the fact that you can’t help yourself that’s all
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Yeah, I guess. No sense makes sense in today’s society anyway.
You guys keep replying like he is gonna stop trolling. Y’all effectively trolling yourself now
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Huh? Talent trees have always given new abilties, but even ignoring that my question still stands.
There’s dead talents in every tree, but they don’t matter because you’re never stuck with them in any circumstance. Even if they were only modifications to existing abilities, do you think they might be balanced better if Blizzard couldn’t just ignore them?
maybe, but I think they leave them that way because they are incapable of balancing them all properly. That’s why so many have been DOA all expansion long.
So my trust that they can balance all these new things they’re throwing on top of the pile is… low. Covenant abilities, conduit trees, legendaries, retuning the AoE cap, and then baseline class design is far too much for them to do.
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At this point all I’ve seen you do is defend literally everything Blizzard does.
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They also have no real motivation or push from the playerbase to fix most dead talents. For me, it doesn’t matter if Chi Wave is useless, as long as I can still take Eye of the Tiger. Even if I do decide to play around with the objectively useless Chi Wave, I can change before doing anything that matters. If taking those fun-but-dead talents meant I was stuck with them for any period of time, there’d certainly be much more outcry to fix them.
Fair, I don’t have much in the way of faith either. But if I was running at 0 like so many people seem to be, there’s no way I’d be continuing to give Blizzard money, so that’s more than a little confusing to me.
This may be true, and if it is, I’d hope they go to their fallback plan as soon as it winds up being the case. But they haven’t failed yet, because they’re still working on it. I’d like to wait for them to actually fail, and then we can wave pitchforks and torches together.
Edit: Some words
Fully agree. This guy, Ralph is his name I think? Truly a genius. This is the best take on Covenants Abilities we’ve ever seen honestly.
No doubt he is in favor of pulling the ripcord to open up the player powers!
#PullTheRipcord
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The thing that’s really true about the OPs quote is that this better be one hell of a good expansion. Cause there is absolutely zero chance of the devs being able to balance the classes with multiple systems on launch. They can’t do it even when we have just gear. Why on earth would anyone think they can do it when the complexity has artificially increased multiple times?
The best solution is to remove the unnecessary and pointless systems altogether. Just have cosmetic rewards and pathfinder for the covenants. That solves every problem with them. You can be locked in and still perform well. You still have a meaningful choice, because let’s face it, the mog and mounts are the only things that really matter in this game. Everything else is just disposable gear that’s trash in the next tier.
Everyone seems too busy arguing on whether we should be lock in or not to consider the real issue. Why do we have these sysyems in the first place? They offer almost nothing of value to the game. You’ll get a couple of passives and one on use ability, in exchange for wildly unbalanced classes, and a pointless grind on a treadmill to nowhere.
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Todd Howard would like a word with you.
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Alternative progression systems that don’t contribute to bloat but still let you feel like your character is growing more powerful over the course of an xpac.
Not saying I agree, but that’s why.
System bloat is definitely a real thing that we had a big conversation going on in the beta forums about.
Imagine what 9.3 is gonna look like.
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How’s SL bloated on systems? Soulbinds and Covenants seem pretty well linked-- better than the various BFA systems that have nothing to do with each other, at least.
My hope is they continue to expand on the systems they introduce at launch, not just take the BFA approach and throw stuff at the wall until something sticks.
He’s a prime example. 
I can’t wait to pick a venthys soulbinds that gave more dps while i am tanking as blood.
And use the one that gave vitality to my unholy spec, i think that could be fun.
An lastly the one that gave more tanky trait to frost.
I think honestly that those soulbinds arent awfull. It gives you tje option to customize more tje spec you will play.
As for the main abilities for each covenant, i dont really care
Fortunately for us, they actually only plan to add more to the existing systems instead of adding more bad systems!
They mentioned adding more soulbinds, conduits and legendaries with new patches, essentially.
Should give them more time to make an actual cost-benefit analysis that will finally reveal the need to open up the player powers!
Could you elucidate your position here?
I understand that choices you can’t take back are a feature of many RPGs, though by no means all RPGs, when it comes to your personal power.
I just don’t see any infinite content RPGs that actually do this. It seems to me that the concept doesn’t work when the game isn’t finite. It works for Skyrim, or Dragon Age, or [Insert Single Player RPG], but those play out differently than an MMO. They allow you to replay the game over and over; it allows that kind of diverse decision making to really shine.
In an MMO like WoW you can have alts, for sure, but the expectation is ultimately that you have one character that you stick with above all others (a main). Given the evolving nature of the game any given choice you make is “blind” in terms of the future. It makes sense that your choices are a little more flexible because the game itself could be radically different in a year.
From where I sit it seems like the very concept of “Covenants” is anathema to the necessary adjustments to an RPG when it ceases to be finite and involves other players. In essence permanent choices work in a finite system; the system exists as a whole for you to make choices within. In an unbounded system permanent choices make no sense.
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Don’t contribute to bloat? Every system they create adds to the bloat. How many are there at launch? Six? There’s system bloat already and it’s still in beta.
I’m sure they have their reasons. I’m also sure that the systems are taking what looks like a great expansion and making it scuffed. Is it too much to ask for a good game that’s not scuffed?
Yea, Shadowlands is essentially launching with the equivalent of Azerite, Essences and Corruption all at once. With an extra system on top of all that. The bloat is very real.
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Covenants are going to be a mess.
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