As someone who has worked in game design, I thought it would be fun to break down what I see as the problems with SL and how I think the expansion should have been handled. I'm going to avoid my general criticisms of broader trans-expansion systems like my issues with M+ and the number of raid difficulties. This is strictly my opinion on shadowlands-specific content and systems, and how I would have leveraged them differently to make a better game.
Covenants
They just don't deliver on the promise of making players feel distinct. Sure, some of the abilities are cool, but the Sanctums are fairly bland and feel like a mash of poorly associated systems. These systems are not necessarily individually bad, but I think that there is a context that exposes an underlying problem with the game, and that context is to imagine if these same systems were advancements of existing systems rather than entirely new things. I'll run through them, with the idea in mind that covenants just shouldn't exist as a choice players make.
Renown
Put simply: Why isn't this just the new reputation system? Reputation has barely changed in many, many years. Renown, with its more granular bonuses in addition to the usual vendor-purchased unlocks, is a lot more interesting than reputation. It could have replaced the reputation system entirely with the following design:
1. Renown works largely as it does now in terms of having lots of granular points of advancement combined with vendor unlocks at certain breakpoints.
2. Renown is advanced through reputation instead of the current advancement system, something along the lines of one renown per 1000 rep.
3. At certain points in the track, a quest or dungeon or something like that would have to be completed to advance the track. While at this breakpoint, rep could still be acquired and banked for advancement after the breakpoint.
4. Every reputation in SL would work like this.
5. Every patch, the max renown for every faction would increase with new rewards.
Soulbinds
First of all, these are very bland and just shouldn't exist. However, the conduits could be leveraged into a more interesting system. What I would do is the following:
1. Certain gear slots would have conduit slots, such as a weapon allowing you to socket one conduit into it.
2. Conduits would unlock largely as they do now.
3. You would visit some kind of kiosk to socket known conduits into your gear.
OR
1. The conduit effects are just plain intrinsic features of gear and adapt based on class and spec.
2. No randomness!
Legendaries
It's super weird to have players go to an NPC to craft legendaries when players themselves have crafting professions. He should be TEACHING crafters to make these legendaries, not making them for us.
1. There should be a component the crafter brings and a component the "receiver" of the legendary brings.
2. They should be crafted in such a way that they can't be sold on the AH.
Sanctums
This will probably be controversial, but I think this was a good opportunity for guilds to make a decision. I think sanctums should have been guild housing for the expansion. I know there's a lot of friction here (what if I want a different sanctum than my guildmaster) but I think that it would be beneficial to the game to allow guilds to make decisions like this that impact players, especially when the decisions would ultimately be as low impact as this.
1. Through some mechanism, your guild chooses a sanctum as their primary sanctum for the guild.
2. The guild builds up guild reputation with that sanctum to unlock cosmetic enhancements for the sanctum, and convenience boosts like portals. Perhaps even personal cosmetics (like mounts), although that is touchier.
3. Guild achievements could be expanded based on this system to make some sanctum improvements based on guild accomplishments.
Covenant Activities
I'm referring to the special activities for each covenant. These should have just been available to everyone who wants to do them. Not a lot to say beyond that.
Covenant Abilities
As stated before, I don't think soulbinds should exist. BFA already had a form of customization that worked. It was Essences. While the system could use some finagling, and obviously shouldn't be tied to the necklace anymore, I think the system should have stuck around. WoW is sorely lacking long term trans-expansion horizontal progression, such as unlocking more abilities. The essence system would have worked great for the covenant abiliites.
1. Keep the Essence system, possibly expand it to allow two majors and three minors, and obviously nix azerite or any other grinding unlocks on it.
2. Add new essences that you obtain and upgrade through covenant renown. These would be the covenant abilities we have now.
3. Let us keep the essences. Expand the system expansion over expansion. This is how you expand character abilities without bloat.
Anima
This is junk. Get rid of it. It's unnecessary. Everything it is used to unlock could better be done by folding it into the renown system.
That's all I have right now. Proceed to flame me and tell me I don't know what I am talking about. I expect nothing less.