come from some external system.

I've played a Rogue for 16 years. I am extremely invested in the Rogue class. I don't give a fuck about Kyrian, Necrolord, or any other covenant. I flat out do not care.

It's a shit system designed to sell boxes to expansion tourists who will quit after 2-3 months anyway.

I think this sums it up pretty damn well.

The additions that the Legendary Weapons gave in Legion were so damn good, it felt like shit going into BfA with either half of those rotation mechanics either cut out, or replaced as talents. I don't get why they didn't just bake all those abilities into the classes and then add something new on top during BfA, in the form of the Azerite Traits.

And it'll be the same in the exspansion after Shadowlands. The Warrior I intend to play, will be missing two key-bindings from Necrolords, that may or may not get replaced. All the of the Soulbind additions will be going away as well. If it was simply a case of "For this exspansion you get x cooldown, for this one y" it wouldn't be as bad, but like shoegazing said, the classes should feel complete as-is, not because the current exspansion props them up with bandaids, only for those bandaids to be torn off every 2~ years.

[Sagenod]

They need to retry the old Titan's Path system from Wrath. By that I mean a second primary progression system, most likely in the form of talent trees. People like talent trees, as Legion proved, so give them one they can hold onto instead of building it up every expansion and taking it away the next.

IMO, make the talent rows ALL active abilities, then add talent trees for passives. It's fine if some of the passives are bland, nobody ever asked for 100% in-depth functionality. I'm ok with a little bit of generic x% passives as long as it all adds up to making your class customizable. I don't care about the illusion of choice, I want to customize and do whatever I want in the game with whatever build I want.

[Tesshin20]

I hope next expansion we will just get new abilities... not this borrowed shit.

Would highly appriciate if people stopped using that flawed argument. That's basically what happened in Cata and MOP, and it didn't work.

- - - Updated - - -

Now, just make Covenants easily swappable and make them unusable in PvP

Why? That removes the whole point about actually make a considered choice when you pick one.

[Inukashi]

2% might not be elite competition, but it is still competition.

I don't want to take competition from the people who like it, but I think the amount of people that just raid for fun or 'to have seen all content' is much higher.

And while forums and reddit like always have a pretty bad response to locked covenants, talking directly to people shows that more people would prefer a more casual game that's closer to an rpg.

[Kuja]

What's with all this borrowed power anyways? Why not give a more complex talent tree instead with tons of meaningful choices every level to get permanent power instead?

[Thetruth1400]

Well, right now, nobody is happy. People that want the game to be more oldschool and rpg (and I'm not talking about RP-Server rp. I'm talking about actual rpg games) think blizzard shouldn't have given in and make the game easier and people that play WoW for the competition still can't get Gladiator, Bleeding Edge and M+30 key in the same week.

WoW isn't an RPG though, it's an MMORPG. That MMO part of that is the most important part of it. To do the highest end content means remembering that your actions impact the actions of other players, and that means factoring in what is / isn't the best has to be taken into account.

I actually thought on my initial comments a bit the other day and it really does go even deeper than that. Think about the people who play multiple roles. Someone who heals for a Mythic Raid team, but enjoys tanking in M+, and going DPS while doing PvP.

For that person, they're going to have to make a choice, which is fair from an RPG point, but fails when put into an MMORPG. They have to choose which aspects of the game they're going to either fall behind on or be less effective than others in. That's not fun or compelling, it's frustrating.

I think Blizzard is trying to slightly appease both sides, but as you say, it's not appeasing anyone.

[Loveliest]

Blehhh... yet again, world lore gets shafted just to accommodate gameplay. How about we completely remove lore from the game and turn it into pure monster grinding and pvp instance game? If world lore is just an excuse to give more power to players, there is no reason for it to exist. You can just add new system to the game without any lore or whatsoever.

Next, allow players to join all covenant and swap between covenant soulbinds and abilities at will. There is no need for this restriction too. More people are complaining about this than they are complaining about the location restriction. Just do it!

Get used to it. They built it as a competitive mmo so lore is just added bonus. Sticking to lore at this point is just being obtuse, I thought people were smart enough to understand why gameplay doesnt have lore restrictions. Why there are 2000 ashbringers, why we have undead holy priests and so on. Get over it, how hard can it be wrap one's head around this? How can people still not understanding that you cant build an mmo like a single player game?

[Oneirophobia]

Shitting all over old content is back on the menu, booois


I'm actually more excited about this buff to my raid transmog soloing ability than the conduit fix lol

[kaintk]

Shitting all over old content is back on the menu, booois


I'm actually more excited about this buff to my raid transmog soloing ability than the conduit fix lol

yeah same here, im dont do any normal/hm/mythic raid anymore, only 1 lfr to see new content from new raid

my gameplay go on new lore, quest, dungeon (no mm+either, they are stupid), WQ and old raid, i have more fun soloting old thing than playing a cookie cutter spec under a raid leader who yell at ya :P

so this quick change make me happy

[Wries]

Cool, confirmation on a new expansion ;D

[Toby451]

I don't get why they didn't just bake all those abilities into the classes and then add something new on top during BfA, in the form of the Azerite Traits.

We did this for the first 8 or 10 years of this games life. Ability/design bloat was a very real issue. It may not have been an issue for you, but it was a very real issue for many people.


You cant just keep adding new abilities/baking in powers forever. Its just not possible. Your going to hit a point where every ability either has a tool tip that you have to read through like a novel to understand whats happening, or you have 50 different buttons you have to press. Not even going to mention the impossibility of balancing an infinitely scaling stack of systems/talents/abilities all layered on top of each other. You think things are bad now, ohhh boy you have no idea how ugly things would get.



Blizzard figured this out way back in MoP when they changed the talent system.

[Dracullus]

What's with all this borrowed power anyways? Why not give a more complex talent tree instead with tons of meaningful choices every level to get permanent power instead?

1. How many expansions could they add new talents before whole system falls apart under it's own weight?

2. Do you seriously think that expansion where you ding 10 levels, grab all power and later just grind gear in dungeons/raids/PVP would keep people interested more than month? We are talking about EIGHT expansion - people literally saw it all about leveling/instances.

People hate to be reminded of that, but WoD launched exactly like that: you get all power on level 100, then you just gear in dungeons->raids (and raids were amazing in WoD). Remember how forums screamed "we have nothing to do" after literally first week? It's not coincidence Legion was first expansion with new progression system designed just for this expansion.

[Lurker1]

2% might not be elite competition, but it is still competition.

lol yeah right!

[iinverse]

2% might not be elite competition, but it is still competition.

Actually it always was someting like 2%

Alone in the Darkness (H): 1566 (2.90%)
A Tribute to Insanity (25): 1282 (2.16%)
H: The Lich King (25): 1101 (1.85%)
H: Sinestra: 2147 (2.84%)
and so on.

Excluding maybe some tiers like extremelly easy DS or extremelly nerfed Ragnaros H.

[zantheus1993]

1. this confirms old world revamp because there is no other reason they would say "you need to have this to be competitive"

2. that same reasoning goes against the entire idea of borrowed power systems in expansions

3. The players with real power are those who run transmog farms all day

[Morssoe]

So they wanted an easier way out of dealing with covenant abilities when shadowlands end.

Is borrowed power really that much better than regular gearing in terms of RPG?

[Eazy]

Why? That removes the whole point about actually make a considered choice when you pick one.

Because I like to do all type of content.

[Baneto]

Would highly appriciate if people stopped using that flawed argument. That's basically what happened in Cata and MOP, and it didn't work.

Calling something a flawed argument because you dont agree with isnt how it works mate.