Its Charlie in the mail room looking for Pepe Silvia.
being able to play both factions has very little effect compared to making your covenant choice meaningless when it comes to how this expansion will play out.
Being able to play the opposite faction doesn’t have an impact on a person’s ability to play through and experience their unique stories?
Also because it’s skill testing.
Being optimal in one situation doesn’t mean it’s optimal in all situations, and gear level, skill level, content type and even group comp can massively influence the strength of certain talents.
Blizzard have definitely failed in that a lot of the generically good talents are just outright better causing a lack of competition on tiers, but that’s a failure of balance, not of the actual systems design.
It took me so long to realize he was reading “Pennsylvania” as Pepe Silvia.

im not sure if the community is making a way bigger deal then they should be because in reality the difference between them will be minimal
Like the difference between a hpal having glimmer or not?
Like the difference between a fire mage having lucid dreams or not?
Like the difference between having infinite stars at the start of the teir or not?
Sorry but in the last 2 years blizzard are 0/3 soni have just as much faith in their ability to gr this right based on that trend. 0
Same! XD
10chars
What are you talking about?
Borrowed power exists so they can introduce new systems without permanently bloating the game. That’s pretty much it. The seasonal model works for Diablo, the seasonal model works for Hearthstone, the seasonal model works for Path of Exile, the seasonal model works for many games.
A game like Everquest has eternal bloat where there are permanent stat boosts people miss out on if they only play the last SIX expansions. That’s absurd. I can’t fathom people thinking that going back and farming 10 year old content for “essence” like stat boosts is something people should be encouraged to do.
no not really, it gives you an addition experience. it doesn’t take away from the first one. it also lends itself to better populate servers with the opposite faction.

It took me so long to realize he was reading “Pennsylvania” as Pepe Silvia.
I was today years old when I realized that.
How is it fair that Blizz designs the venthyr port while Warlocks, Rets and DKs still move at a glacial paces with baseline class design?
Ok, so that just means being able to swap covenants is in the same territory. As I said, that isn’t really an argument.
What permanent bloat? The game has pruned for multiple expansions? They have even started to trim away the bone from this game!
The problem is the clash of mechanical optimization, and narrative/aesthetic freedom.
Yes, it is ridiculous that you’re going to end up with bright, happy funtime classes going full Shadow the Hedgehog in the name of mechanics. Likewise, edgelord classes going flowerchild for the same reason. Sure, some might opt to do that willingly just to be different, but anytime you have to sacrifice gameplay for story or story for gameplay is an inherent failure of design.
No, gameplay is not more important than story, nor is story more important than gameplay.
In this instance, the narrative weight of the covenant choice being a serious one isn’t inherently bad, but the mechanical biases subvert and even threaten to overwhelm it. To that end, the aesthetics and narrative choices are thus held hostage to the gameplay, which is an inherent design failure. You can’t harvest Paul’s organs to keep Peter from breaking your kneecaps.
Now, in terms of gameplay, locking down covenant abilities is a discussion internal to itself – if you want to prevent people from swapping every fight, put a cooldown on the option that makes it untenable. Sure, you can change mobility for survivability… once a week. The mechanical concerns can be tackled effectively without locking people out of being able to choose the Covenant that best suits their character.
But… locking “the best” abilities behind specific Covenants? Making the Death Knights go frolic in the glittery fairy forest while the Paladins go full Lordi death metal? That does far more harm that good, and needs to be redesigned, full stop.
ya cant disagree with you their, that’s why I have concern to begin with.
Why can’t they just make all the covenants mechanically identical, so people will have no reason to swap?

im not sure if the community is making a way bigger deal then they should be because in reality the difference between them will be minimal.
I think the issue is that they said the same thing with essences and azerite power, and they were wrong for 2 years straight.
People don’t have faith because of Blizzard’s track record.
They are effectively making their jobs harder.

Your falling back on an ad hominem argument proves that you have no argument.
Far from singling you out friend … Directed toward everyone who think they are entitled to do whatever they want whenever they want to . OMG if I raid with this covenant I’ll have the meta ability for raiding but If I want to pvp it wont be as good … Well thats not right … I mean I should have to ability to do everything … I mean since WoW is mine and I own it…
Funny that most people arguing against the current system for covenants would prolly argue that wow is skill based right ? Cause lets face it . Without those 2 abilities you have no skill at all … Right ?

Funny that most people arguing against the current system for covenants would prolly argue that wow is skill based right ?
ROFL, have you even played BfA?

Why can’t they just make all the covenants mechanically identical, so people will have no reason to swap?
Because homogenization isn’t fun.