Blizzard trying to dictate what is "meaningful".

[Tradu]

It does when it is X talents every expansion and people want to keep them every time. The system also helps Blizzard determine which ones to carry over potentially.

Just make a new bottom talent row that rotates each expansion. People will get used to that row being the one that changes based on the expansion theme or whatever. They can still move talents up to other rows if needed/desired.

[Nnyco]

Just make a new bottom talent row that rotates each expansion. People will get used to that row being the one that changes based on the expansion theme or whatever. They can still move talents up to other rows if needed/desired.

So you want borrowed power but call it talents instead, got it.

[huth]

Not my responsibility raising the people on this forum

Then you also don't get to complain when your comments are misread because you forgot to consider the context they appear in.

[Tradu]

So you want borrowed power but call it talents instead, got it.

Yes. Nothing wrong with borrowed power as long as it's actually interesting and ties into your spec (so not soulbinds/conduits), and is kept within reason instead of having 5 separate layers of it. Using a talent row gives them very clear constraints on how far they can go with it, which is a good thing.

[Crimson Spears]

Yes. Nothing wrong with borrowed power as long as it's actually interesting and ties into your spec (so not soulbinds/conduits), and is kept within reason instead of having 5 separate layers of it. Using a talent row gives them very clear constraints on how far they can go with it, which is a good thing.

Given the massive majority showing they only care about performance a better question is should we have any variation at all? So far the data we have suggests players would rather have a more balanced game then talent trees given the utter disaster of covenants.

[Tradu]

Given the massive majority showing they only care about performance a better question is should we have any variation at all? So far the data we have suggests players would rather have a more balanced game then talent trees given the utter disaster of covenants.

Sure, I'd be fine with that as well. Just have a Legion artifact to fill out each expansion (with a weekly cap per spec and artifact knowledge) and use that for borrowed power. I do think there's value in talent trees that you can use to adapt to different situations, but most specs have had such poor talent balance for years that it doesn't really deliver on that. That way they can also build each spec's kit in a way where they're all balanced compared to each other, rather than giving some specs everything baseline while others have to choose one or the other in their talent tree.

[Crimson Spears]

Sure, I'd be fine with that as well. Just have a Legion artifact to fill out each expansion (with a weekly cap per spec and artifact knowledge) and use that for borrowed power. I do think there's value in talent trees that you can use to adapt to different situations, but most specs have had such poor talent balance for years that it doesn't really deliver on that. That way they can also build each spec's kit in a way where they're all balanced compared to each other, rather than giving some specs everything baseline while others have to choose one or the other in their talent tree.

Why have a borrowed power system at all rather then changing spells each expansion like a season?

[Schizoide]

The devs want the most optimal way to play the game to also be fun. (Note: I'm not saying nor implying they always succeed.) Micromanaging your conduits, or more likely running an addon to micromanage your conduits, doesn't add anything to the game. It's just extra fiddly stuff. I completely agree with that design goal and decision.

The same thing applies to swapping covenants. This is a MMO. Many players will go to great lengths and endure tremendous annoyance for even a small advantage. Best to limit that stuff so nobody's tempted. Same reason why they removed world buffs and consumable stacking. You used to be able to spend hours farming consumables and world buffs before a raid for a real advantage. Since it was possible, and really helped, many guilds made it mandatory. But that SUCKED, and the devs removed that stuff, and they were right to do it.

[God Save The King]

It's Blizzard's game, they get to determine what they view is a meaningful choice within their game. They're not saying that it's meaningful for you, but it is to the game designers. That's how game development works, you have your vision and try to communicate it to your audience. Whether or not they succeed is up to your interpretation. Clearly in your case they failed. Whereas in my case, they succeeded. I find many of the choices made meaningful. Sure potency conduits are not the best choice, but the paths and other two conduits are meaningful to me.

[Stormwolf64]

Then you also don't get to complain when your comments are misread because you forgot to consider the context they appear in.

Do you always seek out pointless discussions like this?

[Echocho]

It would be interesting to see what covenants all the casuals who quit picked but the sites that "track" covenant choices conveniently leaves out all data older than a month. Probably because it doesn't fit their narrative.

[Kallisto]

When people talk about how players have quit WoW, they always rush to the assumption it's a confirmation the game has gotten objectively worse. Another explanation might be that people who played this game 10-15 years ago didn't plan on signing up for over a decade of playing the same game.

Also how many people stay on after the story is "Finished."? Let's face it many people were playing wow for the follow up to the WC3 storyline involving Arthas, Legion, Illidan etc. Which culminated with the battle on the Frozen throne and the death of Arthas. If wow was a single-player series or a movie series or a TV series. The fall of Arthas would have been the endpoint as the story was wrapped up.

Legion was defeated in BC with Kil'Jaeden getting the Sargeras treatment in the Sunwell (As far as anyone knew at the time Sargeras blew up in the Well of Eternity destruction). Illidan was defeated in the black temple. The last part the scourge was finally defeated with Arthas fall at the hands of Tirion and the adventurers. For many it was the right stop off point from the story standpoint.

[THEORACLE64]

Let's just get into it straight away. "Meaningful" content is extremely subjective. For some people transmog is meaningful. For other people gold farming is meaningful. It completely depends on who you are. So the idea that Blizzard can tell us "this is a meaningful choice" is absolutely insane. Because it only holds meaning if it has meaning for the specific person.

In the latest Preach Interview Ion said two things concerning the Conduit Energy that really annoys me:

1) "They wanted to avoid another system where you swap to Conduits on every boss."

Why? Why is it a problem if a few players wants to swap Conduits for every boss? It's a part of class customization. And most players wont do it anyway just like most players don't even change talents between bosses. Why do you have to make these unnecessarily restrictive rules just because a few players are going to swap conduits on every boss. Also, it's not like the conduits have any complexity. It's just another passive talent row.

2) "They want to avoid situations where people are swapping every day, but every week, that's something they want to accommodate."

Again, WHY?! Why is it a problem if people swap conduits every day? You cannot dictate this to be a "meaningful choice" just because you want it to be. Most people pick the strongest spec and the strongest conduits for that spec anyway. That's already not meaningful for us. My transmog is a more meaningful choice to me than my conduits. The only thing these restrictions achieve is stopping people from having fun with off specs.

It's, uh, their game - they can dictate whatever the hell they want.

[Stormwolf64]

Oh, voicing rational complaints is fine, but, you know this forum. That's more the exception than the rule. I see a lot of irrational complaining, and outright "You must rework the game to MY taste, Blizzard!!!!", and that was what I was replying to.

I know this forum alright. Even rational and constructive criticism is branded as "hate"